The Dystopian Elements In Representations (Visual, Literary, Cinematic) Of Urbanism, Past And Present

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“A futuristic imagined universe in which oppressive societal control and the illusion of a perfect society are maintained through corporate, bureaucratic, technological, moral, or totalitarian control.”

DYSTOPIA

The oxford dictionary defines dystopia as ‘an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post- apocalypti.’

A dystopian society is an imagined society where people will be living in a constant fear of stepping out of the line. All of their actions will be monitored periodically with no space for privacy. A group of powerful elites would dominate all and leave people in utmost despair and poverty. Family and relationships is a question mark with no possible future. A society where massacre, terrorism and natural disasters exist every day. In the dystopian world the people are controlled via various means such as by a corporation or media or by bureaucracy and ruthless governance or by technology where robots and machines dominate and dehumanise the world or by religious control through dictatorship. One feels very trapped and struggle to escape from these various negative aspects while being exposed to such dystopian set up.

Dystopia in movies are a very mundane wonder of unimagined kind, always leading to new beginnings with hope and desperation. In reality this has never been reported in the history but was always left to our imagination. The movie metropolis largely emphasises the technological modernity and how a city is being viewed as a machine itself. The movies exposes the prejudice between the upper class and the working class by portraying a dark world below dominated by machines and humans working nothing but like robots whereas the masters live in luxury high above. In the movie the destruction of the tower of Babel exposit that, in order to achieve the utopian desire, dystopian destruction must be achieved and infuses the fear of an approaching destructive apocalyptic end that maybe generated from the present urban environment.

On the contrary, the recently released science fiction movie ,”Her” depicts vision for the future city( Los Angeles) where everything seems to be homogenised. The plot though revolves around the hero and his romantic relationship with his computer, in the background the future city, Los Angeles is portrayed with a skyline sprawling with high raised buildings as that in Shangai and there is a discernible lack of cars but a large number of spacious and efficient subways, trains and pedestrian pathways is seen. There is also a plausible question of the presence of underclass people working invisibly, who could be the reason behind the perfectly functioning future city. Whichever it is, it is evident from watching that the movie that it is seen as a “dystopia of gentrification” which because the city is portrayed as a glowing element with effective elimination of the prevailing prejudice.

Such destructions and visions in movies is more of a revelation whereas when considering the incidents that took place in real life, it is awfully shocking. The history of any city is valued in respect to the preserved heritages which marks the greatness of a city. Such an obvious thing was in controversy when architect Rem Khoolhas proposed the idea of laundering and liberating the city by demolishing the old buildings and creating empty spaces for planners to design new buildings in the city of Paris. Fortunately this was not implemented but left most of the preservationist in terror. But such a thing was actually taking place in the city of Mexico where buildings older than twenty five years were pulled down mercilessly to build the so called futuristic city. Tlatelolco housing complex by architect Mario Pani was criticised tremendously after the two terrifying incidents, the student massacre followed by the earth quake which revealed the misery of Mexico marking dystopia. Though initially the building was appreciated for its design and construction around the pyramid and a church holding historical values, which is why it came to be known as ‘ the plaza of three cultures’- the pyramid , church and the housing complex depicting the Aztec ruins , the Spaniards and the modern mixed Mexicans respectively. Later after its collapse it was found to be a poorly constructed one resulting in the death of numerous people. Actions like this in the two most iconic cities, Paris and Mexico , one known for its history and the later known for its ever changing construction leaves everyone with the question as to which is utopia and which is dystopia.

“As if utopia were nothing more than the premonition of totalitarianism and totalitarianism the tragic execution of the utopian dream ” – Frederic Rouvillios

Not just movies and failures of design construction but paintings also describe the characteristics of dystopia in urban life. Tokai ( meaning – metropolis ) is one such painting by the artist Miura Shun that depicted the social modernism post war in urban Tokyo in a very disconcerting way. The painting portrays a couple in the centre in which the girl is dressed in a western outfit that reveals her genitalia and is leaning next to an animal like man pointing his snake like walking stick towards her genitalia with a chaotic background depicting demolishing factories , workers and furious clouds above. This painting attempted to describe the state of modern Tokyo influenced by the western culture post war which shows that the people in Japan considered speed and sensation to be modernism. Thus such aesthetics of modernity and cultural disorientation, distorted the character of the city and infused the fear of social vulnerability in the minds of the people, which cannot be more evident in the case of Iwanosaka where the murder of infants that were considered to be illegitimate, spread the terror of death of humanity.

“The growing sense that the processes guaranteeing cultural reproduction were in danger of disappearing altogether” – Harry Harootunian “A function through which the public may vicariously live out its desires or fantasies, which are prohibited by society” – Deborah S. Reisinger

Tokyo’s darkness has been witnessed in both reel and real life. Incidents such as the nuclear bombings, tidal waves and earthquakes over the years have left the people of japan in total despair, which seems to be likely the reason for filming movies like Godzilla, mothra , rodan and blade runner and also for the numerous futuristic tv series and comic books. The unimaginable dystopian fantasies in movies as a result of the traumatic incidents in japan post war also proves that japan is always doing better after every disaster and this is been portrayed in the movies by new beginnings after total decline of the city.

“The Japanese in moments of stress if not habitually, regard life as the period of complete insecurity that it is ; and the truth of this observation is graphically illustrated in a land yearly ravaged by typhoons, a country where the very earth quakes daily”- Donald Richie

Similarly, Delhi the capital city of India has faced and is still facing numerous destructing incidents making it quite a unfavourable city to live in, except for the elite class people. For other than politics and plan, Delhi is exposed to crime, traffic, congestion, pollution and also slum explosion due to migration and biased design solutions. A part of the mega city faces standard upward growth resulting in the present day modern life and as an important hub for trade, business and politics while the other side of the city majorly consisting of low class people face decline and poverty on daily basis and thus this inability to balance the lives of people leads to what is known as dystopia in urbanism.

“For the first time, there is a feeling of collapse here, the sense that this capital city once a way station for Mogul armies, later an exhibition for British town planning by Sir Edwin Lutyens – is finally being overwhelmed by people and traffic and the final crumbling of fragile and inadequate public services” – the New York times , 1993

Having the above incidents in mind, decentralisation of a city is what is seen as a more sensible design solution to the collapse of great cities, inspite of its own limitations. Frank Lyod wright’s notion of the broadacre city is an example of the above. By fragmenting and distributing the social, economic and environmental aspects throughout the landscape, one can possibly reduce the causes that lead to the end of the city. Wright’s idea about connecting the fragmented parts via a network of automobile highways, rails and communications would define the so called new city. This idea with its limitation might also lead to the disappearing of cities itself.

At first cities created ‘urban experience’ to increase the concentration of people and trade while now the desire for ‘urban experience’ has created the dense cities growing at an inhuman scale. American cities attempted to follow this is idea of connecting the town and the village via highways, making decentralisation possible, which was then largely promoted by mass production of suburban houses, industrial and office parks and shopping centres , attracting people to spread and move along the edges of the regions. It is also equally important to consider the abandoned inner cities which are nothing but the twentieth century ruins. Thus maintaining a great diversity in every aspects within the boundary is vital for implementing urbanism everywhere.

Technology today, has reached an immense level of development in comparison to the other phenomenal innovations. It is quickly taking over the humans and has become the most influential part in our lives. Architect Liam Young states this enormous amount of technological dominance through three animations which represents the corporate dystopia. The first animation shows how cities would be immersed in the glowing logos of corporates such as Samsung and how such corporates are capable of controlling the real estate developments and thus create a world where people are less physically connected to each other. This seems to be a very fearful notion because it’s disturbingly a plausible idea.

The second animation represents a multicultural city in the sea which acts as the free trade zones that outsource and support big corporations based in land. This city which has no national identity and is completely devoid of rules, regulations and taxes, forces us to think of the plight of how the borders might look in the future. The final animation depicts the dark and invisible element in our daily lives which is nothing but our own digital and or virtual identity stored in our phones, tabs and or laptops. This city which is completely run by machines, claims to be the most modern and futuristic form of evolution. This city which contains all our informations has very little or no notion of physical connection to our lives. The irony is that, cities these days are being designed to sustain more of the technology such as designing wi-fi weather systems rather than creating an actual environment for the people.

Songdo, south of Seoul in South Korea can be stated as an example for the above with very less hesitation. This city is under a colossal social experiment, building a place where technology is the only things that prevails. Unlike the other modern city developments, this one is built from the scratch and costs over forty billion dollars. The use of sensors into everything from managing traffic flow to collecting garbage by constructing houses with built in IoT controls is not only interesting but also very intimidating. People have already began to call this project as ‘eerily quiet’ which is most likely to result in the abandonment of this exclusive experiment and might end up as nothing more than museum with outdated technology in the future.

Another obvious example of real life dystopia prevailing amongst us are ‘slums’. Nothing can more effortlessly convey the characteristics of dystopia in urbanisms than slums, where people suffer on a daily basis and have no access to the fundamental needs such food, water, health , energy use or transportation. Recently a lot of proposal are being aimed at the popular slum in Dharavi, Mumbai in India. This slum consists of about one million people living and working. What looked like the promising proposal, by architect Hugon is now being largely criticised for its insensitive design approach consisting of a multi storey apartment which looks like a vertical slum and not a solution. The design provides housing only for the registered people but many of the people in the slum are not registered by the government. This will only lead to the displacement of people again, resulting in the formations of new slums across the city. The project did not pay much attention to the plight of the people who will be left to scatter. Cases like this makes it look like the architects and urban designers are primarily responsible for either creating dystopia (as in this case) or to prevent its formation in the present urban environment.

Apart from this another major disturbing yet innovative factor is how the transport is being portrayed in the future cities. Flying cars and alien ships are not be missed while watching science fictional movies. With the increasing advancement in technology it seems likely that we are not far from riding one of those flying pods in the near future. This also forces us to imagine a future where the traffic would be in the air with less or no cars but only the public form of transport making commuting the most simplest thing. In reality this has been achieved at the policy level where government authorities are contemplating between authorising the concept of driverless cars which will bring about a drastic change in the urban transport and people are trying to make this possible due to its efficiency in reducing the green houses gases, traffic congestion and eliminate energy exploitation and but also has its own ethical implications.

Therefore dystopia in urbanism is already existing and is being extraordinarily revealed in the futuristic movies and novels and paintings with towering skyscrapers and flying machines. This should be considered as a warning though possible damage is already done. Climate change, population explosion, pollution, terrorist activities and alien invasion are telling us to work towards a better future and to help clear the existing damages. It is also very evident that the architects and urban planners are very much responsible for this. Shaping our cities without exploiting the past or the present will lead to achieving a utopian desire where the imagined place is a possibility for coexisting with the nature and not machines.

Bibliography

Prakash, G. (2010). Noir Urbanisms: Dystopic Images of the Modern City. New Jersey: Princeton University Press
Fishman, R. (1998). Beyond Utopia: Urbanism after the end of Cities
Gault, M. (2013). Proposed vertical slum looks like a dystopian movie
Haridy, R. (2018). Science fiction cities: how our future visions influence the cities we build
Rawn, E. (2015). Corporate Dystopia: Liam Young Imagines a World in which Tech Companies Own our Cities. ArchDaily
Roberts, J. (2017). The future of flying cars: science fact or science fiction?
Lippert, J. (2018). Only Carpools can keep the Driverless Future from Becoming a Nightmare.
Grimsley, S. Characteristics of a Dystopian Society

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The Dystopian Elements In Representations (Visual, Literary, Cinematic) Of Urbanism, Past And Present

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