If you recognise the line then chances are, like me, you saw the original cut of Blade Runner in the cinema (the line was changed in a subtle but very important way in later cuts).
The film is now over thirty years old – but like a true science fiction classic (2001: A Space Odyssey is the archetype) – it seems almost timeless and everytime you watch it you see something new.
We chose these particular case studies for several reasons. We wanted examples of totally different art forms and media; we wanted a wide historical and cultural reach; we wanted artefacts that have already been subject to extensive debate (part of the interest is in the nature of those debates); and we wanted examples that might usefully reveal different aspects of the two principal kinds of values in our study.
We are planning three intensive workshops on these case studies bringing together experts from different perspectives and disciplines: archaeologists and palaeontologists for the cave paintings, Shakespeare scholars and literary theorists for the Sonnets, film theorists and critics for the film. We are delighted, for example, that Jill Cook, who curated the highly successful exhibition on “Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind” at the British Museum, will contribute to the Chauvet workshop. Throughout there will be an input also from aesthetics and philosophy of art. The interdisciplinary nature of the enquiry is crucial to it.
The day long seminar on Blade Runner is on 11 April. Plus, there’s a showing: it’s not often you get to see the classics back in a theatre, so that might be of interest
cartesian product ... stuff about computing mostly 