Past Events
- The IoI and Sci Fi London presents
- The Battle for the Future
- Who Controls the Future Controls the Present?
- Venue: Apollo West End, 19 Lower Regent Street, London, SW1
- Date: April 27, 2006
- Time: 7.30 pm
- Booking: Ticket hotline 0871 22 33 444
- The event is followed by a screening of SUBJECT TWO, a new movie fresh from the Sundance Film Festival, which deals with issues of rejuvenation, resurrection, longevity and nanotechnology. A special price ticket is available of £15 for both events.
Science fiction gives us free rein to explore our hopes and fears for the future, and conflicting ideas about the future have an obvious bearing on what we do in the here and now. Today’s concerns about the future range from global climate change to the unintended consequences of nanotechnology. Should we pursue the possibilities of human cloning, for example? Or do we have to accept a more humble place in nature if we are to avoid catastrophe? Will it ever be possible to ‘upload’ our consciousnesses onto computers? Or are we destined to be ruled by robots in a post-apocalyptic nightmare world? An eclectic panel considers the cultural and political assumptions behind the writing and re-writing of the future on the cinema screen and beyond.
Speakers:
- Mary Downes
- series editor, IF, BBC TV, 2004-2005
- Michael Hanlon
- science editor, Daily Mail; author, The Science of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- Ken MacLeod
- Author of Arthur C Clarke Award short-listed Novel, Learning the World
- Sandy Starr
- technology editor, spiked; film reviewer, The Sun
- Pat Wheeler
- Senior Lecturer in Literature, University of Hertfordshire; author of Science Fiction: an Introduction
For full details of the festival programme, see the Sci-Fi London website.