Research-Blade Runner

 

Whilst watching Blade Runner I considered these themes of the film; memories, emotions, morals, and what makes us human?

 

This is a drawing I did of one of the skins 'Pris' alongside the quote "I think, Sebastian, therefore I am". I found this quote to be very powerful, it suggests that a self awareness, and individual thought process is enough to be a real human. I used 2B, 4B and 6B pencils to sketch Pris, this created a lot of depth and tone to the drawing.

 

 Observational sketches from scenes in Blade Runner:

 

These 2 pages are sketches of futuristic scenes and emotion within the film. Although the film is set in the future, memory is a key element of it. The sketches are very simplistic but capture the basic shapes and movements.

 

 Memory is considered essential to be a real human, the skins only have implanted memories, but does that make them any less real to the individual? They frequently have emotional responses to memories, such as loss, or anger or frustration.

Emotion is another important theme in the film. I took some screen grabs of when the emotion of the skins was being tested.

"Is this an empathy test? Capillary dilation of the so called blush response? fluctuation of the pupil. Involuntary dilation of the iris...." - Tyrell, Blade Runner

Tyrell very factual description of emotion dehumanises him as it is spoken completely devoid of emotion.

 

 

"I make friends. They're toys. My friends are toys... I'm a Genetic Designer."

-J.F.Sebastian

"We are not computers, Sebastian, we're physical."

-Batty

Whilst watching Blade Runner I was fascinated by Sebastian's Genetically designed toys and humans. They are made from genetic material, have self awareness and are physical, yet they are genetically designed, but does this make them any less real? The skins have a belief that they are real, for example "I think, therefore I am" explains Pris, so therefore they are real. The idea of physical toys inspires  me; the idea of bringing an inanimate object to life is intriguing. We also have an emotional connection to our childhood toys, they bring back memories of our past. I decided as a response to Sebastian's Genetic toys, I would experiment with creating a 'real' toy. From memory I recreated a wooden doll belonging to my Grandmother, that used to terrify me as a child. It was clownish and puppet-like in appearance. My aim was to soften the borders between reality and fantasy.

From the series of photographs I had taken, I think these four images worked the best. My expression was most lifeless.