Blade Runner Cities

What makes a Blade Runner City?

 

1. Tall buildings, darkness, pollution?

2. Elevated perspectives, disconnected views down into the city, technology?

3. A skewed distribution of wealth?

4. Neon signs but no street lights, busy alleyways, smoke?

5. Lack of municipal services, an authoritarian regime?

6. Encouragement to be somewhere else?

7. The projection of remembered images and narratives to help familiarise the unfamiliar, even if these come from a fictional future dystopia?

 

San Francisco images extracted from Blade Runner, Ridley Scott, 1982

Beijing/Changchun photos by Ed Parham, 2011