![]() ![]() Rather, they are a critical part of the process of developing science and technology they can inspire or, indeed, discourage researchers to turn what is thinkable into new technologies and they can frame the ways in which the ‘public’ reacts to scientific innovations. The paper aims to show that popular culture and imagination do not simply follow and reflect science. This paper examines the visual and verbal imagery surrounding the various ‘submarines’ that have travelled through popular imagination, from Jules Verne’s Nautilus, driven by Captain Nemo, up to the most iconic and most recent representation of nanotechnology, from the journey through the hidden space of the world’s oceans on board the hidden space of a luxurious submarine, to expeditions into the hidden space of the human body as portrayed in films such as Fantastic Voyage, Inner Space and beyond. ![]() They continuously serve to sciencefictionalise science fact and blur the boundaries between cultural visions and scientific reality. Vehicular utopias, such as Jules Verne’s voyage under the sea, and dream machines, such as nanorobots, have tended to fill this surreal gap and have had an immediate and long lasting hold on public imagination. The view that nanotechnology will lead to tiny robotic submarines navigating our bloodstream is ubiquitous but there is an almost surreal gap between what the technology is believed to promise and what it actually delivers. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |