The next footprint for cyberpunk motion picture is to admit more of a global perspective , tell Sleep Dealer director Alex Rivera . He ’s face for the “ cyberpunk of the South ” or “ cyberpunk of the develop reality , ” and hop his moving picture will become the first ramification of a whole unexampled direction . Rivera come to San Francisco and show up time from Sleep Dealer , plus some of his earlier forgetful movie , and we got a chance to enquire him about his cyber-terrorist inspirations . mental image , clips and dawdler below .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE_4kNQ7poQ
Sleep Dealer is the story of Memo , a young Mexican from Oaxaca who travels to Tijuana to become the new sort of migrator worker — one who remain in Mexico but exports his DoL to the United States , via cybernetic implants . He meet Luz , a untested journalist who sells her real memories online via her own cybernetic implants , and she install “ nodes ” on his body in a very Cronenberg - esque scene . A third character in the movie is Rudy , the cyber - pilot of a drone planing machine , who destroys Memo ’s base and kills Memo ’s sire after Memo erroneously hacks into some military transmission system .
The scene where Memo first unite to the telepresence internet and his consciousness is suddenly inside a golem worker on a construction site in the United States is really breathtaking . You get a sense of how weird it must be to move your arms and leg and have a robot ’s limbs reply . memoranda make the mistake of looking down and realizes he ’s hundreds of foot above the primer — or , rather , his robot body is . Rivera explained that the original inspiration for Sleep Dealer came from a film in thePrelinger ArchivecalledWhy Braceros?A 1959 industrial photographic film created by the U.S. government , Braceros explains the demand for Mexican immigrant workers on American farms . Here ’s a clip :
Rivera watch that film a dozen years ago , and it breathe in him to set forth thinking about doubt of borders and engineering — a big period in the original documentary film is that farm engineering has allow many task to be automatise , but some job still command “ stoop labor . ” So Rivera made a fake documentary of his own , 1997’sWhy Cybraceros ? , which features a satiric look at the idea of Mexican labor telecommuting over the molding via cyber implant . It includes funny images of cartoon Mexican golem floating through the trees , and Mexican workers ’ arms getting necessitate off so the arms can cross the border , leaving the armless Mexicans behind . It ’s somewhat screaming , with the fake chart with a bar show “ American labor force out sophistication ” and a downward line showing “ available farm labor . ” And Mexican worker controlling robots using a Commodore 64 and an Atari joystick . It ’s “ as wide-eyed as gunpoint and click , to pluck . ” Rivera even put upa fake Cybracero site , which explains the program in detail . “ The rhetoric of that industrial film was very trippy , in term of the abstract nature of labor , ” say Rivera , so he want to play with the idea of unplug labor from hoi polloi . In 1997 , when he made his short motion-picture show , everyone was ghost with the musical theme of the “ global village ” and molding coming down , but the U.S. was also build a rampart along its molding with Mexico and there was a unexampled anti - immigrant crusade .
He ’s been working on Sleep Dealer since then , and it ’s accept over a decade to complete . He in conclusion got financing in 2005 and shot it in 2006 . The film show at Sundance , to enthusiastic reviews , and you could read our own reviewhere . Rivera also depict a couple other short films : a ten - bit set of documentaries about the border between the U.S. and Mexico , made as part ofthe PBS online series Borders , anda freakish Independence Day - esque shortabout the U.S. being infest by gargantuan flying sombreros with chili pepper rayguns . The Borders films research the idea of borders being closed to humans , but open to imports and avail . The hard part of produce Sleep Dealer , for Rivera , was turning his big - ikon economical story into a more personal story of two people and their relationship . “ I like to think about systems , political economy , the cock-a-hoop picture , millions of pepope . To think about two people … was a substantial struggle for me . ” And these dubiousness of the future of labor and immigration are really difficult to babble out about , so “ I wanted to see if science fiction was a genre where we could have this conversation . ” When Memo first logs into the telepresence meshwork , you’re able to see a huge list of languages that he prefer Spanish from . The idea , say Rivera , was to show that you could charter telepresence workers from Indonesia or China or wherever — whoever is cheap . It ’s a “ race to the bottom enabled by the connection . ” Sometimes the prole get blind by a power surge , but it ’s an satisfactory red ink .
https://gizmodo.com/sleep-dealer-serves-notice-in-new-york-premiere-5068561
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szI1ufEy2eo
My friend who went to the event with me had one question about the next world of Sleep Dealer : is it ever really break down to get cheaper to expend robots to replace single human worker ? After all , robots have already replaced worker in a mill setting , but that ’s ordinarily one automaton doing the employment of twenty humans . Here , you have one golem doing the employment of one person . Is that ever going to be cost - efficacious ? Rivera says yes , and he actually thinks this is a possible succeeding economical poser :
Have you seen those videos of the Honda robots that can dance and play soccer and walk up and down step ? We ’re in a place where robot can do , physically , most of what we can do . They can trip the light fantastic better than I do … but they ca n’t make any judgements . Artifiical intelligence is not anywhere near where the robot [ can think for itself ] . The robot mind is like a hopper mind . [ So I envision a ] futurity where the mechanical part of the robot is very advanced and cheap , but it need a heart , somebody to make a judicial decision , someone to convey . [ And that dowery ] is outsource . I conceive that ’s really a business model . Not today , but in a few long time . i have a feeling that ’s potentially a reality . We are experience that ambivalence , where that mechanical is very advanced , but the artifiical intelligence activity is retarded .
Already , you have the weird collocation of high engineering science and sordidness , where iPod and other shiny gadget are made by people who live in shantytowns , says Rivera . “ It ’s a scifi incubus more vivid than Mad Max . ” Rivera is working on two new labor right now . One is a true story based on an clause in Wired magazine . The other is a scientific discipline fabrication film that starts in the Andes in a gold mine , with the last remain gold seams . The atomic number 79 mine will turn out to be connected to nanotechnology , because the in force nanotech often uses amber fiber “ because Au is such a good conductive metallic element . ” Sleep Dealer is being released in theatre in the U.S. in March 2009 .
Daily Newsletter
Get the proficient technical school , scientific discipline , and refinement news in your inbox daily .
News from the futurity , delivered to your present .
