idea of risk as developed by, among others, Ulrich Beck,
the sociologist, which I find very useful in this context.
And then the fascination with visualization
in both, of course, popular culture and science.
This is something that these two domains actually
have in common.
Now, just a few, just a glimpse at convergence.
As an example, an illustration from the proceedings
of a conference held in 2002 sponsored by the National
Science Foundation, which attempts
to bring this to a point, this idea of sciences coming
together and through coming together changing
the fabric of society.
The way they phrase it here is, the integration and synergy
of the four technologies, nanotechnology, biotechnology,
information technology, cognitive science,
originate from the nanoscale where the building blocks
of matter are established.
This picture, the picture that I just showed you,
symbolizes the confluence of technologies
that now offers the promise of improving human lives
in many ways and the realignment of traditional disciplinary
boundaries that will be needed to realize this potential.
New and more direct pathways towards human goals
are envisioned in working habits, in economic activity,
and in the humanities.
Well, actually, the idea that they have in this book
is that the humanities will be absorbed by the sciences,
because we're not going to look at the human mind where
it really happens, not in secondary productions.
But that's the message here, the humanities will be absorbed.
But more importantly, this idea that human performance
will be improved.
There is a lot of potential in this coming together
of sciences and technologies.
This idea also rests on the tension between the power
to visualize and the inability to see.
On the nanoscale, of course, it's invisible.
It has to be made visible.
And of course, science is always arrested on visualizing,
or its arguments rest on visualizing data,
visualizing ideas.
But in nanotechnology, on that scale,
it's dramatically increased, and the need
to visualize the fascination with visualization.
Ulrich Beck, so this idea also spans the turn of the century.
He developed this idea of risk as produced
by processes of modernization.
And a sort of self-inflicted insecurity that we live with.
I was thinking when you talked about yesterday,
you talked about we all know that we will have
to live through a tremendous change.
And I think that's an expression of the sense of risk.
There's potential, as expressed in these ideas of the scientists,
that now we have the power to really manipulate
matter on the very basic level.
But on the other hand, it's exactly the success
that creates our greatest danger.
So that's this idea of risk.
He says in the introduction, among other things,
the world can no longer control the dangers produced
by modernity.
To be more precise, the belief that modern society
can control the dangers that it itself produces is collapsing.
Not because of its emissions and defeats,
but because of its triumphs.
So this idea that we used to have the idea that technology
and science allow us to control the world, control nature.
And now we've come to a point where our success in doing this
becomes uncontrollable.
So the belief that we can control our future
is collapsing.
And he also says, the term risk society,
which I coined and made the title of my book in 1986,
epitomizes an era of modern society that no longer merely
casts off traditional ways of life,
but rather wrestles with the side effects
of successful modernization, with precarious biographies
and inscrutable threats that affect everybody
and against which nobody can adequately ensure.
So there is this tension that we have that I also
see in popular culture between the desire to control
through visualization, through making things visible,
and this all-pervasive feeling that there's
no way we can control our success.
So there was just a very brief look at this.
Now, the way in which visualization connects
science and popular culture, I just
have one example that I think is very telling.
Those of you who've ever thought about nanotechnology
and science, you can probably know this example.
This is a comic book cover, nothing special,
just a superwoman, a super soldier,
female super soldier on the cover.
But this was plagiarized or used in a successful grant
application for the MIT Institute of Soldier Nanotechnologies.
And this went, of course, through the internet.
They used the image without acknowledgment,
without paying royalties for it.
They just used it.
Of course, they said, well, it was an accident.
My daughter drew the picture.
We didn't mean to do it.
But I think that Colin Milburn wrote a very good article
about reading this incident and says,
this is not a freak accident.
This is actually indicative of how closely related
popular culture and science, really serious, well-funded
science really are.
Yeah, I use it as an example here, just as a little
illustration of how also this idea of the superman,
the superwoman in this case, you could talk about the gender
implications here, but this idea that we can
become perfect human beings, still around,
just technologize in the new way.
So there have been several attempts
to organize or systematize this visual domain created
by this intersection.
And I just selected an article by a sociologist
that did an empirical study on the associations
that Americans have with nanotechnological images.
And I found their findings to me weren't surprising,
but they're useful as a point of reference.
So of course, the first associations
were science and technology, sky and motion machines,
medicinal machines, childhood toys, associations
with blood and disease and injections,
and the foreign and insects.
And you can immediately see how these visual associations
would connect with or lend themselves
to use in a cinema in a movie.
Colin Milburn, who has studied nanotechnology for a long time
and has said very smart things about it,
has a book that he calls Nano Vision.
And this idea of nano vision, he defines as a way of seeing,
taking this organization of how we look in a new way
through this technology.
He says, nanotechnology entails a way
of seeing a perspectival orientation
to the world that operates through a productive dynamic
of blindness and insight.
It produces a blind spot, a wall, a veil, a black hole,
or a barrier, and therein discovers
a decision between present and future,
between human and posthuman, between science
and science fiction.
So he sees the way of seeing in nanotechnology
as separating polar opposites.
And I will try to show that the separation, of course,
is also a connection, creates a connection,
maybe a precarious connection.
I selected three movies.
It's not a systematic selection.
It's certainly not representative.
But I hope I will be able to make a convincing point here
anyways.
The first is Spider-Man of 2002.
Then Hulk.
Actually, I have one of my favorite movies right now.
And not because I think it's great.
It's very interesting in this connection.
And a very different movie, Batman Begins,
which doesn't seem to use technology at all,
or doesn't seem to be obsessed with science in the way
that the other two movies are.
But I'll try to show how this nano vision,
or this visual domain of nanotechnology
is also operative in this movie, or maybe seen as operative.
So these three movies have a lot of things in common.
They have fairly innocent male protagonists,
fairly strong female love objects, unattainable.
She's a high school student, as Peter Parker is.
She's a scientist, as Bruce Banner is.
She's an assistant district attorney.
So women who stand their ground on the surface
don't need to be rescued.
Of course, there are scenes where they're rescued.
But five minutes.
Is that true?
So you're going to have to shoot me, I'm afraid.
I'll go a little faster so I can show you my clips as well.
We have the father figures as the supervillains.
And all these movies have the second level,
the fantastic level, where the confrontation takes place,
where the women are excluded between the symbolic father
and the son.
Yeah, I think there's self-explanatory, more or less,
I hope.
Now, I have selected a few scenes
that show the transformation of the main character
from just a regular guy to the superhero
or the super monster.
I don't know, the Hulk is a little bit more ambivalent.
Here we have Spider-Man.
So this is a genetically altered spider.
Thanks.
Again, a fascination with looking,
and he's a photojournalist.
So the spider bites him.
But what's more interesting is his actual transformation
when he gets home, which tries to visualize
the scientific things going on in his body.
So I'm going to show you what's going on in his body.
And I'm going to show you what's going on in his body.
OK.
But now he's transformed.
He has muscles.
His eyesight is perfect.
That's a very common theme in nanotechnology stories.
The nanotechnology things, the little nanomids,
will repair you and make you the best you.
I think the transformation in the hulk is,
well, this is a little bit high school science thing.
The hulk tries to be more adult,
but it has this ironic twist with the colors, green and purple.
This is Bruce Banner, the scientist, looking at his own blood.
I don't know if you know the story.
His father actually changed his genes,
and he inherited the genes to become the hulk.
OK. Flashbacks to his trauma.
OK.
He turns into the hulk now.
OK. So yeah, he crashes the lab.
Can I show the Batman clips?
OK. OK.
OK. So as I said, Batman is a very different movie,
but you also have a scene of transformation
that uses the coloring of the movie, the black.
It also has these insect associations with the bats,
the swarming bats, and the question of the inside
with the hulk and Spider-Man is the inside of the bodies,
but very closely associated with the insides of their minds.
Here it's a mind transformation, but using similar imagery.
This is sort of an alchemist view of science.
So again, this journey, in a way, it's an initiation scene.
I see connections with the editing, the quick cuts
where you can't really see much.
You just see a flash of a memory of a fearful scene,
a trauma that's the weakness of the main character.
Of course, it's a very formulaic.
I have more clips where applied science plays a role
and another mentor figure talking in detail
about how great the science is that he can use.
So Batman uses prosthetic devices to create his superpowers.
Here I have a scene of the swarming bats, but you get the idea, right?
The idea of the swarm, uncontrollable,
that breaks through the glass windows.
So you can translate this to a different level, this visual domain.
You have this uncontrollable boundary breach
that's very important in scientific talks about nanotechnology,
but also in popular culture.
The moving through the boundary of the body,
or in Batman's case, it's the mind.
But the two really become indistinguishable
on the level of nanotechnology.
As I said, the mind itself is just built from the same building blocks.
Final comment?
It's this tension created through this visual domain
between the idea of control and loss of control,
seeing an invisibility,
and this creates this breach, this decision between the two domains,
the sort of the sort of realistic domain with the humans
and the fantastic in the film with the fantasy characters.
Yeah, that's pretty much it. Sorry.
Sorry for going over time. It's always difficult with clips.