The Allure and Threat of the Cine-Computer: A Supercut of Onscreen Computers in Speculative Screen Fiction

This video essay explores the enticement and anxiety of onscreen computers across a range of films and television programmes. The onscreen computer is a frequent prop of dystopian fiction within the sci-fi genre, often presented as an allure that promises increased power or knowledge balanced by the anxiety of technophobic otherness. From the late 1950s onwards, cinema and television, particularly sci-fi and speculative fiction, have used computers as a form of adversary, which eventually turns on their human operators. The video essay portrays the evolvement of computing in regard to apparatus and embodiment through user interfaces, software, and hardware, as humans move closer to the machine. Taking the form of a supercut and using the comparative and simultaneous mode of perception enabled by the split-screen technique, the work considers the human-machine relationship through a range of computer-centred films, which include Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report (2002), and Spike Jonze’s Her (2013) along with contemporary television programming in the form of Sam Esmail’s Mr. Robot (2015–2019) and Dan Erickson’s Severance (2022–present). As a result, the video essay showcases that the representation and development of these technological interfaces have undergone change while the allure-threat dynamic between humans and computers has remained relatively stable.