Dissertation Introduction

Today, computer generated images, or C.G.I for short, flood our modern urban landscape. We see it every day on our TVs and Cinema screens. We see it in our shop windows and in our magazines. We are completely saturated by it. CGI has allowed us to create images and situations that would simply not be feasible using any other technological means. So it’s hard to imagine that little over 30 years ago, none of it existed. The creation of fictional images was a time consuming and often expensive affair. Elaborate and expensive set pieces and props dominated film stages. Teams of artists would spend days painting backgrounds while others toiled away in workshops creating scale models and costumes from whatever they could find.

The introduction of the CGI has allowed all of this to be done by a much smaller work force. It has even allowed for a single person to produce vast amounts of content without the need for set pieces, props or even actors present. More over the technology has begun to blur the lines between what is real and what isn’t, creating truly believable words.

It’s this notion of believability which has been the core of my MA over the past year. CGI in both Television and Cinema has allowed us to peer into many possible futures, from enlightened cultures, living in a bustling metropolis, filled with wonders technologies, to far more dark dystopian visions of what might be. Many of these visions are a direct reflection of our societies own visions and ideas of the future. These visions and ideas are often directly linked to our levels of technology. The more technology changes and develops, so too does a societies vision of its own future.

This relates strongly to my MA as I have been striving to create my own vision of the future which is directly linked to the history and evolution of technology. Looking back at how our perceptions of technology and the future have changed alongside the technology its self has allowed me to track this change over time and use the knowledge gained to more accurately predict our possible future. A future that would be envisioned via a comprehensive and detailed narrative which in turn would be complimented by a series of detailed Computer generated images. Images that I hope will continue in the footsteps of all good CGI and blur the lines between what is real and what isn’t, thus creating a truly believable series of images.
The following pages will explore the evolution of technology and how this evolution has an almost symbiotic relationship with a culture and society, and how I’ve integrated this into my own design work.

You will also read about some of the major turning points in the evolution of CGI and how I’m integrating some of some of the methods in creating believable images into my own work. Moreover, you will read how as the technology continues to develop, the lines between what is real and what isn’t will become so indistinguishable from each other that we won’t be able to tell which is which, and the frightening implications of this level of realism.