Abstract
Escathologies and Fears in the Late Modern Period: An Evaluation of the Artificial Intelligence Film
While modern life distanced itself from tradition, it built eschatologies functioning in secular qualities and indexed to the time in the world. However, such eschatologies could be meaningful in the balanced coexistence of the past and the future. The nature of such earthly eschatologies of the modern universe stemmed from its promise of earthly paradises. Nevertheless, the trans-traditional lives of the late modern period have turned into times when the past is lost, and one is alone with the future. This period not only sets out the rise of future-centered lives, but also draws the uncertainties of the future to the center of daily life. As an outcome of these conditions, the late modern life has become a period of time in which rational and secular eschatologies in the modern sense lose their function. An important consequence of these developments is that the reflexive characteristics of the late modern individual now make his uncertainties about the future open to the dystopias with regard to risks and fears. In this respect, the rational eschatologies of modernity have recently been replaced - for late modern individuals – by a negative type of rational eschatologies. In fact, at this point, the late modern individual is increasingly giving credit to eschatologies that the future will end in a man-made techno-digital apocalypse. This study will try to set forth the perceptions of late modern individuals regarding rational eschatologies and the meanings they ascribe to these by examining the productions with a theme of techno-digital apocalypse, which have become more apparent in the recent years, particularly in Hollywood cinema. Within the scope of the study, the document analysis method was used alongside the case study method, which is one of the qualitative methods. The "materials" (films) to be examined throughout the study consist of 3 films (A. I. Artificial Intelligence, I Am Legend and Children of Men), which have been selected, with the "special sampling" technique to be purpose-oriented, among the productions that have come to the fore in recent years in Hollywood cinema. Whereas the visual materials encountered in the material analysis were examined through semiotic analysis, the discourses were examined with the 'discourse analysis' technique. Through the explanations and interpretations that were put forward, effort was made to understand what type of eschatological images that the late modern individual has as regards the future, as well as their direction.
Keywords
'Late modern life', 'eschatology', 'film', 'apocalypse', 'risk, fear and uncertainties'
