Similarly to last week’s reflection, the main thing I want to talk about this week is more worldbuilding — specifically, iconography. 

The main contribution to the exhibition for me is propaganda posters: ones from both for and against the Codans use of chemical engineering to bend nature to their whim. The posters had to feel familiar enough so that the audience could understand what was being communicated, but alien enough so that it still felt like it was created by the Codan society. 

Sobchack discusses this when talking about iconography in science fiction (2005). Unlike other established genres like the western or the noir, sci-fi is so expansive and has less ties to our world, meaning concepts and icons present are much harder for the audience to relate to. In a western, the saloon is always tied to shootouts, drinking and seediness, sci-fi icons are much broader in meaning and are less automatically recognisable to the audience; a spaceship may be representative of a home, invading force, or travel vehicle, for example.

As such, meaning in sci-fi must be attached through pre-established audience connotations and connections to icons in our world, especially for visual in-universe elements like the Codans propaganda posters. 

For example, figure 1 shows a Star Wars warning sign. While not looking like one from Earth, audiences automatically know it as a warning sign due to the general colours and shapes that, although slightly tweaked, give off the feel of a warning sign. 

Fig 1. A Star Wars Warning Sign 

In that same vein, the propaganda posters use similar, yet not exact, iconography to Earth symbols to elicit meaning and connotations in the audience: The classic ‘circle with a line through it’ became an elliptical oval with two lines bisecting it to make it feel like the former, but yet feel alien enough to where the audience can both recognise its meaning and understand its extra-terrestrial nature. 

Figure 1. ‘Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Warning Sign Replica’, viewed 20 May 2023, <https://www.yourprops.com/Warning-sign-replica-replica-movie-prop-Star-Wars-The-Empire-Strikes-Back-1980-YP803551.html>.

Redmond, S. (2005). Images of Wonder: the look of science fiction: Iconography, by Vivian Sobchack. In Liquid Metal. Columbia University Press.

This week was primarily dedicated to fleshing out the world of Codae; what did we want to say? How did we want the Codans to be a reflection of us? 

Sci-fi is usually used as a reflection of cultures, societies, and events that happen in the real world; seeing those events play out in an unfamiliar environment can both let the audience latch onto elements that they do recognise, as well as be able to draw parallels to their own values in the process. It’s the main reason many alien cultures in sci-fi are mono-cultured: the Klingons from Star Trek are all honourable warriors, and the Vulcans are all logic-bound and intelligence-driven. They help serve as focal points for those elements in our own culture and society. 

Zaidi mentions that “Science fiction gives us a world and story at once, depicting the broader context and implications of that context through plot and characters.” (2019:20), meaning that when developing a sci-fi world and culture, it is not only important, but necessary, to utilise shortcuts and elements that the audience can latch onto before fully exploring the universe created. 

In this vein, we decided to make the Codan story one of self-inflicted destruction, with the Codans relying on their environment for home and shelter, eventually bending it to their whim and leading to their destruction once nature rebelled against them. Not only did it draw parallels to climate issues in our modern world, but full reliance on nature — such as using trees for houses and structures — felt alien enough to properly distinguish them from humans as a different species. 

Leah Zaidi 2019, ‘Worldbuilding in Science Fiction, Foresight and Design’, Journal of Futures Studies, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 15-26

This week was primarily researching for the presentation, and a particular aspect of it I found interesting was the research into transmedia; specifically the way transmedia tries to keep audiences entertained and intrigued enough to keep engaging with the piece of transmedia, even across forms of media. 

In the reading for week 8, Rutledge (2019) describes multiple ways to do so; primarily, the audience member needs to want and enjoy delving into other forms of media. They need to feel challenged enough to transcend forms to continue the story, but the media needs to be accessible and easy enough for it to still be enjoyable. A fine balance needs to be struck for the audience to feel both entertained and challenged when consuming the story. 

Scolari (2009) also delves into the semiotics of transmedia storytelling with the multilayer text: media that is able to be enjoyed on multiple levels and can be read in different ways. I think this is important to our exhibition, especially if we want to properly depict the ‘narrative’ compared to the ‘actual history’ the museum is producing with the artefacts they’ve uncovered. 

I think the form that our final piece is taking really helps with this; the fact that it’s a museum walkthrough enables an easy transference between one piece of media to another, as audience members walk through one ‘artefact’ to another. I’m unsure whether it will be ‘challenging’ enough for the audience to feel challenged and enjoy the process of moving from one piece of media to another as Rutledge states, but I think it will be easy enough for them to enjoy the whole story. 

Freeman, M & Gambarato, RR (eds) 2019, ‘The Routledge companion to transmedia studies’, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, New York. pp 350-363.

Scolari C.A. (2009). ‘Transmedia storytelling: implicit consumers, narrative worlds, and branding in contemporary media production.’ International Journal of Communication. pp. 586-606.