The future is a frightening, and often shiny, place - at least when it's imagined in films. These stories often unfold with (shiny) robots taking over the household chores and then the world; machines controlling men or weapons that could wipe out humanity. This envisioned future leaves a comfortable distance between the audience in the present, and the leap into the unknown - with either no clear path for how we might get there or the potential for it to be stopped.

Spike Jonze's new film 'Her' is different. The future is so real in this story about a lonely man falling in love and entering into a relationship with his intelligent operating system, that I was left feeling pretty sure that Jonze can in fact, see into the future. From the mannerisms to the aesthetics, the future has been so carefully thought out that it seemed both excitingly, and worryingly, close. Many subtle pieces of technology and ideas appear throughout the film, painting a very plausible world that may just come true - so here are a few advances that present a compelling glimpse into the future...

The city of the future looks like Los Angeles with a face lift. A cross between a newly built eco-city, a Chinese metropolis of the upmost efficiency, and an Apple Store. Everything is sleeker, litter free and looks pretty inviting. Stunning architecture dominates the horizon and, down at eye level, screens filled with high definition advertising are everywhere. These visual adverts appears to be almost entirely slow motion videos - because that's what sells in the future, slow mo. 

Aside from design, it was also notable that there are no cars. Partly because as soon as you see a vehicle in a film, it is dated forever more, but also because pedestrians now have the right of way. I did spot one bus in the background that hadn't changed at all, which is perhaps indicative of innovation focusing on things that make money - in this case, personal technology - whilst our more archaic forms of infrastructure remain ignored. But hey, everyone loves buses... 

Throw out your pen and paper right now. In the future there will be no need to write your own letters; whether they be love letters, apology notes, newsletter updates, you'll be hiring someone to write it for you. Just send your personal letter writeryour life history and intimate photos, (all those personal details you love to share) and they'll do the rest. In 'Her', it appears that the letter writers know more about your relationship than you do, and computers seem to know even more than that! Lucky we're so good at keeping data safe. 

So it turns out Google Glass have been barking up the wrong tree. Nobody wants awkward and uncomfortable looking glasses cluttering up their whole face. Instead, Jonze has designed a very simple wireless ear pieces that you can just pop into your ear and forget about. Coupled with a small pocketbook-like phone with three cameras, technology is now fashionable, uniform and problem free. Subtlety is key, as the trend of phones larger than your face will (hopefully) be forgotten.

Speaking of subtlety, there is no need for keyboards anymore as everything is voice controlled. Everyone walks the streets happily talking to themselves and nobody bats an eyelid, even heated arguments or romantic conversations muttered to yourself seem normal. You will just have to be careful you don't fall in love with your operating system - though the soothing tones of Scarlett Johansson probably won't be voicing all of them, so you might be alright.

Everyone is wearing high waisted trousers. I'm not sure what this means but I can definitely see this being the future, start hitting the charity shops now. 

Fabricating the future on screen has always been about mirroring present day anxieties about technology - it used to be about machines displacing man and weapons becoming more powerful. Now those fears are far more subtle, with technology becoming ever more personal, 'Her' presents a glimpse into future where everything is more comfortable, intuitive and above all, individual. I highly recommend watching the beautiful film to find out if this all has a happy ending...

Anya Muir Wood

I don't read the Daily Mail. This not a  moral or, even deliberate, choice. Between Facebook, Pinterest, the occassional Buzzfeed, hours spent on the 'Discover' page on Spotify and catching up (at snail-pace) with all the happening television, there is just not enough time to fit the Mail into my internet habits. However, before writing this blog post, I thought I would give it a cursory glance given the nature of this post, for any 'in' celebrity gossip. I was not disappointed. 

The top celeb gossip included:
Did Kim and Kanye FAKE getting engaged on TV?
Skinny Allen! Lily shows off her svelte physique in sexy red shirt and pencil skirt...
Jenson Button and girlfriend Jessica Michibata confirm engagement as she sports a VERY big rock on her wedding finger.

I had not realised that the world was still on about Kim and Kanye's engagement, nor that Lilly Allen had ever really put on weight and I had never heard of Jessica Michibata before. But that is besides the point. The point I'm trying to make is this - we have too many celebrities, and too much news on them. The Mail thrives because it has an audience - us. It's not really clear why we care so much about the lives of celebrities, and yet, it is undeniable that we do care.

Can this power of celebrity to capture our attention be tapped into as a force for good?

Jack Gleeson, who plays the notorious Prince Joffrey Baratheon in the television series Game of Thrones talked about some of these issues surrounding celebrity culture in the Oxford Union in November 2013. It is clear that he is troubled by celebrity culture, and does not enjoy the limelight quite as much as his television persona.

The Irish actor went on to admit that he wanted to retreat from his new-found fame partly because of his detest for “the superficial elevation and commodification of it all”, and because of a "grotesque self-involvement" that it brought out of him.
He identifies three rationales for the reverence celebrities are shown in our society - economic, psychological and sociological. This is a simplification and a summary, to avoid repeating Gleeson's speech. The economic argument is that the rise of celebrity as a commodity (entertainment as a product) reflects the West's transformation from a producing society to a consuming society. Psychologically, the argument goes that as a society we seek role models as a matter of an “evolutionary quirk" and sociologically, it appears that these role models tend to be those who have a charisma that Weber's hero-prophets possess. In their publicised identity, then, celebrities possess a certain quasi-charisma in the form of a 'willing domination' over their audience, us. Do watch Gleeson's speech for an elaboration of these arguments.

I am interested, however, in the point of caution that Gleeson raises. He is troubled, clearly, by the fact that celebrities possess a power without responsibility. They act as role-models for society but owe no responsibility to embody any virtues. This unaccountability forms one part of his concern as to where celebrity culture will take us.

It could be argued however that the very fact that celebrities are being watched may serve to police the activities of celebrities. The fear of being caught in the act may stop them acting particularly rashly. Indeed, it may give them incentive to act 'virtuously', to gain positive response from their audience.

Alain de Botton makes a version of this argument here: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/31/dont-despise-celebrity-culture-angelina-jolie   

Alain claims that Angelina Jolie's charitable deeds makes Africa 'sexy'. Regardless of the means, the outcome is that you and I are "induced" to care about Africa because Angelina Jolie is out there being a do-gooder. And that's a good thing, right?

Nah.  At least, I think nah. This view actually diminishes the position of both parties in this social exchange. People make choices based on several value judgements personal to them. That Africa is now 'sexy' because Angelina Jolie has adopted it as her cause does not mean that you, or I, will follow their lead. To suggest otherwise is to commit the same crime that is allegedly committed  against celebrities. It is to dehumanise the audience and treat it as a herd or, worse a mob. Just as the celebrity is dehumanised in being treated as a commodity, the audience become a faceless cohort. But even Alain's is right, it does not follow that all activities that followon  from Angelina Jolie's actions will end up being beneficial to the cause. This can be seen in the concerns surrounding 'voluntourism', particularly topical at the moment. This is the claim that volunteer tourism can add little to no value to the host country receiving volunteers, and may even be detrimental in some cases. As Ossob Mohamud puts it, there are better ways to combat poverty than using the developing world as a playground. (more on this here: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/13/beware-voluntourists-doing-good) 

Alain de Botton does not stop there. He extrapolates his reflections on Angelina Jolie in this manner. Celebrities are role models in society. These 'magnetic' celebrities, Jolie included, could then lend their charismatic personalities to several other important causes such as reading, being kind, forgiving and working towards social justice. If only these things could be sexed up a bit, we'd all be tripping over each other to act to pursue these goals. He goes on to make the claim that imitation founded on admiration is integral to a good life. This cannot be right. There is nothing intrinsically valuable in imitating good. Imitation suggests mindlessly following a trend, and anything that is mindless cannot be integral to a good life. And what happens when trends change and, say, social justice falls out of fashion?

De Botton’s argument makes the same error - at the audience level - that Gleeson claims is occurring at the celebrity level. We are dehumanising ourselves into a gawking audience that celebrities have and end up treating ourselves as a crowd who would unthinkingly follow the lead of a celebrity because a social practice is ‘cool’ or 'sexy'. This treats us as being unintelligent objects who participate in the process of celebrity to be led by those we revere - it commodifies us too in the end, and there cannot be any normative value to such a position.

 Perhaps it's best if we all just made up our own minds rather than imitate Jolie, Allen or Kim?

Last weekend I went to China (gosh aren't years abroad fun etc), and in China - Shanghai, to be exact - I visited the building above, the China Art Museum. The museum, Asia's largest, occupies what was once the China pavilion at Shanghai's World Expo in 2010, where, in a spirit of global partnership and understanding, nations from across the world competed to see who could have the biggest/fanciest balls/building. The UK got involved, constructing Thomas Heatherwick's 'Seed Cathedral', a kind of fever-dream space hedgehog, full of seeds taken from Kew Gardens' Millennium Seed Bank project. It was very worthy, but in spite of that, I'm pretty confident the Chinese must have won the competition, with their big red one (matron) towering over all else. 

One issue, though, is that it doesn't tower over much anymore. The area surrounding the gallery seems empty and lifeless; a lot of it is just empty waste ground. The idea of taking all of Shanghai's art galleries and consolidating them into one massive gallery, seems to have been done more with the intention of showing off, rather than genuinely supporting and integrating art and culture into the fabric of the city. 

Having said that, I think it's worth a visit. For one thing, for the price of zero yuan you get 10 floors of artworks to visit, some of them very good. In my opinion though, the best thing about the China Art Museum is the way that, almost completely by accident, it gives you an unintentionally revealing glimpse inside the paradox at the heart of modern China. After all, when you can while away your time looking at paintings of the proletarian struggle against Japanese imperialism, or witness the smiling faces of the labourers toiling at the construction of a new railway for the greater good, and you can do it at the same time as you sip a Starbucks coffee from the store in the basement of the 68 metre-high, $220 million vanity palace that houses it all...Well, it's food for thought, I guess. 

I've been thinking about feminism a lot lately. Three reasons: my current area of academic research concerns Christian Women's Organisations in Africa, which are truly fascinating in themselves, as well as giving me joyful cause to type up notes in bold about 'RECLAIMING THE FEMALE GENITALS: GHANA' in the Manuscripts Room of the UL, for all neighbouring portly men in tweed to enjoy; my recent graduation from the role of Women's Welfare Officer here at Downing, and finally, my constant replaying of Beyoncé's eponymous fifth album, which made its début at the end of last year. 

As awe-inspiring -and indeed, controversial- as Queen Bey and her latest musical offering remain, I decided more constructive and intellectually challenging research was needed into the female condition, today in the form of examining representations of women and feminism in the world of modern art, and wanted to share a few of my findings and musings with y'all. 

The first artist I came across was Judy Chicago and her 1979 mixed media installation entitled 'The Dinner Party', pictured below. The piece includes several large banquet tables, with 39 place settings for historical and mythical women, celebrating their achievements. There are individual flower-like sculptures on each plate, symbolizing the vulva, and 999 (!!) names of other important women are inscribed amongst the installation. 

I really enjoy Chicago's work as it promotes a sense of dialogue between women, an imaged conversation had over dinner between influential women across the ages, each a respected member of the discussion with their own place at the table. By viewing the installation as a woman, there is a sense of further participation, an ongoing encounter between women: famous, ordinary, influential, participant or bystander.

The next artist I discovered was Nancy Spero, who created an incredible collage work entitled 'Torture of Women'. It is a 125 foot long scroll (!!) with 14 panels, of which a portion is shown below. It combines both text and images, specifically first-person testimonies taken from Amnesty International reports about missing or deceased women, and definitions of torture.

This struck a chord with my current theological research, notably that concerning Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), a very current issue often considered to constitute violent torture by its critics, victims and onlookers. Additionally, the sheer scale of the work and the effort Spero has put into her work astounded me, the mark of a truly inspirational and hard-working artist.

Finally, I enjoy all the conceptual art created by Barbara Kruger, an American artist, whose notable work includes the image below entitled 'Your Body is a Battleground'. This 1989 piece was designed for the Women's March on Washington, supporting legalised abortion, and includes a woman's face highlighted in both negative and positive exposure. The use of slogan and text overlaid on top of image infuses her work with political and popular significance, reminiscent of adverts from its contemporary age, and this style is found in her other pieces, including the witty 'I shop therefore I am'. The simplicity of the image combined with the power of her message, the dichotomy presented by the use of negative/positive exposure and the historical context of this work truly highlights the struggle for self-possession and dominion over one's self against which the modern woman battles.

Photo credit: Barbara Kruger 'Your Body is a Battleground'

The debate over sexual representations of the female body in the media rages on, and reached fever pitch in the popular conscience last year with both Miley Cyrus' infamous VMA performance and the release of Robin Thicke's 'Blurred Lines'. Rather than shouting across the twittersphere, whether it's to champion Beyonce's lack of thigh-gap, criticise Miley's foam finger or question why Lena Dunham agreed to have Vogue retouch her cover earlier this year, let's engage with sisterhood and the meaning of feminism on a more intellectually rewarding, artistic level.

There is an astounding range of modern art imbued with feminist significance on the market today, and the hard work and originality of these women's offerings provides a counterpoint to the continual stereotypes of feminism, sexuality and gender which are splattered across the media today, and are truly worth exploring further. And if all else fails, go and watch HBO's Girls, because it's just great. 

This is a serious issue, on a par with legalising drugs or votes at 16 (well, nearly), is the troubling question of independence; not state independence or Scottish independence, but eatery independence. Just which wins? The groovy, individual brasserie of guide book acclaim, or that trusty chain where you can order without thought (let’s face it, you know the menu) and probably arrive coupon in hand….there’s no Orange Wednesdays at Sticky Beaks.

Ask anyone and they will probably lament the lack of independent ‘food outlets’ in Cambridge. However there are a few, so why does every birthday supper inevitably take place in Zizzi, GBK or if you’re feeling really adventurous, Wagamama? I argue that this is because we are creatures of habit. No one wants to worry about turning up to this ‘really quirky place I know’ to find that half the dishes are out of stock, the loo is in another building or, worst of all, you have the share a table with parties of strangers; communality is for canteens only. Pizza express might have the same, tasteless art in every one of its branches, and you certainly can’t show off your inner explorer by claiming to have discovered it, but it does provide a comforting environment that’s hassle free each time. Invite someone to lunch at the Rainbow Café and you’ll need to explain where it is; suggest dinner at GBK and its perfect positioning opposite the p’lodge is universal knowledge (where Downing = universe). Independence is great, but it so often stumbles at the big-vs-little-business hurdle; inability to bulk buy means few reserves, which means you can spend ages setting your heart on Butternut squash soup only to be told it has finished. The crashing disappointment, the trauma of making another choice, is just not fun. Order in Prezzo and they are hardly going to be out of pizza.

This having been said, the most memorable coffees or lunches are undoubtedly the ones that are a bit different, where you can meet the owner, choose a kooky beverage (I discovered Liquorice tea in Indigo Café) and sit smugly in a bubble of independence and originality.

One of the (many) films I watched over Christmas was Slumdog Millionaire. Having not seen it for a while, it was like watching it with fresh eyes. I was completely hooked, rooting for Jamal to win the jackpot, and I was reminded exactly why this film won eight Oscars in 2009 (including best film and best director).

So, like many, I was left feeling nostalgic when it was announced this week that ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’ will not return for any more series.  This game show, which was the first of its type, is an important part of cultural history. It became a phenomenon that spread across the world, and has now been immortalised (first as the book) in the film Slumdog Millionaire.

After more than 15 years on our screens, Millionaire has earned its place in our hearts. Its format of giving anyone the chance to win £1 million inspired hope and aspiration. For viewers at home, there was always that great feeling of smugness if the answer seemed obvious but the contestant did not have a clue. As the show was exported around the world, it gave rise to many inspirational rags to riches stories like the one on which Slumdog Millionaire is based.

However, as all things in popular culture, it had its fair share of scandal. Who could forget Charles Ingram cheating his was to the jackpot in 2001 by using an accomplice in the audience and secret coughing signals?  

A key innovation of the show was the dramatic music and lighting (a truly unforgettable soundtrack), along with taking commercial breaks or ending the show at key moments. Of course this ensured that we would all tune in next time to see if the contestant won. It has been argued that shows like the X factor and Britain’s Got Talent followed many of the formats that Millionaire introduced. But as these shows began to take off, Millionaire started losing its following. Producers turned to more celebrity specials for charity to rake back its audience.

The recession of 2008 hit the program hard, as many contestants chose to take the money instead of risking everything to move higher up the board as they ‘couldn’t afford to lose it’. Without this excitement factor, the show arguably began to lose its sparkle.

Unlike many quiz game shows around now, like Million Pound Drop or Pointless, Millionaire was original. If you got the right questions, you could walk away with the jackpot. After 15 years on our screens, only five players have ever won the grand prize in the UK (not counting Charles Ingram); however, the popular catchphrases ‘do you want to phone a friend?’ and ‘is that your final answer?’, asked on so many occasions by Chris Tarrant, have become part of our everyday lives. This, along with the immortality of being captured in an Oscar winning film, will ensure that ‘Who Want to be a Millionaire?’ takes its rightful place in popular cultural history.

Sophie Donald

Feel like your Lent has been lacking a bit of culture? Never fear! Quite literally on Downing’s doorstep is the Scott Polar Research Institute – if you live on Lensfield you have absolutely no excuse for not paying it a quick visit.

If time is an issue (and of course it is, that essay crisis Dominos isn’t going to eat itself), the best part about the Institute’s museum is that it is quite small. Unless, like myself, your museum-going pace is glacial (first terrible polar joke), the whole thing won’t take more than thirty minutes.

The permanent collection is divided mainly geographically, but covers a range of different disciplines. There’s some interesting work on climate change and the cryosphere (and other, longer words) if science is your bag. Of course, dear Blakelings, science is unlikely to be your bag, but if graphs aren’t doing it for you there’s some really wonderful information on the indigenous art and ways of life that developed in the hostile environment of the Arctic circle. 

Britain’s role in our understanding of the Arctic and Antarctic is also closely examined. The history of polar exploration is fascinating and dramatic; Antarctica was considered uncharted until Scott’s early 20th Century expeditions, culminating in the death of his entire expedition in the return journey from the South Pole. The final expedition was largely publicly funded, the danger and romance of polar exploration capturing the Edwardian public’s imagination. There are explanations of how Antarctic explorers dealt, or hoped to deal, with the extreme conditions, and artefacts recovered from Scott’s perfectly preserved final camp.

The quest for the Northwest Passage has also well documented in the exhibits. Although they ultimately failed, British naval heroes spent years attempting to find quicker trading routes around the impossible-to-navigate northern coast of Canada. There is special attention paid to Sir John Franklin’s party; missing for years before their bodies were found, their exact cause of death is considered unresolved.

Currently there is a special exhibition on Magadan, a I learnt last term that the Chukchi tribe of North-eastern Siberia, in an attempt to preserve their language in the face of an onslaught of modern terminology, invented a word for ‘watch’ which translates to ‘hammering heart’. This surprisingly poetic and slightly useless fact was all I knew about the people of this cold, distant piece of Russia. With that in mind, I thought, ‘Better get myself to this exhibition at the Scott Polar Research Institute, then.’ And I learnt somewhat more than how to say wristwatch in an obscure Siberian dialect.

Although quite small, the exhibition packs a lot of Russian history into one room. Photographs of the region, especially its people form the bulk of the material on display, and give a visual sense of the cultural history of Magadan. Personally I found the objects in the exhibition even more interesting. Soviet-era children’s toys and a medal for mothers who raised 8 children are displayed alongside each other. One quite horrifying aspect of Magadan’s own recent history is the fact that the area was also home to one of the largest Gulags during Stalin’s rule. Gulags were forced labour camps, home to everyone from criminals to political activists, where conditions were dreadful and 16-hour shifts of manual labour were enforced. Next to a photograph of a pile of innumerable shoes, left outside the main building after the Gulag was shut down, was a single shoe. It was surprisingly moving to see this physical evidence of the hundreds of thousands of people put to work in this isolated community in Siberia.

The Magadan exhibition runs until the 15th of February; but even if you don’t make it in time to see that, the Institute is well worth a quick visit – go on, it’s just across the road.