The FlixOlé-URJC Awards in Spanish Film Research recognise the research work of students and teachers on the Spanish audiovisual heritage. This initiative is a tool to elevate the value of cultural initiatives.

The award-winning article was published by Faculty of Communication Sciences Lecturer Montserrat Vidal-Mestre, together with Alfonso Freire Sánchez and Jesús López-González, lecturers at Abat Oliba CEU University.

Embracing a current topic such as the emergence of artificial intelligence, the authors collect research that seeks to compare scientific discourses through cinema. Based on the discourse of the Spanish films Eva and Automata, the research seeks to contrast the scientific thesis with the 20 best valued films, according to IMDB, which include the topic of artificial intelligence.

The research works from the premise that the current conception of artificial intelligence and, above all else, its possible technological applications in advanced robotics, are derived from social and cultural imaginations that have been built thanks to their representation in literature, cinema, TV series and video games. Great films like Blade Runner, Terminator or I, Robot have projected the image of intelligent robots as a threat to human beings.

This comparison between scientific discourses was made through the theoretical triangulation perspectives of the Prometheus myth, the principles of robotic mythology and human/non-human dichotomy. These tools made it possible to extrapolate the characteristics and features that define AI discourse in cinematography to analyse the discourse of these two Spanish films.

The results conclude that there are no discrepancies between national and international science fiction, in terms of AI positioning in relation to the end of humanity and the design of dystopian and apocalyptic societies. However, the research did show that, in some cases, an ethical and anthropological debate on robotics and otherness in terms of the ability of robots and androids to hear in the face of the collective imagination.

The award was shared ex aequo with Asier Aranzubia and José Luis Castro de Paz and their publication “Chicas de servir y señoritas de clase media en el Madrid predesarrollista. Saura y Patino en el IIEC [Maidservants and middle-class señoritas in pre-developmentalist Madrid: Saura and Patino at the IIEC].”