ABSTRACT
Sf film and television calls for an exceptionally high level of creative invention from those who realize the world of the “original” script for an audience – above all, perhaps, the designers of sets, costumes, and special effects. Annette Kuhn rightly emphasizes the centrality of the visual in sf film: “if science-fiction cinema possesses any distinctive generic traits, these … have to do in large measure with cinematographic technologies and with the ways in which these figure in the construction of diegetic and spectatorial spaces: while science-fiction films may certainly tell stories, narrative content and structure per se are rarely their most significant features” (Kuhn 1999: 11). Whether required to realize isolated artifacts and beings, as in The X-Files (1993–2002), or to evoke whole societies and topographies, as in Star Trek (1966–9), designers play a pivotal role in furnishing the “most significant features” of screen sf. Yet how may reflection on the role of design in sf film and television add to our understanding of these kinds of text?
