Non-city

Utopian irruptions in the film imaginary of the counterculture

Abstract

The late 1960s saw a metamorphosis in urban utopias that reflected the exhaustion of technological optimism and the emergence of a new ecological consciousness. This transition was reflected in numerous counterculture-driven film productions that chronicled the reconfiguration and disappearance of the city in the cinematic scene.

This article explores this process of transformation of filmic narratives, establishing a sequence that initially encompasses the political and playful condition of urban space, its reprogramming, its abandonment and, finally, the search for other territories, giving way to a succession of Edenic utopias that led to other ways of inhabiting. In this reinterpretation of filmic iconology, a new imagery of emptiness emerges, illustrated by the desert and virgin territories, which constituted alternative scenarios for the utopias of the counterculture.