On urban futures and the multiverse

Turning around Susan Sontag’s famous claim in The Imagination of Disaster – that science fiction films are “concerned with the aesthetics of destruction, with the peculiar beauties to be found in wreaking havoc, making a mess” – this article explores the aesthetics of the world(s) built in narratives of parallel realities as both limited and excessive forms of imagination. The emphasis on ‘building’ has a dual meaning here: beyond the metaphorical worldbuilding of fictional media, the built environment takes on a particular function in the multiverse. More than just situating the film in a specific cultural setting, the visual backdrop of the city becomes a shortcut to convey the similarities and differences between parallel universes, parallel temporalities and parallel realities.