We Were Once Human

Abstract

Through the construction of film worlds, this research explores how future social conditions can be envisioned based on existing technologies, engaging with posthumanist thought. It further examines how spatial design can generate meaning independently of script-driven narratives, and investigates how conceptual future worlds can be translated into spatial semiotic systems.

The theoretical framework draws on posthumanism, science fiction film, production design, semiotics, and spatial perception, situating cinematic space as a system of symbols embedded within cultural contexts and perceptual experience. The semiotic interpretation mechanism and spatial perception experience are integrated to construct a narrative mode centred on spatial experience.

In the design practice, I came to recognise that space not only accommodates narrative, but can actively generate it through internal symbolic relationships. Based on this understanding, the research proposes a spatial semiotic framework to examine how meaning emerges through the interaction of form, structure, and perception.

Although symbols depend on specific contexts, using semiotics as a starting point for design logic can still provide a clear structural framework, strengthening the relationship between form and meaning, and thereby enhancing the expressive capacity of space as a narrative medium.