From Screen to Street: Insights for Autonomous Mobility Design from Movies

Authors

Xinyan Yu, Design Lab, School of Architecture, Design and Planning, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Tram Thi Minh Tran, Design Lab, School of Architecture, Design and Planning, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Marius Hoggenmüller, Design Lab, School of Architecture, Design and Planning, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Martin Tomitsch, Transdisciplinary School, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia

Abstract

Fictional media, such as movies, offer a rich speculative lens for exploring people’s interaction with and the societal implications of future technologies. In this paper, we apply this lens to the domain of autonomous mobility, mapping a speculative landscape to inspire the design of future autonomous mobility systems. We systematically examine 36 autonomous mobility systems depicted across 31 movies and construct a speculative landscape that reveals how these systems are imagined in terms of interaction design, agency, and their embeddedness within broader societal contexts. This analysis offers design researchers a resource for inspiration and critical reflection, highlighting opportunities to reimagine autonomous mobility design while also surfacing pressing concerns raised by dystopian cinematic imaginaries.

Keywords

Autonomous mobility; Science fiction; Autonomous vehicle; Human-autonomous vehicle interaction

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.761

Citation

Yu, X., Tran, T.T., Hoggenmüller, M.,and Tomitsch, M.(2025) From Screen to Street: Insights for Autonomous Mobility Design from Movies, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.761

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Conference Track

Track 2 - Design Futuring