Like the press release, the concept video is a discourse fragment that was published by Italdesign. Both fragments give an insight on future constructions in UAM and how such futures may be taken up and communicated during stage performances. Unlike the press release, once the Pop.Up was unveiled at the motor show, the concept video was also shown on stage. This first concept video of the Pop.Up was released by Italdesign and Airbus on Italdesign’s YouTube channel [31]. In the video, a society is presented in which the Pop.Up is already integrated as a ‘common technology’.
The main sequence of the first video (Fig. 1) shows a bed on the left side of the image, and a haptic interface made of glass on the right side of the image, which displays an appointment as a “reminder” and an image of the meeting location. As the main sequence continues, a woman is shown drinking coffee and using an “AI platform to manage the mobility system” on her tablet. The entire sequence takes place in a bright, tidy, almost clinically white living room. After the order has been executed via app, a subsequence is introduced. The Pop.Up pulls up in front of the door and is ready to transport the person who ordered it. “Shared, electric and autonomous vehicles” is the subtitle for this sequence, which is present while the video shows a society in which Pop.Up is already integrated. Other Pop.Up’s can be seen on the streets and in the air, connected and communicating with each other. Other future technologies are also shown in the video that initially have nothing to do with the Pop.Up, e.g., the glass tablet used to order the Pop.Up, as well as a pair of glasses a man wears, that scan the Pop.Up as it lands. During the flight, the Pop.Up informs the passenger about current city plans (Fig. 2)—the construction of a bicycle route and the opening of a “street art” exhibition and cars can also be seen on the streets. Next, a futuristic looking train station is shown. It houses three modern trains, which in turn transport several Pop.Up capsules.
While futures in the press release are constructed through the explication of congestion as a reference problem, the concept video has a different focus. By depicting the everyday world, identification processes are constituted cinematically. Topics such as professional careers and relationships are dealt with. Here, the Pop.Up not only solves problems of urban infrastructure, but also of a private nature. It is presented as an essential component in everyday life. Despite the identification processes set in motion, the concept video breaks with the viewers’ everyday knowledge. It designs a society that is brought forth as an alternative based on certain characteristics (see Fig. 3). These characteristics are elaborated in the following and confronted with the context in which the video was released. It is only through this contextual confrontation that the concept video can be understood as a specific film genre. As it refers to a potential product of the future, the content of the film, i.e., the sociotechnical vision itself, is not pure fiction or pure alternativity, but a design of a future society. In the following, the context of the video will be explained first. Subsequently, references to those features that break with the viewers’ everyday knowledge and thus mark a difference from the present society will be made.
The concept video was released simultaneously to the world premiere and the announcement. Although the Pop.Up was in the “development stage” [32] at that time, the concept video, similar to the announcement, has an informal character as a public document. Unlike the press release, however, the video does not present an action plan or even an implicit call for participating in an activity. Instead, the video informs about a future present (Z2) that is visualized as sociotechnical vision. The concept video is used to modulate technology that does not yet exist, as technology that is already integrated in a society. In this fictional world, the Pop.Up is part of the society represented by the concept video.
In order to produce a depicted world as an alternative to the present, “defamiliarization strategies” [33] are used so that known and unknown elements are (re)formed. Spiegel describes defamiliarization strategies as the “collision between known and unknown elements” [33] within science fiction. Such elements are already staged in the opening sequence. The display made of glass has the same function as a smartphone and a mobile device and goes even further. It greets Sara and reminds her of today’s appointment. The display of an image of Sara is an element of familiarity, it is primarily addressed not to Sara herself, but to the viewers. Sara is a person who has appointments “remember: Meeting at 10.00...” (see Fig. 1) and meets with other people: “Lunch with Sam” (see Fig. 1).
In the examined concept video, technologies are primarily defamiliarized, i.e., constructed as unknown elements. The haptic interface made of glass, the tablet, also made of glass, with which the Pop.Up is ordered in the further course, and a pair of glasses used to scan the Pop.Up. The climax of these defamiliarization strategies is reached with the arrival of the Pop.Up in front of Sara’s house (Fig. 4) and highlighted by the increase in volume and the change in music, from quieter tones to harder beats. By subsequently centring the Pop.Up in the middle of the frame, musical climax is once again tied to the Pop.Up’s appearance. Such a cinematic treatment can also be understood as a practice of singularization. The Pop.Up will be staged as special in comparison to other technologies shown. A special status is attributed to the Pop.Up through cinematic aspects (music and editing) and its design, which can be understood as unfamiliar or unusual, as it breaks with knowledge about common technologies such as cars in everyday life. The technologies presented in the video create an irritation with the viewers’ everyday knowledge due to their design. Defamiliarization is conditioned through a contrast to everyday knowledge about technologies and mobility. The various elements are unfamiliar to some viewers of the video. To those who participated in the development of the Pop.Up or know the discourse around UAM, the Pop.Up does not appear as an unknown artifact.
The moment of defamiliarization reaches its climax when the Pop.Up begins to fly (Fig. 5). Here, defamiliarization is created not only by showing a design, but primarily by showing a function. Although the Pop.Up has been staged as an autonomously driving car up to this point, it is precisely this moment in which not only the Pop.Up, but mobility in general becomes defamiliarized. At this point, the video not only breaks with a common idea of what automobiles must accomplish but also, the airspace itself is reconfigured by such an irritation. First, it is now no longer conceivable only for airplanes, because second, it provides an unused space for freight and transport traffic in urban air with the help of emerging technologies such as urban air vehicles. Therefore, the concept video does not only present another autonomously driving and flying object with an innovative design, but also a new picture of mobility. This conception of society implies at the same time the development of an infrastructure oriented towards the Pop.Up. The reconfiguration of space is at the same time coupled to the production of a new infrastructure. Parking spaces or, in the case of other air taxi, runways are needed just as much as digital infrastructures that enable communication between the artifacts.
This infrastructure is a prerequisite for the implementation of the technology (Z1) and the subsequent solution of the congestion problem (Z2). The concept video thus informs the public about the necessary prerequisites that must be in place so that the technology can assert itself accordingly. The reference to a point in time (Z1*), which is considered a prerequisite for (Z1), generates political pressure to act, especially since it is communicated as sociotechnical vision on stage. Here, the visualization of such a vision not only shows how society should look like from the perspective of the stakeholders. It also shows the requirements that are needed for such a vision to be reached and therefore points to societal changes that must be made. The reference to such a point in time (Z1*) does not only stand for itself. The scenario is designed with cinematic means as a completed story, i.e., as a sociotechnical vision, which can only be achieved if corresponding infrastructures are developed. This addresses, above all, actors from politics. They must ensure that appropriate infrastructures are created (Z1*) so that the technology can become established (Z1) and the problem of traffic congestion in inner cities can be solved (Z2).
According to Kracauer, cinematic means enable to ‘record physical reality’ [34]. Bohnsack offers, based on Kracauer, Balázs, and Panofsky, access to the production of physical reality, incorporated gestures, and facial expressions [35]. The positioning of bodies and objects in the physical space of the depicted reality in an image as well as the relationship of the images to each other (moving image-video) enable the production of dense descriptions of a closed world. Concept videos can thus be described as a cinematic genre that operates in the mode of describing the world and presenting condensed sociotechnical futures “at a glance.” The knowledge production of how such a vision might look like and the specific requirements constitute the concept video as a political instrument that can be taken up and used in the context of stage performances. Also, the concept must be published to stabilize visions of urban air mobility. However, these attempts to stabilize such visions carry a risk precisely because of the defamiliarization strategies: “What sounds like a science fiction novel is already set to become reality in the coming years” [36]Footnote 1 marks an interesting difference, which is that between science fiction and sociotechnical imaginaries. The explicit negation of the fantastic illustrates the proximity to the SF genre. This proximity is established primarily through the defamiliarization strategies used in the video. It needs linguistic and written means to mark the difference to the SF genre. This undoing fiction must be discursively brought forth again and again, so that the sociotechnical imaginary is not shifted into the sphere of fictionality. For this reason, there must be regular reports on current developments. Only in this way does the concept video remain a political instrument that can continue to be used. With their concept of “interpretative flexibility” [7], Bijker and Pinch already drew attention to the fact that technological developments can be interpreted and processed differently depending on the participation framework [37]. This also applies to air taxis. For example, developments of air taxis are taken up in drone racing [38] or used as science fiction elements in film (i.e., Bladerunner 2049).
In the discourse around urban air mobility, the concept video functions, on the one hand, as stabilization of sociotechnical visions, as air taxis are presented as common technologies in a future present and not as sports equipment or science fiction elements. On the other hand, the presented sociotechnical imaginary functions as a demonstrator of necessity, the implicit call to create an infrastructure that is considered a prerequisite for the Pop.Up, modulates the concept video as a political instrument and thus makes the Pop.Up communicatively connectable to political discourses, for example, regarding urban planning and more generally mobility in large cities. The relevance of both functions also becomes clear in the context of the stage presentation. There, the concept video was shown after the unveiling of the Pop.Up.