REALITY BYTES

The visual culture of urban cyberpunk has saturated our collective imagination, and it's in full bloom at a new Tai Kwun exhibition.

Despite its futuristic fame, the Fritz Lang-directed sci-fi film Metropolis (1927) was only a small part of it. The rise of industry and money and man's role - with the masses working as slaves for the ruling elite in a megacity - formed the mainstay.

With its art-deco urban landscape, futuristic skyline and obsession with technology's potential to create machines that might soon replace human beings, the visionary film preempted the zeitgeist and now feels, a century later, like a trophy moment for today's digital analytics.