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Session 5A: Humans, Technology
and the Cinema
Chair: Ertugrul Algan
Through The Liquid Glass: A Comparative Approach
to The Matrix and eXistenZ
Sona Ertekin
Film Studies, Istanbul Bigi University, Turkey
In my M.A. thesis I tried
to explore the two films’ opposing
presentations of hyperreality, tracing their portrayals of virtual
reality. The discourse of authenticity and the ambivalent sensations
of existence in a chaotic, hyperreal universe are comparatively elaborated
throughout this work. The portrayal of common themes in both films
such as everyday life including work, time, identity, belief, technology,
the body, virtual reality and capitalism in general are studied as
motivations and consequences of the hyperreal state the world is
experiencing today. Works of Scott Bukatman, Guy Debord, Marshall Berman,
Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari and Jean Baudrillard form the theoretical
basis of my study.
The Veal-Fattening Pen: The playing
of diverse roles results in a schizophrenic “Homo Faber” existence
where dissatisfied individuals seek satisfaction in virtual reality.
Pause
and Stretch: Time is studied as an essential
element of the capitalist system and as projected in cyberspace.
The
Lotus Eaters or Temet Nosce: Identity as a product,
an illusion of freedom within the limits of ready-made options. Something
that you can easily download
No Telos: Believers and
traitors are fighting for an obscure telos at a point where belief
is not a possibility any more.
Safety Valves: The
illusions of necessity, simulation of satisfaction and freedom. Pseudo-needs
transforming into addictions.
Fleshware vs. Super-human-machine-boy: Vacillating
between classical techno-phobia and techno-fetishism. Ambivalent approaches
towards technology.
The New Flesh: The presentation
of the “body” in
two films as a “landscape” of technology. (Bukatman)
The
Cage: The reason behind the cage/prison. Social
consequences of the capitalist system, and false system criticism.
The
Other Side of the Glass: Virtual reality; the
irreversible step out of Plato’s cave that leads us to hyperreality.
The Fusion of Humanity and Technology: Blurring
Lines in Philip K. Dick Films
Erin Hill-Parks
Washington D.C., USA
This short paper will explore the blurring of humanity
and technology in two films based on Philip K. Dick works: Blade Runner
(1982) and Minority Report (2002). The notion of “humanity” has
been heatedly debated for years as both an academic and personal question.
The core of most of these inquires is to wonder if there are certain
essential elements that are required to establish humanity in a subject,
and if so, what are those elements? In the past 50 years these questions
have been projected on to technological objects. Science fiction films
are an ideal genre to explore the issue of humanity in technology.
In science fiction we may ponder the essence of humanity as a hypothetical
rather than an essential question about ourselves.
The two films discussed
in this paper offer opposing views on the limits of technology and
humanness. In Blade Runner, replicants, humanoid androids, desperately
attempt to pass as human, while the “authentic” humans
strive to expose them. In Minority Report humans are treated as a
technology. The three pre-cognitives used to see future murders live
in a pool of vitamins and sedatives, not even allowed any human contact.
They are forced to simply perform a task; the three combined to make
a machine. In both situations we see a fundamental fear of losing what
makes us human and becoming a machine. These films offer tentative
examples on how to retain a sense of being human in a world of increasing
technological sophistication.
Cyberpunk motives in the contemporary cinema of the West and Far East
Agnieszka Kamrowska
Audiovisual Arts Institute,
Jagiellonian University,
Krakow, Poland
In my paper I would like to compare and contrast two
different approaches in portraying androids and cyborgs in contemporary
cinema. The process of cyborgization or creation of human-like android
may represent an abstract and complex idea of society’s attitude
towards technology. As a research field I have chosen films from two
diametrically different cinematographies and cultures: American and
Japanese. My aim is to show how the images of cyborgs differ in these
two cultures and therefore how different approaches towards technology
these two cultures present. A deconstructive analysis would point out
that American culture present rather technophobic attitude towards
technology, while Japanese culture tries to objectively reflect relations
between humans and technology and give opportunity for machines and
people living in symbiosis.
Films that I would like to analyze are two
American science fiction productions: the Terminator series
(especially part 1 from 1984, directed by James Cameron), the RoboCop series
(especially part 1 from 1987, directed by Paul Verhoeven), and three
Japanese animated productions: Ghost in the Shell (1995, directed
by Mamoru Oshii), Armitage series (especially the first movie: Armitage
III: Polymatrix – 1997, directed by Takuya Sato) and Battle
Angel Alita (1993, directed by Hiroshi Fukutomi). I have chosen
those particular movies because they have cyborg/android protagonists
and became popular within the field of popular culture in their origin
countries. They also represent the same science fiction genre. “Science
fiction cinema often assumes a rather confused attitude towards science
and technology. On the one hand, it views them as redemptive forces
that can lift humanity out of the muck and mire of its own biological
imperfections. On the other, it sees them as potentially destructive
forces, inimical to humanity.” In
the films that I have already mentioned such an ambivalence is presented
in two unique manners.
