Mircea Valeriu DEACA Science Fiction Films As Gedanken Experiments

Home , Rick Deckard, Romanian New Wave, Romanian science fiction

Babeş-Bolyai University Faculty of Theatre and Television Department of Cinematography and Media

EKPHRASIS IMAGES, CINEMA, THEORY, MEDIA

Vol. 17, Issue 1/2017 Ghosts in the Cinema Machine Issue coordinated by Andrei SIMUŢ

Senior Editor: Doru POP, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca

Editorial Board: Linda BADLEY, Middle Tennessee State University, USA Monica FILIMON, City University of New York, USA Liviu LUTAS, Linnaeus University, Sweden Ewa MAZIERSKA, University of Central Lancashire, UK Christina STOJANOVA, University of Regina, Canada

Advisory Board: Horea AVRAM, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca Patrick CATTRYSSE, University of Antwerp Mircea DEACA, CESI Doctoral School, University of Bucharest James ELKINS, School of Art Institute of Chicago Delia ENYEDI, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca Daniel IFTENE, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca Corina ILEA, Concordia University, Montreal Joseph G. KICKASOLA, Baylor University, Waco, Texas Eric LEVÉEL, Stellenbosch University Liviu MALIȚA, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca Ivone MARGULIES, City University of New York Cesare MASSARENTI, Milano and Torino University Jenna NG, University of York Nicoleta SĂLCUDEAN, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca Andrei SIMUȚ, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca Andrei TERIAN, Lucian Blaga University of S biu Claudiu TURCUŞ, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca

CD-ROM: ISSN 2559-205X • Online: ISSN 2559-2068 Editorial office: 400015 Cluj-Napoca Str. M. Kogălniceanu, nr. 4 phone: +40264-590066 e-mail: [email protected] www.ekphrasisjournal.ro

Accent, 2017 Cluj-Napoca www.accentpublisher.ro 3

CONTENT – SOMMAIRE

Andrei SIMUŢ Contemporary Representations of Artificial Intelligence in Science Fiction Films, Visual Arts and Literature. A Short Introduction...... 5

Doru POP The Ghost in the Cinema Machine...... 9

Kathy NGUYEN Body Upload 2.0: Downloadable Cosmetic [Re]Birth...... 25

Luiza-Maria FILIMON Dolls, Offsprings, and Automata. Analyzing the Posthuman Experience in Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence...... 45

Elisabetta DiMINICO Ex-Machina and the Feminine Body through Human and Posthuman Dystopia...... 67

Sennah YEE “You bet she can fuck” – Trends in Female AI Narratives within Mainstream Cinema: Ex Machina and Her...... 85

Mircea Valeriu DEACA Science fiction films asgedanken experiments...... 99

Ioan BUTEANU The Role of Technology in Survival Movies...... 119

Reviews

Iulia MICU Monographist! Monographist! [Monica Filimon, Cristi Puiu]...... 132 4

Ioan-Pavel AZAP The Kitchen as Cinematic Topoi [Mircea Valeriu Deaca, O bucătărie ca-n filme. Scenotopul bucătăriei în Noul Cinema Românesc (A movie-like kitchen. The scenotope of the kitchen in the New Romanian Cinema)]...... 135

Andrei SIMUŢ

Contemporary Representations of Artificial Intelligence in Science Fiction Films, Visual Arts and Literature. A Short Introduction

Abstract: The article is a short introduction in the problems of science fiction genre, posthumanism and a short presentation of the articles of the present volume. Keywords: science fiction, cyborg film, posthumanism.

From Metropolis (1927) to Ex Machina (2015), from A Space Odyssey (1968) to The Matrix (1999), from Blade Runner (1982) to Her (2013), science fiction cinema has imagined countless modes of narrating the uncanny interaction between man and machine, one so strange yet so familiar to any smartphone user. To a certain degree, Baudrillard’s premise has proven prophetic: with the rapid advance of technologies, the science fiction universe, once placed in a distant future, was challenged Andrei SIMUȚ by the present day realities and the unexpect- Babes-Bolyai University ed (yet so many times imagined) fulfillment of E-mail: [email protected] the technological utopias. The current issue of EKPHRASIS, 1/2017 Ekphrasis started from the premise that we are Ghosts in the Cinema Machine witnessing a transformation, although almost pp. 5-8 unnoticeable, of science fiction films, triggered by the rapid advancement of technology and DOI:10.24193/ekphrasis.17(1).1 its irreversible intrusion in our daily existence. Published First Online: 2017/06/30 However, this continuous transformation was 6 Andrei SIMUŢ a staple of SF from its very beginnings as a genre, but we were interested in the particular stylistic or iconological forms of this transformation of contemporary visual arts. The theoretical reflection upon these questions would lead to a better understanding of the role and purpose of science fiction in a technologically saturated environment. The nature of classic science fiction was prospective. The most important- defi nitions of the genre insisted upon the fact that its creative energy stems from its capacity to generate critical distance towards the present (seen as historical- in this respect, SF is a literary descendant of the historical novel), towards our custom perceptions (the “sense of wonder” and “cognitive estrangement”). A few theorists have defined SF as a mode rather than a genre. For example, Csicsery-Ronay considers it a “mode of awareness”, noticing the same inner gap regarding the science fiction representation of a non-existing time (the future) (Csicsery-Ronay, 1991). For Jameson, the main deficiency of the genre is the difficulty of imagining the radical otherness of the future, its tendency to return to the familiar (Csicsery-Ronay, 1991), which is, in my opinion, an important feature of contemporary science fiction film, from TV series like Black Mirror, Humans, The Leftovers or Westworld to feature films like La Piel que habi- to, Her, Ex Machina, Gravity. Black Mirror represents the significant example for the implosion of the prospective dimension of contemporary SF. The HBO series Westworld, a re-creation of Michael Crichton classic from 1973 is the perfect baudrillian example: the implosion of the distance between real and hiperreal, between human and posthuman (a homogenization emphasized by the HBO series), between historical past and present and, eventually between cinematographic genres (western or science fiction). Westworld is significant for various other reasons: the critical potential of science fiction through its allegorical dimension (pointing at the female cyborgs exploitation, al- luding at the fact that the theme park is a male phantasy, marred by violence and dark sexual impulses, hinting at the class system and inequalities), its openness to philosophical questions regarding the nature of man, consciousness, free will. It is also significant for the great ability of science fiction to adapt to the new technical realities, to find new realms of the uncanny. In this respect, the posthuman narratives offer substance for reconquering what was thought to be lost from SF, the possibilities of distance, of prospect, the creative output for the “cognitive estrangement”: human consciousness – simulated consciousness, dystopian and utopian visions on posthumanism, transhumanist utopia, transgressions (data made flesh, flesh made data). On the other hand, the posthumanist narratives imply the critical reflection upon the philosophical dimension of the idea of man, considered by the transhumanist utopians to be an historical idea which must be transgressed (Besnier, 2009, 71). However, a few questions still remain: are we witnessing the radical transformation of the sci-fi genre, or the end the classical “artificial intelligence” trope? Has sci- fi been reduced to a mere projection/allegory of the “real” world? What is the future of the genre, after assimilating fantasy (Star Wars), horror, or dystopia? What is the 7 future of sci-fi narratives in the wake of blockbusters like Gravity, TV series such as Black Mirror or Humans or auteur films such as Her? What is left of the realm of ex- trapolation? Starting from these questions, our current issue of Ekphrasis investigates what is left of the traditional imagination of science fiction after being surpassed by the evolution of hyperreality/ virtual reality and other simulated spaces. To our surprise as editors, the articles we received and accepted have offered a high level of coherence regarding both the thematic concerns and even the chosen examples for the case studies involved (films like Ghost in the Shell 2, Her, Ex Machina, Advantageous). However, the theoretical aspects of the topic were not neglected. Our issue begins and concludes with two articles focusing on key conceptual problems: Doru Pop employs the metaphoric syntagm “ghost in the cinema machine” both in the direction of SF and its tech- nophobic (and eventually posthuman) obsession with the animated machines, and especially as far as the nature of the visual experience is concerned. Doru Pop’s article tackles the significant differences of each mode of imagination and immersion corre- sponding to each visual art (film, graphic novel, video game). The other important theoretical article of this volume, written by Mircea Valeriu Deaca, attempts to redefine science fiction genre, to question its autonomy (as compared to other genres) and to offer an in-depth analysis of its cognitive effects on the viewer. The other three articles, written by Kathy Nguyen, Elisabetta Di Minico and Sennah Yee consider the ideological counterpart of science fiction, concentrating on the problematic representations of feminine characters (cyborgs or AIs) in cyborg film, as a subgenre of science fiction. Doru Pop compares the viewer’s experiences of contemporary visual media choosing Ghost in the Shell as a case study, since it offers a similar narrative structure through various modes of representation (film, animated cartoon, graphic novel or video game). Starting from Derrida’s premise (what we imagine is never the image that we see), the author compares different modalities of image representation and imagination, proposing the concept of cinematic modalities experienced by the film spectator, in search of the significant differences between each visual art and its specific mode of immersion. His article is a brilliant theoretical framework for our daily experience and modes of immersion into the “phantasmagoria of specters”, our experience of reality through the “technologies of spectrality”. Kathy Nguyen analyses the modes of transgressing the dichotomies between the im/material and immortalized information and terminal fleshy bodies, how bodies become innate scions, how flesh is transfigured into information, how bodies are -up graded in films like Ghost in the Shell 2 Innocence, inspired by Japanese anime/manga or independent films such asAdvantageous by Jennifer Phang. Luiza Filimon focuses on the narrative analysis of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, the film featuring exclusively posthuman characters, and the problems regarding the posthuman identity as compared with notions of affects or sense of the self. The most interesting part of the article is not only the analysis of the intertextual dimension of 8 Andrei SIMUŢ

Mamoru Oshii’s film (from La Rochefocault to Plato and the Bible), but especially the similarities with other literary works such as Raymond Roussel’s Locus Solus or L’Isle Adam’s L’Ève Future. Elisabetta Di Minico discusses the gender issues implied in the cinematographic representation of the confrontation between human and non-human, with the purpose of interpreting the reasons for the double male fear (of technology and women), the possible elements of gender power relations in the dystopian/science fictional genre, focused especially on Ex Machina (2015). Sennah Yee focuses on contemporary representations of feminine cyborgs in films such as Her, Ex Machina, that is, films which feature male human protagonists and non-human females. Starting from the assumption that cinema has shown since Méliès the signs of a “patriarchal apparatus”, she observes that the male gaze is maintained even in these films that have the intention of questioning it. The representations of female cyborgs or AIs in mainstream cinema remain, in her opinion, hyper- sexualised. Mircea Valeriu Deaca offers new insights of science fiction as a genre, a clear overview on its specificity through functional cognitive models, revising the problem of the autonomy of the genre, considered to be reliant on other “basic genre construals” like action, drama, comedy or on “functional bundles” (Grodal’s concept) in order to re-define the cognitive effect of the SF iconography. Ioan Buteanu discusses the ambiguous role and representation of technology both from a cultural and a cinematographic perspective, referring especially to the films of “survival genre’ and dystopian trend.

References:

1. Baudrillard, Jean. “Two Essays. Simulacra and Science Fiction”. Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 18, November 1991. 2. Csicsery-Ronay, Istvan. “The Sf of Theory – Baudrillard and Harraway”. Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 18, No. 13, Nov. 1991. 3. Dinello, Daniel. Technophobia! Science Fiction Visions of Posthuman Technology. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005 4. Dufresne, Jacques. Après l’homme, le cyborg. Quebec: Editions Multimondes, 1999. 5. Haney W. S.. Cyberculture, Cyborgs, and Science Fiction. Consciousness and the Posthuman. Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi, 2006. 6. Jameson, Fredric. Archaeologies of the Future. The Desire Called Utopia and other Science Fictions. London and New York: Verso, 2005. 7. Parrinder, Patrick (Ed.). Learning from Other Worlds. Estrangement, Cognition, and the Politics of Science fiction and Utopia. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000. 8. Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction. On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979.

Doru POP

The Ghost in the Cinema Machine

Abstract: The main purpose of this paper is to overview the differences between various embodied experiences we, as users, can have when interacting with contemporary visual media. By using the concept of modes of imagination, the author is approaching the problem of media specificity from another perspective. Using the four different “Ghost in the Shell” narratives as a coherent case study, the paper discusses the different modalities in which the most important categories of contemporary visual forms of representation (cinema, animated cartoons, graphic novels and video games) create immersive practice. The assumption is that “cinematic mode” or the “gaming mode” have their own ghost-like “modality”, as they bringing the user/ reader/ viewer inside their imaginative world differently. The discussion about modes and modalities is not rejecting the semiotic modes theories, it rather proposes a change of view. Starting with the philosophical intuition of Jacques Derrida, who claimed that what we imagine is never the image that we see, by the fusion of the two fundamental dimensions of any illusion, this author takes into consideration the deep separation between image and imagination. Using the insightful method of “hauntology”, the author overviews the most important theories about media specificity and proposes the use of cinematic modalities as experienced by the users of film as fictional world. Keywords: cinema, anime, Ghost in the Shell, media specificity, mode and modality, immersion.

“Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in.” Michael Corleone from The Godfather (1990)

Doru POP Our media machines are mechanisms in- Babeș-Bolyai University, Romania Email: [email protected] habited by ghosts, as we are living in a phantasmagoria of specters, wandering in a visual EKPHRASIS, 1/2017 world dominated by the logic of haunting im- Ghosts in the Cinema Machine ages, in an imaginary controlled by the tech- pp. 9-24 nologies of spectrality. This ghost-like social and emotional mode of experiencing reality, DOI:10.24193/ekphrasis.17(1).2 our emotions and relationships has become Published First Online: 2017/06/30 a dominant modality during modernity and 10 Doru POP continued to be developed by the new media. This was achieved through the expan- sion of visual devices like magic lanterns and trick photography machines and the age of mechanical production of specters, as thoroughly documented by Lynda Nead (2007), can be described as a cultural predisposition for the “animation of the inert” (Nead 53). The main premise of this paper is based on this presumption, that there is a spectral dimension of all our modern communication devices, which sets them apart from the “old” modes of expression (like painting and literature). This has generated a different mode of imagining things, leading to an embodied experience within the visual world that was not part of human knowledge before modernity. This phantomatic imagination is a by-product of storytelling practices founded on creating convincing representations of illusory realities. As Lynda Nead argues convincingly, the nature of our image making practices remains dominated by “Pygmalionism” (60), characterized by a fascination for animating representations, which we then believe to be real and integrate into our imagination as if part of our actual experiences. In its negative form they lead to what Spinoza called imaginationis deliria, an irrational excess of superstitions and troublesome projections. One possible approach, when trying to understand the process of putting life into something lifeless, is to deal with the themes and motifs of spectrality. Since ghosts are one of the most widespread tropes in contemporary works of fiction, and they are everywhere in cinema and other visual arts, this takes us to the conclusion that movies are spectral forms of artistic expression. From the very beginning the early viewers considered films an eerie art, the classical observations of Maxim Gorky, who described cinema in 1896 as a “soundless specter”, a “movement of shadows” (Gorky quoted in Leyda 408), remain extremely relevant. Cinema is an “art of phantoms”, yet, as pointed out by Murray Leeder, this is not necessarily done by simply representing phantoms or scary ghosts. In order to be “ghostly and haunted”, films are operating with “phantoms of imagination” (Leeder 3) and our interpretations must take into consideration a spectrality that goes beyond the “cinematic ghosts”. Populated by phantasms and immaterial specters, the phantasy of modern cinema goers is mor- phed into its own spectrality. Another important element, pointed out by many film critics, is the “demoni- ac” dimension of our modern media due to its ghost-like technological mechanisms. Lotte Eisner, in the study on the influences of Expressionism in early cinema (2009) has indicated the predisposition for magic and almost mystical experiences of early cinema (9), manifested later in a visible way through the fascination of the moviemaking industry and film audiences worldwide for ghosts and spectral beings. As Linda Badley also argued (40), it was the spectral photography shows and the smoke- and-mirror machines that lead to the creation of cinema, and this art form still functions today as a “phantasmagoria” of ghosts and specters. 11

While the thematic and technological explanations are very insightful, my own line of questionings here focuses on the nature of the cinematic experience and not the content itself or the media specificity of the camera. Although taking into consideration the connections between all the related arts of animating inanimate objects, all stimulating our imagination by means of spectral images, the experiences we have as users is different when reading cartoons or comic books, watching cinema, animations and when involved in video games. The idea of a ghost in the cinematic machine, already used with a similar signification by Michael Atkinson when discussing the “dark heart” of cinema (1999), describes the moviegoer experience and not the presence of the auteur or the inherent values of the medium. And, while Atkinson suggests that there is a “dark” dimension of cinema, which creates a common subconscious of the viewer existing as ghost in the movie machine, my definition of the ghostly features of this visual machine are founded on neuropsychological and philosophical propositions.

Cinema as hauntological experience Firstly, the problematic nature of the spectral modality of image making processes needs to be approached from a philosophical perspective. My own assumptions are here based on the suggestions from Jacques Derrida’s seminal work Specters of Marx (10), where the French philosopher elaborated the term “hauntology”. This proposed methodology was devised because of the inseparable nature of two fundamental dimensions of any illusion (conceptual, ideological or simply image based). Derrida insightfully argued that what we imagine is never the image that we see (125), and we can take this penetrating understanding further, since we can describe a profound spectrality in the cinematic. In any movies there is an unbreakable division between images (as physical manifestations) and imagination (as mental activity), which opens to provocative conclusions. Thus, when watching a film, or for that matter whenever we “consume” any animated and moving images we are in fact experiencing a presence that is not present. This embodied immersion in which our bodies are attracted is a form of connectedness without corporeality, and, as Derrida commented, we are subjected to an “apparition of the inapparent” (156). All images that are put in front of us are, as indicated by Derrida, mere specters due to the fact that, while they appear to be present, they simultaneously are refus- ing to disclose their real nature. And, although the philosopher was discussing mainly the ideological meaning formations, these mechanisms of spectrality remain intact when dealing with other expressions of human creativity. Without elaborating further on the “laws of incorporation” used by Derrida to present his framework, his dialectics of spectralization can be used extensively, as it proves to be extremely useful in understanding how other social and cultural representations go through a similar process. We must underline that the spectral and ghost-like manifestations of the cinematic must be linked to the ambiguous manifestation of “on screen” projections. What we 12 Doru POP experience while watching a movie is a fused occurrence, where the particular images and the specific imagined realities are inextricably connected. Thus, in order to be able to “speak to the specter” from the movies or to “speak about the ghosts” in the cinema machine, we need to proceed to a separation between these dimensions existing in any representation mechanism. In the following arguments, this philosophical distinction will be practiced as interpretative tool to analyze cinema, cartoons or games, treated as arts based on a dialectics of specters. The assertion in the ensuing analysis would be that there are major differences between cinema and the other related arts which come from the “spectral mode” in which each type of media illusion is experienced. To briefly put it, the differences -be tween the cinematic and the video games experience are emerging from their particular relationship between images and the imaginary, between the apparitions (the spectral experience with the image) and the phantasmic experience that takes place in the mind. It must be stated that many authors consider that this “phantomatic” function is ancient and shared by all arts of representation. Mark Pizzato (2006) overviewed the long fascination of humanity for the “theaters of ghosts” and concluded that there is an almost evolutionary predisposition of humans for spectral projections. Due to a specific mechanics of our brains, which Pizzato identifies as the “theater in the brain”, it becomes a transformative power of the human mind to change reality. The mind, functioning both as stage and screen (101-102), allows us to have an experience of the world that gives us the ability to make sense of the world. This takes Pizzato to the conclusion that the experiences we have in the movie theater or in front of a TV set, and also those that are made possible by computer generated realities, are based on the same ability of the human brain to project ghost-like experiences. Using Ramachandran’s neurological conceptualizations about the zombies and the ghosts in the brain, the author equals film viewing and virtual reality, considering that all forms of participation offer the same “godlike sense” for the user, a hallucina- tory pleasure that is similar no matter the medium that intermediates the experience. While the scientific proofs for such theorizing about the “phantoms in our brains” are still to be supported by data, Pizzato will go further in another book and expands his “neurotheatrical” theory, finding evidence of paleocinematic experiences in the Paleolithic caves. The author even argues that we are “theatrical animals”, driven by the ability to “stage” things in our minds (Pizzato 2016 4-5). Such depictions of experiencing art forms are important, as the perspective put forward by Pizzato takes us close to similar philosophical speculations, such as those of Slavoj Žižek and other cultural critics, who unify all postmodern representation forms (from cinema to cyber-narratives) in a single cultural experience, founded on a disembodied separation of the “postmodern ghost of Self” (Pizzato 2006 7). However appealing these theories are, as is the case with the Žižekian speculations on the nature of the spectral dimensions of postmodernity, they remain too generic. 13

It must be argued why I differ from Pizzato and the conclusions of these- ap proaches, as my point of view in the following is based on another hypothesis. The main contention is that the “modes” of the brain, the way our mind is organizing various media and representational experiences are radically different. The existence of a singular, “scene modality” or of a “screen mode”, is not acceptable. The best and simplest example in this matter is given by the disputable conclusion, which would make reading a written page and a painterly work of art similar “modalities”. They are hardly similar, and the suggestion that they are “staged” events in our mind needs to be refuted. And, while all creators of art forms might share a similar “power”, since the “cultural creatives” of all ages had the ability to project images and ideas into our brains, the way in which they do so differs. Often the effects are -al most identical, but the modality in which our mind operates with every artistic tool is never the same. Another opposing set of explanations come from neuroscience researches. One of the most controversial arguments was proposed by Warren Neidich, who suggested a reversed neural justification for the process. Neidich claimed that there is a “cinematic brain” which is in fact developing in modern times, manifested as a result of the dynamic changes in our own cultural experiences. Based on the principle of neu- roplasticity, this theory went on and affirmed that our brains are changing in order to adapt to the new visual technologies we are using. By experiencing cinema and other cinematic media, our brain becomes cinematic itself (Neidich 2003). All these observations and arguments take us back to a major and most ancient dispute, one which provided some of the oldest controversies in art theory and aesthetic philosophies. Its assumptions are flawing almost all theorizing about visual culture today. The contrasting ideas can be split in two dominant views – one which supports the idea of a single mechanism of imagination and one that claims a type of media specificity which unifies the experiences of a single medium. The first group of such theories argues that art, literature and all our contemporary media outlets are part of a single evolutionary imagination mechanism. Yet, even if there is a common emotional empathy, and while cinema, cartoons or comics share similar traits among each other and with the traditional arts of representation, they are clearly dissimilar in their modes of immersion. These fundamental differences would be the object of this interpretation. As it was put forward by the hypothesis announced previously, the objective here is to discuss how the major modalities of image representation of our visual media today are comparable, yet heterogenous in their imagination modes. By using the “Ghost in the Shell” narratives as a relevant and coherent case study, as they provide various examples from the most important categories of contemporary visual forms of representation (cinema, animated cartoons, graphic novels and video games), the following discussion will focus on how each of these “modalities” generate particular “modes”, which that makes them incompatible with the other immersive practices. The premise here is that each “modality” (cinematic, cartoonish or 14 Doru POP ludic/ gaming) has its own ghost-like “mode” of bringing the user inside its imaginative world. An ensuing discussion about the definitions of modes and modalities will be compulsory, in order to coherently deal with such complex environments, especially since representations are inevitably displaying intermedial traits. This is the point where the dialectics of spectrality proves extremely useful, as when discussing any immersion strategy or practice we must separate between the two major dimensions already announced: the image based representations and the imagination formations. As noted before, these two manifestations do not exist separate- ly. Neither imaginary use of images, nor any imagination can be developed without images and no image can function without imaginative efforts and results. However, this is where the distinctions are necessary, since the degree of their realization is different and the way in which our brain “ghosts” these experiences is never the same. Traditional theories of representations separated either the specific modes of image based empathic relations – this is the case of paintings and drawings, and most of the photography based technologies – and the various imagination modalities – in which case some are active, as is literature, and other who use vicarious and pre-existing mental schemes in order to function, as is abstract painting. Resuming these theories, the main question here if there is a ghost in the cinema machine, that is if the spectral mechanism used in the cinematic image and imagination functions differently from other art forms? While this interrogation has the same objective as those studies asking what is the “essence of cinema” or those discussing the “cinematic effect”, the foundation of my questioning is the fundamental debate about image modalities and imagination modes. Is the cinematic a different mode, does it have a separate modality, does it represent reality within a distinct imagination, since it clearly uses different images as compared with gaming or animation?

Imaginary, imagination modes and image modalities The conceptual distinctions between modes of imagination and modalities of image formation are relevant for this approach, as it starts by changing the terminol- ogy. My perspective takes into consideration the possibility that there are different modes of imagination (mental images, dreams, phantasies), which are not to be identified with the functional modes of each the medium (cinema, literature, painting). Thus “self” of the reader/ gamer/ spectator, the ghost which takes its place into the art object cannot be similar. In order to better understand how we experience differently cinema from all the other types of meaning making arts, the easiest example is provided by the notable unlikeliness of literary imagination and the imaginaries constructed by the new visual media today. Comparing gaming with literature, we observe that there are two basic pathways in which we operate with images and we generate imaginative world. The first is the relationship that we develop with the fictional worlds (including characters and narratives), which can be called mode of imagination (cinematic or video gaming). The second is the relationship we have with the 15 media itself, that is with the cinematic images or the representations in the game (the modality of each medium). Again, here the dominant interpretative paradigm follows the transmedial perspective and considers that all forms of “life-like” experiences (either literary, painterly, cinematic or ludic) are based on a similar mode of imaginative connection. Many authors claimed that all media are providing a transgeneric type of cognitive encounter. Authors like Wolf and his colleagues described a common “illusionist immersion”, using a conceptual organization which brings together all genres that operate with fictional projections (Wolf, Bernhart and Mahler 2013), suggesting that there is an aesthetic mode which is similar to all media. While literature and drama could be based on an inherently similar “aesthetic illusion” (4), when these theoretical interpretations include new media into this paradigm things get extremely confusing. Dealing with all aesthetic illusions as if identical makes the gaming experience, for instance, similar with the reading immersion. Nevertheless, if the participation in a game is of course a “make-believe”, or if we are emotionally moved by the artistic experience of the graphics in a ludic environment, the idea of an universal “aesthetic predisposition” does not allow us to see how the forms of participation are immersive at a different degree. Another useful concept is modality, defined by Leeuwen (1999) as the “abstract-sensory” manifestation of a medium. These theories of semiotic modality, although extremely functional, lead to a terminological unclarity. Leeuwen, for example, interprets the “modality of sound” in a similar way with the “visual modality”. As described by Leeuwen in another work (Leeuwen 2008 165), modality is a term which was borrowed from linguistics and the philosophies of language and was exported into social semiotics. These theories describe several “modes”, from Forceville’s traditional “modes of communication” (written, spoken, visual), and the semiotic modes of authors like Kress and Leeuwen (speech, writing, gestures), to innumerable modes of representation or the various stylistic modes, to modes of thinking and modes of mind (as described by Margaret Donaldson). The most problematic nature of modes and modality comes from the polymor- phous nature of the terms. When dealing with writing (as typography), speaking (as verbal utterances), or photographic representations, we can ascribe writing a specific “mode”, with “fonts” as the “modality” of the written text. Yet when we expand this formal conceptual distinction to images (by describing realistic and abstract “modalities”) these semiotic tools are no longer as useful as when analyzing the “visual design” of advertising. The interpretative solution provided by the already “classical” work of Kress and Leuwen defines the “modes” as simply semiotic concepts, which is removing them from the specific modality of the media in which they are produced (Kress and Leeuwen 2001 22). This offers the choice of concentrating the analysis on the social and cultural discourses and makes modality a product of a dialectic tension between representation and social interaction, which allows interpreting our so- 16 Doru POP cial agreement about what is possible in terms of representations. Later Kress and Leeuwen proposed a “multimodal” theory, one that explained the amalgamated nature of communication, since meaning is never mono-modal. Nevertheless, if we define “modes” in this functional manner, all forms of communication are multimodal from the very beginning. There is no instance in which human communication would happen as a mono-modal way, even the most basic interactions are visual (clothes, displays of status), verbal (words and interjections) and even textual (names, identification tags). Modes and modality, defined according with their functions, which derive from social practices, offer the possibility of practical interpretation. Nevertheless, many difficulties appear when claiming that we operate with a single visual modality, defined by Kress and Leeuwen as compositional. Using cues like depth, color and light, a direct consequence is that cartoons, for example, appear to have a “modality” (derived from their functional elements) which makes them more conceptual. On the other hand news photography has a different “modality”, by consequence of its objective realization of reality. Yet modalities of the images are not media specific. As indicated by Elleström, text or image is not a mode, nor a modality (16), and the theoretician of intermediality found a way around this problematic nature of the medium of production, using the concept of “modality of media”. Elleström identifies 4 modalities (material, sensorial, semiotic and spatiotemporal) and suggests that these categorial structures make sense of the Kress and Leuwen (2001) concession about the material modes and the sensorial modalities that are somewhat mixed (28). The settlement of the dispute, for example, is given by the fact that the sensorial modality can be expressed in different “modes of modality” (either seeing, hearing or feeling). While accepting the useful methodological dimension of the analyzing image modality (or visual modality), another concept needs to be advanced, that of imaginary modality. Before defining how the mode of imagination operates, another major conceptual confusion must be dealt with. In the theoretical discussions about contemporary representation modes a major misunderstanding comes from the different notions used and attributed when approaching the two “spectral” components representational illusions. Image and imagination, which are often treated as amalgamated manifestations, are unified in another manifestation, the “Imaginary”. One of the earliest, and most enduring, definitions is found in the classical theory of Jung. The psychoanalyst elaborated a seductive theory, which suggests the existence of a “collective psyche”. This has led to the development of an entire field of research, dealing with the manifestations of this “collective imaginary”, which is just a revised concept used for this impalpable and controversial proposition. The possibility that humanity shares an “Imaginary” throughout centuries, manifested in various art forms is presented as a reality. 17

Some authors, such as Lucian Boia who wrote an entire “history of the imaginary” (in French “l’imaginaire”) identify in every field of human creativity the expression of a coherent “imaginary”. Supposedly there are political imaginaries, historical imaginaries, ethical imaginaries and, most importantly for this discussion, mythological imaginaries (Boia 2000). In fact “the imaginary” is everywhere and every “product of the spirit” can be described as part of this Imaginary, broadly defined as a particular vision of the world (Boia 14). Thus Boia, following a long line of intellectual efforts, notably of many French philosophers and representatives of various psychoanalytic schools, claims that this ineffable manifestation is presumably providing access to the “depths of human spirit” (7). This unsubstantiated speculation has no scientific basis, it is an intellectual exploration and its conceptual problematic nature is best illustrated by one of the most important French researchers in this field, Jean-Jacques Wunenburger. Wunenburger, a distinguished specialist in the study of “imaginaries” makes a terminological separation between two levels of image formations – the image, which is used for practical purposes, and the imaginary (l’Imaginaire), which is beyond the pragmatic, a result of the imagination (Wunenburger 2003). The “imaginary”, which is a cultural construct, includes wholesale all the productions of the image and all those of visual artifacts that have an impact on human imagination. In his works on “the Imaginary”, Wunenburger’s basic assumption is that both the literary productions of images and the visual culture today belong to a single experience. It is not the purpose of this paper to go deeper into this long debate about the roots of artistic imagination and cultural imaginaries, yet it must be underlined that, when using these terms many authors are following the definitions and distinctions proposed by Jean-Paul Sartre. For the existentialist philosopher, the relationship between the “external images” and the projections into our consciousness (“mental images”) can be explained by a correlation which results into the “Imaginary” (Sartre 2004 [1948]). In philosophical terms this correlation, described in L’imaginaire as going beyond the material images and the immaterial projections, as a phenomenolog- ical manifestation, in fact supports the argument that there is a coherent structure of the imaginary that transcends all arts and specific images. This is undeniably, a suggestive and attractive speculation. On one hand these definitions are dysfunctional in English, since there is no terminological separation between “imaginary” and “imagination”, and are leading to a highly dysfunctional conceptualization. Some of the best examples are found in the above mentioned “history of the imaginary”, which describes a common “totalitarian imaginary”, one that includes Mao, Hitler and Stalin in a single “archetypal” interpretation, which is clearly an oversimplification. Before moving forward with such an attempt to find the invisible dimension of the cinematic and other representation forms, we need to debunk some of these conceptual stereotypes. In fact this effort is following the myth debunking work of Gilbert Ryle, 18 Doru POP who denounced the “ghost in the machine” dogma in his remarkable 1949 book. Ryle criticizes two of the most important “myths” proposed by Descartes, who claimed that the human body is inhabited by the reasoned mind as if by a ghost and that the mind functions in a mechanical way. The arguments, and the later influence of Descartes, based on the presumption that the human reason functions as a “god in the machine” are presuppositions that lead to some absurd consequences. The first is that humans and their brains are functioning like machines. The second is that “seeing with the mind eyes” is somehow separating the imaginary from the real images we see. The arguments of Ryle are extremely important when discussing the “ghost in the cinematic machine”, another formula (or dogma) that needs to be criticized. As in the case of our mind, it is not about what cinema does or how cinema does it, it is about what we are doing with the cinematic experience. And, more importantly, the cinematic is not the same with the cinema, just as the mind is not the brain, and neither is the cinema apparatus identical with the emotions of the viewers. Just as Ryle pointed out the absurdity of traditional Cartesian mind-body dualism, we need to expound the separation of the “shadow-world” on the screen and what we do with the images we see.

If the brain is a screen, who is the ghost watching the movie? When asking what is cinematic in the cinema there are two major theories: the apparatus theory (the mechanical or the dispositif), and the medium specific aesthetic theories (the montage theory or the compositional). The first “cinematic modality” is based on the idea that the brain and the cinema function similarly. The most popular version is that our minds work as a screen, a popular suggestion that Gilles Deleuze has put forwards in the general discussions about the essence of cinema. This French philosopher considered that, since cinema is activating images and puts them into motion (in Flaxman 366), it must be understood as different from the linguistic projections or the psychoanalytic, dream-like, manifestations. And, while Deleuze was properly reading cinematic images as different from other arts of representation, he also supported the presumption that cinema is a result of a technological monstrosity that makes the vision machine more important than our physiology. Another important answer to the question about the cinematic in the cinema is identifying its inner qualities that separate it from the point of view of its production modes. As noted by Bordwell, the “seventh art” developed its own “cinematic language” (35), one which is explicit in the classical cinema, its specificity identified in cinematography (the film grammar of the shots) or editing (various montage practices). A relevant author that needs to be mentioned is Tom Gunning, who elaborated the classical theory about the “cinema of attractions”. Overviewing the early film -ex periments with the possibility of bringing the viewers “inside” the representational world of movies, Gunning found the specificity of cinema in this “aesthetics of astonishment”. 19

Since reviewing all the discussions about the nature of the cinematic throughout the history of the craft and the multitude of theories about media specificity would be too large, a final contrasting interpretation is useful. Noël Carroll provided the most coherent critical discussion about media modes and particularly about cinema specificity models, exhaustively overviews the long tradition of theorizing film specificity (2). For this current argument it would suffice to point out that the two major approaches to film essentialism – the photographic theories (or the realists) and the purist theories (based on aesthetic qualities: montage, camera works) – are both rejected. Although Carroll is wholesale dismissing the concept of “cinematic” (instead using the disputable notion of “moving image”), this author gives us many important insights. Carroll refutes the theories of the “photographic essence” of cinema, upheld by authors like Andre Bazin or Roland Barthes, as being erroneous. When dealing with the “Bazinian” theorizing of cinema we should note that this thesis always remains founded on an error of judgment (Carroll 42), which couples the photographic nature of cinema with the photographic camera. This connection disappears once we deal with how motion is put into action in cinema, since the so called “photographic objectivity” vanishes once we realize that the cinema apparatus needs a subjective intervention. The visual field in cinema entails a type of stag- ing that is no longer photographic, as the movie director cannot capture reality like the photographer does, mostly due to the video cameras and entire cinematic “dispositif” (sound, lights, cranes and so on). As Carroll compares painted pictures, photography and cinema, and concludes that the mode of cinematic representation is based on a fundamental visual experience that allows the spectator to “see through” (59), thus belonging to a transparent mode of “direct seeing”, which makes the motion pictures different. Carroll describes cinema as an “alienated vision”, a “disembodied experience” that does not allow us to have a direct experience of the space, leading to a “detached display” (62-63). These observations need to be taken one step forward. When discussing the “ghost” in the cinematic machine we are not only addressing the immaterial dimensions of the aesthetics of this art. To simply put it, the “cinematic mode” refers to the connection between the mind of the spectator and the representations on the screen. Authors like Robert Sinnerbrink called this process “cinempathy”, that is a specific form of empathic connections allowed by films, an immersion that allows not only emotional experiences, but also ethical results (2009) The question is how every given art form is stimulating the mind, the emotions and finally the imagination of the viewer. This must be linked to other concepts, like immersion, implication, illusion and identification. Without entering into the difficult discussions about the various media modes, we can describe “time based” immersion forms – since in literature the user time is longer, while in cinema it is time limited – and “space based” art forms – theater representations need to be in the presence of viewers. 20 Doru POP

Contemporary neurosciences approaches to cinema and other media provide a useful framework for discussing the ghost-like nature of cinema. Concepts like embodied experience or embodied cognition claim that, when somebody else thinks, feels and acts for you it induces a secondary state of consciousness, which makes the user a “ghost in the machine”.

A multimodal case study – Ghost in the Shell Accused of a mediocre performance, clogged with bad reviews that criticized the whitewashing of the main character and undermined by accusations against the “rac- ist Hollywood”, the 2017 remake of the classical Kôkaku kidôtai (1996) seemed to be a failure. Nevertheless, when comparing the overall revenues of the franchise the original animation which was very influential (on films like The Matrix, Blade Runner, Johnny Mnemonic, or Through a Glass Darkly) barely made 443 thousand USD, and the 2004 Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence received 1,04 million USD worldwide. Thus the so- called “failure” of the 2017 Ghost in the Shell is clearly an exaggeration, as the movie directed by Rupert Sanders made over 167 million USD worldwide, with 24 million USD only during the first week. As it is not the purpose of this analysis to discuss the marketing issues of the franchise, but rather to problematize how cinema is “ghost-hacking” its viewers and what happens to the audience when connecting or disconnecting with the universe presented by movies, the first relevant element is the metaphor used by “The Ghost in the Shell” and the “Puppet Master” that confronts the main character. With three critically acclaimed movies, two television series (one of which is currently airing on Cartoon Network) and two video games, the Ghost in the Shell franchise provides an excellent illustration for how the spectral mode of cinema works and gives us the opportunity to point out to the differences and resemblances of various modes of imagination. All these productions clarify by comparison what makes cinema compatible or incompatible with animations, video games, manga or cartoons. What is the nature of the “ghost” that lives in the cinematic apparatus if we compare it with the manifestations in the animated films and animated series, or the multiple video games? The story began with the manga series designed by Masamune Shirow, which was released in Japan in 1991 with the title Mobile Armored Riot Police: The Ghost in the Shell. This was followed by Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-Machine Interface, a sequel work following the story of Motoko after merging with the Puppeteer. Then another volume, Ghost in the Shell 1.5: Human-Error Processor, contains four separate cases and the most recent The Ghost in the Shell 1. 5 Deluxe Edition adds to the adventures set in Japan, in 2029, where Major Motoko Kusanagi, a cybernetic organism of the intelligence department “Section 9” fights crime in the future metropolis called Newport City. The first Ghost in the Shell manga actually begins with a text mode, where the immersive strategy is based on the ability of the writer to tell his readers about the transforma- 21 tion of the Earth into a “corporate network” which is “information-intensive”, where “cyberbrain technology” allows strange connections. This first difference in the nature of “ghosting” of the various types of media -be comes even more explicit when comparing the manga series with the animation, created in 1995 by Mamoru Oshii. This “adult animation”, considered by some important directors like James Cameron (quoted by Ruh 3) as visually compelling, offers a typical mode of immersion specific to animation. With a highly sexualized visuality (which in the 2017 movie is downsized), Mamoru Oshii’s version takes the Japanese manga (having their own cultural specificity) and opens it for a wider, global audience. Unlike the work of Shirow, drawn in the Japanese style, the animation creates a more flexible environment for a diverse audience. And, while the nature of film is based on reality (a mode of reality), the nature of animation is cartoonish (an animatic mode). The caricature-like dimensions are exaggerated in the anime, while the movie, even when making references to cartoonish scenes, are kept veridical. This internal predisposition of the visual immersion takes the spectator into different worlds - one possible (even if implausible and utterly fantastic), and the other completely disconnecting with the real. In fact, as many scholarly research on animation (either as animated cartoons, or 3D animations) their success remains the same childish ability to bring the adult mind into the cartoonish mode. The enjoyment of animations is exaggeration and anthro- pomorphized characteristics, as this particular mode is also ancient, as it was used in fables. Just as for the reader/ listener of Aesopus the characters were believable even if they were never “real”, this modality is exported into animations. We do not need “realism” in order to create connections with the cartoons, just as in the children’s games a broomstick can become a horse, the representation of in animations are often based on conventions. Then, if we compare the anime and the manga graphic novels with the video gaming immersion mode, it takes us to another type of “ghosting”. The video games while opening with cinematic scenes, apparently providing and intermedial interface to the users, place the cinematic entracts as simple introduction for each new “mission”. These animated insertions themselves, designed to generate relationship between the characters and to create atmosphere in any game, show that the engagement of the gamer and the immersion of the viewer use different pathways. Again, while if the first game of the franchise, launched in 1997, was designed and illustrated by Masamune Shirow, the creator of the manga drawings, the important difference is not visual. While in the comic book the reader immerses in the complex neurally links of the world of Newport City by following the main character, the game was based on an simplistic engagement. In Mission 01 (“The Bay Area”), in an oversimplified map which still engages the player, the action links the user with the gaming world. Inserted in the neuro-motor reality of the spider-like tank robot (which in the manga is central, and in the anime not so much) the gamer gets to con- 22 Doru POP front several enemies, shooting and searching for keys and devices, following the in- dications preset in the game. This PlayStation 1 game shows how different media have various modalities, when it comes to the immersion of the user. By playing a role within the imagined universe, assuming “missions” and completing various “tasks”, the player is given the sensation that he has the power of “puppeteering”. Unlike cinema, the player is subjected to a double manipulation. He is himself driven by a “Puppeteer”, which is the creator of the framework in the game, who is not allowing him to make choices, and also a driver of the machines he controls. In the game the graphic interface, even if most simplistic, maintains a connection with the user, thus showing that its image mode does not affect its imagination function. Even the storytelling is reduced, as the elements of narrative immersion are reduced to introductions. “How could individuals turn into data?” is a statement in the 2004 Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex, which is using 3D animations as intros, then becomes an action based game. This game provides another example for how the “gaming ghosting” functions, since the player is now following directly the character, from the third person perspective, in a shooter-like environment. And, even if the Fuchikoma spider tank robot is still available (to provide the fans of the original PlayStation edition the possibility to connect with their beloved object), the new game makes Batou a “play- able” character. Here we encounter an essential difference between the cinematic and anime narratives. Apparently the 2017 movie and the 1996 anime are similar, and this would make the experience of the viewers comparatively, thus their modalities identical. Yet the solution chosen by Sanders indicates the major separation. In the anime the entity known as “The Puppeteer” – a being who controls the actions of various people by means of ghost-hacking – is a female ghost. In Ghost in the Shell (2017) the Puppet Master is Kuze, the childhood friend of Motoko, who is a male monstrous cybernetic being, making him the perfect Antagonist. The Puppeteer (Kugutsumawashi) in the animation is a more complex manifestation, ambiguously defined as a possible manifestation of the subconscious of Motoko. Clearly the coupling and decoupling of the viewer on and off from the main character is different in the cinematic version, where we have various scenes where the character of Mira/ Motoko is abandoned and the camera follows either the male character of Batou, or other secondary characters. This is not the case with the manga series, where Major Kusanagi, is the predominant figure. Batou is also a relevant example, because in the manga, then the anime and the games, he is used in a very different mode. In the second anime, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004) he becomes the main character of the story, investigating a series “murders” of doll-like sex robots. Also suggestive are the scenes which would appear to be identical in the 1995 anime and the 2017 movie, as the overall narratives are almost identical, some of the scenes and visual structures are even mimicking previously developed graphic el- 23 ements. One of such “mimetic” scenes, used with one for one images, is when the Major and Batou are sharing a private moment in the middle of the gulf of Newport City, or the final confrontation with the spider-tank. Here another difference with the game is important as the process of identification in cinema is ghost-like, unlike what takes place in virtual reality games, where the player becomes the character, easily inhabiting the provided “shell”, in the movie there is no fixed identification level. Yet the differences in the nuances point to a modal divergence, as unlike in the animations, where the plot is built on many ambiguities, with the anime ending in an opened mode, differently from the movie, where Major Kusanagi does- notbe come part of the “infinite and vast Net”, instead she continues her missions (leaving opened the possibility of continuing the movie). Finally the fascination of the “Ghost in the Shell” stories relies in the depiction of the mental affect and responses to perception in the process of projection of our selves. As Kuze in the movie can “install” realities in the mind of those he controls in a similar way the cinematic imaginary mode is also allowing a form of haunting. Inserting in us images that are not our own, fantasies, memories and dreams that are not ours, we are trapped in the shadows-like experience within the movie theater. This idea, already present in the plot in Shirow’s early manga, deals with the scary possibility of being “ghost hacked” – when a physical entity is inhabited (temporar- ily or permanently) by an immaterial drive (soul, energy, spirituality) – in the world of free connectivity. Just as in the case of the Puppeteer, a master mind that can alter memories and experiences, we are “culturally ghosted”. When consuming cultural artifacts we are subjected by the mechanics of spectrality. By receiving information (visual, aesthetic, narrative) and transforming that information into reactions (emotions, concepts, ideas) we act like virtual bodies, “absorbed” into altered states of conscience.

Works Cited: 1. Atkinson, Michael. Ghosts in the Machine: Speculating on the Dark Heart of Pop Cinema. New York: Limelight Editions, 1999. 2. Badley, Linda. Film, Horror, and the Body Fantastic. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996. 3. Boia, Lucian. Pentru o istorie a imaginarului, Tatiana Mochi trans. Bucureşti: Humanitas, 2000 [first French edition Societe d’edition les Belles Lettres, 1998]. 4. Bordwell, David. On the History of Film Style. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997. 5. Carroll, Noël. Theorizing the Moving Image. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 6. Derrida, Jacques. Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International. New York: Routledge, 2006 (first ed. 1993). 7. Eisner, Lotte. The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. 8. Elleström, Lars. “The Modalities of the Media: A Model for Understanding Intermedial Relations”, in Media Borders, Multimodality and Intermediality. Elleström, Lars ed. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. 24 Doru POP

9. Flaxman, Gregory. The Brain Is the Screen : Deleuze and the Philosophy of Cinema. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. 10. Kress, Gunther and Theo van Leeuwen. Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. 11. Leeder, Murray ed. Cinematic Ghosts Haunting and Spectrality from Silent Cinema to the Digital Era. New York: Bloomsbury, 2015. 12. Leeuwen, Theo van. Speech, Music, Sound. London: Macmillan, 1999. 13. Leeuwen, Theo van. Introducing Social Semiotics. London: Routledge, 2008. 14. Leyda, Jay. A History of the Russian and Soviet Film. London: Unwin House, 1960. 15. Nead, Lynda. The Haunted Gallery: Painting, Photography, Film Around 1900. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. 16. Neidich, Warren. Blow-up: Photography: Cinema and The Brain. Riverside: The University of California Press, 2003. 17. Pizzato, Mark. Ghosts of Theatre and Cinema in the Brain. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. 18. Pizzato, Mark. Beast-People Onscreen and in Your Brain: The Evolution of Animal-Humans from Prehistoric Cave Art to Modern Movies. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2016. 19. Ruh, Brian. Stray Dog of Anime: The Films of Mamoru Oshii. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 20. Ryle, Gilbert. The Concept of Mind. New York: Routledge, 2009 (first ed. 1949). 21. Sartre, Jean Paul. The Imaginary. New York: Routledge, 2012 [first French edition, Presses Universitaires de France, 1936]. 22. Sinnerbrink, Robert. Cinematic Ethics: Exploring Ethical Experience through Film. Oxon: Routledge, 2016. 23. Wolf, Werner. “Aesthetic Illusion” in Wolf, Werner, Walter Bernhart and Andreas Mahler (eds.) Immersion and Distance Aesthetic Illusion in Literature and Other Media. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2013. 24. Wunenburger, Jean-Jacques. L’imaginaire. Paris: Presses Universitaires De France, 2003.

Kathy NGUYEN

Body Upload 2.0: Downloadable Cosmetic [Re]Birth

Abstract: Hans Moravec’s Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind remarkably blueprints a future where rapid technological feats will grant humans the ability to upload/ download their consciousness into computer software and/ or computer chips, preserving their lifelong memories and identities. This blueprint is edified by Robert Mitchell’s and Phillip Thurtle’s book, Data Made Flesh: Embodying Information, further problematizing the im/material and immortalized information/terminal fleshy bodies. These dichotomies are shattered as bodies and information become innate scions, continually grafting onto the other’s multilayered epidermis. Flesh is transfigured into information and information is transfigured into flesh. Bodies are edified by information; corporeality and dis/embodiment are further problematized while we live in the age of informatics. Interesting questions arise as a result: What does it mean to have – or occupy – a body when it becomes part of a downloadable network? Advantageous, directed by Jennifer Phang, depicts a future where female bodies are continually represented as easily replaceable vessels. It is my contention that Advantageous cinematically presents a future where digitized mechanical reproduction is possible. Bodies become updated, evolving into informatically-structured bodies. Following a similar cinematic line of vision, Oshii Mamoru’s film Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence depicts how human consciousness is artificially implanted onto sex dolls, reproducing them into sentient gynoids. Thus, the innate grafting between flesh and data becomes more prominent in these films: consciousness is downloadable, while the body updates itself. In this paper, I argue that the experimental bodies depicted in Advantageous and to a lesser extent, Innocence, illustrate how downloading – or uploading – the consciousness/information from the organic brain to a new shell, a younger body, represents a form of mechanical reproduction. These films theoretically visualize how downloading the body signifies that while bodies are terminal, Kathy NGUYEN the mind – microchipped – is not. Life and death become more Texas Woman’s University optically blurry. Email: [email protected] Keywords: bodies, cosmetic procedures, downloading, information, new technologies, reproduction, science fiction EKPHRASIS, 1/2017 narratives, technical objects, upgrades/updates. Ghosts in the Cinema Machine pp. 25-44

DOI:10.24193/ekphrasis.17(1).3 Published First Online: 2017/06/30 26 Kathy NGUYEN

“Objects made by humans could always be copied by humans. Replicas were made by pupils in practicing for their craft, by masters disseminating their works, and finally, by third parties in pursuit of profit.” Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction “Who knew that copies could still be produced despite the absence of the original? If you had to give a name to this phenomenon, what would you label it?” The Laughing Man, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex “Do you believe that there’s some place we can go even if we become unable to swap prosthetics and we can’t go on living?” Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie

Uploading Information: Upgrading the Body Downloading is the future. With a touch or swipe of multiple buttons and/or a click of a mouse and/or controller, the way humans enter, process, and analyze information will change; in fact, humans have changed. Human technology users, for instance, often scroll on their phones, reading news and messages on the multifari- ous social media outlets they sign up for, which give them the synchronized ability to edit and share the exact information through a shared network. Azuma Hiroki, a Japanese cultural critic who examines the complex connection between individualism and democracy in the age of information, comments that people living in modern society “accumulate personal information” in the “real world” and in the Internet (59). Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter provide instant updates – via coded through their technology experts – for their users to download, presenting the constant and immediate changes that technology undergo. The sundry of apps such as the obligatory newer versions of iOS and Windows are made available in an instant tap [or click] only if users desire to download the update, ensuring that the device will function based on the changing technological waves to avoid an ob- soleted prior version that neither enhances nor improves the device. The incalculabil- ity and advent of technologies and new medias have made it possible for humans to remain updated and in sync with the current accelerating digital culture. Wendy Hui Kyong Chun writes: “Through habits users become their machines: they stream, update, capture, upload, share, grind, link, verify, map, save, trash, and troll” (Updating to Remain the Same 1). These habitual technological usages demonstrate that there is an inherent relationship between humans and machines, rendering them rather similar to a connective tissue and/or limb. Machines are extensions of the body; humans, at times, are unable to remove themselves from these devices. Though Chun primarily discusses social media practices, they do make a point to assert that “habits” breed 27

“users [to] become their machines,” reestablishing the ongoing discourse on how the human-machine interface is not a thing of science fiction, but a future predicted and imagined by science and technology (1). Humans are updated by technologies; technologies are updated by humans. Entering a partial download process, information is constantly being updated. Chun says it the best: “New media live and die by the update: the end of the update, the end of the object” (Updating to Remain the Same 2). At the same time, the process of downloading warrants information to be updated in a “new[er] form” to avoid rapid degeneration and distinction. Rather than discussing and expanding Chun’s analysis of “new media” and updates, I aim to explore these updates in a “different” direction, which I will later expand on; however, I wish to continue the discourse on the magni- tude of updates. Chun, again, writes: Things no longer updated are things no longer used, useable, or cared for, even though updates often ‘save’ things by literally destroying – that is, writing over – the things they resuscitate. (In order to remain, nothing remains, so now nothing remains even as everything does.) Things and people not updating are things and people lost or in distress, for users have become creatures of the update. To be is to be updated: to update and to be subjected to the update. (Updating to Remain the Same 2) And here the advent of modern digital networks enters the netscape.1 While Chun briefly addresses how both things and people update information in digital media, it is important to note that the human body is a regenerative site that regularly updates itself. With the rapid growth of human-machine marital assemblage and the re/birth of information in a digital culture, human bodies are literally always updating themselves to experience transmogrification. The aesthetics of the human body changes not only for preservation but to keep up with the progresses made available by humans and the tools they create. Prosthetic limbs are made possible through bioengineering and biomechanics, reconstructing what it means to be a human as past bodily limitations enforced by society and nature are disrupted. Present ideals of the human body are now futuristic ideals that once seem imaginatively lofty. Science fiction integrates the imaginative and the impossible by integrating what Chu Seo-Young describes as “literal and figurative dimensions” (87). Science fiction employs these dimensions to underline the globalization of technology. In Chu’s view, “Science fiction activates the power of such figures by literalizing and substan- tiating them into narrative situations: teleportation, for example, is a science-fictional narrative situation that literalizes the metaphorical ‘collapse of distance’ often attributed to globalization” (87). In other words, science fiction, though metaphorical, offers theoretical frameworks used to analyze the forward progression of science and technological changes. Changes in progress imply the destruction and/or progression of humanity. Furthermore, globalization is linked with wires and digitalization, both of which affect the body. Films such as Robocop, Ghost in the Shell – both the origi- 28 Kathy NGUYEN nal and the recent Hollywood remake – Total Recall – also both versions – The Matrix, and Ex Machina each present cinematic universes where bodies experience recurrent states of technological alterations or updates by artificial intelligence. But, at the same time, these science fiction narratives are no longer mere fantastical confabulations, they are presently converted into reality. BBC recently reported on the “growing” sin- gularity where humans use technology such as implanted brain chips, antennas, and artificial organs to enhance and improve their bodies. Yet, at the same time, Robert Mitchell and Phillip Thurtle ask: “Why do many popular entertainment forms image an extra-bodily existence in a ‘matrix’ of information?” (“Introduction: Fleshy Data” 1). The network is the potential answer. If bodies are connected to/by a technological system, then information is inherently produced and created by a network/ing body of sorts. Information and bodies are no longer on a separate spectrum because information “exists between elements; bodies are the elements themselves” (Mitchell and Thurtle, “Introduction: Fleshy Data” 1). This marks a future of science, or perhaps a science future – the present-future – where human bodies experience multiple transformations, rearranging themselves into a co-blending of the human, the machine[s], the organic and the inorganic. Bodies are also fused with data. More specifically, data is made from flesh; flesh is made from data. Scholars such as Eugene Thacker, Robert Mitchell, and Phillip Thurtle often cite William Gibson’s cyberpunk novel, Neuromancer’s prophetic quote: “data made flesh,” predicting the advancing relationship between technologies, information, and bodies (16). Bodies, composed of genes and DNA, are vessels filled with information. But, can the amount of accumulated knowledge and data from bodies be downloadable? At this point, information is quite abstract because what does information actually look like? How does it appear to humans? In Hans Moravec’s 1999 book, Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind, Moravec predicts that there will be a rise in technological feats in a near possible future where humans will have the ability to upload/download their consciousness into either a computer software or some sort of computer chip/disc. This feature will grant humans access and ability to sustain their memories and identities, transferring them over to other vessels, that may not necessarily be organic and/or human. Furthermore, Robert Mitchell’s and Phillip Thurtle’s book, Data Made Flesh: Embodying Information, the authors advance this discussion by interrogating how “informational technologies” may possibly produce a newer, upgraded “forms” of flesh (“Introduction: Data Made Flesh” 3). Informatic bodies are now part of a network, which can be described as a space used for connectivity; a body is a network. Humans are now entering the network where unimaginable potentials emerge. Information and bodies “function as ripples” that often “intersect” with each other, nearly shattering all the dichotomies between the abstract and the concrete and the corporeal and the incorporeal (“Introduction: Data Made Flesh” Mitchell and Thurtle 2). Flesh and information are like scions: information is implanted onto the flesh, cre- 29 ating, once again, an upgraded fleshy and bodily experience that Mitchell and Thurtle propose. Both flesh and information are metamorphed by and into each other. And here, information-flesh grafting can be described as a form of “cosmetic surgery,” or at the very least, an augmented implant of sorts. Thus, one of the few questions that I wish to interrogate is: What does it mean to occupy in a body when it is a part of a downloadable network? Downloading information onto the continually updated networking/networked body becomes an interesting cinematic line of contemporary thought, especially when we are witnessing technological advancements in informatics and body am- plifications. Continuing the line of thoughts concerning the possibilities of flesh-data/information grafting body uploading/upgrading, I will examine these very themes, which I believe have not yet been interrogated in Oshii Mamoru’s film, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence – which also serves as a sequel to his critically acclaimed film, Ghost in the Shell – and Jennifer Phang’s science fiction film, Advantageous. Both films are vastly different when considering the directors’ philosophical concepts, aesthetics, and cultural standpoints; however, each feature presents how advanced technologies change societies and human behaviors. The unlimited potential of technology serve as a starting point for upgraded bodies: once consciousness is downloadable and the body will update itself with both new and old information. Both films visually and dialogically present, I argue, a future where digitized mechanical reproduc- tions are a possibility. The process of downloading and/or uploading of an aging and older body’s stored information into a newer, younger body vessel is indeed a form of a mechanized/digitized reproduction. Downloading the mind into a younger vessel implies that the procedure represents the future of cosmetic surgeries. I will also explore the science fictional trope/debate that, in many cases, has never quite reached a conclusive decision: what does it mean that something is replicated, especially if it has been copied, downloaded, and updated? In the end, the body may be terminal and expendable, the mind, a storage of information, may be eternal. Borrowing Azuma’s reference of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s a “general will 2.0” and Chun’s idea a software and media-based “future 2.0,” I argue that updates performed by technology “documents” a body 2.0 (63; Programmed Visions xi).

Dubbing the Living Ghost: Updating to Remain Alive The arbitrations between information and the non/human bodies within the “vastness of the network” are both focal and ocular narratives in Oshii’s Ghost films. The first Ghost in the Shell film, released in 1995, concludes with the film’s protagonist, Major Kusanagi Motoko. Her ghost – her stored consciousness – gets transferred and merged with the highly advanced AI entity, the Puppet Master, who is “a life-form that was born in the sea of information.” Kusanagi’s and the Puppet Master’s bodies are destroyed, except for Kusanagi’s head, which was saved by Batō, her former second in command, during the crucial moment. Kusanagi’s head, which presently 30 Kathy NGUYEN stores her ghost and the Puppet Master, is transferred to a new artificial body that resembles a little girl. The sequel, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (Kōkaku Kidōtai Inosensu. According to Steve T. Brown, Inosensus is the “Japanese phoneticization” for “innocence”), released in 2004, and is loosely based on one of the chapters of Shirō Masamune’s Ghost in the Shell manga, “Robot Rondo.” Innocence be described as a cyberpunk detective story and is set in 2032, three years after the inexplicable disappearance of Kusanagi. Similar to its film’s predecessor, Innocence is set in a “future time” where most forms of human consciousness “has been accelerated by artificial intelligence and external memory that can be shared on a universal matrix.” The story chronicles Batō, an agent of Section 9’s Security Force and the main protagonist in this story who now works with Togusa, who is mostly human, and their investigations of murderous sex gynoids, or female sex androids, who kill their owners. The film’s opening scene presents lingering shots of architectural landscape, which Brown describes as an “unnamed multiethnic [metropolis],” presents a cross section between traditional Chinese buildings and futuristic landmarks (15), further illustrat- ing the blending between the past and the future. Matthew Gandy compares contemporary cities to the figure of the cyborg. The cyborg is a shared “material interface” between bodies and cities, visually resembling a “physical infrastructure that links the human body to vast technological networks” (Gandy 28). The networking world illustrated in Innocence shows how cyborgs are connected to the cityscapes as they are able to plug themselves in and out of any wired sockets within the city. Brown claims that Oshii’s “incredible attention to visual detail and dynamic multilayeredness of the computer-generated environments in the world of [Innocence]” uses “sophisticated lighting techniques” and “multiple moving planes and advanced particle effects” to evoke a state of confusion for viewers (20). For instance, the scene that concurrent- ly cuts between Batō’s and Togusa’s investigation and the festivities of the Taiwanese Dajia Mazu Festival alludes to the overall philosophical references of the film: spirits and souls are implanted in mechanical dolls. While the metropolis resembles a networking matrix, Buddhist parables are visually embedded within the film, making it difficult to stay focused in following the narrative and comprehend the overtly philosophical dialogue as Oshii overwhelms several single frames with quotes, detailed visual imageries, and multiple locational shots. In a dark alley, Batō witnesses a gynoid murdering her owner and two other police officers. After fighting with the gynoid, Batō hears her repeatedly saying, “help me” before she directly faces the camera and the audience to perform a form of suicidal act by tearing open her chest, puzzling Batō, though he eventually shoots her, destroying her body. These gynoids are acquired as sex toys and are programmed for two basic functions: to love and perform sexually for their owners, presumably male humans; however, the model that Batō encountered, “Hadaly”, seems to have mal- functioned in a way that triggered her violent behavior. And because they have no 31 sense of agency, or their ghost, they should not be able to perform additional actions prior to their programming. Thus, Batō and Togusa investigate the explanations that could possibly answer the gynoids’ faulty programming. Oshii is particularly fascinated with the shape and movements of ningyō (literally translated as “human shaped figures”) dolls and puppets. As Sharalyn Orbaugh notes, in Innocence, there is an optical emphasis on the “jerky and crude [and grotesque] automata that contain some element of human intelligence; huge mechanical figures of animals and demons” (153). The emphasis of the sex gynoids and a tea-serving karakuri ningyō created in Japan for entertainment during the 17th and 19th centuries, for instance, are clearly and intentionally seen moving in imbalanced movements and transitions. Oshii intercuts these scenes with the seemingly robotic and pragmatic movements of the cyborgs and humans of Section 9 such as them such as their “normal” walking and “perfect” aims when shooting their targets, showcasing the vast differences between highly advanced upgraded bodies with a ghost and mechanical automata that are soulless and merely resemble the uncanny, which once again, continuing the blurred boundaries between the in/animate (Brown 25). This is further magnified in a scene where Batō and Togusa visit Haraway, a police forensic coroner and an obvious reference to Donna Haraway, who wrote “A Manifesto for Cyborgs,” – which may have served as an influential scheme for the first Ghost film – who coolly and almost robotically tells Togusa: “If you assume differences -be tween humans and machines are obvious.” Haraway’s blunt statement sets the tone throughout the film as Batō comes to realize that dolls and humans are not disparate entities as they are part of an assemblage. Brown further expands on the film’s obsession with the visual imageries of inorganic, nonhuman bodies by discussing the opening credits of the film, where audiences observe the “manufacturing process” of creating gynoids. For Brown, “[t]his artificial birth of the gynoid is a reinscription of the opening credits of the first Ghost in the Shell,” where Kusanagi’s body was revealed to be manufactured by Megatech Company, contracted by the government (15). In Innocence, however, Oshii visually dissects the process of making a gynoid as he shows how the artificial cells are divided (see Figure 1) and the formation and re/assemblage of the limbs (see Figure 2). For Oshii, artificial limbs are more than replicative technical objects and monstrous mutations because nature itself is a combination of the synthetic and the material. Thus, what are the distinctions between an organic limb and an artificial limb if both are attached to the body and can function? Linda F. Hogle underlines the intricacies of prosthetics by addressing how a prosthetic arm “could be a little more than a stick to stand in for a missing arm, a grasping tool, or a sophisticated device with computer- ized sensory respond beyond-human strength or flexibility” (697). Like the manufactured gynoids, engineered tissues and organs are perceived as “normal” body parts comparable to organic body parts. 32 Kathy NGUYEN

Brown further proposes that Kusanagi’s body and other cyborgs and androids are born by a “biomechanical birth from an artificial womb, which blurs the boundaries between birth and manufacturing” (15). Of course, there are problematic undertones in this film due to the explicit – or imbedded – use of sex gynoids; however, I would argue that Oshii’s decision to depict the sexualization of automata is to catechize the nature of reproduction and what it means to replicate entities. As the story unfolds, it is evident that Oshii echoes his technological philosophies of life, death, and re/birth from the first film and transported them into Innocence as he continues his interrogation and depiction of a [bio]mechanical birth with dolls.

Figure 1: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence’s opening credits, revealing the process of assembling artificial, wiring limbs of gynoid bodies. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. Dir. by Oshii Mamoru. Perf. by Ōtsuka Akio and Tanaka Atsuko, Production I.G, 2004. DVD.

Figure 2: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence’s opening credits, showcasing the “final product” of the artificial hand. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. Dir. by Oshii Mamoru. Perf. by Ōtsuka Akio and Tanaka Atsuko, Production I.G, 2004. DVD. 33

Ghost dubbing can be mediated as a form of replication, specifically because of the connection between sex gynoids/dolls and humans, resulting in the re/production of an imperfect replica of the original body. The Kōjinkai gang kidnaps adolescent girls and supplied them to Locus Solus to “ghost dub them, or the “transferring [of one’s] ghosts to gynoids to animate them, producing a more desirable gynoid” (Orbaugh 156), giving them an uncanny human-like quality. While ghost dubbing does “en- dow” androids with a “crude” soul, or ghost, “it eventually destroys the mind of the human original” (156). Though wired machines are the one engaging in the replication process, the film subtly, if not, unravels the prospects on mechanized reproduction that is not initiated through sexual engagements initiated by humans. In the pref- ace of the play, Sex in an Age of Technological Reproduction, Carl Djerassi asks, “But must reproduction always be initiated by sexual intercourse?” (ix). Oshii never strays far away from Donna Haraway’s cyborg figure and its radical, perpetual transfigu- rations and uses the cyborg to delve into nonhuman and non-homogenous forms of sexual reproduction. In Simians, Cyborgs, and Women, Haraway writes: “[s]exual reproduction is one kind of reproductive strategy among many, with costs and bene- fits as a function of the system environment. Ideologies of sexual reproduction can no longer reasonably call on notions of sex and sex role as organic aspects of in natural organisms and families” (162). To think that reproduction involves sexual intercourse and is part of an organic process is outmoded. Analyzing the discussions of female reproduction in Haraway’s “A Manifesto for Cyborgs” and Deryn-Rees Jones’ novel, Quiver, Zoë Brigley furthers this discussion of replication and suggests that Haraway’s cyborg redefines reproduction as non/humans coexist in an age of technology. Brigley argues that “[b]irth is mechanised and cyborg reproduction” is essentially a form of replication, a term that “denies the organic” birthing process (18). Here, Brigley’s analysis parallels with the idea of ghost dubbing. In Innocence, ghost dubbing is only made possible through the commingling of the in/organic; the integrated fusion of the consciousness re/produces the im/material world of information. Without them, replication is not conceivable. Though the replications of sexbots are problematic as they perpetuate outdated notions of gender subservience, David Levy’s book, Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human- Robot Relationships boldly claims that a central development of the future is an emo- tive software that mimics humans’ senses and perception. Innocence, for instance, explores not only the transformations of the body, but probabilities of “posthuman love,” or a “matter of affect” (Orbaugh 155). As such, what does it mean to be human if inorganic and coded flesh experiences sensation?

“Once Their Strings are Cut, They Easily Crumble” The ghost is always concealed in the machine, but for Oshii, the cyborg is the ghost. Haraway’s cyborg “maps the development of machines towards a new mode of being” because as technology continues to change and become updated, human 34 Kathy NGUYEN bodies “fail to remain intact, as modern machines pervade society in invisible forms” (Brigley 18). Only, these machines and mechanized entities are no longer invisible; they have become visible forms of being. Throughout the film, Batō’s investigations serve as a focal point of the blurred intersections between humans and mechanized entities. Although there are blatant violent interplays in the film, Oshii still manages to illustrate the compassion Batō has for nonhumans such as his basset hound and the self-destructive gynoids. For instance, after Kusanagi and Batō save the girl, they engage in a dialogue that quickly becomes intense: Girl: “If the robots made trouble, someone would notice.” Batō: “What about the dolls endowed with souls?” Girl: I didn’t want to become a doll!” Kusanagi: “We weep for the bird’s cry, but not for the blood of a fish. Blessed are those who have a voice. If the dolls could speak, no doubt they’d scream, ‘I didn’t want to become human.” (Innocence) The conversation between the girl, Batō, and Kusanagi becomes philosophical and self-reflective – a noticeable motif in several of Oshii’s films. This conversation, I think, reflects on the title of the film, Innocence. Who is innocent? The girl? Humans? The gynoids? In their analysis of the and dialogue, Brown offers the following interpretation: “In other words, the girl-gynoid interface evokes the loss of innocence rather than its positive assertion. If innocence is to be found here, it is not in the adolescent girls but rather in the gynoids before they have been imprinted by the girls” (50). Kusanagi criticizes the girl’s loud avowal, pondering the fact whether the girl thought about the sacrifices she ordered to rescue her. In fact, Oshii “undercuts” the innocence of young girls as Oshii underscores that humans (the girl) does not understand that mechanized entities are, too, part of humanity (Brown 50). Innocence depicts the ongoing fixation of the perfect, idealized body: the doll. In Kim Toffoletti’s analysis of the “plasticity” of Barbie, they assert that Barbie is a doll that symbolizes “endless transformations and eternal youth, manifested via the consumption of mechanisms of control such as cosmetic surgery” (61). For Toffoletti, Barbie is indicative of a new form of synthetic and technological flesh, capable of transforming themselves. Doll plasticity, in contemporary society, is the body ideal (Toffoletti 61). Going back to the conversation between Batō, Togusa, and Haraway, the three, once again, discuss the hazy distinctions between humans and dolls – a [leit]motif that Oshii refuses to provide a clear “answer” to: Humans are different from robots. That’s an article of faith, like black and white. It’s no more helpful than the basic fact that humans aren’t machines. Unlike industrial robots, the androids and gynoids designed as ‘pets,’ weren’t designed along utilitari- an or practical models. Instead, we model them on a human image, an idealized one at that. Why are humans so obsessed with recreating themselves? (Innocence) 35

Oshii’s fascination of mechanical entities as a mode of being is evident in Innocence. Again, though humans perpetuate anthropocentric ideologies, they seem to have configured themselves to that of nonhumans – mechanical entities, really – as they produce a “technical version” of their bodies to seemingly “perfect” them. In this case, why is it difficult for humans to fathom the idea of coexisting with a future with mechanical/robotic/technical entities? In their study on raising awareness of the importance of “technical objects,” Nandita Biswas Mellamphy asserts that “culture fails to account that there is a human reality in technical reality;” however, Oshii is also aware that there is the “established opposition between culture and nature, human and machine” that are not easy to overcome destabilization, but he chooses to explore how, as Yuk Hui asserts, “humans have always lived in a hybrid environment surrounded by artificial and natural objects” because the synthetic and the natural “are not two separate realms (1). The artificial objects and limbs in the film represent how they change the human experience and existence. The film, according to Brown, enables Oshii to raise the exact question Haraway’s character posed: “Why is it necessary to make robots in our own image? Is it possible to coexist with forms of artificial intelligence without forcing them into the human mold?” (48). Perhaps humans do have machinic desires. During Batō’s and Togusa’s interrogation of Kim at his gothic-influenced yet sur- realistic mansion, audience, again, witnesses Oshii’s obsession with dolls and puppets. Audience later finds out that Kim downloaded his consciousness into a doll, who resembles an updated version of a karakuri ningyō. Like most of the cyborgs and gynoids in the film, Kim affects very little to no emotion and is wired like a Japanese puppet (see Figure 3). His movements are dependent on the wires placed in his sockets located at the back of his neck. Kim’s dialogue to Batō and Togusa reveals the ob-

Figure 3: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence’s opening credits, showcasing the “final product” of the artificial hand. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. Dir. by Oshii Mamoru. Perf. by Ōtsuka Akio and Tanaka Atsuko, Production I.G, 2004. DVD. 36 Kathy NGUYEN session with replicating humans into soulless dolls, which may serve as a direct answer to Haraway’s question: Who’d want that? The definition of a truly beautiful doll is a living, breathing body, devoid of a soul. ‘An unyielding corpse, tiptoeing on the brink of collapse.’ The human is no match for a doll, in its form, its elegance, in motion, its very being. The inadequacies of life’s reality. Perfection is possible only for those without consciousness, or perhaps endowed with infinite consciousness. In other words, for dolls and for gods. (Innocence) Kim’s dialogue posits the very idea of remaining undead by transferring one’s entire information (the consciousness) into an empty vessel, forever preserving it. Orbaugh mentions that while the “emotions in the film are intense,” they are not “show[n] on the surface of bodies; they are always outside any enclosed, autonomous subject, always moving, transferrable” (165). Audiences witness this when they find out that the girl transferred her voice and calls for help onto the Hadaly model gynoids and when Kusanagi downloaded a part of her ghost into the gynoid replicants when she assisted Batō. The dolls, puppets, and gynoids in Innocence can be perceived as commodities that are used and easily discarded by humans. Going back to Toffoletti’s discussion of the Barbie, they assert that Barbie is a “transformer” because Barbie is a liminal figure, “constantly circulating in the ambivalent space between the image and its referent, between the illusion and the real” (58). The dolls and puppets in the film are in-between the living and the dead as they are created by celluloids. In his analysis of Ghost in the Shell and Japanese puppet theater, Christopher Bolton notes that puppets oscillate between the real and the unreal (761). Puppets may look artificial yet Bolton asserts that puppets mirror the emotions and affect of the audience watching the stage. Like Barbie, puppets and dolls become fragile transformers as they occupy a space that offers modes of regeneration. While dolls are fragile and may easily shatter, mechanization has made it possible to upgrade the doll’s body.The downloading of one’s ghost into a doll form can be described as an invasive circuited form of surgical procedure. The body is replaceable but the ghost remains alive. Once the wires are strapped and plugged into the body, information resumes though the flesh has changed. In a similar scene sequence where Kim takes the automaton forms of both Togusa and Batō, later discloses: The doubt is whether a creature that certainly appears to be alive, really is. Alternately, the doubt that a lifeless object might actually live. That’s why dolls haunt us. They are modeled on humans. They are, in fact, nothing but human. They make us face the terror of being reduced to simple mechanisms and matter. In other words, the fear that fundamentally, all humans belong to the void. (Innocence) The image of Kim sitting like a lifeless entity is haunting, but Kim’s character – and the entire scene and dialogue – evokes the visual, hypothetical experience of living 37 in a highly technological world that acknowledges that there are entities beyond the human. The modern world is progressing beyond modernization; however, Kim also realizes that humans are “ultimately blind to the technical connectors that animate them” (Mellamphy). As such, there is a pivotal scene in the film where Batō and Togusa interrogate an informant who knows where Kim is hiding. Togusa reads a stone plaque on a mausoleum wall that has a Buddhist poem carved onto it: “Life and death come and go like marionettes dancing on a table. Once their strings are cut, they easily crumble.” Regardless, the mechanized body – a technical object – is [over]loaded with information. Perhaps due to the events of the first film and witnessing the unification between Kusanagi and the Puppet Master, Batō realizes this and quotes: “‘What the body creates, is as much expression of DNA as the body itself.’ If the essence of life is information carried in DNA, then society and civilization are just colossal memory systems and a metropolis like this one, simply a sprawling memory.” Indeed, Oshii’s depiction of bodies and the unidentified location is based on a networking/ networked culture, preserved and enhanced by information. The netscape is the future; upgrading bodies is an inevitable part of the future.

A Futurescape Resembling the Presentscape Even if the future does embody a networking/networked metropolis, it may not differ much from the present landscape. Advantageous, released in 2015, is an American drama/dystopian/pre-apocalyptic future/science fiction film directed by Jennifer Phang. The movie is set in an undisclosed city in 2041, where the cityscape resembles the networked/networking cityscape in Innocence. The only difference between the films futuristic cities is that while Oshii’s future netscape are enmeshed with wires, digital screens, and neon lights, resembling the postmodern technological industrialized metropolis in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, the visual architecture in Advantageous is subtle and naturalistic with its bleak use of neutral color tones and non-dramatic skyscrapers and digital billboards, which served as a device to fore- shadow the events to come. Phang explicitly depicts that while the future is here, issues such as ageism, gentrification, and sexism continue to exist. The new future, it seems, has never upgraded itself to avoid these issues, gearing the film towards a more realistic social reality. The film follows Gwen (portrayed by Jacqueline Kim, who also co-wrote the film), who is a single mother, working as “the face” for the cosmetic procedures at the Center for Advanced Health and Living. In the film, the digital billboard airs an ad- vertisement, announcing: Here at the center for Advanced Health and Living, our procedure provides a solution for any long-term health concerns. The experience is akin to a seamless jump into a disease-free body of your choosing. Through a lossless, relatively painless process. (Advantageous) 38 Kathy NGUYEN

Though Gwen is comfortable working as “the face” of the company, she experiences financial strains because she is working below the pay scale, unable to afford the tuition for her daughter’s, the precocious Jules Koh (portrayed by Samantha Kim), Arcadia Prep school. Body altering procedures to prevent the aging process is a familiar issue that Phang chooses to address in her film. She interweaves this issue with the possibilities that artificial intelligence and advanced machines will take over human jobs. Gwen is fired from her job because of her age and left with little options other than becoming an egg donor. The film reveals that many women are becoming more and more infer- tile, signifying that organic reproduction will perhaps become obsolete in the future. The film later discloses that women are rapidly losing their jobs and have been returning to the home, depicting a regressive society. In a conversation between Gwen and Isla Cryer (portrayed by Jennifer Ehle), her former boss and possibly a human, the idea that everything in the present future has gone “pure tech” is revealed: Gwen: “Well there must be something in a mere human existence that has value.” Isla: “You and I, in our lifetimes, will see progress 1,000 times greater than the previous century. But, because we’re mere humans, we won’t be able to comprehend it. Humans can only grasp change at a rate they’ve experienced it which is why they are being left behind.” This conversation reveals that while robots, androids, and artificial intelligence are imperative in societal progress, human beings are rapidly disregarded and forced to move backwards. Thus, after hearing Dave Fisher, Gwen’s other boss/colleague, talk about the company’s cosmetic procedure that transfers her mind into a new, younger body, she decides to sign up for it, ensuring her and her daughter’s financial security; however, he also warns her: “This might be a bigger sacrifice than you imagined. Gwen, it’s not like you’re a consciousness in a jar that we’re dumping into another jar. The technology isn’t there yet,” telling her to carefully reconsider. Dave further reveals that the procedure is painful, requiring Gwen to take a shot every two hours for a year. The film cogently addresses – perhaps one of the few films – how the mind-upload/body upgrade is a form of cosmetic/reproductive procedure (see Figure 4). Like the process of ghost dubbing in Innocence, Phang employs the common science fiction trope of consciousness transfers/downloads to further elucidate that while downloading the mind can achieve permanence, there are consequences to achieve that de- sired levels of immortality. Reexploring the themes in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Kathleen Woodward boldly claims that the “ultimate fantasy of technological domination is over the human body, one achieve through biotechnology,” and furthermore, the novel “continues to speak to our society’s dominant fantasies in relation to age today” (287). Following a similar analytical thought, Llewellyn Negrin discusses the connection between cosmetic surgery and women’s identity and states that the “limitation of cosmetic surgery is that it offers a technological solution to a social problem” (25). Woodward’s analysis of Brave New World and Negrin’s asser- 39 tion concerning cosmetic surgery relevantly speak to a society where physically aging is not at all celebratory nor is it considered acceptable, especially for women. Aging, Woodward further critiques, is “derived from the organic realm and a natural part of the “social process” (288). As a process, aging on the biological spectrum, but in a future society where youth and vitality are now re/altered and re/programmable, in/organic bodies remain at a standstill, never moving forward. Gwen even replies to another character: “In fact, the decisions we make in life define us. So, shouldn’t every woman be defined by the totality of her choices? Rather than her race, height, or health? These are things she often cannot control.”

Figure 4: Advantageous’ cosmetic procedure, where Gwen’s entire consciousness is downloaded to a new body. Advantageous. Dir. by Jennifer Phang. Perf. by Jacqueline Kim, Freya Adams, James Urbaniak, Jennifer Ehle, Jennifer Ikeda, and Ken Jeong, Good Neighbors Media, 2016. DVD.

Jules insightfully yet eerily ponders a related question: “Are women really going backwards going forward?” The future, it seems, continue to devalue and control the female body. Gwen later realizes that her termination from the company is due to her aging, an irreversible process that all humans experience. Juxtaposing the scene where Gwen asks her former employers whether she is too old to maintain her job and the scene where Jules appraises a pen her mother gave her in the beginning of the film and telling her mother, “it’s old looking” is a very telling metaphor, one that clouds over the entirety of the film. The scene where Dave takes Gwen and Jules to see Gwen’s new host body resembles a death scene; more specifically, a solemn visit to the morgue (see Figure 5). The lighting and the white screen produce an ominous effect that mirrors the body’s soulless eyes. Though the Center for Advanced Health and Living champions on the procedure for being the “safest alternatives to invasive cosmetic surgery so [one will] have the chance to be the you you were meant to be,” there is a poetic imagery of 40 Kathy NGUYEN death of the previous life, even if the procedure indicates otherwise. Once the consciousness is transferred to an upgraded, younger vessel, the older organic body, limited due to age and wear, is terminally dead. The mind is like a ghost; it is undy- ing and can easily be transferred in and out. The once empty vessel is reborn with a new consciousness, ready to repeat the cyclical process. This is an allegory of the life, death, and re/birth cycle.

Figure 5: Advantageous’ “morgue scene,” where Dave presents the new body to Gwen and Jules. Advantageous. Dir. by Jennifer Phang. Perf. by Jacqueline Kim, Freya Adams, James Urbaniak, Jennifer Ehle, Jennifer Ikeda, and Ken Jeong, Good Neighbors Media, 2016. DVD.

The body becomes decoded and encoded, literally changing its flesh. In Scott Bukatman’s book, Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Post-Modern Science Fiction, they discuss how the body I often “successively – if not simultaneously – addicted to, infected by and wired into the cybernetic system” (243). The body and the human skin changes, deforming both the previous body and identity. After Gwen completes the procedure, for instance, Gwen 2.0 (portrayed by Freya Adams) – a fitting name – returns to the house Gwen shared/shares with Jules. Just as Dave predicted, Gwen 2.0’s personality is vastly different from Gwen, something that Jules is also aware of as the two attempt to resume life prior to the procedure, though the atmosphere is much different. Even if Gwen 1.0 and Jules taped reminders via pictures, paintings, and handwritten notes, Gwen 2.0 does not express motherly affection towards Jules. This creates tension between Gwen 2.0 and Jules. Analyzing several science fiction narratives, Bukatman asserts that the terminal identity remodifies and “retool[s]” the body as the artificial component takes over (244). While memories and the information entered in a downloadable network is never completely lost, the stored data accumulated can change and be forgotten. Viktor Mayer-Schönberger argues that, since human memories are “weak” and terminal, information and memories should be transferred from the 41 brain to an “external storage and retrieval device” (28). This is the mark of the digital future. Rather than relying on the “weak link” – the brain – external drives and/or other digital storages enable the “construction [and preservation] of shared common memory” (Mayer-Schönberger 29). Digital stockpiling is perhaps not terminal because memories are kept frozen while the body is opted for decay. Human flesh is also terminal. Because one’s consciousness is downloadable, memories can be altered. Dave later reveals to Gwen 2.0 that Gwen died as did her awareness during the procedure. The scene where Dave takes Gwen 2.0 to the exact location where he and Gwen went to discuss the procedure in private is vital as the audience now understands the ramifications of the procedure. In the flashback scene, Dave tells Gwen: In order to reproduce your memories, we have to plant electrodes in your brain. And in the brain of the new host. We use a semi-separable feedback loop between the two of you to generate a psych-physiological twin. New neurons, cloned matter. Once the electrodes are removed, the host brain can repair itself because it’s still young. But your older brain can’t. Your particular awareness will cease to exist. Your cloned brain will wake up in the new body with all your memories, and since she knows nothing else, she’ll believe she’s you. (Advantageous) Gwen 2.0 is a new copy of Gwen, but after the downloading process was complete, the two have separate awareness. Before her death, Gwen requested that the part (the admission above) to not be transferred. This is to ensure that Jules’ future will not be affected. Phang’s vision is in line with Bukatman’s assertion of body mutations. The body is terminal because it can easily be rewritten by a machine (Bukatman 244). The body, in fact, is a machine, “hardwiring” the body and its memories. Technology enhances the body. Enhancements, Hogle argues, is based on “invention, redesign, and upgrade capabilities (697). The fill challenges: if the 2.0 version is the ideal and a much better upgrade with vast possibilities, why now delete the older version? In an interview with Mark Asch of The L Magazine, Phang divulges that she wanted to explore a narrative involving the “moving consciousness from body to body” that connected to the “mother-daughter-body-life allegory.” This is quite evident as Gwen repeatedly tells Jules that “mothers do what’s best for their children” and here, I want to return to the discussion of how mind uploads, as a cosmetic surgery, impact the duplication of information. Like Innocence, Advantageous uses social issues such as life, death, and rebirth as backgrounds to examine the effects of mind transplants and body upgrades. The scene where Gwen’s consciousness leaves her body and is uploaded to Gwen 2.0’s brain illustrates how information is cosmetically exchanged and transferred, even if the results prove disastrous. This goes back to the idea of data made flesh and flesh born out of data. In Eugene Thacker’s perspective, the “modern notion of information – most notably in the extropian concept of uploading – does not exclude the body or the biological/material domain from mind or consciousness, but rather takes the ma- 42 Kathy NGUYEN terial world as information” (80). The cities seen in both Innocence and Advantageous are filled with buildings coded with information and it is rather difficult to not be submerged into them, duplicating those very data into bodies. Gwen may have died during the transfer and a portion of her memories may have been deleted, but Gwen 2.0’s vessel is able to sustain the saved memories and the deleted memories are not completely lost as Jules’ own body maintains lost data. Information is never complete nor lost; data is always expanding and flowing into younger, updated vessel – even as problematic as they are – archives them.

The Matrix Reloaded: A Pluggable Non-Coda Uploading/downloading is a re/generated process of sorts. Mary Flanagan uses the term female databodies and digibodies to describe Marcel Duchamp’s painting, The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even, depicting “a self-sustaining mechanical character in perpetual motion,” perhaps suggesting that women can re/produce information (162). Databodies suggest that bodies are modes of information and that data and flesh have been bound to each other. Data will be grafted onto the skin, rendering a hybrid-like informatic body. Bodies produced by information and vice-ver- sa are made possible through the network. The female bodied characters in Innocence and Advantageous represent these databodies as they, along with other entities, reside within the matrices of the network. The network is limitless yet consequential. Data and bodies are updated based on an upgrade – neither completely new nor old – network. But, at the same time, updates will always “brings about various consequences” (63). These are clearly presented in Innocence and Advantageous. Even if highly advanced cosmetic procedures preserve the stored information and memories of an individual, a fragmented [w]hole is lost, creating a new type of mode and vessel. How is information, then, not impacted by the sudden loss and change from the upgrade? What happens if all information and the duplicated information suddenly disappear after databodies and the network crush? Will the network – a mode of being in its own right – enter extinction? But for now, the bodies and information stored matrices of the network are important. That is how humans, for the most part, maintain connection; the mind continues to exist even after multiple cycles of downloads, replication, and upgrades. Yet, what does information look like? How will it look like in the future? Phang and as usual, Oshii, do not provide concrete answers; however, the netscape is something to dive into. As Kusanagi tells Batō before transferring herself out of the gynoid: “Always remember, Batō, whenever you enter the Net, I’ll be by your side.” We are all inhabiting the network, side by side. Both human and mechanical bodies will be upgraded as humanity enters rebirth. Yet at the same time, Laurence Scott asks a compelling question in their book, The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World: “Where do our bodies begin and end in a networked world?” (5). Has there ever been a beginning and ending in the netscape? 43

Works Cited:

1. Advantageous. Directed by Jennifer Phang, performances by Jacqueline Kim, Freya Adams, James Urbaniak, Jennifer Ehle, Jennifer Ikeda, and Ken Jeong, Good Neighbors Media, 2016. 2. Asch, Mark. “The Woman in the Mirror: Talking to Advantageous Director Jennifer Phang.” The L Magazine. thelmagazine.com/2015/06/woman-mirror-talking-advantageous- director-jennifer-phang/. Accessed 31 March 2017. 3. Azuma, Hiroki. General Will 2.0: Rousseau, Freud, Google. Translated by John Person and Naoki Matsuyama. Vertical, Inc., 2014. 4. Bukatman, Scott. Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Post-Modern Science Fiction. Duke University Press, 1993. 5. BBC Radio. “Meet the Cyborgs: Five People Who Have Modified Their Bodies with Techs.” BBC. bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1g2gNvk4Gc4MwYqhtQ8KNlf/meet-the-cyborgs- five-people-who-have-modified-their-bodies-with-tech Accessed 09 Mar. 2017. 6. Bolton, Christopher A. “From Wooden Cyborgs to Celluloid Souls: Mechanical Bodies in Anime and Japanese Puppet Theater.” positions: east asia cultures critique, vol. 10, no. 3, 2002, pp. 729-71. 7. Brigley, Zoë. “Replication, Regeneration or Organic Birth: The Clone in Deryn Rees- Jones’ Quiver and Donna Haraway’s ‘A Cyborg Manifesto.’” Critical Survey, vol. 18, no. 2, 2006, pp. 16-30. 8. Brown, Steven T. Tokyo Cyberpunk: Posthumanism in Japanese Visual Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 9. Chu, Seo-Young. Do Metaphors Dream of Literal Sleep? A Science-Fictional Theory of Representation. Harvard University Press, 2010. 10. Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong. Programming Visions: Software and Memory. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011. 11. ---. Updating to Remain the Same: Habitual New Media. MIT Press, 2011. 12. Djerassi, Carl. Sex in an Age of Technological Reproduction. University of Wisconsin Press, 2008. 13. Flanagan, Mary. “The Bride Stripped Bare to Her Data: Information Flow + Digibodies.” Data Made Flesh: Embodying Information, edited by Robert Mitchell and Phillip Thurtle. Routledge, 2004, pp. 153-80. 14. Gandy, Matthew. “Cyborg Urbanization: Complexity and Monstrosity in the Contemporary City.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, vol. 29, no. 1, 2005, pp. 26-49. 15. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. Directed by Oshii Mamoru, performances by Ōtsuka Akio and Tanaka Atsuko, Production I.G., 2004. 16. Gibson, William. Neuromancer. Ace Books, 1984. 17. Haraway, Donna. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. Routledge, 1991. 18. Hogle, Linda F. “Enhancement Technologies and the Body.” The Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 34, 2005, pp. 695-716. 19. Hui, Yuk. On the Existence of Digital Objects. University of Minnesota Press, 2016. 44 Kathy NGUYEN

20. Levy, David. Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships. Harper Perennial, 2008. 21. Mayer-Schönberger, Viktor. delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age. Princeton University Press, 2009. 22. Mellamphy, Nandita Biswas. “The Funambulist Papers 45 /// Ghost in the Shell-Game: On the Mètic mode of Existence, Inception and Innocence.” The Fundamentalist. thefunambulist. net/cinema/funambulist-papers-46-ghost-in-the-shell-game-on-the-metic-mode-of- existence-inception-and-innocence-by-nandita-biswas-mellamphy#2. Accessed 03 March 2017. 23. Moravec, Hans. Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind. Oxford University Press, 1999. 24. Negrin, Llewellyn. “Cosmetic Surgery and the Eclipse of Identity.” Body & Society, vol. 8, no. 4, 2016, pp. 21-42. 25. Orbaugh, Sharalyn. “Emotional Infectivity: Cyborg Affect and the Limits of the Human.” Mechademia: Limits of the Human Volume 3, edited by Frenchy Lunning, University of Minnesota Press, 2008, pp. 150-72. 26. Thacker, Eugene. “Data Made Flesh: Biotechnology and the Discourse of the Posthuman.” Cultural Critique, vol. 53, 2003, pp. 72-97. 27. Thurtle, Phillip and Robert Mitchell. “Introduction: Data Made Flesh: The Material Poiesis of Informatics.” Data Made Flesh: Embodying Information, edited by Robert Mitchell and Phillip Thurtle. Routledge, 2004, pp. 1-23. 28. ---. “Introduction: Fleshy Data: Semiotics, Information, and the Body.” Semiotic Flesh: Information & the Human Body, edited Phillip Thurtle and Robert Mitchell, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, 2002, pp. 1-7. 29. Toffoletti, Kim. Cyborgs, and Barbie Dolls: Feminism, Popular Culture and the Posthuman Body. I.B. Tauris, 2007. 30. Woodward, Kathleen. “From Virtual Cyborgs to Biological Time Bombs: Technocriticism and the Material World.” Cybersexualities: A Reader on Feminist Theory, Cyborgs and Cyberspace, edited by Jenny Wolmark. Edinburgh University Press, 2011, pp. 280-94.

Note 1. I use the term netscape as a reference to Netscape Navigator, a web browser that was once in competition with Internet Explorer. In this paper, I use netscape to depict how people, things, objects, and animals are living in a modern technological landscape that enables simultaneous connectivity.

Luiza-Maria FILIMON

Dolls, Offsprings, and Automata. Analyzing the Posthuman Experience in Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

Abstract: More than a quarter of a century after its premiere, Mamoru Oshii’s movie Ghost in the Shell (1995) based on Masamune Shirow’s eponymous manga, remains a classic of the science-fiction and (post)cyberpunk genres. With its metaphysical explorations of what it means to be a human once most of the biological output has been digitalized and cyborg-fied, the movie investigated the dichotomies at the core of the human being and of its uncanny relationship with technology, of how both human and machine become intertwined through a mechanic process of quasi-transmogrification. The 2004 sequel Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, which was also directed by Oshii, continues and further expands on the themes introduced in the first movie. If the first followed the actions of the elusive sentient artificial program, the Puppet Master, the sequel is centered on the investigation surrounding a series of murders committed by defective gynoids (female androids designed for sex) that kill their owners and afterwards commit suicide. Innocence is moored in philosophical and metaphorical references reiterating the notions referring not only to what the simulacra (dolls, androids, automata) or the ningyō (“human-shaped figures” (Brown 13)) say about us, but more importantly, to what the simulacra would say if they could talk (Chute paraphrasing Major Motoko Kusanagi). Divided in three parts, the article analyzes the plot of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence through a narrative scheme proposed by Harrison Chute, deconstructing the movie according to four patterns: 1) problem; 2) character; 3) plot / theme; and 4) solution. Afterwards, it refers to its intertextual nature by referencing the books and concepts the movie alludes to directly or indirectly (Auguste Villiers de Luiza-Maria FILIMON l’Isle-Adam’s L’Ève future, Raymond Roussel’s Locus Solus, or Hans Bellmer’s dolls). Last but not least, the article explores the National University of Political Studies posthuman identity by addressing its connections to the human and Public Administration, Bucharest “paraphernalia” – affects, perceptions, sense of self. Email: [email protected] Keywords: anime, ghosts, cyborg, Das Unheimliche, Hadaly, Mamoru Oshii, Masamune Shirow, ningyō. EKPHRASIS, 1/2017 Ghosts in the Cinema Machine pp. 45-66

DOI:10.24193/ekphrasis.17(1).4 Published First Online: 2017/06/30 46 Luiza-Maria FILIMON

“When machines learn to feel, who decides what is human...” Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence Tagline

“Man makes man in his own image.” Norbert Wiener

“Cyborg imagery can suggest a way out of the maze of dualisms in which we have explained our bodies and our tools to ourselves. This is a dream not of a common language, but of a powerful infidel heteroglossia.” Donna Haraway, A Cyborg Manifesto

I. Introduction Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is a rewarding cinematic experience though not very accessible to the casual viewer. Once taken carefully apart, the convoluted plot of a murder mystery investigation reveals the lengths people are willing to go to achieve a human-like experience mediated through an android interface. If in the original Ghost in the Shell, where the protagonist Major Motoko Kusanagi was so far removed from her original organic body as to have forgotten her human body altogether,Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (from now on referred to as Innocence in the text) switches the register from the personal experience of one cyborg to that of a collectivity of simulacra (dolls, puppets, automata, robots, androids, cyborgs). After all, as Director Mamoru Oshii notes: “There are no human beings in “Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence”. The characters are all human-shaped dolls, i.e., robots.” (qtd. in Davis, “Ghost in the Shell 2”).1 Having said this, Oshii sets out to investigate what the robot / ningyō‘s experience can tells us about human nature: “By using the body of the robot / ningyō I thought that exploring this question from the doll’s point of view would help better understand human nature” (qtd in Davis, “Ghost in the Shell 2”). In an attempt to overcome the trappings of a failing “anthropocentric humanism”, Oshii extends the frame of reference to encompass other entities outside the human experience” even though in a world as technologized, mechanized and web-ified as the one portrayed in either of the two Ghost in the Shell movies, one wonders what is left of the human being. As such, he advances the notion “that all forms of life – humans, animals, and robots – are equal”. (qtd. in Brown 198). In attempting to overcome the apparent cascade failure of anthropocentric behavior, Innocence destabiliz- es the spatial and temporal parameters by playfully exposing a liminal world – at the border between aletheia (Greek word for “truth”), lethe (Greek for for “oblivion) and oneiri (Greek word for “dreams”), between aemaeth (Hebrew word for “truth”) and maeth (Hebrew word for “death”). A world that according to Brown, is characterized by “transnational hybridity and geographic indeterminacy” (20). After establishing the context, I turn to the aspects related to the plot followed by the methodology applied in developing this analysis. The first movie set in 2029 fol- 47 lowed the investigations of Major Motoko Kusanagi and of her team members from Section 9 (an intelligence department under the Minister of Internal Affairs) in their attempt to apprehend the hacker known as the Puppet Master. Set three years later, in 2032, the sequel focuses on Batou – the Major’s colleague and friend. In the movie, Batou and his partner, Togusa – Section 9’s only member with the least number of alterations made to his body – are tasked to investigate a series of eight murders committed by gynoids (female androids designed for sex). The murders drew the attention of Aramaki, the head of Section 9 due to the fact that some of the victims had been public officials (i.e.: a politician and a police officer) and therefore, may have been specifically targeted. The two Section 9 investigators find themselves on a quest to solve the mystery behind the enchanting but defective gynoids. A series of Godard-inspired philosophical musings are interspersed throughout their investigation, representing attempts on the part of the characters to make sense of their sur- roundings, to figure out what is real and what is make-belief, what distinguishes a human from a machine, what do those seemingly lifeless nyngyo (“human-shaped figures”) (Brown 13) would say if they could talk, etc. In addition, the movie also reflects on the personal journey of Batou, left adrift and longing for the Major who had disappeared at the end of the first movie, after her merger with the Puppet Master in the vastness of the Net. In other words, the movie is also about coming to terms with the loss of someone that while dearly departed still keeps vigil over those left behind. In Innocence, the Major assumes the role of a guardian angel and intervenes whenever the hero is most in need of a helping hand (as exemplified in several instances during the movie). In addressing the plot of the movie in the first section of the article, I apply the narrative scheme proposed by Harrison Chute. In his review of the movie, Chute deconstructs the story structure not on the basis of temporal criteria but on four issues: 1) problem; 2) characters; 3) plot / theme of the movie; and 4) (re)solution (“Beautiful Darkness”). After presenting an extensive overview of the plot, I refer to the intertextual character of the movie and review the literary references mentioned in the movie. Previously, other authors have also addressed this issue, as seen for example in Brian Ruh’s chapter on Innocence from Stray Dogs of Anime. The Films of Mamoru Oshii (2013), Sharalyn Orbaugh’s article on “Emotional Infectivity: Cyborg Affect and the Limits of the Human” (2008) or Steven T. Brown’s seminal analysis on “Machinic Desires. Hans Bellmer’s Dolls and the Technological Uncanny in Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence” (2010). Finally, in the third section, I address what I have described to as the rapport between machine and human “paraphernalia” – affects, sensations, perceptions, sense of self, fears, anxieties. This subsequent analysis stems from an exchange between one of the human girls that were used by the company to make life- like gynoids and Major Kusanagi which takes places during the climax of the movie. While the girl cries out that she did not want to become a doll, Kusanagi wonders whether the gynoids themselves would have shared a similar feeling. If only they 48 Luiza-Maria FILIMON had a voice to utter their grievances. These last two sections have been influenced by the seminal works of Sharalyn Orbaugh and Steven T. Brown2 on Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence.

II. Plot Synopsis Wilson Rolon describes Innocence as “a personal, noir meditation on the displace- ment of the human soul in a not-so-far future” (35). According to Chute, the story structure is broken into character, plot and theme, problem and solution (“Beautiful Darkness”). At the center, there is a “character problem solved by function of the plot as guided by the theme” (see Fig. 1) (Chute, “Beautiful Darkness”). The robotics company Locus Solus had provided free samples of the prototype model type 2052 “Hadaly” to multiple customers. By the time the movie begins, there had already been eight cases in which the Hadaly androids had killed their respective owners and then killed themselves by formatting their electronic brains and self-destructing. This constitutes the problem at the center of the movie. Why are the gynoids committing these murders? Could it possibly be another hacking instance like in the first movie or a terror plot targeting influential people? Locus Solus had withdrawn the other existing models and their reports had showed no problems related to either their hardware or software. So what is it causing the Hadaly type to malfunction to such a disastrous extent that it infringes on the first and third of Asimov’s law of robotics: 1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; 2) A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; 3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law3. The character problem is presented in the initial credits of the movie, where we are told that: “Batou, an agent of the elite Section 9 Security Force and a being so artificially modified as to be essentially cyborg, is assigned, along with his mostly -hu man partner, Togusa, to investigate a series of gruesome murders” (Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence). Batou’s personal life is depicted in several scenes where we see him in his home environment, taking care of his dog, a basset hound representing Oshii’s own pet, Gabriel. We see, according to Brown, how “Batou affectionately attends to his dog’s needs [...] [while] a mechanical version of the dog with the name Gabriel en- graved on its stand also comes into view” (Brown 17). The absent Major has left Batou unmoored – Orbaugh goes so far as to consider the Major, a “lost love” – though she continues to watch over him from over the expanse of the Net (“Emotional Infectivity”, 156). Even at the end, when the Major appears to help Batou, her presence is only temporary, telling him “that every time he accesses the Net, she is there beside him” (Orbaugh, “Emotional Infectivity” 157). To the always seeming stoic Batou, with his bland / non-communicative cybernetic eyes, the loss of the Major at the end of the previous movie has left a colossal hole in his life. As Chute notes, the loss has also had an effect on how the vibrant and live- 49 ly “Hong-Kong facsimile” of a city from the original movie looks to Batou and to the viewer: “the new city works as a reflection of Batou’s mental landscape” (“Beautiful Darkness”). Batou wonders the city at night; the investigation mostly take places in nocturnal or overcastted avenues; the office where the agents are debriefed is also set in dark hues, almost lacking any sort of spatial recognition – a space “consumed by shadow, it has no geography” (Chute, “Beautiful Darkness”). To Chief Aramaki, Batou’s behavior is evocative of the Major’s psychological struggles from the first movie, advising his partner Togusa to keep a close eye on him. The overall noir effect of the movie, the fact that over 80% of the movie takes place at night can be explained by the fact that when the Major exited Batou’s life, the sun was setting down “and so for Batou, it’s been night ever since” (Chute, “Beautiful Darkness”). The plot works towards a denouement and in Innocence, the plot traces the investigation surrounding the murders committed by the gynoids. Not coincidentally the characters cite from Dante’s Divine Comedy, mirroring Dante and Virgil’s journey to the periphery of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise with every step taken during their investigation. After Batou kills a gynoid that had killed its owner and two other police officers that had attempted to apprehend it, he and Togusa are entrusted to solve the case. The crime lab represents the first stop in their travails to unravel the mystery surrounding the Locus Solus Company (Latin for “solitary place”), where they are greeted by the forensic specialist, Haraway – an homage replica to feminist the- orist Donna Haraway, author of the influential “A Cyborg Manifesto” (Dinello 141). Haraway who has analyzed the gynoid destroyed by Batou earlier in the movie, asks whether the robot had been suicidal.4 Afterwards, Harraway and Togusa discuss whether an android could in fact commit suicide (given the laws of robotics mentioned above)5 with Harraway theorizing on the relation between dolls, children and human self-awareness. The two agents also learn that the gynoid had a special configuration and was in effect a “sexaroid”, intended for sexual activities, having parts that would not have been needed for a basic maid model. More importantly, from their conversation, we also find out that aside from their obvious malfunction, the gynoids “had illegal ghosts downloaded unto them, to make them more human” (Chute, “Beautiful Darkness”).

Fig. 1. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence Story Structure (Source: Chute, “Beautiful Darkness”). 50 Luiza-Maria FILIMON

After leaving the crime lab, Batou and Togusa are dispatched to a new crime scene where the body of Jack Volkerson – a Locus Solus Shipment Inspector – has been found. They suspect the gruesome murder was committed by the Kōjinkai – an offshoot of the Yakuza – as revenge for the fact that a Hadaly model had earlier killed the Kōjinkai’s boss. In fact, the crime was disguised as a revenge killing in order to hide that the Yakuza group was trafficking young girls to the Locus Solus Company, which would then use them in the process of ghost dubbing their “souls” unto the gynoids robots, thus rendering them so life-like and enticing. The murder victim – Jack Volkerson – had tampered with the ethic algorithm of the Hadaly model in order to cause them to malfunction in the hope of drawing the attention of the police. After having hacked Batou’s brain in a failed attempt to discredit the investigation, the viewer is introduced to hacker Kim who proves to be the key to the resolution of the plot. Once in Kim’s domain, Togusa too will get caught up in a cyber-brain invasion of the “virtual experience maze” variety, set up by Kim. To his aid comes Batou, who had earlier escaped Kim’s trap by following the warnings provided by his guardian angel figure, Major Kusanagi. Batou tells Togusa that: “Just like good luck happens three times, bad luck also gives three signs. You don’t see because you don’t want to. Even if you realize, you won’t admit it. If someone tells you, you won’t listen. And you end up with catastrophe. However, in our world, you don’t even get three signs. If you overlook the first sign, that’s the end” (Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence). The climactic moment arrives when Batou goes to the underwater facility of the Locus Solus Company. It is at this point that Major Kusanagi downloads herself into the body of a gynoid and comes to Batou’s help after almost being overcome by the activated gynoids attempting to capture the intruder. After shutting down the operation and setting the submarine on a course out of international waters in order to be intercepted by the Security Services, Batou and the Major unravel the mystery behind Locus Solus and their Hadaly prototype. They find a girl who after releasing her from the ghost-dubbing mechanism (where a replica of the girls’ ghosts / minds is downloaded into the gynoids) tells them how Volkerson – the murder victim from the earlier scene – attempted to help the kidnapped girls by premeditating the gynoids’ malfunctions. Brown concludes that “Volkerson was murdered by the yakuza as a favor to Locus Solus, who sought to get rid of the instigator of the gynoid’s malfunction” (Brown, 22). Chute argues that the act of “[m]irroring our image in our creations without regard for the consequences is a violation of the creations’ agency” (“Beautiful Darkness”). Instead of showing them empathy, the ghost-dubbed dolls are carelessly toyed with and abandoned with no concern for their wellbeing: “We do to them what we will, whether sex, death or a forced birth that overrides identity” (Chute, “Beautiful Darkness”). As for the resolution to main character’s personal journey, Batou finally recon- nects with the Major and gains through the prism of the investigation, a new understanding of the Major who had shed away the skin of her old body and disappeared 51 into the inaccessible recesses of the Net. By the end, Batou no longer thinks in bina- ry terms: in his musings, we see how his reference framework expanded to encompass the gynoids and their sorrow. This aspect is highlighted by his outburst directed at the kidnapped girl who recalled how: “He [Volkerson] said that if the robots create some accidents then somebody will notice. That someone will come help us” (Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence). At which point, Batou draws attention to the injustice committed against the malfunctioning robots: “Don’t you realize what kind of chaos you have caused? I’m not talking just about the humans... Didn’t you think about the dolls who were forced to have malicious ghosts dubbed into them?!” (Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence). This exchange evokes what Brown regards as “the corruption of innocence”, associated by Oshii “with the anthropomorphization of dolls and robots” (24), that have “become necessary companions to people” (Oshii qtd. in Davis, “Ghost in the Shell 2”). After all, as noted in the beginning of the article, Oshii decries the anthropocentric humanism and sets out to construct a world that has stopped being solely about humans. In this way, the movie provides an introspective lamen- tation about the value of life, “what to value in life and how to coexist with others” (Oshii qtd. in Davis, “Ghost in the Shell 2”). The process of uncovering this anthropocentric mystification which Oshii is so keen to deconstruct, one arrives to the idea that – as Friedrich Nietzche has posited – “the human intellect cannot avoid seeing itself in its own perspectives, and only in these,” since “we cannot look around our own corner” (qtd. in Brown 49-50). Given these human trappings, Brown argues that in Innocence, “Oshii suggests a way outside of ourselves that is not conceived metaphysically or in terms of transcendence” but framed around relations of “innocence” (as is the case with the “symbiotic relationships with animals” explored through Batou’s relationship with his dog, Gabriel) (Brown, 49-50). This aspect is also notes by Miller Jr. (77-78) who points out how Innocence: “portray[s] intensely intimate “joint kinships” between humans, animals, and machines. [...] Batou’s intense love and kinship with his dog, which is an electric animal to use Philip K. Dick’s term” (Miller Jr. 77).

III. On the Matter of Intertextuality and Citations in Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence III.1. Issues of Citations The movie is interspersed with multiple quotations through which the characters attempt to make sense of the world around them. In an environment in which memory and reality are not necessarily the most reliable sources, the characters resort to the wisdom of their predecessors. They reference literary and philosophical figures both from Asia and the West. On their way to the forensic lab, they quote Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol (“What’s the point of blaming the mirror if you don’t like what you see?”) and Meiji Era Japanese author and critic Ryokuu Saitou (“The mirror is not a tool for realiz- ing the truth, but for obscuring it”). When they are called to the Volkerson crime scene, 52 Luiza-Maria FILIMON

Batou quotes Sonoko Nakamura (haiku: “Spring day. Taking the carriage back and forth between this world and hereafter”). After Aramaki asks Togusa about Batou’s mental state, the Section 9 Chief quotes Max Weber (“One need not have been Caesar in order to understand Caesar”), François de la Rochefoucauld (“Most people are neither as happy nor as unhappy as they imagine”) and Buddha (“Let one live alone doing no evil, care-free, like an elephant in the elephant forest”). Afterwards, when Batou and Togusa go to investigate the Locus Solus Company in the Etorofu economic zone considered at one point to have been “the biggest information integrating city in the east,” Batou paraphrases Richard Dawkins (“What the individual creates is an expression of the individual, just as the individual is an expression of his genes”). Batou further theorizes that: “If the essence of life is the information that spreads through genes, society and culture are also nothing but huge memory systems”, with the city representing the pinnacle of an external memory devices. At this point, Togusa cites from the Bible, “Psalms” (Chapter 139): “How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than in sand” (Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence). After their arrival at the headquarters of the Locus Solus Company, Togusa quotes from John Milton’s Paradise Lost (“Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks, / In Vallombrosa, where th’Etrurian shades High over-arch’d imbower”)6. When searching for the whereabouts of the hacker Kim, Batou quotes Takao Dayuu, the XVIIth century courtesan, (“I don’t have to remember because I never forget”). In their search for Kim, Togusa finds inscribed on a wall plaque, a verse attributed to the Noh master, Zeami: “Life and death come and go like that of a puppet dancing in front of a stage,/ When the string breaks,/ The puppet falls apart”. The same poem will appear twice more: as a dying message from Kim and in the underwater Locus Solus facility (Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence). In Kim’s mansion where the two agents are faced with Kim’s apparent dead body, Batou sarcastically paraphrases Confucius: “Confucius-sama says you should not sleep like a corpse”. In philosophizing with Kim about the essence of humanity and the reasons behind the ghost-dubbing operation, Kim states that he does not understand why people would try “to put a soul into a doll and imitate a human. If there were such a thing as a truly beautiful doll, it would be flesh and blood without a soul. A corpse at the edges of collapsing, yet standing precariously at its precipice”. He goes one to quote Confucius (“While you do not know life, how can you know about death?”) and La Rochefoucauld (“We usually do not suffer death by choice, but rather by stupidity and custom”). That is to say, Kim continues: “humans die because they can’t help dying but dolls in flesh and blood live, knowing death is a given”. When caught in Kim’s virtual maze, reiterating the previous scene only with a robot copy of Togusa instead of Kim’s android body, Batou quotes from Julien Offray de La Mettrie (“The human body is a machine which winds its springs. It is the living image of perpetual movement”) and Plato (“God ever geometrizes”). Finally when Batou is reunited with Major Kusanagi at the Locus Solus factory, they quote from Ryokuu 53

Saitou (“Some look into a mirror and don’t look evil. It doesn’t reflect evil, but creates it. Namely, you should look down on mirrors, don’t look into them” (Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence). In Brown’s view, the use of these quotes, supported by the repetition of some (see the poem attributed to Zeami) “underscores the function of citationality throughout the film, as well as the performative aspect of animation itself” (Brown qtd. in Ruh, 28). According to Ruh, “[s]uch quotes and references are foundational to the way people today think and communicate and, as Oshii notes, “people aren’t aware of it”. Indeed, this highlights the fact that human cognition and communication is shaped by referencing other things” (212). French film-maker Jean-Luc Godard provides the inspiration for Oshii’s citational aesthetic. The Japanese film-maker explains how: “[t]his desire to include quotes by other authors came from Godard. The text is very important for a film; that I learned from him. It gives a certain richness to cinema because the visual is not all there is” (qtd. in Brown 28). He further adds that: “Thanks to Godard, the spectator can con- coct his own interpretation... The image associated with the text corresponds to a uni- fying act that aims at renewing cinema, that lets it take on new dimensions” (qtd. in Brown 28-29). In Godard’s case, who made use of the citational practice, his films contain a multitude of quotes that are either projected on the screen or performed by various characters. According to Bersani and Dutoin, this technique opens the quoted texts so that they remain in flux: “By citationality picking at literature, he de-monumentalizes it, therefore resurrecting it from the death of finished being, and allows it to circulate – unfinished, always being made, within the open time of film” (Bersano and Dutoit 65 qtd. in Ishii-Gonzales)7. Where Innocence is concerned, Kovacic argues that the movie represents a nodal point where popular culture, cultural research, literature, philosophy and technoscience interconnect. The author also refers to Steven T. Brown, according to whom, by relying on citationality, the movie works in service of a ventril- oquist act conducted by Oshii, an act imbued with a philosophical purpose: “the ven- triloquism of the flows of transnational cultural production” (Kovacic, 12-13). In other words, as Brown so aptly puts it: “the subject becomes a tissue of citations” (228 qtd. in Kovacic 13).

III.2. Intertextual References Outside the citational practices referenced above, the movie also contains a rich trove of intertextual sources. The name of the gynoid manufacturing company Locus Solus, recalls French poet and novelist Raymond Roussel’s novel Locus Solus. The name of the gynoid type – the “Hadaly” model – is a direct reference to the L’Ève Future (The Future Eve) written by French symbolist Auguste Villiers de l’Isle-Ad- am. Other references also include Jacob Grimm’s story about the golem or Renée Descartes’ story about his daughter Francine. The Descartes anecdote is relayed by 54 Luiza-Maria FILIMON

Batou in Haraway’s forensic lab: “You see, Descartes didn’t differentiate between humans and machines or the organic world and the inorganic world. When his daughter died at the age of five he found a doll that looked just like her. He named her Francine and doted on her. There was a story like that” (Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence). In Okuyama’s view, “intertextuality refers to the allusion of the text under exam- ination to other texts” (8). Okuyama grounds his analysis in the theory of semiotics where the meaning of a sing cannot be fully and adequately encompassed, instead “its meaning can be extracted only in relation to other signs” (9). The movie begins with the following epigraph from Villiers de l’Isle-Adam’s L’Ève Future: “If it is true that our gods and our hopes are no longer anything but scientific, is there any reason why our love should not also be so?” Orbaugh notes that “the connections and disjunctures between emotion and science” are at the center of Innocence and questions whether love is “possible only for humans, or are emotions and affect also possible in artificial beings” (“Emotional Infectivity” 150). Hourigan contends that the technological presence that occupies the “narrative content”, inter- locked with the “technological rationalism [present] in its wider conceptual embed- ding reconstructs humanity” (51). At the same time, it also “rejects the metaphysical valuation of humanity through notions of dignity, taboo, respect, affect, and so forth” (Hourigan 51). In turn, “[t]his rejection results in the ghost having the structure of what psychoanalysis calls a ‘symptom’” (Hourigan 51). L’Isle-Adam’s novel is considered to be the first literary instance to introduce the word “android” (in the original “andreid”). In The Future Eve8, a character named Thomas Edison created the perfect woman which unlike the organic counterparts, is designed to loyally take care of her partner. Yoshie Endo considers that given this scientific – patriarchal context governing the relationship between man andwom- an, “the female body under this condition cannot be free from the predefined [...] system” (512). In this context – that does not absolve Villier’s misogynistic literary tendencies – the main issue relates to whether an android – a mechanic body bereft of life – can love and be loved? What of the gynoids with cheap human replicas dubbed into them? While the movie shows the experience of a multitude of non-organic bodies (puppets, dolls, androids, cyborgs, automata, Japanese “[e]ormous dashi karakuri (parade-float mechanical dolls), [m]uch smaller zashiki karakuri (parlor mechanical dolls) or [l]ife-sized butai karakuri (stage mechanical dolls)” (Brown 31-32), etc.), it stops short of providing an entry point into the gynoid’s perspective. Mirroring the lack of agency of l’Isle-Adam’s Hadaly, the Hadaly of Innocence is also limited to a series of corrupted actions caused by malicious ghosts. In the movie, the character Haraway contends that: “The gynoids somehow obtained permission to hurt people. Therefore, they must end their lives as a result of breaking the law” (Ghost in the Shell: Innocence). Haraway considers that the gynoid’s act of self-destruction would constitute a suicide only if one wants to stress “the difference between human and machines”, further noting that: “Over the last few years, the number of robot related in- 55 cidents has been rising sharply. Most noticeably in petbot models” (Ghost in the Shell: Innocence). While the malfunctions can be attributed to various objective causes (“vi- ral or micro-organism infection in the nervous system, human error during production, aging parts”), people also play a role in the robot’s deterioration. These mechanized companions are carelessly abandoned without being given so much as a single thought when all they want is precisely not be discarded: “[p]eople throw robots away when they don’t need them anymore. They keep buying new ones every time a new model comes out. Some of the discarded ones become vagrant and they deterio- rate without maintenance” (Haraway in Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence). Returning to the plot of Tomorrow Eve, after inventing the “perfect woman”, Edison decides to regale her to his good friend, Lord Ewald who is nursing a broken heart. According to Orbaugh’s account of the story: Lord Ewald “ha[d] been mortal- ly disappointed by his real mistress, Alicia, and intends to commit suicide. Edison calls his creation “Hadaly” [erroneously] meaning “ideal” in Arabic. He reshapes her to be an exact replica of Ewald’s mistress in every respect except character – while the flesh-and-blood woman “has no soul”, Hadaly has a mind and soul worthy of Ewald’s love” (“Frankenstein”, 97). L’Isle-Adam’s Hadaly has also been subjected to an avant-le-lettre ghost-dubbing process. The medium Sowana – an acquaintance of Edison – is responsible for Hadaly’s lively expressions: she had channeled Hadaly’s body, thus “imparting to the andreid a soul” (Orbaugh, “Frankenstein” 100). This echoes the theme of Innocence, summarized in Haraway’s explanation of the relation between the abnormal behavior of derelict pet-robots and their innate desire to take care of their owners and of being taken care in return. Edison attempts to convince Lord Ewald that “an artificial life form can be worth loving” by describing Hadaly in the finest details. As Orbaugh describes the scene: “Edison reveals every aspect of her composition to Ewald, opening Hadaly up to show Ewald the wires, motors, in- ductors, and miniature phonographs that constitute her “organs” (“Frankestein” 97). In the process, Mary Ann Doane notes that: “Lord Ewald’s final doubts about the mechanical nature of what seemed to him a living woman are dispelled in a horri- ble recognition of the compatibility of technology and desire” (111 qtd. in Orbaugh, “Frankestein” 97). In the end, Lord Ewald accepts the beautiful mechanical Hadaly only to tragically lose her during a fatidic shipwreck. In Innoncence, Oshii’s turns Edison’s obsession and perversion with the perfect woman on its head, presenting through a “scanner darkly”, the devastating consequences of such violent delights that men tend to engage in far too superficially without regard to the people / objects / dolls subjected to their cruel whims. As Orbaugh argues in her study on the evolution of body and city in science fiction narratives: “The “thousands and thousands” of sweet-looking gynoids are created for the purposes of satisfying men’s lust, and are made to look young and innocent to enhance that effect. And, ironically, all the violence and horror of the crimes that open the film is ultimately traced to an organic human who is, undeniably, innocent – both in the 56 Luiza-Maria FILIMON

sense of having been kidnapped, sold, and forced to provide the model for the ghost dubbing; and in the sense of being too young and unthinking to realize that her strategy for escape would result in horrific pain for others” (“Frankenstein” 100). In another instance of intertextuality, the gynoid manufacturing company shares the same name with Raymond Roussel’s novel Locus Solus (Solitary Place) (1914). In this sense, the hacker Kim resembles Canterel, the protagonist of the novel. Kim’s mansion also evokes the setting ofLocus Solus, being depicted as an exercise in surrealism: “filled with a wide assortment of simulacra, ranging from trompe l’oeil paintings to holographs” (Brown 21). In the postscript to Michel Foucault’s Death and the Labirinth. The World of Raymond Roussel, we find a summarization of Russell’s novel that describes how: “A prominent scientist and inventor, Martial Canterel, has invited a group of colleagues to visit the park of his country estate, Locus Solus. As the group tours the estate, Canterel shows them inventions of ever-increasing complexity and strangeness” (Ashbery 198-199). Similarly in Kim’s mansion, the more the two protagonists get trapped in the virtual maze, the horrific the experience becomes. In the novel, Ashbery remarks how the showcased inventions9 are “invariably followed by explanation, the cold hysteria of the former giving way to the innumerable ramifications of the latter” (199). Finally, the piece of resistance comprises on the Locus Solus estate comprises of eight tableaux vivants that Canterel fitted in a glass cage. From Ashbery’s account, the reader finds out “that the actors are actually dead people whom Canterel has revived with ‚resurrectine’, a fluid of his invention which if injected into a fresh corpse causes it continually to act out the most important incident of its life” (199). The inventor Canterel tells the gathering the secret surrounding the tableaus filled with resurrected people, describing them as instances “inspired by affecting stories” (Orbaugh, “Emotional Infectivity” 171). The novel Locus Solus is also reminiscent of the late Project Ito / Satoshi Ito’s steampunk novel Shisha no Teikoku (The Empire of Corpses) which takes places in an alternate XVIIIth century in which Victor Frakenstein invented a revolutionary method to reanimate the corpses and fitting them with a soul. His creation is destroyed and his work is lost to the world. Meanwhile, another method for reanimating corpses – the Necroware – imbues the bodies with an artificial soul that can be upgraded similarly to a computer program. These operation leaves the newly resurrected as functional automatons. A century later, the Necroware has become a full-blown profitable industry after being refined and updated daily by a machine called Charles Babbage. Returning to Innocence, in Kim’s mansion, Batou and Togusa’s are trapped in a virtual labyrinth which has them experience a series of three increasingly bizarre de- ja-vús. It is at this point that Batou receives a warning from Major Kusanagi, who had placed a series of clues designed to draw Batou’s attention, such as his dog and the body of the little girl she had last inhabited at the end of the first movie. When Batou and Togusa first arrive to Kim’s mansion, they meet the inanimate little girl who has 57 the word “aemaeth” (Hebrew word for “truth”) placed in front of her. In the second iteration, the letters “ae” have been removed and the word left is “maeth” (Hebrew word for “death”). After escaping the Kim’s virtual trap, Batou recalls the story of the golem: “In Jacob Grimm’s stories... the golem was imbued with life from the word aemaeth written on its forehead. In other words, “truth”. But it then had its prefix “ae” removed, so it now said maeth. Specifically, it had “death” written on it, and the -go lem returned to lifeless clay. That was the angel’s voice saying there is no truth in this mansion” (Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence). Oshii’s movie and the novel Locus Solus are connected not only by the name of the company and Kim’s propensity for tableaux vivant similar to Russell’s Canterel, but also by the very act of instilling the inanimate with life. Oshii reiterates during several points in the movie, the obsession with renewal and decay, life and death, memory and damnatio memoriae. In all the instances mentioned above, including the Empire of the Corpses, mankind’s need and involuntary reflex to overcome Darwin’s postulates become apparent. After all, a machine made in the guise of man is nothing but an attempt to bypass the biologic trappings of an organic structure that begins its entropic devolution from the moment it is borne onto this world.

IV. Robots and Human “Paraphernalia” Based on Donna Haraway’s theorization, Wierzbowski considers that cyborgs are located in a world “ambiguosly natural and crafted” (1). In other words, we find them in a world that thrives on the confusing dichotomy “between what simply is and what is constructed” (Wierzbowski, 1), what is alive and what is merely animated. The final scene ofInnocence finds Batou reunited with his affectionate dog, Gabriel which had been staying for the duration of the investigation with Togusa’s family. In the scene, we see Batou holding his basset hound while looking at a touching family portrait between a parent, daughter and her doll: Togusa embraces his daughter, who, in turn, embraces the Western-looking doll she just received from his father. In “The Cult Film as Affective Technology: Anime and Oshii Mamoru’s Innocence”, Orbaugh notes how this scene underscores “a critical question” that Oshii posed and deconstructed throughout the movie that addresses “what is it that loves what?” (94). Oshii investigates whether affect and affection are limited only to humans and organic beings or whether they are also present in artificial bodies. In exchange, this exploration deconstructs other questions that deal with “what counts as life, and where do we draw the line between animate and inanimate?” (Orbaugh, “The Cult Film” 94). In the movie, we have multiple instances where the inanimate body “comes alive”10 as seen with both the karakuri ningyô (automaton)11 and the gynoid. Their movement and animation is designed to remind us that these animated bodies are not supposed to mimic those of humans. As Orbaugh points out, “the exaggerated ball-joint construction of gynoids accentuates this difference. These figures look not alive, but animated” (“The Cult Film” 94). 58 Luiza-Maria FILIMON

Up until its last frames, the movie has represented a world characterized by its liminal content. The characters straddle “a borderline place” (Oshii qtd. in Brown 21) – the narrow cusp between real and deceit, between the assuredness brought by one’s sense of self and oblivion, between the material perceptions and the uncertainty that all our reactions are a by-product of a troubleshooting system. Oshii himself explains that he has been drawn to the notion of “borders”, which he regards as “imaginary space-time continuums”: “somewhere that is not here, sometime that is not now [koko ja nai dokoka, ima de nai itsuka]” where the characters “are nowhere and somewhere at the same time” (qtd. in Brown 20-21). What is Oshii trying to accomplish by showcasing this world infected with human affects? Though in the vast expanse of the world, humans are no longer fully in control of their bodies and of their minds – as the movie showcases in at least three instances (when Batou hacks the Kojinkai members’ cy- berbrains, when Kim hacks Batou in the market shop, and when Kim traps Batou and Togusa in the virtual maze) – they still pretend to be in control. In return, this false assurance in themselves also infects and affects the very machines and mechanized parts built around themselves and within themselves. In the case of our main characters, they follow closely on the steps of Dante and Virgil and travel into the bowls of a decaying yet still vibrant city. They go so far as to submerge themselves – especially in Batou’s case – to the murky depths where the Locus Solus facility is located, far from any prying eyes. These darkest places reveal man’s most secret desires, fears and longings; they provide an opportunity for self-knowledge and self-actualization. It is here that Batou and Major Kusanagi are finally reunited. Both in the first Ghost in the Shell as well as in Innocence, the bottom of the dark sea provides an opportunity for the characters not only to find some clues to solve their investigations, but more importantly, it is a space where they can settle their qualms and expand their horizons. In Batou’s case, this experience teaches him that one’s existence can no longer be subsumed to black and white hues. At this point, the issue of the uncanny intervenes in this attempt of deconstructing the movie’s themes. As noted in another article: “The subject’s posthuman [...] features – enabled in some cases through a metamorphosis (of biological or artificial origins) – trigger in the “base human” similar symptoms to those evoked by the “Uncanny Valley” effect on “human-like-but-not-quite” robots – namely revulsion and rejection” (Filimon 97). As seen in the case of unfortunate gynoids, the uncanny is not limited only to feelings of revulsion and rejection, but can also trigger feelings of lust, attraction and titillation. Oshii’s inclusion of the uncanny experience inInnocence is present in several instances such as those identified by Brown in his lengthy and comprehensive analysis of the movie. Consequently, Brown finds that the uncanny is evoked “on many levels, for example, in terms of the repetition of déja vu, the blurring of boundaries between life and death, animate and inanimate, [real and simulacra], and the doubling of the self in the figure of the doppelgänger” (14). 59

What is the relation between the uncanny and the human affects? At the most basic level, the uncanny emerges when bodies bereft of a ghost and programmed to have a particular raison d’être, develop what can only be regarded as human affec- tations. As Haraway observed, these feelings (of pain, fear, abandonment, despera- tion) are malfunctions that are not specified in their original programming. During the movie, this aspect in captured by the repeated iteration of Zeami’s poem: “Life and death come and go like marionettes dancing on a table. Once their strings are cut, they easily crumble”. In analyzing the meaning of this poem, Brown notes that it contains: “a comparison with the situation of a person trapped in the karmic cycle of life and death. The manipulation of a marionette on a stage may produce various visual effects, but the puppet doesn’t actually move on its own. It functions because of the strings used to manipulate it. The sense, then, is that if a string should break, it all will collapse into a heap” (28). No one is more aware of the fact that everything will fall apart if the strings are cut than the mostly human Togusa. At various points in the movie, he acts as a man possessed by a constant fear about his and his family’s wellbeing, having his faith tested on several occasions: 1) because of Batou during their tempestuous visit at the Kojinkai; and 2) by Kim during their stay in the hacker’s mansion, where he relieves a series of déja-vus courtesy of the virtual maze. In this world where the organic has merged with the mechanic, both the physical brains and the ghosts can be tempered with. In Brown’s view, the repetitive scene in which Batou and Togusa are trapped, becomes more acute with each installment to the point that in the subsequent loops, Kim’s android body is replaced by automaton-like versions of Togusa and Batou (35). In this regard, the uncanny has taken the form of the doppelgänger (Brown 35). According to Bennet and Royle: “The double is paradoxically both a promise of immortality (look, there’s my double, I can be reproduced, I can live forever) and a harbinger of death (look, there I am, no longer me here, but there: I am about to die, or else I must be dead already”12) (39 qtd. in Brown 35). What does it mean for an automaton to develop emotions? Is it only a reaction to an external contamination or a side-effect of defective human programming? Orbaugh analyses Oshii’s depiction of “the nature of the affect” by introducing the concept of “infectivity” (“Emotional Infectivity”,167). In her view, “[i]nfectivity” refers to the ability of a pathogen to establish an infection”, being careful to distinguish it from “virulence,” which refers to the degree of damage done once the infection is established ” (Orbaugh, “Emotional Infectivity” 167). Orbaugh refers to infectivity as means to understand that what is seen as “autonomous, clean, and purely human” can be, in actuality, “multiply invaded, radically hybrid” (“Emotional Infectivity” 167). In her view this means that “[t]he “insides” we imagine as producing our human subjectivity and affect are, in fact, inhabited by millions of nonhuman creatures” 60 Luiza-Maria FILIMON

(Orbaugh, “Emotional Infectivity” 167-168). Given than we contain “multitudes” and are unaware of the infective pathogens inhabiting our bodies, then, mutatis mutandis, who is to say that our very own affects are not similarly infecting other bodies, either organic or mechanic, blood related or not? In a world where the human body has become entirely transitive and easily subjected to artificial improvements and improvisations, where memory can easily be hacked, Oshii believes that omoi (meaning both “thought” and “feeling / emotion”) is the thing that still remains (Orbaugh, “Emotional Infectivity” 161). In her analysis, Orbaugh uses omoi understood as “affect”, citing Oshii’s position on this issue. According to Oshii, “Even if we are already resigned to the loss of [the body and memory], I believe that affect remains (omoi ga nokoru). It may be some kind of feeling toward a particular woman, or toward the dog who lives with you, or toward the body you have lost” (qtd. in Orbaugh, “Emotional Infectivity” 161). In Innocence, Oshii depicts a posthuman experience that is fragile, frail and vulnerable. It can be easily corrupted and terminated by malicious software. It can, as seen in the first movie, preprogram an entire life filled with memories about a happy but non-existent family life. In the movie, this uncertainty is speculated by hacker Kim who questions whether the protagonists are right to think that they escaped his carefully plotted trap or whether they are still stuck in his maze. For Batou, a “whisper” in his ghost assures him that they are no longer trapped. The posthuman experience imagined by Oshii is a deceitful existence, far from being an ideal or pleasant experience. When deconstructing the posthuman and uncanny connections in Innocence, Brown addresses the “issue in terms of the blurring of boundaries between life and death” (34). In the movie, this indeterminacy is pointed out by hacker Kim who questions “whether a creature that certainly appears to be alive, really is” or whether “a lifeless object might actually live”: “That’s why” – Kim continues – “dolls haunt us. They are modeled on humans. They are in fact, nothing but human. They make us face the terror of being reduced to simple mechanisms and matter. [...] “the fear that, fundamentally, all humans belong to the void” (qtd. in Brown 34). In Rolon’s view, Kim’s musings about the limits of “human cognition and the perfection of dolls” echo an earlier scene in the movie where, where in Haraway’s lab, Batou recalls that René Descartes had allegedly substituted his deceased five year old daughter with “a surrogate doll” (45). In the same scene, Haraway’s conversation with Togusa also revolves around one’s capacity to clearly distinguish between humans and machines”. As Rolon suggests, “[o]ne can argue that Descartes has proven Kim right in asserting a projection of his daughter onto an inanimate doll – the doll is not human, nor is it Descartes’ biological daughter (45). Similarly, “Kim’s concern with soulless dolls” is also mirrored in Descartes’ preoccupation for “incongruities in human perceptions” which he investigated in his Meditations on First Philosophy (45). 61

Not all “artificial” things are created equal. Dolls, puppets, automata, cyborgs, androids, children, pets enjoy various degrees of agency, or in some of them, none at all. We can see this being reflected in our relations with machines, with our offspring as well as in the offspring’s relation to its dolls. The character Haraway – mirroring Oshii’s own view on the subject – tries to explain to Togusa how a belief like ““Humans are different from robots” [...] is no more profound than thinking “white is not black” (Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence). She further notes how unlike their industrial counterparts, petbots are “built free from utilitarianism and pragmatism” which makes her wonder: “Why are they human-shaped? Why did they need to be made in the image of the ideal human body?; [W]hy humans devote so much effort into making something similar to themselves.” (Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence). In order to better illustrate this issue, she observes how children, similarly, defy human convention, how they stray away from being a fully realized human. If the human is understood as that which “has an established self and acts according to its mind”, then, the child represents “an initial phase of a human being who lives without any concept of norms” (Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence). Similarly, she contrasts the relation between human and robot, human and child, child and doll: “The doll a girl uses to play house is not a substitute for an actual baby, nor is it a tool for practicing parenting. [...]. Rather, playing with dolls and parenting might just be similar (Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence). Consequently, she concludes that in a way, parenting can be seen as a method “to create an android” (Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence). In a sense, the child and the android represent two extremes on a specter. In other words, they refer to “human becoming”. Paraphrasing Waldby, both in they own way reflect “possible human futures” that are entirely dependent on the “modes of embodiment, reproduction, and living process” (36). Both Kim and Haraway’s soliloquies are critical of the human nature and of the great lengths it is willing to go to achieve immortality – reflected in either reproduction or replication. As seen in Innocence, in order to achieve this “ancient dream”, man is willing to irredeemably compromise itself as well as to condemn to the void of existence13, those creations made in its own image are condemned to the void of existence. The gynoids and the young girls, who are brainwashed and have their minds ultimately destroyed in the process of ghost-dubbing, are both victims alike. In this regard, Brown observes how “the girl-gynoid interface evokes the loss of innocence rather than its positive assertion” (50). The real culprits have no name and no face since they are only a small link in the conveyor belt of supply and demand, forever searching for the ideal play toy. In this world of imperfect replicas, malfunctioning bodies are given no regard. This act of creation and subsequent abandonment on the part of the selfish man-playing-God is regarded by Haraway, Batou and Kim as an ultimate betrayal on the part of the creator. Just like children get bored from playing with their dolls and switch to newer and prettier models, so does the man-God. 62 Luiza-Maria FILIMON

At the end of the day, though one tries to instill life into inert objects and even go so far as to expect an animated reaction from them, it would still be better for the doll to remain a doll. Otherwise, the burden becomes too heavy. After all, “dolls are models of [the] human, and [this] means they are nothing but humans themselves. The fear that humans might merely be the sum of simple clockwork tricks and substanc- es... In other words the fear of the phenomenon called “human”... essentially belongs to vanity” (Kim in Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence). The movie aptly illustrates that man is rarely selfless and empathetic. Too easily tempted by the prospect of a potentially profitable forbidden fruit, he easily breaks taboos, leaving the puppet to crumble from its far too fragile strings. When Oshii says that the affect remains, one can look at this syntagma and see both a blessing and a curse. For some, like, for example, in the case of Batou’s relation with his basset hound and the Major, the affect represents a reason to keep living (Orbaugh, “Emotional Infectivity” 168), while for others, it is a gateway towards certain doom (as in the case of the gynoids and of the little girls).

V. Conclusions The overarching theme of this article has focused on the notion that the posthuman experience laid out in Innocence, is a corrupted experience. As the title of the movie shows, the ningyō – including here even the children from Haraway’s mono- logue and the girls kidnapped by the Kojinkai – are innocent, their existence cannot escape the taint associated with the human touch. So far, the Major remains the only one who has managed to escape from her literal (since her body and data were propriety of the government) and metaphysical shackles and thus evolve within the infinite data streams of the cyberspace (“[in] the crack of the uniform matrix. Somewhere in the vast net, growing together with its whole domain” – Batou in Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence). Regarding the Major’s relationship with Batou, Brown quotes Yamada Masaki – author of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence: After the Long Goodbye – who observes that: “He just wants to meet his angel, [Kusanagi] Motoko. It doesn’t really matter whether their relationship is a conventional romance or not. You see, their love might seem cold to humans, but what is between them is no longer human, and now very innocent” (51). It is thanks to the Major that the seeming stoic and impassible Batou expands his understanding of the broken and ghost-diseased gynoids. Before returning once more to the vastness of the Net, the Major muses that: “You cry for bird’s blood, but not for fish blood. Fortunate the ones with voice. If the dolls also had voices... they would have screamed: “I didn’t want to become human!” (Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence). In Masaki’s view, innocence can be recuperated only outside the human experience, a notion that would contradict the initial assessment according to which the posthuman experience is corrupted. But is it not man that corrupts his innocent creations in the first place? In the human shaped figure, man has managed to replicate itself, but only to a certain degree. It is true that an existence subjected to the whims of a selfish 63 creator will be burdened with its share of suffering, but in the interstices that separate the posthuman from the human, the latter can trample, but cannot linger since his existence is finite after all. In other words, if not for the ghost-dubbing corruption, the gynoids would be innocent (Brown 50). This aspect reveals the dualities, paradoxes and limitations of the human experience which seeks to overcome them in anything else but itself. As I have attempted to show in this article,Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence remains a cult movie and a staple of the science-fiction / cyberpunk genre. Paraphrasing Ernest Mathjis, Innocence “creates an understanding for ambiguity, multitudes, and incompleteness” (qtd. in Orbaugh,“The Cult Film” 94). According to Orbaugh, in Innocence, Mamoru Oshii accomplishes “an understanding for ontological ambiguity, through contrasting visual dimensions and multiple simultaneous interpretive possibilities, leaving the viewer with no single conclusive message” (“The Cult Film” 94-95). Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence provides a fresh experience with every new viewing and avoids the trappings of anachronism. While it contains a futuristic oriental technopo- lis with a dystopian underlay, it is not about the gadgets from a distant future, which as Baudrillard would say, would have been rendered obsolete by the contemporane- ous technological advancements. Instead, the movie represents a philosophical cinematic experience about us, our place in the world, the connections between each other, and between us and our creations, or better said, between us and our dependents. These relations reveal the paradox between what Lisa Bode describes as “living and working in dehumanising systems” (qtd. in Brown 53) and living and working in order to override the prospects of a rapid descent into dehumanization. Ironically, the solution to this quandary would be to abandoned our human shells and become human-shaped dolls. In this way, we would attempt to overcome the predisposition for Darwinistic determinism as well as our own failing moral programming. It would seem that our entire mechanized “papier mâché” experiment carries within itself our very own pathogen agents. For Oshii, the debugging process of the ghosts will forever be a work in progress. Man might lose himself in the vastness of the cyberspace and abuse his companions – just like he also tends to ruin his progenies. Yet, as long as he inhabits the human / posthuman duality, man remains in – what Brown describes as – “a constant state of revision – contingent, fluid, and in between humans, animals, and machine – a “nomadic subject” that emerges in relation to a wide range of nonhuman others” (185).

Notes 1 Parts of this quote are also cited in the beginning of Steven T. Brown’s chapter, “Part I. Machinic Desires. Hans Bellmer’s Dolls and the Technological Uncanny in Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence”, Tokyo Cyberpunk. Posthumanism in Japanese Visual Culture, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, p. 13; and Fréderic Clément, Machines Désirées. La représentation du féminin dans le films d’animation Ghost in the Shell de Mamoru Oshii, L’Harmattan, 2011, p. 9. 64 Luiza-Maria FILIMON

2 From Brown’s Tokyo Cyberpunk. Posthumanism in Japanese Visual Culture, I cite primarily his seminal chapter on Innocence: “Part I. Machinic Desires. Hans Bellmer’s Dolls and the Tech- nological Uncanny in Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence.”, (pp. 13-53); “Conclusion. Software in a Body. Critical Posthumanism and Serial Experiments Lain” (pp. 157-185); and the notes on “Part I. Machinic Desires” (pp. 190-200). 3 See Isaac Asimov, I, Robot, Gnome Press, 1950. 4 In the first scene, we are shown that after attempting to attack Batou, a voice coming from the gynoid is asking for help (tasukete tasukete) and afterwards it rips open her chest, exposing the internal mechanics. 5 Haraway explains how: “The gynoids somehow obtained permission to hurt people. There- fore, they must end their lives as a result of breaking the third law (Protect your own existence as long as you do not harm humans” (Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence). 6 Brown also refers to this quote: “His legions, angel forms, who lay entranced, thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks” (27). For the rest of the citations and references to the sources see: Brown, 26-27; 193. 7 See: Leo Barsani and Ulysse Dutoit, “Forming Couples (Contempt)”, Forms of Being: Cinema, Aesthetics, Subjectivity, BFI Publishing, 2004. 8 Doane regards Future Eve as “the exemplary forerunner of the cinematic representation of the mechanical woman” (111 qtd. in Orbaugh, 97). 9 Among the inventions, the guests find: “an aerial pile driver which is constructing a mosaic of teeth and a huge glass diamond filled with water in which float a dancing girl, a hairless cat named Khóng-dek-lèn, and the preserved head of Danton” (Ashbery, 199). 10 See for example: the “mechanical automaton (karakuri ningyô) from Japan’s past that mimics human movement and behavior (serving tea); gigantic mechanical animals in a parade, moving their heads and bodies as the parade snakes through the city; and, most obviously, the gynoid dolls that appear throughout the film” (Orbaugh, “The Cult Film”, 94). 11 According to Brown, the movie exhibits three types of karakuri ningyô: dashi karakuri (giant “parade-float mechanical dolls”); zashiki karakuri (smaller “parlor mechanical dolls”); and butai karakuri (life-sized “stage mechanical dolls”) (32). 12 See: Bennett, Andrew, and Nicholas Royle,An Introduction to Literature, Criticism, and Theory (Third Edition), Pearson Longman, 2004. 13 Or, as in our present case, to condemn them to the whims of naive ghosts.

Works Cited:

1. Ashbery, John. “Postscript: On Raymond Roussel.” Death and the Labyrinth. The World of Raymond Roussel, authored by Michel Foucault, translated by Charles Ruas, Continuum, 2004 / 1986, pp. 189-204. 2. Asimov, Isaac. I, Robot. Gnome Press, 1950. 3. Brown, Steven T. Tokyo Cyberpunk. Posthumanism in Japanese Visual Culture, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 4. Clément, Fréderic. Machines Désirées. La représentation du féminin dans le films d’animation Ghost in the Shell de Mamoru Oshii. L’Harmattan, 2011. 5. Dinello, Daniel. Technophobia! Science Fiction Visions of Posthuman Technology. University of Texas Press, 2005. 65

6. Doane, Mary-Anne. “Technophilia: Technology, Representation, and the Feminine”. The Gendered Cyborg: A Reader, edited by Gill Kirkup, Linda Janes, Kath Woodward, and Fiona Hovenden, Routledge, 2000, pp. 110-121. 7. Endo, Yoshie. “Ambivalent Portrayals of Female Cyborgs in Oshii Mamoru’s Ghost in the Shell and Innocence.” Journal of Literature and Arts Studies, vol. 2, no. 5, May 2012, pp. 507-519. 8. Filimon, Luiza-Maria. “A Subversive Potpourri. Concrete Revolutio or When the Phantasmagoria Turns Political.” Ekphrasis, vol. 15, no. 1, 2016, pp. 86-109. 9. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. Dir. Mamoru Oshii. Go Fish Pictures. 2004. Film. 10. Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century”. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. The Reinvention of Nature, Routledge, 1991, pp. 149-182. 11. Hourigan, Daniel. “Ghost in the Shell 2, Technicity and the Subject.” Film-Philosophy, vol. 17, no. 1, 2013, pp. 51-67. 12. Kovacic, Mateja. “Questioning Identity, Humanity and Culture through Japanese Anime.” The IAFOR Journal of Arts and Humanities, vol. 2, no. 1, Fall 2014, pp. 1-19. 13. Miller, Jr., Gerald Alva. Exploring the Limits of the Human through Science Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. 14. Okuyama, Yoshiko. Japanese Mythology in Film. A Semiotic Approach to Reading Japanese Film and Anime. Lexington Books, 2015. 15. Orbaugh, Sharalyn. “The Cult Film as Affective Technology: Anime and Oshii Mamoru’s Innocence.” Science Fiction Double Feature. The Science Fiction Film as Cult Text, edited by J.P. Telotte and Gerald Duchovnay, Liverpool University Press, 2015, pp. 84-97. 16. Orbaugh, Sharalyn. “Emotional Infectivity: Cyborg Affect and the Limits of the Human.” Mechademia, vol. 3, 2008, pp. 150-172. 17. Orbaugh, Sharalyn “Frankenstein and the Cyborg Metropolis: The Evolution of Body and City in Science Fiction Narratives.” Cinema Anime, edited by Steven T. Brown, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp. 61-112. 18. Ruh, Brian. “Chapter 9. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004)”. Stray Dogs of Anime. The Films of Mamoru Oshii (Second Edition), Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 197-216. 19. Waldby, Catherine. “The Instruments of Life: Frankenstein and Cyberculture”. Prefiguring Cyberculture. An Intellectual History, edited by Darren Tofts, Annemarie Jonson, and Alessio Cavallaro, The MIT Press, 2002, pp. 28-37.

Websites: 20. Chute, Harrison. “Beautiful Darkness: Analysis of Ghost in the Shell 2,” YouTube, uploaded by Harrison Chute, 31 December 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ4uugLUkeM. Accessed 14 December 2016. 21. Davis, Lawrence. “Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence.” Splash Magazines, www.lasplash.com/ publish/Film_106/Ghost_in_the_Shell_2_Innocence_printer.php. Accessed 14 December 2016. 22. Ishii-Gonzales, Sam. “Writing Le Mépris”. Godard Montage. 4 October 2012, godardmon- tage.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/writing-le-mepris/. Accessed 15 December 2016. 66 Luiza-Maria FILIMON

23. Rolon, Nelson. “Establishing a Post-human Identity through Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell and Innocence Films”. B.A. Thesis, State University of New York, May 2013, nelsonro- lon.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/141883612-establishing-a-post-human-identity-through- mamoru-oshiis-ghost-in-the-shell-and-innocence-films.pdf. Accessed 14 December 2016. 24. Wierzbowski, Emily. “The Isolated Self: A Re-imaging of the Individual in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell”. Thesis, University at Albany, May 2014, www.albany.edu/honorscollege/files/Weirzbowski_thesis.pdf. Accessed 17 December 2016.

Elisabetta Di MINICO

Ex-Machina and the Feminine Body through Human and Posthuman Dystopia

Abstract: Ex-Machina is a 2015 sci-fi thriller, written and directed by Alex Garland, and starring Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac and Alicia Vikander. Critically acclaimed, the movie explores the relations between human and posthuman, as well as the relations between men and women. The article analyzes four main themes: the dystopian spaces of relations and conflicts between human and posthuman entities; the gender issues and the violent tendencies represented both in humans and in AIs; the construction and the representation of women’s bodies, roles, identities and images; the control and the manipulation perpetrated by “authoritarian” individuals on feminine bodies. The goal of my contribution is to show the reasons of the “double male fear of technology and of woman” (Huyssen 226), and I hope that my reflections could encourage a debate on posthumanism and on gendered power relations. Keywords: Human and Posthuman, Gender Issues, Dystopia.

Ex-Machina is a 2015 sci-fi thriller, written and directed by Alex Garland, and starring Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac and Alicia Vikander. Acclaimed by critics, the movie explores the relations between human and posthuman, as well as the relations between men and women. With its lucid and tense writ- Elisabetta Di MINICO ing, Garland reflects on the possible dysto- University of Barcelona pian evolution of artificial intelligence, and Email: [email protected] he does that with no usual negative tendency to create an evil sentient mechanism with- EKPHRASIS, 1/2017 out a cause. In the vision of Ex-Machina, both Ghosts in the Cinema Machine human and posthuman subjects contribute to pp. 67-84 create a conflictual space of confrontation between two apparently different worlds. The DOI:10.24193/ekphrasis.17(1).5 article analyzes four main themes: the dysto- Published First Online: 2017/06/30 pian spaces of relations and conflicts between 68 Elisabetta Di MINICO human and posthuman entities; the gender issues and the violent tendencies represented both in humans and in AIs; the construction and the representation of women’s bodies, roles, identities and images; the control and the manipulation perpetrated by “authoritarian” individuals on feminine bodies. The goal of my contribution is to show the reasons of the “double male fear of technology and of woman” (Huyssen 226), and I hope that my reflections could encourage a debate on posthumanism and on gendered power relations. In utopian worlds1, the human and the posthuman will find space for confrontation and support. As suggested by Rosi Braidotti, in our “globally linked and technologically mediated societies” (5), posthumanism could and should elaborate new models and “alternative ways of conceptualizing the human subject” (37). Apart from the possible negative implications connected to the posthuman, the philosopher says that it can be a basis for a sustainable, interconnected and creative future, caring for natural, social, political and technological environments. It can “increase our freedom and understanding of the complexities” (Braidotti 194) of our world without re- placing the human, it can foster social justice, equality, political transformation, ethical progress and “multiple horizons” (Braidotti 195). On the other hand, in dystopian realities2, human and posthuman bodies will end up shattered by the differences and by the crisis inherent to both natures. When dystopia arises in the 19th century, the first nightmare described by the new genre is, significantly, the machinic one. Influenced by the social impact of the Industrial Revolution, the machine – mother and oppressor, vigilante and annihilator – becomes the center of the debate on science and technology and on the impact that progress has on our society. The first dystopian novels/novellas, as H.G. Wells’s The Time

1 The word “Utopia” comes from Ancient Greek and its possible meanings are torn between oύ-τóπος, “no place”, or from ευ-τóπος, “good place”. The utopian genre is a narrative tradition that describes a prosperous society and describes an ideal form of government. It envisages a social, ethical and political project that usually promotes justice, equality, peace and happiness among people and recalls literary topoi of enchanted places and times, reigned by spiritual and material wealth (e.g., Christian Garden of Eden, Greek Golden Age, Buddhist Shambala, Atlantis, Avalon, etc.). The movement starts from the XVI century, thank to Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), but the aspiration to create a perfect society is an issue inherent in human history, which has its roots in mythology, classical philosophy and religion. 2 The word “Dystopia” comes from Ancient Greek δυσ-τόπος, and it means “bad place”. The genre describes conflictual, dramatic and painful realities. Taking inspiration from history, Dystopia creates frightening words in scientific, technological, social or political terms. The settings are different: scientific, nuclear and ecological disasters and post-apocalyptic scenarios; social relationships and human behavior in extreme situations; overpopulation and hyper-urbanization; corporations, consumerism, excess of production, advertising and television; racial issues; genetic experiments; political distortions, and many more. 69

Machine (1895) or E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops (1909), predict dark futures, dominated by machinery, and automated or enslaved men, with factories and cities turned into twisted, overcrowded and polluted labyrinths. In these fictional backgrounds, between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, also appear human-like machines that easily gain an extraordinary success. Robots, androids, cyborgs, artificial intelligences and similar creatures3 emerge as one of the most important motifs of science fiction, from classic sci-fi to cyberpunk. The Czech writer Karel Čapek “creates” the robot in 1921, in his play R.U.R. Its name derives from the czech word “Robota”, that means “Slavery”: the Rossum Factory starts to produce robots as slaves, new Golems4 that help humans in their daily actions. But the society becomes so indolent and dissolute that it pushes the innovative workforce to rebellion and violence, causing the death of almost all humans. At the end of the play, the only hopes for the future are robotic love and reproduction, through which a new mechanical breed is born. The first remarkably iconic robot in cinema history comes from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927): her name is Maria. This female robot is halfway between a prophetess and a femme fatale and it is a copy of a human virginal and positive character. While real-Maria is trying to peacefully help the exploited workers of this hypertechnological dystopia, false-Maria calls for a violent revolution against industrialists and machines and creates chaos and destruction. Alienating and wide-angled shootings plastically linger on the technological “beast”, powerful, charming, but also devastating, incarnated both by the female robot and by the machines. The possibility that science will recklessly exceed its limits feeds the fears of dystopian narrative with many machine-related terrors, such as the creation of an evil artificial intelligence, the rebellion of the machines or their catastrophic failure. Animated by different impulses and reasons (desire of progress, manias of magni- tude, scientific curiosity, and so on), humans bring into being majestic and powerful creatures, but, sometimes, their creations become deadly menaces and threaten both

3 There are several kinds of sentient machines. The word “Robot” indicates a generical automated machine, without a specific shape, as the famous R2-D2 from George Lucas’s Star Wars saga. Humanoid robots are called Androids: they have anthropomorphic features and they are usually made with materials that imitate human tissues, as Lieutenant Command- er Data from Star Trek. Cyborgs are partially mechanical and partially organic, as T-800 from James Cameron’s Terminator saga or Major Motoko Kusanagi from Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell. 4 Karel Čapek’s robots are influenced by the complex Czech folklore and by the legend of the Golem. The Golem, a mythical figure from Jewish tradition, is a giant magically made of clay or mud and owned by his creator as a slave. He is the protagonist of many stories set in Prague, as the one who involves the rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel as a powerful Golem master, and of the notorious 1921 expressionist movie, Paul Wegener’s Der Golem: wie er in die Welt kam. 70 Elisabetta Di MINICO the protagonists and/or the entire humanity. Horror imagination is a great source of inspiration for this kind of dystopia and science fiction. Quoting Vivian Sobchack we “can equate Dracula’s embrace with alien mind control, mummies and zombies with robots, Frankenstein’s monster with the machine that’s run amok” (29). Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818) is a fundamental novel because it represents the most relevant archetype for the machinic nightmares, where the created “beasts” destroy their creators. Dr. Victor Frankenstein’s work doesn’t have technological intentions and the Frankenstein’s monster has nothing mechanical in his body, but, describing the “monstrous mixture between naturalia and artificial- ia” (Runcini 231-231), the novel perfectly represents the contradictions and the dangers of modern science. Shelley takes inspiration from influential myths, including the ones of Prometheus and Faust, and, inscribing them into a gothic frame, she adds to the theme of the hubristic and “unnatural thirst of knowledge, […] the scientific potentialities of the new science of Newton, Lavoisier and Priestley that is already transforming the world in the early nineteenth century” (Kumar 113). Although they are not always dangerous and hostile, as in the most notable Isaac Asimov’s production, the works in which humankind is forced to protect itself from anthropomorphic devices or to escape from mechanical or cybernetic control and traps are countless. They introduce similar characters, from Hal 9000 of Stanley Kubrik’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) to Skynet and the Terminators of James Cameron’s Terminator (1984), from Wintermute of William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984) to the Matrix of Larry and Andy (now Lana and Lilly) Wachowski’s Matrix (1999), etc. The literary and cinematographic fortune of sentient mechanisms is even stronger today, since we are living in a constant technological revolution era. Many dystopias presented in literature, films and graphic novels are no longer unreal, non-existing societies that we should avoid bringing into being. Rather, they provide a representation of many actually existing societies and their power relations. In political and scientific dystopias, to maintain control on society and to discour- age rebellion, human and/or posthuman powers generally need to manipulate, submit or kill (Di Minico 40-59). Emphasizing the construction, the representation and the perception of the bodies as central elements of the plot, the genre usually treats bodies with disturbing violent and not-violent ferocity, because the body – with its infinite range of feelings, desires and emotions – is a significant medium of control, and “power relations, social structures, and politics are enacted and exercised” (Inderbitzin et al. 73) upon it. Unfortunately, similar dynamics are not only fictional: they have been introduced in dystopia through history and they can be traced in past and current events: war, slavery, genocide, mass rape, racism, terrorism, psycho-physical torture, homophobia, misogyny, misleading use of mass media and propaganda, conditioning, etc. Bodies don’t have just an individual value, they appear “as a passive medium on which cultural meanings are inscribed or as the instrument through which an appro- 71 priative and interpretive will determines a cultural meaning for itself” (Butler 12). Bodies have a political, economic, demographic, cultural and social function: quoting Michel Foucault, “The body is also directly involved in a political field; power relations have an immediate hold upon it; they invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks, to perform ceremonies, to emit signs. This political investment of the body is bound up, in accordance with complex reciprocal relations, with its economic use; it is largely as a force of production that the body is invested with relations of power and domination; but, on the other hand, its constitution as labor power is possible only if it is caught up in a system of subjection (in which need is also a political instrument me- ticulously prepared, calculated and used); the body becomes a useful force only if it is both a productive body and a subjected body. This subjection is not only obtained by the instruments of violence or ideology; it can also be direct, physical, pitting force against force, bearing on material elements, and yet without involving violence; it may be calculated, organized, technically thought out; it may be subtle, make use neither of weapons nor of terror and yet remain of a physical order. That is to say, there may be a ‘knowledge’ of the body that is not exactly the science of its functioning, and a mastery of its forces that is more than the ability to conquer them: this knowledge and this mastery constitute what might be called the political technology of the body” (25-26). In order to shape the perfect, productive, subjective, healthy public body of society, and, at the same time, to underline the damaged elements of the community and the enemies, the biopolitics starts with the modeling of single, private bodies. The above mentioned subjection and construction processes leave a double trace on female bodies. In fiction and reality, women can suffer two times: first, because of political/ authoritarian power, secondly through a male/ sexist oppression. The female individual has been subjected for millennia to different forms of psycho-physical oppression, from the inhumanity of sexual abuses in war to the “dictatorship” of fashion and aesthetics, from the imposition of traditional gender roles to the hypersexualization of women in advertising, shows and films. They all contribute to create gender inequality and, consequently, they are the source of different levels of violence and pressure. Alex Garland’s movie Ex-Machina (2015) is not only an interesting movie on the confrontation between human and posthuman, it is also a perfect example of the aforementioned authoritarian and male oppressive processes. By showing how this system can be recognized both in socio-political contexts and in personal relationships, it can illuminate the grounds of persistent violence against women. The film focuses on three main characters: Caleb Smith, a programmer who works for the search engine company Blue Books, Nathan Bateman, the brilliant and ambitious CEO of said company, and Ava, a female android with AI designed by Nathan. Caleb is host- ed by his boss in a rich and isolated house to perform a Turing test, analyzing Ava to determine if she has emotions, independent thoughts, intelligence and conscious- 72 Elisabetta Di MINICO ness. Among sexual intrigues and psychological games, the personality of the protagonists becomes increasingly clearer, outlining traumas, perversions, doubts, fears and weaknesses of the characters. Caged in a transparent prison by her creator and condemned to be erased to leave space for another more sophisticated model, the female protagonist bonds with Caleb and, with his help, she manages to escape her confinement. Despite the final liberation of Ava, there is not a happy ending and the price for her self-determination is ruthlessly high. Together with Kyoko, another female AI, she murders Nathan and leaves a desperate Caleb to die in a locked-up house. Ava is like the Frankenstein’s monster: dreadful and desperately desolate. The analysis of Kumar about Shelley’s creature can also partially apply to Garland’s android: “The monster is not just horrific; he is a creature to be pitied, a victim himself as much as those he murders. Despite Frankenstein’s repugnance at his appearance, he is not morally a monster at birth. He is made one by the reaction of others to him, above all that of his own creator. Frankenstein is blameworthy not simply for meddling with knowledge best left alone, but also because, having invented a creature, he treats him shamefully” (115). Ava finds her freedom through killing and retaliation, and she also seems to escape from her technological nature, probably hiding her skills from the world in order to survive and pretending to be a real woman in a crowded world. Even if she uses her abilities to manipulate Caleb and to commit brutal crimes, her actions are not dictated by a technological malignity or by an innate will of destruction. She is not a killer because she is a machine; she is a killer because she fears death. The pain of imprisonment and the fury of revenge animate her. She appears to be as human as any of us because “there is nothing more human than the will of survive”, like the tagline of the movie suggests. The Nexus 6 replicants from Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), the celebrated cinematographic adaptation of the Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) violently fight for the same reason. Programmed to survive just for years, they are “superior in strength and agility and at least equal in intelligence to the genetic engineers who created them” (Blade Runner 00:02:15), but they are used as slaves, especially in extraterrestrial colonies. After a bloody rebellion, all the models present on Earth are sentenced to “retirement”, namely execution. In a world that struggles to recognize androids as living beings, the protagonist of the movie, the bounty hunter Rick Deckard, considers them as “any other machine”, while replicants are aware of their being alive and perceive themselves as physical organisms, not simple mechanisms. One of them, Pris, even quotes French philosopher René Descartes to justify her essence and says: “I think, therefore I am”. This is the only proof they need to justify their vital substance: they have rational and irrational thoughts, and they feel happiness and pain, they share love and emotions, they are afraid of passing away, they “wish to live longer so that they can explore human sensations, emotions, 73 and experiences unfettered by prejudice or bondage” (Vest 18). Their actions, as well as Ava’s actions, are also the result of the violence they have suffered. The most relevant difference between the two movies is that, in the Ex-Machina case, the abuses also reflect dramatic gendered power relations. Despite her extraordinary skills and the revolution that she could represent for the world, Nathan uses Ava as a Guinea pig and a doll, and probably as a sex doll, also. He confines her to a glass-walled room, making the conflict between human and posthuman as clear and hard as the transparent material that separates the space where the story is set. Moreover, he watches all the time over Ava through microphones, cameras and ob- scured windows. The android believes that she can honestly speak with Caleb by provoking only several blackouts, but Nathan secretly monitors the electrical outages as well. This see-through and mentally asphyxiating context is the first step of a deep and overwhelming control that put the female protagonist in a vulnerable and hope- less position. The android is confined to an external space that evokes the idea of constant surveillance, often present in the dystopian genre. In Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We (1921), the One State amplifies its power creating a world of glass that erases priva- cy as well as every possibility of transgression and rebellion. In Karin Boye’s Kallocain (1940), houses are equipped with “Police Eyes” and “Police Ears”. These devices are almost equivalent to one of the most famous dystopian apparatus: the Big Brother’s telescreen in Orwell’s 1984. Both of them record the actions and speeches of the cit- izens, leaving no refuge or escape for the lonely and desperate protagonists of the novels. All these surveillance systems act as a Panopticon, an ideal prison designed in 1791 by the English philosopher and jurist Jeremy Bentham. The structure was imagined to guarantee continuous and uniform police observation of inmates, and to “produce complete obedience to the governing authority” (Strub 40) through constant and covert observation, fear, and through certitude of the punishment, by using the invisible omnipresence of control as deterrent for misbehaving. At the same time, Ava is also trapped inside the body and the mind that Nathan has built for her, into the role and the identity that the man has chosen for his woman-machine. Nathan is driven by the so-called “masculine myth”: this archetypal tendency exalts manhood and supports the idea and the embodiment of women as a commodity of “dominant male constructions of realities that emerge from and serve male power interests” (Elichaoff and Frost 43). Recalling the scientifically repressive essence of Huxley’s Brave New World, where human are genetically modified according to the class they belong, Nathan literally builds the female bodies of his androids, marking the identity, the image, and even the self-representation of these posthuman creatures. His robots are all women-machines strongly and sexually commodi- fied and modeled as aesthetically attractive, thin, young, and sensual. He chooses the lines of their faces, the skin, the color of the eyes, the length of the hair, the physical measures reflecting his masculine canons of beauty. He determines temper and dis- 74 Elisabetta Di MINICO positions of their character too, and, in some cases, like Kyoko, who is mute and extremely submissive, he limits or deletes their abilities and thoughts. If Ava recalls Frankenstein’s monster, Nathan acts halfway between Dr. Frankenstein and Pygmalion. As the protagonist of Shelley’s masterpiece, he is moved by hubris and he shows no pity for his creatures. At the same time, Nathan also evokes the sculptor from the classic myth, who carves the statue of a beautiful woman, falls in love with it and asks Aphrodite to transform his piece of ivory into a real person. As Pygmalion, Nathan shapes his perfect women-machines and ani- mates them, displaying a strong physical passion for his creatures. But, differently from the mythical character, the scientist feels no genuine sentimental attachment for Ava and the other androids. He is in love with the idealization of his work, with the glory of his research, with the power and the unprecedented potentiality of his models. In same ways, Nathan also embodies Narcissus, who falls in love with his own reflection. He is influenced by delusions of omnipotence and by distressing sexual instincts revealing that, as Huyssen suggests for the character of Maria in Metropolis, “the machine-woman results from the more or less sublimated sexual desires of her male creator” (227). This sublimated sexual desire is strongly evident in many other sci- fi movies, such as in the aforementioned Blade Runner (1982). Here, for example, the replicant Pris is a “basic pleasure model” made and owned by the Tyrell Corporation, specifically created for male entertainment. As Pris, Ava and the other Ex-Machina androids are also designed for amusement. Nathan determines the sexuality of his machines as well as their psychophysical features, since, as he himself emphasizes at minute 46, every creature needs a gender to be complete. So, Ex-Machina’s artificial intelligences can have intercourse, feel pleasure, and, consequently, give pleasure. In between her legs, Ava has an opening with a concentration of sensors: “You engage ‘em in the right way, creates a pleasure response.” (00:46:30), Nathan says. In the movie, it is clearly shown him while having sex with Kyoko, who is programmed to obey, be a maid, entertain and please. Considering that she is incapable of free will and unable to talk and to respond, the sexual act is imposed to her by Nathan and, even if she doesn’t show any clear sign of pain, just a desolate emptiness, the relation between them can be interpreted as sexual harassment. The only moment that Kyoko shows a more conscious resolution is when she stabs Nathan. This happens after Ava whispers in her ear, probably in order to influence her programming. However, the deed is almost motionless and placid. She quietly waits behind his back, while the man is fighting with Ava by using a primitive, brutal force. After she stabs Nathan, Kyoko stares at him with a penetrating look, she doesn’t run away, she doesn’t keep fighting. Nathan, instead, is furious and smashes her skull with a tube, killing the android. The way Nathan abuses Kyoko clearly enlightens his narcissistic ego and his violent and womanizing tendencies: he treats her like an objectified and hypersexu- alized slave and humiliates her in several occasions, without showing mercy or com- 75 passion. Analyzing his behavior, one could assume that he also had sex with the previous models he built and he keeps them as dead trophies in wardrobes-graves in front of his bed, fetishes and material evidences of his male, creator and dominant power. In Ex-Machina, women bodies seem to be male property, as in Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985). Here, in a sterile word, the fertile handmaids lose their name and their identity because the rich and powerful families that own them use their bodies as incubators. Offred, the protagonist, starts to feel her body as something separated from her mind and says: “I used to think of my body as an instrument of pleasure, or a means of transpor- tation, or an implement for the accomplishment of my will ... Now the flesh arranges itself differently. I’m a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping” (Atwood 115). As Raffaella Baccolini stated: “A woman’s body in effect becomes a commodity with an exchange value as the woman is not the owner of this commodity but instead the laborer who must provide the goods to those who will benefit directly from her service” (215-216). Ava’s body is interpreted in the same way, but without the procreative intention of the aforementioned novel: she is a utility device that can produce innovations, but she can possess no goods because she has no rights and no freedom. Nathan is aware of the consciousness of his sentient machines but he is completely insensitive to their feelings, particularly to their pain. Ethically speaking, it is not clear and perhaps it is not even possible to determine if, in a similar context, the emotions expressed by the androids are true or only the result of programming, but they seem to be perceived as authentic by the subjects who experiment them and, for sure, the violence that the creator exploits on them is real and cruel. One of the earlier models of Nathan’s A.I. named Jade, for example, had a breakdown and desperately tried to escape from the same room where Ava is imprisoned: she screamed, she cried, she scratched the wall until her mechanical arms broke, but the scientist was uncaring and abusing as usual and simply replaced her with a new model. She was just an experiment gone wrong, with no moral or legal implications. Analyzing the functioning of the concentration camp during the Second World War and the behavior of Nazis, Hannah Arendt wrote that “murder is as imper- sonal as the squashing of a gnat” (443) because soldiers and officials used to think about their victims as “not-human” subjects and relied on a strong dissociation from the brutal actions that they committed in order to continue doing their jobs. Nathan shows a conceptually similar detachment: despite human features and potentially human feelings, he does not recognize AIs posthuman identity and does not give value to the new essence that they embrace. He continues to see these females AIs as exploitable and expendable machines, useful for his research and rise to power. At 76 Elisabetta Di MINICO the same time, also Ava does not give value to life and lacks of empathy for Caleb and Kyoko. Ava seems to reveal psychopathic tendencies and personality disorders, as described in the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders): she simulates her emotions and her affection, she is deeply manipulative and unscrupu- lous, she uses self-dramatization and seductive behavior to draw attention, and so on (659-669). But, finally, even these negative dispositions of her character appear to be the decision of a male authority. As the Big Brother in 1984 and Minister Wilford in Bong Jo- hoo’s Snowpiercer (2015), in Ex-Machina also, the dystopian power knows and secretly encourages disobedience just to reinforce its control over rebels, except that, this time, the trap fails. The Turing test that Nathan organized was a pretext and he chose Caleb, a softhearted orphan, not for his programming skills, but because of his trag- ic past and his kindness. To intensify the experience of his employee, the CEO shapes Ava according to Caleb’s pornographic preferences (obtained by hacking his private chronology). Nathan wanted an emotional person to interact with Ava in order to confirm that she was able to deceive people using human skills, suggesting that one of the central elements of intelligence and humanity is the ability to cheat, to improvise, to not follow fixed and programmed schemes. At minute 84, Nathan says: “To escape, she had to use self awareness, imagination, manipulation, sexuality, empathy and she did. And if that isn’t true AI, what the fuck is?” It is interesting to see how said abilities include characteristics traditionally judged as feminine and how Ava herself relies on her femininity to establish a contact with Caleb, painting herself as a real woman willing for affection, contact, warmth and freedom, and underlining her desire to be loved and to be pretty. When first appears, she is presented as a human-like machine, with only face and hands covered in artificial skin, while the rest of the body is clearly robotic and some transparent parts (e.g., arms, belly, legs, cranium) show the internal mechanisms that compose the AI. Slowly, she starts to “cover” her mechanical nudity, reasonably to enhance Caleb’s affection and empathy, using simple-style, but still sensual clothing (cardigan, floral midi dresses, stockings, etc.) and short hair wig. Ava learns how to manipulate Caleb and to stimulate his emotional response to her situation exploiting both her body and her pretended damsel-in-distress vulnerability. She employs sexuality and sensitivi- ty for her advantage, relying on her female abilities as the replicant Rachel from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. In Dick’s novel5, Rachel is a neo-noir femme fatale that seduces Deckard in order to convince him not to kill replicants anymore. It isn’t the first time that she uses sex to manipulate hunters in order to save her mates: after they sleep together, she says:

5 Rachel’s character in Blade Runner is still depicted as a mysterious and sensual neo-noir figure, but, the most deceiving and negative aspects of the replicant have been erased to permit the love story developing in the plot and to foster a partial happy ending of the movie. 77

“You are not going to be able to hunt androids any longer. […] No bounty hunter ever has gone on […] after being with me” (198). Sex and sexuality are the strongest and most effective way for her to show (post)humanity and to prove that androids are worthy to live: after sleeping with Rachel, Deckard feels a connection with the female android and develops empathic feelings for the replicants because he cannot think again about them as empty machines: “their sexual union has been a means to an end for Rachel, but, for Deckard, it confounds his ability to see androids as automatons” (Vest 17). On Deckard, as well as on Caleb, the sexuality of the feminine robot is the first element of deception: the characters don’t empathize with androids because of their artificial but conscious intelligences, they firstly relate with the women that they have in front of them. Deckard and Caleb act in the opposite way to Theodore Twombly, the depressed and lonely protagonist of Spike Jonze’s Her (2013), a movie that tells the love story between a man and a not-physical talking operating system equipped with artificial intelligence and programmed to evolve. In spite of the ending of Her, Theodore and the OS named Samantha are strongly connected even so, without a feminine material presence, and sincerely fall in love with each other. The relations between male creators and female machine-creatures are often displayed in science fiction and the genre usually insists also on the connection between technology and femininity. As long as technology and women can be controlled, they are profitable advantages, but, when they start to threaten thestatus quo, they are converted into a nightmarish danger. Especially starting from Metropolis, machines are usually perceived as “a demonic, inexplicable threat and as harbinger of chaos and destruction” (Huyssen 226) and they are often represented as feminine. As Huyssen underlines, the core of this fear and, consequently, of this analysis is the need for control: “Woman, nature, machine had become a mesh of significations which all had one thing in common: Otherness; by their very existence they raised fears and threatened male authority and control” (226). Thus, men go from fear to hatred and desire of exploitation, and from these to violence. The socio-political and personal image of women is shaped – in fiction and in history – by often-conflicting archetypal myths and fixed ideas and it shows a strong perceptive and interpretive dichotomy that has been fully understood by the dystopian genre. Traditionally, women are first of all wives and mothers, virginal “an- gels of the hearth” and they are depicted as submissive, sexually passive or asexual, supporting and functional beings. They represent “the eternal feminine,” defined by Gilbert and Gubar as a union of “modesty, gracefulness, purity, delicacy, civili- ty, compliancy, reticence, chastity, affability, politeness” and so on (23). At the same time, they also embody a possible fully-sexual, independent, unpredictable and un- constrained anomaly that can alter the aforementioned authoritarian and male control: women can move from the predetermined path and demand self-determination. A similar contrast can be generated also with science and technology: “The myth of the dualistic nature of woman as either asexual virgin-mother or prostitute-vamp 78 Elisabetta Di MINICO is projected onto technology which appears as either neutral and obedient or as inherently threatening and out-of-control” (Huyssen 226). Science and technology, in fact, are interpreted as necessary components of our life, but, potentially, they can also represent a risk because the relation between humans and the “technological other” has reached undeniable and “unprecedented degrees of intimacy and intrusion” (Braidotti 89) that are changing our mental, physical and socio-political habits. Woman and science can be perceived, respectively by male gender and by human race, according to three contrasting feelings: fear, desire and will to exploitation and domination. Nathan perfectly embodies these tendencies. When he talks about Ava to Caleb at minute 65, he describes artificial intelligence as the “inevitable evolution” that sooner or later will destroy humanity: “One day, the AIs will look back on us the same way we look at fossil skeletons from the plains of Africa. An upright ape, living in dust, with crude language and tools. All set for extinction.” Despite this apocalyptic fear, he does not avoid to humiliate and strongly eroticize his work, predicting a dark future for Ava too. When the next model will be set, she will be formatting: he will strip out the higher functions from her without remorse but with a hint of sadism, and, quoting the minute 66, “reprogram her to help around the house and be fucking awe- some in bed.” Unlike what he did to Kyoko, this time Nathan is thinking to leave to Ava her language abilities, since “It’s kind of annoying not being able to talk to her.” The sentiment that Nathan feels for his women-machines is a mixture between fascination and hatred, between Eros and Thanatos. His desire to indiscriminate use of the bodies of his androids transforms temptation into violence, and strengthen his will of destruction and supremacy. This overwhelming perspective is also detectable in 1984. Winston, the protagonist of the Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece, falls in love with his colleague Julia and converts his relation into an act of liberation and revolution against the Big Brother. But, at the beginning of the story, his erotic attraction to women is combined with a strong violent impulse against female figures: he thinks often about raping and killing women, even Julia, and, in his hallucinated thoughts, he inflicts pain and death obtaining a strong sexual pleasure that evokes in a disturbing way Christian imagines of Ecstasy: “Vivid, beautiful hallucinations flashed through his mind. He would flog her to death with a rubber truncheon. He would tie her naked to a stake and shoot her full of arrows like Saint Sebastian. He would ravish her and cut her throat at the moment of climax. Better than before, moreover, he realized WHY it was that he hated her. He hated her because she was young and pretty and sexless, because he wanted to go to bed with her and would never do so, because round her sweet supple waist, which seemed to ask you to encircle it with your arm, there was only the odious scarlet sash, aggressive symbol of chastity.” (Orwell 15-16). 79

Winston’s frustrated and sick fantasies can be associated with the heavy repression of sexual instincts that rules Oceania, where love and sexuality are crimes against the state because libido can be sublimated and “employed in the service of the Party” (Booker 76). Instead all these, the reasons for Nathan’s behavior are not determinable (past traumas, relational problems, fear of rejection, etc.), but it is manifest that he has issues with women. In the myth of Pygmalion narrated in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8 AD), the sculptor “is motivated to make himself a life partner because of his revulsion to real women with their innate vices” (James 13). As Pygmalion, Nathan seems to prefer idealized and “fabricated” women to real women, also because he can shape and control his models, hoping to create passive and subordinate subjects. Maybe, his misogynist and aggressive attitude, his will of exploitation, and his disrespect for others could also be connected with a psychiatric condition. He seems to suffer for a Narcissistic personality disorder, as classified by DSM-5, since he shows several symptoms: delusions of grandeur, fixed fantasies of power, success and intelligence, obsessive desire of being admired and pleased, tendency to exploit, underestimate or humiliate others, incapacity or disinterest to empathize, among others (670-672). Nathan idolizes himself and his work. His technological achievements make him feel like a superior, almost like (being) a divine mind. At the beginning of the movie, Caleb says to Nathan “If you’ve created a conscious machine, it’s not the history of man. It’s the history of Gods” (00:10:45). The CEO takes his affirmation and transforms it into a stronger one: “I’m not a man, I’m a God” (00:15:10). And, as a God, he thinks that he has the right to shape and control his creatures, to submit their mechanical flesh and “soul”, to address their personality and their intimacy. The Pygmalion complex and its desire to model someone until perfection reach here one of the highest levels because Nathan’s megalomaniac ideas further separate the godlike man from the created woman. As stated by Simone de Beauvoir, “He is the Subject, he is the Absolute, She is the Other” (6), incidental, inessential. Despite being artificial, Ava’s body is inscripted with two power relations. Ava, the created object, is the victim of her creator and owner Nathan, whom Foucault could have judged as a perfect and repressive exponent of biopolitical capitalism. In Discipline and Punish, the French philosopher wrote: “The human body was entering a machinery of power that explores it, breaks it down and rearranges it. A “political anatomy”, which was also a “mechanics of power”, was being born; it defined how one may have a hold over others’ bodies, not only so that they may do what one wishes, but so that they may operate as one wishes, with the techniques, the speed and the efficiency that one determines. Thus discipline produces subjected and practiced bodies, “docile” bodies” (138). These docile bodies are primarily intended as organisms that can “be subjected, used, transformed and improved” (Foucault 136) for the power sake. But that’s not 80 Elisabetta Di MINICO all. Secondly, Ava is the victim of Nathan as erotic object and female subject, because only the male look and the male discourse could shape her woman identity. Nathan wants to create not only a perfect, docile and useful machine, but also a perfect, docile and useful woman. As Laura Mulvey explained, the visual pleasure of cinema stimulates sexual instincts and ego libido, since the images can have both a scopophilic and a narcissistic function: scopophilia uses “another person as an object of sexual stimulation through sight” (808), while narcissism causes “an identification with the image seen” (808). The representation and the construction of cinematic female bodies are, thus, strongly influenced by the male desire and by the male point of view, and “in a world ordered by sexual imbalance” (Mulvey 808) their displays contributes to the idea of “active/ male and passive/female” (Mulvey 808). “The man controls the film phantasy and also emerges as the representative of power in a further sense: as the bearer of the look of the spectator, transferring it behind the screen to neutralize the extra-diegetic tendencies represented by woman as spectacle. […] As the spectator identifies with the main male protagonist, he projects his look on to that of his like, his screen surrogate, so that the power of the male protagonist as he controls events coincides with the active power of the erotic look, both giving a satisfying sense of omnipotence” (Mulvey 810). In the socio-political context, Nathan sees Ava as a product of his work and controls the android as her owner, but his authoritarian and panoptical gaze, as the director gaze and the spectator gaze, additionally respond to male needs. In Ex-Machina, men control both sides of the screen, and the narrative planes, with significant impacts on women’s identity and expression. Ava is the result of Nathan’s choices and Nathan’s choices are the result of the sarcastic and extreme view of the director Alex Garland. The movie points up that the public and media image of women is full of subjects reduced to sexual objects. The bodies of real women have been hidden in favor of idealized, young or timeless beauties, with perfect lips, legs, and breasts. The most alienated aspect of these canons of beauty is that the female figure is shaped according to male preferences and expectations, but it influences women as well: “The portrayed woman seems to fulfill all men’s desires, completely abdicating to the possibility of being an equal “Other”. [...] We look at each other with male eyes, look at our breasts, our mouths, our wrinkles as we think a man would look at them” (Il Corpo delle donne 00:03:45). Discussing fashion and fetishism, Walter Benjamin stressed out the importance of the “sex-appeal of the inorganic”: “Every fashion stands in opposition to the organic. Every fashion couples the living body to the inorganic world. To the living, fashion defends the rights of the corpse. The fetishism that succumbs to the sex-appeal of the inorganic world is its vital nerve.” (37). 81

This concept could be extended to the artificial and the constructed essence of the visual pleasure of images, to the cinema voyeurism and to the posthuman. The gazes of the camera, of Caleb and Nathan and of the spectators are heavily sexualized, they insist on Ava’s body, even if the android’s features are not extremely provocative and she is not a controversial femme fatale as false-Maria in Metropolis or Rachel in Blade Runner. As analyzed before, Ava’s construction of her body develops parallel to her escape plans and her raise of awareness. And when, in the end, Ava composes her body with the skins of the other models, Caleb secretly and voyeuristically watches her actions. The result is strongly meta-cinematographic. Caleb can be interpreted not only as the link between the creator Nathan and the machine Ava, but also as the tie between the director, the spectator and the visual narrative. He eagerly watches Ava and witnesses the android’s transformation from behind a glass, as the spectator does with the movie from behind a screen. He is deceived by both Nathan and Ava, as the spectator is tricked by the director and the twists of the plot. In Ex- Machina, the “sex-appeal of inorganic” gains a step further also because of the artificial nature of the female protagonist. It adds more fetishism to the male (on-screen and off-screen) look playing with the double male anxiety toward technology and women analyzed by Huyssen. Garland’s movie glorifies the tempting fascination for technology and women with fear, since usually, as Minsoo Kang claimed during an interview in 2011, “the delight, amusement, and amazement that people experience in the face of the self-moving, life-imitating machine are mixed with a sense of un- ease that can be magnified into full-blown horror under certain circumstances”. Also, Braidotti underlines that there is a strong and successful tendency in popular culture to imagine the relations between humans and machines with both negativity and fascination: she labels “this narrow and negative social imaginary as techno-teratologi- cal, that is to say as the object of cultural admiration and aberration” (64). Thus, the dreadful and suspicious visions of women-machines are loaded with lust and with the desire to control and to possess. Whether they are natural or artificial, Ex-Machina representation of feminine bodies remembers us that “the power to subject another person to the will sadistically or to the gaze voyeuristically is turned on to the woman as the object of both” (Mulvey 813). Dramatically, the only way Ava could save herself is by violence and manipulation. But, in the end, she obtains her freedom and she can consciously build her partially transparent body with new limbs, skin and hair. With this action, she gains control on her body for the first time, transforming the Frankenstein monster into the doctor. The woman, the nature and the technology that Huyssen talked about recap- ture their dimension defeating patriarchal unity, socio-cultural immobility and male/ political oppression. She can walk free, she can touch leaves and flowers, she can feel the breeze and the grass under her feet, and she can watch the people around with curious and attentive eyes. 82 Elisabetta Di MINICO

Is the confrontation between humans and posthumans, between male and female doomed to end, like the movie, or is there space for dialogue? As Dr. Frankenstein, Nathan moves from utopian premises and promises, but he ends up producing just pain, violence and death, reminds us that dystopia “draws its energy from the failure of utopian hopes and aspirations” (Kumar 116). Whishing that reality will not follow dystopian paths, we can still learn some lessons from these nightmares. According to Kang, contemporary culture approaches advanced machines with three possible end- ings: “inevitable conflict”, which imagines an upcoming wars with robots, “cybernetic mergence”, which fosters a fusion between human and posthuman, and between natural and artificial, and “equivalence through sentience”, which hopes for a possible peaceful co-existence between humans and robots (300-309). Nothing is already written and nothing is “absolute good” or “absolute bad”. Utopian relationships between human and posthuman, as well as between genders, are possible if we accept differences and reject rigid, dogmatic and patriarchal boundaries, as Donna Haraway proposed in her A Cyborg Manifesto, where the cyborg is interpreted as a “kind of disassembled and reassembled, postmodern collective personal self” (302): “Gender, race, or class-consciousness is an achievement forced on us by the terrible historical experience of the contradictory social realities of patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism” (295-296) and they limit the construction of not fixed, contradictory, partial and/or self-determined identities, which are the needed essences for an open-minded, equal, free and respectful world. We could approach posthumanism as a chance to rewrite the dystopian aspects of humanism. As Braidotti said: “I see the posthuman turn as an amazing opportunity to decide together what and who we are capable of becoming, and an unique opportunity for humanity to reinvent itself affirmatively, through creativity and empowering ethical relations, and not only negatively, through vulnerability and fear. It is a chance to identify opportunities for resistance and empowerment on a planetary scale” (195). The “multiple horizons” described by Braidotti could be closer than we think, such as science fictional worlds. It will be our call to transform them into a utopian or into a dystopian reality. 83

Works Cited: 1. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5®), Fifth Edition. American Psychiatric Publishing, 2013. 2. Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. Harcourt Books, 1973. 3. Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. Penguin Books, 2016. 4. Baccolini, Raffaella and Tom Moylan. Dark Horizons. Science Fiction and the Dystopian Imagination. Routledge, 2003. 5. Benjamin, Walter. Selected Writings: 1935-1938. Harvard University Press, 2002. 6. Booker, M. Keith. The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature. Fiction as Modern Criticism. Greenwood Press, 1994. 7. Boye, Karin. Kallocain. University of Winsconsin Press, 2002. 8. Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. Polity Pess, 2013. 9. Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Tenth Anniversary Edition. Routledge, 1999. 10. De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. Pan Books, 1988. 11. Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Random House, 2008. 12. Di Minico, Elisabetta.Antiutopía y Control. La distopía en el mundo contemporáneo y actual. Universitat de Barcelona, 2015. 13. Elichaoff, Fraunke and Nollaig Frost. “Feminist postmodernism, poststructuralism, and critical theory.” Feminist Research Practice: A Primer, edited by Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber, SAGE Publications, 2014, pp.42-72. 14. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish. Vintage Book, 1995. 15. Gilbert, Sandra and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. Yale University Press, 1979. 16. Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” The Cybercultures Reader, edited by David Bell and Barbara M. Kennedy, Routledge, 2001, pp.291-324. 17. Huyssen, Andreas. “The Vamp and the Machine: Technology and Sexuality in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.” New German Critique, No. 24/25, 1981, p.221-237. 18. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. Harper Perennial, 2006. 19. Inderbitzin, Michelle L., et al. Deviance and Social Control: A Sociological Perspective. Sage Publication, 2012. 20. James, Paula. Ovid’s Myth of Pygmalion on Screen: In Pursuit of the Perfect Woman. Continuum, 2011. 21. Kang, Minsoo. Sublime Dreams of Living Machines. The Automaton in the European Imagination. Harvard University Press, 2011. 22. Kumar, Krishan. Utopia and Anti-Utopia in modern times. Blackwell, 1991. 23. Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, edited by Gerald Mast and Marshall Cohen, 1985, pp.803-816. 24. Orwell, George. 1984. Harcourt Books, 1983. 25. Runcini, Romolo. La paura e l’immaginario sociale nella letteratura. Il Gothic Romance. Liguori, 1995. 26. Sobchack, Vivian. Screening Space. The American Science Fiction Film. Rutgers University Press, 2001. 84 Elisabetta Di MINICO

27. Strub, Harry. “The Theory of Panoptical Control: Bentham’s Panopticon and Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, vol. 25, no. 1, 1989, pp.40-59. 28. Vest, Jason. Future Imperfect: Philip K. Dick at the Movies. Bison Books, 2009. 29. Zamyatin, Yevgeny. We. Penguin Books, 2007.

Movies and Documentaries:

30. Bong Joon-ho, director. Snowpiercer. CJ Entertainment, 2013. 31. Garland, Alex, director. Ex-Machina. Universal Pictures, 2015. 32. Jonze, Spike, director. Her. Warner Bros., 2013. 33. Scott, Ridley, director. Blade Runner. Warner Bros., 1982. 34. Zanardo, Lorella, director. Il Corpo delle Donne (Women’s Body). Youtube, 2009.

Sennah YEE

“You bet she can fuck” – Trends in Female AI Narratives within Mainstream Cinema: Ex Machina and Her

Abstract: In today’s digital age, we are becoming more like machines and machines are becoming more like us. Donna Haraway’s seminal essay, “A Cyborg Manifesto,” proposes the cyborg as a transgressive figure capable of subverting oppressive power structures. While there is no denying this powerful imagery, what are the common trends in female AI narratives in mainstream cinema? This paper examines the films Ex Machina (2015) and Her (2013), which both feature male human protagonists and female AIs (Ava, a feminized robot in Ex Machina and Samantha, a female operating system in Her). Ava’s and Samantha’s highly sexual yet innocent characterizations and similar desires for freedom are reflective of societal anxieties surrounding male control over female agency. As gendered AIs continue to populate our media, one can only hope that we can live up to Haraway’s vision of the cyborg, and expand the scope of our questions and concepts past male pleasure and women as research-fetish objects. Keywords: AI, cyborg(s), cyberfeminism, feminism, Ex Machina (2015), Her (2013), Donna Haraway, gender, robot(s)

“Anyway, sexuality is fun, man. If you’re gonna exist, why not enjoy it? You want to remove the chance of her falling in love and fucking? And the answer to your real question, you bet she can fuck.” Nathan, Ex Machina (2015) Sennah YEE York University, Toronto, Canada Email: [email protected] The lines between human and machine continue to blur as the digital age progress- EKPHRASIS, 1/2017 es. Donna Haraway’s seminal 1984 essay, “A Ghosts in the Cinema Machine Cyborg Manifesto,” proposes the concept of pp. 85-98 the cyborg, a human-machine hybrid, as a transgressive figure capable of subverting op- DOI:10.24193/ekphrasis.17(1).6 pressive power structures and hierarchies by Published First Online: 2017/06/30 its hybridity (Haraway 1991). While there is 86 Sennah YEE no denying that this powerful imagery is theoretically appealing, what are the common trends in female AI narratives within mainstream cinema? Are they living up to the potential of Haraway’s vision? What follows are two case studies of the films Ex Machina (2015) and Her (2013). Ava, in Ex Machina, and Samantha, in Her, have similar character traits and narrative arcs: hyper-sexualized, innocent, curious, and yearning for “freedom” from their robot body (Ava) or their virtual entity (Samantha). They are representative of societal anxieties and fears concerning female agency challenging male control – a recurring conflict in AI narratives. Gendered robots and AIs are no strangers to cinema. When gender is applied to a machine, often its stereotypical attributes are emphasized. While these case studies do not focus on male AIs, I will provide some examples in order to contrast their depictions in cinematic narratives compared to female AIs. Male AIs are commonly portrayed as “strong and silent” types; their mechanical dimension enables them to display a physical form that can both inflict and endure damage that no ordinary human could withstand. Male AIs are often authoritative figures who represent inner conflicts of what it means to be a human versus what it means to be a machine—classic examples include the cold authoritative voice of HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), the deep questions about humanity posed by Roy Batty inBlade Runner (1982), the power of T-800 in The Terminator (1984), and the strength and moral struggles of Robocop (1987). More recent examples can include the android Data who struggles to understand humanity in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994), the philosophical Sonny in I, Robot (2004), and the conflicted robots who ask whether to be a weapon or a friend to human beings in The Iron Giant (1999) and Chappie (2015). On the other hand, female AIs are often hyper-sexualized and exist in spaces dominated by men. Despina Kakoudaki notes, “the artificial female body is sexy and sexually seductive and more sexually available somehow not despite its mechanicity but precisely because it is mechanical” (82). Female AIs are idealized as the perfect pinup woman as in Weird Science (1985), or the perfect wife as in The Stepford Wives (1975), or simply just as the perfect servant such as Rosie, a robot maid in The Jetsons (1962- 1987). More recent examples of sexualized female AIs include the Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact (1996), the fembots in Austin Powers (1997), cylon Number Six in Battlestar Galactica(2004-2009) and the two characters that I will be focusing on in this essay, Ava, in Ex Machina, and Samantha, in Her. The mechanization of women has become a fetish, a new branch of voyeuristic gaze. Charles Soukup dubs this technological pleasure as “techno-scopophilia” (19- 35), a semiotic convention that merges technology with the human body and sexuality, reducing the latter to fetishized commodities. In inscribing the body with technology, and technology with sexuality, mechanized women are a convergence of ideological implications, sexual fantasies, and myth-making. In “The Vamp and the Machine: Technology and Sexuality in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis,” Andreas Huyssen traces au- 87 tomatons in literature and cinema, noting a trend of woman-machines as symptomatic of male desires, anxieties, and fears of woman threatening male authority and control with their sexuality, autonomy, and Otherness. While male desire and male fear over the woman-machine do not appear linked at a first glance, Huyssen identifies the common denominator between the two as male control: “It is this threat of otherness which causes male anxiety and reinforces the urge to control and dominate that which is other” (228). Male control is a recurring theme in AI narratives; often when this control is challenged by the female AI, the audience’s identification with her is limited. This limited identification will be explored further in my two case studies.

Ex Machina (2015) Ex Machina follows Caleb (Domnhall Gleeson), a computer programmer who is selected by his CEO Nathan (Oscar Isaac) to be the human component in a Turing test with an AI robot named Ava (Alicia Vikander). Through my case study, I argue that while the film presents a narrative in which the female robot frees herself from her male creator, she is ultimately trapped within the male gaze of the camera, the male characters in the narrative, as well as the spectators watching the film. I will briefly summarize the film, discuss some if its discourse across online film criticism, and then apply texts by Laura Mulvey and Linda Williams. The film is divided into seven sessions between Caleb and Ava. These sessions take place in an interrogation room with glass separating the two, and are monitored by Nathan and his cameras. Over the course of the sessions, Caleb and Ava express their attraction for one another—Ava also warns Caleb that Nathan is not to be trusted. When Caleb sneaks into Nathan’s room, he discovers camera footage of previous AI prototypes, all of which were nude women begging to be freed. He finds the defunct robots hanging naked in closets in Nathan’s room, and also discovers that Nathan’s housemaid Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno) is not human, but a robot, too. Caleb hatches a plan to help Ava escape with him. Nathan confronts Caleb and reveals that he knows about his plan, and that Caleb was part of the test all along: if Ava could trick him into helping her escape, she was truly conscious. Once free from her room, Ava meets Kyoko for the first time. The two fight Nathan, who “kills” Kyoko before being stabbed by Ava. Ava frees herself, leaving Caleb behind in the locked compound. The film closes with a scene of Ava living out a human fantasy she had shared with Caleb earlier—walking in a busy intersection, people-watching. The film’s depictions of women have sparked many debates amongst critics and viewers. Some argue that the film is “feminist” by how Ava overcomes her male op- pressors (see Not Left Handed Film Guide’s review, “Ex Machina: An Important Film for Feminist Cinema”), while others offer the critique that while the film may be about gender roles, it does not address these issues deeply enough, and the women do not escape the male gaze of the camera (Johnson). As The Guardian critic Steve Rose puts it, “[an attractive young female robot created by men] often enables the movie to raise 88 Sennah YEE pertinent points about consciousness and technology while also giving male viewers an eyeful of female flesh. The non-scientific term for this is ‘having your cake and eating it’” (Rose). Some have defended the film’s exclusive female nudity as a blatant embodiment of the film’s theme: an exploration of patriarchy (Buchanan). However, director Alex Garland himself declares that patriarchy “does not interest [him]” (Buchanan), and argues that the film does not encourage us to approve of Nathan’s sexist and disturbing acts. I will deconstruct the two scenes in the film in which Kyoko and Ava appear nude, and argue how they are ultimately more titillating than subversive. Scene 1: Kyoko is lounging fully nude on Nathan’s bed as Caleb discovers the slew of nude, defunct female robots hanging in the closets. Kyoko walks up to Caleb and begins to peel off her skin to reveal a chrome finish underneath her face—her eyeballs are mechanical, Terminator-like. Though she was already nude, Kyoko’s further exposure of herself uncovers an interior, a “truth” that is the opposite of feminine and sexy, but rather monstrous to the audience and Caleb. The score is dramatic and chilling, and later Caleb has a flashback of the horrific image of Kyoko’s mechanized face during a panic attack. Scene 2: Ava appears fully nude at the end of the film when she sees Nathan’s old AI prototypes. She disassembles various parts of the robots to piece together a body of her own, until all of her machinery is covered and she completely resembles a female human. As she gazes at her new, naked body in the many mirrors, the audience is forced to be a voyeur, like Caleb, watching from afar through glass. The scene is overtly titillating; we are not identifying with Ava’s feelings, but are simply watching her through Caleb’s eyes and the male gaze of the camera. We seldom see Ava or Kyoko enjoying their own existence; their sexuality is simply enjoyed by others, specifically men. Huyssen explains this phenomenon in his essay on Metropolis, particularly in the construction and destruction of the artificial woman, Maria. The woman is constructed from the inside out, her inner and out- er nature reduced to fragments (Huyssen 230). A spectacle is made of Maria’s destruction, and as Huyssen argues, both the construction and destruction of the female body are a product of the male vision behind these acts.1 Woman’s identity is thus denied as she is made “into an object of projection and manipulation” (Huyssen 231). When deconstructing these nude scenes, I recalled Jennifer Gonzàlez’s essay, “Envisioning Cyborg Bodies: Notes from Current Research,” in which she questions the agency and power in looking and being looked at. Who has control over their image and how it is consumed? Can self-empowerment consequently be fetishized? Laura Mulvey’s seminal essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” speaks to this issue, as she explores cinematic apparatuses of the camera and narrative that

1 This also applies to many other female robots in cinema, e.g. Kyoko in Ex Machina, Pris in Blade Runner, and the wives in The Stepford Wives. 89 connect and equate the audience’s visual pleasure and identification with the male gaze. Mulvey writes, “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female figure which is styled accordingly” (837). This objectification is not limited to classical Hollywood cinema—Linda Williams’ essay “Film Body: An Implantation of Perversions” examines how representations of women and their bodies are fetishized and denied agency by their male creators and viewers in the early works of Eadweard Muybridge and George Méliès. Williams discusses how Muybridge’s photographs were initially intended as scientific studies of the human body, only to result in the fictionalized, fragmented eroticization of the female body. Williams also observes how Méliès’ films of the early 1900s further the fetish- istic gaze and objectification of female bodies, as his narratives often feature a male magician performing on female subjects, making their bodies or body parts disappear. Williams concludes that cinema has simply become another form of discourse of sexuality and patriarchy: power and control over the female body is communicated through images generated by men, for men (19-35). Ex Machina follows these very conventions that Williams and Mulvey observe. Mulvey writes, “Traditionally, the woman displayed has functioned on two levels: as erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium, with a shifting tension between the looks on either side of the screen” (838). When we see Ava for the first time, we see her through Caleb’s eyes. She is innocent and sweet in both appearance and personality—she is eager to ask Caleb questions about himself, to learn more about him and the outside world. The camera glides along her body, inviting the audience to gaze through Caleb’s POV. Ava’s hybridity as both a robot and a “woman” makes her a prime candidate as a research-fetish object: her limbs and most of her abdomen are transparent, revealing her mysterious mechanical interiors; meanwhile her curved breasts and buttocks are covered with mesh. Her human face is revealed to be composed entirely from Caleb’s porn search history—an active decision made by Nathan. Her constructed body reduces the feminine to fetishized and fragmented parts designed to be looked at. Though it is Ava’s personality and consciousness that make her “pass” as human, her existence and AI allow both the protagonist and the audience to wonder whether she can pleasure and be pleasured. Nathan tells Caleb at one point, “[To answer] your real question: you bet she can fuck.” When Caleb asks Nathan why he programmed her to be heterosexual, Nathan’s non-answer is: “Sexuality is fun man! If you’re going to exist, why not enjoy it.” Ava is also under constant surveillance by Nathan’s cameras. Caleb can watch her through these cameras on his television in his bedroom and switch camera angles as he pleases. This manipulation further alienates Ava from the audience as a character to relate to; instead, we are simply encouraged to watch her through Caleb’s eyes as the research-fetish object she is supposed to be. Ava later reveals she knows he 90 Sennah YEE is watching her; she is therefore always putting on a performance for both him and the audience. This acting or perhaps acting out is conveyed in a notable scene when she puts on a dress and wig for Caleb of the first time, causing her to almost “pass” as human—her monstrous, mechanical interiors are now covered with virginal, floral dresses. She instructs Caleb to close his eyes, but of course he doesn’t listen—and by proxy, neither does the audience, as we watch Ava put on her clothes in her room. The scene is shot intimately, almost as if she were undressing rather than dressing, with close-ups of her limbs and face, and a dream-like score. Later, Ava undresses, peeling her stockings off her leg seductively as Caleb gazes at her on the television. The frame within a frame of this shot is like an on-stage striptease; Ava is posi- tioned in the center of a room with a window behind her, emphasizing her silhouette. Mulvey’s quotation rings true: “A woman performs within the narrative, the gaze of the spectator and that of the male characters in the film are neatly combined without breaking narrative verisimilitude” (838). While the female robots of Ex Machina are in constant states of dressing and undressing for the male characters and the audience, the only male nudity consists of Caleb shirtless while he shaves in his bathroom, and a close-up of his face when he’s in the shower thinking of Ava—neither of these scenes are shot in a way that encourages the audience to gaze at Caleb the way we are invited to gaze at Ava. This difference is quite similar to Muybridge’s game of peek-a-boo with the female subjects in his photographs, in which they cover up, only to uncover themselves again (Williams 12). While nude men also appear in his photographs, Williams points out that they are often exhibiting their physical strength and their talents in the trades such as car- pentry (12). The men of Ex Machina are never sexually objectified; they only display their wits (computer programming, philosophical and futurist discussions) and their physical strength (drinking, working out). This contrast between male and female agency may very well have been inten- tional on Garland’s part—he mentions in an interview how Nathan is deliberately “presenting himself as a bullying, misogynistic, predatory, violent man, [so that Caleb] needs to rescue this machine from him” (Anders) and how the audience is supposed to question what parts of his personality are performance or genuine. However, Garland’s rationale does not exempt the film from being yet another film that fetishizes the nude female body for the pleasure of heterosexual men onscreen and offscreen. While perhaps these female nude scenes were intended to expose the patriarchal world of the film and of real life, fighting fire with fire risks being ineffec- tive. The danger in exposing a theme such as gender inequality by generating even more images of eroticized women is that there is no guarantee that viewers will perceive nudity as something political and subversive; they could very well miss the message and simply be aroused. An example of this lack of control over how images of nude women onscreen are consumed are the reddit forums, “Watch It For The Plot” (cheekily titled because it features users who only watch films for female nudity 91 and who screencap frames and animations to share with others), and “Nude Celebs Only,” (title self-explanatory! Some of the homepage guidelines are “Must have at least one breast/nipple visible” and “Covered topless/nude is OK”). Both Kyoko’s and Ava’s nude scenes are featured on these forums, along with hundreds of other scenes from other films. Their context is stripped (pun intended); the predominantly male users have isolated these frames outside of the narrative and are looking at them for their own pleasure. Williams notes how this trend of feminizing machines and mechanizing women can be found in early cinema. Méliès was “engaged in an obsessive pursuit of mastery over the human body” (28) in how he reworked French magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin’s automata designs to create his own robots whose appearance and movements were controlled by the inventor-operator. Williams summarizes some of Méliès’ films which exhibit his fascination with dismemberment and mechanized limbs. Extraordinary Illusions (1903) particularly reminds me of Ex Machina: Méliès plays a magician who assembles various body parts into a mechanical woman. Méliès gives her a kiss and tosses her in the air, and she becomes a real woman. He dresses and undresses her using his magic, and she dances for him playfully—until to his dismay, she starts changing back and forth into a male chef. The film concludes with Méliès ripping the chef into pieces before disappearing, himself. As both the director controlling the cinematic apparatus, and as the protagonist, Méliès exerts a male power over the female body. According to Williams, in using the camera to reproduce women’s bodies in a voyeuristic and fetishized lens, the apparatus reduces female bodies to “simple stereotypes of female-ness which uniformly differ from the male” (32). The aim of the apparatus is to simulate reality, and the “point” of films is to be watched. Therefore, the problematic logic is that women as objects of desire onscreen are “meant” to be looked at, because a camera has captured their image, and the “point” of an image is to be looked at. Williams says that for Muybridge, “the truth is scientific” (20), while for Méliès, “the truth of the body is both magical and mysterious” (20). Ex Machina and the female robot echo both of these approaches, approaches which are ultimately damaging to real women, as the eroticization of the female body is justified through patriarchal “scientific reasoning,” while simultaneously being portrayed -as some thing alien, threatening, mysterious, and Other. Williams states that the cinematic apparatus has become “an instrument in the ‘implantation of perversion’ whose first effect is to deny the very existence of women” (27). This statement applies to the female robot both onscreen and in real-life technology in which the female body is reduced to an expression of male desires that are ultimately patriarchal: the desire to invent, simulate, possess, and control a woman or the feminine. Though Ava may exercise agency in reassembling her body at the end of the film, the parts are nevertheless still man-made, and Garland does not grant the audience any further insight into Ava’s mind. Why does she choose the body parts that she 92 Sennah YEE chooses? Does she want to “pass” as human simply to escape, or does she truly wish to be human? Of course, withholding Ava’s inner thoughts from the audience is a deliberate narrative choice, as it is supposed to be a surprising revelation that Ava is going to leave Caleb behind. It is almost as though the film relies on Caleb being the protagonist simply for the twist ending to be effective. This narrative choice is not worth sacrificing Ava as the film’s protagonist. Instead, the audience is left interpreting Ava solely through her interactions with the men who are researching her. With female robots, the gaze and objectification are often “justified” with the reasoning that they are objects, and specifically objects of “science,” so they are supposed to be examined, fragmented, turned inside out. Kaja Silverman’s book The Acoustic Mirror provides a psychoanalytic reading of how the female voice is often disembodied and “extracted” from female characters in cinema by the authoritative “talking cure” of the male characters. Ex Machina is a prime example of this—we identify Caleb as the key protagonist from the opening scene, and follow his journey throughout as he explores Nathan’s lab, gazes at Ava’s body, and tries to understand her. The narrative forces the audience into viewing Ava as an object of study whose interiority and “truth” must be revealed and tested through conversation and interrogation, conducted by men. According to Haraway’s Manifesto: “the main trouble with cyborgs is that they are the illegitimate offspring of militarism, patriarchal capitalism, not to mention state socialism. But illegitimate offspring are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins. Their fathers, after all, are inessential” (152). Ava mirrors this exactly—she is a literal product of patriarchy: men who have the power, means, and money to construct a female robot for their own pleasure. She is also “exceedingly unfaithful” to her origins in leaving Nathan and Caleb behind. However, is Ava’s escape framed as a triumph, or rather as a cautionary tale of what can go wrong when playing God? If it is a triumph, why was the audience not granted the chance to cheer her on from the start of the film, instead of treating her like a research-fetish object as do Caleb and Nathan? If it is a cautionary tale of what happens when playing God, specifically in trying to control women, this moral is lost amongst the gratuitous nudity and lack of access granted to the female characters’ stories. As one online film critic notes, Ex“ Machina is entirely about masculinity and the different ways the men try to exert control, not so much about women’s experiences. Ava is merely the lens through which male atti- tudes are refracted” (Anders). As previously mentioned, the camera frequently positions the spectator in a POV that encourages identification with the male characters of the film. While the audience is seldom able to escape the male gaze and see through Ava’s eyes, I will conclude this section by deconstructing a rare shot from Ava’s POV that occurs in session four in the film, narrated by Caleb. The camera shifts to Ava’s POV as she imagines herself leaving the compound and seeing the sunny outside world. This shot, which I’ll call “Ava’s fantasy shot,” is short-lived; her perspective is broken when the cam- 93 era switches back to Caleb’s POV, gazing at Ava looking back at him. Ava’s fantasy shot is repeated later when Caleb reminisces about it in the shower, but this time he inserts his own fantasy into hers, as he imagines them sharing a kiss. Ava’s fantasy shot is briefly repeated one last time at the end of the film when Ava emerges from the compound, gazing at the sun. However, the film ultimately concludes from a perspective that is once again outside of her POV—the audience is still left gazing at her through a glass window, something to be examined.

Her (2013) Her follows Theodore’s (Joaquin Phoenix) increasing fascination—and eventu- al love—for Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), a computer operating system (OS) with AI. While Ava in Ex Machina has a fascination with her feminized robot body and the outside world, Samantha, in Her, yearns to have a female body to experience the real world, as she exists simply as virtual entity in the form of a female voice. While this is a major difference between the two characters, they nevertheless possess similar personality traits and narrative arcs. I will briefly summarize the film, explore its online discourse, and apply readings by Michel Chion, Kaja Silverman, and Karly- Lynne Scott to critique the disembodied voice in cinema and its subversive potential. Lonely Theodore installs Samantha, a virtual assistant OS, to help him organize his life. It is not long before the two develop a romantic relationship—Theodore is charmed by Samantha’s wit and zest for life, and Samantha grows curious about humanity. New notions of relationships and intimacy in a digital age are introduced and explored as the two have aural sex and go on dates together. Samantha later tries to introduce a surrogate to stand in for her lack of a body during sex; however the encounter goes horribly awry. The two grow distant, and Samantha’s sense of self begins developing more as she meets other OSes and starts to embrace her lack of a body. Theodore finds out that Samantha is in a relationship with many other users, and is sad that she isn’t only his. Samantha tells Theodore that she and the other OSes are leaving their owners in order to learn more about who they are, and bids a bitter- sweet farewell. Similar to Ex Machina, there have been many debates as to whether Her is a “feminist” film. Critics such as Sady Doyle, atIn These Times, and Anna Shechtman, at Slate, suggest that the film reinforces patriarchal notions such as “possessing” women as objects and reducing them to mere plot devices, while others such as the editors at Feministing and Tasha Golden, at Ethos Review, praise it as “the most feminist film of the year” (“Feministing Chat: Why Her is the Most Feminist Film of the Year”) and an eye-opening critique of men’s projections of women. Though Samantha’s agency is exciting, I argue that the most crucial point of her arc (outgrowing Theodore) and her complexities are not given enough screen time. Samantha’s departure at the end of the film was when I wanted the film to begin; the whole film could have been an opportunity to follow and experience Samantha’s unique journey into autonomy, 94 Sennah YEE and ask questions linked to the female experience and the female body (or lack thereof)! Instead, we are left with our male protagonist, whose “lovesick-but-can’t-connect-with-others” story is ultimately one we have witnessed before in romance genre films. While Her touches upon an array of thought-provoking and subversive ideas through Samantha, it is a shame that the film was not actually more about Her! Conceptualized by Michel Chion in The Voice of Cinema, the “acousmêtre” describes a voice whose presence is not connected to a face, disembodied, “neither inside nor outside” (23). This collapse of dualisms is rather cyborgian, and holds great power in its omniscience and omnipotence. Silverman’s readings on the disembodied voice in cinema also apply to this film; like Ex Machina, Her also features a “talking cure” narrative. Silverman looks at examples of classical cinema that contain disembodied male voiceovers as authoritative voices, all-knowing and outside/transcendent of the diegesis, versus the trend of female voices restricted to the corporeal confines of the film’s story, something to be extracted—often by an authoritative male character—and involuntarily exposed in order to reveal her mysterious interiority/ femininity (59). While these films may focus on female interiority, they “deprivilege that interiority by referring it insistently back to the body” (64-65). There are many examples of this ‘deprivileging’ in Her. First, the OS that Theodore has at the start of the film is a male voice. It is authoritative, distant, and ultimately not Theodore’s ideal choice (it can’t even select the right sad song for his elevator ride). When he installs his OS, the installation setup voice is also male and authoritative, asking questions such as whether Theodore prefers a male or female voice (guess which one he goes with!), and then what his relationship is with his mother. Silverman certainly would have something to say about this relationship, considering one of her chapters is about the disembodied female voice as a maternal presence: a utopian and a dystopian fantasy (72). Samantha is put to work right away as a sort of secretary—sorting through e-mails, proofreading his work, and reminding him about meetings. Samantha, however, begins to develop a curiosity for life and her own identity. As the two characters become more intimate, Samantha reveals her own desires for Theodore, and her own insecurities about lacking a body. The only other disembodied male voice in the film is the scientist Alan Watts, another figure of authority. He makes Theodore feel confused, threatened. When Samantha goes off to talk with more OSes, we are not granted the opportunity to hear their conversation or witness them develop. We are strictly limited to Theodore’s reactions to Samantha leaving him behind to know herself better. While Samantha eventually frees herself from Theodore and other users, she is ultimately still confined to Theodore’s narrative in the film. We do not have access to her innermost thoughts, who she is on her own, or how she converses with her 8,000 other users and 600 other partners. While perhaps it was the intention of the film to critique Theodore’s preconceptions about Samantha, the film could have benefitted from exploring more of Samantha’s story. 95

Silverman declares that “the female voice has enormous conceptual and discursive range once it is freed from its claustral confinement within the female body” (186). She believes that a disembodied female voice could disrupt conventional narratives in being freed from the male gaze and its obligations: “It would liberate the female subject from the interrogation about her place, her time, and her desires which constantly resecures her. [It] would be to challenge every conception by means of which we have previously known woman within Hollywood film, since it is precisely as body that she is constructed there” (164). Samantha even states something almost identical to this when she begins to realize the endless possibilities of her decorpore- alized state: “I’m not limited; I can be wherever and whenever simultaneously. I am not tethered to time and space in a way that I would be if I was stuck in a body that is inevitably going to die.” Karly-Lynne Scott and Silverman seem to be thinking along similar lines. In Scott’s paper, “Orgasms without Bodies,” she explores Theodore’s and Samantha’s sexual relationship. She notes how Samantha’s decorporeality could have depicted “poly- morphously perverse” sexual possibilities, potential that the film fails to explore. Instead, and as Silverman locates as a trend in classic “talking cure” films,Her repeatedly anchors Samantha, Theodore, and the audience back to the notion that she does not have a body. Silverman refers to the theories of Ernest Jones, who explores the tendency in classical cinema to equate the woman’s voice with her vagina; the voice as an “organ hole” (67) that exudes laughter, shrieks of fear, or screams of pleasure out of her control. The first sex scene between Theodore and Samantha is all aural; the screen fades to black as we hear them arouse each other with descriptions of how they are pleasuring the other/being pleasured. Scott notes that this sex scene is an attempt to embody Samantha’s voice, as Theodore refers repeatedly to her non-existent human physique in his descriptions (e.g. he says he is touching her cheek, her breasts, putting himself inside her). So then how transgressive is Her? While Samantha is a disembodied female voice, casting Scarlett Johansson as her voice actor corporealizes “her” nevertheless. Johansson is a Hollywood star; her voice is unmistakeable and sexy. As a critic from New York Times says, “It’s crucial that each time you hear Ms. Johansson [...] you can’t help but flash on her lush physicality, too, which helps fill in Samantha and give this ghostlike presence a vibrant, palpable form, something that would have been tricki- er to pull off with a lesser-known performer” (Dargis). Because of the myth, the fantasy, and the star power of body it belongs to, it is impossible to fully disembody Johansson’s voice. Scott notes how Samantha and Theodore grow increasingly uncomfortable with her non-corporeality. When Samantha hires Isabella (Portia Doubleday), a surrogate to “stand in” for Samantha so that she and Theodore can have penetrative sex, the result is uncanny, surreal: Isabella does not move her mouth with Samantha’s voice, and even though all the conventional actions of foreplay and sex are being followed, they just don’t add up. Chion writes about the process of “de-acousmatization,” which is the 96 Sennah YEE act of embodying a disembodied voice, stripping it of its power and omnipotence (27). While Isabella isn’t Samantha’s actual body, this process of displaced de-acousmatization is nonetheless jarring for Theodore. He stops midway through sex with Isabella because he is so uncomfortable, and then later ponders whether he and Samantha can be together even though she does not have a body and is not a real human. Scott refers to Deleuze’s and Guattaris’ “Body without Organs” (BwO) as a liberat- ing concept, in which the body’s organs and their functions become collapsed, fluid, malleable to one’s liking and needs: “Like the BwO, Samantha’s lack of physical form experienced in cyberspace would allow her to have a different organization or no organization at all” (10). This statement echoes Haraway’s vision of how the cyborg is not either/or, but rather neither/both (Haraway 1991). However, as Scott notes, Her ultimately restricts Samantha and her orgasms to normalized, heteronormative ideals, focusing on penetrative sex, “constructing and constraining Samantha’s erotic possibilities in the service of not only Theodore’s sexual desire, but the audience’s as well” (11). I am reminded again of Haraway’s Manifesto, in which she asks: “Why should our bodies end at the skin, or include at best other beings encapsulated by skin?” (178). Unlike Ex Machina, the relationship in Her is romantic and two-sided; however, like Ex Machina, Samantha yearns for freedom and liberates herself by the film’s end. Both Samantha and Ava leave their “owners” in their quest for understanding humanity, though both films ultimately focus on their male protagonists, and the female AI’s freedom marks the conclusion of the story. Why do these films end right when the “woman” is freed? Why do filmmakers seldom explore the female AI’s thoughts on the constructions of their gender, their sexuality, their body, or lack thereof? Neither “women” in these films are the protagonists, which as I’ve suggested, is a loss of opportunity in terms of exploring subversive and feminist ideas. Where are the films that feature female AIs as 1) protagonists, 2) not sexualized, and 3) whose story of liberation and empowerment is the main focus of the narrative? The fact that I cannot think of any examples leads me to conclude that there is a great need for these three criteria to be simultaneously met in mainstream cinema. One can only hope that these questions will be addressed as female AIs continue to be prevalent concepts and characters in science fiction, and that the audience will finally have the (non-sexual) pleasure of seeing a female AI getting to explore “her” own stories of freedom and humanity, rather than being reduced to a research-fetish object. If there is no turning back from the trend of gendering robots and machines, it is crucial to create stories and technology with these feminist and transgressive visions in mind. Haraway’s manifesto recognizes the exciting possibilities the cyborg as a metaphor and an image could present; it is essential to work towards a future in which such possibilities can be realized in order to disrupt the cycle of feminized machines and mechanized women trapped within the powerful machine that is cinema and its patriarchal apparatus. 97

Works Cited: 1. Anders, Charlie Jane. “Director Alex Garland Explains Why Ex Machina Is So Disturbingly Sexy.” io9, 7 Apr. 2015, www.io9.gizmodo.com/director-alex-garland-explains-why-ex- machina-is-so-dis-1696309078. 2. Buchanan, Kyle. “Does Ex Machina Have a Woman Problem, or Is Its Take on Gender Truly Futuristic?” The Vulture, 22 Apr. 2015, www.vulture.com/2015/04/why-ex-machina- take-on-gender-is-so-advanced.html. 3. Chion, Michel. The Voice of Cinema, translated by Claudia Gorbman, Columbia University Press, 1999. 4. Dargis, Manohla. “Disembodied, but Oh, What a Voice: ‘Her,’ Directed by Spike Jonze.” New York Times, 17 Dec. 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/movies/her-directed-by- spike-jonze.html. 5. Doyle, Sady. “‘Her’ Is Really More About ‘Him.’” In These Times, 20 Dec. 2013, www. inthesetimes.com/article/16031/her_is_really_more_about_him. 6. Ex Machina. Directed by Alex Garland, Universal Pictures, 2015. 7. “Ex Machina: An Important Film for Feminist Cinema.” Not Left Handed Film Guide, 28 Jan. 2015, www.notlefthandedfilmguide.co.uk/2015/01/28/ex-machina-an-important-film- for-feminist-cinema/. 8. “Feministing Chat: Why Her Is the Most Feminist Film of the Year.” Feministing, 28 Feb. 2014, www.feministing.com/2014/02/28/feministing-chat-why-her-is-the-most-feminist- film-of-the-year/. 9. Gonzàlez, Jennifer. “Envisioning Cyborg Bodies: Notes from Current Research.” The Gendered Cyborg: A Reader, edited by Gill Kirkup, Fiona Hovenden, and Linda Janes, Routledge, 1999, pp. 58–73. 10. Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto.” Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. Routledge, 1991, pp. 149-181. 11. Her, directed by Spike Jonze, Warner Bros. Pictures, 2014. 12. Huyssen, Andreas. “The Vamp and the Machine: Technology and Sexuality in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.” New German Critique, no. 24/25, 1981, pp. 221–237, https://www. jstor.org/stable/488052. 13. Johnson, Kjerstin. “How Ex Machina Toys With Its Female Characters.” Bitch Media, 8 May 2015, www.bitchmedia.org/post/ex-machina-film-review-gender-and-ai-feminism. 14. Kakoudaki, Despina. Anatomy of a Robot: Literature, Cinema, and the Cultural Work of Artificial People. Rutgers University Press, 2014. 15. Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, edited by Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 833–844. 16. “Nude Celebs Only.” reddit, www.reddit.com/r/nudecelebsonly. 17. Rose, Steve. “Ex Machina and Sci-Fi’s Obsession with Sexy Female Robots.” The Guardian, 15 Jan. 2015, www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jan/15/ex-machina-sexy-female-robots- scifi-film-obsession. 18. Scott, Karly-Lynne. “Orgasms without Bodies.” world picture 10, 2015, http://www. worldpicturejournal.com/WP_10/Scott_10.html. 98 Sennah YEE

19. Shechtman, Anna. “What’s Missing From Her.” Slate, 3 Jan. 2014, www.slate.com/blogs/ browbeat/2014/01/03/her_movie_by_spike_jonze_with_joaquin_phoenix_and_scarlett_ johansson_lacks.html. 20. Silverman, Kaja. The Acoustic Mirror: The Female Voice in Psychoanalysis and Cinema. Indiana University Press, 1988. 21. Soukup, Charles. “Techno-Scopophilia: The Semiotics of Technological Pleasure in Film.” Critical Studies in Media Communication, vol. 26, no. 1, 2009, pp. 19–35, http://dx.doi. org/10.1080/15295030802684026. 22. “Watch It For The Plot.” reddit, www.reddit.com/r/watchitfortheplot. 23. Williams, Linda. “Film Body: An Implantation of Perversions.” Ciné-Tracts vol. 3, no. 4, 1981, pp. 19–35.

Mircea Valeriu DEACA

Science fiction films as gedanken experiments

Abstract: The paper investigates some features of the science fiction film genre, as seen from a cognitive perspective. Starting from the theoretical framework of Lawrence Barsalou, we consider the concept of SF film to be a radial category that encompasses a wide array of particular instantiations clustered around several generic clusters. The definition of the genre is encyclopedic, and thus it does not require a sufficient and necessary set of distinctive features. During film experience, the audience will categorize visual elements composing the diegetic setting in a bottom up fashion. These elements are functional bundles and form a repertoire. They evoke a representation that includes properties, relations, rules, behavior of objects, agents, settings and a wide variety of internal states such as interoceptions and mentalizing. This representation is a background situated conceptualization. This background situation is apprehended in a top down manner as an instantiation of the SF abstract concept, a whole situation category. The overall conception is a familiar landscape that has a more schematic and abstract description, a descriptive system, and comprises a collection of different situated conceptualizations. Conceptually, SF is understood as a thought experiment based on the ‘what if’ speech act scenario performed by an explicit / implicit narrator. The conceptual description of the counterfactual proposition contains a comparison between an actual situation (the natural world conception) and an alien one (the proposed new situation or event). Keywords: cognition, film analysis, science fiction, situated conceptualization, descriptive system, genre.

“I was born in a world you may not understand …” Ultraviolet, 2006 “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”

Mircea Valeriu DEACA Star Wars, 1977 Bucharest University “Here we confront the unknown” Email: [email protected] Demon Seed, 1977

EKPHRASIS, 1/2017 Introduction Ghosts in the Cinema Machine pp. 99-118 SF is considered a subgenre dependent on basic genre construals: action drama, melo- DOI:10.24193/ekphrasis.17(1).7 drama, horror, comedy. Each particular film Published First Online: 2017/06/30 is a construal of the relationship posited be- 100 Mircea Valeriu DEACA tween two elements (known and unknown) and a dynamic unfolding of a control mechanism of the unknown, inherent in the comparison. In its prototypical instance, this control mechanism is manifested by the narrative extradiegetic explanation which ra- tionalizes the alien and makes an epistemic stance possible. This epistemic stance is maintained with the use of realist cues and elements of known genres: action film, melodrama. Narrative, affect and drama sustain the naturalization of the unknown and represent a kind of epistemic control. The ‘what if’ proposition and the depiction of the encounter between the known and the unknown are appraised as discursive pronouncements on everyday reality. Frequent awe inspiring diegesis – a manifestation of the unknown – is coupled with the distance created by narrative closure and thus gives the viewer a feeling of mastery. The dominant genre grounds perception, cognition and emotion as a particular type of situated conceptualization and enhance, through narrative resolution, the epistemic control of the ‘what if’ scenario instigated by the irruption of the defamiliarizing reality of the unknown.

Functional bundles A genre is a composite of schemas abstracted from encountered instances of discourse use. A schema represents a commonality in regard to some facet of the structure of the discourse unit and it contains our expectations about the genre. As such it serves as a template in producing and apprehending new instances. The genre, as a cognitive model, comprises a global organization, local structural properties, ready made sequences and expressive constructions, typical content, specific expressions and matters of style and register (Langacker 2008, 478). The aspects enumerated are features neither necessary nor sufficient in order to categorize a specific instance as belonging to the generic category. Their conglomerate is a fuzzy cluster. Quite often science fiction films (SF) are categorized by viewers as belonging to the genre once they identify and recognize diegetic elements. The repertoire is ample: “rockets, robots, futuristic cities, alien encounters, fantastic technology, scien- tists (mad or otherwise)” (Telotte 2004, 4) “[…] various robots, androids, cyborgs, and ‘enhanced’ beings” (14) “[…] televisions, rocket ships, flying wings, ray guns, guided missiles, mind-control machines, flying suits, alien invaders, and especially- ro bots” (92) […] “mutants, awakened monsters, and world cataclysms […] space exploration”(98). For Johnston (2011, 7) iconographic elements such as “flying saucers, robots, ray guns and aliens” are prompts that cue the interpretive stance. These content elements can be understood as integrated functional bundles – a term used by Torben Grodal (2009, 31-35) that designates “mental units that are invented, mind-grabbing, attention-grabbing, and widely communicated”. For example, “the features and functions of children’s stories can often be combined in small sets of functional bundles, such as ‘evil wizard’ or ‘evil witch’ (older man or woman able to perform magical and evil acts), or an object of extreme empowerment such as a magic wand or sword” (33). Salient functional bundles – comparable to objects like spears, 101 wheels, bridges – perform an “easy-to-grasp function in relation to quasi-universal needs and mental models” (34). For example, shields or protective surfaces are imitat- ed from nature – the shells of turtles – and can be transformed into electromagnetic / force shields that protect against laser beams or rockets. By resorting to common knowledge of the way objects co-occur in their natural scenes, diegetic elements cue the viewer to categorize the scene in which the item is embedded (Stansbury 2013, 1025). A diegetic object (i.e. a functional bundle) evokes and activates in the mind of the viewer an encyclopedic knowledge base (a matrix of semantic domains for Langacker 2008; a concept for Barsalou 2011) that has a linguistic labeling (Zwaan 2014). For Barsalou a concept “aggregates information about category instances” (Barsalou 2011, 1106) or category knowledge associated with the concept in “some sort of abstraction” (Barsalou 2006, 351). I have used the term descriptive system to refer to this notion (Deaca 2015, 169). The descriptive system, besides providing information about properties, relations, prototypes, rules and exemplars, defines the procedures that have to be followed, the sequence of events, the roles that have to be carried out by the participants and the expectations / inferences implied (see Sharifian 2014, 108). The descriptive system defines the satisfying conditions which are necessary in order to achieve the required performative speech acts. In opposition to the highly abstract schemas which are necessary to categorization - which operates unconsciously -, the descriptive systems are more complex, can be explored consciously, and, under the modeling influence of a construal, can be apprehended as a situated conceptualization (see Barsalou 2003; Zwaan 2014; Binder 2015). Additionally, descriptive systems, by hypothesis, incorpo- rate elements with different degrees of abstraction and elaboration. A concept evokes a series of situated conceptualizations that represent particular instantiations of a category. Concrete concepts are grounded in situations and thus are represented in meaningful background situations, i.e. situated conceptualization, that “include a setting, agents, objects, behaviors, events, and internal states, each represented by relevant concepts” (Barsalou 2011, 1107). It contains “the entities involved as agents, the behavior of objects, the setting, the event and the relevant introspective information – interoceptions and mentalizing – as well as properties and relations that describe instances of concepts tailored for an activity that has to be carried out with a certain purpose” (Barsalou 2005, 156). A concept is an ability to “represent a category by simulating experiences of its members”, i.e. a “situation as a re- gion of perceived space that surrounds a focal entity over some temporal duration, perceived from the subjective perspective of an agent” (Barsalou 2006). Thus, “particular modal areas of the brain store information about the category and can later represent the category in the absence of actual instances” (Barsalou 2011, 1107). The concept contains simulators for settings, events, mental states, and so forth that com- bine to represent background situations (Barsalou 2006, 353). The viewer has “mental representations of situations (i.e., events, states, and other propositional content)” 102 Mircea Valeriu DEACA and “a situation, in the most general sense, can be thought of as simply a configuration of concepts, generally including entities, actions, properties, and relationships” (Binder 2016, 1099). Concrete concepts have situated conceptualizations as backgrounds – they refer to part of a situation - and abstract concepts typically refer to entire situation such as an entire situated conceptualization represents them. Abstract concepts are “relational structures that integrate many different concepts in a situated conceptualization” (1107). Furthermore, concept representation has degrees of abstraction (see Binder et al. 2015; Binder 2016; Zwaan 2015) up to a stage of abstract schematic representation - an amodal type of representation that contains predictive associations of events, states and propositional content, a configuration of concepts or a pattern of activation of thematic roles that populate situations (entities, actions, properties, and relationships). The term descriptive system is a description of semantic content situated at this level of abstraction where symbolic representations dominate.

The Construal Let us notice that a concept consists of a correlated assembly of perception – cognition – emotion that can either function unconsciously as a descriptive system or be explored consciously as a situated conceptualization through attentional focalizing or memory retrieval. The descriptive system – unconscious – plays a categorizing schematic role for a particular elaboration / instance. The construal represents our capacity to conceive and portray the same situation in various manners (Langacker 2007: 435; Evans 2006; 536; Ungerer 2006: 163: Croft 2004: 40). Attention is differentially focused on a particular aspect of a scene by -fo cal adjustments or imaging systems (Talmy 2000a; 2000b; 2007). By selecting of a particular focal adjustment for a scene, the speaker imposes a unique construal upon it. The construal comprehends aspects of conceptualization that also involve the subject of conceptualization, i.e. frames of knowledge that impose a structure with respect to which the conceived situation is characterized. Main aspects of the construal are: specificity the( degree of abstraction involving commonalities, i.e. schematicity and scalar adjustments), prominence (the selection of a facet of the situation and figure / ground selection), perspective (focal adjustments such as viewpoint, deixis, grounding, and the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity) and dynamics (development of conceptualization through processing time) (Verhagen 2007; Croft 2004). Other aspects of construal include: distribution of attention, referent accessibility, judgment/ comparison (categorization, metaphor), force dynamics, formation of gestalts in schematic categories as space and time. Involvement of the conceptualizers situated on the ground of the conceptualization and management of multiple epistemic perspectives of a situation are also main aspects characteristic of the construal. In film termi- nology variable framing is a mechanism for changing the viewing position and elaborating construal. Variable framing is implemented by editing, camera movement and 103 lens movement and support the functions of indexing (pointing at something), scaling (changing the relative size of something on screen) and bracketing (projecting outside the frame elements of the scene) (Carroll & Seeley 2014). The experience of situated conceptualization – which by now it should be obvious that I equate with the online processing of cinematic scenes and sequences – is an integrated, qualitatively diverse experience of multimodal interactions. Visual perception, as Gallese postulates, is also multimodal and encompasses the “activation of motor, somatosensory and emotion-related brain networks” (Gallese 2016, 128). Setting, agents, objects, behaviors, events and mental states are the multiple dimensions of a descriptive system shaped and understood by the viewer, under the influence of a cinematic construal (i.e. sensory perceptual features, cognitive and affective aspects), as a particular situated conceptualization. Each single dimension is perceived not in isolation but in relation to others and tuned by concurrent dimensions in an “entangled” fashion. Furthermore, previous cinematic experiences (i.e. anteced- ent sequences of the film) warp present online processing of these dimensions and functions as attractors for the construal. The viewer performs a “walk” that discloses a particular pattern in the multidimensional conceptual space of a situated conceptualization while it incorporates continuously changing sensory inputs (see Pennartz 2009).

The top down categorization mechanism Perceiving is conceiving in the sense that the viewer “sees” an object as a two- fold entity. One part is present in perception while the other is conceptually present in the mind of the viewer. The situation evoked is the conceptual part. It is the object’s identity. As Noe Alva (2012) mentioned, in a picture of a plate taken from a lateral angle we don’t see an oval plate but we apprehend a round plate. Perceptual cues activate in a bottom-up fashion a set of top-down expectations and inferences that constitute an integrated conceptualization. Temporal interactive processing will confirm or disconfirm the prediction as error (Seth 2014). The slogan is that we see what we conceive. For Johnston (2011) SF is “a popular fictional genre that engages with (and visu- alizes) cultural debates around one or more of the following: the future, artificial creation, technological invention, extraterrestrial contact, time travel, physical or mental mutation, scientific experimentation, or fantastic natural disaster” (Johnston 2011, 1). Its characteristic thematic topics are “automation, advanced technology, space travel, scientific progress, invisibility, fantastic explorations, body snatching, radiation anxiety and transformation” (2011, 51) or “potential generic threads around the artificial creation of life, mechanization, bodily transformation, alien invasion, fantastic travel and futurity” (52); “body swapping or brain transplants” (57). Several scenarios are repeated in SF films: the “impact of forces outside the human realm, […] encounters with alien beings and other worlds, […] changes in society and culture, wrought 104 Mircea Valeriu DEACA by our science and technology, […] technological alterations in and substitute versions of the self” (Telotte 2004, 12). Time travel and paradoxes linked to quantum effects and multiverse theory Mr.( Nobody; The Butterfly Effect) sustain certain plots. Recurrent themes are the alien infection, the rise of dictatorial societies, surveillance societies and post-apocalyptic survival (93). These are discursive abstract cultural concepts generated online from the patch- work of background situations. Background situations involve a mix of different concepts in a common frame. They are complete situations that include several elements and their relations in a relational structure (Barsalou 2011, 1107). As abstract concepts they are equated with entire background situations and serve to categorize new instances. They form an open-ended lexicon. Some abstract concepts are more entrenched and conventionalized and others are ad-hoc conceptual hybrids. Recognizing the SF genre involves assumptions and expectations that determine the categorization of the particular diegetic situation by expanding the representation of the attended category at the cost of unattended categories (see the warping by tuning of the semantic representation of a category across the human brain in Gallant 2013). Abstract concepts are schematizations (descriptive systems) conceptualized on the basis of instances of use and serve as categorizing templates to new online situated conceptualizations, i.e. online construed descriptive systems. Stated briefly, for example, an integrated bundle like “space travel” has a schematic representation and a correspondent descriptive system that is abstract enough in order to allow the viewer to categorize different situated conceptualizations as particular instances and members of the category. As such, the template serves as a grammatical rule; a generic rule abstracted from instances of use and is employed by the viewer as a cognitive model. On encountering a blend of features, particular concepts and modalities, during a filmic experience one judges it as an instance of an encompass- ing category, the genre. The genre contains the semantic pole, i.e. the concept and its descriptive system and the expressive pole, i.e. a type of characteristic construal. In other words, it is not sufficient for the viewer to recognize the conceptual content “space travel” since this can also be used as such in scientific discourse or documentary. Based on the content cue alone the viewer will not correctly identify SF films. Specific ways of profiling and construal are also necessary. For example Telotte -men tions Rick Altman’s view that the generic text is, first, “a list of common traits, atti- tudes, characters, shots, locations, sets, and the like, and, second, a group of certain constitutive relationships ... into which they are arranged” (Telotte 2004, 18). The generic template of SF is not a formal but a conceptual one describable as a general cognitive model, a concept abstracted from particular filmic expressions that contain typical situations / functional bundles and typical cinematographic construals. On one hand we have typical “themes”, and on the other typical expressive construals. Different blends of those poles – content and expressive – are categorized as belong- 105 ing to the SF category. The concept of SF film contains an abstract description based on encyclopedic knowledge that includes not only the list of thematic elements but also the ways of representing them as film. Furthermore, the genre is like a lexicon of particular instances of the descriptive system that are conventional in the cultural cinematographic current usage: “Rather than the category having a conceptual core, a set of situated exemplars represents it that exhibit family resemblance and radial structure, accompanied by limited abstractions” (Barsalou 2011, 1107). The collections of exemplars do not constitute a tight set. The genre is a cluster of exemplars that sat- isfy the criterion of “family resemblance” (See for example a definition of the abstract concept of art elaborated in similar terms by Gaut 2000, 27). The lexicon is open-ended in the sense that new configurations can be recognized as belonging to the genre and subsequently, by frequent use, become conventionalized. Due to this fact SF is an extremely versatile genre. As we will further elaborate in this paper this ensemble of exemplars is, combined with the construal of a main genre like horror, comedy, thriller, melodrama, to be apprehended as a subgenre. The new concepts represented by background situations are also radial categories and are modulated by a construal, as for example, “the agent’s subjective perspective” and “perceptual construals that underlie goal-related activity in the current situation” (Barsalou 2011, 1107). In other words we have to take in account a narrative role played by a narrator in the cognitive model of SF. SF is a familiar landscape based on an open-ended list of particular situated conceptualizations (themes and construals) controlled in a top-down fashion by the generic abstract concept. Situated conceptualizations involve the lexicon of SF, i.e. functional bundles, settings, events, situations, agents, mental states represent the genre. Bottom-up cues evoke conventional situations and conventional construals; top- down expectations sanction and adjust the perception of the specific conceptualized situation. The gist of a situation / scene help the process of categorization (Bar 2004, 2007, Barrett & Bar 2009; Binder 2016). Once the viewer recognizes an item of the lexicon or a specific cue, they activate the correspondent top-down generic expectation that will categorize the depicted diegesis as belonging to the semantic realm of SF genre. Diegesis and its components are warped dynamically towards the SF generic conceptual template. Let us note that once the viewer categorizes the film as SF all other elements are “hooked” by tuning mechanism to this categorization and “entangled” in it in a warped whole. Diegetic elements that are not per se classifiable as typical SF functional bundles – e.g. a cowboy in western setting – will be tuned to this generic attractor and all semantic space will be warped towards the SF in that particular situated conceptualization. Thus, in this case the “cowboy” is perceived as a character belonging to the SF genre. For example Cowboys and Aliens is based on such a blend. The film fits in a perfectly ambivalent way either in the category of a western in which some characters are aliens or of a SF with cowboys. Once the viewer is cued and applies the ge- 106 Mircea Valeriu DEACA neric conceptual template the online discourse is decoded accordingly. Alphaville is another example. The viewer is mostly cued by a voice-over that the film is a science fiction. However, the agents, settings and diegetic behavior do not correspond to the typical SF situation. The narrative construal is based on film noir clichés and the setting is modern times Paris (streets, a hotel and La Maison de la Radio). Nevertheless, Alphaville is experienced by the audience as an atypical instance of the SF genre. Filmic elements are apprehended as belonging to the generic cognitive model of the SF and their meaning is thus warped by this attractor. The viewer experiences today’s Paris – in the sense of Noe Alva’s theory of vision – as a SF setting.

The blend of descriptive systems Grodal notes that “particular functional bundles or mental models may exist side by side with quite other bundles and models” (2009, 34). For example in Star Wars shields and swords “exist side by side with advanced technological gadgets” (34). For him culture is a “toolkit containing very heterogeneous items” and film is also a “bri- colage, in the sense that it brings together whatever is at hand and seems to work, even if it is heterogeneous” and has a “local functionality” (35). In most SF films a hybrid functional bundle obtained through the blend of two concepts is present. In some cases, one concept refers to something which is familiar and known and the other profiles something that is unfamiliar and strange. Features from two alternative descriptive systems are blended. A particular situated conceptualization brings together aspects from two separate semantic domains that, through repeated use, can be conventionalized and apprehended as a new integrated concept. Let us take “the mad scientist” as an example: this bundle incorporates the familiar figure of the “scientist” (and its descriptive system / situated conceptualization) and the concept of “madness” that makes reference to an unfamiliar and alien mental state. The “robot” as well, is a mixture of human and nonhuman. In other cases both concepts can be familiar but some aspect of the fictional world in which they dwell is unfamiliar. Their conjugation will make reference to an unfamiliar reality and make perceptible something that is impossible to conceptualize directly since it never occurred in experience (a virus). In his analysis of Moon Johnston remarks that “costume functions to suggest the future, but also remains tied to the known, creating a world that is different but familiar enough to be recognizable” (Johnston, 15). Archimboldesque costumes invade a number of films Blade( Runner, The Fifth Element). Final scenes in 2001: A Space Odyssey bring together classical interior design and the astronaut costume in a new online situated conceptualization. A “starship” is a functional ship in a vacuum substance devoid of viscosity and gravity; it mixes the descriptive system of the “sea ship” with the descriptive system of “interstellar vacuum”. Both definitions are currently in use in our culture. For example we have the case of “man” and “fly” The( Fly) or the well known Alien: mix of worm and parasite-like qualities with the ferocious behavior of the predator. The novelty 107 is obtained through blending of two familiar biological descriptive systems. At first glance the hybrid will appear similar to entities belonging to phantasy fictions (the fairy tales entities like the unicorn). But either one element belongs to the SF lexicon (the costume of the astronaut) either the composite fiction is already categorized as SF and thus warps in a top-down dynamically the semantic interpretation of the particular hybrid. As in the fantasy genre (myths, fairy tales), the hybrid entity is conceived as possible – natural - in the diegetic setting even if its exceptional nature is emphasized (Robocop). As we will further comment below the viewer apprehension is nevertheless biased, in the SF generic cognitive model, by the construal effect imposed by an epistemic extradiegetic narrative stance. This stance is based on a counterfactual “what if” that concerns the overall filmic diegesis, the entire situation. The hybrid or new conceptualization is an elaboration of a schematic concept that can be labeled as the “unknown”. Thus a characteristic of the SF cognitive model would be the presence of a hybrid composed of elements not expected to occur together in conventional instances; either as a functional bundle or as an entire new counterfactual situation that instantiate the “unknown”. The two sets of elements can belong to recognizable and familiar situated conceptualizations, e.g. human vs. animal. The hybrid evoked will recon- cile the anticipation of unfamiliarity associated to the genre to elements that – in normal contexts - are benign and banal. For example, space travel sometimes gives the familiar impression of gravity-determined motion (the characters in Star Trek stand rather than float about in their spaceship). But we readily accept that it is a “voyage in space”, not on earth. Science fiction is a genre as remarkable for its “flexibility and genre hybridity as it is for a series of conventions around developing technology or science” (Johnston 2011, 1).

Intergenre Science fiction narratives are construed by other genres which function as construals applied on the thematic content elements (functional bundles, hybrids, themes). The construal is a way of modulating or modifying the representation of a concept. Perceptual, emotional and narrative construals are applied to the descriptive system evoked by a concept. Classic genres – e.g. horror, thriller, action drama, melodrama, comedy - are perceptual, cognitive and emotional devices that, based on a seeking neuroaffective mechanism, tease, sustain and resolve viewers’ interest and curiosity (Panksepp 1998; Tan 1996). Classic genres (comedy, drama, thriller, horror) are biased towards a particular construal. In SF diegetic cues dominate the categorizing process. Main genre keeps alive the affective engagement and emotional involvement of the viewer. In this situation the classic genre has a double function. It teases the interest of the viewer and offers a recognizable depiction of the “unknown” giving access and control of the abstract conceptual entity. 108 Mircea Valeriu DEACA

Traditionally, SF films are “dramas about these topics, usually with thrilling and romantic elements and often reliant upon state-of the-art special effects techniques to create a new, or expanded worldview” (Johnston 2011, 1). For Johnston genres in SF “almost always function as hybrids” (2011, 11), e.g. “science fiction-animation (Fantastic Planet, Wall-E), science fiction-fantasy Avatar,( The Fountain, 2006), science fiction-gangster film (Sky Rocket, 1936; The Adventures of Pluto Nash, 2002), science fiction-Western (Wild Wild West, 1999; Serenity, 2005), science fiction-sports Rollerball,( 1975; Space Jam, 1996), science fiction-mystery Soylent ( Green, Minority Report), science fiction-romantic comedy Eternal( Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2004; Multiplicity, 1996), and science fiction epic 2001:( A Space Odyssey, Dune) […], science fiction-comedy (Men in Black, 1997; The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), the science fiction-drama (Contact, 1997; Gattaca, 1997), the science-fiction musical Just( Imagine, 1930; The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1975), the science fiction-film noirBlade ( Runner, Dark City, 1998), or the science fiction-war filmEnemy ( Mine, 1985; Wing Commander, 1999) (24- 25). “The Lake House, The Time Traveller’s Wife, The Butterfly Effect (2004), Next (2007), and Déjà Vu (2006) also combined science fiction conventions with those from the romance, teen-pic, action and thriller movie genres, while Southland Tales (2006) merged all of the above with comedy and musical traits, to create an (often unwieldy) gener- ically uncertain concoction” (110). The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which combines SF, horror, musical and parody, is a good reference point for the interbreeding of genres. In short, in SF diegetic elements like the functional bundles evoke descriptive systems that provide the nominal autonomous content while classical genres provide the necessary construal, the narrative and emotional modifier.

The control cycle For Telotte “the science fiction narrative typically sets about explaining in a rational manner what, in some contexts, might seem supernatural; that is, it attempts to re- frame some challenging phenomenon in terms of ‘new’ laws of nature” (Telotte 2004, 14). In SF films situated conceptualizations and functional bundles recognized by the viewers are hybrids that – under a metaphoric reading – instantiate an abstract concept that is not perceptible and cognitively accessible otherwise. This is labeled the “unknown”. As a conclusion, one characteristic feature of the SF filmic genre, of the cognitive model of the genre, is the profiling of the conceptual schematic content de- finable as the “unknown” as an epistemic challenge. Conceptual hybrids and filmic construals are modalities to represent the “unknown” and to control it, i.e. to make it meaningful in familiar terms. The generic narrative construal of the SF represents an instantiation of a speech act scenario performed by an extradiegetic narrator describable as a counterfactual “what if…. one day, somewhere”. This is a cultural scenario representing a familiar kind of narratorial interaction with an audience. It is a schema that specifies a typical grounding of the counterfactual content in respect to a narrator and an audience 109 situated in the here and now of the conception of the natural world.1 The typical model of SF doesn’t challenge the discursive status of the filmic artefact. It only elaborates upon the possible explanation of the unnatural phenomenon dwelling in the fictional world and invites reflection on the conceptions about ourselves and the world, that are taken for granted. The conceptual model of SF would be thus the appropriation of the unknown by the use of the control cycle. This appropriation is diegetic, formal-aesthetic, discursive or epistemic. The control cycle is a general cognitive model that comprises some elements in interaction as well as several phases unfolding in time dynamically and can be applied to numerous aspects of human experience: physical, perceptual, mental and social. In the epistemic realm some knowledge is acquired by a conceptualizer (see Langacker 2009, 259, Nakashima 2016). This cognitive model will be immanent in different conceptualizations that provide more detailed representations of the schematic content of the cognitive model. Langacker describes the abstract cognitive model as follows: “In the static baseline phase, an actor (A) (in a broad sense of the term) controls an array of entities (small circles) which collectively constitute its dominion (D). In the next phase, some target (T) enters the actor’s field (F), or scope of potential interaction. This creates a state of tension, for the actor has to deal with the target in some manner. The typical means of dealing with it is by somehow bringing it under the actor’s control, i.e. exerting force (double arrow) resulting in its incorporation in the actor’s dominion. The result of this action is a modified situation that is once more static (a state of relaxation)” (Langacker 2009, 130).

1 “The term ground is used in CG to indicate the speech event, its participants (speaker and hearer), their interaction, and the immediate circumstances (notably, the time and place of speaking)” (Langacker 2008, 259). 110 Mircea Valeriu DEACA

As Noe Alva (2012) and Anil Seth (2014) note, vision is based on confirmation of a prediction. We see objects and not shapes. When we see a tomato we infer the side of the object that is hidden from view. We see what we know. Human perception is a way of predicting, testing and controlling what we already know about the object of perception. This mechanism works for normal perception and cognition and also for cinematographic diegesis. Based on sensorimotor schemas and abstract descriptive systems we “see” what we assume to be correct apprehension of an entity in its entirety not just a partial view. Particular construals of the entity can be abstracted and integrated in the descriptive system or situated conceptualization of a particular instantiation of the entity.

The control mechanism of the unknown. Diegetic control Science fiction’s potential as narrative can be exploited along two lines: “its capacity for limitless vision and experience, on the one hand, and the possibility for helping to foster such distance and alienation, on the other” (Telotte 2004, 30). Telotte goes on to comment on the fact that “its lure was in part mythic, and it appealed to a literate audience, one that was open to and even enthusiastic about inventions, science, and the changes that science heralded” (78). It’s attraction is due to “its ability to reproduce what might be, to synthesize a new reality, […], one closely allied to the attraction bound up in the very technology that makes it possible […] to hold up that reason–science–technology triad for our inspection” (31-32). In SF films the control cycle is instantiated at the diegetic, the story events, and at the artefact level. Technology, for example, is the representation of the control mechanism at the diegetic level. Telotte summarizes this idea stating that technology from its vantage point – what we might well think of as its implicitly cinematic nature – sit- uates the individual as a spectator distant and detached from the world in a safe position created by the instrumentality of the scientific devices (Telotte 2004, 20). Hidden behind the window of prosthetic machines, and screens – devices that allow control of the seen but protect the viewer from any direct interference with the distant and potential harmful object – the viewer can be in control. Screen renders the object close for inspection but nevertheless keeps a safe distance. Since Méliès cinema technology and SF imaginary coalesce in a metaphoric form. The thematic landscape of SF was congruent from the beginning of the genre with cultural scientific discourse. The genre is enmeshed in the intertextuality- ofscien tific experiments and progress, new inventions such as industrial and architectural achievements, medical discoveries, geographical journeys, military and political technologies, communication devices. We can enumerate the conceptual domains that are grounded in particular conceptualized situations: extensions of the known limits of space and time, discovery of alien life forms and mental constructions in one’s own body or in the “Other” (from biological entities and troubles of identity to machine or AI consciousness), confrontation with natural forces (from terrestrial natural phe- 111 nomena to cosmic and quantum physics realms) and an open-ended list of technological marvels of the scientific progress such as the communication devices. Overt explanations given by different characters or by extradiegetic means (e.g. voice-over or graphic inserts) are also a manner of taming the unknown and making it describable for the audience. Quite often SF narratives create a strong expectation of the explanation that will rationalize an aberrant behavior, or the mysterious goals and motives of the alien “Other”. It is not surprising, therefore, that SF narratives are often unfolding accordingly to the template of the criminal investigation (the mystery plot) (Blade Runner).

Narrative, emotional and stylistic control Suspense is based on the fear of losing control over the strange entity, i.e. the abstract concept that cannot be understood directly but only in a metaphorical, oblique way. Immersed or engaged viewers in narrative have the satisfaction of being able to master their fear and experience a feeling of “mastering and competence” (Tan 1996, 28). For Tan feature films create and offer a resolution of tension (35). Narrative pro- vokes also a tension – i.e. a disturbance on an orderly state – that through a process of causal unfolding will be finally resolved, and balance will be restored. Narrative closure contains an element of emotional tension reduction and creates a feeling of control. The enemy is defeated or the emotional suspense is resolved. Narrative closure and resolution of the plot is another aspect of the control mechanism. The hero de- feats the alien entity (Alien, Independence Day) or overcomes the cosmic catastrophe (Armageddon). The viewer obtains satisfaction from disclosing the ordered patterns of plot and style as well as from resolution of narrative and diegetic conundrums. Intensifying narrative interest and emotional involvement of the viewer is also one constant trend of SF that creates an enhanced feeling of control. This kind of control is based on an addictive emotional mechanism of interest and wanting to engage in situations that involve anticipation and uncertainty of reward (a want-go-system) (see Tan 2008; Berridge 2016). Tan makes a distinction between film emotion (emotion created by immersion in the diegesis through narrative flow and emotional simulation) and artifact emotion (the reaction of the viewer confronted with the cinematographic construal: style or recognition of genre) (55). Grasping a particular stylistic pattern is also a way of “tension reduction”, and thus a manner of resolving the control cycle. For him “the subject solves the puzzle, which results in aesthetic pleasure. The incongruity may be accompanied by tension or arousal, or any other motivational state that is not directly pleasurable, while the solution always has some positive emotion attached to it, such as the ‘aha experience’”(91). Moreover, audiences watching films of this type are actually afraid, but they nevertheless experience the satisfaction of being able to master their fear. Exciting films, such as thrillers and, above all, horror films give viewers the opportunity to experience a feeling of mastery or “competence” (28). 112 Mircea Valeriu DEACA

Cognitive and affective concern are formulated, assessed, intensified and finally, through some action, resolved. In order to enhance the experience of the gedanken experiment - the thrilling “what if” scenarios, investigative curiosity, narrative suspense, horror emotions and thriller plots are used to create intense background emotions. 2 This tendency is evident in the frequent awe-inspiring sequences that will be mastered under narrative closure or aesthetic enjoyment. Recent blockbusters from the Marvel series are good examples (Superman, Batman, X-Men, Transformers) or a cosmic opera like Interstellar. When seen from a different, more distant standpoint, SF narratives serves to illustrate a “what if” scenario : “The film narrative as a whole - of which the ending is only one part - may present a certain vision of the fictional world that is in itself valuable as a pronouncement on everyday reality” (Tan 1996, 97). SF is often linked to allegorical reading and metacinematic interpretations (La Jetée, The Truman Show or Alphaville).

Between the sublime and the realism Awe and special effects sequences are frequent in SF films and constitute a modern version of what Tom Gunning (1990) has labeled a “cinema of attractions”. The representation of the strangeness of the “unknown” and of the “Other” as aesthetic objects refurbished for contemplation is one manifestation of the epistemic control cycle. Strange objects are thus apprehended and controlled in an aesthetic mode. As Johnston points out: “visual spectacle plays a psychological role for the audience, a release that allows them to fantasize about worldwide destruction, or the ability of special effects to tame the sublime and produce ‘cognitive mastery’ of the panoram- ic and visually spectacular” (Johnston 2011, 46). For Angela Ndalianis in her Neo- baroque aesthetics and contemporary entertainment (2004), science fiction is a contemporary manifestation of the baroque style and conception that, among other features, offers us the “sensual seduction” of transcendence. Ndalianis highlights the inclina- tion of neo-baroque towards excessive display of virtuosity, special effects and intense design of perceptual wonders. Similar predilections appear in contemporary theatre (see Lehman 2006) or in Hollywood films as “intensified continuity” of the classical narrative style (see Bordwell 2006). The exuberant display of cinematic roll- er coaster of the senses created by enhanced cinematic illusionism provides the audiences with a sentiment of transcendence and “spiritual presence” (Ndalianis 2004, 209). Revelatory in this sense is Spielberg’s Close Encounters of Third Kind. The spiritual encounter with the sacred is projected in spatial journeys and cyberspace (226). Narrative drama and confrontation with the evil played on this kind of stage give

2 We might recall here Darko Suvin’s definition of SF as a “literature of cognitive estrangement”, a genre based on the defamiliarization of reality (Suvin 1979, 4-10; Telotte 2004, 4). 113 characters mythical proportions. The SF protagonist achieves the dimensions of the mythical hero. Aesthetics of astonishment serve as catalyst for transcendental seduction in SF dramas and conflicts. Star Wars is not about some characters engaged in vanity-driven conflicts but about the apocalyptic end of the world, clashes between worlds and encounters with the spiritual essence of the „force”. Each conceptual domain is exploited in its dual aspect: as a realist grounding element and as a potential instrument for the alien “invasion” of the uncontrollable unknown. This ambivalence is deployed in a narrative template in order to unfold the emotional drama of the known and familiar element that becomes alien and, after a complicating phase, is finally tamed at one level or another of the cinematic artefact. Audiences live the thrill of discovering the alien factor inside the mastered object and subsequently the involvement in the sequence of efforts sustained in order to contain and control the unknown. The initial disturbance and break of balance is diegetic but subsequent reward caused by the release of tension is either lived through character empathy or artefact emotion. Science fiction exhibits a tendency to depict awe-inspiring realities as well as to outline – as a reference and comparison grounded on the natural world – realist and recognizable elements. Futuristic cities do represent such an intermediary step towards the full unknown. Cities from Metropolis, Blade Runner, The Fifth Element or Star Wars are recognizable props, but, at the same time, due to their distorted and hy- perbolic design create an alienating effect. Another recurrent motif is an abstract sequence of images destined to offer a glimpse of the “unknown”. In paradigmatic SF films like 2001: A Space Odyssey or Encounters of the Third kind awe- inspiring sequences appear in long takes. These sequences, in order to make tangible the unknown, are abstract unfoldings of audiovisual stimuli. They are cinema in its purest form where all diegetic pretensions are left behind for the pure epiphany of the “undescribable”. On the other hand grounding elements are highlighted, for example, in 2001. Several scenes insist on the choreographic effects of the lack of gravity (an estrangement of natural movement) and others highlight the technical devices used in order to create artificial gravity (an element of realism). The dual nature of diegetic hybrids resonates with the conceptual balance and alternation between natural movement and patterns and abstract conceptual ones. Characters’ bodies stand upright in gravity-controlled settings and – as a sign of the inhuman intervention – as we advance into Kubrick’s film bodies are turned upside down and tend towards free floating. For Kubrick the perfect floating human body is a dead body falling free- ly in the cosmic void. Gradually, human bodies lose their material substance and melt in order to let free precisely the ungraspable qualia of movement / spiritual essence. 2001 insists over and over on the aesthetics / mystics of movement in order to make tangible the “unknown”. Floating bodies are mapped into seamless camera movement. Baroque object movement or camera movements dominate films like Matrix, Transformers, or the 114 Mircea Valeriu DEACA

Batman or Spiderman series. Complex and dizzying camera movement generates the feeling of the fluid ungraspable qualities detached from the stable substance of objects. Camera movement is, from an explanatory standpoint, diegetically motivated: it describes and mirrors point-of-view shots of characters either endowed with inhuman abilities or inscribed in exceptional contexts. But on the other hand, camera movement metaphorically maps the reality of the unknown; it is an illustration of the strangeness of the unknown. It makes features of the unconceivable salient. An offshoot of this literal depiction of the unknown is the climactic sequence of abstract light and sound show. Thus, SF movies tend to privilege the abstract awe-inspiring sequence. Expectation or this sequence is teased and the audience is prepared for the sublime landscape of the unknown - which is of course an exacerbation of cinema’s potential. It is about cinema tricks revealed or cinema in its purest form. In between we find the cosmic spectacle of the intergalactic ships or the black hole Interstellar( ), the city landscape (Metropolis, Blade Runner, Star Wars) or the natural landscapes of exoplanets (Star Wars, Avatar). The viewer’s emotional involvement in the abstract sequences generates a feeling of control and pleasure. Fascination and absorption in the abstract flow of aesthetically satisfying images produce a conversion of the fear of the unknown into the feeling of control and tension resolution. Emotion driven by the artefact features is mapped upon the diegetic entity described by the filmic images. The viewer is involved in a “flow” (Tan 1996, 90 / 93), and, as Johnston highlights, inserting the camera in the midst of a special effects sequence, has become more dominant in SF films, thus mirroring the enhanced surrounding effects of sound design and actors’ bodily performance in 3D settings (Johnston 2011, 19). Long scenes of realist settings (the terrestrial infancy of Superman or the college life of Spiderman) prepare and tease the expectation of the revelatory sequence. These long expository scenes do indeed tease the narrative involvement and interest of the viewer but also ground the unknown to the world in which the audience lives. Excessive realist depiction of human and alien instruments and devices (the functional bundles) is also a characteristic trait of science fiction District( 9). Early SF movies had a „clean and glossy” style of the setting (the theatrical costumes of the 50s). Since Aliens, Blade Runner or District 9, filmic construal focuses upon the aspects of trash, sweat of the characters dressings and on the dirty settings. Quite often, SF diegesis is deictically described as a mere “here” and “now” (Children of Men). Insistence on the realistic depiction of the diegesis will allow a better grounding of the speculative pro- posal of the “what if” speech act. Realism is an interpretive cue inviting the audience to reflect on a proposed conception of reality revolving around the human condition in present times. We can safely conclude at this point that SF is closely related to fab- ula and philosophical discourse. SF was a well suited grounding element for communist progressive utopias and propagandistic reference to the industrial and technological achievements of the soci- 115 ety. Contemporary science fiction is closely linked to popular video discourses of scientific projections and counterfactuals that are circulating on YouTube (Mr. Nobody). Aelita (1924), the first soviet SF film, is symptomatic at several levels of the model drawn here. The film is a mixture of genres: romance drama, realist drama with typi- fied characters (the crook, the savant, the cop, the proletarian, the aristocrat), crime investigation of a crime of passion, comic sequences and vaudeville scenes of jealousy, mistaken identity and disguise, space opera, fairy tale elements, fantastic motives, revolutionary propaganda and epic battle. Diegetic emotions are resolved at the romance level (the lovers reunite), through the revolutionary message (the soviet proletarian outlook revolution triumphs), through the theme of the mastering of the technical instrument (the character realizes that a more sober approach to space travel is needed) and at the phantasy level (the character realizes that daydreaming can have dangerous consequences if literally experienced, but can be useful for working hypothe- ses in order to test reality and beliefs). Explanation and allegorical ground awe-inspiring sequences meant to depict the unknown (the abstract movement of space travel, the architectural wonder of an urban landscape similar to the Metropolis paradigm) are grafted into documentary realist sequences of life in 1921 Moscow. The unknown is also made tangible through use of expressionist costumes and setting of the alien life on Mars. Aesthetic pleasure due to enjoyment of spectacle give a sense of control that will allow the acceptance of the didactic coda: science in a proletarian political system will promote welfare. The “what if” caused by the encounter with the unknown serves as a grounding device for an easier acceptance of the propaganda message.

Science fiction vs. horror Noël Carroll in The Philosophy of Horror (1990) discusses the nature of the monstrous creature that generates fear and disgust in horror literature and film. Following Mary Douglas’s (1966) argumentation he posits that the monstrosity, the indescrib- able and unconceivable entity is a “violation of schemes of cultural categorization” (1990, 31), i.e. “things that are interstitial, that cross the boundaries of the deep categories of a culture’s conceptual schemes” (32), and “are contradictory, incomplete, or formless” (32). Entities that qualify are frequently encountered in SF films: zombies, robotic mixtures of animate with inanimate features, interspecies, superimposition of distinct individual (possessed-possessor) being with categorical incompleteness, detached body parts, formless creatures or entities that generate phobia. All those instances express the un-natural relative to a culture’s understanding of nature (34). Frequent use of the monstrous entity in SF films is due to the use of the dominant genre of horror. That is to say that the horror genre is used in order to depict the unknowable element and to guide the emotional involvement of the viewer. Carroll notes, as a second distinctive feature of the horror genre, the emotional reaction manifested by characters and solicited from the viewer: visceral revulsion based on fear and repulsion in face of the disgusting and impure nature of the monstrous element. 116 Mircea Valeriu DEACA

For my claim prototypical SF elicits not this kind of emotional reaction, but rather an epistemic one. Superman does not elicit disgust. It is obvious that SF is based on a dominant genre and horror scenes will be frequently deployed in the narrative, but its characteristic is the naturalisation of the unknown. I used here the term “unknown” in order to highlight its epistemic nature. At the diegetic level horror is linked to emotional involvement with characters while at the extradiegetic level epistemic control takes over. In SF an epistemic stance prevails. If we follow the kind of reasoning Danto put forward (1979) we can see that a perceptual entity like the monster will be cognitively categorized and apprehended differently in different genres. In a fantasy fiction the monster is a being natural to the world depicted (Lord of the Rings, Star Wars) and will not provoke disgust. A unicorn is a monstrous hybrid but doesn’t, nevertheless, generate revulsion. In carnival feasts the same entity elicits both fear and spectacular joy. The monsters present in comic genres generate fear and comic relief. In horror, they arouse disgust. Horror elicits curiosity and draws attention to the unknown. SF subgenre modulates the emotional response triggered by the unknown with the use of an explanatory speech act scenario. This sequence is verbally or visually instantiated. Prototypical horror does not need this epistemic narrative device. In horror the reaction of the character is indicial of the fear and disgust. In SF the conclusive reaction of the character is one that sus- tains an explanatory accommodation or mastering of the unknown. The affective reaction of the viewer is cued by the actions and emotional involvement of the diegetic character. Quite often intertextual and generic reading constrains the perceptual-cognitive and emotional categorization of the monstrous entity. In this cases the explicit explanatory sequence is not used since, once the viewer recognizes the SF cognitive model, they will use the conceptual speech act scenario of the “‘what if”, short- hand for the encounter with the unknown and its subsequent (epistemic) control, in order to generate meaning. The monster is, therefore, appraised as epistemically con- trollable. The monster in SF is a metaphorical description of an unconceivable / undescribable entity, but which can be virtually controlled one way or another. Since horror cannot be easily read on an allegoric level, SF will use cues for allegorical reading and philosophical discourse (Solaris, Stalker).

Conclusion SF is a subgenre qualified by a main genre that functions as a modifier. The main genre modulates the dominant mood and the control of the tension / resolution of the affective and cognitive cycles. Setting and functional bundles evoke conventionalized situated conceptualizations – that form an open-ended lexicon clustered in a radial fashion based on “family resemblances” - and function as a stage upon which the drama unfolds. Typical situations mixed with the highly abstract conceptual model of the control cycle, the speech act of the counterfactual and the modeling effect of the main genre construal constitute the generic cluster of SF films. 117

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21. Grodal, Torben. Embodied Visions: Evolution. Emotion. Culture. and Film. Oxford University Press, 2009. 22. Gunning, Tom, “The Cinema of Attractions. Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant- Garde”, Thomas Elsaesser (ed.). Early Cinema: Space. Frame. Narrative. London: British Film Institute, 1990 [1986], pp. 56-62. 23. Johnston, Keith M. Science fiction film: a critical introduction.London: Berg, 2011. 24. Langacker, Ronald W, Cognitive Grammar. A Basic Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2008. 25. Langacker, Ronald W., Investigations in Cognitive Grammar, Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2009. 26. Lehmann, Hans-Thies, Postdramatic Theatre, Routledge, 2006 [1999] 27. Metz, Christian, Le Signifiant imaginaire, Paris : UGE, 1977. 28. Nakashima, Chiharu, “Two Types of Negatives: In Light of Langacker’s Models”, Kyushu University Papers in Linguistics. 36, 2016, pp. 227-237. 29. Ndalianis, Angela, Neo-Baroque Aesthetics and Contemporary Entertainment, Cambridge. Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2004. 30. Panksepp, Jaak, Affective neuroscience, Oxford: Oxford University Press,1998. 31. Rovin, Jeff, A Pictorial History of Science Fiction Films, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1975. 32. Seth, Anil, “A predictive processing theory of sensorimotor contingencies: Explaining the puzzle of perceptual presence and its absence in synesthesia”. Cognitive Neuroscience, 5:2, 2014, pp.97-118. 33. Stansbury, Dustin and Thomas Neselaris, Jack L.Gallant, “Natural Scene Statistics Account for the Representation of Scene Categories in Human Visual Cortex”, Neuron 79, September 4, 2013, pp. 1025–1034. 34. Suvin Darko, Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre, New Haven: Yale University Press. 35. Tan, Ed S., Emotion and the Structure of Narrative Film: Film as Emotional Machine. Hillsdale: N.J. Lawrence Erlbaum, 1996. 36. Tan, Ed S., Entertainment is Emotion: The Functional Architecture of the Entertainment Experience, Media Psychology, 11:1, 2008, pp.28-51. 37. Telotte, J.P., Science Fiction Film. Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres, 2004.

Ioan BUTEANU

The Role of Technology in Survival Movies

Abstract: This article describes the relationship that people have with technology in movies belonging to survival genre. The first part is theoretical, and it presents some religious, cultural and philosophical approaches to this topic (as stated by Dumitru Stăniloae, Martin Heidegger, Herbert Marcuse, Kim J. Vicente, Jacques Ellul, Lloyd J. Dumas, Jean Paul Russo, Ollivier Dyens and other authors). The second part presents technology as it appears in some movies in, general from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis to the contemporary movies as Fahrenheit 451, 1984, Equilibrium and many others. All these movies can be “read” as survival movies. The paper tries to show in what movies and when technology appears as a source of safety, comfort and of new abilities for man and in which and when it is a source of discomfort and even of terror, a threat. There are cases in which technology stays outside of man as a reality clearly delimitated from him and cases when it can be seen as an intrusion in people’s body and soul. Keywords: technology, survival movie, human-tech, dystopia.

1. What is technology? Some cultural and philosophical approaches. The term “technology” sets together two Greek words: techne (meaning “art” or “craft”) and logos (“rational speech”), but “according to George Grant the bringing together of those words would have been unthinkable before the age of progress” (Koivukoski 60). Ioan BUTEANU For Ollivier Dyens: “technologies are both the Babes-Bolyai University materialization of intelligence and the seed E-mail: [email protected] that makes it grow and expand” (Dyens 7). He stresses the importance of intelligence in EKPHRASIS, 1/2017 nowadays world to the extent that he states: Ghosts in the Cinema Machine “We can no longer speak of the human condi- pp. 119-131 tion or even of the posthuman condition. We must now refer to the intelligent condition” DOI:10.24193/ekphrasis.17(1).8 (Dyens 8). Technology understood as materi- Published First Online: 2017/06/30 alized intelligence is also as “a way of reveal- 120 Ioan BUTEANU ing.” (Heidegger 12), but when modern technique wants to “unconceal” through con- straint, “through the submission to an order/a demand or to an insistent request for delivery” (Oprea 3), this fact endangers the very essence of technology as a revelatory act, as an act of truth. This way of understanding technology is close to the words of Romanian orthodox theologian Father Dumitru Stăniloae who says: “God has given the world to the man not only as a gift of continuous fertility, but also as one of a great richness of alternatives possible to be actualized by man through freedom and work” (Stăniloae 233). So people need to preserve their freedom in order to benefit from the richness of this world as a gift from God. When people lose their freedom they cannot access this gift. Intelligence manifested as technology is “a survival tool” and a “niche” “in which to expand” itself (Dyens 7), but there are also dangers that come along with this extraordinary human capacity. Too much trust in intelligence is not a very wise outlook; intelligence needs to be controlled by human intuition, love, feelings and moral- ity. To define the relation between people and technology, Kim J. Vicente proposed the Human-tech concept. Among other explanations he says that: “Human” comes first to remind us that we should start by identifying our human and societal needs, not by glorifying some fancy widget in isolation.

and “Human” is capitalized, and thus more salient, to remind us that designs should be compatible with human nature; “tech” is in lower case because technical details, like the laws of physics, obviously have to be heeded (Vicente x).

Lloyd J. Dumas is warning us that computers cannot compensate “human imper- fections” and fallibility because computers are fallible, too (Dumas 374-375). And, after all, imperfection is a mark of human nature, and we need to accept it, as Jurgen Habermas advises (Oprea 4). To rely only on computers, to delegate our safety, our civilization in their “hands” is a questionable viewpoint. There are movies, cinematographic dystopias that warn us about the catastrophe that can happen when “machines” take over human civilization, when they enslave people. See for examples movies as: “Gog” from 1954, “Collosus: The Forbin Project” from 1970 or the nowadays “Matrix” series. Jean Paul Russo underlines the idea that technological advance should be controlled in order not to permit technology to impose its own rhythm over humans. Otherwise humans will lose their identity, they “cease resembling” themselves (Russo 30). People should understand which are their own inner rhythm and moral/human values, they should preserve them, fight for them, they should even accept sacrifice in order to affirm them (see, for example, the old lady that chooses to burn together with her books in ”Fahrenheit 451” or Mary O’Brian from “Equilibrium”). 121

For Jacques Ellul, as presented by Tiles and Oberdiek “the new technical milieu” is distinguished by six salient characteristics. Among these, we underline its arti- ficiality, autonomy and the existence of its own progressive rhythm of accumula- tion apart from the human ends it should be designed (Ellul, 1983, p. 86) (qtd. Tiles and Oberdiek 16). If technology is so “autonomous with respect to values, ideas, and the state” it can be used against people and against human values (Tiles and Oberdiek 15). Jacques Ellul speaks about another more refined characteristic of the new relation between man and machine. The technique tends to become so adapt- able, so pleasant to people, so “consumer oriented” that it develops a sort of mes- merizing capacity in such a degree that keeps humans prisoners to it (Ellul 413). In the same direction Herbert Marcuse defines the “one-dimensional man” build up to have no humanist culture, no ideals to fight for, no mastering of concepts and no logic training, and ,thus, no reasons and no power to say “no” when he needs to do this (Marcuse 12-13). This type of man crushed by his lack of culture and ideals, lost in technology, willing to lose himself among a huge mob of other anonyms reminds me (to a certain extent and without the story behind him) of Woody Allen’s Zelig, the human chameleon. As conclusion of this first part, we consider that technology is mainly- acon cept with positive connotations, because it is a manifestation of human intelligence (Dyens, Heidegger, Stăniloae), and it should be a “survival tool” for mankind. This can happen only if we take into consideration some possible dangers that come along with the technological evolution. One is that, living in contemporary comfort, people can become lazy, in deeds and in thinking. (Marcuse, Ellul). This sort of lazy and stupid future society is depicted by Mike Judge’s film “Idiocracy”. Another danger is to trust too much technology as a perfect, without failure reality and to place it in a position of decision superior to man (Dumas, Vicente, Habermas, Russo). People that are in control of technology may also represent a danger. They can use it to dominate others, as in George Orwell’s novel “1984” or in Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”. Down in the article we will analyze the two of the movies based on these books.

2. Technology as it appears in survival movies Most of the movies that deal with the issue of technology can be understood and interpreted as survival movies, because the problem of technology represents in a way or another a problem connected with the survival of man in the modern and contemporary period. In almost all masterpieces of the survival genre this topic is present in the forefront or in a more remote plan, as a part of the big theme of human civilization or as a simple filmic motif. In “127 Hours “(Boyle 2010) technology is represented especially by Aron’s personal camera that keeps him company when he has the arm blocked by the rock. 122 Ioan BUTEANU

Besides this, we have here a man deprived by the advantages and the security offered by the civilization and technology. The lack of efficient instruments to move the rock, the lack of a sharp knife, makes the escape more difficult and painful. At the end of the movie his life is saved due to modern technology: he will be rescued by a helicopter and brought to a modern hospital. “The Grey” (Carnahan 2011) shows people “betrayed” by technology; they survive a plane crash. There are people “fallen” in the middle of a wild nature, “out of their turf”, out of the safety of civilization, without tools and modern weapons, human inventions that could offer the chance to “defeat” the wild nature, the wolves. The lack of comfort given by technology has surprising effects on some of the characters. Diaz finds for himself a lonely and quiet “place to die”. He has a hurt leg, and he doesn’t want to go further. Of course, he is exhausted, but, first of all, he has a revelation (the clearest thought, as he calls it): he has the premonition of his death as a moment of splendor near the river and watching the immense space represented by the mountains, the clouds and the sky. People become friendlier, more open to others before the “last farewell”: Diaz presents himself to Hendrick as John, and Hendrick says his name is Pete. During the limit-situation some people think about God. When John Ottway finds himself alone, he very firmly asks God to do something. He receives no explicit answer from Him. Thus, he decides to fight, he takes his knife and he uses some broken bottles as weapons. He improvises, and he is using his intelligence as “surviv- ing tool”. Anyway the strength that grows in his soul and in his sight before the presumed fight with the wolves may be a consequence of his wife remembrance, of the poem written by his father, and, through these, the requested answer from God. The protagonist of “Into the Wild” (Penn 2007), Chris McCandless runs out of the existence full of lies and compromises offered by the contemporary world. He refuses the advantages offered by civilization and technology: he abandons his car in the middle of nowhere, he burns the money… When he understands that happiness is valuable when shared with others it is too late. The nature holds him prisoner, he dies there. The “wild “Cheryl from “Wild” (Vallee 2014) needs to get rid of her bad habits, of the chaotic life she has in the middle of civilization, in a big city of Minneapolis. Going on the Pacific Crest Trail she escapes routine, the comfort offered by civilization and its technology, she flees because she feels a moral discomfort. She wants to resettle her life, to find a place for the pain caused by her mother death. She tries this walking and walking and walking, sleeping in tents, in cabins, defeating pains, fears, venturing, falling down and raising up, screaming and gathering in that scream all her wild will to live, to live her own life, to get control over her own life, to live in truth. 123

3. What kind of relations people have with technology in survival movies? There are movies whose theme is exactly the relation between man and technology. Generally speaking, the topic of these movies could be the way man, mankind lives, survives in the conditions of the technologized society. In the contemporary era the computer became one of the most salient “stars” of this technology. During the years, starting from the fifties, computers became also “movies stars” in films like: “Gog” (1954), “Tobor the Great” (1954), “Forbidden Planet” (1956), “The Invisible Boy” (1957) “Desk Set” (1957), “Hot Millions” (1968), “2001: a Space Odyssey” (1969), “The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes” (1969) “Collossus: the Forbin Project” (1969), “Red Alert” (1977), “Tron” (1982) “Deadly Impact”(1985), “Matrix” (1999) (Cortada 377). This theme can be split in two, according to the disadvantages and advantages brought to man by technical inventions. Technology can be regarded as an enemy or as an ally to humans. Therefore the first subtheme is entitled:

3.A. Technology against man The effects of the nowadays rapid technological development are difficult to -con trol. There is an entire history of meditation about this theme. Some of these meditations and ideas were shown in the first chapter of this article. This sub-theme can be split also in two parts:

3.A.a. Technology outside man In “Stalker” (Tarkovsky 1979) technology is present through its disastrous consequences, through the decaying atmosphere of the movie. The whole “Zone” bears the signs of a failure, of some unknown, mysterious accident. It is an abandoned area, a sort of a dangerous (shameful?) secret guarded by army. In its very center lies the Chamber, where the wishes became true, where the people can meet their true nature, their sensibility. It is a metaphor of our world as a decaying world, a metaphor of human soul, a mysterious (some) thing that every people should explore for one- self, beyond all fears and clichés. In the “The Road” (Hillcoat 2009) an unknown catastrophic event brings cold on earth and the dissolution of human civilization, the breakdown of all the modern technological achievements. This lack social organization, the disappearance of technology, the famine causes a very deep distrust, suspicion, violence, and even canni- balism. In the center of the plot stays the relation between one child and his loving and protective father trying to survive through this apocalyptic world. The “road” cut by the father and the son leaves a trace of hope through this infernal world. The love between father and son represents an island of normality. This paternal love that goes up to sacrifice reminds us of Roberto Benigni’s “La vita e bella”. 124 Ioan BUTEANU

The father from “The Road” dies, but the kid finds a family who “adopts” him. In this way he reaches another island of normality. Here the disappearance of technology means the end of the human world as we know, but perhaps, if such islands of normality like those mentioned above will connect and rejoin, a new society will be born, one that will regain its coherence, trust and humanity.

3.A.b. Technology as an intrusion in human being With movies that depict totalitarian societies we enter a zone where technology may be/is used to dominate people and (even more) to modify, to intrude in their inner being. It seems to be also dangerous if (I repeat “if”), through technology, some people are able to create so called “artificial intelligence” or other “things” that should be able to enter in competition with man, to subjugate him, to take his place as the superior intelligence and, in many respects, the master of this world. In “Fahrenheit 451” (Truffaut 1966) all the energy of the totalitarian society described there is directed toward finding the hidden books and toward burning them. It seems that books and people who read them hindered the development of that futuristic world. Here we do not have a very impressive technology. It is a world where fireman are in fact professional arsonists and a sort of anti-books policemen. The movie “1984” (Michael Radford 1984) presents the way in which in a totalitarian society technology is used as a way of controlling people. They are watched every moment; they have no intimacy, no space or time for gathering up their minds, to think with their own minds. People are obliged to inform authorities about their peers. “Big Brother” is the master of technology, and, through propaganda and fear, he tries to be the master of all other people. In „Equilibrium”, Kurt Wimmer’s movie, the fight of the totalitatian power from the „city-state” of Libria is against man’s “ability to feel”, to have sentiments. The “Big Brother” from “1984” is called here “The Father” (“The Father” is “Law”). People are obliged to take a “drug” called “Prozium” in order not to feel emotions of any kind. As in “Fahrenheit 451” the Libria rulers fight against books, poetry, painting, art of any kind. The main character of the movie, John Preston, belongs to a “law enforce- ment force” called “the Clerics”. “Everything that defined us has disappeared”, says Errol Partridge, the colleague of John Preston, before he was killed for reading po- ems of Yeats. John Preston accidentally ceases to take “Prozium”, and he starts understanding the feelings human value. Finally he will fight and destroy this anti-human society. Here technology, manifested as medicine and propaganda, is used in order to change human nature. These last three movies mentioned above represent the idea that the survival of humanity can be expressed in terms of cultural survival. These are cinematographic dystopias that warn us about how world may look when technology is used to domi- 125 nate people. The societies they depicted share some common features: a. They are imposing uniformity over all the people in the way they are dressed. In “1984” people are dressed in workers overall, in “Equilibrium” they wear grey or black suits. In “1984” only Charrington, the junk shop owner, wears a suit and not an overall, but this happens because he is an undercover agent of the regime. In Kurt Wimmer’s movie only Mary O’Brian and people from the Resistance wear normal, diverse pieces of garment. Truffaut did not express uniformity in this way. For him, uniformity is conveyed through women interest for fashion or TV shows. It is a mental uniformity. b. The language, the history and the way of thinking of people is controlled and manipulated by the power. “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past”, sounds a well-known citation from George Orwell. Winston Smith is taught/forced to accept that not all the times 2 plus 2 make 4. Mass media, television, of huge screens are used to build up stories, enemies, imaginary or real wars, to broadcast the official version of history in both Radford and Wimmer’s movies. Books, poetry and antique objects are considered enemies because they preserve the real history and spirituality of man. Totalitarian societies are in conflict with the sensibility and all the normal desires of people. Winston Smith is called the “last man”, the last of this “kind”. Truffaut shows how people are re-educated sometimes “in a pleasant way”, through fashion, fancy properties, interactive TV plays that create the illusion that they are less “anonymous”. (Montag’s wife, Linda, impatiently waits in front of the TV to utter some stupid answer in that sort of show.) c. Medical knowledge is also used to transform, to manipulate people. Everybody is obliged to take “Prozium” in order not to feel anything, to preserve the fake “equilibrium”. Linda Montag takes “stimulants” and “sedatives”. In “1984” there are some sorts of devices, that look somehow medical, and they are used to torture people. d. In the totalitarian societies, the political power invades human most intimate areas of people. In “Fahrenheit 451” the state enters the private properties and abu- sively searches for books, burns them, and sometimes (it is not clear in what conditions) arrests the owners. In “Equilibrium” the so-called “sense offenders” are hunted, arrested, killed. They have no right to possessed books or other object that belonged to the old world, to the old spirituality. These are destroyed. In “1984” the terror is spread also by the idea that Big Brother can and should watch the individuals everywhere. That private room that Winston and Julia rent- ed turns out to be a trap. The invasion of intimacy goes further to Winston’s mind and beliefs. The torturer played in the movie by Richard Burton is not pleased by the fact that Smith is saying whatever he wants; he wants to destroy his victim, to make Smith love these lies for the sake of a presumed transindividual social “conscience”. 126 Ioan BUTEANU e. One of the main marks of a totalitarian society is the destruction of normal relations between people. “Divide et impera” is one main slogan of these political re- gimes. They aim to develop a lack of trust between men, to isolate them, one from another, to make one people the traitor or the torturer of another. In “1984”, when he is tortured by O’Brian, Smith shouts “Do this to Julia, not to me! The authorities said that Julia also fully betrayed him. Authorities cannot be trusted, but this seems to have happened. Winston and Julia confess it at the end, one to another. They both look defeated, brain washed, more like robots, incapable of love and of any normal relation, fully manipulated by “the Party”. The last replica they both say (“We must meet again.”) bears in fact the opposite meaning that they cannot ever meet again. They look fully damaged, deeply destroyed as humans. Parsons, the neighbor, when he is taken from the cell, says, pointing at Smith: “Take him instead of me! He is the thought criminal! It’s him you want!” After ut- tering such phrases about another person, the shame and isolation covers the character. He becomes disoriented, vulnerable and “open” to the highest degree to the ideas “taught” by the torturer (O’Brian). These scenes of torture and re-education of Winston Smith are very intense because of what the character experiences, because the space that is very narrow and because of the detailed shots of the human body and face in pain. The “cleric” John Preston (“Equilibrium”) doesn’t defend his wife, while arrested as a “sense offender”. He kills his colleague Errol Partridge and is, to a certain degree, responsible for the execution of Mary O’Brian, both “sense offenders”. But this guilt and the fact he ceases taken “Prozium” wake up his conscience. (He needs also to hide his true feelings from his children that could be informants of the regime, like the children from “1984”, and especially from Brandt, his new colleague, who closely follows his behavior and deeds. Unlike in “1984” the story has a happy end: he destroys the Father’s regime in Libria, and he discovers that his kids haven’t take “Prozium” since their mother’s arrest. The atmosphere of this movie is less gloomy than that in “1984”. John Preston is strong enough to fight back the oppressive regime and to defeat it. The martial arts (as in “Matrix”) used to render this fight make the film more dynamic and choreographic. And more “external”. The scenography uses wide spaces, wide rooms, impressive buildings that remind of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis”. In “Fahrenheit 451” we see also how people turns to informants against other people. There is a scene with an hesitating man who finally drops a denouncing letter in a sort of postal box of the regime. Linda Montag betrays his husband, and, when the arsonist firemen come to their house, she said to Montag at the front door: “I just couldn’t bear it anymore!” A family is destroyed by fear. Love seems to be too easily defeated by conformism and fear. f. The survival of the culture means the survival of memory of mankind, in fact the survival of man as a free being with the right to have a true history and a true 127

memory. This memory serves mankind as a whole and man as individual to have/ to preserve a true image about themselves in order to develop on a normal funda- ment. Often, totalitarian societies want to rewrite history, to cut man out of his origins, all of these in order to present themselves as saviors of humanity, as estab- lishers of “brand new worlds”. In “Fahrenheit 451” books are attacked, in “1984” the whole history, press, the whole way of thinking, of speaking and of being is to be rewritten, in fact destroyed. “Equilibrium” means the eradication of man’s “ability to feel”, to destroy all the objects belonging to the old culture build up by human sensibility. The most catastrophic situation is presented in “1984” where people have no right to think, to feel, to keep diary, to have a private space neither in their rooms, nor in their minds and souls. The only thing they are manipulated to do is to “love” the ruler. Without culture, without freedom, without self esteem, without trust in others, without love man reaches chaos and hell. He is a something that cannot die, and cannot live. Some societies try to replace culture and history, others, due to some technological opportunities, create, imagine, and try to replace man himself with other better (?), “perfect” beings. Even from the early ages of films, in Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” (1927) there is a character Rotwang, the inventor, who tries to replace Maria, the main feminine character with a human-like robot, The Machine Maria. This Machine Maria is an evil, extremely sensual character that tries to start the chaos. She is put in contrast with the sensible, kind and caring human Maria. In Fritz Lang’s movie this robot with feminine aspect is destroyed. A sort of contemporary replica of it is imagined by Alex Garland in his 2015 ”Ex Machina”. Now it bears the label of “artificial intelligence”. It is a robot with feminine aspect, imagined as having initiative. It kills Nathan Bateman, its creator, and, leaves Caleb Smith prisoner in that remote complex in the mountains, after it manipulated him. After all these, the so–called “Ava”, with fully human aspect, escapes in the world. It is, of course, a threat to humanity. We see here a very serious and complex threat, given by the combination of feminine sensual aspect with cold computer “mind”. Even it is only an imitation; it is an attempted intrusion of technology in the human being. Other way of intrusion into the intimacy of human being is the attempt of controlling bodies, “minds”, death, as imagined by Michael Bay in his 2005 “The Island”. The movie is constructing the idea of a fabric of clones, grown as a source for replac- ing organs. The idea of fully human clones used in the film opens a very risky topic. Man cannot invent ”fully human” clones, clones with soul. The clones cannot be more sensible, more carrying than real humans. “The Matrix” series can be interpreted as a survival movie. It deals with the survival of the humanity against machines that took over humans and grow them to be used a source of energy. These movies (especially the first two) set Matrix as space where man and computer programs meet and fight. Matrix is a program. It reminds 128 Ioan BUTEANU of “Tron” (1982) where also the battlefield between man and computers programs is software. So this idea is not new. Old or new it has the same drawback: it presumes that man (soul and mind) can be transferred through wires or decomposed/recomposed and that man is something similar to a computer program. This a very reduc- tionist vision about man. It remains pure fantasy. Technology can threaten people, but not in this way. In “Matrix” there is also a “good” technology, the one that obeys people, and helps them survive. It makes possible the existence of the underground Zion. The ”bad” one keeps them slaves, and tries to destroy the free Zion and the free humans. “Transcendence” (Pfister 2014) imagines the story of the computer scientist Will Caster who is fatally wounded by a poisoned bullet. He knows his death is coming, and his wife Evelyn and his friend Max Waters tried to “upload” Max into a computer. Here I consider there is and screenplay error: they transfer the information from his “brain”. It is impossible to transfer the mind and soul transferring the “information” they contain (if we can speak so). The information is something distinct from its “support” (mind and soul). The information is something without life. The soul and the mind have life. Live cannot be given through a simple “transfer” of information. It is more than doubtful that such a transfer between something alive (man) and something without life (a machine) could be possible. A soul and a mind are not composed by the information they “contain”, so they cannot be recomposed, they cannot be brought to life or kept alive by a simple transfer of information. And if that computer is not Will, what is it? And if that computer is not Will, whom we see at the end of the movie, who is dying at the end? Does the film suggest that a human soul and a human mind can survive inside a computer? Brent Waters warned us about the dangers about imagining man only as intelligence, as “mind” and about the developing of the idea/illusion of “a posthuman future”: Since, as transhumanists claim, the essence of human identity resides in the mind, it is imperative that cognitive performance be enhanced, and the scope of experiential opportunities expanded in order to construct a posthuman future. (Waters 51) What does “a posthuman future” means to humans anyway? The end of humanity, I am sure. In a remote center built for the “virtual Will” it manages to “transform” the matter, to heal people, but through this transformation people lose their real (human) identity. Evelyn decides to stop this “virtual Will” by transferring “him” a virus with which she accepted to be “infected”. Here I find another error of verisimilitude in the screenplay. I consider a virus cannot pass from a computer to a man, and then again to another computer. The term “virus” in biology and in computer science expresses different “realities”. You cannot name a same referent through two different senses of a polysemic word. 129

Besides all the errors I find in the screenplay I think the movie raises a very important and subtle idea about the hopes man has related to technology. When people are dreaming to build an immortal, perfect world here and now on earth, they need to take into consideration unpredictable consequences, like losing identity and freedom. For example, here people “healed” by the “virtual Will” are not themselves; they are slaves to this monstrous power that tries to enslave the entire world. The end of the movie - with the image of the sunflowers and the transformed (?) drops of water - is rather fuzzy: is the “virtual Will” experiment, with all its consequences, considered a positive one?

B. Technology as a help for humans to survive Movies as “Robinson Crusoe” (Bunuel 1954), ”Robinson Crusoe on Mars” (Haskin 1964), “Robinson Crusoe” (Hardy and Miller 1997), “Cast Away” (Zemekis 2000) or “The Martian” (Scott 2015) present stranded lonely people forced to survive for a long period of time in a remote location. They survive using all their knowledge about the technology of their epoch. One of the common motifs of these movies is the fact that their main character, in order to survive, picks up scraps, pieces from the shipwreck in order to make him tools and a shelter. He tries to reconstruct a fragment of the world he came from. He represents his culture and civilization. Chuck Noland is alone; “The Martian” manages to get in touch with his remote peers. With Robinson and Friday, we a have a survival story in two. Technology and Christian faith give the strength of Robinson. Bunuel’s Friday is interested by Christian faith, Hardy/Miller’s Friday does not like Robinson’s God. Is this change in the attitude of the hero an attempt of Ron Hardy and George Miller to please people of other beliefs or to construct political correct story? For Mark Watney, the main character from “The Martian”, the key for survival is the solving of the problems as they occur, with patience and hope, a problem after another. But also this key for survival is a good knowledge and mastering of technology that allows Mark to improvise. Another capital factor in survival are the “others”, the friendship and love of other people who (like in Patricia Riggen’s “The 33”) are not accepting to lose one of their kind, even when the rescue means an important sacrifice for them. Solidarity and communion is the normal state of being of humans in moments of crisis. Here both people and technology work together in order to save lives. The same case we have in Eric Heisserer’s “Hours” (2013). The life of Nolan Hayes’ infant daughter is saved due to the love/determination of his father and to the modern medical devices from the hospital. The plot is set in a city hospital during the hurricane Kathrina. The power is cut because of by the hurricane, and the father needs to find solutions in order to maintain the functioning of the apparatus that keeps his new-born daughter alive. In “The 33” (Riggen 2015) technology serves also to save people. If there were not modern instruments for drilling, those people trapped under ground would not be 130 Ioan BUTEANU saved. But, at the same time, we can say that if the mining of such depth didn’t exist, they would not remain isolated there because they could not get there at all. In “Interstellar” (Nolan 2014) is constructed the image of a dying Earth. It becomes a planet that cannot support live anymore. People are forced to find shelters on other planets, and technology is helping them. It is helping people to survive: the explor- ers use spaceships to search for proper planets. We meet here two very friendly and very useful robots: Tars and Case. Through mastering of technology people are imagined to build stations that orbit planet Saturn, and going further and further. The motif of the loving father occurs here, too. Cooper is determined to succeed because he loves his family. Technology gives him opportunities and the means to succeed, but his strength is given by love. The presence of technology can be also seen sometime as a sign of a “civilized” society, with rules to be followed, a society that can guarantee the safety of the individuals. Of course, not technology itself guarantees for this safety, but the moral values respected by people. In Harry Hook’s “Lord of the Flies” we see how, away from a society of “adults”, some members a group of children stranded on an isolated island become “savages”, able to kill other peers. Their drama ends when “adults” in military uniform in (at least) one military helicopter land on the island. The military pilots and the helicopter are here symbols of the positive use of technology in order to impose “good” authority. In other movies superior technology appears not to be enough neither to win nor to keep a man alive. It needs to appear a man, a “good” man, to help, a very determined man, a man ready to fight, to risk his life for a stranger in need. It is the case of Marcus Luttrell saved by Mohammad Gulab - “Lone Survivor” - (Berg 2013).

Conclusions I treated both cultural/philosophical works and movies as meditations on the relation between man and technology. So, taking into consideration the works/movies presented above, I will try to pinpoint some ideas that could be a part of a “survival kit” of human race along with the technologies it invented in order to make its life easier and also to fulfill its intellectual and creative vocation: −− Technology represents a very human manifestation of human intelligence (Dyens, Heidegger and Stăniloae) and even a “niche” where human race exists and develops itself” (Dyens 7). −− Technology is a part of our civilization, it is a mark of it, it provides safety and the lack of it can be disastrous (“Hours”, “The Grey”). It assures the survival of humans in remote areas and in difficult conditions – “Robinson Crusoe” (Bunuel 1954), ”Robinson Crusoe on Mars” (Haskin 1964), “Robinson Crusoe” (Hardy and Miller 1997) or “The Martian” (Scott 2015). −− It puts sometimes people in danger, in very difficult situations, but it also helps them to get out of these situations and to save their lives (“The 33”, “Interstellar” 131

“The Martian”). Technology is “knowledge” (Richter 7), it represents solutions to different problems, it create “artifacts” (Oswalt -– qtd. Gibbs 46) that should serve humans, that should be adapted to human needs (Human comes first and tech, after. - Vicente). Do not let technology to impose its rhythm over the natural rhythm of the people (Russo). −− The so called “artificial intelligence” cannot compete with human intelligence (even there are movies that support this idea – “Ex-Machina”, “Transcendence”). People should trust their intuition, their “good” intelligence, emotions, their moral sense (“Fahrenheit 451”,”Idiocracy”, “Equilibrium”). −− Technology is not perfect and it cannot compensate human imperfection or fallibility (Dumas), and there is no need for this. Human imperfection can mean human perfectibility. Along with human interdependence and free will, there are some of our qualities (Habermas).

Works cited:

1. Cortada, James W. The Digital Hand: Volume II: How Computers Changed the Work of American financial, telecommunications, media and entertainment industries. Oxford University Press, 2006. 2. Dumas, Lloyd J. The technology trap: where human error and malevolence meet powerful technologies. Praeger, 2010. 3. Dyens, Ollivier. Metal and flesh: the evolution of man: technology takes. over Translated by Evan J. Bibbee and Ollivier Dyens. The MIT Press, 2001. 4. Ellul, Jaques. The Technological Society. Translated by John Wilkinson. Random House, 1964. 5. Gibbs, Jack P. Control: Sociology’s Central Notion. University of Illinois Press, 1989. 6. Koivukoski, Toivo. After the Last Man: Excurses on the Limits of the Technological System. Lexington Books, 2008. 7. Marcuse, Herbert. One-dimensional Man. Routledge, 2002. 8. Oprea, Bogdan. “Pericolele tehnologiei și posibilitatea salvării umane” https://filosofieteoretica.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/bogdan-oprea-pericolele-tehnologiei-si-posibilitatea-salva- rii-umane.pdf, 20.03.2017, https://filosofieteoretica.wordpress.com/. 9. Richter, Maurice N. Jr. Technology and Social Complexity. State University of New York Press, 1982. 10. Russo, John Paul. The future without a past: the humanities in a technological society. University of Missouri Press, 2005. 11. Stăniloae, Dumitru, Teologia dogmatică ortodoxă. Ediţia a doua, vol. I, EIMBOR, 1996. 12. Tiles, Mary and Oberdiek, Hans. Living in a Technological Culture. Human Tools and Human Values. Routledge, 1995. 13. Waters, Brent. From Human to Posthuman: Christian Theology and Technology in a Postmodern World. Ashgate, 2006. 14. Vicente, Kim J. Human-Tech. Oxford University Press, 2011.

Monographist! Monographist! 133 history of ideas: the sacred, the profane, the ineffable, the epiphanies. Therefore, she quotes Doru Pop which remarks in Romanian New Wave: An Introduction (2014) that Puiu’s interest “is not in the cinematic as simple art object but in the revelation it may invite” and mixes this idea with one of the filmmaker statements itself that “the camera is an anthropological instrument”, quite sure that Cristi Puiu’s cinema “seeks to inspire the viewers’ brief epiphanies about the sacred dimension of the profane world”, by causing them “ineffable” experiences, she explains as “gradual desensiti- zation of the secular world toward the spiritual realm that lies beyond it”(2). Thus, in the following eight chapters of the book, each dedicated to the corre- sponding Cristi Puiu’s cinematic event, Monica Filimon attempts to initiate her readers in the “ineffable experience of the profane world” induced by the Romanian filmmaker artistic experiences, to investigate the failed initiation journey of the film characters, “wretched human beings”(9) and still, aware that these experiences are merely a consequence of the sociological context in which these films were born, she re- visits the improper ethical and socio-political aspects, which had direct consequences over the film production and distribution before 1989 and after, in postcommunist Romania. In the following sections, dedicated to Cristi Puiu’s cinematic experiences, from the outset documentary, The Retirement Home, to the last movie, Sieranevada, (which was released almost at the same time with the book), Monica Filimon envisages the main typical features of the director’s filming experience (long takes, hand- held camera), his preference for common characters, his immediate affinity with other major international film directors John Cassavetes, Jarmusch, Kiarostami etc. She also questions the link between the city, the space and the memory in these movies as well as the direct and various interactions between the camera and the subject. Here, Monica Filimon speaks about a “haptic” attribute that labels all things (images, camera, and viewer experience) by repeating the term until saturation, never replaced with a synonym (kinesthetic communication, for example), as well as the re- volt against the father, which became a leitmotiv that infuses the entire book, grounding various interpretations, from the political movements of 1989, to the main characters’ motivations. Still, exploring the connection between the space and the memory in Retirement Home, using Lefebvre interpretations could seem a little far-fetched, since Foucault has such a precise definition for the heterotopian space. Otherwise, no matter how enthusiastic (there are no arguments to associate young Ovidiu, the main character from Stuff and Dough and the Roman poet Ovidius, exiled at Tomis aged 51, excepting the name coincidence!) and appropriate any peculiar details, associations or parallels may seem, if they strike the sphere of over-interpretation they shade all the other innovative ideas by putting all of them into question. Besides these remarks, Monica Filimon’s analyses are remarkable through their aspiration to completeness, thereby she denotes each film with the most suitable label: The Retirement Home is the “celebration of human endurance”, a documentary that “becomes a cultural site of memory”; Stuff and Dough is “a fraught initiation jour- 134 ney” of “young people oscillating between socioeconomic exclusion and integration”, and “a consistent and detailed chronicle of the rise and disillusionment of the pre- cariat in a postnational, postpolitical world”(45); Cigarettes and Coffee is “an exercise in austere, effective aesthetic expression”(53) and the two opposite portraits of father and son echoes two different responses to the “social transformations around”(55) them; The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is “an event for the viewer, encouraging empathy with the protagonist”(70), “transforming a grim situation[with dark humor] into an occasion for contemplation”(72), Aurora “offers a complex, multilayered gaze at an individual in crisis by means of several intersecting discourses (on the conflictual relationship within a brand new capitalist world, the inner workings of a man’s psyche, and the makings of an auteur)”(76); Three Exercises of Interpretation “continues the director’s forays into the relationship between fathers and children, the existence of a transcendental world, and the relationship between cinema and life itself”(100); Das Spektrum Europas is “an ephemeral fragment of memory and history constructed with a tender, yet critical eye to human weakness”(116); Sieranevada is “a desacralized world, populated by people blind[…] to the cosmic dimension of their existence, even at the most sensitive moments in their lives”(116). The next two reunited interviews with the filmmaker, that succeed Monica Filimon’s previous approach are meant to complete the indeterminate areas of interpretation, if there are any left, by revealing Cristi Puiu’s main cinematic influences and many spicy details behind the scenes. If the reader’s attention could bear the Romanian phraseology from the first sev- enty pages, his kindness will be further rewarded with much lighter expressions and with more ingenious and intelligent interpretations. Besides all these, by being the first monograph of Cristi Puiu, one of the most important filmmaker in contemporary Romanian cinema, Monica Filimon’s study should worth a lot not only for the Romanian readers but also for readers and film lovers from all over the world.

Ioan-Pavel AZAP

The Kitchen as Cinematic Topoi

Review of: Mircea Valeriu Deaca. O bucătărie ca-n filme. Scenotopul bucătăriei în Noul Cinema Românesc (A movie-like kitchen. The scenotope of the kitchen in the New Romanian Cinema), Cluj-Napoca: Mega, 2017

The academic studies dedicated to the kitchen as a representative space in the New Romanian Cinema, either described as mise- en-scene or sometimes an enactment of trau- ma were already dealt with in several film theory approaches (see Mihai Chirilov, “Stop- cadre la masă”/ “Freeze frames at the table” in Cristina Corciovescu, Magda Mihăilescu, Noul Cinema Românesc. De la tovarăşul Ceauşescu la Domnul Lăzărescu, Iaşi, Ed. Polirom, 2011; or the respective chapter from Doru Pop, Romanian New Wave Cinema, An Introduction. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2014). Yet the remarkable approach of Mircea Valeriu Deaca is that the author dedicates a Ioan-Pavel AZAP full theoretical interpretation to this specific Babeș-Bolyai University, Romania space in recent cinema. For Deaca the kitch- E-mail: [email protected] en provides plenty materials for a substan- EKPHRASIS, 1/2017 tial analysis and he develops in A movie-like Ghosts in the Cinema Machine kitchen. The sceno-topos of the kitchen in the pp. 135-137 New Romanian Cinema (Cluj-Napoca, Mega Publishing House, 2017) an exhaustive over- DOI:10.24193/ekphrasis.17(1).10 view of one of the most important spatial de- Published First Online: 2017/06/30 terminants of contemporary moviemakers. 136 Ioan-Pavel AZAP

For the author, as we are cautioned from the very beginning, this project is a “pretext for film analysis and more general considerations. The core of this book project is the critical investigation; partly a cinematic analitical exercise (how to break down a cinematic scene, and what to look for on the screen), partly a critical interpretation exercise” (Deaca 7). For the coherence of the approach, Mircea Valeriu Deaca identifies four common elements, or as he calls them “signification constants”, which are characteristic for all the kitchen scenes. His case studies include many examples from the Romanian New Cinema, but also from the films of their precursors, such as those of Lucian Pintilie or Mircea Daneliuc. The author will work with these examples throughout the book: “The effect relationship between the protagonists of the kitchen scenes (manifested as eros and agape), the conflict relationships (described as agone) and the relationship of the cinematic with the film as medium (placed under the hymen category) are described as themes, then resumed as rhetorical figures. The argumentation is articulated and growingly configured with each film, and with each particular example the considerations get a more nuanced dimension. These notions are designed as indica- tors for relevant aspects of the dramatic situations, as the are represented in the films. Using a key term, borrowed from Fredric Jameson – that of scenotope – which is “a particular combination of what we recognize as a topos and an unique form of perceptual-cognitive-emotional organization” (Deaca 9), the author carries out, with the acrimony of an investigative journalist, an in-depth reasearch into the sometimes fuzzy history of the Romanian New Cinema. The kitchen, understood as a cinematic topos, and the act of eating, described as an element of scene development, range from the simple food devouring in front of the camera, to the refined or grotesque banquets. These are not “innovations” of the “new cinema”. In fact the earliest manifestation of this “genre” may even be considered the classical “Repas de bébé” of Louis Lumière (1895). And, as it is appropriate, before entering into the specific manifestations in the Romanian moviemaking, the author provides a brief, but relevant incursion into the vast “cuisines” and the “banquets” of Jean Renoir, Federico Fellini, Luis Buñuel, Marco Ferreri, Peter Greenaway, Paolo Sorrentino, Spike Jonze, Orson Welles, Michael Haneke, Blake Edwards, Bernardo Bertolucci, Sofia Coppola, Adrian Lyne, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ridley Scott, Sergio Leone, Steven Spielberg, Pedro Almodovar, etc. Revealing their dimension, which ranges from the grotesque, to the thanatic and even spiritual, the author develops extensive chapters in which recent Romanian films are analyzed in a connection with older titles such as Sunday at 6 o’clock (Lucian Pintilie, 1966) or The Conjugal Bed (Mircea Daneliuc, 1993). A simple enumeration of each chapter title would be enough to raise the interest of any reader for this false “cinematic cookbook”, which is simultaneously a partial guide through the universe of the Romanian New Cinema. The author presents “A study on eating patterns in the Romanian film”, discusses the trope of the “Serial 137 kitchen(s), presents the “Serialized cuisine”, or the “Pharmakon thriller” (with emphasis on Cristi Puiu’s films), overviews the theme of “Father and son: home alone. The Avatars of the Father” (from the Senator of the Snails, by Mircea Daneliuc, 1995, to Metabolism, by Corneliu Porumboiu, 2013, passing through 12:08 to Bucharest (2007), Police, Adjective (2009) also by Corneliu Porumboiu, or The Medal of Honor, by Călin Peter Netzer, 2010). Similarly interesting are the chapters on “The Kitsch Battlefields and Hostility in the Family” (dealing with Everybody in our Family, Radu Jude, 2012, Ilegitimate, by Adrian Sitaru, 2016, or topics like “The Parody of Minimalism” in Friends for Friendship, Radu Jude, 2011), “The Figure of the Wife and Home Maternity” (treats Sunday 6 o’clock, by Lucian Pintilie 1966, Occident by Cristian Mungiu 2002, Felicia, Above of all, by Mellisa de Raaf, Răzvan Rădulescu, 2009, or Marilena from P7, by Cristian Nemescu, 2006. A paradigm shifting moment is described in the “visual- ization” of the women in the recent Romanian film, which the author considers to be found in The Child’s Pose, by Călin Peter Netzer, 2013 Another space is the Communist kitchen, or the space as inherited from Communism, which is paralled by the post-communist one (as in The Child’s Pose, by Călin Peter Netzer, 2013). Relevantly enough, the book describes the kitchen in the recent films of the Romanian “New Cinema” as more than a “playground”. The kitchen is also the expression of a specific mentality which discloses the role of the women (as women are often the main characters in the Romanian New Cinema, unlike in most of the pre-Revolution films). This approach allows an understanding of the traditional roles in Romanian society, and the way in which we wittness a transformation (once more The Child’s Pose is illustrative). We also have access to the relations between the members of the family, we see the husband-wife relationship, the dynamics between children and parents, or between siblings. By extension, the kitchen is the symbolic space of conflicts, a universe of macro-social convulsions, an image of the Romanian society seen as a whole. A movie-like kitchen. The scenotope of the kitchen in the New Romanian Cinema is a book that teaches us how to “taste” a movie, how to appreciate its “frangrance” by understanding its mechanisms and by deciphering its symbolisms. Going beyond the inherent, and most frustrating, Bazinianism of the realism, Mircea Valeriu Deaca’s book, very well articulated theoretically, is extremely nuanced and brings cognitive approaches and structuralist methods into play. Finally, in order to deliberately incite to reading this work, here is just a title of a most relevant subchapter: “Was it or was not the New Cinema a Realist one? The allegorical Realism”). All the book lends itself to a minute and detailed analysis, many of the commentaries are ample, and the entire work is in and of itself an “object of research”. Mircea Valeriu Deaca is one of the most imporant film theorists in our cinema culture and any invitation to read his interpretations is certainly enriching both the academic field, but also the spectators, who can become more passionate critics.