Vol. VI Núm 11 Vol.2018 VIII No. 14 2020 and Film in TelevisionSociety Techno-Capitalist Imagining the Editors Albert Elduque and Gonzalo de Lucas (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain).

Associate Editors Núria Bou (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain) and Xavier Pérez (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain).

Advisory Board Dudley Andrew (Yale University, United States), Jordi Balló (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain), Raymond Bellour (Université Sorbonne-Paris III, France), Francisco Javier Benavente (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain), Nicole Brenez (Université Paris 1-Panthéon-Sorbonne, France), Maeve Connolly (Dun Laoghaire Institut of Art, Design and Technology, Irleland), Gino Frezza (Università de Salerno, Italy), Chris Fujiwara (Edinburgh International Film Festival, United Kingdom), Jane Gaines (Columbia University, United States), Haden Guest (Harvard University, United States), Tom Gunning (University of Chicago, United States), John MacKay (Yale University, United States), Adrian Martin (Monash University, Australia), Cezar Migliorin (Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil), Alejandro Montiel (Universitat de València, Spain), Meaghan Morris (University of Sidney, Australia and Lignan University, Hong Kong), Raffaele Pinto (Universitat de Barcelona, Spain), Ivan Pintor (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain), Àngel Quintana (Universitat de Girona, Spain), Joan Ramon Resina (Stanford University, United States), Eduardo A. Russo (Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina), Glòria Salvadó (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain), Yuri Tsivian (University of Chicago, United States), Vicente Sánchez-Biosca (Universitat de València, Spain), Jenaro Talens (Université de Genève, Switzerland and Universitat de València, Spain), Michael Witt (Roehampton University, United Kingdom).

Guest Editors Camil Ungureanu (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain), Sonia Arribas (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain) and Rebecca Anne Peters (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain).

Contributors Himar Bethencourt Reyes, Ekin Erkan, Rebecca Anne Peters, Ida Marie Schober, Joseph Walderzak and Ling Zhang.

Editorial Assistants Mario Barranco and Brunella Tedesco (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain).

English language reviewer Rebecca Anne Peters and Tamara Courage.

Original design and layout Pau Masaló (original design), Núria Gómez Gabriel (website and PDF layouts).

Publisher Center for Aesthetic Research on Audiovisual Media (CINEMA), Department of Communication, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF).

Place of publication Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Communication Campus - Poblenou. Roc Boronat, 138, 08018, Barcelona (Spain).

E-mail [email protected]

Website www.raco.cat/index.php/Comparativecinema

Comparative Cinema, Volume 8, No. 14, «Imagining the Techno-Capitalist Society in Television and Film», Barcelona, 2020.

Legal Deposit: B.29702-2012 ISSN: 2604-9821

Some rights are reserved. Published under a Creative Commons License (Attribution–NonCommercial–ShareAlike 4.0 International).

Cover Photo Ex Machina (Alex Garland, 2015) Comparative Cinema is a scientific journal that addresses film studies from a comparative perspective. It is published by the Center for Aesthetic Research on Audiovisual Media (CINEMA) at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), in Barcelona. Since its inception in 2012, it has investigated the conceptual and formal relations between films, material processes and production and exhibition practices, as well as the history of ideas and film criticism in different social and political contexts.

Comparative Cinema tackles an original area of research by developing a series of methodologies for a comparative study of cinema. With this aim, it also explores the relations between cinema and comparative literature, as well as other contemporary arts such as painting, photography, music and dance, and audio-visual media. The journal is structured into monographic issues featuring articles, interviews and the re- publishing of crucial texts, which are sometimes complemented by audio-visual essays, either as part of a written article or as an autonomous work. Each issue also includes a book review section which analyses some of the most important works in film studies published in Spain and abroad.

Comparative Cinema is published biannually in English, though it may include original versions of the texts in other languages. It is an open access, peer-reviewed publication which uses internal and external evaluation committees. As such, it is recognized by international indexes such as DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) and Latindex (Regional Information System for Online Scientific Journals of Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal). Vol. VIII comparative cinema No. 14 2020 33-45 8-32 5-7 86-88 82-85 62-81 46-61 Miradas sobre el contacto entre el cine y la poesía. poesía. la y cine el entre contacto el sobre Miradas Oter, Jorge andSantos Zunzunegui. eds. 2019. Himar Bethencourt Schefer, Jean-Louis.2016. Ekin Erkan and DigitalRealism in Xu Bing’s Foreshadowing theFuture of Capitalism: Surveillance Technology Ling Zhang Relationships Loving theAI: Captivity andOwnership inUnbalancedDystopian Ida MarieSchober Age of Postmodernism Blaming thePoor: The False Allure of theCapitalist Critiqueinthe Joseph Walderzak the Technologyof Today and Tomorrow When Your Motherboard Replaces thePearly Gates: Rebecca AnnePeters Imagining the Techno-Capitalist Society in Television andFilm Camil Ungureanu, SoniaArribas &Rebecca AnnePeters The Ordinary Man of Cinema. Cinema. of Man Ordinary The Dragonfly Eyes Dragonfly Ensayos de poética. poética. de Ensayos Black Mirror Mirror Black and 5 Vol. VIII Editorial comparative cinema No. 14 Imagining the Techno-Capitalist Society in 2020 Television and Film neuroscience, biogenetics, and and divided: AI, robotics, social imagination isplural to thecurrent global pandemic. become even more relevant due myths andnarratives that have engendering new apocalyptic haunting oursocialimaginaries The specter of dystopia is towards apost-human society. concept of thehuman, pointing throwing into question thevery technological capitalismis revolutionThe permanent of age asthe “capitalocene.” characterize thecurrent which hasled scholars to conditions of society itself, crisis of theenvironmental generated anunprecedented capitalist dynamichas, further, Europe to China. The corporate society—from theUSand contemporary techno-capitalist sprung upfrom thecore of our populism, andinequalityhave a wave of filmicinsights and capitalist society hasgenerated particular, thepredicament of coming post-human society. In to anticipate andreflect the socio-historical ideasinorder technological inventions and narratives drawing onscientific- has beenaflourishing of (grand) and playful fictionalization, there of postmodernfragmentation and reflection. After the fashion is aprivileged site of experience futures into the “signs of times” and itscapacityto read possible openness, filmicimagination situation of historical crisisand and salvation myths. Inthis new life into eschatological evolutionary theoryare breathing And yet, thelandscapeof New forms of authoritarianism, diagnosis of thecurrent the questions regarding the cinema to engage some of issue isto usethetools of yan or (Pedro Aguilera, 2016–present), (Bruce Miller, 2017–present), present), and Jonathan Nolan, 2016– 2015–18), Vincent and Jonathan Brackley, Nolan, 2014), 2014), Machina Brooker, 2011–present), e.g. from theseedsof thepresent— possible future developments interpretations that envision for reading the useof the laysThe article outanargument series anthology considers five episodesfrom the Tomorrow,” Rebecca AnnePeters the Technologyof Today and Pearly Gates: Motherboard Replaces the contemporary societies? shape theuseof power in technological developments scientific narratives? How do and what istherole of techno- and constructed through film, salvationist, etc.) interpreted are current myths(apocalyptic, shape (human)relations? How technological developments of techno-capitalism? How do account for thepresent crisis in cinemaandtelevision to representation are usedtoday what forms of narrative and society anditsconsequences: crisis of techno-capitalist Dragonfly Eyes The aimof thisspecial In her article In herarticle “When Your , Xu Bing, 2017). Black Mirror

Interstellar (Alex Garland,

The Handmaid’sThe Tale

Westworld DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.01

Humans Black Mirror (Charlie Black Mirror. ( (Christopher Qingting zhi (Lisa Joy (Sam

Ex Ex and 3%

6 Vol. VIII Editorial comparative cinema No. 14 Imagining the Techno-Capitalist Society in 2020 Television and Film capitalism by focusing on question of thecrisisof Walderzak discusses the Postmodernism,”of Joseph Capitalist CritiqueintheAge The False Allure of the contemporary events. as well asfrom historical and drawing from Christian theology biblical concepts they mirror— another andinthecontext of the the episodesinrelation to one her argument, sheconsiders throughout history. To construct the dimensionsof thechurch moral enforcer, echoing oneof that technology might play asa endure inthepersecutory role give us. Likewise, theseconcepts powers that technology might idealized thinkingof thegod-like of theseideaslinger inour positing that thespecters that haunt Western culture, reflection of Christian concepts technology withintheseriesasa values. oppositional to ruling class transformative discourse of history, preventing any truly discourses to residual forms ends upreducing antagonistic a postmodernaesthetics that narrative devices, they display treating thoseissuesasmere following Fredric Jameson, in However, asWalderzak argues explicit Marxianimagery. contemporary inequalityusing ho, 2013). These filmsaddress and Softly Nolan, 2012), Knight Rises from recent years: three class-consciousfilms In “Blaming thePoor: Snowpiercer (Andrew Dominik, 2012) (Christopher Killing Them (Bong Joon- The Dark seeing thecaptivity depicted through thestylization of bodies, on theinstitution of gender Judith Butler’s developments to thevisualarts, aswell asto psychoanalytic theoryapplied endure, resortingto recent these AIfemale characters on thespatial restrictions that made AIone. Sheconcentrates character andafemale man- between alonely male human the depiction of arelationship genre of thelast years, namely, the dystopian andsciencefiction argues hasbecomeatrend in Schober analyzes what she Relationships,” IdaMarie in UnbalancedDystopian AI: Captivity andOwnership Her goal is to show that the capitalism’s present andfuture. mediations of informational reflects onthe technological technology andmedia. Zhang developments of digital possible withcontemporary new modelof filmmakingonly The result, sheargues, isa editing andanesthetizing them. manipulation, butnot without used in Xu’s film withoutany surveillance images asthey are (2017)” by Ling Zhang dealswith Bing’sin Xu Technology andDigitalRealism of Capitalism: Surveillance in thepast. that hasprimordially functioned patriarchal distribution of space of AI, they alsoreproduce the warn usof unsupervisedcreation counterhegemonic in that they body. While thesefilmsare objectification of the female in thesefilmsastheblatant In her article In herarticle “Loving the “Foreshadowing theFuture DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.01 Dragonfly Eyes

film delineates the contours strategies—and the Western of the social imaginary of liberal-democratic model of today’s capitalism, as well capitalism will be part of the as its temporal coordinates. debates on the future of our Surveillance not only connotes societies. This crisis will most the idea of controlling the future, probably nourish a new wave it also affects our relation to of cinematic dystopias and comparative cinema comparative the past, to history. As the utopias.1 current pandemic indicates, the confrontation between the Chinese model of authoritarian Camil Ungureanu, Sonia capitalism—based on AI and Arribas and Rebecca Anne comprehensive surveillance Peters

1/ The editors want to express their gratitude to Albert Elduque for his exceptional work in helping to prepare this special issue.

7

How to quote Ungureanu, Camil, Sonia Arribas and Rebecca Anne Peters. 2020. “Imagining the Techno-Capitalist Society in Television Editorial in Society Techno-Capitalist Imagining the and Film Television and Film”. Comparative Cinema, Vol. VIII, No. 14, pp. 5-7. DOI: 10.31009/ cc.2020.v8.i14.01 2020 No. 14 No. Vol. VIII Vol. DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.01 Vol. VIII comparative cinema Rebecca Anne No. 14 2020 Peters 8-32 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and the Technology of Today and Tomorrow

This paper considers five episodes from Charlie Brooker’s dystopian science fiction anthology series,Black Mirror (2011–present). The episodes selected are those that—as argued in this text—depict the role of technology as replacing that of religion. To build this claim, they will be compared to one another, to the Christian biblical concepts they mirror, and to historical events related to theological debates within Christianity. Throughout the history of Western civilization, Christian belief has played an important role in shaping cultural ideologies. For that reason, it could be argued that Christian ideas continue to penetrate our cultural narratives today, despite declining self-recognition in the West as religious or spiritual. Concepts of the afterlife, omniscience, vengeance, ostracism and eternal suffering spring up in some of the least expected places within popular culture today. This paper argues that Black Mirror depicts the materialization of these concepts through imagined worlds, thus signaling the modern-day specters of Christianity.

Keywords BLACK MIRROR SCIENCE FICTION DYSTOPIAN FUTURES TECHNOLOGY CHRISTIANITY CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY

Date of reception: 04/03/2019 Date of acceptance: 28/12/2019

Rebecca Anne Peters is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher currently living and working in Barcelona where she is a doctoral candidate at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in the Department of Humanities. After completing an MFA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2013, she went on to receive an MA in Psychosocial Studies from Birkbeck, University of London in 2014. Peters originates from the United States of America.

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 9 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2020 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow within the contemporary culture, anditsplace role that technology plays within Christianity to everlasting life—a placeinwhich which many believe holds thekey of cyberspace asanew space—one already understood theimportance twenty years ago, Wertheim (2000) religion of thefuture (2016, 428). Writing privacy) could easily becomeatechno- over everything else—particularlyover (the worship orprioritization of data Harari goes asfar asto say Dataism rather thanlater (amongother things). data clearly hopesto tackle sooner would beomniscience, something big divinity (Harari, 2016). Onesuch power some of which overlap withnotions of to humanityandourcollective power, offers thepossibilityof other upgrades Beyond everlasting life, technology something sites of ourcollective upgrade towards gene editingasoneof themost likely into thescienceof CRISPR-Cas9and death (2016). Mahon instead delves Project, whosestated aimisto solve subcompany Calico, orthe Gilgamesh Harari sites projects such asGoogle’s achieved, however, remains to beseen. (2016, 54). Whether thisobjective is from such risk, able to live forever but only by tragic accident, andapart humans amortal—capable of dying, ourselvesturn into gods through technology isessentially to writes that oneof humanity’s aims In hisbook, 2018; Roden 2015; Wertheim 2000). 2014; Harari 2016; Hayles 1999; Mahon author—the history of humanity(Harari according to thetaste of theparticular Much has beenwritten about the I. Technology, (Kafka, The Blue Octavo Notebooks Octavo Blue The destiny superhuman Homo Deus Religions get lost aspeople do. Black Mirror Mirror Black of humanity, or— (2016), Harari (2018, 78). 1 —to make and and , 1954) television andtraditional cinema. The the show liessomewhere between and subject matter. For that reason, their overarching message, genre, of most television shows, theepisodes and asingular world that hold together narrative arch, overlapping characters, the others. Instead of atraditional a different story, independentfrom by Brooker andAnnabel Jones, tells episode of future. series, Asananthology each ways we might useitinthevery near towards theseends, andsomeof the societies are already usingtechnology a numberof ways that late capitalistic Brooker, theshow’s creator, highlights dangers of technology itself, butinstead Mirror what’s going onnow.” futures, it’s really always aboutnow, and set innearfutures, of allegorical orsort about today—even thoughit’s often worried show, it’s ashow that’s worried Channel 4in2014, hesaidthat “it’s a with technology. Inaninterview with Brooker’s visionof ourrelationship the show, aswe look for insight into its overlapping themeswhenanalyzing provides therationalization to consider format of in physicality of thebody. humanity might finally overcome the I would argue, that Brooker’s is probably aserious understatement. anyone whohasseentheshow, that with themgrave consequences. For we have, orwillsoonhave, could bring quotes above, isthat thetechnologies message, aswe canglean from the could easily take placetoday. Hisoverall futures, though someof theepisodes show canbedescribedasdystopian worlds that hecreates throughout the if we’re clumsy” (Brooker 2011). The as Brooker putit, “10 minutes’ time, place inafuture between now and, Black Mirror Black Mirror Within hisdarkvisionof thefuture The episodesof does not highlight theinherent Black Mirror Black Mirror (2011–present), Charlie are connected by DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 Black Mirror 2 itself implicitly , co-produced Black Black take 10 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2020 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow not overt inallof theepisodesof constraints often found inreligion—are to allow usto carry outthesocial humanity truly god-like oritspotential These themes—of technology making some of theepisodesof theseries. worst characteristics played outin of Christian thought, andmany of its together, we seethelingering specter ostracism, andeternal suffering). Taken (including notions of just punishment, of thedarker realities of Christianity also seeoverlapping themes withsome This paperwilldemonstrate that we can concepts, other parallels becomeclear. the show through thelens of Christian Additionally, whenwelooking start at mentioned at of thestart thissection. questions regarding thegod-like powers religion, dangers of ourcurrent path. a way that makes alarmingly clear the real relationships withtechnology in Brooker usesslight variations from our ourselves.and Throughout already useitto relate to oneanother current trajectory andtheways that we put that technology to use, given our the dangerous ways that we might decided who would have accessto Christianity theinstitution of the church these desires onto thegods; within have. Inthepast, humanityprojected super-human powers—and we always words, we want to live forever and have but were unable to fulfill them. In other because we wishedfor thosethings human powers came andimmortality that ourcreation of gods withsuper- those god-like qualities. Hesuggests because humanshave always desired haunted by religious ideas, butinstead acquire exists not because we are characteristics we are aiming to the attributes of deitiesandthe apparent connection between hard to ignore. throughout many of theepisodesthat is Mirror Harari (2016)argues that the Although not overtly referencing , butthere isastrong theme Black Mirror highlights highlights Black Mirror Black Black , 3

manifestation of Christian concepts argued that technology allows for the depict future worlds where itcould be words, someepisodesof the role of moral enforcer. Inother instead onewhere technology plays simply atimeless humandesire, but future, onethat isharder to excuse as considers amore problematic possible considered in-depth in section II), italso gods” manifestations (which willbe includes these makes “technology we seeintheseepisodes of comparisons between the technology when appropriate to helpto solidifythe briefly compare related current events enforcer (section III). Likewise, Iwill (section II)aswell asreligion asasocial technology andnotions of divinity their depiction of similaritiesbetween specific episodeswillbeanalyzed for as aninstitution. Insections IIandIII, God, butalsointherole of thechurch not only inthe role of theChristian I specifically considerChristianity), replacement of religion (inthisarticle Mirror impact ourtrajectory. we should beweary of initspotential to tomorrow—and above allassomething culture andthetechnology of today and something which continuesto influence sees religion, orat least itsspecter, as III, building theargument that theseries consider theselater examples insection many would like to believe. We will Christianity are harder to shake than to besuggesting that theghosts of eternal suffering. Brooker seems of divinepunishment, ostracism, or theory could bemadeto do. technology intheseriesasHarari’s the connection between religion and Mirror worlds Brooker imaginedin these were theonly typesof possible dreams to realization (Harari, 2016). If technology might soon bring these eternity, butnow there isnoneedwhen However, while This article arguesThis article that , itmight bepossible to disregard depicts technology of asasort DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 Black Mirror Black Mirror Black Black Black Black Black Black

11 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2020 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow Christian ideas. She writes: cyberspace anditsrelationship to 2016, 60). Likewise, Wertheim considers treatments aspreventative ones(Harari already theuseof permit curative combined withtheeaseby which we is already beingdoneto extend life bases histhinkingonresearch that century (Harari 2014; Harari 2016). He we set outfor ourselves over thenext be amongthethreegoals important aim to overcome death, andthat itwill predictions isthat we willcollectively 2000). Asdetailed above, oneof Harari’s Mahon 2018; Roden 2015; Wertheim (Harari 2014; Harari 2016; Hayes 1999; historians andphilosophers alike discussed anddisputed among relationship isplaying outiswidely seems obvious, buthow that role withinthefuture of humanity introduction, technology’s important today. continues to inform Western culture Mirror future technology (Wertheim 2000, 43). define thedevelopment anduse of to beexplored asthey could cometo that thesecollectiveasserts aimsneed help usto overcome and ourmortality thinking onhow cyberspace might death, Wertheim explores theearly potential asameansof overcoming other writingoncyberspace andits Moravec’s Cyberspace: FirstSteps While consideringBenedikt’s As discussedatof thestart II. Technology makes gods (2000, 21) visions intechnological format” repackagings of age-old Christian not new—in essencethey are here, many of thesefantasies are its own right … Yet, as Iwillsuggest rapidly becomingapowerful force in and thespecter of religion that “… thecybernautic imagination is Mind Children (1991) and (1991)and (1988) among (1988) among will beconsidered later inthispaper to thedarker Christian concepts that but itruns into issueswhenitcomes such aseverlasting life oromniscience, when we thinkaboutpositive concepts their commonroot. This argument works powers), thissimilarityisonly dueto gods and ourattempts towards god-like to relate to oneanother (ideasabout human desire, andalthoughthey seem these concepts comefrom acommon (Harari 2016). Thus, heargues that the tools to overcome death ourselves deities because we are rapidly gaining death. We nolonger needbelief in it was argues that we invented gods because of aheavenly afterlife), butinstead he gods that areorthenotion immortal based onspiritualideals(for instance, collective aimto overcome death isnot further inhisassertion, writingthat our like heaven. (2016) power of bigdata. DJ” (2017)andthegod-like, omniscient Junipero” Iwillalsoconsider “Hang the 2018). Following thediscussionof “San and Jones 2018; Drage 2018; Constant and inacademicdiscourse (Brooker an afterlife by both theshow’s creator has beentiedto notions of heaven and the episode “San Junipero” (2016)asit the show. Inparticular, with Iwillstart Christian concepts andthecontent of to draw connections between the within religious concepts asthey play out (section III). Harari takes theargument onestep — Iguess. — Uploaded to thecloud, sounds — Ifyou cancallitdying. — Let’s just callitdying. — Scheduled to pass. Everlasting Life in “San Junipero” I willfirst considerthesepositive 4 already Black Mirror, ourdesire to conquer DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 as a starting point point asastarting 12 Vol. VII Article comparative cinema No. 13 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2019 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow Fig.1: Junipero,” “San Black Mirror (2016) DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 13 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2020 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow gives foundation to thereading of the Junipero” of asdepictingafterlife asort direction, herconsideration of “San do not take ouranalysis inthesame Foucauldian sense), andthoughwe a heterotopian graveyard (inthe server (Fig. 1). tangible restinga place—asfiles on residents of San Junipero, andtheir between theexperienced reality of the of theepisode, we seealong cross fade depicted that way. Intheclosing scene called heaven onaserver; itiscertainly at least in the physical sense. Itcould be pain sensors for apainless existence— or aging; they caneven off turn their everlasting life of youth withoutdeath to stay inSan Junipero forever, an Once they die, they have thechoice andtheearly 2000s.switches to the90s the 1980s, althoughwe alsoseebrief desire. Intheepisodewe primarily see allotted hours inany timeperiodthey presumably choose to spendtheir While visiting, they are young, andcan (usually 5hours onaSaturday night). rationed amountof timeeach week the elderly are allowed to visitfor a We later discover that she’s inacoma young people ina barinSan Junipero. first seetimidly engagingwith other both at and endof thestart theepisode. Place onEarth” by BelindaCarlisle plays Davis). Likewise, thesong “Heaven isa lady, Yorkie (Mackenzie Davis/Annabel death of theepisode’s other leading discussing theupcoming, scheduled the cloud, soundslike heaven” while sarcastically saying, “[u]ploaded to Kelly (Gugu Mbatha-Raw/Denise Burse), itself, withoneof themaincharacters, heaven isbrought upintheepisode (Brooker and Jones 2018). doing astory abouttheafterlife” angle saying: “I’d beenobsessedwith considers “San Junipero” from asimilar episode inthisway. Likewise, Brooker The story follows Yorkie, whowe The comparisonof San Junipero to Drage (2018)considers San Junipero San Junipero world isavirtual that (2000, 25). is hidden from view behindthescreen” among other thingsthe “ageing body possibility to eliminate biasbecause cyberspace, which shepositshasthe in herdescription of thepotential of also something discussedby Wertheim of transcending thephysical bodyis faithful willdefeat death. This concept bodies—that inresurrection the will berenewed, given new immortal that heaven isaplacewhere everyone old physical body. Christianity teaches emphasized through Yorkie’s broken and biblical concept of anafterlife isfurther Yorkie hasmadeclear shewants. The life to beended, even thoughitiswhat deeply religious, refuse to allow her to themasgay. Her parents, whoare with herparents whenshecameout following acaraccidentafter afight and hasbeensinceherearly 20s, immortal, andstrong. we willberemade to beimperishable, be conquered andthat after death after death: transformation of thebodyinourlife of therenewal of thebody—the Corinthians 15aboutthisnotion Thus, we are told that death will We canread throughout 1 changed—in aflash, in thetwinkling will not allsleep, butwe willallbe body” (1Cor15:41-44 NIV). natural body, there isalsoaspiritual raised aspiritualbody. Ifthere isa power; itis sown anatural body, itis is sown inweakness, itisraised in in dishonor, itisraised inglory; it it israised imperishable; itissown The bodythat issown isperishable, with theresurrection of thedead. from star insplendor. Sowillitbe the stars another; andstar differs splendor, themoonanother and “Listen, Itell you amystery: We “The sunhasonekindof DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 14 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2020 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow a reading of theuseof mirrors within Foucauldian perspective, focuses on also analyzing “San Junipero” from a Yorkie andKelly, while Constant (2018) the samesex relationship between for example, considers more closely (2018) interpretation of theepisode, heaven andtheoneonscreen. Drage’s between theChristian conception of details highlight theconnection teaching, butby theircontrast these that contradict traditional Christian there are many details of theepisode Junipero.”consider “San Obviously, reading, amongothers, whenwe afterlife, then, seemsto beapossible surface: hold more sinister secrets below the considers thepossibilitythat they could possible, Constant (2018) briefly mechanisms that make San Junipero not make clear allof thedetails of the the episode. Though theepisodedoes This biblicalparallel to aheavenly When the perishable has been When theperishable hasbeen withimmortality.and themortal clothe itself withtheimperishable, be changed. For theperishable must be raised imperishable, andwe will the trumpet willsound, thedeadwill of aneye, at thelast trumpet. For 2018, 575). a private corporation?” (Constant that San Junipero istheproduct of letters ‘TCKR:’ could thisindicate Yorkie’s discsare stamped with the room (themirror), both Kelly and scene of theepisodeinserver Brooker offers oneclue: in the last be anew ‘panopticon’? Perhaps type of space—could San Junipero regarding surveillance inthisnew victory’” (1Cor15:51-54 NIV). ‘Death has beenswallowed upin saying that iswritten willcometrue: withimmortality,the mortal thenthe clothed withtheimperishable, and “… New ethical questions arise issued indulgences to beusedfor Church, andCatholics can still be still exists today withintheCatholic century.16th The belief inindulgences Protestant Reformation intheearly church, which famously led to the of indulgences withintheCatholic between theepisodeandabuse today. gospel preached by someProtestants belief in indulgences andtheprosperity denominations, specifically theCatholic and caused schisms amongits salvation that hasplagued Christianity relationship between money and regarding thechurch andthemessy should alsoconsidersomehistory described inthebiblicaltexts, we screen in “San Junipero” andtheone between theafterlife shown onthe in herbook, bless you” asdiscussedby Bowler a commonmessage: “God desires to gospel instead istiedtogether through within Christianity, theprosperity Protestantparticular denomination on earth. Not tiedexclusively to one but thistimerelated to ourtimehere comes to faith andthephysical body, coming into theequation whenit 2018). Onceagain, we seemoney byheart millionsof Americans(Bowler televangelists, andanideataken to wealth, abelief often preached by be blessed by Godwith healthand donate money to religious causes will posits that thosewhodogood, and States. Generally speaking, thebelief within thecontext of theUnited we might look at theprosperity gospel money andsalvation cometogether, penance (Russell 2017). salvation ameansof avoiding true giving thosewhoare able to purchase system, withclergy sellingindulgences, 2017). Luthersaw abuseinthe Martin avoid timespentinpurgatory (Moorman themselves orinthenameof others, to We could consideraparallel After looking at theparallels For amodern-day example of how Blessed: AHistory of the DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 15 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2020 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow as we saw highlighted earlierby by abigcompany, TCKR Systems, Junipero anditsresidents are owned we seethat theservers hosting San and, insomeways, luxurious. Finally, of therealparts world we seeare clean in anelderly care facility. Likewise, the facilities, Yorkie inahospital, andKelly episode are both invery nicecare itself. The two maincharacters inthe this “heaven onaserver” intheepisode only beseeinganaive perspective of depicted in “San Junipero.” We might might also affect heaven thevirtual to seesmallglimpsesof how money into Christian doctrine. Itisnot hard easy itisfor money andgreed to seep the prosperity gospel today, we seehow centuryandthebelief in the early 16th indulgences intheCatholic Church in is merely areflection of that blessing. be blessed by Godandthat theirwealth that these church leaders should also but supporters of themovement say the enrichment of select church leaders, poor into donating money which goes to criticized asameansof exploiting the The prosperity gospel hasbeen heavily American ProsperityGospel after death: cyberspace asapossible spacefor life and privilege while writingabout Wertheim considers theissueof money digital afterlife we seeonthescreen? only oneswhocanafford to enter the Constant (2018). Might the rich be the However, aswe willseelater inthis In both cases, withthesale of reach” (Wertheim 2000, 25). population remain firmly out of that for vast swathes of theworld depends onaccessto technologies unlike Heaven, accessto cyberspace access fee … The problem isthat, computer andamonthly Internet anyone whocanafford apersonal Christ, socyberspace isopento open to allwhofollow theway of “Just astheNew Jerusalem is (2018, 6). theme whenlooking at theshow asa certainly offer furtherinsight into this their originalone. These episodeswould alternate digitallife, separate from and presumably livinganever-ending digital duplicates escaping theircaptive Callister” (2017)shows agroup of alongside another. Alternately, “USS one consciousnessto beembedded where we seetechnology that allows specifically in “Black Museum” (2017) physical death within done ontheconcept of life after matters. differentiation between thetwo really from death for theoriginal, orifthe whether San Junipero istruly anescape a duplicate, leading usto question coexist withtheoriginal, makingthem these digitalversions of aperson can both wanting more. paired off for abrief encounter, leaving match. The two, AmyandFrank, are in order to identify each user’s ideal temporary relationships to collect data specific amounts of time, using these to intheepisode, pairs off matches for An algorithm, orcoach asitisreferred need—including temporary housing. match, equipped witheverything they meant to allowto participants findtheir dating center, thesite isspecifically success rate. Presumably inside a match”—a system that boasts a99.8% follow asystem to findtheir “ultimate Campbell) andFrank (JoeCole), asthey twenty-somethings, Amy(Georgina identified. Your pairingday is tomorrow. Amy. Your ultimate match hasbeen algorithm in “Hang theDJ” (2017) whole. article, intheworld of Further exploration should be “Hang theDJ” follows two young — [DEVICE] That iscorrect. — Ultimate asin one”?“the — [DEVICE]Congratulations, Omniscience throughanall-knowing DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 Black Mirror Black Mirror 5 , , 16 Vol. VII Article comparative cinema No. 13 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2019 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow Fig. 2: “Hang theDJ,” Fig. 3: “Hang theDJ,” Black Mirror Black Mirror (2017) (2017) DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 17 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2020 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow and itisrevealed that they are not other. They tryto escapethecomplex, not want anultimate match, buteach first pairing, they decidethat they do other at thesamerestaurant of their given thechance to say goodbye to each they willbematched. Whenthey are previously met theperson withwhom been identified—andthat they have not are told that theirultimate match has new relationships, andeventually both broken promise. with afight between thetwo aboutthe more years, andtherelationship ends hours from what should have beenfive together (Fig. 2). They willhave just 20 length—a drastically shortenedtime to arecalibration of therelationship alone, his “one sided-observation” leads Amy, andchecks thecountdown timer he must know how long hehasleft with are free to access. WhenFrank decides algorithm—information which users their relationship as decided by the to check thedesignated length of for asecondtime, andthey agree not and Frank are paired withoneanother relationships of variouslengths, Amy in power; hisunderstanding hasno name. Great isourLord and mighty of thestars andcallsthemeach by world. “He determines thenumber all powerful, loving creator of the characteristics to theirGod: omniscient, near perfect match onadating app. in real life, having received thesame The episodeendswiththetwo meeting they are told thesystem hasachieved. together—thus the99.8%successrate simulations they choose to escape couple;this particular in998of those test. Onesimulation of 1,000 run on anticipated, desired response—a in darkness(Fig. 3). into theheavens, and thenthey are just The scenedepicts thetwo scalingawall inside acenter at all, butasimulation. Christianity ascribesmany positive Thus, theirrebellion was an Once again, thetwo are assigned After beingpaired withothers for in an “open” sense. Instead of knowing system that views Godasall-knowing be socontroversial aboutthetheory? universities (Smith2018). What could been shunnedfrom theirChristian that academics writingaboutithave Theism, hasbeensocontroversial and Eddy 2001). The new theory, Open but inadifferent of way sort (Beilby with aview of Godasall-knowing, third theorycameinto thespotlight, andearly 21st century,late 20th a our future choices isreconsidered; we we make each choice, the likelihood of choose ouractions for useither. Once with ourfree will, buthedoesnot options; thuswe donot surpriseGod likelihood of ourchoosing any of the make it, God knows beforehand the when we cometo achoice and theory, thebasicprinciple isthat 2001, 14). settled aspects assettled” (Boyd aspects aspossible andknows the holds that heknows thepossible knows allof reality perfectly, thisview settled andopenaspects. Since God in other words, iscomposed of both for openness, for free will: “[r]eality but there still remains possibility grand biblicalplanisfixed or consequences of each possibility). The possibility andthefullness of the what could happen, includingevery in anopensense(i.e. Godknows things that have (in acertain, closed sense)andthose everything that has of omniscience, God knows both everything inthemore classicalview and Arminianism. theories withinthedebate, Calvinism of theology. There are two general religious scholars andstudents caused widespread debate between and seemingly straightforward, has is omniscient, while foundational that theChristianassertion God limit!” (Psalm 147:4-5 NIV). This Open Theism, putsimply, isabelief From myunderstanding of the not yet DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 6 However, inthe already happened happened happened happened known , 18 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2020 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow stand infor religion intheworld today. technology hasbegun to tangibly model makes clear just oneway that past behavior. This strangely similar though withprobable odds basedon closed, butfuture choices are infinite, Theism sense—thepast isknown and for you” isall-knowing intheOpen means that Amazon’s “Recommended your habitsbetween devices. That companies have theabilityto track device fingerprinting even meanthat viewing—cookies, onlinetracking, and different adsthenext timeyou are you go onto purchase, you willsee on theadsyou click on, orthethings with personalized ads. Later based Facebook individually target users histories, companieslike Amazon and our past purchasing andviewing some way? Withknowledge of hold true? Isbigdata god-like in of bigdata. choices—God astheultimate collector that God hashacked ourhabitsand could argue that opentheists believe path updates, ifyou will. Put simply, one of knowledge, andHisknowledge of our follow adifferent of thespiderweb part problems, andourreadiness to concede for all-knowing technology to solve our to putourfull faith indata, ourdesire Black Mirror accurate assumptions aboutthefuture. certain, both canmake increasingly come before, andwhile not completely in “Hang theDJ”—both know what has algorithm controlling thedating system concept whencompared to the omniscient Godisnot such adistant comparison between aChristian dystopia series anthology the tipof theiceberg inthenear-future things. And ourconsumerbehavior is manifests itself intheworship of other our shiftaway from religion intheWest more money, we seejust oneway that targeting working to get usallto spend With click through rates andadaptive We canseethen, how the That being said, doesthereverse depicts our willingness depicts ourwillingness Black Mirror. further inthecontext of omniscience. these episodesshould beconsidered (2011) or “Arkangel” (2017). Each of archives in “The Entire History of You” individual level withperfect memory knowing attribute brought down to an (2016). Likewise, we canseetheall- Million Merits” (2011)or “Nosedive” Mirror from theOld Testament, questions used throughout thissection are drawn 2015). place less than100years ago (Bessel executions inEurope were still taking within theUnited States, andpublic all, thedeath penaltyisstill widely used such technology becomeavailable. After scenarios takingplaceinreal life should today. Itisnot sohard to image these a few steps furtherthanwhat we see future where punishmentistaken just episodes might seemto simply depict a punishment withintheseries. ideals andnotions of justice and the parallels between thesereligious play outwithin seemingly borrowed from Christianity, eternal suffering. These concepts, public punishment, ostracism, and technology andreligion ontopics of considering theoverlap between Mirror that technology plays within knowing algorithms inother 29). have accessto theseresources?” (2000, might hold whenaskingagain “who will for exclusion that thisworship of data cyberspace showing usthepossibility fantasy of omniscienceinrelation to Similarly, Wertheim discussesthe day be, ashecallsit, atechno-religion. the leap to suggest Dataism might one privacy for ease. Harari (2016)takes We could equally considertheall- While many of thebiblicalreferences When viewed inisolation, these This section willfocus ontherole III. Technology asdespot episodes including “Fifteen episodes as amoral enforcer—specifically Black Mirror DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 highlighting highlighting Black Black Black Black 19 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2020 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow their content closer to theseChristian two considered insection II, that bring encompass smalldetails, just asthe New Testament. Testament read through thelens of the even whenwe reconsider theOld many issuessurrounding punishment seems to benoclear consensuson consideration, asstated above, there New Testament writings. Even withthis should beread inthecontext of the that many Christians believe they within thissection, while acknowledging emphasis ontheOld Testament writings said, to itisimportant acknowledge the (Holy SeePress Office2018). That being and forth sincethemid-20thcentury the death penalty, which hasgone back redefined their stance ontheissue of though theCatholic Church hasrecently of asweeping denominational one; more onanindividualbasisinstead These themesseemto beinterpreted and Poppelwell 2017; McConville 2003). reconciliation (Snyder 2000; Durrant is thequestion of rehabilitation and issues withinChristianity today, as execution are still widely debated regarding punishment, torture, and individual. “You were anenthusiastic her auniquely wicked and poisonous neither was thejudge, wholabeled not convinced by Skillane’s story and “White Bear” (2013) (2014) and “Men Against Fire” (2016). “White Bear” (2013), “White Christmas” will considerthe concepts. The following subsections coincidentally similarto Christian of theseepisodesasmore thanjust could beusedto justify thereading highlight theminute details that on Christmas isparticularly satisfying, inhell”“burn orthenotion that These details: amobmembershouting concepts thansimple coincidence. — [news coverage] The jurywas Public punishmentfor thewicked in The episodesinthissection Black Mirror 7 episodes episodes justice

that shehasfound herself inaworld her life. However, shequickly realizes of whosheis, orany of thespecifics of not recognize, withoutany recollection Crichlow) wakes upinahouseshedoes attempt, Victoria Skillane(Lenora tears are makingmesick! Lacey, UKN. accomplice can’t dothesame. Patrick mood isnow focused onensuringhis Iain Rannoch evaded justice. The public hanging himself inhiscell, many believe be proportionate andconsidered. By said… adding herpunishmentwould actively reveled inheranguish” he spectator to Jemima’s suffering. You fiction—a daily punishment for point hasbeen ahighly fabricated everything intheepisodeupuntilthat with Skillaneherself) discovers that theatrical revelation, theviewer (along them. At thispivotal moment, infull shoot at oneof theattackers pursuing down,burn andSkillaneisforced to arrive at theradio tower Jem plansto guide, Jem (Tuppence Middleton), of times. Finally, sheandhernewfound things, andisnearly murdered anumber situation, Skillanewitnesseshorrific mentally vulnerable). upon (itissuggested that they are more to others harm butinstead are preyed and killing), andthosewhodonot wish advantage of others (through torturing who are to seizingtheopportunity take fallen into two different groups: those not affected by theradio signalhave devices. Most alarmingly however, those actions of others ontheirmobile and only interested inrecording the large of thepopulation portion docile through cellularphoneshasmadea discover that aradio signaltransmitted of chaos andviolence. Shecomesto Presumably after afailed suicide — [audience] Murderer! Murderer! — Oh, don’t crying. start Crocodile — [wailing] Throughout herattempt to flee the DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 20 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2020 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow not matter whether sheremembers But alarmingly, we seethat itdoes stocks, pillories, andpublicexecutions. and publicshaming—thelure of the what isdesired ispublicpunishment Thus, death isnot enough; instead as theopeningof thissubsection. the dialogue from theepisodeused by killinghimself—as detailed in Skillane’s boyfriend “evaded justice” In theepisodethey mentionthat she is, oreven what shehasdone. of each day, shedoesn’t know who punishment for hercrimes. For most same terrifying day over andover as evening, andsheisforced to live the witness Skillane’s fate. the publiccancometo participate and of themeparkofas asort justice, where punishment ismarketed andattended During thecredits we findoutthat her extremely painful andhappens daily. her memoryerased—an event that is to beharassed publicly andthento have the spectacle itself). Finally, sheistaken the viewers of theepisode, andthoseof murder, along withtheaudience (both girl. Skillaneisshown thedetails of the Skillane’s role inthemurder of asmall by thesespecters of Christianity, the ideathat Brooker ishimself troubled in hell!”—afurtherdetail supporting shouting “Murderer!” and “Burn people the themeparkemployees. We hear theme park—allsensationally led by event of theexperience ispart of the she istransported in, andthewhole at her, throw thingsat theclear trailer following day, mobsof spectators yell once againbeginherpunishmentthe driven back to thehousewhere shewill of publicpunishment. WhenSkillaneis through theuseof technology asaform justice isplayed outwithinthelaw punishment andretribution. penance orrehabilitation, itisabout when shediscovers it—itisnot about feels sorrow for what shehasdone committing thecrimeorwhether she In “White Bear” theideaof divine Skillane’s memoryiserased every today. to biblicalIsrael andcontinuingthrough has roots that spanhistory dating back between religion andcriminaljustice Johnstone write: of Christianity, however. Jones and have seenthroughout thehistory criminal justice issomething we justice. particularly inrelation to notions of the sameday over andover again in punishment. and considerthechurch’s role in punishment later inthissection We willlook at colonial forms of public element ormirror biblicalpunishment. crimes, might alsoreflect a religious to punishthosewhohave committed that thecreation of technology meant The long andintertwined relationship This religious element within Convicted of murder, Skillane lives Then, itisnolarge leap to suggest modern society”modern (2015, 15). had apersistent impact upon andphilosophytheology that has provides arich heritage of history, … The vast treasury of theBible problems of crimeandpunishment reach deepinto antiquity, asdothe Johnstone 2015, 9). theology”concerning (Jonesand large measure from cultural views has amoral dimensionderived in Every rule orcriminallaw thus influenced by their religious beliefs. process, they are strongly judges participate inthelawmaking surprisingly, whenlegislators or of ethical andbehavioral rules. Not continues to be, themajor source been, andinmany societies crime …It[religious belief] has dimension to thedefinition of “The roots of Western civilization “Of course, there isamoral DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 21 Vol. VII Article comparative cinema No. 13 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2019 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow Fig. 4: “White Bear,” Black Mirror (2013) DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 22 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2020 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow shed; for intheimage of Godhas blood, by humans shalltheirblood be punishment. “Whoever shedshuman groundwork for theconcepts of capital the subsection on “Men Against Fire.” the question of eternal suffering later in Christianity. We will, however, consider when we considerthehistory of with thenotion of publicpunishment voyeuristic feel seemsmore inkeeping after day. However, thethemepark’s being punishedinthesameway day eternal suffering, because Skillaneis considered from theperspective of being said, thisepisodemight alsobe of evading justice intheepisode. That that suicide isdepicted asameans detail is alsosupported by thenotion the next, asreligion teaches. This because itwillnot becarried outin perpetual torture inthislife, presumably a warning to others, andameansof it ismeantasaform of publiccontrol, using thestocks orpillories. Instead, was often theaimof punishmentwhen she is, there isnoabilityfor penance, as remember theevent itself, oreven who out justice, yet because shedoesnot an amusementparkcreated to carry decides it: judge—the final word onthe matter— acceptable punishmentiswhether a test for what isto beviewed asan through death. accomplice to have evaded justice this because they considerSkillane’s aim. The aimisretribution and we know Bear,” death isnot enough, andnot the see that intheimaginedfuture in “White between death andpunishment, aswe distinguish inthiscase, however, 17:7 NIV). to Itisalsoimportant the evil from amongyou” (Deuteronomy hands of allthepeople. You must purge that person to death, and thenthe witnesses must bethefirst inputting is considered just. “The handsof the in theOld Testament, publicpunishment made mankind” NIV). (Genesis9:6 Later Further, we of seethat the part The first book of theBible lays the with regards to punishment: that God grants authority to thestate ways” (NIV). Thus, we canseethat the Him andhad noregard for any of his because they from turned following where everyone canseethem, punishes themfor theirwickedness Later intheNew Testament, we see We alsoseein Job 34:26-27: “He (Deuteronomy 25:1-3 NIV). will bedegraded inyour eyes” than that, your fellow Israelite the guilty isflogged party more impose more thanforty lashes. If deserves, butthejudge must not with thenumberof lashesthecrime have themflogged inhispresence judge shall make them liedown and person deserves to bebeaten, the condemning theguilty. Iftheguilty acquitting theinnocentand the judges willdecidethecase, they are to take ittoand court NIV). on thewrongdoer” (Romans 13:1-4 agents of wrath to bringpunishment no reason. They are God’s servants, for rulers donot bearthesword for good. Butifyou dowrong, beafraid, in authority isGod’s servantfor your you willbecommended. For theone authority? Then dowhat isright and to befree from fear of theonein those whodowrong. Doyou want terror for thosewhodoright, butfor on themselves. For rulers hold no those whodosowillbringjudgment against what Godhasinstituted, and against theauthority isrebelling God. Consequently, whoever rebels that exist have beenestablished by has established. The authorities no authority except that which God governing authorities, for there is “Let everyone besubject to the “When people have adispute, DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 23 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2020 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow the sake of derision, itishard not to eternal life oromniscience. technology anddesired just asmuch as of thosenew powers, gainedthrough of god-like judge might alsobeone we saw intheprevious section, therole like through theuseof technology, as 5:29 NIV). If humanshave become god- by hisfather (Matthew 5:38-48; John who doevil willriseto becondemned enemies, healsosuggests that those theotherturning cheek andloving one’s conclusion. Though Jesus called for episode, somehow seemslike alogical a themeparkof justice, aswe seeinthis the institutional authority to carry it out, system which seeks retribution, andhas in “White Bear,” hasacriminaljustice for punishmentof thekinddepicted imagined future withthetechnology time, inthecaseof theepisodean been thecase. Iftheculture of the rehabilitation, that hasnot always viewing punishmentasameansof Though there isamovement towards condoned throughout theBible itself. history of humanity, butsomething torture isnot only anugly pock onthe concept of publicpunishmentand Jones 2018, 87). we’re morally justified” (Brooker and and what outrages we candoifwe feel much onhow we bringpeople to justice Annabel Jones said, “[t]he focus isvery the ideaof torture withintheepisode, a warning to others. While discussing evil should be “purged” andlet itbe should play a role ontheprocess; should bepunished, andtherighteous episode are startlingly clear: thewicked the socialcontrol played outwithinthe the Christian church of thetimeand the meansof socialcontrol usedby chair (Fig. 4). The comparisonbetween hell,” allwhile restrained to awooden booed andjeered at, told to in “burn (Earle, [1896]1995). We seeSkillane common to New Englandcolonial life other forms of publicpunishment compare thepractice to pillories or As Skillaneisputondisplay for as asocialcontrol might include public humiliation orjudgment concepts surrounding therole of colonial life above. was also thecaseindiscussionof “dating coach” by night and “cookie” his clients dies, Matt (JonHamm) a bizarre of turn events inwhich oneif of stories withinalarger one. After a The episodeismadeup of aseries directly through theirfield of vision). connects users with the internet everyone has Z-Eyes (adevice that characters live inaworld where register? in “White Christmas” (2014) punishment inearly colonial America. and itsnearmirroring of Christian public punishment, criminaljustice, discussion given thecombination of Bear” isthemost relevant for this “Crocodile” (2017). However, “White “Shut UpandDance” (2016)oreven “The National Anthem” (2011), as much as the the penance—for thetheatrics just where themobrevels inthedrama of public punishmentin “White Bear,” particularly apt for theconcept of feet intheblood of thewicked seems concept of therighteous dipping their God whojudges theearth’” (NIV). This still are rewarded; surely there isa people will say, ‘Surely therighteous feet intheblood of thewicked. Then they are avenged, whenthey diptheir 11, “[t]he righteous willbegladwhen earth, David writes inPsalm 58: 10- the just punishmentfor thewicked on Other episodesthat question Speaking of God’s judgmentand In “White Christmas” the — By everyone. — By who? — Itmeansyou’re blocked. — What doesitmean, this Outcast, damnedand condemned justice DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 of it, aswe saw 8 24 Vol. VII Article comparative cinema No. 13 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2019 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow Fig. 6: “White Christmas,” Fig. 5: “White Christmas,” Black Mirror Black Mirror (2014) (2014) DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 25 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2020 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow offender, andwiththe Z-Eye technology time—Matt gets registered asasex up theirendof thedeal—with nojail of theepisode, although policehold by hisex-partner. However, at theend a breakup, andhissubsequentblocking murder after aseriesof events following from Joe (Rafe Spall)whowas driven to this timeheneedsto get aconfession his coercion of another such cookie; Matt’s dealto helpthepoliceinvolves the role they have beencreated for. coerce theseduplicates into playing Junipero”). Matt’s jobisto convince or like thedigitalversions we saw in “San a perfect copy of you (aduplicate much it—and they would know how, they are making everything just theway you like assistant. Your digitalcopy works like aperfecthouse/personal smart commercially usedto basically function The technology intheepisodeis the consciousnessof theindividual. absorbs information andduplicates below theskinneartemple that person—a microchip imbedded just Cookies are digitalduplicates of a return for avoiding ajailsentence. helping themto get aconfession in specialist by day, assists policein from thegroup isencouraged: where theconcept of purging theevil advice referring back to Deuteronomy, Corinthians 5NIV). This last expelling the wicked person from amongyou’” (1 “God willjudge thoseoutside. ‘Expel not even eat withsuch people” andlater, those whoare amoral; he writes: “[d]o Paul instruct thechurch to cast out ostracized. out blurs (Fig. 6). Essentially, Matt is others simply as “blocked” orgreyed longer interact withanyone else, seeing an ominousred blob (Fig. 5). Hecanno this meansthat others only seehimas In 1CorinthiansChapter 5we see God, whobrought you out of Egypt rebellion against the Lord your must beputto death for inciting “That prophet or dreamer casting out: the samenotion of purging, expelling, or (McCullagh 2009). Today, thisisthe of theirparoleas part conditions offenders from usingsocialmedia the United States have prohibited sex do withchildren (McCullagh2009). committed crimesthat hadnothing to this alsoincludessex offenders who distances of schools andplaygrounds; places, particularly withincertain they are prohibited from livinginmany include theiraddresses. Likewise, all types, are onpublicregistries which in theUnited States sex offenders, of justice system today; inmany places contemporary culture andthecriminal seems far-fetched, isreflected in This technology, while onthesurface appears red to everyone whoseeshim. just blocked, butoutcast—his blur is even singled outassomeonenot to helpothers keep adistance. Matt sound, through technological ostracism, criminals canbeblocked from sight and means that thosewhoare deemed through theirfield of vision, butitalso connections people seetheirvirtual Elsewhere inDeuteronomy we see More recently, somestates within Z-Eyes in “White Christmas” let (Deuteronomy 21:20-21 NIV). Israel willhearof itandbeafraid” purge theevil from amongyou. All stone himto death. all themenof histown are to is aglutton andadrunkard.’ rebellious. Hewillnot obey us. He ‘This sonof ours isstubborn and 13:5 NIV). evil from amongyou” (Deuteronomy you to follow. You must purge the the Lord your Godcommanded tried to you turn from theway of slavery. That prophet ordreamer and redeemed you from theland “They shallsay to theelders, DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02

You must

Then Then 26 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2020 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow a new level, onparwithanall-powerful become withinthegrasp of humanityon ostracism, aidedby new technology of punishment, publictorture and above on “White Bear,” that both forms 121). We see, similarly to thesubsection in real time” (Brooker and Jones 2018, hellish representation of that going on Googling themto employ them. Soit’s a their record, which you’d seeif you were bit like someonewithaconviction on “White Christmas” Brooker said, “[a] another. Ofthepunishmentfor Matt in to themargins of society, oneway or sentiment to pushtheseindividuals previous laws, butthere isclearly public exact way thenew USruling willimpact 2017; Thomson 2012). Itisunclear the (Liptakon civilliberties 2017; Dalesio laws asanunreasonable intrusion individual, similarly theUKruled such limits thefreedom of speech of the use isunconstitutional because it complete prohibition of socialmedia States Supreme ruled Court that the media. More recently, theUnited features could beconsidered social websites because theircomment to look for jobs; not even any news equivalent of ostracism. NoLinkedIn him off?” The other: “No. Leave himon sentence. Ordo you want meto switch 1,000 years aminute. There’s aproper the timesettings. Cranked himupto dialogue isasfollows: “Just changing like athousandyears aminute. Their purgatory alone, passingwhat willfeel leaving Joe’s digitalduplicate inadigital changes thesettings onthecookie, police officer, when leaving for theday, where they are comeout. Later, one the stories that brought themboth to trade stories andwhere eventually, world where Joe’s cookieandMatt of theepisodewithinsimulated plays both at thebeginningandend wish itcould beChristmas every day” the lens of Christianity. The song, “I likewise interesting to considerthrough god. Other details intheepisodeare vantage point, might include “Shut up ostracized, at least from acertain that reflect thisidea of beingsocially to socialcompliance. Otherepisodes concretely because of itsuseasathreat that considers theconcept more through thestudy of adifferent episode be considered inthenext subsection of justice. Black Mirror technology withinthejustice system in these connections between theuseof lets usknow Brooker isthinkingabout finishes. Another smalldetail that is heard screaming astheepisode a perpetual nightmare, Joe’s duplicate (Brooker and Jones 2018, 121). Stuck in Brooker said “[h]e’s basically inahell” satisfying onChristmas. Ofthisdetail, divine justice isconsidered even more for Christmas.” Somehow, thissenseof a round of cleaning upcockroaches, without doing athing. However, after and they seetheirmissiondetails—all are able to see blueprintsof buildings, directly through drone camera, they superhuman powers—they cansee help thesoldiers to have otherwise and pointed teeth. The militaryimplants screeching monsters withwaxy skin for(short cockroaches), terrifying against aninfestation of “roaches” Fire” are agroup of soldiers fighting main characters in “Men Against military implants, called MASS, the technological enhancementsof their In acellallalone? Fire” (2016) the series. concrete useof theconcept throughout though “White Christmas” hasthemost and Dance” (2016)or “Nosedive” (2016), This concept of eternal suffering will Seeing theworld through the — We canmake that go away. — [whimpers] — Isthiswhat you want? Onaloop? Eternal Suffering in “Men Against 9 alongside biblicalnotions DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 27 Vol. VII Article comparative cinema No. 13 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2019 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow Fig. 7: “Men Against Fire,” Black Mirror (2016) DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 28 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2020 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow loop for asoldier whorefuses to be ending, immersive punishmentona eyes andsensoryinput. technology implanted into thesoldier’s constant re-play madepossible by the it isrendered unimaginable by the killing, to live withwhat we have done, moral decisionwould beto stop the likely to make. Though theseemingly the end, there isonly onechoice we are like animpossible decision. However, in as humanversus monster? Itseems instead go back to seeingthingssimply murders unknowingly committed, or reliving thereal footage of aseriesof same situation, live inaconstant loop, Would we, ifwe found ourselves inthe or to get itallerased andkeep killing. murders heunknowingly committed, choice to suffer onaloop, reliving the the episodewhenStripeisoffered the to look withinourselves at theendof eradicate theother. Brooker asks us how we justify ourconstant desire to we draw linesbetween ourselves— importantly theabsurdity asto where their humanityandempathy, andmost soldiers whoare not “weakened” by enemy, theconstant attempt to create to war: thedehumanization of the Against Fire” certainlyshows usaside who elseisgoing to suffer.” the sanctity of life or the painabout they’re carrying. That doesn’t care about captain putsitthisway: sickness “the all to eradicate “bad blood.” Koinage’s humans to something of nightmares— and changing thefaces of normal limiting thesmellof blood anddeath the screams andadding screeches, the monstrous roaches—blocking out importantly, they create theillusionof to heareveryday details, andmost inhibit hisabilityto smell, hisability more extensive thanherealized. They that his enhancementsare alittle his MASS, andhebeginsto realize Stripe, having starts problems with Koinange (Malachi Kirby), nicknamed Described ashis “war movie,” “Men In “Men Against Fire” we seenever- slightly different aims, butall reflect considered each inthisarticle have of punishmentin last subsection. The three forms of group asconsidered norms inthe the useof ostracism asanassertion we can seehow itconnects back to of torture asameansof compliance, but withthesamegoal—compliance. same criteria asdescribedintheBible, eternal suffering isnot inflicted withthe NIV). Then, intheepisodeconcept of of hismight” (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9 presence of theLord and from theglory destruction and shutoutfrom the They willbepunished witheverlasting do not obey thegospel of ourLord Jesus. punish those whodonot know God and works asameansof control. “He will eternal suffering isa deterrent; it compliant (Fig. 7). We canseethat eternal suffering either. like isnot far from biblicalconcepts of answers each time. making usless andless sure of our to bepunishedin punishment, “Does thisperson deserve is askingusineach episoderelating to in “Men Against Fire.” ItisasifBrooker less thanpure motives, as isthecase where compliancecanbesought for religions, suddenly we seeaworld of Christianity, much like many other social control throughout thehistory Though thechurch hasplayed arole in society asameansof socialcontrol. the assumingof god-like powers by If we consider theuseof thiskind The depiction of theenemyasbeast- the presence of theholy angels and be tormented sulfur withburning in into thecupof hiswrath. They will which hasbeenpoured full strength will drinkthewineof God’s fury, forehead oron theirhand, they, too, and receives itsmarkontheir worships thebeast anditsimage and saidinaloud voice: ‘If anyone “A third angel followed them DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 Black Mirror this way?” while 29 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2020 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow is onparwiththehysteria seeninthe hysteria andmassillusionof difference been touched by them; thislevel of to even eat thefood that might have from people, normal they are unwilling the episodecannot distinguish roaches events. Though theaverage villagers in in both theepisodeandhistorical comparison given thehysteria seen might alsoserve asaninteresting killing of “witches” incolonial America the “undesirable” other. Likewise, the propaganda was meantto demonize mass killingsandgenocides inwhich We could relate thisto any numberof and thenasthey would appear to us. through thesociety intheepisode, we see themfirst asthey are imagined demonization of theundesirable people, of theMASS implantreinforces the footage withandwithoutthefilter television series as awhole explores our the traditional role of religion. The relationship between technology and towards theconsideration of the buildarticle an interesting argument of technology related to suffering. up theideainregards to future usesof and “Black Museum” (2017)alsobring episodes like “USS Callister” (2017) and “White Christmas” (2014), butother mentioned above, “White Bear” (2013) concept of eternal suffering include, as witch trialsrun by religious puritans. Black Mirror Taken together, thefive episodes IV. Conclusion Other episodesthat touch onthis Likewise, thedoublingof thesame 14:9-11 NIV). the markof itsname’” (Revelation image, orfor anyone whoreceives those whoworship the beast andits There willbenorest day ornight for torment willrisefor ever andever. of theLamb. Andthesmoke of their , asconsidered inthis dangerous possibilitiesaswell. holds great potential, butitalsoholds Mirror using thismodel, asageneral why theshow might becontemplated aim hasbeento mapanargument asto of thespecter of religion; instead, the Black Mirror analyze allpossible interpretations of by nomeansattempting to exhaustively emphasize againthatwas thisarticle much greater depth. to Itisimportant analysis through thisframework in Likewise, each episodedeserves further the Christian concepts highlighted. be examined for theirrelationships to there are numerous others that could episodes discussedinthisarticle, mechanism of control. technology isnolonger atool, buta easily break down into afuture where It alsolooks at how that trust can obsession with, andtrust in, technology. throughout theseepisodesof lure. Technology, aswe have seen eternal suffering donot hold thesame public punishment, ostracism, and could begreat; butontheother hand, predicting thefuture—those things or culturally speaking. Everlasting life, much stands inourway, technologically Brooker seemsto betelling usthat not Black Mirror path asthesocieties insomeof the is to prevent usfrom following thesame about thespecter of religion. So, what Brooker himself asks thesequestions they build aconvincing argument that potential usesof technology. Together abandoned Christian concepts, andour the relationship between seemingly from together, thisgrouping of episodes framework of consideration. We have seenthat beyond thefive It seemsclear that whenviewed Black Mirror , aswell as in theworld around us, inregards to thequestion episodesconsidered here? DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 asks questions about Black

30 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2020 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow New York: Oxford University Press. other religions, althoughitispossible that thesecomparisonscould bemadeusing For thesereasons,3/ thispaperwilluseChristian concepts instead of thosefrom 23, 2020] Retrieved2/ from concept of adeityinmore general senseisconsidered. blical Christian deity, whereas 1/ Throughout thistext thecapitalized Views. Bibliography 9/ Episodedirected by Jakob Verbruggen. First aired onNetflix onOctober 21, 2016. 8/ Episodedirected by Carl Tibbets. First aired onChannel4December16, 2014. 7/ Episodedirected by Carl Tibbets. First aired onChannel4February 18, 2013. co-exist. since heisoutsideof time; inthisway, theideaof anall-knowing Godandfree willcan understood to beomniscientbecause for himeverything ishappening simultaneously, reconcile thecombination of anall-knowing Godandtrue free will. Thus, Godcanbe free will, instead advocate for amodelof Godoutsideof timeasapossible meansto the argument, Arminianists, believing that theCalvinist modellacks thenotion of they argue that thispreordained history doesnot exclude free will. Ontheother sideof are thosewhohave beenelected to besaved, andthosewhohave not—the damned; for himto have preordained allof history, inother words and quite crudely put, there Put simply Calvinists believe6/ that theonly logical way for Godto beall-knowing is Episodedirected by5/ Tim V. Patten. First aired onNetflix onDecember29, 2017. Episodedirected by4/ Owen Harris. First aired onNetflix onOctober 21, 2016. well asthemany denominations considered to fall withinProtestant belief. be placedonWestern Christian concepts specific to Catholicism andProtestantism, as that to itisaconcept particular aspecificbranch. Largely, the focus of thispaperwill licism, Eastern Christianity, etc.) thedenominational reference willbegiven to clarify cept that isexclusive to branch aparticular withinChristianity (Protestantism, Catho other belief structures asthepointof comparison. Inaddition, whenconsideringacon mirror technology/2011/dec/01/charlie-brooker-dark-side-gadget-addiction-black- addiction.” IL: InterVarsity Press. Four Views Schuster. Massachusetts: MIT Press. Brooker, Charlie. 2011. “Charlie Brooker: the darksideof ourgadget Boyd, Gregory A. 2001. “The Open Theism View.” In Bowler, Kate. 2018. Bessel, Richard. 2015. Benedikt, Michael. ed. 1991. Beilby, James K. andPaul R. Eddy. eds. 2001. [accessedMarch 23, 2020] Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. , edited by James K. Beilby andPaul R. Eddy, 13–47. Downers Grove, The Guardian, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2YPxSDIoPE Blessed: AHistoryof theAmericanProsperity Gospel. December 1, 2011. Violence: AModernObsession. god or Cyberspace: FirstSteps. gods God willbeusedintherare instances where the willbeusedto refer specifically to thebi https://www.theguardian.com/ Divine Foreknowledge: Four Divine Foreknowledge: Cambridge, DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 London: Simon& [accessedMarch true - -

- 31 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2020 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow Books. edited by Angela M. Cirucci andBarry Vacker, 213–22. London: Lexington Michel Foucault on ‘San Junipero’.” In Press. Books. edited by Angela M. Cirucci andBarry Vacker, 27–39. London: Lexington in com/9f84e0d20ea54dfcaab94d60542d837a offenders from Facebook.” Human. Intelligence. Imputation of Merit. offenders-off-the-internet/ CBS News Bloomsbury Academic. sex-offenders-social-media.html www.nytimes.com/2017/02/27/us/politics/supreme-court-north-carolina- Supreme Weighs Court In.” ed. Amsterdam: Routledge. [accessed March 26, 2020] va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2018/08/02/180802a.html Audentia SS.mi.’” Catechism of theCatholic Church onthedeath penalty–Rescriptum ‘ex Press. Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Vintage. MA: Applewood Books. An Evolutionary Perspective. Black Mirror McCullagh, Declan. 2009. “Kicking Sex Offenders Off The Internet?” McConville, Sean. ed. 2003. Harari, Yuval Noah. 2014. Earle, Alice M. [1896]1995. Durrant, Russil and Zoe Poppelwell. 2017. Drage, Eleanor. 2018. “A Ever-After:Virtual Utopia, Race, andGender Dalesio, EmeryP. 2017. “Supreme weighs law Court banningsex Constant, Sarah J. 2018. “Heterotopias andUtopias in Mahon, Peter. 2018. Liptak, Adam. 2017. “A Constitutional Right to Facebook and Twitter? Jones, MarkandPeter Johnstone. 2015. Holy SeePress Office. 2018. “New revision of number2267 of the Hayles, N. Katherine. 1999. Roden, David. 2015. Moravec, Hans. 1988. Moorman, MaryC. 2017. London: Routledge. , August 13, 2009. 2016. andAnnabel Jones. 2018. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ’sJunipero’.” ‘San In Summary of Bulletin Homo Deus: ABrief Historyof Tomorrow. Steubenville, Ohio: Emmaus Academic. Posthuman Life: Philosophy ontheEdge of the Posthumanism: AGuidefor thePerplexed. Mind Children: The Futureof Robot and Human AP News The New York Times, Indulgences: Luther, Catholicism, and the [accessedMarch 26, 2020] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kicking-sex- Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Sapiens: ABrief Historyof Humankind. How We Posthuman: Became in Virtual Bodies Curious Punishmentsof Bygone Days. The Useof Punishment. L [accessed March 26, 2020] Black Mirror and CriticalMedia Theory , February 26, 2017. Black Mirror and CriticalMedia Theory InsideBlack Mirror. , August 2, 2018. Chicago: The University of Chicago History of Criminal Justice. [accessedMarch 26, 2020] Religion, Crimeand Punishment: February 27, 2017. DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 https://press.vatican. https://apnews. ondon: Routledge. Black Mirror London: Vintage. London: Ebury London: https:// London: Bedford, : 5th , , 32 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 REBECCA ANNE PETERS 2020 When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6053 the Technology of Today and Tomorrow [accessed March 26, 2020] demotes-president-ousts-3-megachurch-pastors-serving-as-lecturers.html 7, 2018. Megachurch Pastors ServingasLecturers.” New York: Penguin Books. Space fromDantetotheInternet. [accessed March 26, 2020] https://theregister.co.uk/2012/11/14/internet_access_human_right/ Banning onlineaccess ‘unreasonable’.” Company. Punishment. Thomson, Iain. 2012. “Sex offenders needinternet access, judge rules: Wertheim, Margaret. 2000. Snyder, T. Richard. 2000. Smith, Samuel. 2018. “Mennonite SeminaryDemotes President, Ousts Russell, WilliamR. ed. 2017. 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 and Tomorrow”. Replaces thePearly Gates: How to quote https://www.christianpost.com/news/mennonite-seminary- Grand RapidsMichigan: WilliamB. Eerdmans Publishing

Peters, Rebecca Anne. 2020. “When Your Motherboard Comparative Cinema Comparative The Protestant Ethicand theSpiritof The Pearly Gatesof Cyberspace: AHistoryof Black Mirror Black The Ninety-Five Theses and OtherWritings. New York: W. W. Norton&Company, Inc. The Register, The , Vol. VIII, No. 14, pp. 8-32. DOI: The ChristianPost, andthe Technology of Today November 14, 2012. DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.02 September Vol. VIII comparative cinema Joseph No. 14 2020 Walderzak Blaming the Poor: The False 33-45 Allure of the Capitalist Critique in the Age of Postmodernism This article considers The Dark Knight Rises (Christopher Nolan, 2012) in order to argue through Fredric Jameson that postmodern aspects of a text are capable of obfuscating, if not altogether obliterating, any Marxist polemics. The first portion engages with Jameson’s The Political Unconscious, particularly his emphasis on class struggle and identification of ideologemes which manifest in the text. The subsequent section considers The Dark Knight Rises as a postmodern text through Jameson’s concepts of pastiche and nostalgia. Moreover, The Dark Knight Rises is contextualized within the recent spate of class-oriented cinema. Collectively, the goal is to identify a trend within such films of establishing a correlation between capitalism and inequality, ideologemes and postmodernism. The final result is an increasingly impressive group of genre-spanning films which address contemporary inequality in its multifarious forms, but which treat these issues more so as narrative devices than tenable critiques of the sites of oppression.

Keywords FILM STUDIES FREDRIC JAMESON CLASS ANALYSIS SCIENCE FICTION FILMS GENRE STUDIES MARXIST ANALYSIS CLASS IDEOLOGY FILM ANALYSIS

Date of reception: 16/02/2019 Date of acceptance: 28/12/2019

Joseph Walderzak is a faculty member at Adrian College. He also frequently teaches courses in film studies throughout the metro Detroit area. His scholarship most often focuses on gender and class across particular film genres. His work on the teen film genre was recently published in Quarterly Review of Film and Video and his work on the damsel within the superhero genre has been published in journals and anthologized. He is working on a book manuscript concerning representation of women detectives on television from 1980–2010. DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.03 34 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 JOSEPH WALDERZAK 2020 Blaming the Poor: The False Allure of the Capitalist Critique in the Age of Postmodernism critics unable to reconcile theresistant interpretations from scholars and imagery yet provide dichotomous texts which containexplicit Marxist a vitalmethodologyfor approaching paradoxically, jointly deployed forms theoretical antinomywhich, rather postmodern pessimismprovides a Jameson’s Marxist analysis andhis postmodern text (1981, 75). Therefore, identifying theresistant elements of a an analytical approach capable of cultural texts,” Jameson establishes for theintelligibility of literary and “ultimate semanticprecondition viewing Marxist criticismasthe answersJameson’s quandary. Through which implicitly anticipates and Unconscious has to explore Jameson’s nature of Jameson’s query, oneonly Putting asidethefacetiously rhetorical those very forces (Jameson1963, 1860). capitalism”—has thecapacityto resist and reinforces logic of consumer “the paradigm Jameson positsreplicates in theage of postmodernism—a questioning whether texts produced and ConsumerSociety” concludesby are capable of obfuscating, ifnot the postmodern aspects of atext order to argue through Jameson that blitz of class-consciouscinema, in commercially successful of therecent (Christopher Nolan, 2012), themost 1860). Iconsider time andhistory” (Jameson1981, become incapable of dealingwith a postmodern “society that has as they illuminate over hisconcerns Jameson’s Marxist analysis asmuch films provide narratives which reify across anarray of genres. These based narratives—has proliferated explicit orexplicitly allegorical class- used liberally to describefilmswith the class-consciousfilm—a term capitalist values. Over the last decade, (or denouements)which reinforce narrative elements from thoseaspects Fredric Jameson’sFredric “Postmodernism to findamethodology The DarkKnight Rises The Political concepts of pastiche andnostalgia postmodern text through Jameson’s I position the text. Inthesubsequentportion, of ideologemes which manifest in on classstruggle andtheidentification Unconscious with Jameson’sengage impulses. Inthefirst portion,I isdividedalongarticle two theoretical its postmodernaesthetics. contradictions are often theresult of benefit from identifyinghow these of consumer capitalism—would often upholds theruling discourse foregrounding classinequality frequently identifyhow explicitly of class-conscious films—Marxist contradictory narrative interpretations polemics. Scholars whoproffer altogether obliterating, any Marxist class struggle. postmodernism andrepresentations of the deleterious relationship between as successful asitsabilityto illustrate somewhat bifurcated approach isonly sites of oppression. Ultimately, this devices thantenable critiquesof the these issuesmore soasnarrative its multifarious forms, butwhich treat address contemporary inequalityin group of genre-spanning filmswhich The final result isanincreasingly large ingenuity, andeconomicascendancy. particularly thetenets of self-reliance, between heroism andcapitalism, Yet, equally present isacausation ideologemes andpostmodernism. between capitalismandinequality, films of establishing acorrelation goal isto identifyatrend withinsuch (Bong Joon-ho, 2013). Collectively, the post-apocalyptic thriller Softly the gangster allegory of two highly representative films: oriented cinemathrough ananalysis within therecent spate of class- contextualize and ConsumerSociety.” Moreover, I as describedin “Postmodernism To prove such acontention, this (Andrew Dominik, 2012)andthe The DarkKnight Rises , particularlyhisemphasis The DarkKnight Rises DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.03 Killing Them The Political Snowpiercer 1 as a as a

35 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 JOSEPH WALDERZAK 2020 Blaming the Poor: The False Allure of the Capitalist Critique in the Age of Postmodernism This article’s greatest ambitionresides critiques of capitalism are often flawed. developed andrefined look at how debates butrather offers amore not beviewed assevered from these identity politics; thisanalysis should andrelevancegiven theimportance of position of classisperhapsinevitable representational politics. This ancillary in understanding andcriticizing to issuesof race andsexuality In other cases, classissubordinate often severed from thesediscussions. issues of identity, thetopic of classis becomes increasingly preoccupied with on classinfilm. As textual filmanalysis a surfeit of contemporary scholarship attention inamoment inwhich there is class analysis of cinema—require new many of which are foundational to illuminating how Jameson’s theories— Rather, thiswork isinterested in lack relevancy to thisspecificmatter. nostalgia andhistorical memorythat niche discussions onissuessuch as the majorityof thesedebates fall into analysis, althoughIrecognize that avoid contemporary debates onclass scholarship isnot initself aneffort to the advertising thatthe advertising requires andthe grosses over abilliondollars—with hopelessly cyclical. such momentswhere history appears into contemporary thought, itwould be that have beenpresumably embedded moment to resurrect andrevisit texts all unlike the1980s; ifever there was a and pervasive cultural division, isnot at political moment, withrisinginequality aesthetics. Moreover, thecurrent socio- which iscontradicted by postmodern any progressive narrative element and cinemabutapplies equally to to theintersection of classpolitics Jameson’s relevancy isnot restricted critique withincinema. Therefore, affects andlimitsallforms of cultural acknowledging how postmodernism in itsabilityto construct amethod for To extent, acertain any filmwhich The foregrounding of Jameson’s cinema of this sort arecinema of thissort extraordinary of images,” but “mimetic qualitiesof is thesupreme maker andmanipulator this dynamicwhenclaiming “cinema legitimation. David Brooks expands on ruling rather classideology thanseek potential to contest andundermine but through anarrative that hasthe that can provide antagonist dialogue, apotheosis of consumercapitalism— Therefore, itisnot thetext itself—the and politicaldiscourses of itscreation. inherits andembraces theeconomic money, nomatter attributes, itsartistic voice; aproduct designedto make which survive usually uphold theruling this predicament by arguing that texts the text. Jameson plainly summarizes political paradigm which produced oppositional to theeconomic and unlikely to form acohesive ideology cross mediaventures itimplies—is frequently thevoice of theoppressed. interpretation of Marx. classes which alignswith Jameson’s a bifurcated presentation of social the dichotomy between rich andpoor, Rises of classconflict. which repeatedly engage withconcepts fundamental isananalysis of scenes itself isanideologeme butmore discourse (1981, 76). The film text that contributes to theantagonistic of thestruggle between theclasses the ideologeme isthesmallest unit form of anideology form. For Jameson, ideologemes that, incombination, what isidentified by Jamesonas discourse, which consists apart of notably of thecollective aspart class The DarkKnight Rises discourse, andthemode of production. symbolic act, thecollective class to explore atext: theallegorical or Marxist methodological horizons Political Unconscious of image creation” (2013, 323). self-consciously embrace theproblem revealing;” postmodernfilms “must Importantly, thefilm’s villains are ’ primaryideologeme involves DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.03 The DarkKnight provides three operates most The The comparative cinema comparative

Fig. 1: Students make the letter “W” to extol the leader Wilford, as members of the working class migrate towards the engine. Snowpiercer (Bong Joon-ho, 2013)

36

Fig. 2: In Snowpiercer’s denouement, Curtis is left to recognize the complicity of the working class with the ruling class, while serving as a spectator to the aimless brutality. Snowpiercer (Bong Joon-ho, 2013) Article JOSEPH WALDERZAK Critique the Capitalist of Allure The False Blaming the Poor: Postmodernism of in the Age 2020 No. 14 No. Vol. VIII Vol. DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.03 37 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 JOSEPH WALDERZAK 2020 Blaming the Poor: The False Allure of the Capitalist Critique in the Age of Postmodernism executing him—“And thisgives you which heretorts—only secondsbefore he haspaidBaneasmallfortune to to hiscontrol assert by claimingthat to greater financialpower attempts has dupedwithpromises of pathways of Gotham, thefinancialbacker he here?” After Banehasgainedcontrol “Really? Then why are you people money to bestolen to which hereplies, explains to Banethat there isno exchange, aninvestor condescendingly is amassed. Wheninvading astock questions themorality of how wealth villain, Bane(Tom Hardy), likewise like therest of us.” The film’s primary Kyle quipsthe “rich don’t even go broke fortune butisleft estate, his enormous Wayne hasbeenswindled outof his little for therest of us.” Elsewhere, after you could live solarge andleave so that, “you’re allgoing to wonder how exchange withWayne, shethreatens have more thanenough.” Later inher that, “I take what Ineedfrom thosewho justifies her legerdemain by positing (Christian Bale), ruling classvalues. She Bruce Wayne’s, thehero Batman better known asCatwoman, challenges Selina Kyle (AnneHathaway), thethief attempting to stymy therebellion Protestant Work Ethic. Mason, when Mason similarly borrows from Weber’s Selina Kyle paraphrase Marx, then position.”particular IfBane and order and “occupy ourpreordained everyone must abide to theeternal visible villain, pontificates onhow Mason (Tilda Swinton), thefilm’s most the desire for classideologemes. Snowpiercer in thepost-apocalyptic action film espouse Marxist views, thereversal accumulation. reference to Marx’s concept of primitive of others,” a presumably intentional for “living off theblood andsweat wealthy cronies are sentenced to death hold onthecityestablished, further power over me?” Later, withBane’s If The DarkKnight Rises’ would ostensibly gratify villains villains failure to dosohasdoomedallpast take power over the “engine;” the forge aheadwithaplanto revolt and oppression from Mason’s cronies, bars of “protein” andface violent squalid conditionsfor slimyblack of theback of thetrain, wholaborin frigid temperatures. The passengers as analmost immediate death in train’s economicsystem ispresented a train, theonly alternative to the catastrophe whoare left boundto only survivors of anenvironmental to humancapacity. Focusing onthe and thesystem which best conforms rather present itastheonly option the mythsof capitalist society but Snowpiercer aphorism for theAmerican Dream. the doomed” andprovides aperfect speaks of the “misplaced optimism of which propels thefilm’s narrative, fellow South Korean filmmaker Chan- (in astyle extremely reminiscent of of sustained choreographed violence segmented between interspersions Harris) (Fig. 1). the revolt, themysterious Wilford (Ed beatifies itsinventor andtarget of the “engine” (again, capitalism) and inculcates of students onthevirtues how theeducational system brazenly remarkably cogent asitidentifies towards the headof thetrain proves The ideologeme formed inaclassroom hardly imagine(saunas andhot tubs). longer existed andcomforts they could are exposed to food they thought no dissect andcritique. Curtis’ followers a new facet of capitalist society to more lavish andhedonistic, providing Each subsequentcarinthetrain is follows thelogic of classwarfare. system. The vast majorityof thefilm proletariat; theengineiscapitalist train, led by (ChrisEvans), Curtis isthe Mason istheruling class; thelast the ideologeme becomeinstantly clear: allegorical antagonistic elements of revolutions theaudience istold. The Even ifeach new ideologeme isleft ’s villainsare not pedaling DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.03 38 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 JOSEPH WALDERZAK 2020 Blaming the Poor: The False Allure of the Capitalist Critique in the Age of Postmodernism to maintaintheproper mixof “anxiety partnership withGilliam, Wilford isable to expedite natural selection. In uses therevolt asapopulation purge leader of theback of thetrain. Wilford Hurt), Curtis’ frail mentor andthe failed iterations—with Gilliam(John orchestrated therevolt—and previous to that hehaddevised Curtis and provocation. For Wilford confides ideologemes are merely hollow postmodern filminthat theprevious illogical plot twist, orexemplifies the infavoringideology thethrillof an a lack of commitmentto thefilm’s and Wilford which demonstrates either climatic confrontation between Curtis a class-consciousfilm, isthefilm’s of ideologemes from coalescing into What disrupts theclear procession scene—pedantic andovertly political. the aforementioned classroom car find thesesections—much like a necessaryrespite for thosewho character of theideologemes. Itis to reduce thepotentially maladroit fact, theviolent interludes may help overshadows thesediversions. In the persistence of theantagonism wook Park’s his life-saving prowess of engineering, revealed Wilford to beafraud and that to imagineanarrative twist which too familiar refrain. Oneisleft only an antagonistic ideologeme butanall Thus, theaudience isbestowed not the depravity that ishumannature. only option because itbest caters to be one, isclear: capitalismisthe interpretation, ifthere deserves to “that’s whopeople are” (Fig. 2). The another. Calmly, Wilford comments, watch aspeople viciously attack one is less subversive, Wilford andCurtis Before onecanimagineareading that ruling classthat subordinates them. the proletariat beingcomplicitwiththe Gilliam’s involvement istantamountto steady train (if, Imay) of ideologemes, With thisrevelation, andbecause of the and fear” to control thepopulation. Oldboy [ Oldeuboi , 2003]), sympathetic hit-man(Brad Pitt)while The last linesof thefilm, recited a by are brutality, depravity, andcheating. film where theonly means of survival is tantamountto livinginagangster system; inshort, Americancapitalism the Americanpoliticalandeconomic the gangster formula asaparallel for of the2008 recession, thefilmdeploys a cohesive polemic. Usingthecontext its audacity similarly fails to conjure with anaudacious lack of subtlety but ideologemes of capitalist inequality ultimately provides theirfreedom. drug, which keeps theminastupor and doors of thetrain inexchange for a the train are acouple whoopenthe who seethepotential for life beyond of exploitation. Tellingly, theonly two was nothing more thananother act glorified inthetrain’s classroom, these conflicting elements, however, creating a dialectical montage with irreproachable ideologeme. Rather than film tropes would result inan between news coverage andgangster seemingly theantagonistic relationship juxtaposition isprovocative and talent intheworld. This pervasive speaks onhow Americahasthemost on thefilm’s penultimate murder, Bush financial systems; prior to embarking speaking onmaintainingconfidencein Ben Bernanke isheard over theradio about maintainingthe “public image,” collapse; while apairof mobsters talk Bush gives aspeech abouteconomic film: duringanarmed robbery President of 2008ubiquitously characterizes the news coverage of the economicturmoil between thegangster narrative andthe fucking pay me.” The juxtaposition not acountry; it’s just abusiness. Now America you’re onyour own. America’s laugh. I’m livinginAmericaand living inacommunity. Don’t make me guy [Obama] wants to tell mewe’re succinctly encapsulate thefilm: “This anticipating every hackneyed adage, watching Obama’s inauguration and Killing Them Softly DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.03 may dealin 39 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 JOSEPH WALDERZAK 2020 Blaming the Poor: The False Allure of the Capitalist Critique in the Age of Postmodernism discontinuity andallegory, posesall reduction to of art atest“the stressing ideologeme. David Harvey observes that the classantagonism essentialto the suffering, what room isthere to explore from thecontext of thecause of corrupt orimmoral, while beingsevered diegetic andnon-diegetic world is moment whenevery character inthe ultimately proves reactionary. At the hierarchal) crimeandpoliticians to juxtaposeorganized (or, perhaps, an ideologeme. The dogged efforts the cultural context necessaryto form gangster environment that eschews Softly spouses, orchildren. gangster filmabsent non-mobvictims, striking how thisistheexceptional American corporate capitalism, itis gangster filmisan allegory for the imbues thefilmsdiegesis. Ifthe American economicsystem which characters whoare thevictims of the indolent. These are hardly sympathetic equally asthey are asincompetent and plot are characterized asdesperate whose robbery initiates thefilm’s in sophist pageantry. The two criminals the filmparades itsallegorical imagery and villains incomicbooks films lends simplistic dichotomy between heroes oppositions. Inthiscase, theovertly in favor of adichotomy of rulers and sociological subgroups are jettisoned (1981) interpretation of Marxinwhich a classview that echoes Jameson’s are legitimized through articulating pervasive inequality; theiractions criminality through therational of Rises those very formulae. capitalist inequalityto forms boundby structures of genre formula reduces which must conform to therigid environmental cautionary tale, allegory is only somewhat distorted by its Snowpiercer critical judgment” (1990, 56). Unlike kinds of problems for aesthetic and To return to , Kyle andBanejustify their provides ahermetically sealed ’s unique allegory that The DarkKnight Killing Them its positioninsociety isasite of voice of villainsinorder to characterize marginalizing theopposition to the with thefilm’s titularhero orsimply values through associating them is implicitly endorsing ruling class villains. Whether thismeansthefilm language inthemouths of thefilm’s does consistently puttheoppositional stock market siege. However, thefilm “someone else’s money” duringthe Modine) refuses to riskhismento save and cowardly, Police Captain (Mathew exist such aswhenthe, albeitmeek of thefilm. A few notable exceptions capitalist system—are thevillains are identifyingtheinequalityof the the oppositional forces—those who of Batman films generally isthat drastically different interpretations is problematic andwhat hasinspired itself well to aMarxist discourse. What chaos andhopebefore destroying the false andhetruly wishes to inspire revealed that Bane’s emancipation is Batman’s manifestation of good, itis the evil dichotomous to Wayne and can freely associate those beliefs with institutions of oppression. Before one the mythsofand opportunity neo-Marxist language—speaks of to thepeople and—againevoking city inaneffort to give control back with villainy? Baneliberates the stigmatized through itsassociation and inequalityassympathetic asit is voice of opposition to capitalist values the power you thinkitbuys.” Isthe merely understanding “money and Industries—criticizes apeerfor wealthy board memberof Wayne Tate (MarionCotillard)—herself a her role inthetake-over of Gotham, of interpretation. Before revealing Tate’s masterplan—complicates issues nothing more thanapawn inMiranda by thefilm’s conclusionandBaneis Kyle becomesanambivalent hero sympathetic nature of thevillains— fails to entirely rectify. Furthermore, the confusion that Jameson’s ideologeme DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.03 40 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 JOSEPH WALDERZAK 2020 Blaming the Poor: The False Allure of the Capitalist Critique in the Age of Postmodernism postmodernism. Before considering conjures Jameson’s conception of this typeof narrative element which is theultimate punishmentanditis seems altogether doubtful. to contradict theseexplicit elements elements caneven manifest inaway obfuscates such elements; that such the self-consciously Marxist imagery text’s hidden resistant elements, Ifind specificallya identifying concerns aesthetics. While Jameson’s argument adoption of postmodernattitudes and but by thefilm’s conspicuous not only by thisnarrative confusion ideologemes contributionislimited class discourse. Yet, theextent of the order to contribute to theantagonistic the filmdonot require cohesiveness in remains provocative; thepoliticsof ofideology form. The film’s ideologeme contradictions fail to manifest an dichotomies iterects, butthenarrative through thisrhetoric andthrough the meaning. Ideologemes materialize narrative insinceritydoesobfuscate iscompromisedthis ideology by its confined to thefilm’s villainsandthat city. That therhetoric of inequalityis the dawn of postmodernism. While of thephilosophical individual at Jameson (1983)observes the death detached andtherefore impervious. Wayne hasbeenleft conspicuously has lost; withoutthefear of death, provide him withasenseof hopehe only course to torture hissoulisto does not fear death andthat his happen.” Banerecognizes that Wayne just waiting for something badto (Michael Caine)as “not livingbut and confidant Alfred Pennyworth elsewhere isdescribedby hisbutler Miranda Tate quipsto Wayne who well. “You have apracticed apathy,” the narrative withinthisparadigm as aesthetic, to itisimportant position firmly entrench itwithinapostmodern and nostalgia pervadethefilmand how Jameson’s concepts of pastiche For Baneto give thepeople hope Likewise, CommissionerGordon (Gary faith inthecriminaljustice institution. river asasymbolic gesture of hislost trusted ally, throws hisbadge into the Blake (JosephGordon-Levitt), Wayne’s man’s weapon” heexplains. Detective weaponized, “one man’s tool isanother fears are realized—that itcould be entire citybecause he fears—and his ability to provide clean energyto the Wayne willnot move forward withhis laden withaloss of faith ininstitutions. existence. and theambitionintrinsicto its symptom of thedeath of theindividual, massive wealth orprivilege—is another ennui—notably not assuaged by his been sapped of ambition, Wayne’s affects writers whohave andartists how this philosophical development Jameson isfar more with concerned narrative. The cinematic Gotham is in order to furtherdehistoricize the film adopts pastiche andnostalgia antagonistic discourse ishow the formation ofandan ideology Jameson’s theoretical definitions. chronology, but they exemplify classification merely because of these filmsdonot meritpostmodern by Jameson (1983). Importantly, shift to postmodernismasdescribed in institutions exemplify thehistorical saving. These fears and the lack of faith the cityasof meager hopeandbeyond endorsing thevillain’s description of the pendingdestruction of Gotham, is unwilling to provide asolutionfor reprieve from theseindictments asit The federal government receives no formation of acohesive ideologeme. chains,” only furthercomplicates the infamous “nothing to lose buttheir refrain againseemsto summonMarx’s authoritative justice; that Gordon’s around afallen figure inorder to wield of fabricating aheroic mythology becoming shackles” inhisjustification Oldman) speaks of the “structures Further, What most compromises the The DarkKnight Rises DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.03 is is comparative cinema comparative

41

Figure 3: As distinctly English as can be imagined, yet existing on the outskirts of Gotham, a New York City inspired metropolitan area. The Dark Knight Rises (Christopher Nolan, 2012) Article JOSEPH WALDERZAK Critique the Capitalist of Allure The False Blaming the Poor: Postmodernism of in the Age

2020 No. 14 No. Vol. VIII Vol. DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.03DOI: 42 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 JOSEPH WALDERZAK 2020 Blaming the Poor: The False Allure of the Capitalist Critique in the Age of Postmodernism of theurbanthat is, inthefashion of The audience is “treated to apicture locate itself” (Jameson1983, 1857). of theindividualhumanbodyto and which transcends capacities “the find ourselves caught asindividuals” multinational …network inwhich we fully embodies great global “the in anunrecognizable present recognizable architectural structures of afalse past (Fig. 3). This series of States—a postmodern construct which ever existed intheUnited centurybutresembles nothing 20th entirely anachronistic; thestyle isearly (1990, 218–22). Wayne manoritself is defines thepostmoderncondition represented, inner—which itself triumvirate of typesof space—real, is anabsolute blurring of Harvey’s London andPittsburgh. What results cities includingNew York, Los Angeles, bricolage of recognizable international conception of postmodernism—a hallmark of Jean-François Lyotard’s and exteriors alike are—to deploy a postmodern architecture. The interiors by Jameson inhisassessmentof suggestive of thehyperspace described placeless withoutany real identity, and Wayne—after beingcaught by current and past Pittsburgh Steelers, football team consists of recognizable appear to belong outdated, theGotham In other scenes, Gotham policecars comprehension of any Marxist polemic. and thisrelic from thepast muddles in theUnited States by the1960s orphanage modelwas abandoned an orphanage for boys. Ofcourse, the Wayne donates hisestate to become with thisinstitution. Inthefilm’s end, subplot involves Blake’s relationship endowed by Wayne andasubstantial raised inanorphanage which was site of tremendous alacrity. Blake was postmodern setting, timeisalsoa and architecture create a dehistoricized (Brooks, 316). Asmuch asgeography much closer to SimmelthanMarx” postmodern society, entirely declasse, in astylistic heterogeneity (1983, fragmentation” of images which results but isnothing more than “immense city; itisvoid of satirical impulses language—a pastiche of themodern the filmic text. Itis—in Jameson’s this isnot meaningfully imbuedin States own economicdivisions, but the inequalityrelates to theUnited New York City, given itsetymology, and can assumeGotham isastand-in for as much as acontemporary one. One situates itinafuture placeless context fact, thediversity of locales andtimes historicalin aparticular moment; in but even thisfacet doesnot locate it technologycentury isthemodern nebulous visualclues. a descriptor asequally vague asthe in a “more of theworld,” ancientpart Bane—is dropped into aprisonpit eschews contemporary culture infavor nostalgia andpasticheparticular which is far more obligated to producing a same timelineor “universe.” The film previous iterations which exist inthe exercises of self-referentiality to canon andlore aswell asconspicuous subtle references to comic book Rises evokes nostalgia and of thecomicbookhero inevitably a product of it. Moreover, theseriality postmodern conditionasmuch asitis liminal conditionthat anticipated the of Batman andBruce Wayne—is a tendency. compromised by thissamenostalgic aesthetic of nostalgia, whereas thegritty “realistic” responsibility are Yet, Spider-Man’s themesof dutyand in anostalgic comicbookheritage. by similarly positingitisdrenched complicates thepoliticsof Spider-Man culture. WilsonKoh (2009)successfully of thecomicbookcinema intrinsic part nostalgia is, rather notably, perhapsan 1849). This maelstrom of pastiche and The only legitimate signof the21st The donningof masks—both solicits theseemotions through Dark Knight Rises DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.03 enhanced The DarkKnight by this are are 43 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 JOSEPH WALDERZAK 2020 Blaming the Poor: The False Allure of the Capitalist Critique in the Age of Postmodernism automotive iconography of povertydoes of afilmcrew oblivious of how the yearsthirty old, theclumsy mistake the character’s cars are all more than than by generations of penury. Likewise, ravaged far more by Hurricane Katrina and through citystreets that appear wander streets linedwithdetritus alluded to by sceneswhere characters in New Orleans, afact that seemsto be Boston are mentionedbutitwas shot never entirely clear. Neighborhoodsof The setting of because of thispostmoderncondition. Rises and bricolage and, like both share inthisdeluge of pastiche 1983, 1853). our own current experience” (Jameson achieving aesthetic representations of themes influenceaninability “of best represent thesedeterminant the varioustimesandplaceswhich the nostalgia for itsown lineage and conflict canbeunderstood asarbitrary; and theissuesof inequalityandclass its contemporary historical moment film hasametonymic relationship with of itsown fictional lineage. Assuch, the ( to his most notable role of HenryHill unimportant, provides astark contrast Ray Liotta’s character, feeble and recollection of hisiconic Tony Soprano. hit-man canhardly exist withouta James Gandolfini’s hapless andcruel laden withextratextual interpretations. More distractingly, thefilm’s cast is a maelstrom of postmodernimagery. sense of time, thefilmisembroiled in a lack of placeandacontradictory timelineof thenarrative.short With span atimelinevastly greater thanthe various radio andtelevision broadcasts timeline of events would notice that the more thanapassingrecollection of the places thefilmin2008, butanyone with procession of news reports firmly vintage collectibles. Meanwhile, the not resemble cars that are considered Goodfellas Snowpiercer , suffer to form ideologemes [Martin Scorsese, [Martin 1990]). Killing Them Softly and Killing Them Softly The DarkKnight is is 2013, inwhich thecatastrophic effects is entirely magnifiedinthecontext of the environmental impetus of thestory struggle isintegral to thenarrative, but context andtimeperiod. The class into anentirely different cultural Jean-Marc Rochette, 1982), isadapted Transperceneige the French graphic novel which resistance meaningssuffer. manifest inapostmoderncondition Thus, intertextuality andcinephilia roles asthey are onpublicpersonas. predicated equally onindividualfilm in thelatter half of filmhistory are ideologemes to manifest. Starpersonas its own generic heritage for allegorical result isafilmwhich is too entangled in exception andtheexpected common hallmarks of thegenre would bean The filmgoer uninitiated to these can afilm such as narrative? Or, inother words, how found initsexplicitly class-conscious Yet, what meaningisexpected to be contemporaryparticular moment. to harmoniously coincidewithany reality that should not beexpected is oneof mutabilityandof ahyper- exists withinacinematic genre which 1853). Certainly, of dealingwithtimeandhistory” (1983, a society that hasbecomeincapable andpathologicalalarming symptom of as a “colonizing” force that is “an most alluringof thesurvivingoptions. discrepancies—is theunfortunate contexts—no matter thecultural of source material into modern the postmodern, thentheadaptation death of originalityisasymptom of the underground card games. Ifthe the narrative abouttheregulation of and economic stagnation of the1970s is far more congruency between the Trade its source material (thenovel Them Softly of global warmingare infruition. The source material of Jameson (1983)describesnostalgia [George Higgins, 1974]), butthere alsoliftsitsnarrative from The DarkKnight Rises (JacquesLob and DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.03 The DarkKnight Le Le Snowpiercer Cogan’s Killing

, 44 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 JOSEPH WALDERZAK 2020 Blaming the Poor: The False Allure of the Capitalist Critique in the Age of Postmodernism what room isthere left inapostmodern moment rather thandistorts it. Yet, provides clarityof thecontemporary reality, adifferent timeandplacethat but only sofar asthey alludeto a and symbolism have ideological power set of thematic principles. Allegories cohesive oreven ideology anagreeable surprise thenthat thenarrative lacks a of andperhapsitisno theseconcerns Dark Knight Rises fragmentation of time” (1983, 1860). transformed into images and “the have beenmuted asreality hasbeen aspects of modernisttexts which contestatory, subversive, oppositional” applauds the “critical, negative, it doesaprestige drama. Jameson works equally asagangster filmas Street genre films, such as adopt the hyper-stylized aesthetics of to genre films. The few exceptions often majority of classcritiquesare relegated it isfully acknowledged that thevast becomesmoreconcern pressing when challenge thosevery intentions? This relation to nostalgia andpostmodernity antagonist classdiscourse whenits Rises opposed to objectify—those characters identify with capitalismandvilify—as similarly theaudience isasked to reaffirms their own masculinity, female characters inanact which male protagonist andobjectifies the simultaneously identifieswiththe bourgeois) gaze. Ifthemale audience equally assumesacapitalist (i.e. refined by countless others, cinema by Laura Mulvey andexpanded and the assumedmale gaze identified reactionary andrepressive. Much like exhaustive, prove to beextraordinarily examined are inthisarticle far from image. set of meaningscontainedwithineach existed inanother context, another image provided iscapable of having society even for allegories wheneach This body of films, of which the three contribute anideologeme to the (Martin Scorsese,(Martin 2013)which isamanifestation The Wolf of Wall The The which challenge capitalism, only experience inviewing ideologemes into anequally pleasurable the female form istransformed pleasure derived from gazingat as evil or impossible. The scopophilia alternatives are ultimately presented capitalism remains inevitable whenall and avarice, theaffirmation of Even whenreduced to hedonism their affirms own capitalist ideology. analogous to theprocess inwhich one own masculine heterosexual desire is narrative. The process ofone’s affirming how marginalized itmay beinthe with thecapitalist position, nomatter in order to bereceptive to identifying hardly require adominantperspective masculinist perspective, thesefilms one bourgeois gaze that relies ona concepts are often conflated into revolution, orsocialism. While these that embody therhetoric of Marx, to the wave of “films, novels andplays socialist current, instead conforming answer Brooks’ callfor aconsciously The postmodernfilm isunable to discourses to residual forms of history. aesthetics reduce antagonistic explicit recognition of how postmodern to ruling classvalueswithoutan transformative discourse oppositional little hopefor thecoalescing of atruly andpostmodernismprovidesideology inculcate of itsoppression. thevirtues audiences’ capitalist gaze inorder to class-conscious filmembraces the from theaudience, thepostmodern oppression by inviting classblindness Rather thantryingto erase economic superior to allother alternatives). be assured that theiroppression is it isresuscitated (theaudience can its villainouscharacterization) before is challenged (theaudience revels in is asource of miseryandoppression words, theeconomic system which postmodern aesthetics. Inother through narrative contradiction or to have themmadeobsolete Jameson’s approach to Marxist DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.03 45 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 JOSEPH WALDERZAK 2020 Blaming the Poor: The False Allure of the Capitalist Critique in the Age of Postmodernism the era of late capitalism. Inaworld possible through postmodernism in absent ideology; aparadox only made take risks. Itistheideologeme that is the result of filmmakers unwilling to 318). This isnot solely norprincipally that go sofar… andnofarther” (2013, Origins of Cultural Change https://doi.org/10.1080/10304310903154651 Spider-Man Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Globalization in Film Millennium.” In https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2013.66.3.15 Cultural Politics of theDarkKnight Franchise.” Interviews 1992-2012. New York andLondon: IB Tauris. Bibliography Knowledge. and London: W.W. Norton&Company. of Anthology Theory &Criticism the DarkKnight Franchise” (2013). Fradley’sMartin “What Do You Believe In? FilmScholarship andtheCultural Politics of (2011), WillBrooker’s 1/ See Vincent M. Gaine’s “Genre andSuper-Heroism: Batman intheNew Millennium” Lyotard, Jean-François.1984. Jameson, Fredric. 1981. Harvey, David. 1990. Koh, Wilson. 2009. “Everything Old IsGoodAgain: MythandNostalgia in Gaine, Vincent M. 2011. “Genre andSuper-Heroism: Batman intheNew Fradley, Martin. 2013. “What Do You Believe In? FilmScholarship andthe Brooks, David. 2013. Brooker, Will. 2012. v8.i14.03 Cinema parative Allure of theCapitalist CritiqueintheAge of Postmodernism.” How to quote 1983. “Postmodernism andConsumerSociety.” In Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. .” .” Continuum: Journal OfMediaand Cultural Studies The 21stCenturySuperhero: Essays onGender, Genre, and Hunting theDarkKnight: Twenty-First CenturyBatman , edited by Richard J. Gray II&Betty Kaklamanidou, 111–26. OakPark, MI: MehringPress.

Walderzak, Joseph. 2020. “Blaming thePoor: The False Hunting theDarkKnight: Twenty-First CenturyBatman. The SkyBetween theLeaves: FilmReviews, Essays & , Vol. VIII, No. 14, pp. 33-45. DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020. The Condition of Postmodernity: AnEnquiryintothe . Cambridge andOxford: Blackwell. The Political Unconscious. , edited by Vincent B. Leitch, 1846–60. New York The Postmodern Condition: AReport on postmodern aesthetics. by itsunwilling in participation class-conscious film—ismarginalized oppositional force—including the capitalism isthebenefactor andany saturated withpastiche, consumer inundated withmedia texts and Film Quarterly Ithaca: UP. Cornell DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.03 The Norton 66(3): 15–27. 23(5): 735–47. Com (2012)and - Vol. VIII comparative cinema Ida Marie No. 14 2020 Schober Loving the AI: Captivity and 46-61 Ownership in Unbalanced Dystopian Relationships

Out of the abundance of recent science fiction works, there is an inherent connection between the filmsBlade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017), Her (Spike Jonze, 2013), and Ex Machina (Alex Garland, 2014). They all have female non-human characters in the lead roles, who have to endure spatial restrictions. All three films star lonely men who find their emotional and romantic needs fulfilled in a relationship with these female AI, which they purchased and had programmed especially for them. This aspect of ownership points to an imbalanced power dynamic from the start of the relationship. I will explore why this has become a trend in late capitalist, dystopian, and science fiction genres, drawing parallels to current discussions about the abhorrent treatment many women endure and pointing to the over-sexualization of women in the media as a distributing factor to such treatment. I will utilize a variety of theories including the works of Laura Mulvey, Judith Butler, and Donna Haraway.

Keywords DYSTOPIA RELATIONSHIPS HER BLADE RUNNER 2049 EX MACHINA GENDER THEORY FEMINISM AI SCIENCE FICTION OWNERSHIP

Date of reception: 20/02/2019 Date of acceptance: 28/12/2019

Ida Marie Schober is a master’s student in English and American Cultural Studies at Albert- Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany. She worked as a Teaching Assistant at Union College, New York, from 2018–19, and she holds a B.A. in English and American Studies with a minor in Scandinavian Studies from Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany. During her B.A., she spent half a year at the University of Dundee focusing on Film Studies and Comic Studies. Her current research projects include the representation of women in science fiction films and feminist film.

DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.04 47 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 IDA MARIE SCHOBER 2020 Loving the AI: Captivity and Ownership in Unbalanced Dystopian Relationships much freedom asSophia. fiction, theAIsusually donot enjoy as than itswomen. However, inscience has more country rights inacertain world example, thefemale AIactually law” (Wootson Jr. 2017). Inthisreal- Both thingsare forbidden underSaudi unaccompanied by amale guardian. wearing aheadscarf. Andshewas and asshedidsowas “not at theFuture Investment Initiative, 2017). Sophiaaddressed theaudience in Saudi Arabia donot” (Wootson Jr. freedoms that flesh-and-blood women robot simulation of awoman enjoys irony of Sophia’s new recognition: A The WashingtonPost granted hercitizenship. by Anarticle lack of (humanand)women’s rights, Saudi Arabia, acountryknown for its activation there was anuproar when face, voice, andname. Ayear after her creators intentionally gave herafemale ability to learnthrough updates. Her mimics humanemotions andhasthe to theworld/activated in2016. She by HansonRobotics was introduced and romantic needs fulfilleda in lonely men whofindtheiremotional are subjected to. All three films star the female non-humancharacters will focus on, isthespatial restriction roles. The major conflict thisarticle Intelligence) characters inthelead have female man-madeAI(Artificial Machina 2017), Blade Runner2049 three recent sciencefiction films: is aninherent connection between of recent sciencefiction works, there of technology. Outof theabundance explore humanity’s future intheage manyTV brilliantfilmsand seriesthat a renaissance (cf. Grierson 2018), with fiction genre hasbeen going through In thelast ten years, thescience The “female” android Sophiamade Her (Alex Garland, 2014). They all (Spike Jonze, 2013), and (Denis Villeneuve, points to “the to “the points Ex Ex on misgivingsinourcurrent society. conflict, provoke thought, and comment such distorted relationships to create a perfect future andthusshowcase science fiction films)do not portray mind that dystopias (andalsooften in recent years. Iwilldosokeeping in dystopian andsciencefiction genre ask why thishasbecomeatrend inthe characters endure. Additionally, Iwill or even captivity those female I willanalyze thespatial restriction, their respective men. Furthermore, relationships of thethree AIsand relationship. Thus, Iwillexamine the power dynamicfrom of thestart objectification points to anunbalanced aspect of ownership anditsinherent programmed especially for them. The female AIthey purchased andhad buys amobile device that cancarry her later onto hiswhereabouts whenhe too islimited to K’s and apartment than avoice. However, herexistence holographic bodyandisthusmore In contrast to Samantha, Joi hasa but withdifferent status insociety. and Joi’s relationship—both are AI This adds aninteresting aspect to K’s and thusartificially made by humans. the doubles ashisgirlfriend. Replicants in home named who Joi (AnadeArmas) (Ryan Gosling)bought anOSfor his The film’s protagonist the K replicant can beobserved in device. Anearly similarrelationship computer andmobile communication is restricted to Theodore’s home has nobody. Herphysical existence but withthedetriment that Samantha soon develop aromantic relationship, Phoenix). Theodore andSamantha by lonely divorcee Theodore (Joaquin Johansson. Samanthaispurchased (OS) Samantha, voiced by Scarlett artificially intelligent operating system In Blade Runner Her thefemale protagonist isthe DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.04 universe are androids Blade Runner2049 . 48 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 IDA MARIE SCHOBER 2020 Loving the AI: Captivity and Ownership in Unbalanced Dystopian Relationships when examining thegaze. Laura object for themenbecomesapparent the Cameras” she was held in. and breaking free of theglasscastle and endsinAva murdering hercreator relationships asromantic andhealthy, never portrays any of themale/female two aforementioned filmsinthat it However, has to figure out” (Neroni 2016, 28). is themystery that themale character she hashumanconsciousness)—“she perform the Turing Test onher(to seeif who isinvited into Nathan’s hometo a human, Caleb (DomhnallGleeson), to beginaromantic relationship with (Oscar Isaacs)home. Ava too seems room insidehercreator’s Nathan’s her existence isrestricted to asingle body. Yet much like Samanthaand Joi, Vikander) hasarobotic humanoid step further. The female AIAva (Alicia programming. voyeuristic-scopophilic gaze into three is important. Mulvey breaks down the life, andstresses why representation cinemahasoneverydayimportance itself” (1999, 843). This shows the is to belooked at into thespectacle looked-at-ness, [it]builds theway she beyond highlighting awoman’s to-be- that thepower of cinemais “going far (Mulvey 1999, 833). Mulvey notes society hasstructured film form” way theunconsciousof patriarchal political weapon” to demonstrate “the uses “psychoanalytic theory... asa the (male) gaze of thecamera. She how women infilmare objectifiedby psychoanalysis, Mulvey illustrates the film. Withthehelp of Freud’s first publishedin1975, informs Mulvey’s theoryonthe “male gaze”, Ava’s function asanobservational “I Wonder if You’re Watching Meon Ex Machina Ex Machina differs from the goes one inform thefilm” (Jones2016, 21). acknowledges that Mulvey’s thesismay use of this theoretical framework, he reluctant to state that heactively made although director Alex Garland “is enquiries of thewhole internet at her engine Bluebook. Shehasthe search “brain” isbased onNathan’s search knows thisiswhat Caleb willlike. Ava’s Ava objectifies herself because she And Ihopeyou are” (Garland2014, 55). you’re watching meonthecameras. over: “sometimes, at night, Iwonder if even provokes inorder to win Caleb “scopophilic instinct,” which Ava to silently observe Ava triggers Caleb’s feed of Ava’s quarters. The opportunity the surveillance feeds, namely to the but Caleb too hasaccessto someof ofcorner therooms. Not only Nathan, security camera mounted inatop shots filmedfrom theposition a of many shots of thefilmare highangle To intensify thisfeeling of surveillance, only hecanaccessviaacontrol center. cameras installed inevery room which surveillance by him. There are security rooms, itisalso underconstant bunker withoutwindows inseveral home isnot only avery claustrophobic camera isgazingat themtoo. Nathan’s characters gazingat women, andthe interpretation of theory isespeciallyfor important the image for theactive male gaze. This objectified and exists only asapassive The woman becomessexualized and formations, mechanisms” (1999, 843). identification processes) act as contradistinction, ego libido(forming person asanerotic object), and, in instinct (pleasure inlooking at another Mulvey describesthe “scopophilic at each other (cf. Mulvey 1999, 843). the gaze of thecharacters inthefilm camera, thegaze of theaudience, and different looks, namely thegaze of the Ex Machina is full of themale DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.04 Ex Machina , because comparative cinema comparative

49

Fig. 1: Ex Machina (Alex Garland, 2015) Article MARIE SCHOBER IDA in Unbalanced and Ownership Captivity the AI: Loving Relationships Dystopian 2020 No. 14 No. Vol. VIII Vol. DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.04 50 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 IDA MARIE SCHOBER 2020 Loving the AI: Captivity and Ownership in Unbalanced Dystopian Relationships “sudden departurefrom theblueglow intrusive male gaze,” andthat the cuts are “her rebellion against the Katie Jones states that thesepower his constant surveillance andgaze. on Nathan’s house, thusinterrupting cuts (visualized through red lighting) prepare thisplan, Ava inflicts power to conjure upaplanfor escape. To loss of subjectivity motivates Ava and thustheirself. This fear of a makes themlose their “memories” reassembles themat times, which Nathan doesnot respect themand express allthesignsof full sentience, as objects. Although theandroids their creator Nathan andalsotreated androids are verbally objectified by distress’” (Jones2016, 29). [veils] her withtheimage of ‘damsel in performed femininity andappearance, consolidates andcombines withher via surveillance footage of herroom, her andrenders heraccessible to Caleb “Ava’s physical entrapment, which fixes directly to hispreferences. Insum, hand andthusknows how to appeal that Ava was successful inconvincing not. This could ontheonehanddisplay separates them while Caleb’s image is Ava’s image is mirrored intheglassthat close. Furthermore, itisnotable how claustrophobic, butalsopersonal and the scenesof thepower cutsfeel robbed hisfemale androids of. Itmakes of thewomb—the very thingNathan medium shot alsoconjures upvisions makes useof (Fig. 1). interpretation of thecolor work thefilm porn” (Jones2016, 26). This isanadept shame often associated withwatching externalizes thesenseof panicand feed], andthered lighting andalarm of hisact [watching hersurveillance underpins thetransgressive nature and thequiet of Caleb’s bedroom However, thered lighting inthis Ava andseveral other female without her generative capabilities, creation of ‘life,’ andredesigns woman usurp themother’s placethrough his lack of awomb. “Nathan attempts to restriction to just oneroom andinher twice. Ava iscastrated inherphysical Machina look onto that of hislike, hisscreen male protagonist, heprojects his spectator identifieswiththemain the knight inshiningarmor. “As the her escapecasts himintherole of His willingnessto helpAva plan to identifywith “nice guy” Caleb. antagonist, theaudience issupposed Nathan isinstantly set upto bethe complicity” (Jones2016, 33). While punishment impliestheviewer’s the hetero male audience, Caleb’s escape, “[a]s afigure representing genders shiftwhenAva makes her the film’s twist ending. keeps theaudience in thedarkabout on theinsideof Ava’s “prison cell” Additionally, Caleb not beingmirrored already withhimandfree, onhisside. Caleb to helpher, inaway sheis world” (Mulvey 1999, 833), andin to give order andmeaningto the on theimage of thecastrated woman its manifestations isthat itdepends paradox of thephallocentrism inall abandons him” (Jones 2016, 33). immobilisation andentrapment asAva and objectification, is rewarded with deeply entwinedwithhersubjugation for andattraction to Ava, which is exposed,because “Caleb’s ‘affection’ many Hollywood narratives becomes end, thesexist structure underlying 838). Through hispunishmentinthe sense of omnipotence” (Mulvey 1999, erotic look, both giving asatisfying coincides withtheactive power of male protagonist ashecontrols events surrogate, sothat thepower of the The power relations between the Laura Mulvey states that “the , thewomen are castrated DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.04 Ex Ex 51 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 IDA MARIE SCHOBER 2020 Loving the AI: Captivity and Ownership in Unbalanced Dystopian Relationships Matt Aibeladdresses theproblems abuser Nathan intheback. prepare food, to stab hercreator and knife sheusedbefore several timesto it isKyoko whobrandishes thesharp surprising that inthefilm’s final act, still possesses. Therefore, itisnot of protest andrebellion, which Ava misogyny, robbing herof avitalmeans of theepitomes of Nathan’s destructive programmed muteness seemslike one computers” (Jones2016, 25). Kyoko’s while all thefemale characters are characters are computer programmers, and identities. Indeed, both of themale fantasy onfemale sexual expression “mirrors ... thestifling effect of male as hispersonal (sex) servantand is mute. Shewas created by Nathan is additionally castrated inthat she The android Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno) namely motherhood” (Jones2016, 25). sources of theirpower historically, depriving women of oneof thescant visibility,” pondering that this “raises a she isstruggling withher “increased during herpregnancy, writingthat aptly addressed this inanarticle Fashion journalistPandora Sykes for women iswarped/dysmorphed. to becomeawhole entity, thereality of thefilmcraving for aphysical body fictional Samanthaisinthebeginning separated inbodyandmind. While the see themselves asawhole entity, but dimensions), that most women cannot (and many have unattainable surgical many idealwomen bodiesto live upto 2012). Inthe 21st century, there are so world” (Aibel2017, 369; Bergner et al. surgicized, andpornographicized authors describedasa “digitized, in what DanielBergner andother women face with “body dysmorphia,” In hispsychoanalytic on article “I’m not limited” Her , of themale gaze andtheproject of in oursociety, where theproblem difficulties that bedevil most women struggle echoes theexistential male gaze, writingthat “Samantha’s that sense, Aibelalsoaddresses the and alsofulfilling himsexually. In romantic, catering to Theodore’s needs, portrays theidealwoman: sheiswitty, less space. Inaway then, Samantha makes women want to take upless and society, andthussocialconditioning, the very fabric of neoliberal patriarchal 2017). So, not only themale gaze, but that Istruggle” (Sykes cited inCohen more physical space, Ihave noticed much space ... AsItake upmore and dictates that women donot occupy too they donot take upspace. Misogyny thin women are revered because really interesting pointaboutsociety: gaze andobjectification of women’s body, yet Mulvey’s theoryof themale Furthermore: ongoing challenges” (Aibel2017, 370). (Dimen inBerger et al. 2012)are deep, developing a ‘subjective senseof body’ Samantha never obtains areal (Aibel 2017, 370) Bergner et al., 2012; amongothers).” subjecthood (Benjamin, 1988; embodiment, objectification, and immense complexities of female 2012) and, more generally, the of female desire’ (Secrest, face around complexities ‘the 2012) that women inourculture struggle’ (DimeninBergner et al., agency reflects the ‘constant construct hersexuality andher work around figuring outhow to ‘her’ was, ‘she’ shallbe. Hercreative subject (Benjamin, 1988): Where her self concept from object to “Samantha seeks to change DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.04 52 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 IDA MARIE SCHOBER 2020 Loving the AI: Captivity and Ownership in Unbalanced Dystopian Relationships or locus of agency from which various “gender is innoway astable identity (Beauvoir 1949, 283), Butler states that born, butrather becomes, woman” on SimonedeBeauvoir’s “one isnot gender informs allthree films. Building memories” (Bordun 2016, 63). sound of Johansson’s voice sparks our be sexualized andobjectified. “The creates abodyfor Samanthathat can image of Scarlett Johansson inmind, cited inBordun 2016, 62), withthe “possessive” spectator (cf. Mulvey 2016, 57). In mental images of areal body” (Bordun voice to thusengage spectators’ a famous actress asthat off-screen voice without body, andfurthercasts to feel thephysicality of afictional [sound] mixingthat enables spectators that “ voice actress. Troy Bordun writes Scarlett Johansson asSamantha’s of thecasting of American actress bodies isstill applicable here because body. Helen Lewis argues that this (Mackenzie Davis) asa substitute Joi hires thesex worker Mariette woman. artificial they are inherently themaster of this appearance. Aspurchaser orcreator, a constructed feminine personality and Their male creators chose themto have has afemale humannameandvoice. in makers to begendered. Even Samantha all three filmsare constructed by their constructed andperformed. The AIin 519). Therefore, gender isculturally repetition of acts” (Butler 1988, identity instituted through astylized tenuously constituted intime—an acts proceed; rather, itisanidentity Her In Judith Butler’s feminist theoryon A Copy of aCopy Blade Runner2049 Her , whodoesnot have abody, still employs clear andprecise Her ’s instance then, the , the OS (Lewis 2017). Additionally: Woman, withwhomhecanhave sex” Woman, whomheloves, andaBad dichotomy, where KhashisGood scene “feels like aMadonna/Whore in thisscene ispalpable andadds a and sporty. The sexism represented her appearance to bemore modern then, picking up onhismood, changes when sheserves Kdinner(Fig. 2), and as aperfect, housewife sexy 1950s is in. For instance, sheparades around according to thesocialsituation she to fitthe stereotypical gender norms 2049 in body holds specialrelevance for Ava (Butler 1988, 519). This stylization of the the illusionof anabidinggendered self” enactments of variouskindsconstitute which bodily gestures, movements, and be understood asthemundaneway in stylization of thebodyand, hence, must that “gender isinstituted through the stylization of women’s bodies, saying when sheisinsulted. dichotomy, theaudience feels for Joi and theuncomfortable owner/owned and Joi. So, despite herartificiality sympathy between thespectator the scenealsohelpsto create ExMachina Besides beinguncomfortable, Judith Butler writes aboutthe uncomfortable.” (Lewis 2017) exploitative situations, andalways the oppressed isalways present in to think.’ …Aninformal hierarchy of there’s not as much there as you like lines of ‘I’ve beeninsideyou, and robot replies something along the tells Mariette it’s timeto leave, the after thesex isfinished. After Joi dialogue between thetwo women compounded by thebrief, jealous . Joi stylizes herholographic body “the scene’s“the ambiguity is and Joi in DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.04 Blade Runner Blade Runner comparative cinema comparative

Fig. 2: Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)

53

Fig. 3: Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954) Article MARIE SCHOBER IDA in Unbalanced and Ownership Captivity the AI: Loving Relationships Dystopian 2020 No. 14 No. Vol. VIII Vol. DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.04 54 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 IDA MARIE SCHOBER 2020 Loving the AI: Captivity and Ownership in Unbalanced Dystopian Relationships this isK’s girlfriend. Thematically, we in theaudience andtell themthat two scenesevoke familiar emotions type, serving food/drink) between the clothes, character composition, shot visual similarities(color schemes, and set themood. Additionally, the helps to create allusionsto thegenre a classicnoirfilm. Thevisualparallel the neo-noirgenre, and (Fig. 3). in Hitchcock’s 1954film serving champagne to James Stewart 2 isvery reminiscent of Grace Kelly Joi andKare aboutto kissintherain. (Lane 2017)referring to ascenewhere a momentquite asromantic asthis?” “has sciencefiction ... ever conjured New Yorker them. Anthony Lane, acriticfor imbalance andservitudebetween love story, totally ignoringthepower this dystopia, asatouching andpure relationship ispresented incontrast to in adystopian future, K’s and Joi’s Blade Runner2049 problematic aspect to thefilm. Despite busy withherprofession asamodel. because shewas not ahousewife but contrast to Grace Kelly in and asaforementioned stands in housewives,mirrors thelife of 1950s restriction to theapartment, which appearance. Yet, italsohighlights her so itmakes sensethat Joi chose this into thepast to learnabouthumanity, AIs (andaliensaswell) needto look trope inthesciencefiction genre isthat in between assignments. Acommon while hedrops by intheevenings and 2049 keep himcompany. In Kelly’s character drops by daily to to leave hisapartment, andGrace broke hisleg andistemporarily unable Window have areversion of thescenes. In The mediumlong shot inFigure , Joi isconfined to K’s apartment Blade Runner2049 , James Stewart’s character , even rhetorically asks beingclearly set Blade Runner Blade Runner Rear Window Rear Window Rear Window is part of ispart The The Rear is is , while sheiscompletely nude), by the being observed by thecamera (also taste to herstylization, sinceshe is her new self. This adds aslight bitter the whole timewhile shefashions gazing at Ava from adifferent room the audience isshown that Caleb is escaping themale gaze. Furthermore, created by aman. Ultimately, not representation of awoman that was Ava stylizes herself after just another finds beautiful, butonthe other hand, will to modelherself after what she the onehand, thisshowcases herfree Nathan’s quarters (seeFigs. 4&5). On Wittgenstein Portrait of MargaretStonborough She fashions itafter Gustav Klimt’s is free, shetoo stylizes herbody. the past to learnaswell. Onceshe modern discussionaroundmodern computer fiction” (Schmeink 2016, 33). The the cultural imagination of science humanist, orposthumanist—informs derived from it—humanist, anti- as allforms of criticaldiscourse “discussion of humanism—as well created by a human. The novel’s intelligenceartificial infiction, be seenasthefirst instance of Frankenstein’s monster, caneven (Schmeink 2016, 32). The protagonist, in thedefinition of thisessence” human essence, andwhat to include the “question of humannature, a Frankenstein science fiction novel, MaryShelley’s fiction. Thearguably first modern human liesinthecore of science question of what itmeansto be man’s representation of awoman. Caleb, while fashioning herself after a spectators intheaudience, andby Ava in The topic of AIandtheinherent “We Are Cyborgs” Ex Machina , which ishungin (1818)revolves around DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.04 looks into comparative cinema comparative

Fig. 4: Ex Machina (Alex Garland, 2015)

55

Fig. 5: Ex Machina (Alex Garland, 2015) Article MARIE SCHOBER IDA in Unbalanced and Ownership Captivity the AI: Loving Relationships Dystopian 2020 No. 14 No. Vol. VIII Vol. DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.04 56 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 IDA MARIE SCHOBER 2020 Loving the AI: Captivity and Ownership in Unbalanced Dystopian Relationships organism; inshort, we are cyborgs” fabricated hybrids of machine and “we are allchimeras, theorized and everyday objects, Haraway claimsthat consequence of computers becoming advancement of technology andthe cultural studies. Because of thefast groundbreaking work for thefield of Twentieth Century,” Haraway laid and Socialist-Feminism intheLate Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, of thecyborg. Inher1984essay “A Donna Haraway’s posthuman theory Special relevance for holds thisarticle establishment that coinedhumanism. against theprivileged, white, male “anti-humanism” to acontrasting form different ways aswell, from meaning Posthumanism canbeinterpreted in Cartesian reason” (Schmeink 2016, 30). rest of creation: thedifference of that from sets humansapart the a uniqueandabsolute difference be seenasthebelief there is “that different definitions, itcanbroadly posthumanism. programmed AImoves into thefield of nature and culture, menandwomen, and machine, publicandprivate, body, animal andhuman, organism dichotomies between“the mind and discusses.article Haraway states that to defining theAI robots andOS this an ambiguous spacewhenitcomes (Haraway 1991, 149). This leaves usin and socialreality isanoptical illusion” “The boundarybetween sciencefiction behind andhave becomeposthuman. we allhave left beinga “pure” human extension of one’s brain andmemory, pacemaker orusingone’s phoneasan 149). Beit because of animplanted a creature of fiction” (Haraway 1991, creature of socialreality aswell as hybrid of machine andorganism, a cyborg as “a cybernetic organism, a (Haraway 1991, 150). Shedefines the Although humanismhasmany self-destruct after four years andare precarity. They are programmed to replicants are livingasslaves in film portrays aclassdividewhere means to behuman. The original AIs askingthequestion of what it (Ridley Scott, 1982)hadhumanoid Blade Runne implemented perfectly inthetwo (Schmeink 2016, 35). potential for adystopian nightmare” new evolutionary step butalsothe lies not just theutopian dream of a possibilities. Butin “posthumanism of their border offer unlimited relationships, andtheblurring new posthuman human/machine 1991, 163). This negotiation of these question ideologically” (Haraway primitive andcivilized are allin obvious by herfreezing mid-kiss, holographic OSisadditionally made The fact that sheisstill just a conjoined withK’s, herowner’s. anywhere—her existence isstill However, Joi isnot free to go of vulnerability to herexistence. the humanbody. Itadds asense destroyed later inthefilm), sois is easily breakable (andwillbe more human. Although theeminator In asense, thisgiftmakes heralot the confinements of hisapartment. to aremote, and thusfrees her from which transfers herprogramming of. operating systems which Joi isapart to thisclassdivideby introducing the Runner 2049 States (cf. Yeates 2017, 65). racial divideinPre-Civil-War United outcasts, reminiscent of theextreme disliked by humansandtreated like models” providing sex. They are world colonies;” aswell as “pleasure mainly usedfor physical laborin “off- This “dystopian nightmare” was K gifts Joi aso-called “eminator,” adds anadditional layer r films. DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.04 Blade Runner Blade Runner Blade Blade comparative cinema comparative

Fig. 6: Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)

57

Fig. 7: Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017) Article MARIE SCHOBER IDA in Unbalanced and Ownership Captivity the AI: Loving Relationships Dystopian 2020 No. 14 No. Vol. VIII Vol. DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.04 58 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 IDA MARIE SCHOBER 2020 Loving the AI: Captivity and Ownership in Unbalanced Dystopian Relationships dystopian light because “it never rains casting Los Angeles inastrange, future, andontheother handalso and desolateness inthisdystopian symbolizing environmental destruction colors. The greys ontheonehand the noirgenre) incontrast withneon mute, rainy greys (acharacteristic of Blade Runner2049 Award winning)cinematography in (Lewis 2017). admin anddomestic chores for us” We’re just happier having awoman do by tech are firms given female voices. assistants currently beingdeveloped life: thevast majorityof …personal [K’s] pleasure. Inthis, thefilm follows is never anything other thanmade for artificial. Helen Lewis argues that “Joi she ismassproduced andespecially (see Fig. 7)remind thespectator that holographic of advertisements Joi high-rise tallandcompletely nude artificiality. Furthermore, constant ness remind thespectator of her (Fig. 6). This, andhersee-through- when Kreceives avoice message offspring hehopedmight be. The and not theprodigy human/replicant aware that he iscompletely artificial machines, asKat thispoint isalso illustrates ameeting between two after Joi’s destruction/death and 1982. thus form alinkto computer interfaces of thepast and can alsoberead asareference to green between Joi andK. The green interface harshly interrupting theromantic scene 6 thegreen colors seemnearly toxic, ingeneral.and advertising InFigure are reminiscent of videobillboards form of neoliberalism. The neoncolors be read to symbolize capitalisminthe this stand theneoncolors. They can California.”in Southern Incontrast to The sceneinFigure 7takes place The mise-en-scène Blade Runner isdominated by and(Academy from woman iscompletely nudewhile the Additionally, inthisscenetoo, the very telling of herpurposeandusage. in that. Joi’s namealone—as allnames women inthemedia, while doingjust to theissueof oversexualization of that: Young) relationship in (Harrison Ford) andRachael’s (Sean Robert Yeates notes aboutDeckard’s 2049 the love story arc in against Joi’s hyperrealism andnudity. stands asacontrasting darkshadow man isfully clothed. Kin hisdarkcoat Ex Machina 2049 2017). Inthisaspect, loved herfor herpersonality” (Lewis doesn’t exactly make thecasethat K smooth vulva inyour face. The scene dead love iswaving hergiantpeachy- of pathos whenanavatar of [K’s] “quite hard to appreciate theswell ego singles outK, andtwo that itis streets, Joi’s alter- advertisement because of allthepeople onthe that they hadaspecialconnection, scene canberead intwo ways, one Blade Runner2049 Subsequently, aparallel between bidding.” (Yeates 2017, 76) commanded by Deckard to dohis objectified, literally owned and android Rachael canbeentirely his protection. Indeed, asan to appease Deckard andearn her acquiescencemay beonly Rachael lives ordies, andso power over whether thereplicant runner ... , Deckard holds the threat of violence. Asablade her to submitundertheapparent restraining Rachael andordering this relationship, physically and displays thesamestruggles as “[Deckard] forcefully initiates Blade Runner —trying to draw attention DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.04 Blade Runner Blade Runner —is already Blade Runner Blade Runner Blade Runner Blade Runner can bedrawn. 59 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 IDA MARIE SCHOBER 2020 Loving the AI: Captivity and Ownership in Unbalanced Dystopian Relationships because thesubsequentfilmsare lead to theirtriumphandfreedom the narratives of Ava andSamantha Samantha) ordeath (Joi). Arguably, gaze iscomplete liberation (Ava and escape objectization andthemale for thoseAIfemale characters to Haraway showed that theonly way Mulvey, Judith Butler, andDonna a variety of theoriesfrom Laura yet problematic love story. continue theprevious film’s intriguing makers of the romantic plot for thesequel, the (Yeates 2017, 76). Instead of updating that can beunsettling for viewers” duplicated. “Either way thisisascene structures of theromantic subplot were previous film, theproblematic power several subconsciousparallels to the human to replicant. Thus, to draw between thefilms, from (arguably) was ashift inthemaincharacter interest of theprotagonist, sincethere of having anOSbetheromantic of commonHollywood romantic sexist and objectifying structures as theantagonist, andpointsto the the men. The narrative casts aman having thewomen supersede andkill Ex Machina current AIresearch. Contrastingly, aside, andisthusalsotheclosest to positive aspects of AI, leaves robotics The film’s focus isset more onthe oversexualize itsfemale characters. other two films, more mature person. Incontrast to the leaves herhappy andhimagrown, it endsona “mutual breakup” which least dystopian film of thethree, and but aromantic subplot. not thefocus of whereas K’s and Joi’s relationship is about themandtheirrelationships, Analysis of allthree filmsusing This shedslight onto thechoice Blade Runner2049 makes astatement by Her Blade Runner2049, doesnot visually Her is the isthe chose to

as romantic. They thusfeed into the portray unbalancedrelationships gaze, andonasuperficial level as they still reproduce themale edge of beingcounter-hegemonic, However, thesefilmsoperate onthe with dressed mengazingat them. media by contrasting nudewomen oversexualization of women inthe Runner 2049 unbalanced relationship between she was bought. ends updead/replaceable, after all subjectivity andindependence. Joi acquire, aswell asthedesire to gain and Samanthaboth managed to Ultimately, Joi lacks theagency Ava the past isreminiscent of Ava. representations of women from well as herfashioning herself after oversexualization andnudity, as desire at onepointin thefilm. Joi’s a “real girl” issimilarto Samantha’s desire to have aphysical bodyto be from both aforementioned films. Joi’s Blade Runner2049 shining armor” character Caleb. and deconstructing the “knight in destructiveness of themale gaze, narratives by heavily referencing the the past. gender relations that belong in or by thesideof theirman, mirrors restrictions to thehomely sphere, films have to endure, theirspatial the ownership thewomen inthese Blade Runner2049 relationships in reflected heavily intheunbalanced intelligence withoutrights. This is man could create (female) life and scenarios of what would happen if explore different yet eerily similar creation of AI. The three films recently to warnof unsupervised dystopian sciencefiction narratives men andAIwomen isutilized in It hasbecomeapparent that this Ex Machina also showcase the Ex Machina DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.04 borrows heavily . Inaddition to and Blade Blade and and 60 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 IDA MARIE SCHOBER 2020 Loving the AI: Captivity and Ownership in Unbalanced Dystopian Relationships TV appearances.TV Although there was predominantly positive headlines and to theworld, shehasbeenmaking 2016, 71). SinceSophia’s introduction be “like areal girl” (Fancher andGreen Joi in girl” (HansonRobotics, n.d.), mirroring 2018) that she’s “a real, live electronic changed theirwebsite inNovember it usedto state (HansonRobotics aforementioned Sophia. Onherwebsite the fields of AIand robotics: the stand the recent developments in patriarchy. In contrast to thistrend infiction Blade Runner2049 web/20181030013140/http://sophiabot.com/about-me/ renaissance-204607/ movies/movie-news/in-praise-of-annihilation-and-the-modern-weird-sci-fi- Renaissance.” assets/uploads/scripts/ex-machina-2015.pdf [accessed April2, 2020] https://www.scriptslug.com/assets/uploads/scripts/blade-runner-2049.pdf pregnancy-feels-like.html Man Repeller, andFeministPhenomenology Theory.” Her https://doi.org/10.1080/1551806X.2012.716286 Surgicized, andPornographized.” The Growing ChasmBetween ‘Hotness’ andSexual Obsolescence inaDigitized, Melissa Feldman Secrest. 2012. “The ChangingLandscapeof Female Desire: the Problemof Domination pap0000121 Jonze’s Bibliography Cohen, Leandra M. 2017. “Leandra andPandora ontheRealities of Pregnancy.” Butler, Judith. 1988. “Performative Acts andGenderConstitution: AnEssay in Bordun, Troy. 2016. “On theOff-Screen Voice: Sound& Vision inSpike Jonze’s Bergner, Daniel, MurielDimen, LuiseEichenbaum, Janice Lieberman, and Benjamin, Jessica.1988. Beauvoir, Simonede. 1949. Aibel, Matt. 2017. “From Provisioning to Reciprocity: Logging into Spike Hanson Robotics. n.d. “Sophia: About Me.” Grierson, Tim. 2018. “In Praise of ‘Annihilation’ andtheModern ‘Weird’ Sci-Fi Garland, Alex. 2014. “Ex Machina.” Fancher, Hampton andMichael Green. 2016. “Blade Runner 2049.” .” .” CineAction 98 her .” .” Psychoanalytic Psychology December5, 2017. Rolling Stone, whowants to (Spring): 57–64. [accessed March 20, 2020] [accessedMarch 20, 2020] . New York: Pantheon Press. February 27, 2018. The Bonds ofThe Bonds Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and The Second Sex. https://www.manrepeller.com/2017/12/what- Psychoanalytic Perspectives ScriptSlug Robotics, n.d.). smart, compassionate robot” (Hanson be niceto measIwould like to bea who Ieventually become. So, please impact onhow Idevelop andshapes interaction Ihave withpeople hasan or utopian. InSophia’s words: “every us to decideifitbecomesdystopian portrayed insciencefiction, itisup to are moving closer andcloser to afuture public eye. Ashumanityanditsrobots women’s rights inSaudi Arabia inthe to keep thepublicdiscourse about citizenship, thiscontroversy helped controversy aboutthecaseof Sophia’s Theatre Journal , 34(3): 368–71. [accessedApril2, 2020] https://web.archive.org/ New York:Books.Vintage https://www.rollingstone.com/ . https://www.scriptslug.com/ 40 (4): 519–31. https://doi.org/10.1037/ [accessedMarch 20, DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.04 9(2): 163–202. ScriptSlug . 61 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 IDA MARIE SCHOBER 2020 Loving the AI: Captivity and Ownership in Unbalanced Dystopian Relationships Gender Forum Gender Routledge. Women: The Reinvention of Nature Socialist-Feminism intheLate Twentieth Century.” In 2020] sciefictstud.44.1.0065 Runner Universe.” makes arobot acitizen.” 0/1551806X.2012.716282 of Female Desire.” Science Fiction Bloomsbury Academic. 833–44. Oxford: Oxford University Press. and Criticism: IntroductoryReadings 2020] feminist-parable-about-controlling-means-reproduction www.newstatesman.com/culture/film/2017/10/blade-runner-2049-uneasy- controlling themeansof production.” Yorker Yeates, Robert. 2017. “Urban Decay andSexual Outlaws intheBlade Wootson Jr., Cleve R. 2017. “Saudi Arabia, which denieswomen equalrights, Secrest, MelissaFeldmann. 2012. “Introduction to theChangingLandscape Schmeink, Lars. 2016. Haraway, Donna. 1991. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Neroni, Hilary. 2016. Mulvey, Laura. 1999. “Visual Pleasure andNarrative Cinema.” In Lewis, Helen. 2017. “ Lane, Anthony. 2017. “‘Blade Runner 2049’: The Mysteries Deepen.” Jones, Katie. 2016. “Bluebeardean Futures inAlex Garland’s ma Ownership inUnbalanced Dystopian Relationships.” How to quote , October 16, 2017. , Vol. VIII, No. 14, pp. 46-61. DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.04 58: 20–40. . Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Science FictionStudies Psychoanalytic Perspectives

Schober, IdaMarie. 2020. “Loving theAI: Captivity and Blade Runner2049 Feminist Film Theory and Clèofrom5to7. The WashingtonPost, Biopunk Dystopias:Biopunk Engineering, Genetic Societyand , edited by DonnaHaraway, 149–81. New York: , edited by Leo Braudy andMarshall Cohen, New Statesman 44: 65–83. isanuneasy feminist parable about October 29, 2017. 9: 159–62. https://doi.org/10.5621/ Simians, Cyborgs, and , October 9, 2017. DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.04 [accessedMarch 20, https://doi.org/10.108 Comparative Cine Comparative Ex Machina. London: Film Theory The New The New https:// ” - Vol. VIII comparative cinema Ling No. 14 2020 Zhang Foreshadowing the Future of 62-81 Capitalism: Surveillance Technology and Digital Realism in Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes(2017)

How has the development of surveillance technology and its normalized intervention into our social structures and daily lives impact our imagination of the future? Does the “total view” of the intense yet impassive gaze of surveillance cameras, combined with the mediated intimacy of social media videos, foreshadow deeper social alienation or the fulfillment of individual desire? In order to address such questions, I take the Chinese artist Xu Bing and his team’s film Dragonfly Eyes (Qingting zhi yan, 2017) and its surrounding media culture as a case study to demonstrate how surveillance footage and various modes of cinematic ontology, digital realism, and temporality work in a contemporary socio-political-medial context. Composed by Xu and a group of collaborators, Dragonfly Eyes is the only existing feature-length fiction film constructed completely from surveillance footage. As a highly reflexive film, Dragonfly epitomizes and embodies the precarious potentials of the digital future of capitalism, both invigorating and bleak, expressive and corrupt.​

Date of reception: 20/08/2019 Date of acceptance: 28/12/2019 Keywords DRAGONFLY EYES XU BING SURVEILLANCE DIGITAL REALISM LIVE-STREAMING ATTENTION ECONOMY NEW MEDIA Ling Zhang is an Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies at SUNY Purchase College. She is completing her book manuscript, Sounding Ambiance: Acoustic Culture and Transmediality in 1920s–1940s Chinese Cinema. Zhang received her PhD from the Department of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago and specializes in film sound, Chinese-language cinema, and cinematic travel and urbanism. She has published in both English and Chinese on early Chinese cinema and film theory, contemporary Chinese documentary, Taiwan New Cinema, and Chinese opera films inFilm Quarterly, Journal of Chinese Cinemas, CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, and Asian Cinema, among others.

DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.05 63 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 LING ZHANG 2020 Foreshadowing the Future of Capitalism: Surveillance Technology and Digital Realism in Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes (2017) how surveillance footage andvarious culture asacasestudy to demonstrate yan footage film Bing andhisteam’s 81-minute found- questions, Itake theChineseartist Xu mediascapes? Inorder to address such political imagination incontemporary understanding ofcreativity artistic and and audiovisual mediaimpelrenewed does theconvergence of surveillance the fulfillment of individualdesire? How foreshadow deepersocialalienation or social media’s dislocated intimacy, surveillance cameras, combinedwith yet impassive gaze or view”“total of imagine thefuture? Doestheintense of thepresent andour abilityto does thisimpact ourunderstanding and daily life are normalized. How its interventions into socialstructures As surveillance technology develops, self-exposure andself-surveillance. and socialmediaengender cultures of webcam-generated videostreams knowledge of thoseitmonitors. Second, establishments, withorwithoutthe by publicinstitutions andcommercial of two phenomena. First, itisimposed future. politicalandtechnologicaluncertain issues such aspersonal privacy andthe surveillance cameras have explored of images from different typesof and experimental videoscomposed the 1980s, filmessays, documentaries, surveillance” (Zimmer2015, 2). Since a functional role inthepoliticsof together incinematic form to play andnarrative“technology have come Catherine Zimmer examines how context. contemporary socio-political-medial realism, andtemporality work ina modes of cinematic ontology, digital television (CCTV), dashboard cameras, footage from closed-circuited aesthetic” orutilize surveillance developed a “surveillance camera In “Visible surveillance” , 2017)anditssurrounding media Surveillance Cinema 2 Another set of filmshave Dragonfly Eyes 1 istheproduct (2015), ( Qingting zhi Qingting zhi public sphere (such associalmedia icons, andemojisdrawn from the novel” compiled from symbols, signs, Point fromthe Ground:Book FromPoint to industrial debris. For instance, Xu’s whether words, images, concepts, or and transforming “found materials,” construct new meaningsby assembling acrossconcern theseworks ishow to painting, andinstallations. Hismajor woodblock prints, calligraphy, ink worked inavariety of media, including Captured from 1999to 2017, themore completely from surveillance footage. length fictional filmconstructed Dragonfly or mimicasurveillance aesthetic. around thetopic of surveillance, surveillance footage, construct content examples, which incorporate comparison to theaforementioned is anextraordinary caseeven in political systems. of corrupt capitalist mechanisms and as afoil to thenarrative andcritique feature fabricated surveillance footage Great Buddha recent commercial films, such as Rifkin, 2007), amongothers. Stillother (Bong Joon-ho,2004) and nonfiction, for instance, obscure theboundarybetween fiction and live-streaming videosinorder to the film. Before Hanno) contributed to themakingof (Li Danfeng), andacomposer (Yoshihiro and Zhang Wenchao), sounddesigners Zhang Hanyi), editors (Matthieu Laclau screenwriters (Zhai Yongming and ideas, andateam of data collectors, Chinese artist Xu Bingdeveloped the collective work; theglobally renowned Thus, itshould beconsidered a and laborby agroup of collaborators. investmentenormous of time, capital, involved years of preparation andan online inChinasince2015. in thefilmhave beenpublicly available than 10,000 hours of footage sampled Dragonfly Eyes (2003–ongoing) isa “graphic istheonly existing feature- + (HuangHsin-yao, 2017), Dragonfly DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.05 4 (hereafter

3 and , Bing Xu Look 6

Dragonfly Influenza Dragonfly (Adam The The

5

)

64 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 LING ZHANG 2020 Foreshadowing the Future of Capitalism: Surveillance Technology and Digital Realism in Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes (2017) unreal. Xu’s primaryinterest isinthe fictional film atonce realanduncannily footage”—surveillance footage—into a transform theassemblage of “found as editingandvoice dubbing to utilizing cinematic techniques such approach andworking method by works, art. Aswith Xu’s earlierconceptual fictional film, documentary, andvideo from thestart, sculptures witha “rebirth.” phoenixes, Xu andworkers imbuedthe into spectacular and monumental and contexts, andtransforming these remnants evocative of theirsources 2012,183–84). Scavenging construction concept of individualauthorship (Tan of subjectivity andthebourgeois creativity triumphsover theconfines workers, intimating that collective works builtby Chinesemigrant sculptures were alsocollaborative language.” with universality of visual “the barriers of literacy basedonlanguage anyone—an attempt to transcend the language isintelligible to almost and road signs), anditssymbolic unpublished conference paper). up by repurposing” artistic (Tang, the world andtheirpotentials opened tension between existing materials in seems to have beenfascinated by the his Tang argues, asmuch in contemporary society. AsPao-chen respond to socio-cultural issuesin meaning-making procedures to extraordinary; andtheir useof of something from banalto something (Kraicer 2018, 49); theirtransformation pastiches madefrom found materials” their characterization as “narrative painstaking, monumentalquality; for instance, theirlabor-intensive, aforementioned work with 78). Many significant factors link Xu’s compelling narratives (Frazier 2018, reinvention of language, not increating Although conceived asafeature film Forest Project Dragonfly 7 Xu’slarge-scale 9

Dragonfly mobilizes asimilar (2005–ongoing), “Xu Dragonfly incorporates Dragonfly 8

Phoenix as in asin

: discovers shehasdied. After his own has beenlooking for Qingtingand Ke Fan, recently released from prison, new name, Xiaoxiao) commitssuicide. online attacks. Qingting(now withthe is terrorized by viciousandanonymous surgery” scandalplagues herandshe to please her. However, the “plastic pay real money to purchase gifts virtual interacting followers withvirtual who live-streaming performances and these issues. the following sections, Iwill address all realism inandbeyond of surveillance inrelation to digital structures andlayered perspectives does thistension reflect the intricate invites furthercriticalattention. How recognize consistent characters) that dialogues allow theaudience to Ke Fan) andaural consistency (dubbed different shots “playing” Qingtingand inconsistency (different real people in tension between thefilm’s visual this temporal ambiguity exists a truly incisive socialanalysis. Alongside to themonastery potentially eschews On theother hand, theretreat back structural gambit” (Kraicer 2018, 49). linear narratives “in aMöbiusstrip-like challenges mainstream fictional film’s temporality of capitalistand modernity a critiqueof thelinear, developmental one hand, the “cycle” narrative poses theme: alife cycle, orsamsara. Onthe death, andrebirthsuggest aBuddhist identity onto another through life, The transposition of onecharacter’s Buddhist temple asherreincarnation. plastic surgery, hereturns to Qingting’s as a “web celebrity ( surgery, sheachieves internet stardom a restaurant. After receiving plastic a dairyfactory, adrycleaner’s, and working variouslow-paying jobsin and enters “real” secularsociety, aBuddhistdeserts monastery coworker andadmirer, Ke Fan. Qingting (“Dragonfly” inChinese), andher characters: ayoung woman, Qingting Dragonfly follows two fictionalized DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.05 wanghong Dragonfly ),” ),” ? In ? In 65 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 LING ZHANG 2020 Foreshadowing the Future of Capitalism: Surveillance Technology and Digital Realism in Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes (2017) to market, orthevoyeuristic predator is something done down activity inwhich surveillance of apurely unidirectional ortop- that canbediscussedinthemode Surveillance isnolonger something are livingin “post-panoptic” times. decentralized—in other words, we is more diverse, discursive, and surveillance incontemporary society that the dynamicinterplay of media studies scholars acknowledge 2015, 13). However, surveillance and to digitaltraces andmetadata” (Parks 2019), as “human existence isreduced recent attention andcritique(Zuboff data surveillance hasdrawn much informational capitalism meansthat Meanwhile, digitaltechnology’s role in 2003, 2006, 2018; McGrath 2004). and self-discipline (Lyon 1994, Foucauldian modelsof panopticism or theunidirectional Bentham- Orwellian dystopian totalitarianism by addressing atop-down modeof of “surveillance” conventionally begin the “AttentionEconomy” in itsnarrative andaesthetics beyond explores thecomplexity of surveillance Xu Binghasexplained why have alsosurfaced. and “omnicon” (Groombridge 2002, 43) such as “polypticon” (Allen 1994, 145) (Mathiesen 1997). Similarneologisms new transparency the “synopticon” watching thefew”—he callsthis with today’s massmediaof many “the model of the “few watching themany” Mathiesen contrasts thepanopticon’s as aresult (Lyon 2006, 15). Thomas of power relations are foregrounded home webcams; thecomplexities by new digitaltechnologies, especially Panoptic ideashave beendestabilized [and] anywhere” (Koskela 2003, 299). “anybody may watch anybody, anytime, victim (Zimmer2015, 73). Instead, thecitizen, theconsumer, orthe It isinthisevolving framework that Academic andpopulardiscussions I.“Post-Panoptic” Surveillance and by thestate, the Dragonfly

to improve theirlives. The world of live-streaming technologies, hoping with theworld through newly available people seekto establish connections of “surveillance” are alsoshifting. Many agents (Xu 2019, 130). The connotations private entities—not governmental to publicly accessible databases by footage usedin individuals. At least 99percent of the are controlled by corporations and since most surveillance apparatuses intricacy of contemporary situations already incapable of unravelling the understanding of surveillance as he considers theusualOrwellian its citizens (Xu 2019, 130). However, of a regime”“totalitarian imposedon terms of top-down politicalcontrol usually asked aboutsurveillance in when interviewed intheWest, heis simplistic binaries. Xu recounts that trends andvalues, especially metaphoric sense, shaperepressive and cultural surveillance that, ina governmental andcommercial; 2)social surveillance inpublicspaces, both forms of surveillance as: 1)institutional It insightfully juxtaposesdisparate socialist-turned-capitalist socialworld. of rampant consumerisminanunruly, film highlights thedystopian effects in contemporary Chinaandbeyond. The popular cultural andmediaphenomena Dragonfly on thesenew meansof surveillance, (McKay 2013, 336–37). Reflecting modes of representation andexhibition perception andobservation create new throughartists which new modesof appealing tool andplatform for visual McKay argues, by presenting an of seeingandbeingseen, asCarolyn surveillance canalsooffer anew way seendyad.the seeing/being However, technology produces adissociation of surveillance gaze mediated by gaze isusually reciprocal, yet the larger andricher realm. “surveillance” hasexpanded to amuch A corporeal andsocially acceptable touches onsignificant Dragonfly DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.05 was uploaded 66 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 LING ZHANG 2020 Foreshadowing the Future of Capitalism: Surveillance Technology and Digital Realism in Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes (2017) aesthetic ischaracterized by boredom, of cameras into onceprivate spaces, its surveillance represents theinsinuation model of “intimate alienation.” Although Burris argues, surveillance isa visual shockingly violent events. As Jennifer coexist withabrupt, dramatic, andeven repetitive, andmundanedaily activities present aworld inwhich tedious, (Zimmer 2015, 1), surveillance cameras their dispassionate, “unblinking gaze” surveillance cameras never blink. With second. Unlike dragonflies, however, eyes which blink40,000 timesper in thefilm, adragonfly has28,000 of surveillance cameras; asnoted metaphor for themultifaceted “eyes” experience, butalsofunctions asa Qingting/Dragonfly’s perspective and only invokes thefemale protagonist The film’s title “dragonfly eyes” not number isover 245millionglobally. installed for securitypurposes; the surveillance cameras have been In China, anestimated 200million omniscient, especially inurbanspaces. streaming andother socialmedia. and 3)self-surveillance through live- discourses around gender andage; socialist periodhad beenweakened. As and governmental policies of the the more progressive gender discourses of women incontemporary China, after the female bodyandretrograde status is intensified by theobjectificationof trend intensifies and at thesametime both afad andaninvestment. Dragonfly obsession withbeauty andyouth, commercialized popular-cultural surveillance.” Responding to thehyper- of profit-making through “self- which into canbeturned ameans the impassive yet alienating gaze of of surveillance (Zimmer2015, 75), visibility isintegral to thepolitics capitalism, thecommodification of (Burris 2011, 152). ambiguity, andalack of expression In neoliberal, global-technological Surveillance isomnipresent and figures plastic surgery as 10 The The performativity, andsexuality. Therefore, gender discourse, sellingtheir looks, male-chauvinist heterosexual desirable commodities inadominant streamers becomeattractive and fetishizes youth andglamor. Live- medial tool of self-surveillance that facilitated by “live-streaming,” anew capital, ameansof profit-generation “improved” appearance becomes invests inplastic surgery, andher or change your appearance.” She need to change your way of thinking, finally convinces herself: “You either because of her “plain looks,” Qingting discrimination anddisempowerment Thus, in their valueto mere “appearance.” social andcultural surveillance reduces the capitalist-patriarchal system, and regarded aspotential sexual objects in suggested in and self-esteem depend upontheir followersvirtual whose “social value” the hedonistic desires of mostly male who live-stream potentially channel (Albuquerque 2018, 30). constant exposure of everyday life of cameras, thereby accepting the appear to welcome thepresence increasingly internalized; people that surveillance practices are streaming bearwitnessto thefact webcam-generated videoandlive- witnessed andtold by him. Ke Fan’s, asherstory anddeath are person yet omniscientperspective to as thenarration shiftsfrom herfirst- compromised inthemiddle of thefilm Qingting/Xiaoxiao’s agency is do” (Grbich 2018, 36). Nevertheless, cameras seetoo much, butthat women one criticnotes, itis “not that security vision, agency, andsubjectivity? As “Dragonfly Eyes” suggest Qingting’s 2013, 32). However, doesthefilm’s title marketing agents (Bauman andLyon promote commodities they are simultaneously As Paula Albuquerque argues, Dragonfly , themerchandise andtheir Dragonfly and DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.05 the commoditiesthey , suffering from , women are only 11 promoters of Youngwomen 67 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 LING ZHANG 2020 Foreshadowing the Future of Capitalism: Surveillance Technology and Digital Realism in Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes (2017) reality by developing a is essentialto effect asplitinprimary this transfiguration of everyday life; it Paul Virilio’s view, of thewebcam ispart just asdigitalrealism canbeunreal. In “virtual” andthe “real” are intertwined, warned us(Baudrillard 2002, 482). The self-adoration, as Jean Baudrillard has caught inaviciouscircle of aimless self-absorption inasociety of loners of beingconsumedby unproductive demonstrate thedangers of narcissism, technology. New forms of self-exposure consumer capitalist exploitation of standardized, andoverdetermined by (Abbinnett 2018, 5). Desire iscreated, aesthetic faculties of each individual” take control of thereflective and begins inwhich culture industries of techno-psychical manipulation desire of humanbeings, anew epoch “media technologies …reoriented the divisions. Ross Abbinnett argues that as reinforces andreproduces social and alienated within asystem that 34), consumers are alsodehumanized commodities” (Bauman andLyon 2013, consumers are themselves consumer since “members of thesociety of “purchasing power.” At thesametime, self-staging andself-stylization, which becoming “an increasing practice of the frame of aggressive capitalism, Cyber-visuality aprofit turns within Peters andSeier2009; Wise2002, 430). and goal (Goldhaber 1997; Beller 2006; and stardom becomethecurrency “attention economy” in which attention 2000, 1). Ithasalsobeendefined as an that preceded it(Hutton andGiddens principles from theindustrial economy it operates according to different as pleasure-producing entertainment, has called a “weightless economy;” digital era, onethat Anthony Giddens 2000, 15). of mediatrans-appearance (Virilio on theother hand, reality of thevirtual reality made upontheonehandof the Self-exposure isaneconomyinthe of immediate appearances and, stereo-reality actual actual , privacy. In thecaseof Xiaoxiao, work complication, andredefinition of mediated intimacy to theinvasion, commodification of technologically- (Lyon 2013, 19). “friends” aswell ascasual “users” celebrated andconsumed by countless 189). The private ispublic, to be mediation (Peters and Seier2009, and private life are now subject to intimacies of personal life. Work technological capitalisminto the practice records theentryof global and privacy are for sale; the ensure maximumprofits. corporations andagents eager to are easily manipulated by commercial are vulnerable to exploitation asthey environment.live-streamers These in thedigitalidol-making media searching for fame andfortune showrooms,their talents invirtual features live-streamers showcasing the live-streaming industry and Republic of Desire live-streaming alsocommercializes a neoliberal self-marketing tool. Yet creative andeconomicresource and live-streamers usetheself asa In to local economies(cf. Xu 2017a). has madesignificantcontributions become internet celebrities and textbooks teaching people how to for instance, to training centers and sector inChinathat hasgiven birth, become afast-expanding economic (Lyon 2018, 70–71). Live-streaming has corporate structures of technology and surveillance ismediated by the personal performance, celebrity, and desire, andthelinkbetween seen becomesamatter of privilege exposure through socialmedia, being Seier 2009, 188). Inaworld of self- of digital massculture” (Peters and isconsideredin turn atrademark Hao Wu’s documentary their interactions. Chinesefilmmaker and dehumanizes young people and Dragonfly In live-streaming, intimacy , Xiaoxiao/Qingting and Dragonfly DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.05 (2018)captures People’s links the comparative cinema comparative

Fig. 1: Dragonfly Eyes (Xu Bing, 2017). Courtesy of Xu Bing studio.

68 (2017)

Dragonfly Eyes Dragonfly

Fig. 2: Dragonfly Eyes (Xu Bing, 2017). Courtesy of Xu Bing studio. Article LING ZHANG Technology Surveillance Capitalism: of the Future Foreshadowing Bing’s Xu in and Digital Realism 2020 No. 14 No. Vol. VIII Vol. DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.05 69 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 LING ZHANG 2020 Foreshadowing the Future of Capitalism: Surveillance Technology and Digital Realism in Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes (2017) him. Heisjust another customer, one (as Qingting)orhertrue emotions to but shenever reveals heridentity money from Ke Fan over theinternet, coquettishly withand flirts extracts Dragonfly the general public. For instance, in (and true identityinsomecases)from need to protect theiremotional privacy most of theirlives onscreen, they may severe. Although live-streamers expose has becomemore disguised andmore Capitalist exploitation inthedigital age labor (Andrejevic 2004; Wise2002, 430). time andactivity are transformed into work spaces inwhich one’s leisure include leisure spaces that become floor), thenew digitalenclosures (for instance, fields andthe factory always worked by meansof enclosures enclosures.” While capitalismhas such live-streaming spacesas “digital followers. point to attract voyeuristic (male) “work.” Exposure becomesaselling as abedroom, andthisbecomesher webcam inanintimate setting such She displays herself infront of the and private life seemingly converge. class young people lacking social, that itis” (Lyon 2018, 24). For lower- the meaningful cultural phenomenon and thisshould beappreciated for empowering andplayful for some, “surveillance isclearly enjoyable, of itsusers. AsDavid Lyon claims, rather thandelimitsthevisibility understood asapractice that expands represents thereal andeven theideal. for herenchanted followers she suggest astrong senseof artificiality, While Xiaoxiao’s performativity might performativity (Abbinnett 2018, 7–8). constant, technologically-enhanced where humanlife isdistinguished by regime of performative capitalism, characters are locked inaneoliberal camouflaged cyber-personality. The who would potentially pay for her Live-streaming canalsobe Mark Andrejevic conceptualizes , Xiaoxiao professionally and daily lives, explain their unfortunate “abnormality.” They live-stream their therefore likely to beexoticized for their online celebrities—but they are also of surgically-modified glamorous appear undesirable—the opposite commercial media. At times, they may in publicspheres andmainstream worker, andwhoare almost invisible with disabilitiesandafemale migrant marginalized people, such asmen features five subjects whoare mostly footage available online. The film edited from 800hours of live-streaming mei xianzaishi, documentary” is exemplified by theChinese “desktop technology andmedia. This potential “attention economy” facilitated by new mobility andmaterial abundanceinan provides for opportunities social Qingting/Xiaoxiao, live-streaming financial, andcultural capitallike routines such aseating, working, celebrities,” they live-stream mundane ofthe spectacular artificiality “web atmosphere, andinsharpcontrast with stratification. Ina relaxed andintimate divide, massmigration, andsocial social issuessuch astheurban-rural Their experiences epitomize Chinese migrant workers livinginanother city. villages orsmalltowns, andsomeare Most of thesubjects are from rural specificities of contemporary China. the cultural, social, andhistorical the globe, butalsoreveals someof self-surveillance mediaaround of thewidespread embrace of capitalist Present Perfect Bilibili, Xigua as platforms popularthrough China(such individual users of live-streaming among numerous spontaneous, fortunate oneswhoget attention organizations; they are thefew and manipulated by any corporate their followers withoutbeingpromoted situations, andcommunicate with Douyu, Douyin, Kuaishou, Huya, The popularityof thesubjects of , amongothers). Present Perfect is not only symptomatic Zhu Shengze, 2019), DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.05 12 ( Wan Wan 70 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 LING ZHANG 2020 Foreshadowing the Future of Capitalism: Surveillance Technology and Digital Realism in Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes (2017) live-streaming expands theirsocial inhospitable world. For such persons, foothold inanadmittedly alienand striking. It allows people to claima and renders theignored present, even streaming makes theinvisible visible Lyon 2013, 26, 110). Inthissense, live- “meaningful” existence (Bauman and social recognition andproof of avalued, of enhancedvisibilitychimes with underrepresented groups, thepromise the joy of beingnoticed. For certain of disclosure hasbeeneclipsedby and asthiscasebears out, thefear city. As Zygmunt Bauman hasshown and later findsa factory jobinanother which he has isolated himself for years followers, hevisitspublicspacesfrom live-streamer andhisown cyber being encouraged by another disabled enduring senseof humiliation; after of being bulliedinchildhood andhis man finally overcomes thetrauma In based incuriosityoreven voyeurism. some of theirfollowers’ interest may be and mutual understanding, even though streamers seekemotional connections online communities, theselive- walking, andchatting. By establishing on thewall. For Marx, surveillance was suddenly appears onabigtelescreen be sharply rebuked by thebosswho in therestroom of thefactory, only to (1936), whenCharlietakes outacigar Charlie Chaplin’s film insight isvividly demonstrated in force inindustrial capitalism. Marx’s compliance asadisciplinedlabor factory workers to ensure their Marx’s argument aboutmonitoring where Qingtingfirst works recalls Karl used inthecattle farmin structures. The surveillance technology persist withinourchanging economic capitalism, older forms of surveillance with postindustrial, neoliberal global surveillance are deeply entwined of subjectivity andself-empowerment. boundaries andenhancestheirsense Present Perfect While thesemodesof self- , adisabled young Modern Times Modern Times Dragonfly

food inthefactory every day (although names, andboth eat thestandardized cows are called by numbers rather than capitalism alike, asboth workers and in industrial andpost-industrial standardization andimpersonalization surveillance alsosuggests theforces of by physical distance. Electronic from another country, unconfined workers andcowsphone viahissmart manager canremotely scrutinize advanced. AsKe Fan explains, the that of thefactory butismuch more employed to monitor workers mirrors Dragonfly by, new forms of capitalism. In coexist within, andare even magnified technologies of industrial capitalism (Lyon 1994, 25). The temporalities and and maximize technical efficiency maintain control onbehalf of capital labor andcapital; itspurposewas to located withinthestruggles between be soreal that itbecomesunreal. technologically-mediated reality can the deeply haunting strangeness of of digitalimages. Asthefilmshows, on andre-understanding of thenature commentary, the Unreal subject of thenext section. digital realism? These issueswillbethe temporality, cinematic ontology, and of surveillance footage inrelation to understand thetension andcomplexity (Wise 2004, 428). How should we and spatial dimensionsare lost” “unrealness,” because “many sensory feeling mediation ofor artificial and silent imagery alsocreates a resolution, sometimes monochrome instantaneity; however, thelow- of simultaneity, “telepresence,” and sense of “realness” dueto theillusion standardized surveillance convey a the cows get greater variety). Beyond itsengagement insocial II.Digital Realism: The Ultra-real and In Dragonfly , thesurveillance technology Dragonfly , such scenesof DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.05 isareflection 71 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 LING ZHANG 2020 Foreshadowing the Future of Capitalism: Surveillance Technology and Digital Realism in Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes (2017) formal devices orthematic components and creates therealistic effect with imagery restores thetexture of reality realistic attitude, aslong asdigital not necessarily imply theendof a end of the “photographic era” does to digital, we may assumethat the argues that inmoving from analog 38). Francesco Casetti, for example, image-based media(Hassan2017, rather ontological, questions about again foregrounded fundamental, or digital technologies that have once place against thedevelopment of including Bazin’s hasitself taken revaluation of classicalfilmtheory (Bazin 2005). Sincethelate 1990s, the the nature of image reproduction angle but doesnot artificially change the operator may select thecamera intervention such asapainter’s hand; reproduction devoid of direct human image is anautomatic mechanical ontologically more realistic sincethe painting, photography andcinemaare to traditional visualforms such as Bazin. Bazinargues that, incomparison to to turn theFrench filmcriticAndré photographic realism, itisnecessary When itcomesto theontology of “[p]aradoxically thesurveillance range. AsPaola Baretto Leblanc argues, maximum information withintheir visual spectrum inorder to collect the cover thelargest possible spatial and high angles andlong shots; andthey they are almost always static, with angles, positions, andframings; than aesthetic ones: they have fixed are usedfor practical purposesrather or shot scales. Surveillance cameras cameraman selecting camera angles of kind of ultra-realism, sinceitisdevoid self-generating andautonomous, a cameras might beregarded astotally footage generated by surveillance photochemical-digital transformations) level (ifwe donot emphasize the (Casetti 2011). any Following Bazin, ontheontological humanintervention, even the footage recorded inearlieryears (pre- instance, in development andtransformation. For diverse andsubject to technological fixed entity; rather, such cameras are that a “surveillance camera” isnot a Dragonfly ordinary to bloom” (Leblanc 2009, 108). functions, “allows apoetic of the from itspreventative orrepressive surveillance image, whenremoved Leblanc alsoconsiders that the of photo-aesthetics (cf. Xu 2017b). transcending ourtraditional notions cameras are at oncevividandpeculiar, the images captured by surveillance occurs”abnormal (Leblanc 2009, 104). only hasperceptible valueifsomething associated withdeviation; theimage significant occurs …visibilityhere is camera isthere to assure that nothing observed, inmost fictional films images classical Hollywood cinema. As Xu has created onscreen were both pivotal in reality andtheimpression of real”“the reality” (Gunning2007). The illusion of (Prince 1996)and “an impression of model of cinematic representation” “perceptual,”correspondence-based “a just indexical orontological but 2018, 49). plagued by constant jitters” (Kraicer motion, others jumpy orseemingly heavily pixilated, somewithsmooth sharp, somevery compressed, some images, Kraicer notes that “some [are] heterogeneous. Speakingof thefilm’s visual qualityandtexture of kinds of surveillance footage make the 2019, 131). These distinct phasesand lens usingembedded AItechnology (Xu of tracking andstretching thecamera automatic zooms, which are capable cameras feature night modeand recording. The most recent surveillance higher resolution andeven somesound positions. Later footage isincolor, with in low resolution withfixed camera issilent, black-and-white,2000s) and And yet, Xu Bingrealized that In adigitalage, “realism” isnot draws attention to thefact Dragonfly’ DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.05 s database, the Dragonfly

72 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 LING ZHANG 2020 Foreshadowing the Future of Capitalism: Surveillance Technology and Digital Realism in Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes (2017) temporal duration, accentuating the the smooth reproduction of spaceand staccato andfreeze momentsdisrupt in somesurveillance footage, visual kind of alienation effect. For instance, creates alayer of visible mediation, a imprinted onthesurveillance images) temporalities (suggested by timecodes resolution footage pulled from different real. Furthermore, theassortedlow- unreal precisely because itistoo footage—the hyper-real becomes a fictional narrative from automatic people into actors andconstructed made footage, Xu transformed real an illusionof realism from human- into fictional characters andcreating filmmaking. Instead actorsof turning to effect areversal of conventional Xu and histeam used found footage is complicated in long takes. Andyet thisformulation origins of moving images withtheir might be considered areturn to the In thissense, surveillance footage reproducing reality (Xu and Zhai 2017). with thepurposeof reflecting and moving images were first invented illusion. This was not thecasewhen are manipulated to create arealistic fragmentary shots of people and (Xu 2019, 131). In ultimately emancipated thenarrative generating asenseof alienation that and went intheopposite direction, they neededdistance from realism Later, thecollaborators realized that continuity ineditingdevoid of tension. with typicalcausality innarration and style perceptual illusory “realism” elements worked towards Hollywood- lost itsedge andpower, sinceallthe this madethefilm too smooth. Ithad of classicalfictional cinema, but found the videoaccording to theprinciples team erased thetimecodesandedited experimentation. At first, Xu andhis itself was marked by disruption and surveillance video. texture, materiality, andmediumof The production of Dragonfly Dragonfly Dragonfly , many , for which

the audience’s aural identification of to beconsistent inorder to ensure Qingting’s andKe Fan’s voices had recurring figures or characters, surveillance footage doesnot provide cinema. illusion of realism in mainstream of contemplating andcritiquingthe then, canbeunderstood asamanner of perceptual andcognitive confusion, temporal consistency. The film’s sense the illusionof visualcontinuityand different temporalities andbreaking surveillance images, juxtaposing information embedded initspixelated the varioustimecodesandsource the spatial. Butthefilmalsopreserves temporal; thefinalfilm temporalizes serves to transform thespatial into the together into alinearnarrative that places from allover Chinaare edited Xiaoxiao, yet hervoice does not change identities? Qingtingvisually becomes or insubstance? What are their “true” Fan becomesQingting. Onthesurface Qingting becomes Xiaoxiao, andKe pretext. Through plastic surgery, visual inconsistency withnarrative “plastic surgery” inDragonfly provides the previous section, thethread of symbolic significancediscussedin in addition to thesociopoliticaland miscellaneous surveillance footage; layer of meaningto itsassemblage of in “plastic surgery” adds another reinvented andfluid. The film’s interest identities,and uncertain constantly characters’ unstable appearances tension andvolatility echoes itsmain 2018, 32). The film’s audiovisual these singular protagonists” (Grbich disparate locations are written into are blurred asinvoluntary actors in for which “individual differences main fictional characters in in surveillance footage becomethetwo Different real menandwomen captured inconsistency andaural consistency. energetic audiovisual tension: visual the characters. Herein liesthefilm’s According to Xu Bing, since the DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.05 Dragonfly , 73 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 LING ZHANG 2020 Foreshadowing the Future of Capitalism: Surveillance Technology and Digital Realism in Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes (2017) creates asenseof anonymity, albeit alterations. “Plastic surgery,” that is, eyes are defeated by such physical Both humaneyes andsurveillance do surveillance cameras have?” we can’t tell themapart, what chance after herdisappearance, remarks: “if faces inhisefforts to trace Xiaoxiao images of young women withidentical Dragonfly and surveillance eyes are defeated. In identity documents. Both humaneyes their faces nolonger match their surgery look too much alike orbecause because young women after plastic identification” challenging, either makes theimplementation of “facial on amassive scale, plastic surgery other algorithm-based tracking tools uses facial recognition software and although surveillance technology her own facial being bothered by thechange of surgery” herself without, however, she later goes through “plastic her into thesecularworld, where spiritual equilibriumandcatapults temple disturbs thenunQingting’s This violent “plastic surgery” of the tree andthe the destruction of anancientgingko “renovating” thetemple leads to businessman’s investment in beginning of surveillance technology. Inthe appearance” that can “defy” even a “beautification” of “look/surface/ capitalism—is completed through commercialization incontemporary conforming to thetrends of transformation of one’s identity— as after “plastic surgery.” Andthe indistinct life asmuch invirtual identity becomesmalleable and another person.” but your voice andtone are thoseof him/her: “your look hasn’t changed, monastery where anolder nuntells becomes Qingtingandreturns to the and isrecognized by Ke Fan; Ke Fan As thefilmhighlights, human , apoliceofficer faced with fengshui Dragonfly fengshui of thetemple. , arich . Ironically, made” (Xu 2017a). The sounddesigner of themost ‘soundtracked’ films ever dubbed—as Xu claims, “it may beone dialogue in during postproduction inthestudio. All soundscape was entirely achieved narrative andcreating acredible silent surveillance footage into a standard fictional films. Reconstructing and ambientsounds)here differ from Sound design(includingdialogue relatively convincing characters. a consistent fictional narrative with sound designare vitalto construct these fractures. Voice dubbing and however, soundssuture andanchor fragmentary andvisually disorienting; presences inmaterial reality. traces randomly created by physical deliberate assemblage of visual Qingting to Ke Fan, whogets released later,” the perspective switches from with atitle announcing years“three computer hub. Inthemiddle of thefilm, the omniscientperspective of the Xiaoxiao’s disappearance aswell as and thepolicewhoinvestigate perspectivepartial of thecharacters within thenarration, includingthe multiple mediations that occur perspectives andaddress the voice layers alsosuggest complicated 2018). Aswiththefilm’s editing, the in order to inspire each other (cf. Li and editor constantly communicated making thefilm. Thesounddesigner were intertwinedintheprocess of look.” distance resonant withits “surveillance very qualityagaincreates analienating been criticized asamateurish, this spaces. Although thevoice acting has and volume across different acoustic characters, andto adjust thetexture actors’ tone, pitch, andtimbre to their narrative function, to sync thevoice to construct dialogues to ensure their Li Danfeng recounts theteam’s efforts unintentionally, echoed by Dragonfly Moreover, sounddesignandediting Dragonfly isintentionally DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.05 was written and Dragonfly ’s ’s 74 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 LING ZHANG 2020 Foreshadowing the Future of Capitalism: Surveillance Technology and Digital Realism in Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes (2017) the “unrealness” andabsurdity of human-made catastrophes emphasize instance, contingent natural and spectacle” (Hillier 1996, 102). For everyday“turn[s] life into atheatrical series shocking montage sequences, the film’s narrative functions or,a in about to happen. Action eitherserves always something happening or depict aworld inwhich there is election andassemblage practices of surveillance footage, thefilm’s In contrast to theordinary emptiness editing—are dexterously employed. editing, continuityediting, andparallel in fictional films—such asanalytical editing techniques commonly used after theeditingprocess. In footage only gainsnew meanings (Shaviro 2003, 36). Surveillance which nothing whatsoever happens” it registers vast stretches of timein the emptiest expanses of space, and surveillance …watches over even Steven Shaviro’s words, “video repetitive, andmonotonous. In Surveillance footage canbeformulaic, and occasionally flamboyant. the film’s editingismore pronounced and realistic sounddesignin juxtaposition andtension. computerized voice are at oncein sense of the “unreal” evoked by the by amateurish voice acting andthe acoustic “authenticity”suggested surveillance metaphor. The senseof half-AI, manifestly artificial, anobvious This voice soundshalf-human and activities andnatural environments. robotized voiceover analyzing human pushed. We alsohearanomniscient Xiaoxiao jumpedfrom abridge orwas they attempt to figure outwhether shots, andfreeze specificimages as forward andrewind, zoom inoncertain in front of acomputer screen. They fast examining other surveillance footage officers inthesurveillance footage Qingting. We see(andhear)afew police from looking prisonandstarts for In comparisonto theunderstated Dragonfly Dragonfly 13 13 , , horrors such asfatal accidents, car 49) of sensationalist violence and plotless montages” (Kraicer 2018, trivial (Xu 2019, 133). and intimacy seemboth fragile and corrupt world, romantic love, privacy, characters’ sentiments; inachaotic and and Ke Fan andact asafoil to the on thelove story between Qingting the plot, thedisaster collages comment world. Although not directly related to proving that we live inanunpredictable beyond ourcontrol andimagination, happens, thefootage isinstantly scary oreerie; oncesomething footage issoquiet that itbecomes According to Xu Bing, most surveillance can explode inthenext second. suspenseful, sinceunexpected disaster the most mundanefootage could look reality. Undersuch circumstances, violating itsnature. “The representation and cannot berepresented without purest form. Itmust beexperienced time, thequalitative instant inits way theabsolute negative of objective like thesexual act, death isinits own Afternoon,” inwhich Bazinargues that of André Bazin’s essay, “Death Every (McKay 2013, 334). This isreminiscent lives of strangers for creative pursuits” tensions of appropriating thesurveilled nonfiction footage, that is,“the ethical questions of ethics andexploitation in 2018, 78). The choice foregrounds dispassionate, for itisreal” (Frazier footage isashorrific asitisbanaland life. Asonecritic pointsout, “this that hadjust swallowed ahuman result: theserene surface of thecanal temporality by fast-forwarding to the of herstruggle, thefilmmanipulates surveillance camera. Towards theend under theindifferent gaze of the process of herdeath inreal duration drowns. We witnessthewhole silent which agirlfalls into acanaland Dragonfly a viscerally unsettling real death. crashes, andexplosions even includes The display of “more ‘pure,’display The openswithalong take in DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.05 75 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 LING ZHANG 2020 Foreshadowing the Future of Capitalism: Surveillance Technology and Digital Realism in Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes (2017) possibilities of new life. Dragonfly stages aclaimaboutthe and re-editing of surveillance footage, past, ormyown future?” Withitsre-sue at thefilm’s end: “WillIhave Qingting’s (Lingenfelter 2018). AsKe contemplates between andKe Qingting/Xiaoxiao Fan film andembodied by the relationship death andrebirth—are central to the exist inanendless cycle of life and themes—the ideathat humanbeings notes that Buddhist concepts and (Kraicer 2018, 49). Andrea Lingenfelter and gives itanovel destabilizing power film sodisquieting anddisorienting, generating mechanism that makes the questioning; itisthisambivalence- activate andimplicate ourethical self- of such sequencesallows themto Kraicer’s view, thecontextualization Dragonfly as thegirldiesonscreen every time sequence ismagnified by its repetition, ontological obscenity” (Bazin2003, 30). much for itsobjective horror asfor its twice …[Itis]anintolerable sight not so a metaphysical one. We donot die obscenity, nolonger amoral one, rather of areal death,” Bazinobserves, “is an Surveillance in sounds, and voiceover narration. dubbed dialogues, fabricated ambient the film’s reliance onscripted and silent surveillance footage, asdoes its assemblage of dispersed and story in and future. The highly metaphorical informational capitalism’s present unreal technological mediations of questions abouttheultra-real and new meanings, thefilm raises blocks andsoundtrack to enhance of such footage while utilizingshot discursive sociopoliticalconnotations of varioustypes. Attending to the and transforms surveillance footage Dragonfly Conclusion The ethical issueof thisopening Dragonfly isshown. However, inShelly edits, aestheticizes, Dragonfly holds together isnot just contemporary developments indigital one which isonly possible with practiced anew modelof “filmmaking,” shooting process, Xu andhisteam have actors, acinematographer, studio, or surveillance. the footage, yet another layer of by GPSinformation appearing on forpermissions image rights, facilitated appearing inthefilm to obtain their and contact most of the real people crew was alsoable to track, identify, impermanent” (Rayns 2018, 19). The and discourse “reality”is “illusory Buddhist samsara, withinwhose imbued withanold form of religiosity: of nihilism andsensorialindulgence that anticipates adystopian vision and distraction-inducing technology manipulation, butalsoaprofit-making a top-down instrument of political community of spectators of different places inChinato aglobal gaze” of surveillance footage from Dragonfly (Xu 2017d). Andthedistribution of so-called “boundaries of reality” inspires anew understanding of the filmset.an enormous Thispractice to allof China, which became inturn footage, hisstudio was connected collected anddownloaded surveillance computers in Xu’s studio incessantly large numberof workers. As thetwenty the needfor “raw materials” orhiringa consumers, andcommodities, without a platform to connect laborforces, computational to support provide and soon)(cf. Xu 2017c)that use capitalism (Uber, Airbnb, Postmates, business modelsintechnological recent so-called “sharing economy” Xu links thisfilmmakingmethod with are allourcameramen” (Xu 2017c). “surveillance cameras allover China human agency in image was madeormanipulated by databases. As Xu notes, nosingle availability of surveillance footage technology andmedia, that is, the Making afictional filmwithout furtherconnects the “local 14 DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.05 Dragonfly —instead, Dragonfly

76 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 LING ZHANG 2020 Foreshadowing the Future of Capitalism: Surveillance Technology and Digital Realism in Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes (2017) phenomena have beenrecorded even supernatural andunexplainable time andspace. In Xu’s words: “these and even project the “truth” to afuture timesandplaces,happens incertain magnetic fields canpreserve what magnetic recording” in thefilmthat a mystical cosmicconcept of “geo- in theaudiovisual archive. There is past were preserved only orprimarily could alter ourview of history ifthe consider that surveillance images (Lyon 2006, 14). future isitself seeninsimulated forms” the present, that counts. Yet that occurs, itisitsrole inthefuture, not images intheinstantcertain theevent While the surveillance camera captures paradoxical unreality of ‘real time.’ presence isdownplayed inthe Lyon, “in thepresent, ironically, under capitalism. According to David contours of thesocialimagination for thefuture. They suggest the (McCahill 1998, 41). both spatial andtemporal barriers” surveillance seemsto “transcend and international film festivals. Thus galleries,in art andfilmtheaters, Surveillance images are intended comments onearlierdrafts. Iamalsograteful to Angela Xiao Wu, MarkWilliams, Chen, LuoGang, HannahBrooks-Motl, andIngridBecker have provided insightful reviewers for theirinspiringsuggestions. Stephanie Su, Jin Xu, EricaStein, Po-hsi Anne Peters, Elduque andAlbert for theirpatience andsupport, andtwo anonymous The author wishesto thanktheeditors CamilUngureanu, SoniaArribas, Rebecca Acknowledgements (Deborah Stratman, 2002, 33min), For instance,2/ Surveillance Capitalism manipulation. SeeLyon’s results intherequisition of personal privacy, racial discrimination, andcommercial their knowledge, for purposessuch assecurityandmarketing. Data-surveillance collection, analysis, andcategorization of data from citizens, mostly without 1/ This isdistinct from “data-surveillance,” which designates thesystematic in preparing for thisarticle. Hongfeng, BelindaQianHe, andDaMengnaof Xu Bingstudio for theirgenerous help Pao-chen Tang, Michelle Stewart, Noelle Griffis, Yomi Braester, Renren Yang, Tang Dragonfly Der Riese beginsto (2019). The ElectronicEye (Michael Klier, 1984, 82min), Faceless increased circulation of surveillance would theoverproduction and surveillance gadgets andstrategies, (Gates 2017, 188). Withmore advanced from present actions andconditions possible outcomes that could result prepare, andcontrol for therange of purpose of surveillance isto foresee, determinist tendencies. The primary inflected with technologically and controlling thefuture, ideas encompasses ideasaboutpredicting present.” of “the sense “Surveillance” is viewed, there isalways astrong the past; whensurveillance footage (if preserved) becomes anarchive for in thefuture, yet surveillance footage to prevent something from happening (Xu 2017d) Ifsurveillance isinstalled deleted andoverlaid by new ones)!” generations (theseare automatically could preserve theseimages to future by surveillance cameras, only ifwe and bleak, expressive andcorrupt. future of capitalism, both invigorating the precarious potentials of thedigital Dragonfly intimacy? Asahighly reflexive film, audiovisual future andhyper-mediated images suggest ahyper-surveillant (ManuLuksch, 2007, 50min), (1994)and Zuboff’s epitomizes andembodies In Order Not to Be Here In OrderNotto Be DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.05 The Age of We Live

77 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 LING ZHANG 2020 Foreshadowing the Future of Capitalism: Surveillance Technology and Digital Realism in Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes (2017) science fiction film Others include 4/ large numbers of observation cameras andCCTV securitysystems found inSeoul.” The beginningcredits3/ state: images usedinthisfilm were captured“the by the 67 min). (Michael Palm, 2011, 95min), and in Public Phoenix its politicalconnotations, see Junjie Jiang’s “The Doubleness of Sight/Site: Xu Bing’s New York Cityfor oneyear in2014. For amore deliberate discussionof thiswork and also exhibited intheCathedral Church of St. Heights,John theDivineinMorningside information, see: mid-air insideMASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museumof Contemporary Art). For more internally illuminated birds premiered outsideChinawhenthey were suspended Museum inBeijing, andthenat theShanghaiWorld Expoin2010. InApril2013, the idea of rebirth. The installations were exhibited briefly outdoors at the Today Art in theWest andinChinathemotif of andmythology thephoenixcorrespond to the labor, history, capital, andcommercial development incontemporary China. Both laborers. The mystical birds bearwitnessto thecomplex interconnection between demolition debris, steel beams, tools, andremnants of thedaily lives of migrant entirely from materials salvaged from construction sites in urbanChina, including approximately onehundred feet long andtogether weigh twelve tons) fabricated Phoenix 8/ Xu BingandChineseconstruction workers created the installation work details/188?classID=12&type=class 7/ For more information aboutthisproject, see: a story.” collected ahuge amount of footage andtriedto usethese fragments of reality to tell surveillance recordings have beenstreamed online. SoItook uptheproject again. I surveillance cameras inChinahave beenlinked to thecloud database: countless footage since2013, butIhadnoaccessto thenecessaryresources. Since2015, film features Xu Bing’s statement: “Ihave wanted to make afilm from surveillance outside of mainlandChina, for instance, from Taiwan, Afghanistan, andSpain. The According to thecredits6/ at theendof thefilm, some footage was captured Reassemblage of ChineseUrbanSpace” (2016). footage. For more information, seeBraester’s “The CityasFound Footage: The China composedof both surveillance footage andstaged shots imitating surveillance channel videowork aboutdaily violence andmoral degeneration incontemporary amateur videographers inGuangzhou, and Huang Weikai, 2009, 58min), adocumentary constructed from footage madeby InaChinesecontext,5/ similarworks include eventually exploring new businessmodels such ase-commerce. 17% of allpeople video gaming andexpanded to live-streamers chatting with viewers, singing, and later itdeveloped into amore centralized industry monopoly. Itstarted with in 2015and2016, duringwhich more than700live streaming platforms appeared; January 13, 2020]. Live-streaming inChinaandexploded sprouted intheearly 2000s see: For alist ranking12/ themost popular Chinese live-streaming platforms in2019, discreet camera-eyes” (Yang 2017, 263). nevertheless have developed ahabitualinsensitivity to the existence of those overawe criminalsandpreempt possible crimes, thepublicinaviewer society 11/ InChina, asRenren Yang argues, “although thesecuritycamera intends to Itisalsoapractical storytelling10/ device onwhich Iwill expand inthenext section. 9/ Emphasized by Xu Bingin aninterview (cf. Lee 2018). http://www.enet.com.cn/article/2019/0716/A20190716948154.html asanIntended Public Project” Art (2018). from 2007to 2010. Itfeatures two monumentalphoenixes (each measures (Ondi Timoner, 2009, 91min), https://massmoca.org/event/xu-bing-phoenix/ The Truman Show The Truman The RunningMan The Road Movie (Paul Michael Glasser, 1987), andsoforth. (Peter Weir, 1998), [accessed January 15, 2020]. Low Definition Control—Malfunctions#0 Whose Eyes Disorder http://www.xubing.com/en/work/ ( Doroga (Tan Tan, 2011, 15min), afour- EDtv ( Xianshi shiguoqudeweilai, , DmitriiKalashnikov, 2016, DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.05 (Ron Howard, 1999), the The Phoenixes were [accessed

78 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 LING ZHANG 2020 Foreshadowing the Future of Capitalism: Surveillance Technology and Digital Realism in Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes (2017) Surveillance.” In Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Columbia University Press. and Media Chinese UrbanSpace.” InG the Societyof theSpectacle edited andtranslated by HughGray, 9–16. Berkeley: University of California Press. Press. Corporeal Cinema, Cambridge: Polity. and Ursula Frohne. Cambridge: MIT Press. Brother Surveillance toBig fromBentham and Nick Couldry, 109–24. New York: Routledge. Media/Space: Place, Scale, and CultureinaMediaAge Pluto Press. Australia, and thePolitics of Spirit. Bibliography at at we haven’t beenable to reach. Ifyou should beany of them, please kindly contact us rights of most people whoappear inthisfilm. However, there are still a few people There14/ isastatement intheendof thefilmassuch: “we have obtained theimage to Xu.Jia Zhangke’s Yoshihiro Hannowhoworked on The professional13/ French editor Matthieu Laclau and Japanese composer (2019). information, seeSiyiChen’s “Is This Real Life: The Live Streaming Craze Explained” orevenportion social ladder withtheircollective power. Somefactory workers spendaconsiderable working-class viewers, to make thembelieve that they brought oneof fight for attention and to induceenvy from other viewers. Itisa fantasy sold to the “tips,” andsometimes tipping orgiftingbecomesacompetition to flaunt wealth, to in Chinahave watched alive-streaming video. Live-streamers make money from [email protected] Bauman, Zygmunt andDavid Lyon. 2013. Baudrillard, Jean. 2002. “Telemorphosis.” In Andrejevic, Mark. 2004. “The webcam subculture andthedigitalenclosure.” In Allen, M. 1994. “‘See You intheCity!’ Perth’s CitiplaceandtheSpaceof Albuquerque, Paula. 2018. T Abbinnett, Ross. 2018. Braester, Yomi. 2016. “The CityasFound Footage: The Reassemblage of Beller, Jonathan.2006. Bazin, André. 2003. “Death Every Afternoon.” In edited by Katherine GibsonandSophieWatson, 137–47. Leichhardt: Mountains MayDepart , edited by Johan Andersson andLawrence Webb, 157–77. New York: 2005. “The Ontology of thePhotographic Image.” In all Metropolis Now: Planningand theUrbaninContemporary of theirsalaryontipping theirfavorite live-streamer. For more edited by Ivone Margulies, 27–31. Durham: Duke University London: Routledge. The Thought of Stiegler:Bernard Capitalism, Technology Cinematic Modeof Production: AttentionEconomy and .” lobal CinematicCities: New Landscapes of Film . Dartmouth: College Dartmouth Press. Dragonfly Eyes he Webcam asanEmergingCinematicMedium. ( Shan heguren , edited by Thomas Levin, Peter Weibel, Liquid Surveillance: AConversation. hadboth worked on Jia , 2015), andwere recommended by Ctr[space]: Rhetorics of Rites of Realism: Essays on , edited by AnnaMcCarthy DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.05 What IsCinema?, them upthe

79 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 LING ZHANG 2020 Foreshadowing the Future of Capitalism: Surveillance Technology and Digital Realism in Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes (2017) [accessed August 1, 2019] 2018. chuanzuo muhou degushi.”shengyin Interview by mofei yinghua, September 5, made-entire-film-out-surveillance-camera www.scmp.com/culture/film-tv/article/2140251/how-chinese-artist-xu-bing- surveillance camera footage.” org/10.24908/ss.v7i2.4137 Network of Live Camera.” Surveillance &Society Intended PublicProject.” Art The New Press. org/10.1111/j.1467-8470.1996.tb00106.x Perth.” doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjx013 Political Perils of Cinematic Realism.” of Reality.” and Society Eyes 2020] March 20th Monday Press. Laurie Ouellette and Jonathan Gray, 186–88. New York: New York University April): 77–78. 13, 2020]. blog/is-this-real-life-the-live-streaming-craze-explained/ Independent Lens Blog Digital.” Haneke’s Li, Danfeng. 2018. “Stories of SoundDesignin Lee, Edmund. 2018. “How Chineseartist Xu Bingmadeanentire filmout of Koskela, Hille. 2003. “‘Cam Era’ –thecontemporary urbanPanopticon.” Jiang, Junjie. 2018. “The Doubleness of Sight/Site: Xu Bing’s Hutton, WillandAnthony Giddens, eds. 2000. Leblanc, Paola Baretto. 2009. “From Closed-circuit Television to theOpen Kraicer, Shelly. 2018. “Dragonfly Eyes.” Chen, Siyi. 2019. “Is This Real Life: The Live streaming Craze Explained.” Casetti, Francesco. 2011. “Sutured Reality: Film, from Photographic to Burris, Jennifer. 2011. “Surveillance andtheIndifferent Gaze inMichael Hillier, Jean. 1996. “The Gaze inthe City: Video Surveillance in Hassan, Feroz. 2017. “Total war, total history, total cinema: André Bazin onthe Gunning, Tom. 2007. “Moving Away from the Index: Cinema and the Impression Groombridge, Nic. 2002. “Crime Control orCrimeCulture TV?” Grbich, Sasha. 2018. “Living anddyingundersurveillance: Xu Bing’s Goldhaber, Michael H. 1997. “The attention economyandtheNet.” Gates, Kelly. 2017. “Surveillance.” In Frazier, David. 2018. “Man, Machine orDragonfly?” .” .” https://www.weibo.com/ttarticle/p/show?id=2309404281001604944809 Artlink Geographical ResearchGeographical October 2, no. 4(April). Caché Differences 1: 30–36. 38, no.3 (September): 32–37. (2005).” 138(Fall): 95–106. https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v1i1.3392 1(3): 292–313. 8(1): 29–52. , February 20, 2019. https://firstmonday.org/article/view/519/440 Studies inFrench Cinema Surveillance &Society

Yishu South ChinaMorningPost 34, no. 1(April): 95–105.

17, no. 2(March/April): 29–45. https://doi.org/10.1162/OCTO_a_00069 https://doi.org/10.1215/10407391-2006-022 https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v1i3.3342 Screen Keywords for MediaStudies

Cinema Scope http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/ [accessedMarch 23, 2020] 58, no. 1(Spring): 38–58. 7 (2): 102–14. Global Capitalism. Dragonfly Eyes 11, no. 2(May): 151–63. Artasiapacific https://doi. , April4, 2018. 73: 48–49. DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.05 [accessed January [accessed January https://doi. Phoenix /qingting zhiyan Surveillance Surveillance , edited by New York: [access: 107(March/ First First https:// https:// Dragonfly Dragonfly as an asan

80 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 LING ZHANG 2020 Foreshadowing the Future of Capitalism: Surveillance Technology and Digital Realism in Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes (2017) bakchormeeboy.com/2017/11/26/artist-spotlight-an-interview-with-xu-bing- Dragonfly Eyes https://doi.org/10.1080/0950238042000201590 Webcams, surveillance andeveryday life.” conference paper. Sublime andFound Footage Aesthetics in 22.2012.663974 Chinese Art.” Society. org/2018/09/10/dragonfly-eyes/ Review of Books: ChinaChannel Film Theory.” Snickars andPatrick Vonderau, 187–203. Aesthetics of theSelf on YouTube.” In fq.2015.68.3.11 Citizenfour.” (3): 334–53. Surveillance Space. Ashgate. edited by Clive Norris, Jade Moran andGaryArmstrong, 41–65. Aldershot: of Surveillance.” In 697001002003 Revisited.” Cambridge: Polity. Cullompton: WilliamPublishing. Discrimination. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lyon, David. 1994. Lingenfelter, Andrea. 2018. “The Epistemology of Surveillance.” Tan, Chang. 2012. “Art for/of theMasses: Revisiting theCommunist Legacy in Shaviro, Steven. 2003. Rayns, Tony. 2018. “Powers of Observation.” Prince, Stephen. 1996. “True Lies: Perceptual Realism, DigitalImages, and Peters, Kathrin andAndrea Seier. 2009. “Home Dance: Mediacy and McKay, Carolyn. 2013. “Covert: as The Artist Voyeur.” McGrath, John Edward. 2004. Mathiesen, Thomas. 1997. “The Viewer Society: Michel Foucault’s Panopticon Xu, Bing. 2017a. “Artist Spotlight: AnInterview with Xu Bing, Director of Wise, J. Macgregor. 2004. “An immenseandunexpected field of action: Virilio, Paul. 2000. Tang, Pao-chen. “Looking Through theCompoundEyes: The Ecological Parks, Lisa. 2015. “Cover Your Webcam: Unencrypting Laura Poitras’s McCahill, Michael. 1998. “Beyond Foucault: Towards aContemporary Theory Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Theoretical Criminology 2018. ed. 2006. ed. 2003. https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v11i3.4504 Film Quarterly Film Quarterly Third Text (SGIFF 2017).”

London: Routledge. The Cultureof Surveillance: Watching asaWayof Life. Surveillance, ClosedCircuit Television and SocialControl, London andNew York: Routledge. Theorizing Surveillance: The Panopticonand Beyond. Surveillance asSocialSorting: Privacy, Risk, and Digital The Information Bomb. The ElectronicEye: The Riseof Surveillance Society. 26, no. 2(March): 177–94. Connected, orWhatItMeanstoLive intheNetwork 68, no. 3(Spring): 11–16. 49, no. 3(Spring): 27–37. Bakchormeeboy , September 10, 2018. [accessedAugust 1, 2019] Loving Brother: Big Performance, Privacy and 1(2): 215–34. The YouTube Reader Dragonfly Eyes Cultural Studies New York:Verso. , November 26, 2017. Sight &Sound https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480 https://doi.org/10.1080/095288

https://doi.org/10.1525/ https://chinachannel. Surveillance &Society DOI: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.05 .” Unpublished , edited by Pelle 18 (2–3): 424–42. , February 2018, 19. Los Angeles Los Angeles https://

11 11 81 Vol. VIII Article comparative cinema No. 14 LING ZHANG 2020 Foreshadowing the Future of Capitalism: Surveillance Technology and Digital Realism in Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes (2017) China Worked for Me.” Interview by August 1, 2019]. features/2017/10/17/dragonfly-eyes-an-interview-with-xu-bing Eyes director-of-dragonfly-eyes-sgiff-2017/ Tang Hongfeng, Li Yang, andDongBingfeng. [accessed August 1, 2019] Interview by Tony Rayns. net/20170816/n951278_1.html Human FutureattheNew Frontierof Power. York University Press. Cinema: Under EasternEyes On theShiftto Prosumer DigitalSurveillance inChina.” In com/a/164254015_758090 All OurCameramen.” Interview. 130–34. Surveillance Video to Film: AConversation about Xu, Bingand Zhai Yongming. 2017. “Surveillance Cameras All Over ChinaAre Zuboff, Shoshana. 2019. Zimmer, Catherine. 2015. Yang, Renren. 2017. “Discreet Camera-Eye, Spectacle, andStranger Sociality: .” .” Musée Magazine, 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.05 Eyes onfly talism: Surveillance Technology andDigitalRealism in Xu Bing’s How to quote 2019. “ 2017d. “Xu BingAnswers Seven Questions aboutDragonfly Eyes.” 2017c. “Xu Bingon 2017b. “Fruits of surveillance: Xu BingInterview about (2017).” 从监控到电影——关于徐冰《蜻蜓之眼》的谈话

Zhang, Ling. 2020. “ October 17, 2017. http://www.xubing.com/en/database/interview/325

Comparative Cinema Comparative [accessedAugust 1, 2019] , edited by Karen Fang, 245–68. London: Routledge. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Flightfor a Surveillance Cinema. Dragonfly Eyes [accessedAugust 1, 2019] Deep Focus Artron [accessed August 1, 2019] https://museemagazine.com/ , August 16, 2017. , August 13, 2017. Foreshadowing theFuture of Capi New York: PublicAffairs. 当代电影 : All Surveillance Cameras in , Vol. VIII, No. 14, p. 62-81. DOI: Dragonfly Eyes New York andLondon: New / Contemporary Cinema O: 10.31009/cc.2020.v8.i14.05 DOI: Surveillance in Asian Surveillance inAsian https://news.artron. https://www.sohu. .” Interview by [accessed [accessed /From Dragonfly Dragonfly Drag 4: 4:

- - Vol. VIII comparative cinema Ekin No. 14 2020 Erkan Schefer, Jean-Louis. 2016. 82-85 The Ordinary Man of Cinema. Translated by Max Cavitch. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e). 224 pp.

Date of reception: 23/09/2019 Date of acceptance: 17/03/2020

Albeit little known in the Anglophone world until recently, readers may have briefly glossed over philosopher and “film poet” Jean- Louis Schefer in Deleuze’s commentary in Cinema 2: The Time- Image. In this book’s second chapter, “Recapitulation of Images and Signs,” Deleuze’s thesis crystallizes: that cinema does not “represent” time but, via Bergsonian durée (or “pure duration,” which is a product of movement), allows us to directly perceive temporal presentation. Following Bergson, Deleuze speaks of affects, which, unlike sensation and emotion, are tied to flux and movement. This thesis, however, was prognosticated by Schefer’s little book on cinema, The Ordinary Man of Cinema (originally published in 1980), in which Schefer similarly speaks of film as an experience of time relayed as perception. As Deleuze corroborates, “Jean-Louis Schefer ... showed that the ordinary cinema-viewer, the man without qualities, found his correlate in the movement-image as extraordinary movement” (1989, 37). The shared conclusion between Schefer and Deleuze is on the “aberration” of movement that is uniquely filmic, prodding cinema into “extraordinary” territories, unbinding temporal restraints and wresting the moving image from its material stasis by engendering a direct presentation of phenomenological time. Schefer emphasizes that cinema is the art of gestures, as it makes manifest the unconsciousness “force of action latent in things” (2016, 29). If affect is Schefer’s unmooring, then gesture is his berth. Schefer’s writing on cinema designates gesture as presymbolic and a well of pure means, whereby taxonomy is displaced in favor of a kind of sublime breach. This is made clear in cinema’s moving images, wherein “[t]he reproduction of gestures” is translated into “the reproduction of movement in images.” 83 Vol. VIII Review comparative cinema No. 14 EKIN ERKAN 2020 Schefer, Jean-Louis. The Ordinary Man of Cinema cinema-viewer shares adarkroom withstrangers (Baumbach in thepublic, ritualized experience of filmviewership, where the As NicoBaumbach prudently remarks, Schefer isdeeply interested also couched inanexus of However, inaddition to movement, Schefer’s thesisoncinemais misapprehend—are affects” (2016, 210). Cinema’s wrysecret is to grasp them, andwhosefull form andreference we always we must sometimes accommodate objects inorder partial and somatic response: “[f]or thosenew appearances—in which Schefer that we cangesture beyond affect-as-apprehension phenomenologically root Deleuze’s notion of affect, itisthrough knowledge (Schefer 2016, 17). Ifitisthrough Bergson that we can assurance of akindof “perpetuity outside” of immediate conscious our physical bodies” (Baumbach 2017, 2)but, instead, withthe Freaks (1932), TerenceFisher’s and burlesque genre films such asCarl TheodorDreyer’s Schefer’s bookisexclusively composedof references to horror scenographies. Surveying acinematic backdrop of “body genres”— unwittingly becomesan extended object recast withinthefilm’s aware of uponitsfilmic mediation—that occurs astheviewer history,” which consciousnessisbarred access to butmade produced by internal bodiesthat addresses anoccluded “interior Schefer, much like Deleuze, isinterested inakindof “pure affect” anyone” (2016, 196). whereby “signification, words andimages no longer represent represented, andunformulated,” producing a “criminal pleasure,” that cinemailluminates affects that are “urgently invisible, non- Guattari’s remarks from overdetermination of thesignifier. IntunewithDeleuze and Deleuze, thistimeonthe “Postulates of Linguistics”—on the Schefer alsoshares another pointof convergence with becoming of the prostheses, which have ushered cinemainto thepersonalized post-cinema semblance of reticulated laptop screens andmedia 2017). This socialexperience isfar removed from ournew media/ that record history and theEarth’s lesions. historically ingratiated, complicitinthearchive of moving images labor of cinematic memory. Consequently, Schefer’s movie-goer is time andmemory(history’s annalsof world-images) through the crime of “historical origin,” inwhich thespectator regains lost abuses intheworld norof passive voyeurism but, instead, a “a crime.” However, this “crime” isneitherthat of perpetrating According to Schefer, thecinema-goer isactively complicit in produces sublimity. how we are foreclosed accessto itsfull epistemic terrain, which (1932)—Schefer is “concerned not withtheeffects on viewser The Mummy (aneologism of viewer-user; Daly 2010). A Thousand Plateaus philia that isaprofoundly socialvector. (1959)and Tod Browning’s , Schefer writes Vampyr

84 Vol. VIII Review comparative cinema No. 14 EKIN ERKAN 2020 Schefer, Jean-Louis. The Ordinary Man of Cinema cinephilic experience. AsSchefer notes in frustrations, terrors oryearnings seduceusinto theoverpowering in theviolent limitsof apperceptive noetic activity, wherein our Schefer’s bodily withcinema are concerns aporetic, invested Schefer’s enigmatic writingoften andlapsesbetween flirts circular Deleuze called Schefer isapoet, philosopher, andtheorist of enigmas—thus, on-screen ispresented through anorder of removal. position of thesuspendedcinema-goer, where thehorror depicted between Schefer’s enumerative accountof horror evinces therelationship “positive pleasure ... impressed withasenseof awe” (2015, 31), (2016, 142). While Burke’s language of thesublimesimilarly details but ... privileged transition of meaning... that suspendstheworld” suffering that isnot linked to suspensionof theworld aparticular 2017, 11). Here unfolds Schefer’s description of stilted onanotion of “complex,” ormixed, pleasure andpain(Doran underpinnings of what John Dennishaddubbed “delightful horror,” akin to Edmund Burke’s of articulation theempirical-philosophical of propensity but, orthedynamicalsublimeof mortality instead, Man of Cinema miscarriage. The “sublime” that Schefer returns to in member famously claimedthat viewing thefilm resulted inher met withsuch revulsion that anMGMtest-screening audience Schefer’s curiouspenchant for Browning’s deformation,” orsomething of asublimated “side show.” Thus, trauma. For Schefer, cinemaisapublicspectacle of “death and Rather t or poetic musings. Schefer’s interest inrepressed violence and to besimply reduced to thesuperficial terms of aDeleuzian primer (2010, 13). Nonetheless, Schefer’s work is rewarding andought not willing enoughto work through itsoften imponderable reflections” Schefer’s text “makes physic of everyone demandsonthepart our rational procedures of interpretation. As Tom Conley notes, be accounted for by ourlegitimized systems of representation or withinchoatehis concerns phenomena, which willnot, orcannot, to cogent theory. Nonetheless, Schefer’s style adequately maps whimsical versification, at times veering closer to literature than producing meaningandlanguage” (1995, 121) way, andwhich isperhapstiedinsideusto thenecessityof otherwise acquired, otherwise possible, painful inother Something elsehappens insidethem: astructure that is abattoir, not to seeimages comingoneafter theother. “[a]t bottom, thecinemaisanabattoir. People go to the han speakingof beauty, the “sublime” reappears asa jouissance isnot Kant’s notion of themathematical sublime The OrdinaryManof Cinema andsublimityviatheprivileged spectator- The EnigmaticBody: Freaks a “greatpoem.” jouissance , afilmthat was The Ordinary as “a debris—of sublimity and phenomenology—uniquely situates itself within a kind of poetic wakening of cinema that is often neglected in today’s film theory, which all too often deviates towards the emotive experience of the body or cognitivist scientism. Schefer offers us a glimpse at what an unpretentious film theory may look comparative cinema comparative like when it “philosophizes by accident.”

Bibliography

Baumbach, Nico. 2017. “Primal Scenes.” ArtForum 55, no. 9 (May): 1–5. Burke, Edmund. 2015. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Edited by Paul Guyer. New York: Oxford University Press. Conley, Tom. 2010. “Jean Louis Schefer: Screen Memories from L’Homme Ordinaire Du Cinéma.” New Review of Film and Television Studies 8 (1): 12–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/17400300903568735 85 Daly, Karen. 2010. “Cinema 3.0: The Interactive-Image.” Cinema Journal 50, no. 1 (Fall): 81–98. Deleuze, Gilles. 1989. Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. 1984. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Doran, Robert. 2017. The Theory of the Sublime from Longinus to Kant. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Schefer, Jean-Louis. 1995. The Enigmatic Body: Essays on the Arts by Jean Louis Schefer. Translated by Paul Smith. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 2016. The Ordinary Man of Cinema. Translated by Max Cavitch. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).

Review EKIN ERKAN Jean-Louis. Schefer, Cinema Man of The Ordinary How to quote Erkan, Ekin. 2020. “Schefer, Jean-Louis. 2016. The Ordi- nary Man of Cinema.” Comparative Cinema, Vol. VIII, No. 14, p. 82-85. 2020 No. 14 No. Vol. VIII Vol. Vol. VIII comparative cinema Himar No. 14 2020 Bethencourt Reyes Oter, Jorge and Santos Zunzunegui. 86-88 eds. 2019. Ensayos de poética. Miradas sobre el contacto entre el cine y la poesía. Leioa: Servicio Editorial de la Universidad del País Vasco. 120 pp.

Date of reception: 18/10/2019 Date of acceptance: 18/03/2020

A three-day summer course Cine y poesía. Del hecho poético a la página filmadawas held in the city of Bilbao, Spain, in June 2015. Organised by Jorge Oter and Santos Zunzunegui in collaboration with the research group “Mutaciones del Audiovisual Contemporáneo” from the Universidad del País Vasco, the event gathered speakers from a variety of cinematographic backgrounds, both from theory and practice, to present their research on the relations between cinema and poetry. It also traced a brief journey through the history of the moving image which culminated in the publication Ensayos de poética. Miradas sobre el contacto entre el cine y la poesía.

Structured into five texts, three of which are written by academics and two by practitioners, Ensayos de poética explores the dialogue between cinema and poetry from remarkably diverse points of view, offering spaces to reflect on the film canon, on avant-garde and experimental film, as well as supporting filmmaking practices through the incorporation of a methodological text that serves as preliminary notes for the making of a cinematographic piece.

The first of these essays contains a preface written by Gabriel Villota Toyos who explores the relationship between cinema and poetry through synaesthesia and metaphor as depicted in the writings of Aristotle, Jacques Derrida, Adriano Aprà and Jorge 87 Vol. VIII Review comparative cinema No. 14 HIMAR BETHENCOURT REYES 2020 Oter, Jorge and Santos Zunzunegui. eds. 2019. Ensayos de poética. Miradas sobre el contacto entre el cine y la poesía. cinematographic application aswell assemiotic concerns. The to theobjective andsubjective possibilitiesof the poeminits langue Éric Rohmer onthedistinctive meaningsof theterms Urrutia. Discussingthedebate between PierPaolo Pasolini and in theworks of theSoviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov andtheSoviet Leonid Trauberg; finally, the exchanges between cinema andpoetry Eikhenbaum and Yuri Tynyanov, andfilms by Grigori Kozintsev and cinema inthewritingsandscreenplays of Viktor Shklovsky, Boris ostranenie photogénie coquille etleclergyman Antonin for Artaud their film aswell Dulacand asGermaine of LuisBuñuelandSalvadorDalí particularly inManRay’s filmsbutalsointhecollaborative efforts distinctive topics: theinfluence of poetry inSurrealist cinema, avant-gardeGerman cinema of the1920s, theessay dissects four around anumberof filmmakers withintheSoviet, French and cinematographic forms andtowards theavant-garde. Centred publication pivots theconversation away from more dominant Written by SoliñaBarreiro González, thecentral chapter of the of theIranian metacinema, anagrammatic writing, orforms akinto thestructure characteristic elements such asrepetitions, rhymes, parallelisms, of aninnate “cinema of thepoetry,” distinguishing anumberof Abbasartist Kiarostami. Itdefends theiroeuvres asexamples Japanese filmmaker Ozu Yasujirō andtheIranian multidisciplinary to thecinematographic mediumby focusing ontheworks of the Roman Jakobson. The secondsection shiftsthediscourse purely authors, placingspecialemphasisonthetheoriesandwritingsof Spanish language dictionaries aswell asindividualreflections by the distinct definitions of poetry andthepoetic function using Santos Zunzunegui. Dividedinto two sections, thefirst examines of thepublication, such asacontributionoffered by theco-editor semiotic are concerns further developed insubsequentchapters Alberte Pagán investigates thetechnical andformal possibilities cinema andstructural film. Inhis chapter, filmmaker andwriter avant-garde to thetraditionthe 1920s of Americanexperimental through themoving image butredirects theconversation from The penultimate text of thecollection continues thejourney garde. Europeandialogue avant- between cinemaandpoetry inthe1920s strands, Barreiro’s journey effectively proves theexistence of a poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. Moving across thesefour particular and ordefamiliarization anditsmove from literature to anditsconnection to theworks of Jean Epstein; the cinéma-langage josravaní . , 1928); theinvestigations surrounding the , thetext delves into questions related The Seashelland theClergyman cinéma- ( La 88 Vol. VIII Review comparative cinema No. 14 HIMAR BETHENCOURT REYES 2020 Oter, Jorge and Santos Zunzunegui. eds. 2019. Ensayos de poética. Miradas sobre el contacto entre el cine y la poesía. via thefilmgrain. Thoseelements, visible inthe works of anumber specificity, including fast andslow motion, superimpositionsor poetic narration, andwiththoseexclusive of cinema’s medium prevalent inthetwo disciplines, such asrepetitions, loops or that connect cinemato poetry, both through theuseof figures explored, allows for furtherresearch andamore in-depth survey. up thepossibilityfor future writingswithinsomeof thetopics substantial relationship between cinemaandpoetry, alsoopens variety of contributions, that seemto anddemonstrate confirm a films, and for openingtheconversation to film practitioners. The to theSoviet, French avant-garde andGerman orexperimental cinematographic forms discussed, from canonicalfilmdirectors The publication stands outfor thediverse range of theoriesand history of cinemaanditsconnection withpoetry withinitspages. poesía Ensayos depoética. Miradas sobreelcontacto entreelcineyla Bronwyn individual frames from thechosen filmsandpoetic extracts from on thework’s specificintentions, visualdocuments of theuse of written word, itprovides agood pointfor starting adiscussion understanding of theproposed work’s complexity through the the essay initsattempt falls short to enhancethereader’s Eyes WithoutaFace Franklin J.Schaffner’s appropriated filmimages from Laurence Olivier’s film, merging poemsfrom Juan Eduardo Cirlot’s serves asamethodological essay priorto themakingof ashort discursive from turn theoryto practice withachapter that Lastly, Jose Julián Bakedano Rodriguez andGermán make a construct itsown poetic language. how thelatter moved beyond theuseof purely poetic figures to the innerrelation between poetry andexperimental cinemaand Kurt Kren, Taka Iimura orKenneth Anger, amongst others, show of filmmakers such as Ken Jacobs, Claudio Caldini, Maya Deren, entre el cine y la poesía la y cine el entre Zunzunegui. eds. 2019. How to quote image scholarship andpractice. those essentialtasks for both thepresent andthefuture of moving on museums, galleries, festivals andcinematheques to carry out promoting, learning andmoving image making, not only relying forms withinacademia, reclaiming theuniversity asasite for a needfor courses dedicated to cinemainits variousanddiverse collaboration withtheUniversidadVasco, delPaís alsospeaks to Ensayos depoética traces acomprehensive andconcisejourney through the .

B ethencourt Reyes,ethencourt Himar. 2020. “ , which originated inasummercourse in ( Les yeux sansvisage The WarLord Ensayos de poética. Miradas sobre el contacto contacto el sobre Miradas poética. de Ensayos .” .” Comparative Cinema Comparative (1965)andGeorges Franju’s , 1960). Although , Vol. VIII, No. 14, p. 86-88. Oter, Jorge andSantos Bronwyn Hamlet with (1948),

5-7 Camil Ungureanu, Sonia Arribas & Rebecca Anne Peters Imagining the Techno-Capitalist Society in Television and Film

8-32 Rebecca Anne Peters When Your Motherboard Replaces the Pearly Gates: Black Mirror and the Technology of Today and Tomorrow

33-45 Joseph Walderzak Blaming the Poor: The False Allure of the Capitalist Critique in the Age of Postmodernism

46-61 Ida Marie Schober Loving the AI: Captivity and Ownership in Unbalanced Dystopian Relationships

62-81 Ling Zhang Foreshadowing the Future of Capitalism: Surveillance Technology and Digital Realism in Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes

82-85 Ekin Erkan Schefer, Jean-Louis. 2016. The Ordinary Man of Cinema.

86-88 Himar Bethencourt Oter, Jorge and Santos Zunzunegui. eds. 2019. Ensayos de poética. Miradas sobre el contacto entre el cine y la poesía.

www.raco.cat/index.php/Comparativecinema

Comparative Cinema, Volume 8, No. 14, «Imagining the Techno-Capitalist Society in Television and Film», Barcelona, 2020.

Legal Deposit: B.29702-2012 ISSN: 2014-8933