18 Politics of Place • Technology • Issue 02 Politics of Place • Technology • Issue 02 19

Clonetrolling the Future: Body, Space, and Ontology in Duncan Jones’ Moon and Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go

by Scott Sundvall 20 Politics of Place • Technology • Issue 02 Politics of Place • Technology • Issue 02 21

Introduction: A Science Fiction (That Is Not) Virilio’s “dromology”, etc.), or in related potential of cloning to produce a cinematic can be appropriated by a ruling class, fields of theoretical inquiry (Marshall representation of a (dubiously dubbed) and how such can be used for the spatial “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it McLuhan’s “global village”, Gregory Ulmer’s “dysoptian” future (what tragically could-be management of such “producing-bodies”, the is because Fiction is obliged to stick to “electracy”, Mark Hansen’s new philosophy as predicated upon what-already-is).3 The ethical and political dimensions of the film possibilities; Truth isn’t” — Mark Twain for new media, etc.), but in contemporary “dystopic” tenor of either film4, however, must be approached in a radical manner: the In the most radical sense, we can consider technological developments themselves. cannot be reduced to an attack on cloning complete rethinking of “our” very ontological 6 science fiction (or speculative fiction) as the Many of these technological developments technology itself—nor on technology in grounding. Nonetheless, in both films a representational harbouring of utopia and continue to expand and revise the any sense, most broadly conceived. Rather, political management of space, boundaries, dystopia, even and especially as “utopias previously understood boundaries of the the narrative of the films use (the potential and territorialization is what (re)produces and dystopias are histories of the present” human body: cochlear implants, prosthetic of) cloning, in conjunction with spatial such ontological questions / ruptures / (Gordin, Prakash, and Tilley 1). SF produces legs, artificial hearts, bionic limbs, even methods of control, to call into question dystopias: appropriation and control of utopias/dystopias in terms of the historical digital cameras implanted in the back power, class and, most importantly, “our” certain technologies (such as cloning) and 2 present insofar as it grounds one foot in the of heads. The development of cloning, ontological status itself. space can afford a categorical, ontological however, might arguably be the one most re-grounding of desired interest. actual present (what is) and another in the In this sense, both films function as “‘critical “conditions of possibility” (what could be) wrought with philosophical and political implication (and consequence). dystopia[s]’, which act as warnings, through an In other words, the ethical and political (Mannheim). As such, if we take Bernard ‘if this goes on’ principle” (Milner 109).5 Again, question of “what is a human right?” loses Stiegler’s claim of a modern technological In any event, the technological developments the “if this goes on” principle present in both its valency when one can reframe the redoubling seriously, as something which calling into question the legible status of the films does not concern cloning or technology ontological question of “what is a human?” is causing a phenomenological and “human” in general—cloning in particular, in general; it concerns the appropriation of If the answer to the latter is “the subject ontological disorientation, then the recent or at least most conspicuously—have such technologies in a particular way, and in question is not human”, as we find in re-emergence of SF as a popular and been addressed and/or represented in a by power structures already well-woven into both Moon and Never Let Me Go, then the commercially successful genre makes good long list of SF works over the past several our social and political fabric. By examining former question becomes meaningless. This 1 sense. We find evidence of this redoubling decades. Specifically, both Duncan Jones’ the manner in which cloning technologies is why we give ontological priority to the not just in various iterations of philosophy Moon and Mark Romanek’s Never Let of technology (Stiegler, Martin Heidegger’s Me Go use the philosophical and political question concerning technology, Paul

3 Jones’ Moon, which serves as his directorial debut, opened at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Filmed in a little over a month on a $5 million budget, it met favorable reviews from critics. Romanek’s Never Let Me Go, based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel of the same name, 1 Bernard Stiegler’s Technics and Time volumes (particularly the first and second) note the emergence of meaningful “being” as inextricably operated on a $15 million budget and premiered at the Telluride Film Festival. It also received positive reviews. connected to the inauguration of technics, particularly language (which affords memory, punctuated temporality and spatial delimitation, 4 [N.B. Permission was not obtained from FOX for the reproduction of still images from Never Let Me Go; only images from Moon are history). As such, the proper ontological constitution of “being” is oriented by and with technics. Modern technological development, reproduced in this essay. –Ed.] however, has progressed at such a speed that “man” cannot “think” it as quickly as it emerges and moves, creating a rupture of sorts: an ontological and phenomenological “disorientation”. 5 Andrew Milner, who here is referring to Fredric Jameson’s two categories of dystopia, situates “critical dystopia” from “‘anti-utopia’, which declares utopia as impossible” (109). 2 Wafaa Bilal, a New York University Arts Professor, had a camera implanted on the back of his head as a performative gesture. It should further be noted that the above list says nothing of our everyday immersion in digital technologies: smart phones, laptops, face-to-face 6 For the purposes of this analysis, I use the term “producing-bodies” in a rather specific sense: the production of bodies (and body parts) communication interfaces and, recently, Google glasses, to name a few examples. by way of cloning; the use of these bodies (and body parts) to then (re)produce. 22 Politics of Place • Technology • Issue 02 Politics of Place • Technology • Issue 02 23

dystopic questions and warnings posed by Before departing into the films, in their more traditional—the “alien body” (119-141), entirely. Or, at least, we are concerned with both films, though both are nonetheless specificity, we might pause to consider the or the “android” (141). Granted, this might the SF representation of such. inflected by techno-spatial, political limitations of a fair cross-section of seminal largely be attributed to the fact that Jameson’s arrangements of power and discourse. In SF criticism and theory, at least for our concern rests more with the practical, political Keeping this in mind, Never Let Me Go this sense, we arrive at a “dystopia…[that] intents and purposes. Much of SF, and its dimensions of SF narratives, rather than unfolds as a revisionist history SF film: in is a utopia that has gone wrong; or a utopia correlating criticism and theory, operates questions of the ontological in and of itself. In 1952 certain medical developments have that functions only for a particular segment by way of metaphor and metonymy: Don any case, it does not provide sufficient critique enabled people to live well beyond 100 years of society” (Gordin, Prakash, and Tilley Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers of the instance in which the human confronts old. This comes at a great cost, though: the 1). In this sense, we will approach these as an expression of the Red Scare; Neill its otherwise-own-self as ontologically Other, fictional social field clones a small portion two films as representational shifts from Blomkamp’s District 9 as an alien-infused even if this concerns arrangements of class of the population, and these children clones the Foucaldian “disciplinary society” to a representation of xenophobia; Jean- and power, as it does in our two films of study. are raised in isolated boarding schools for Deleuzian “control society”, and not just Luc Godard’s Alphaville as a warning of the eventual donation of organs and body in the political sense of the management totalitarian governments, so on and so Scott Bukatman’s Terminal Identity offers a parts, until “completion” (death). While of subjects, but further in the ontological forth. This tendency towards hermeneutic more promising avenue for our pursuits: post- many such boarding schools exist, we sense of what constitutes a “subject” as decoding, however, does little more than modernity, and its representation in various find that our protagonists (Kathy, Tommy, such. Likewise, we will explore the emerging merely decode (this means that; this is like SF narratives, has radically rethought the and Ruth) attend one of the most unique— paradigm shift from an ethics and ontology that), and provides us with little recourse for relationship between technology and subject, Hailsham. Although Kathy and Tommy of “humanism” to that of “post-humanism”, the philosophically generative work called to such a degree that there no longer exists exchange signs of affection at an early age, as it concerns the films and beyond. for in Moon and Never Let Me Go. an essential separation between the two. Tommy eventually ends up dating Ruth. Bukatman’s work here, then, definitely lends The three nonetheless continue travelling Fredric Jameson’s comprehensive and itself less to a hermeneutic analysis, and more together after Hailsham, eventually split informative Archaeologies of the Future, to a generative heuristics. While the text thus up, reunite and, after Ruth “completes”, Out-There/In-Here: Extension and on the other hand, not only rethinks and does a rigorous job of detailing the emerging Tommy and Kathy enjoy a brief romantic Intensity, and the Spatial Logic of renews the possibility and potential of the “virtual subject”, we are not concerned with period. The romantic period comes to a Material Production utopia/dystopia SF narrative, but also covers the human-qua-virtual-subject by way of determinate end when Kathy (a “carer”— “Somewhere out there, some of the more common themes and techno-human interdependence and digital one who helps other clone donors) watches tropes in SF.7 While Jameson’s expansive immersion. Rather, our inquiry concerns the Tommy “complete” during his final surgical Out where dreams come true” thematic coverage includes the (uncanny) primary relation of technicity and being and procedure. ontological shock of humans confronting how, quite ironically, the appropriation of —James Ingram, “Somewhere Out There” their own Other, the examples given are certain technologies (i.e., cloning), in concert Of course, the concern here rests not so with spatial manipulations, might call into much in the logic of the love triangle, but question or put into erasure the “human” rather in how such a human drama could 7 In particular, Jameson establishes his position of “anti-anti-Utopianism.” In short, Utopia might be best understood as an impulse for develop in this way. If they knew they a more desirable future; Utopian narratives provide a window into such a possible horizon. As such, Jameson does not subscribe to the teleological ideation of Utopia, per se, but remains nonetheless opposed to oppositions of Utopia. 24 Politics of Place • Technology • Issue 02 Politics of Place • Technology • Issue 02 25

were destined for endless butchering, why This is not because workers in the field as “concrete subjects” (112, 115). The stories ordering from progressive conditioning didn’t they run? The most viable answer are remarkable for their low intelligence, they are told not only condition them in a to one of micro-control and discrete to this question can be found early in the but because the term ‘ideology’ has a concrete and specific manner, as obedient management, especially apparent now with film, when a young Tommy chases a ball whole range of useful meanings, not all of subjects (not to leave the Hailsham gates) the introduction of emerging technologies: during a game, but then stops as the ball which are compatible with one another” but, over time and eventually, to accept their pass-codes, retinal scans, and fingerprint glides beyond the Hailsham fence. Later, (1). Eagleton then proceeds to list a number fates as “donors” as materially given. This authentication replace the key; ankle when one of the school docents, Ms. Lucy, of working definitions for ideology, from ideological process not only reproduces the bracelets replace the physical site of the asks a group of girls why Tommy did not which we will cherry-pick for our own children—and, eventually, “donors”—on a prison; and, most specifically, the long line retrieve the ball, the first girl flatly states, purposes: day-to-day level, but it further reproduces of credit and subsequent debt replaces the “that fence is the boundary of Hailsham the Hailsham school itself (an ideological chain (“Control” 7). In short, one no longer grounds”. Another girl adds, “We can’t cross (b) a body of ideas characteristic of state apparatus). needs to prop up a bending tree with a the boundary, Ms. Lucy. It’s too dangerous”. a particular social group or class; stake; instead, one needs only to genetically This line of thinking can be extended The girls then collectively recount the (c) ideas which help to legitimate a engineer a tree that does not bend in the to Michel Foucault, who studied under various horror stories they have been dominant political power; (d) false first place. Althusser, and who reformulates the told concerning previous boys and girls ideas which help to legitimate a concept of ideology into “discourse That said, while the fence-myth within who breached the Hailsham boundaries: dominant political power; (f) that formations” (knowledge-power) that create Never Let Me Go’s narrative operates mutilation, starvation and, of course, death. which offers a position for a subject; legitimized institutions that shape docile primarily according to the rubric of ideology, When Ms. Lucy asks the girls if they believe (g) forms of thought motivated by bodies (biopower and bioproduction). the ideology functions in the service of the stories to be true, one girls responds: “Of social interests; (h) identity thinking; Generally speaking, this reformulation micro-control. In order to understand course they’re true; who’d make up stories (i) socially necessary illusion; (j) the constitutes a Foucauldian “disciplinary how this works, we must consider space as horrible as that?” conjuncture of discourse and power. (1-2) society”.8 Gilles Deleuze, however, distrusts (limits, boundaries, territories). Amongst Who, indeed? Perhaps the most obvious the representation of ideology entirely other things, in describing control societies, and traditional reading of this formative This manner of thinking ideology (other than it being a concentration and Deleuze writes that “confinements are strand of the narrative would include a functions rather congruently with Louis grammar of desire itself), and late in his molds, different moldings, while controls gesture to ideology. As Terry Eagleton notes Althusser’s work on the matter. As found life suggests that we are moving from a are a modulation, like a self-transmutating in Ideology, however, the problem with a in “Ideological State Apparatuses”, the Foucauldian “disciplinary society” to a molding continually changing from one given reading that concerns ideology is children of Hailsham have an “imaginary “control society”. Control societies, for moment to the next” (“Control” 3-5). Thus, that it is almost always far too ideological: relationship…to their real conditions of Deleuze, shift the method of subjective the fence-myth, as a figurative and literal it can mean anything and everything. As existence”, or what we might consider the he explains, “Nobody has yet come up with underlying basis of ideology in action (109). a single adequate definition of ideology…. Nonetheless, this “ideology has a material existence”, whereby they are “interpellated” 7 While much of Michel Foucault’s scholarly career concerns the archaeology of discourse as such, Discipline and Punish and The History of Sexuality volumes serve as key examples of such a pursuit. 26 Politics of Place • Technology • Issue 02 Politics of Place • Technology • Issue 02 27

boundary or limit (territorialization), receive supposed transmissions from his does indeed operate as a mechanism for family on Earth; and count down the days moulding Tommy and the other clone until his promised return. At this stage donors as certain conditioned subjects of the narrative, we have no reason to (ideology). This ideological conditioning, consider him, for all intents and purposes, however, as executed in terms of extensive anything other than an “authentic human”. spatiality, works to diminish and eventually First (or older) Sam Bell, however, suffers extinguish the intensive properties of a crash while roaming outside, due to a Tommy himself, reducing him to a mere hallucination. Second (or newer) Sam Bell body. After all, the ideology of the external awakes on the operating table, and GERTY or extensive space of the fence-myth is tells him that he underwent a serious meaningful only insofar as it guarantees accident, though we find that this narrative the appropriation of Tommy’s body as a is given to every new Sam Bell clone to space for material production. In this sense, explain their lack of recent memory. Newer then, Tommy does not undergo ideological Sam Bell grows suspicious and creates an MOON © 2009 Lunar Industries Limited. All Rights Reserved. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment training in the traditional sense (to turn him excuse to go outside. While outside, he into a self-reproducing labourer), but rather discovers older Sam Bell, whom GERTY Again, the operation and control of space conditions—such can only work with the undergoes such to submit his entire body, treats for injuries upon recovery. The two proves vital to understanding how Sam Bell technologized micro-control of Sam Bell’s to give himself over to a totality of material Sam Bells quickly become confused with, comes to be, and how he can be reproduced movements (spatial control). control. The ontological implication should and antagonistic towards, each other. Not (in terms of individual abstract labour, as be quite clear: Tommy does not become a long thereafter, they discover the sub- well as in terms of actual Sam Bells). Specific Moreover, Gilles Deleuze and Félix good working human subject (ideological level compartment that holds a nearly to this reading, GERTY restricts Sam Bell’s Guattari’s Capitalism and Schizophrenia formation); rather, he ceases to become a endless hallway of Sam Bells, all waiting movement beyond a certain external volumes (Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand human at all. to awake. After reviewing several decades boundary, as breaching such a space would Plateaus) might lead us to understand that of surveillance tape, the Sam Bells realize the extensive mobility of Sam Bell directly In Moon we find a slight variation to the allow him to communicate with actual Earth that, by way of artificial memory, they have corresponds to his intensive potentiality: above clone problematic. Initially, we meet (as opposed to the endlessly reproduced and been conditioned to work for several years not a spatial metaphor (controlling external Sam Bell, an isolated worker on the moon inauthentic messages sent to him from his as clones, and then disposed, all under the space is like the control of Sam Bell), but who mines resources for Lunar Industries “family”). While the use of artificial memory false and implanted pretense of their return rather the actual political management in an imaginary future. Through a series and inauthentic transmissions produce to a family that is not “their own”. As such, of space corresponds to the determining of scenes we see Sam Bell interact with ideological conditioning and obedience— they devise a plan to “return” one of them ontological frame of Sam Bell. But it does his human-like robot assistant, GERTY; imaginary relations to otherwise real from the moon “back” to Earth. not work this simply. To be sure, Sam Bell 28 Politics of Place • Technology • Issue 02 Politics of Place • Technology • Issue 02 29

presents us with a rather unique and hyper- are not dealing with cyborgs (and all the into question not just politics and ethics Certainly, this does not mean the invention literal iteration of a “desiring-machine” political potential therein), but rather with (though these are legitimate concerns), but necessarily demands an accident; rather, (Anti-Oedipus). Thus, within the specific the manipulated production and erasure of of our very ontology. In any event, the space one can only ultimately trace the accident framework of Deleuze and Guattari, it otherwise human beings. Indeed, in both out-there (extensive) directly corresponds to back to the originary invention. Virilio thus cannot be enough to say that the Sam Bells films, we are dealing with the “technical the space in-here (intensive). As such, the contends that there exists a “negativity” in were merely “duped” into falsely desiring basis of simulacra, that is, of copies without relations between space, body/ontology, every technology, in technical progress itself something (to return to a family that was originals”, but in a way that hits as close to and control might be best understood by (Politics 89). The invention, however, masks not “their own”). Rather, there exists a ontological home as possible (207). Because asking not, “‘What does it mean?’ but rather the inherent “negativity” contained within certain degree of desiring that “duping”, of the micro-control in both narratives, ‘How does it work?’” (Anti-Oedipus 109). it, concealing (in a latent or unconscious of desire-repressing-desire: desire is what particularly with regards to space, the manner) the accident which looms on the creates the impulse (intensity) of the newer “informatics of domination” becomes not horizon (to-be-manifest). The situation Sam Bell to breach the spatial parameters just a “movement from an organic, industrial Negative Ontology: The Shipwreck (On becomes more dire as technological established for him (extensivity), and it is society to a polymorphous, information the Beach), The Bodies (In the Ground) progress increases in speed, or what Virilio desire-repressing-desire that renders older system”, but a nightmarish ontological shift coins, “dromology”. In short, we cannot (or Sam Bell so unwilling or unable to accept as well (203). “And you will do we choose not) to see the disaster towards the reality of the situation. In any case, which we race ever more quickly. As you are told, while the political management of spatial The lesson to be teased from these two narratives, perhaps, is that spatial control The concept of “original accident”, then, boundaries attempts to keep the Sam Bells Until the rights in ontological stasis, the more haunting and ordering, for whatever purpose, have takes a particularly interesting form when ontological—nonetheless political— always relied upon a certain technology To you are sold” it frames the question of the human clone. question is: who is Sam Bell? and/or technique: sticks, markers, roads, What potential accident corresponds to the signs, property, etc.9 Technology has —Frank Zappa, “I’m the Slime” invention of the human clone? How can Both films present politically-inflected developed to such an extent, however, that we think the human clone in this manner, In Original Accident, Paul Virilio famously ontological questions (or warnings) methods of control via space have come rather than in mere ontological contrast or quips, “To invent the sailing ship or the that perhaps demand a post-humanist back full circle—back to the inscription mapping (“human” versus “human clone”)? steamer is to invent the shipwreck. To invent reflection. In either film, we find Donna of the very body as site of space. Indeed, Does the ongoing discussion concerning the the train is to invent the rail accident of Haraway’s otherwise optimistic “Manifesto technical progress has fundamentally science and ethics of human cloning render derailment. To invent the family automobile for Cyborgs” gone depressingly deflating. assisted the shift from disciplinary societies a necessary discussion on the corresponding is to produce the pile-up on the highway” In large part, this might be because we to control societies, and such a shift calls phenomenology of the potential accident (10). The logic of this concept, which has (“accidentology”) moot? followed his work for decades, marks a given technological invention (e.g. ship) 9 It should be remembered, however, that neither of these films are indictments of technology itself. As Deleuze and Guattari note, “The war In Never Let Me Go, clone donors Kathy machine is exterior to the State apparatus”, and it is only the appropriation of the war machine by the State that produces such destruction as the initial space and potential for and Tommy take their ailing donor friend, (A Thousand Plateaus 351). This should be considered as an analogue for understanding cloning technologies and the appropriation of corresponding accident (e.g. shipwreck). such by the ruling classes in both Never Let Me Go and Moon. Ruth, to the beach. After a tracking shot 30 Politics of Place • Technology • Issue 02 Politics of Place • Technology • Issue 02 31

follows them walking down the grassy path, definitely yes, but not because Hailsham as a mirror for Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth older Sam Bell hunched over on the ground. we cut to a long shot showing the line where itself might lie in ruins. Hailsham resembles that reflects their own “negative ontology”. Older Sam Bell informs newer Sam Bell the beach meets the grass, and where the the shipwreck because Hailsham is not the that he “found his secret room”. We cut I use the term “negative ontology” here in a three stop for a moment to stare out onto the form or space of the school, but rather the to them in simple medium shot, hovering rather specific manner. First, drawing from horizon. In the distance but squarely on the content(s) of the clone donors the school over a hole in the ground that leads into Virilio’s suggestion that a certain “negativity” beach, there sits an object, difficult to make produces. The invention is not the school a sub-level compartment. Older Sam Bell resides within any technological invention, out at first—a ship. The camera cuts back to itself, but rather what the school invented. descends the staircase first, and we cut to the clone donors in Never Let Me Go move a medium shot of the three facing towards As we have already established, through a near deep focus shot, our eyes directed only towards their own negation (accident). the ocean (the camera), but one can hardly the meticulous practice of not just mere towards the seemingly endless tunnel lined While it could be said that such is true discern where their attention rests: maybe ideology, but also through the micro-control with rectangular holding units. The newer of any given ontology (that any object or the ship, maybe beyond the ship into the of space and material bodies themselves, Sam Bell descends and together they open subject eventually withers, perishes, or dies), deeper horizon, maybe neither. Kathy and the school invented clones, strictly for the one of the holding units, finding a not yet the essential function of the clone donors Ruth watch Tommy run off, and a return to service of donating organs and body parts. “awake” Sam Bell clone. Newer Sam Bell is that of fulfilling the promise of their the long shot shows Tommy running towards It should come as no surprise, then, that sighs, “Jesus Christ, there’s so many of them. “completion” (not to mention the social field the ship (more clearly visible now), calling the conversation Tommy has with Kathy Why are there so many of them?” Older treats the clone donors as artificial, not as after them to “come on”. Kathy and Ruth, and Ruth on the beach, after exploring Sam Bell quickly returns up to the main natural). Second, drawing from Deleuze, “in however, do not share Tommy’s excitement the beached shipwreck, concerns the level, while newer Sam Bell slowly moves control societies you never finish anything”; with the accident ahead; they stay behind. uncertainty of knowing which donation backwards, staring at the endless supply the clone donors never complete their duty A montage of medium shots show Tommy’s will lead to “completion”.10 The figurative of Sam Bells. as donors until they can literally donate no exploration of the shipwreck. When he shipwreck is written on and in the bodies of more (“Control” 6). Becoming-negation, Aside from this scene finally revealing to returns, he says, “I wonder if that is what the clone donors: they primarily function as if you will, best frames their ontological both Sam Bells that they serve as small parts Hailsham is like now”. bodies distinctly moving towards their own meaning. This method of control becomes of an endless chain of Sam Bell production, accident (“completion”). Thus, the beached operative by using emergent technologies the scene further notes the methodological Perhaps the clearest point of departure here shipwreck does not function as a delivery (cloning, organ transplantation, advanced importance of controlling space. In order would be to answer Tommy’s metaphor: system for the metaphor of physical space psychological manipulation) with carefully to control and reproduce Sam Bell’s labour does the beached shipwreck resemble of the Hailsham school. It functions, rather, the present Hailsham? The answer is constructed spatial orderings of control production, Lunar Industries had to conceal (Hailsham school, travel, the body) to return the clone production of Sam Bells (down the “subject” to a mere “body”. Indeed, being below). In contrast to Never Let Me Go,

9 That the otherwise “death” of a clone donor results in “completion” is also interesting, as it suggests the clone donors perish as animals a “subject” never seemed so desirable. Moon’s narrative emphasis on control (or at least non-humans), rather than die as human beings (á la Martin Heidegger’s concept of thrown-ness, being-in-itself and for-itself, eclipses ideology almost entirely: rather finitude, etc., and as taken up by other writers, such as Giorgio Agamben’s The Open and Stiegler’s Technics and Time volumes). Such a A similar production occurs in Moon. terming further frames the clone donors in an ideological (the conceptual marking of them as non-human) and control (the juridical marking than being subjectively conditioned to of them as non-human) arrangement. We see this non-human framing again when a former Hailsham teacher questions whether or not Towards the denouement, newer Sam Bell believe it is his duty to work for several they have souls, and when, immediately thereafter, they are called “poor creatures”. Interestingly enough, though, these “poor creatures” returns from an exploration outside to find seem to be very much aware of their mortal finitude, and bring a new accent to the concept of “being-towards-death”. years and then die, Sam Bell has an artificial 32 Politics of Place • Technology • Issue 02 Politics of Place • Technology • Issue 02 33

guarantee: his negation. When the two Sam for that matter) continue in their work—a Bells discover the apparently endless row reduction of their possible selfhood to of Sam Bells, do they not discover “their bodily harvesting until their “completion”, own” endless negation? (As we discussed their final negation. in a previous section, the answer is both absolutely “yes” and “no”). In contrast, and as already discussed, the reproduction of Sam Bell’s labour depends The function of ideology and control in upon a complex myriad of operations: the each narrative raises several key points replication of Sam Bells, specifically as concerning space and control, the body, desiring-machines, whose desire to return and ontology. Never Let Me Go presents to “their” families (by way of implanted ideologically conditioned subjects reduced memory) is used to push them towards to bodies, as the clone donors’ bodies completing their work; coupled with metonymically function as their labour specific management and control of their production. Despite the convergence spatial surroundings, so as to keep them of advanced medical technologies and from figuring out the framework at large. MOON © 2009 Lunar Industries Limited. All Rights Reserved. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment sophisticated methods of spatial control— Again, while the external territorializations extended all the way into the division of (extensive, spatial control) for a long time memory implanted in him, through which This brings interesting light to the question their own flesh and blood—the clone donors reinforced the hyper-territorialization of Sam he lives out false memories and hopes. of our negative ontology. Sam Bell’s artificial are never fully unaware of the actual reality Bell’s desire (intensity), usually reproducing Indeed, Deleuze notes the “ominous judicial memories and environment treat him as a which circumscribes them. This becomes the calculated negation of a given Sam expressions [between ideology and control unique human subject with past, present, most evident when Kathy and Tommy go Bell for a new one, the desiring-machine societies]: apparent acquittal (between two and future (finitude), and they assist in to apply for a “deferral”, using Tommy’s eventually failed (which is to say, in another confinements) in disciplinary societies, reproducing his labour which unfortunately artwork as an attempt to show the truth of sense, it succeeded). In this sense, Sam Bell’s and endless postponement in (constantly slowly dissolves his clone body. And yet Tommy’s soul, that he and Kathy are truly becoming-other was Sam Bell becoming- changing) control societies are two very time and time again, instead of returning in love. On the ride back home, after Kathy what-he-actually-is. The elusive and abstract different ways of doing things” (“Control” “home”, Sam Bell gets flushed away, and and Tommy are told they were taught to concept of the body-without-organs found 5). By way of his artificial memory, Sam a new clone awakens. To this end, with produce art in the first place not to expose expression in the recognition of endless Bell worked on the pretense of ideological even more temporal precision than with their souls, but to see if they had souls at bodies, endless organs: all Sam Bells, and trappings—towards an apparent acquittal— the clone donors in Never Let Me Go, Sam all, Tommy has a breakdown. Even after all not Sam Bells. This ontological break of only to be disposed towards the end of his Bell’s negation remains cyclically fixed. this—any possibility of apparent acquittal Sam Bell, the desiring-machine, provided the working tenure, replaced with a new Sam Unbeknownst to Sam Bell, his only real or prolonged postponement denied— radical horizon: not the virtual potentiality Bell—an endless postponement. guarantee is not a return trip home to Kathy and Tommy (and all clone donors, of working towards returning to a home that see “his” family, but rather an ontological 34 Politics of Place • Technology • Issue 02 Politics of Place • Technology • Issue 02 35

was never his, but the actual return home to of the leading post-humanist thinkers not hurt. (Though, in the above example it also asks a more pressing fundamental Earth, for whatever that could mean (Anti- (Haraway, Katherine Hayles, Rosi Braidotti, of Wal-Mart, as given by Jameson: they question concerning cyborganics: are we Oedipus, A Thousand Plateaus). to name a few) can sufficiently navigate the know what they are doing, and they are even willing and capable of meeting the ontological questions (and warnings) posed doing it anyway.) The message forwarded task of “becoming-cyborg”, and if so, how None of this, however, answers our initial by these films, despite their post-humanist by Deleuze, however, remains essentially will we do so in terms of politics, ethics, question concerning what the future themes. This causes pause for concern, true: what we witness in Moon and Never ontology? This question directly shadows accident of the invented human clone as the ontological is political. Cloning is Let Me Go should not be dismissed as the recursive ontological one we have been might look like, or what this might mean one example of many (genetic information, an unlikely potential. The technologies exploring throughout this paper. for our own generalized ontology. First, right to self-termination, and reproductive and the institutional methods of spatial One cannot help here but be reminded of the negativity which marks the negative rights being some others) that closes in on control are very much already actual, and Karel Čapek’s R.U.R., a text which brought ontology of the clone donors and Sam Bells the close tension between the ontological the potential/virtual impact on our very the term “robot” into colloquial exchange. In remains specific to them: the constant and the juridical: to be a being, and to own/ ontology has already begun. Nonetheless, this text, we find robots developing agency, reproduction of those inventions qua have a being. Deleuze and Guattari reminds us, “Not that inevitable accidents (negation, death) serve man is ever the slave of technical machines; becoming human, revolting against their as the very basis of production for those he is rather the slave of the social machine” human inventor masters. As the robots outside their plight. In other words, the develop a conceptual humanity, we must Conclusion: We Are What We (Do Not) Watch (Anti-Oedipus 254). Thus, the focus should majoritarian non-clone donors who receive remain on the manner in which emerging ask if we can retain our own (humanity) the organs and body parts benefit, just as “What happens tomorrow—on Days of Our technologies are appropriated, rather than as we push further into the frontiers of Lunar Industries profits off the endless Lives” the technologies themselves. what can be classically understood as the reproduction of Sam Bell clones (arguably artificial, the machinic, the robotic? Both as do the consumers of Lunar Industries). —Days of Our Lives Likewise, Donna Haraway has long films explored in this article demand such This, of course, should come as nothing suggested a similar politico-ontological an answer. Deleuze reminds us in “Control Societies” new. As Fredric Jameson notes in “Utopia narrative for our dubiously dubbed that “we don’t have to stray into science If, as Haraway points out, we historically as Method, or the Uses of the Future”, Wal- “postmodern” conditions: the story of fiction to find a control mechanism that and currently negate “others” based on race, Mart serves as a glowing example of how the cyborg. Early in her seminal “Cyborg can fix the position of any elements at gender, sex, and other identity markers the utopic and the dystopic, at times, cannot Manifesto” she relays that “This is a any given moment—an animal in a game already, why would our collective situation be so cleanly demarcated: what seems struggle over life and death, but the reserve, a man in a business (electronic improve with the inauguration of the cyborg so clearly monstrous and reprehensible boundary between science fiction and tagging)” (“Control” 7). Yet, if the maxim of (197-201)? If we continue our complicity to some is nonetheless desired by many social reality is an optical illusion” (191). “they do not know what they are doing, but with the mass exploitation of our global others (6-7). Science-fiction-cum-reality has rendered they are doing it” functioned so effectively us all (becoming-)cyborgs, without origin, neighbours because of the convenience While we will explore strategies of (dystopic) during the age of disciplinary societies, spirit, or history (192-193). While much of of Western market luxuries, what kind escape in the following section, it remains then turning to SF as a reflective relay in this section concerns a political strategy of “affinity” could the cyborg ever offer unclear (at best) as to whether or not any the age of control societies certainly would for resisting “informatics of domination”, up? Why would the possibility of Moon or 36 Politics of Place • Technology • Issue 02 Politics of Place • Technology • Issue 02 37

Never Let Me Go not seem a likely horizon- looming horizon, a space already being course—not because it would be imposed breached. upon us, but because we would desire such? Yet, the optimistic echo from Deleuze: “The In any case, in both films we find a key thing is that we’re at the beginning of general turn from popular SF—from the something new” (“Control” 7). paranoiac vision of a despotic body, a hyper-vigilant and technocratic State, and towards the flows of market-driven commodity and desire that implicate all of us individually. Organs and/or body parts harvested from human clones; energy mined by pre-programmed clones on the moon—whatever the cost. Neither film imagines “us” as oppressed subjects, nor as disadvantaged masses duped by some State elite. For moral “better” (say, Robocop, Judge Dredd) or “worse” (perhaps, THX 1138, Brazil), these films carry little of the “government warning” contained in earlier SF films dealing with similar content. The true haunt of these films rests within the absurdity—but true possibility— of the logic: the dissolution of ourselves by ourselves. The energy human clones mine for Lunar Industries can be traced back to mere consumer desire, as can the organs harvested from the clone donors. The Big Bad Wolf in these fairy tales does not emerge from the deep dark woods, but rather stands brightly lit in the mirror in front of us. And in this version, the fairy tale seems slightly less fiction, slightly more WORKS38 Politics of Place • Technology CITED • Issue 02 Politics of Place • Technology • Issue 02 39

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