Blog #4
21 comments Friday, September 26, 2008

Rachael "remembers" how to play the piano... (Blade Runner, dir. Ridley Scott, 1982)

"Philip K. Dick gives us two oppositions: Human/Android and Human/Inhuman. The first is ultimately unimportant, while the second is urgent. The division between human and android raises a central philosophical question: how do you know you're human? The second opposition leads to a moral problem: what does it mean to be human?"

-Scott Bukatman, "Replicants and Mental Life"

Referring to the film screening and the essays by Scott Bukatman and Guiliana Bruno, select one replicant character (Batty, Pris, Leon, Zhora, Rachael) and describe the objects assembled and criteria used by the replicant to establish its human identity. (Refer to at least two of the following discussions: search for origins, memory, sexual difference and history.)

Do all of the replicants want to be human?

Why is it significant that Deckard's status (as human or replicant) remains undetermined?


Posted byS. Greene
at3:57 AM

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Blog #3
20 comments Friday, September 19, 2008

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956)

Referring to Hendershot and using Invasion as example, how do science fiction narratives of the post-World War II era concerning invaded bodies and replicant humans manifest anxieties concerning human reproduction and sexual difference? What is the function of the paranoiac worldview in these films?



In the scene prior to Becky's transformation, Miles is lured away by singing voices he assumes are human, only to find the sound emanates from a radio in a vehicle used to transport the replicant pods. Referring to the above clip or other scenes from the film, in what ways does Invasion question the recourse to the human, nature, or the natural world?

Posted byS. Greene
at7:12 AM

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Blog #2
18 comments Friday, September 12, 2008


Image #1: Fredersen, Rotwang and robot Maria/Hel (Metropolis, 1926)

As seen in Metropolis, Forbidden Planet, and The Stepford Wives, fears of the technological are often expressed as an anxiety surrounding gender identity and sexual difference. Referring to our class screenings and reading assignments, answer the following:

According to J.P. Telotte ("The Seductive Text of Metropolis") what is the film's paradoxical relation to technology, both presented in the film as spectacle (the futuristic city, the robot), and used to create the spectacle (cinema)? How is this paradox represented in the robot Maria/Hel? For Telotte, why is the film's ending an insufficient resolution to the anxieties raised by the film?

For Mary Ann Doane in her essay, "Technophilia: Technology, Representation and the Feminine," how does the robot Maria/Hel (referred to as "machine-man") embody both the allure and potential danger associated with technological advance? How does the film resolve the "unnatural" desire on the part of the male inventor (Rotwang in this instance) to reproduce, or to appropriate the maternal function?

What does the gender conformity represented by the transformation of the Stepford wives suggest about attitudes towards technology in the second half of the 20th century?

Posted byS. Greene
at6:37 AM

18 comments
 
Blog #1
17 comments Thursday, September 4, 2008





This week, we looked at Lynn Randolph's Cyborg as a model for interactions among "cosmos, animal, human, machine, and landscape."* We also discussed how we are in many ways, "cyborgs", exemplified in Stelarc's performance art, but also in our daily interactions with technology. Referring to J.P. Telotte's "Trajectory of the Science Fiction Film" and our screening of Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times (1936), compare the two different visions of human/machine interaction embodied in the film and painting. In particular, what transformations does the human body undergo and how does its response (for instance, the tramp's acquisition of speech) reflect a particular attitude towards technological advances as a sign of progress? What is the role of nature or the natural environment in both representations?

*Donna Haraway, From The Promise of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inappropriate/d Others.

Posted byS. Greene
at12:50 PM

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