Humanized technologies and technologized humans

Abstract

The first chapter will deal with what Stefan Herbrechter would call a 'genealogy of posthumanism' through which I will attempt an overview of its origins, as well as the different theories put forward by prominent critics in the field, such as Katherine Hayles, Rosi Rrnidotti, Elaine L. Graham, Cary Wolfe, amongst others. After having introduced the theoretical background against which I will base my analysis I will proceed to introduce firstly the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro Never Let Me Go (2005), at some points even comparing some of its aspects with Mark Romaek's 2010 filmic adaptation by the same name. The analysis will then proceed with a look at the most recent works analyzed in this dissertation, namely Spike Jonze's Her (2013), and the second episode of the second season of Charlie Drooker's Black Mirror series, Be Right Back (2013). Finally I will focus on perhaps one of the most intriguing of Michel Gondry's films, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). To a reader familiar with all the films and the novel that I aim to analyze the connection may seem at the same time obvious and confusing. Perhaps the most obvious connection is one that deals with the presence of technological apparatuses, either existing ones, or as a sort of 'next generation' to already existing technologies. Therefore the analysis will deal with biomedical and biogenetic engineering in the case of Never Let Me Go; on a new and improved version of our now well-known SiRi, and on social media and its impact on human relations in both Her and Be Right Back; and finally it will plunge again in the field of pseudo-medical memory erasure techniques in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. These films therefore may be well positioned in the science fiction category, but as we shall see, a completely new type of science fiction, one where technology, the alien, the other, are not part of some conspiracy to take over the earth and subdue or even replace the human race, as was the case with mid-twentieth century sci-fi. Those fears traditionally associated with this genre, nowadays take what might have then been an unforeseeable direction. The fear that previously incorporated into dangerous and cunning machines is now a fear of losing humanity's authenticity in terms of emotions, feelings and consciousness; the impossibility to have meaningful relationships with one another. Mainly, and this is where the connections between the works analyzed converge, a fear of loneliness, an incapability to let go off a loved one, the impossibility to hope for a longer and better life, second chances and so on. And even though it may seem as if technology may be accountable for these states of mind, we must not forget that in fact it is our use and concept of it that has pointed that use in such a direction.