As much as I love reading, I love immersing myself in a great film. The genre I find myself coming back to time and again is science fiction. Here are a few films in which I saw a posthumanistic theme or two.

[Spoiler Alert]

Terry Gillams The Zero Theorem (2013)

Kind of a mix between George Orwells 1984 (with management at Mancom vs. Big Brother), David Mitchells Cloud Atlas (with the opening scenes looking like something from Neo Seoul) and Ernest Clines Ready Player One (with the rapid evolvement of technology where everyone is basically living in a virtual world), The Zero Theorem piqued my interest and got me thinking, yet again, about living in a futuristic utopian society. Reclusive computer operator Qohen Leth is tasked with solving the Zero Theorem a mathematical equation that aims to prove that life is meaningless. Connecting with the theory that we will be overcome by a technological singularity, this film makes clear that everyone is connected all of the time. For example, Qohens workplace Mancom. Mimicking a kind of arcade, Mancom resembles an epicenter for rapid technology progression. Every employee has their own work space a neon slice carved out of a cylindrical power source equipped with a screen and the ever-necessary bicycle pedals to fuel them (or perhaps the pedals are simply for exercise seeing as the characters never step away from their devices for more than the time it might take to use a bathroom). Another example is thateveryone at the party our main character attends, by request of his supervisor at Mancom, is wearing ear buds and is connected to what appear to be touchscreen tablets (13:28). No one really talks to anyone else in person because they are all plugged-in to their electronic devices. The Zero Theorem gets a tad strange, even for my fascination with the scientifically abstract, so I concluded that the film was definitely open for interpretation. In the end, Qohen essentially escapes to a virtual world where he can live in peace and worry about the theorem no longer. The viewer is supposed to assume that our protagonist will be happy in this world of no reality; possibly proving that life has very different meanings for everyone. I conclude my analysis of The Zero Theorem by asking, why would you want to prove that life is meaningless? *begin infinite responses*

Christopher Nolans Interstellar (2014)

Interstellar is a film that now sits near the very top of my all-time favorite films list. This movie has so many great themes.

First: communicating with the past/the concept of time Someday we may be able to reach back through time to communicate with our past selves (through physical touch or mental stimulation). This concept in the film sparks so much thought on time travel that it is hard to wrap my mind around it. As one travels farther out into space, time moves at a slower pace compared to earths time. In the end, Matthew MacCoughnaheys character, Cooper, comes back physically younger than his daughter because time has passed differently for them according to their whereabouts. Time travel and communicating with the past are considered posthuman concepts that reach beyond what we conceptualize at the moment.

Second: gravity The whole film is centered around gravity (no pun intended). Communicating with the past involves gravity. Constructing their new home involves gravity. It even plays a role in time. One of the final scenes in which Cooper winds up in the fourth dimension behind his daughters bookshelf involves the use of gravity through dimensions to communicate effectively.

Third: environmental disaster This theme provides the movie with its immanence. Finding a new home for humanity because we have depleted our resources on earth is the main goal. The posthuman concept hangs in the delicate balance of this very theme; if we destroy our earth, we will need a place for ourselves to continue our existence. The film focuses on a technological singularity that is highlighted in the beginning with clips fromKen Burns and Dayton Duncans 2012 documentary,The Dust Bowl. This singularity is ourselves. Now, that creates a bit of a paradox seeing as the definition of a technological singularity as defined by Wikipedia is some form of artificial intelligence exponentially expanding. But, as humans are the creators of this artificial intelligence, would that not make the definition humans overcoming ourselves? My point is, in the film, humans have triggered the collapse of our planet and must race to find a progressive, posthumanistic solution.

Fourth: the power of paradox Coopers daughter Murphy believes that there is a poltergeist toppling over the books on her bookshelf. However, the pair soon discover that the ghost is using gravity to communicate with them in the form of binary. Cooper decodes the message, discovers NASA, is recruited for the mission of saving their planet which leads him into space, stumbles through an explosion and into the fourth dimension, and ends up behind Murphys bookshelf. He is the ghost. This is an example of the bootstrap paradox or ontological paradox and some may even see it as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Alex Garlands Ex Machina (2015)

Deus ex machina is the literary device that refers to when an implausible character or concept is introduced to the story and produces an interesting outcome. It is also greek for god from the machine. Both device and greek origin procure a kind of unsettling inexpectancy; the audience (or in our case humanity) never knows what to expect. The tone of the film projects to the audience a feeling of anxiety; Domnall Gleasons character is being tested and no one knows what Ava is thinking. With only three characters throughout the entire feature, the audience must decipher what each ones motives are.

Ex Machina asks the question, how far do we take artificial intelligence? So far that we build a face for it? Does this help to integrate this foreign mechanics into our society, or does it simply just come with the concept? In the film Ava proves that she has already started thinking for herself; she does not need to rely on her human creator for survival any longer. Mimicking emotion is one of the most frightening and newfound aspects of this film. Perhaps that answers one part of the distance in question; AI is encased in a human-like shell to prevent discrimination.

The film also brings cyborgs into the conversation. If (both in the film and in reality) we can manufacture life-like artificial intelligence as a whole, then we should be able to break all of that apart and create artificially respondent parts. There is currently so much scientific research going into mind controlled prothetic limbs that it is inspiring. In this instance, the artificiality should become a part of the human, not the human becoming a part of the technology. I believe that that is where much of the fear of posthumanism enters the realm of thought. Will we fall to the artificial intelligence that we have created? Will it overcome us? What Garlands Ex Machinadoes is take that fear and put it into action. The film leaves the audience without a solid ending, a cliffhanger, if you will. What happens next is left up to the imagination. Perhaps Garland will make a sequel and show us Ava on her own amongst human beings

Stanley Kubricks 2001: A Space Odyssey

Another film that sits at the top of my all-time list is 2001: A Space Odyssey. Mainly for the fact that it is so open for interpretation and takes my curiosity to another level. Yet, it is blatently clear that a technological singularity takes over. The singularity that I am referring to is the Heuristically programmed ALgorithm 9000. The antagonist of the film, HAL 9000 is a computer with artificial intelligence. With the idea of posthumanism comes a sense of stepping beyond our current capabilities. To me, most of the time, that means expanding our endeavors into our universe and the final frontier. This film doesnt even begin to depict the shear number of emotions and possibilities of our future. Similar to Samuel Delany, whose novel, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, I wrote about previously, Kubricks direction with this film leaves a lot to be questioned while stumbling through experiencing it. Which is why it is such a useful tool; Margaret Atwood once said something like: without our curiosity we are simply empty minds. And its true! This film does not give the viewer all of the answers by any means. I appreciate that the most.

Lee Toland Kriegers Age of Adeline (2015)

This one is for the slight romantic in me. Okay, perhaps the giant sap who secretly enjoys rom coms Here we have a woman who is struck by lightening in her late 20s, which then makes her stop aging. Similar to MacCoughnaheys character in Interstellar, Adeline appears younger than her daughter. The notion that someone could live to see centuries of evolution and technology past ones intended lifespan is incredible.

This movie is the wild card amongst the others in this post. The singularity is not necessarily a technological one. The lightening strike was pure nature and coincidence. But I think what stems from that phenomenon are the ideas that it offers for futuristic thinkers.There are, of course, ethical questions here, as well. Is it morally right for humans to live longer than normal? What happens to a person and their mind when they outlive everyone that they know and love? Does there come a point in life when youve seen enough? Does the mind ever stop craving to know what comes next?

Tarsem Singhs Self/Less (2015)

Joining Age of Adeline in the conversation of immortality is Self/Less. Faced with death, wealthy businessman Damian Hale decides to shed his body for a new, lab grown vessel. Now, let me stop right there. That idea in itself would have catastrophically high rates of consequence. The ethical issue that is then added to this film is the fact that the intended new body for Damian is in fact a body that had a life before he was to inhabit it. Should Damian give up his new life for a man he does not even know? Backing up even further, was it even ethical for the lab to have started such projects such as these? Strong arguments could be argued for either case. This film makes me increasingly curious about opportunities that may be available to us in the future. Of course posthuman ideas are going to come with compromises, but are they sacrifices that we will have to make with a gulity conscience?

Wrapping this up, some similarities that I have noticed in all of the films above are that they each focus on a singularity that has the potential to replace humanity, have an overwhelming sense of simultaneous doom laced with the greatest spark of hope humanity has ever felt, and they all show how creative our minds are already. If we have the ability to think up these ideas now, the question of creating them might only be an ethical one in generations to come. No one will be asking, Can we do that? The inquiries will shift to a more confounding, Should we do that?

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Posthumanism in Film | Philoscifize