What does this mean? It could mean so many things, but I'd like to zero in on one of these meanings. It seems as though Cronenberg is suggesting that we are the greatest dangers to ourselves. What we create, what we dream, what we put into action – the experiences that we design can provide the most effective obstacles to our own livelihood. Allegra experiences a physical manifestation of this notion in the church, but this is true all around us. With every thing we invent, we invent a corresponding disaster: with the ship we create the shipwreck; with electricity we create the power outage. Cronenberg delivers this notion in a complete and direct way – the gun is made of organic, living material, and the game pods are living creatures with umbilical cords. He presents them as things not man-made, but coexisting with man, the ultimate level of convergence. Even when taken out of context and placed on a metaphorical platform, though, the ideas remain powerful, and we are able to apply them to things in our society that aren't meat based. We are often afraid of the metal taking over the meat – but the metal is just an extension of ourselves. We are the meat; we created the metal; we are the metal.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
The Gun That Bleeds
One of my favorite aspects of eXistenZ was the underlying theme of the most dangerous technologies actually being organic, non-metal machines. There are countless examples of this but my favorite is the gun. The church is extremely secure, and one couldn't dream of bringing a conventional weapon into the event – to bypass this, the agent that attacks Allegra assembles a gun made of bone that shoots bullets made of teeth. In this case, the organic proves to be more dangerous than the metal, a theme that is interesting in its reversal from much of what we've seen in previous works we've read in class. In Neuromancer, neither meat nor metal is any more or less dangerous or harmful than its opposite; the convergence of the two was the focus. This was also the case in Convergence Culture: we need to retain our humanity, but embrace and take advantage of the convergence of our digital culture and offline society. In both of these works, though, the organic element is the natural, ordered, and benign, with the encroachment of technology presenting the potential for negativity. In eXistenZ, the reality is that the organic is the most dangerous agent, and this provides us with an array of implications.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I discussed a similar issue about the pistol in my blog as well. I thought it was so interesting that some of the most important tools and items in the film were made of living things. I hadn't thought of the "we are the greatest danger to ourselves" idea, but I definitely think it is true. Seeing things on a more positive note, I think that these items also represent how no matter how advanced technology is, humans will still overpower. We've discussed the issue of computer vs. human several times in class, and we've also contested the intelligence of computers as being superior to that of humans. The organic pod and the organic pistol, in my opinion, demonstrate how human power can still overcome technology. The strongest tools in the film are made from living things, rather than of technology or meta, after all..
ReplyDeleteI think you hit something really interesting here. While watching the movie, the thing about the tooth gun that interested me was that as it was made of flesh and bone, it was able to make it through security and be assembled "in the wild" (sort of). In what is (maybe?) real life at the end of the movie, the real, metal guns are hidden in the dog, a lifeform that no one expected to be used as a flesh and bone holder for weapons. I think you're right to suggest that we're the greatest dangers to ourselves.
ReplyDeleteOur preconceived ideas about what will and won't hurt us can leave us at risk. We have metal detectors so people can't get "technology" through without us knowing, because we're worried about how technology can hurt us. In the movie, though, the things that hurt people are either things that are made of flesh and bone or are allowed into the person's body by the person (the port and the bomb in the port are what I'm thinking of specifically). I think you're right that this says something interesting about our notion of technology and what hurts us -- and our role in all of it.
I also think you have presented a very interesting idea with your post. We are the danger to ourselves instead of technological advancements that we think are our danger because metal has no will. When guns kill people, humans are the ones that will the gun to pull the trigger, not the gun itself. This is an obvious idea, but it's just interesting to me to think that there is so much discussion on gun control, but not as much on the real problem: trying to figure out why people pull the trigger. If there was more effort put towards psychological assessment of students in schools and discovering psychological disorders like depression in people without those people seeking professional help themselves, we could try to get to the root of the problem instead of blaming it on technology. By the way, I'm not sure where I stand on gun control- my argument is just an example of how meat and metal can get confused.
ReplyDeleteThis is an incredibly perceptive observation. We are the most dangerous threat to ourselves. We hold the ability to form organic matter to fight against ourselves. Our imagination can be used for good or ill, but it is used for ill when we utilize our natural resources to create pain. As you say, we are meat, we created the metal, therefore we are the metal. Very interesting stuff.
ReplyDeleteNice post. As you suggest, the organic gun should remind us that violence is in our nature. We needn't use guns or explosives or chemicals to kill one another. We can do it with a jawbone and some teeth, if the will to kill is really there.
ReplyDeleteWe are very good at manufacturing death. This is something Cronenberg is aware of and something we should keep in mind the further we progress with our technology.
I think one of the points he is also trying to make is that our technologies are not just inert objects at our disposal. Technology is not separate from nature it is a part of it. What's the difference between a skyscraper and a bird's nest? A hydroelectric dam and a beaver's? Technology is just as radically a part of nature as are the stars.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I think he's indicating that in the metabolic relationship between man and nature/tech, the interaction is not one-sided. These creations often take on a life of their own outside of our control, somewhat reminiscent of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Cronenberg seems to be making a very Nietzschean point in the film. Rather than moralizing about technology universally, he indicates that we have a bad relationship toward it and ourselves if a few things occur. First, technology or the act of creating is bad if we attempt to measure it against a romanticized referent that does not exist, such as the realists. If we attempt to assign a fundamental value to it from outside, rather than from the encounter. Secondly, it poor if we view it with resentment or as somehow how out of control. If one does not assert a certain degree of responsibility and ownership over the products we make we will never get anywhere. It's not that technology is to be criticized at large, but simply the ways that we relate to it on an aesthetic level of lived existence.