The Projected and Prophetic: Humanity in Cyberculture, Cyberspace, and Science Fiction [1 ed.] 9781848880870, 9789004403505

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The Projected and Prophetic

Critical Issues Series Editors Dr Robert Fisher Dr Daniel Riha Advisory Board Dr Alejandro Cervantes-Carson Dr Peter Mario Kreuter Professor Margaret Chatterjee Martin McGoldrick Dr Wayne Cristaudo Revd Stephen Morris Mira Crouch Professor John Parry Dr Phil Fitzsimmons Paul Reynolds Professor Asa Kasher Professor Peter Twohig Owen Kelly Professor S Ram Vemuri Revd Dr Kenneth Wilson, O.B.E

A Critical Issues research and publications project. http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/ The Cyber hub ‘Visions of Humanity in Cyberculture’

2011

The Projected and Prophetic: Humanity in Cyberculture, Cyberspace and Science Fiction

Edited by

Jordan J. Copeland

Inter-Disciplinary Press Oxford, United Kingdom

© Inter-Disciplinary Press 2011 http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/id-press/

The Inter-Disciplinary Press is part of Inter-Disciplinary.Net – a global network for research and publishing. The Inter-Disciplinary Press aims to promote and encourage the kind of work which is collaborative, innovative, imaginative, and which provides an exemplar for inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary publishing.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of Inter-Disciplinary Press.

Inter-Disciplinary Press, Priory House, 149B Wroslyn Road, Freeland, Oxfordshire. OX29 8HR, United Kingdom. +44 (0)1993 882087

ISBN: 978-1-84888-087-0 First published in the United Kingdom in eBook format in 2011. First Edition.

Table of Contents Introduction Jordan J. Copeland Part I

Reconsidering Post-Human Concepts John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War Trilogy: A User’s Guide to Post-Humanity Fábio Fernandes

Part II

Part III

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3

‘We walk amid crowds, ride, fly or fall with the hero’: Avatars and Posthumanism Jenna Ng

13

Reading the Body: Interpreting Three Dimensional Media as Narrative Jim Barrett

21

Issues of Immersion, Ethics and Identity The Ethical Experience in Controversial Videogames Daniel Riha

31

Making Science Fiction Personal: Videogames and Inter-Affective Storytelling Kevin Veale

41

Heterotopias of Genders in Digital Space: Gender Representations in Facebook Sophia Damianidou, Konstantina Vasiliki Iakovou and Katerina Zygoura

49

Immersion and Surveillance in Virtual Worlds George J. Stein

59

Technology, Community and Anthropology Anthropological Reflections on Knowledge Interfaces: Swarm, Wikinomics and Design Michał Derda-Nowakowski

71

Intelligent Shoes, Smart Teeth and Lunch with a Cyborg: Anthropological Reflections on the Change of Communication Paradigms Anna Maj

79

Part IV

Part V

Mission to Earth: Planetary Proprioception and the Cyber-Sublime Marc Barasch and Ksenia Fedorova

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Avatar: A Tale of Indigenous Survival? Dolores Miralles-Alberola

99

Science Fiction and the Literatures of Cyberspace Loss of Connection: Science in Romanticism and Modern Science Fiction Susan Rose Nash

111

Human Identity in the World of Altered Carbon Grzegorz Trębicki

119

The Mind Body Problem through Science Fiction: Charles Stross and Richard Morgan in Philosophical Review Benjamin Manktelow

127

Human Magic, Fairy Technology and the Place of the Supernatural in the Age of Cyberculture Anna Bugajska

135

The Future of Humanity in Film and Television Enemy Metaphors and the Countdown for Mankind in the American TV Series Space: Above and Beyond and Battlestar Galactica Petra Rehling

145

Quest for Closure: Re-Visioning Humanity in Battlestar Galactica Dagmara Zając

153

Who’s Your Saviour? The Changing Messiahs of Contemporary Science Fiction Film and TV Sofia Sjö

161

Endgame: Mitchell and Webb’s ‘Remain Indoors’ Sketch Series, Absurdist Comedy and the Collapse of Meaning in Apocalypse Narratives Ewan Kirkland

171

Introduction Jordan J. Copeland The chapters collected in this volume document the exchange and development of ideas that comprised the 5th Global Conference on Visions of Humanity in Cyberculture, Cyberspace and Science Fiction, a Cyber Hub project hosted at Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom, in July 2010. The contributing authors and editor have adopted as their charge the faithful reproduction of the chapters as originally presented. Accordingly, the participants were requested to submit their original presentation-length chapters, and to make only those edits befitting the published format. Likewise, in view of these efforts, I have attempted to keep my own editorial meddling to a minimum, and to limit my revisions to those done in the service of clarity. On the reader’s part, each individual piece, and the volume as a whole, might be best approached as a snapshot of the presentations and conversations that took place. So considered, the volume does an admirable job capturing and conveying the themes characterizing the event, but, inevitably, like any snapshot, fails at communicating in full the kinetic vigour and dialogical ethos of the conference. While the project makes no claim to being the exclusive preserve of these qualities, they have proven nonetheless to be the enduring hallmark of the events associated with Inter-Disciplinary.Net. For many participants who have grown weary of ‘traditional’ academic conferences, these gatherings have proven a welcome respite. In many ways, the conference and present volume reflect their subject, which has always been situated self-consciously and comfortably between the receding boundaries that have traditionally served both to delineate various academic disciplines and to distinguish real scholarship from popular discourse. Thus, as evidenced in the chapters that follow, the conference benefited from the participation of delegates who represented a variety of fields, methodologies, and perspectives. As in the past, the conference was driven by questions related to how cyberculture, cyberspace and science fiction can provide new insights into the nature of what it is to be human and the understanding of what it means for human beings to live in communities. The specific shape of the themes and questions that arise each year are, of course, informed by recent currents, developments, and events in the areas of cybercultures, cyberspace, and science fiction. Thus, it is not surprising that a number of chapters presented at the conference were dedicated to or included reflections on science-fiction television and film, as the year leading up to the conference included the release of the blockbuster film Avatar and the series finale of the wildly popular Battlestar Galactica.

Introduction

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__________________________________________________________________ In an effort to reflect the full range of themes that comprised the conference, the nineteen chapters of this volume have been organised into five parts, as follows: Part I: Part II: Part III: Part IV: Part V:

Reconsidering Post-Human Concepts Issues of Immersion, Ethics, and Identity Technology, Community, and Anthropology Science Fiction and the Literatures of Cyberspace The Future of Humanity in Film and Television

The first part of this collection includes three chapters that, taken together, utilise literature, film and virtual worlds to examine post-human concepts. Fabio Fernandes, in his chapter ‘John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War Trilogy: A User’s Guide to Post-Humanity,’ sets the stage for the question: ‘What constitutes a normal body in the twenty-first century?’ by considering the lines of debate surrounding paraathlete Oscar Pistorius’ request that he be allowed to participate in the Olympic Games as a ‘normal’ athlete, while still using his high-performance prosthetics. The author then draws on the works of Georges Canguilhem and Michel Foucault, as well as the example of the character Jared Dirac, from John Scalzi’s trilogy Old Man´s War, in order to propose solutions to impasses which are now being created by the advent of post-humanity. In her chapter ‘We Walk Amid Crowds, Ride, Fly or Fall with the Hero: Avatars and Posthumanism,’ Jenna Ng examines three portrayals of the self in terms of the Cartesian mind/body division, including representations from the films Surrogates and Avatar, and the experiences of users controlling digital avatars in Second Life. Drawing on her analyses, the author presents a posthumanism whose identity of self remains very much tied to the body in varying degrees and ways of relation. Jim Barrett, whose chapter ‘Reading the Body: Interpreting Three Dimensional Media as Narrative’ represents the final chapter of Part I, argues that virtual online worlds are sites for the realization of narrative, in a form of reading that is posthuman and performative. The author characterizes the in-world avatar as the embodiment of an interpreting agent in the virtual world, and, based upon his analysis of the cybernetic relationship that develops, argues that the body of the avatar and the body of the person operating it are joined across the spaces of the digital and the physical in the navigation of the virtual three-dimensional. Part II includes four chapters, each of which considers significant questions concerning identity, ethics, and/or security that arise with the development of various immersive technologies and environments. Daniel Riha, in his chapter ‘The Ethical Experience in Controversial Videogames,’ focuses on the ethical implications of controversial and morally questionable game content in singleplayer games with defined win conditions, as well as implementation issues of

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__________________________________________________________________ unethical content in serious videogames. The author employs the work of Sicart to evaluate the potential of virtue ethics, information ethics, and Sicart’s own theory of ‘distributed responsibility’ for enhancing our ethical understanding of videogames. Continuing with the subject of videogames, Kevin Veale (‘Making Science Fiction Personal – Videogames and Inter-Affective Storytelling’) argues that games, such as System Shock 2, are capable of bringing science fiction into the affective present. The author argues that the immersive, first-person structure of these games promotes a sense of agency on the part of the player, which overcomes the mediated, third-person perspective of the protagonists represented in literature and film. The result, Veale contends, is that players have a more personal connection to the consequences of their actions, and a more meaningful investment in the relationships that are established with the characters they encounter. In light of this, the chapter considers the possibilities for inter-affective storytelling within videogames, which would not be possible outside of an interactive context. In their chapter ‘Heterotopias of Genders in Digital Space: Gender Representations in Facebook’ Sophia Damianidou, Konstantina Vasiliki Iakovou, and Katerina Zygoura observe that in any society one can detect ‘heterotopias,’ or spaces that carry feminine or masculine identities, which belong simultaneously to reality and illusion. The authors contend that this is today more evident due to the intersections of both real and mental spaces in cyberspace. The chapter considers the web as a space for observing the current social positions of women and men respectively, and of the feminine and the masculine generally. However, as the authors point out, this raises important questions. Among those identified in the chapter are the following: By what means are both genders expressed and revealed? What can one assume about the gender of someone by encountering only his or her site? How does the possibility of being invisible and anonymous affect the definition of the engendered space? And, finally, what is the interaction between the physical space-time continuum and cyberspace under these circumstances? The final chapter of this section, ‘Immersion and Surveillance in Virtual Worlds,’ by George J. Stein, explores (1) the tensions between the emergence of independent cybercultures through virtual worlds such as Second Life, (2) the internal tensions between ‘immersionists’ and ‘augmentationists,’ and (3) the already demonstrated interest by national intelligence and law enforcement agencies in applying a system of surveillance in virtual worlds. Focusing primarily on Second Life, the author argues that the original vision of building an independent cyberculture or ‘immersionist’ community, with its own laws and society, is threatened by an ‘augmentationist’ approach to this virtual world that envisions it as more a ‘platform’ for other ‘real world’ activities that have a considerably lower commitment to privacy and anonymity. The chapter argues that

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__________________________________________________________________ the most serious threat that develops from the augmentationist approach is the surveillance by government agencies. Part III includes four chapters that consider contemporary technologies and popular science fiction in terms of both sociological and anthropological questions. This section begins with Michał Derda Nowakowski’s chapter ‘Anthropological Reflections on Knowledge Interfaces: Swarm, Wikinomics, and Design.’ In the chapter, the author draws on Marshall McLuhan’s ‘prophecy of cultural transformation within the range of consciousness,’ to connect anthropological reflections on knowledge interfaces with visions of humanity as represented in the context of various aspects of cyberculture. The chapter considers cultural paradigm shifts connected with the emergence of networked civilisation, knowledge interfaces, user experiences, wikinomics and swarming. Anna Maj (‘Intelligent Shoes, Smart Teeth and Lunch with a Cyborg: Anthropological Reflections on the Change of Communication Paradigms’) addresses the change of communication paradigms caused by digital technologies, especially networked, mobile and intelligent devices, assistive technologies, supporting communication systems, prostheses and chips. Drawing from the fields of media anthropology and cultural studies, the chapter considers questions raised by cyberculture and cyborgisation. Maj proposes a new communication model to enable descriptions of cognitive and interactional aspects of new situations of cyborg communication (cyborg-to-cyborg, cyborg-to-objects and human-tocyborg), as well as situations of ubiquitous networked communication. In their chapter ‘Mission to Earth: Planetary Proprioception and the CyberSublime,’ Marc Barasch and Ksenia Fedorova examine the ways in which our sense of the self and its relation to its surroundings is being increasingly reshaped by telematic prostheses. The authors argue that Geotagging, Google Earth, biomapping, telepresence, augmented reality, and distributed intelligence are creating new locative sense-perceptions, unprecedented narratives, and new feelings (and praxes) of agency-at-a-distance. Inspired by Roy Ascott’s question ‘Is there love in the telematic embrace?,’ the authors articulate a range of related questions, which set the stage for their identification and evaluation of potential methods of enhancing connectivity and efficacy between a person and his/her surroundings via mapping techniques, storytelling, and social and artistic projects using telecommunication and locative media. Dolores Miralles-Alberola (‘Avatar: A Tale of Indigenous Survival?’) provides the final chapter of this section. Her chapter explores the obvious connections between worldwide indigenous peoples and the Na´vi, the humanoid inhabitants of the satellite Pandora in the film Avatar. The author’s identification of these connections provides a foundation for further reflections on the present and future implications of these connections for the representation of the indigenous persona in mainstream culture, and on indigenous vindications of land, ecology, sovereignty, survival, history and culture.

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__________________________________________________________________ Part IV focuses on science fiction and literary approaches to cyberspace and cyberculture. In the first chapter, ‘Loss of Connection: Science in Romanticism and Modern Science Fiction,’ Susan Rose Nash juxtaposes two competing perceptions of science: the understanding of scientists as the saviours of the world, who offer a method for solving the problems of humanity, and, conversely, the dispositions of writers of Romantic-era fiction and modern science fiction, who share a fear of the future that humanity could create using this method without being checked by humane judgment. The author examines several works by Nathanial Hawthorne and Ray Bradbury to flesh out and examine the tensions that are identified within the chapter. In his chapter ‘Human Identity in the World of Altered Carbon,’ Grzegorz Trębicki acknowledges that a number of ambitious subjects have been considered within the genres of science fiction and cyberpunk (e.g. the changing idea of a body in the era of cyberculture, various biotechnical advances and their impact on life, death, human identity and individuality, etc.), but argues that Richard Morgan’s ‘Takeshi Kovacs’ trilogy is perhaps qualitatively unique in its moving and convincing approach to these subjects. Exploring the possible reasons for this, the author argues that Morgan manages successfully to background daring technological advances against complex psychological, social and economic issues, in a way that previous literary attempts have not. Benjamin Manktelow’s chapter ‘The Mind Body Problem through Science Fiction: Charles Stross and Richard Morgan in Philosophical Review,’ considers the works of Charles Stross and Richard Morgan, focusing on the authors’ frequent characterization of the brain as being the seat of the person, as well the prevalence with which both authors include within their stories various technologies which map, upload and transmit minds, by scanning brains and, therefore, people. The chapter identifies and examines points of comparison and contrast between the visions of humanity and the future each author presents, and argues that the works of both Stross and Morgan are deserving of closer critical and philosophical examination. In her chapter ‘Human Magic, Fairy Technology, and the Place of the Supernatural in the Age of Cyberculture,’ Anna Bugajska credits Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl with ushering in a new era of cyberculture. The author observes that the work is so immersed in technology that while it may be intended for young adults, the story proves hardly intelligible to a reader who lacks facility in its specialized jargon. However, Bugajska traces the success of Colfer’s series in part to the author’s striking combination of supernatural and technical elements, which forces us to take a new vantage point, one that no longer allows for the traditional partition of the ‘technical’ from the ‘magical.’ Part V of the book considers visions of humanity as these have been presented in television and film. Petra Rehling (‘Enemy Metaphors and the Countdown for

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__________________________________________________________________ Mankind in the American TV Series Space: Above and Beyond and Battlestar Galactica’) examines two televised, science-fiction dramas, which were developed and aired in two historically proximate but culturally distinctive decades. The author examines several important cultural, political, and scientific differences that informed both the creative development and popular consumption of each show. One shared theme that provides a foundation for the chapter’s analysis is that each series presents humanity’s struggle with an enemy that is both internal and external. The author argues that in these confrontations a mirror is held up to humanity, one which offers a surprising but telling reflection. In the chapter ‘Quest for Closure: Re-visioning Humanity in Battlestar Galactica,’ Dagmara Zając examines the numerous slips and loose ends that he believes plague the narrative of the science-fiction show Battlestar Galactica. According to the author, the story’s unresolved mysteries, inconclusive episode endings, and ultimately, lack of a coherent conclusion, can all be traced to the series’ ambitious, but failed, attempt to confront the problem of the very survival of the human race in a post-industrial or, even, post-humanistic era. As Sofia Sjö points out in her chapter ‘Who’s Your Saviour? The Changing Messiahs of Contemporary Science Fiction Film and TV,’ religious studies and theology can be counted among the many academic fields that have turned to science fiction for a greater understanding of their respective disciplines. In her own piece, the author considers the theme of the myth of a messiah, and argues that modern science fiction clearly demonstrates that the myth remains alive and well today in popular culture. The chapter contends, however, that the messiahs presented in contemporary science fiction film and TV differ significantly from the messiah’s traditional characterization in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Following an explication of these differences, Sjö provides her own reflections on what these representations suggest about the potential role of religion, spirituality, and the messiah-myth in contemporary and future societies. The chapter ‘Endgame: Mitchell and Webb’s ‘Remain Indoors’ Sketch Series, Absurdist Comedy, and the Collapse of Meaning in Apocalypse Narratives,’ by Ewan Kirkland, represents the conclusion of both Part V and the volume as a whole. The fact that the chapter considers several absurdist approaches to the apocalypse is purely coincidental. According to the author, while the ‘Remain Indoors’ series displays the influence of dystopian science fiction, it can also be related to absurdist theatre, and certain traditions in British comedy. Thus, the chapter serves to identify and illuminate the series’ thematic and dispositional connections to the work of Samuel Beckett and several examples from the British comedic tradition, wherein one might trace the roots of the series’ association of the end of civilisation with the end of meaning, the collapse of discourse, and the fragmentation of collective and individual memory.

Part I Reconsidering Post-Human Concepts

John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War Trilogy: A User’s Guide to PostHumanity Fábio Fernandes Abstract How can one define what constitutes a normal body in the twenty-first century? When an amputee runner like Oscar Pistorius, who uses high-performance prosthetics, demands an upgrade from the status of para-athlete to be accepted as a ‘normal’ athlete for the Olympic Games, while being considered, paradoxically, as more-than-human by others who believe such prosthetics provide him an unfair edge over other athletes, the rules governing the way we have traditionally understood our bodies necessarily change. Drawing on the thoughts on norms and normality studied by Georges Canguilhem in The Normal and The Pathological, as well as Michel Foucault’s ideas concerning the need to treat the different ‘grades’ of humanity by different sets of rules, which he puts forward in The Birth of The Clinic, this chapter uses the example of the character Jared Dirac, from John Scalzi’s trilogy Old Man’s War, and the reading of a science-fiction narrative as a kind of ‘user’s guide’, in order to propose solutions to impasses which are now being created by the advent of post-humanity. Key Words: Post-Human, cyborg, prosthetics, normality, pathology. ***** 1. Who’s Normal, Anyway? Nicknamed ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘the fastest man without legs’, by the press, South African runner Oscar Pistorius holds the 100-, 200- and 400-metre world records for double amputees in the Paralympic Games. Instead of legs, Pistorius runs with Cheetah Flex-Foot, carbon-fiber, lower-transtibial members, made by the Icelandic orthopedic company Ossur. Journalist Josh McHugh, upon seing the hockey-stick-looking prostheses, said: ‘If you don’t have a leg, having an Ossur is like a driving a BMW series M.’ McHugh explains: ‘The current Cheetahs look a little like the rear leg of a horse or cat, extending straight down from the socket, cantilevering backward, and then angling forward sharply.’ 1 On its website, Ossur defines itself as a ‘non-invasive company,’ and a ‘global leader in developing, building, distributing, and selling of prosthetics.’ The company’s mission is to ‘enhance mobility and make every effort to give to its patients a life without limitations.’ 2 This ‘life without limitations’, to which Ossur’s slogan refers, isn’t seen the same way by everyone. This perception is suggested in a question raised by Jeré Longman in a story for The New York Times; concerning Pistorius, the author asks:

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__________________________________________________________________ ‘is he disabled or too-abled?’ 3 In the article, Longman explains that Pistorius wanted to compete in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games as the first amputee runner ever to appear in the Olympics. However, Pistorius would face resistance from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the organisation in charge of all modalities of running, which argued that the technology of his prosthesis could give him an unfair advantage over runners who use their naturalborn legs. Despite the differences which appear obvious to the naked eye, the issue of ‘prosthesis’ versus ‘natural-born legs’ is not so simple. A follow-up to the story mentioned above raises more doubts than certainties for the reader: Pistorius is forcing the sports world to rethink what it means to be a disabled athlete. Is he so close to world-class that his limitations, his prosthetic legs, represent a disadvantage? Or are the Cheetahs an advantage, an artificial enhancement that makes him faster than he would be if he had natural legs? After all, improvements in human performance are normally limited by biology and evolution. Not in Pistorius’ case. His legs are constantly upgraded by a pit crew of Icelandic gearheads at one of the world’s most sophisticated prosthetic manufacturing facilities. 4 The words artificial enhancement and upgraded are the keywords in understanding the gap between prosthetics and natural legs, as the natural-born legs cannot be ‘upgraded’. McHugh closes his piece with a note of concern: No one expects able-bodied runners to compete head-to-head with wheelchair-bound marathoners. The wheels confer an obvious speed advantage, and maybe Oscar Pistorius’ Cheetahs do, too. So the real question is this: Do able-bodied athletes need protection from him? 5 The description ‘able-bodied’ is an expression commonly used in the English language to describe normal-functioning bodies, but this requires that we ask: What is normal? And what defines normality? 2. Future Post-Humanity: A User’s Guide? In my book A Construção do Imaginário Cyber (FERNANDES, 2006), I study the work of cyberpunk writer William Gibson to conclude that, without his intervention in the cultural imaginary by means of the creation of the word cyberspace and the whole hacker culture, among other things, cyberculture as we know it wouldn’t exist.

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__________________________________________________________________ A similar thought is defended by Henry Jenkins in Cordwainer Smith Imagined Convergence Culture (and Viral Media) in 1964. Jenkins analyses the work of a Golden Age science fiction writer to explain how some of his stories seem to anticipate notions like viral media. For Jenkins, ‘science fiction writers don’t necessarily invent the future, but help shaping it’; first, because they would give us the necessary information to understand the present reality and anticipate probable consequences of the choices we make as a society; second, because, by offering an exquisitely painted image of a possible future, they would inspire scientists, politicians, and decision-makers to ‘remake’ reality. Science fiction, therefore, would act as a user’s guide in the order of the real. In terms of post-humanity, one of the most recent examples of a narrative that could just as well work as a sort of ‘user’s guide’ for 21st century readers is the Old Man’s War trilogy, by American writer John Scalzi. Composed of Old Man’s War (2005), The Ghost Brigades (2006) and The Last Colony (2007), this trilogy pays a tribute to Frankenstein, putting its principal premise in a new, fresh perspective. The story of Old Man’s War begins approximately two-hundred years in our future, in a time when humankind has reached a kind of post-scarcity condition; and Earth has already colonized dozens of star systems through the Colonial Union and its Colonial Defence Forces. One of the reasons why Earth is more ‘balanced’ is because of the exodus of Third World inhabitants to those colonies. The First World, by decision of CU, was assigned with the defence of the colonies. The interesting thing is that the colonists may leave Earth when they wish, but the first-worlders are only allowed to enlist when they are seventy-five years old. They get an extreme rejuvenating therapy, which consists basically of having their minds uploaded to a new body cloned from their own cells and grown until 25 years of age, and with green skin – the result of chlorophyll laced to their DNA so they can perform better through photosynthesis. That’s what happens to the protagonist, John Perry. A widower with a son and grown-up grandchildren, Perry doesn’t want to wait for death on Earth. So he enlists, and soon discovers that he will not only look younger, but will also be faster, stronger and more resilient than he ever was in his former life. Aside from the green skin, every soldier is pumped full of SmartBloodTM, which helps the body to heal faster. And the BrainPal, a brain implant that augments intelligence and connects people. Thus John Perry becomes a post-human. Not everyone gets in on the joyride, however. The day before the therapy starts, Perry’s bunk companion dies of a heart attack. The medics who take out the body make a comment that Perry understands as being offensive: ‘A last-minute volunteer for the Ghost Brigades,’ the other Colonial said. I shot a hard stare at him. I thought a joke at this moment was in terribly bad taste. 6

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__________________________________________________________________ But this comment is far from being simply a bad joke. The Ghost Brigades really exist - although this name is unofficial and indeed a deprecating one. Special Forces (the true name of the Brigades) are the cream of the crop of the CDF, both well-liked and feared by everyone, because they are created literally from dead people. However, while the principle is basically the same: to create life where there is none, the procedure is not as macabre as in Frankenstein. Physically, the soldiers of Special Forces are exactly the same as the rest of the rejuvenated recruits. Nevertheless, there is one single (and fundamental) difference: they are entirely created from DNA of dead individuals, laced to the genome of one or more alien races. The main character of The Ghost Brigades is a newborn soldier named Jared Dirac. In his second day of life (and first of training in the Special Forces), after a petty fight with a mate, Jared receives from his immediate superior a task: to read Frankenstein. Like Mary Shelley’s monster, Dirac also reads fast, only much faster than him. He downloads the book with the help of his BrainPal and reads it in eight minutes. He understands why he was assigned this book: He and all the members of the 8th - all of the Special Forces soldiers - were the spiritual descendants of the pathetic creature Victor Frankenstein had assembled from the bodies of the dead and then jolted into life. (...) The allusions between the monster and the Special Forces were all too obvious. 7 So, in an obvious mirroring of Shelley’s story, Jared reads to better understand who he is - and the speed of the entire process is also a mirror (but an inverted one) of the langue dureé (comparatively) of the learning process of Frankenstein’s monster using the books that he finds in the shack of the old blind man De Lacey, books that shaped his gothic, romantic Weltanschauung. Still using the symbolism of the mirror, Jared, who is a kind of new Frankenstein monster (and representative of a new ‘species’ of clones made from the dead, maybe a fourth kind of human), is not content only with reading Mary Shelley’s book, and thus downloads every single movie version of Frankenstein, plus every possible narrative that includes robots, androids, replicants, etc.; and filled with curiosity, he researches the literary ancestry of Frankenstein and learns of the Golem myth, among many other stories featuring homunculus and mechanical automata. Driven by this new knowledge of himself, by means of the time-honoured tradition of science fiction, Jared repudiates the tragic view of Frankenstein’s monster in favour of another, more technical, pragmatic Weltanschauung (or a programmatic one, since he and his companions were already born with several

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__________________________________________________________________ programmed functions in their brains – notwithstanding their auxiliary BrainPals, downloading all the time concepts and third-part experiences so they can learn their way through the galaxy). 3. Post-Able Bodies? The creation of these ‘Ghost Brigades’ is the science-fiction equivalent of the model analysed by Michel Foucault in The Birth of the Clinic. In this text, Foucault investigates the invention of the hospital as a therapeutic instrument, something that only starts to happen in the 18th Century. Foucault also states that this transformation of the clinic/hospital into an instrument of therapy happened not by the search of a positive action from the hospital upon the disease or the patient, but by the annulment of the negative effects of the hospital (for instance, the great amount of deaths by infection). He also observes that this transformation starts in the military hospitals, because: (...) economic rules and regulations became more and more hard in the mercantile system, and also because the price of men became higher and higher. It is by then that the formation of the subject, his capability, and his skills start having a price for society. 8 Foucault cites the example of the Army, which, upon the invention of the rifle (fusil, in the French original, hence the fusiliers, infantry soldiers who knew how to shoot with this kind of gun) in the end of the 17th Century, becomes more technical and expensive: In order to learn how to use a fusil it will be necessary exercises, manoeuvres, training. That’s how the price of a soldier will surpass the price of a simple workforce and the cost of the Army will become an important budgetary issue in every country. When you form a soldier, you cannot let him die. If he should die, he must die as a soldier, in the battlefield, not of a disease. 9 In the universe created by Scalzi, the price of the soldiers is so high that they become much too valuable to be wasted, even after death; so, their DNA is sort of ‘recycled’, coming back to life in the body of other, able-bodied beings. Who, in opposition to Frankenstein’s monster, are not only accepted by their creators (even though they are feared for their supposed ‘inhumanity’), but are also trained, encouraged to fight, and (if they survive their mandatory ten-year enlistment period) rewarded with the possibility of living for the rest of their lives in a human colony.

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__________________________________________________________________ According to Georges Canguilhem in The Normal and the Pathological, each individual determines her/his own norms upon choosing her/his exercise models. If ‘the norm for the long-distance runner is not the same for the sprinter’, if ‘each and every one of us change her/his own norms, according to age and her/his previous norms’, 10 then the norms for the post-human organism cannot be the same norms for the human organism because of its changes, be they cosmetic or genetic ones. 4. Conclusion: A Body Too Able – or Not? Further events in Oscar Pistorius’s life offer us the answer to the question posed by McHugh in the beginning of this chapter. After a great deal of insistence, Pistorius got the IOC to take back its ‘irrevocable’ decision and allowed his participation in the pre-competitions to qualify to the Beijing Olympic Games. However, in July 18th 2008, the British newspaper The Guardian published the news: Pistorius didn’t make it. His 46.25 seconds mark in the 400-metre relay was slower than the minimum Olympic mark of 45.55 seconds. Pistorius was disappointed, but it wasn’t such an unexpected result: he had spent most of 2007 fighting in the courts for the right to compete in Beijing, which hadn’t allowed him enough time to train. The result only seems to prove what Pistorius himself had said earlier: according to the scientists he had consulted, there was no advantage in the use of prosthetics over natural-born legs. Bodies with prosthesis, judging by the experience of the South-African runner, are not necessarily better than the able bodies mentioned by the journalist. In The Normal and The Pathological, Georges Canguilhem notices that: To define the abnormality from the standpoint of the social inadaptation is to accept more or less the idea theta the individual must bow down to the manners of a given society, and, thus, to adapt her/himself to it as she/he would to a reality that it would be, at the same time, something good. 11 Canguilhem does not agree with the reasoning, reminding us that it belongs to the 19th Century, a time which saw an antagonistic relationship between man and environment, ‘of challenge between an organic form and an adverse environment’. 12 Opposing himself to this approach, which he called mechanistic, Canguilhem argues that, if we consider the relationship of organism-environment as a consequence of a truly biological activity, as the search of a situation in which the living being, instead of suffering influences, collect those influences and the qualities that correspond to its demands, then the means in which the living beings are immersed have its boundaries defined by them.

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__________________________________________________________________ In this sense, the organism is not just thrown into an environment in which it must folds, but, on the contrary, it structures its environment at the same time it develops its organic capacities. 13 Canguilhem concludes his reasoning, explaining that the norms for an old man would be considered deficiencies of the same man as a youngster. In those reflections, written between 1963 and 1966, he recalls that, in his 1943 original essay, he called normativity the biological capacity of questioning the usual norms upon critical situation, and he proposed to measure health by the gravity of the organic crises surpassed by the creation of a new physiological order. 14 The most famous user of the Ossur prosthetic members was trying to get just that in his fight to get out of the Paralympic Games and start participating in the Olympic Games, the games for able-bodied athletes. Oscar Pistorius wanted to change his own norms for amputee-rendered-’unable’ in order to run in the same conditions of the so-called ‘normal’ athletes. The post-human condition, thus, constantly questions the limits of a supposed normativity. From the standpoint of the ‘normal,’ the post-human is always critical: post-human is always pathological. To be post-human is to live in a constant state of change.

Notes 1

J. McHugh, ‘Blade Runner’, Wired Magazine, Issue 15.03 - March 2007, Date of viewing March 30th 2010. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/ blade.html. 2 ‘A Life without Limitations’, Ossur, website. Date of viewing August 16th 2008, http://www.ossur.com/pages/3642. 3 J. Longman, ‘An Amputee Sprinter: Is He Disabled or Too-Abled?’, The New York Times, May 15th 2007, Date of viewing October 20th 2009, http://www.ny times.com/2007/05/15/sports/othersports/15runner.html. 4 McHugh, op. cit. 5 McHugh, op. cit. 6 J. Scalzi, Old Man’s War, Tor Books, New York, 2005, p. 52. 7 J. Scalzi, The Ghost Brigades, Tor Books, New York, 2006, pp. 93-94. 8 M. Foucault, Microfísica do Poder, (Organização, Introdução e Revisão Técnica de Roberto Machado) Edições Graal, Rio de Janeiro, 1988, p. 104. All quotations from this text have been translated by the author for the purposes of this chapter. 9 Foucault, op. cit., p. 104. 10 G. Canguilhem, O Normal e o Patológico, Forense Universitária, Rio de Janeiro, 2006, p. 245. All quotations from this text have been translated by the author for the purposes of this chapter. 11 Canguilhem, op. cit., p. 244. 12 Canguilhem, op. cit., p. 244.

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__________________________________________________________________ 13 14

Canguilhem, op. cit., p. 245. Canguilhem, op. cit.

Bibliography Canguilhem, G., O Normal e o Patológico. Forense Universitária, Rio de Janeiro, 2006. Fernandes, F., A Construção do Imaginário Cyber – William Gibson, Criador da Cibercultura. Editora Anhembi Morumbi, São Paulo, 2006. –––, A Construção do Imaginário Ciborgue. PhD Thesis. Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2008. Foucault, M., Microfísica do Poder. (Organização, Introdução e Revisão Técnica de Roberto Machado.) Edições Graal, Rio de Janeiro, 1988. Jenkins, H., Cordwainer Smith Imagined Convergence Culture (and Viral Media) in 1964. Available at http://henryjenkins.org/2009/10/cordwainer_smith_imag ined_conv.html, Accessed October 26th 2009. Longman, J., ‘An Amputee Sprinter: Is He Disabled or Too-Abled?’. The New York Times. May 15th 2007. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/ sports/othersports/15runner.html, Accessed October 20th 2009. McHugh, J., ‘Blade Runner’. Wired Magazine. March 2007. Available at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/blade.html. Accessed on August 25th 2008. Scalzi, J., Old Man’s War. Tor Books, New York, 2005. –––, The Ghost Brigades. Tor Books, New York, 2006. –––, The Last Colony. Tor Books, New York, 2007. Shelley, M., Frankenstein. Ediouro, Rio de Janeiro, 2001. Fibio Fernandes received his PhD in Communication and Semiotics from Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, where he teaches at the courses of Digital Games and Digital Media. A science fiction writer and translator, he is the author of A Construção do Imaginário Cyber (2006), Wild Mood Swings (2008),

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__________________________________________________________________ Os Dias da Peste (2009) and several short stories published in the US, the UK, Brasil, New Zealand, Portugal, and Romania. He blogs at Post-Weird Thoughts (http://verbeat.org/blogs/pwt/), Fantasy Book Critic (http://fantasybookcritic. blogspot.com/) and Tor.com (http://www.tor.com). He is currently writing his first novel in English.

‘We walk amid crowds, ride, fly or fall with the hero’: Avatars and Posthumanism Jenna Ng Abstract This essay examines three portrayals of the self in terms of the Cartesian mind/body division. These presentations are from: (i) Surrogates; (ii) Avatar; and (iii) the experiences of a user controlling a digital avatar in Second Life. Through these analyses, the essay presents a posthumanism whose identity of self remains very much tied to the body in varying degrees and ways of relation. The interrogation of posthuman identity is thus a more nuanced strategy of slippage between real and digital worlds, where the body is not abandoned in favour of unlimited thought but is instead translated as alternative bodily experiences of sensuality, haecceity and perception. Key Words: Posthuman, avatar, digital, science fiction film, self, body, perception. ***** 1. Introduction The separation of mind from body provokes conflicting responses. On one hand, the mind-body dualism causes anxiety and pessimism, where the integrity of the human being is irredeemably compromised and questions of its identity as a choate idea become unanswerable. Yet, on the other hand, the vision of dividing mind from body also offers a utopia, peddled on promises of escape and freedom from the corporeal encumbrances of the body and the prison represented by its limitations. As William Gibson describes in relation to the character Case in his 1984 novel, Neuromancer: ‘For Case, who’d lived in the bodiless exultation of cyberspace, it was the Fall… The body was meat. Case fell into the prison of his own flesh’. 1 To Gregory Little, the mind/body divide is a salvation myth, whereby the body, in all its physical attributes, is abandoned in favour of a technologized completeness: ‘Convinced that to be embodied is lack, we desire escape from the particulars of the body and move out via myths of wholeness toward technologized commodification.’ 2 In this vision, the posthuman is data, a consciousness to be housed elsewhere, if at all, while the physical body is fragmented, de-centred and abandoned. In this essay, I show how the films Surrogates and Avatar, as well as the digital avatar from Second life, present an alternative vision of posthumanism—a future human whose mind is not divorced from body but, rather, relate to each other through re-articulated experiences of embodiment. The identity of the posthuman self is thus not one simply balanced between the persistence and erasure of the physical

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__________________________________________________________________ body, but instead appeals to an alternative subjectivity by re-thinking our notions of the physical and of bodily awareness. 2. All Bodies Left Behind: Surrogates The people in the film Surrogates walk around in surrogate bodies—metal shells textured with human skin and filled with wires and memory chips—while their flesh bodies are left behind at home, plugged into electrodes controlling the surrogates. The self becomes a consignable entity, something fluid enough to occupy the surrogate body but also transferred back to the flesh body once the surrogate is ‘parked’ (by walking into and settling itself inside a life-size box enclosure at home). In this set-up, there are no crimes, as surrogate bodies cannot be harmed; nor is there discrimination, as one may choose a surrogate body with any physical characteristics. Thus, society is ostensibly a better place. However, the film qualifies this vision. A key sub-plot shows Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) in a strained marriage with his wife, Maggie (Rosamund Pike), as they grieve the loss of their only child. A significant indication of this unhappiness is Maggie’s insistence on using her surrogate body. Her lack of engagement both with her feelings and with Greer is thus demonstrated by her seeking protection behind the metal shell of her surrogate; her distance and alienation from her husband is shown as much by her disinterested answers to him as by her refusal to interact with him in her real body. At the end of the film, Greer and Maggie are forced to return to their non-surrogate bodies as the computer controlling all surrogate bodies breaks down. Only at this point do Greer and Maggie finally embrace, the imperfections of their flesh bodies—aging, wrinkled, sagging—bared like the truth of their emotions. This division between flesh and surrogate bodies thus signifies the draining of vitality from the human-person. The film’s message is clear: the self leaves behind its flesh body at the expense of certain truths about its emotions, desires, happiness and ability to love, and one had to return to that body to regain those aspects of the self. Humanity lies in the physical body itself, where the body is the ground of being and the base of human feelings and desires. Subjectivity cannot be transferred or parked inside another entity; cognition is not a computer file to be transmitted across electrodes. To be human is to be ‘in the flesh’, so to speak. The body cannot be left behind. 3. ‘We awake when we sleep’: Avatar In Avatar, the flesh body is similarly abandoned while the self occupies an alien one (in this case, literally so). It is the year 2154, and humans are mining a mineral called unobtanium on the planet Pandora which hosts, among others, humanoid creatures called the Na’vi. In a bid to win hearts and minds, human scientists develop technology by which they can transfer their consciousness from human to Na’vi bodies, so that they not only look and move like the Na’vi but,

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__________________________________________________________________ more importantly, possess all the functionalities of Na’vi physicality, the most significant being the ability to breathe Pandora’s air which is toxic to humans. When the avatar body sleeps, the self returns to the human body, still plugged in a cocoon pod back at the research base, while the avatar body out in Pandora remains unconscious. The film follows the adventures of protagonist Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) who is paralysed from the waist down. As one of the humans occupying a Na’vi avatar body, he is able to leave behind his paralysed human body, a deliberate abandonment which turns out to be significant throughout the film. Firstly, it is an important plot device: he agrees to spy on the Na’vi for Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) based on the Colonel’s promise to him that he would be rewarded: ‘You get me what I need; I make sure that when you rotate home you get your legs back, your real legs.’ Secondly, it ratchets up the tension of the film. The more Sully, in his alien body, integrates with the Na’vi, the more complicated the transference of self between real and avatar bodies becomes, climaxing with his delay in returning to his avatar, which is lying unconscious amidst the carnage of the humans’ attack on Hometree while Neytiri frantically tries to shake him ‘awake’. Thirdly, it provides irony in the Na’vi words—’I see you’—intoned often in the film. ‘I see you’ functions as a greeting, but also proclaims truth or insight—’I see you… for who/what you are’—and ironic in Sully’s case as he is not, at least until the end of the film, seen in his truthful form, i.e. in his paralysed human body. Finally, the film ends with a close-up shot of Jake opening his eyes—yet another reference to ‘seeing’—as he re-awakens, or is re-born, into a Na’vi body. The mind/body division is thus significant in Avatar not only as an effective plot device, but also as a vision of hope: the future human is seen as a consciousness which can escape the limitations of the flesh body, abandoned like a shed skin, and start anew in a healthy one. Unlike Surrogates, where the truth of living resides in the flesh body, in Avatar the transfer of the self across different bodies instead provides new experiences and facilitates new functionalities. These include, as mentioned, not only the Na’vi body’s ability to breathe Pandora’s air, but also its animal agility and physical particularities such as pointed ears, blue skin and a tail to connect to each other and other creatures. The future human in Avatar is thus a self which is transferred to a new physical form, and in the process partakes in a wider ecology which provides the body with new experiences. The issue in this case, then, is to rethink subjectivity and the mind and body relation, rather than its dualism. Jean-Francois Lyotard writes of the analogous connection between thought and body: Thought makes lavish use of analogy. … its analogising power [brings] into play the spontaneous analogical field of the perceiving body, educating Cezanne’s eye, Debussy’s ear, to see and hear givables, nuances, timbres… 3

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__________________________________________________________________ To that extent, the Na’vi avatar is not simply a case of separating mind and body, but of reconsidering these analogies between thought and body, re-educating our eye and ear to see and hear. 4. Extended Embodied Awareness: The Second Life Avatar Using the Second Life (SL) avatar, I argue that the digital avatar presents yet another relation of the body to the self by shifting the groundwork of physical response from exteroperception to the inside-ness of the body—responses of the gut, of deep somatic responses, and appeals to perceptual cues. This is achieved in three ways. Firstly, the use of cameras in SL focusing on the avatar entrenches in the user somatic experiences derived from the avatar’s acts and movements. Cameras in SL provide visual information for the user and span a range of identification with or distinct from the avatar’s perspective. The default camera position is behind-theshoulder (so the user looks over the avatar’s shoulder); the camera can also orbit around the avatar, be tilted up or down, or panned from one side to the other. These camera positions reinforce to varying degrees the user’s separate identity from the avatar (for example, by orbiting 360-degrees around the avatar so that the user comes face-to-face with her). However, the camera in SL also provides a point-of-view (POV) shot which combines the look of the camera with that of the avatar. 4 In POV, the camera literally dives into the head of the avatar, so that the visual information conveyed to the user is exactly that which is ‘seen’ by the avatar. Alexander Galloway describes the POV ‘as if the camera ‘eye’ were the same as the character ‘I’’. 5 The user’s look is now effectively merged with the avatar’s look, resulting in a convergence of visual information between the two. Yet, this convergence of vision results in a profoundly physical experience, for vision also accumulates bodily being. According to William Gibson, optical information is connected to our sensorium as movements of field of view: are not simply ‘motions’ but deletions and accretions of optical structure… the world is revealed and concealed as the head moves… Whatever goes out of sight as the head turns right comes into sight as the head turns left; whatever goes out of sight as the head is lifted comes into sight as the head is lowered. 6 By participating so intimately with the visual field of the avatar in the POV, the user effectively taps into her own bodily experiences, thus relating the self to an accumulation of projected physical experiences. When the avatar flies, the user, being used to gravitational force, experiences a sensation of lightness. Falling into water provokes a deeply somatic response, a lurch inside, because, as a terrestrial creature, the user is more familiar with being on firm ground. By marrying the

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__________________________________________________________________ visual information of the avatar and the user, the camera POV of SL thus creates a kinesthetic connection by building on the bodily momentum of the avatar and soliciting the flesh of the user. The avatar becomes a transmedial depository of tactility, senses that are beckoned from and located through visual information. Secondly, avatars relate the self and the body in terms of physical awareness. Avatars demonstrate bodily awareness in their behaviour: they apologise when they bump into another avatar; they do not walk between two avatars having a conversation. Claims by avatars of assaults by other avatars 7 do not cause real physical harm, but are significant in that they demonstrate a certain sense of awareness derived from the body, specifically in terms of personal space, social etiquette, spatial awareness and bodily integrity, all of which transcribes into corporeality of sufficient ‘reality’ to be violated. Bodily awareness can also be sensed via perceptual cues. Stephen Prince argues that referentially fictional computer-generated imagery correlate to the perceptual cues of our bodily responses in our real-world experiences. 8 Hence, the referentially fictional dinosaurs of Jurassic Park maintain their sense of realism by corresponding to the viewer’s real-world experiences of three-dimensional space, reflections, surface texture, movements, bone and joint rotations, light, colour and sound. SL avatars possess the same perceptual correspondences from real-life social and physical environments. In SL conferences, avatars sit on chairs facing the speaker, maintain respectful distances, and give allowances for personal spaces. Avatars’ physical attributes also match physical cues: their arms move in tandem when they walk or run, as do their hair when they jump. When avatars fly, their hair and clothes flap in the wind and there are sounds of wind. Their arms pinwheel when they fall. Avatars thus exist in SL as a nested environment of cues intricately combined between real-life physical and digital experiences. These cues not only anchor the avatar inside Cartesian space and perceptual reality, but also provide a bridge of bodily awareness between physical and computer-generated environments. Finally, digital avatars relate self and the body in terms of time. Avatars and users co-opt the same time-space—they share every concrete, live, present instant. Adopting Henri Bergson’s reading of time, every present instant is sensory-motor, because the present exists between and simultaneously with the past and the future, which corresponds respectively with sensation and action: The immediate past, in so far as it is perceived, is sensation, since every sensation translates a very long succession of elementary vibrations; and the immediate future, in so far as it is being determined, is action or movement. My present, then, is both sensation and movement. My present is, in its essence, sensorymotor. 9

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__________________________________________________________________ In other words, time is in the body—comprising sensations which make up my past and movements which determine my future. In the same way, Sheets-Johnston argues that time is experienced and conceptualised through our body. Every bodily motion involves a temporal quality; the temporality of marching, for example, is different from skipping, which, in turn, is different from tip-toeing. Time is not only in the body, but also understood through it. 10 Hence, if time can be understood via the body as both motion and sensation, then sharing time with our avatars across digital space is also extending to them the sensory-motor of our lived present instants. My sensations and movements in my past and my present thus expand out to the avatar, giving them a sense of physicality which they gain through time. 5. Conclusion I have described three versions of the posthuman as envisioned via the mind/body divide: one in which the truth of the human state resides in the body; one in which the self is transferable between different bodies; and one in which the self relates to the body through appealing to different somatic physical responses. The mission of this chapter is not to judge each version, but to lay them out for further discussion. The relationship of the body to the self is complex, emergent and fluid. At stake are not only our concepts of the body and the embodied experience, but the fundamental question of our identity as human beings.

Notes 1

W. Gibson, Neuromancer, HarperCollins, London, 1995, p. 6. G. Little, ‘A Manifesto for Avatars’, Intertexts, Special Issue: Webs of Discourse: The Intertextuality of Science Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2, Fall 1999, p. 7. 3 J.-F. Lyotard, ‘Can Thought Go on without a Body?’, The Inhuman: Reflections on Time, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1992, pp. 22-23. 4 Paul Willemen analyses the four visual axes in cinema: the camera’s look, the audience’s look, the intradiegetic look between characters, and the ‘look at the camera’. See P. Willemen, ‘Letter to John’, The Sexual Subject: A Screen Reader in Sexuality, Routledge, London, 1992, pp. 171-183. 5 A. Galloway, Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2006, p. 27. 6 W. Gibson, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1979, p. 115. 7 For example, an article in an Australian newspaper reports that a female gamer claimed to be ‘sexually assaulted’ while inhabiting the PlayStation 3’s social space, Home. According to the report, the harasser followed the woman’s avatar and used the crouch emote to position his avatar ‘near her backside.’ G. Tito, ‘Female Gamer ‘Sexually Assaulted’ While Playing PS3’, at http://www.escapistmagazine. 2

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__________________________________________________________________ com/news/view/97538-Female-Gamer-Sexually-Assaulted-While-Playing-PS3. Likewise, Julian Dibbell recounts an assault that happened between avatars in the MUD world of LambdaMOO: J. Dibbell, ‘A Rape in Cyberspace; or How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database into a Society’, Reading Digital Culture, D. Trend (ed), Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, pp. 119-213. 8 S. Prince, ‘True Lies: Perceptual Realism, Digital Images and Film Theory’, Film Quarterly, Vol. 49, No. 3, Spring 1996, pp. 27-37. 9 H. Bergson, Matter and Memory, Zone Books, 1990, pp. 176-177. Emphasis added. 10 M. Sheets-Johnston, The Primacy of Movement, John Benjamins, Amsterdam, 1999.

Bibliography Bergson, H., Matter and Memory. Zone Books, 1990. Dibbell, J., ‘A Rape in Cyberspace; or How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database into a Society’. Reading Digital Culture. Trend, D. (ed), Oxford, Blackwell Publishing. Galloway, A., Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2006. Gibson, W., The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1979. Gibson, W., Neuromancer. HarperCollins, London, 1995. Little, G., ‘A Manifesto for Avatars’. Intertexts. Special Issue: Webs of Discourse: The Intertextuality of Science Studies. Vol. 3, No. 2, Fall 1999. Lyotard, J.-F., ‘Can Thought Go on without a Body?’. The Inhuman: Reflections on Time. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1992. Prince, S., ‘True Lies: Perceptual Realism, Digital Images and Film Theory’. Film Quarterly. Vol. 49, No. 3, Spring 1996, pp. 27-37. Tito, G., ‘Female Gamer ‘Sexually Assaulted’ While Playing PS3’. at: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/97538-Female-Gamer-SexuallyAssaulted-While-Playing-PS3.

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__________________________________________________________________ Sheets-Johnston, M., The Primacy of Movement. John Benjamins, Amsterdam, 1999. Willemen, P., ‘Letter to John’. The Sexual Subject: A Screen Reader in Sexuality. Routledge, London, 1992. Jenna Ng, Umea University, Sweden.

Reading with the Body: Interpreting Three Dimensional Media as Narrative Jim Barrett Abstract This chapter argues that virtual online worlds are sites for the realization of narrative, in a form of reading that is posthuman and performative. The in-world avatar is the embodiment of an interpreting agent in the virtual world. Such devices accomplish a number of functions in terms of narrative realisation. The avatar contributes to the realisation of narrative through the navigation of the spatial attributes, the setting up of perspective in terms of Point of View (POV) in the reading, and as a character agent in the narrative architecture of the virtual world. Such characteristics are in the cybernetic relationship between the virtual world as a text, and the responses that can be made to it in reception. Architecture becomes the grammar of reading in the virtual world, with design and code, copyright and address directing narrative. The body of the avatar and the body of the person operating it are joined across the spaces of the digital and the physical in the navigation of the virtual three-dimensional. Key Words: Virtual worlds, narrative, spatial, navigation, posthuman, cybernetic, embodiment, avatars, cyberculture, reading. ***** 1. Introduction The slightly built and ill-dressed figure makes his way over the narrow bridge towards the small stupa at the base of the frozen mountain. From some distant point the voice of a lone monk can be heard chanting the ‘Om mani padme hum’ mantra. The figure performs a prostration, the first of many as he makes his way towards the top of the mountain. He bows and falls flat to the ground with arms outstretched, then, dragging his legs up under his body, he raises himself up again only to then repeat it all over again and again. 1 I am the figure in that landscape. I have been him for six years. I am an avatar in the virtual online world of Second Life. How I understand the virtual spaces though which I navigate as an avatar depends upon a form of reading that extends beyond the symbolic registers of language and into the simulative properties of three-dimensional digital environments. In the simulative environment of Second Life and other virtual online worlds, it is objects, spaces, bodies, and places that are interpreted alongside languages. The avatar contributes to this posthuman realisation of narrative through the navigation of spatial attributes, the setting up of perspective in terms of Point of View (POV) in reading, and as character agents in the narrative architecture of the virtual world. 2

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__________________________________________________________________ 2. Terms and Conditions The embodied agent in virtual worlds creates tensions between phenomenological and hermeneutical conceptions of meaning. 3 Building on the work of Haraway (1991), Aarseth (1997), Hayles (1999), and Jenkins (2003), this chapter argues for the posthuman credentials of virtual worlds, as media that is read performatively. Donna Haraway’s The Cyborg Manifesto is a relevant commentary on the social relations engendered by cybernetic technologies. Haraway recognises that ‘a cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction.’ 4 This chapter describes the avatar as a key element in the hybrid relationship of machine and organism that is the virtual online world. Espen Aarseth’s Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature addresses the textual possibilities for the hybrid of machine and organism. In this relationship ‘the text itself cannot be subsumed by either side of the triangle and remains at the interstice, refusing to be reduced to either a linguistic, historic, or material phenomenon, while depending on all three.’ 5 Such a three-sided system raises question about the nature of reading in relation to such texts. N. Katherine Hayles discusses embodiment in relation to the avatar in interactive and spatial digital texts in How We Became Posthuman, where ‘questions about presence and absence do not yield much leverage in this situation, for the avatar both is and is not present, just as the user both is and is not inside the screen. Instead, the focus shifts to questions about pattern and randomness. What transformations govern the connections between user and avatar?’ 6 The avatar is the nomadic point where transformations of the user into the virtual world are experienced as the shared agency of embodied identity. The narrative architecture of online three-dimensional worlds governs the connections between what Hayles terms a user and his or her avatar. The concept of narrative architecture is the constituents of the text, which must be negotiated, interpreted and responded to in reading, play and navigation. 7 This architecture both enables and constrains responses to online virtual worlds and includes language in combination with cultural artefacts, social elements and designed spaces. These structures address the reader and demand responses according to particular cultural, social and literary contexts. Narrative architecture addresses readers with features that rely upon a story unfolding simultaneously with the manipulation, navigation and exploration of the digital space, as an authored environment. In narrative architecture ‘spatial stories can evoke pre-existing narrative associations, they can provide a staging ground where narrative events are enacted; they may embed narrative information within their mise-en-scene; or they provide resources for emergent narratives.’ 8 The role of the avatar in the enactment of narrative events involves a balance between the immediacy of simulation and the recounting that is traditionally associated with narrative.

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__________________________________________________________________ 3. The Avatar as Agent In a three-dimensional virtual space the avatar is an embodied representation of its owner. Embodiment for an avatar exists in the sense of occupying time and space. Digital theorist and artist Mark Stephen Meadows has described an avatar as ‘an interactive, social representation of an Internet user.’ 9 Neal Stephenson uses the word avatar in his 1992 novel Snow Crash for ‘the audiovisual bodies that people use to communicate with each other in the Metaverse,’ or the virtual simulation of the human form in the metaverse, a fictional virtual-reality application on the Internet. 10 Kai-Mikael Jää-Aro classifies avatars from a functional perspective as ‘those objects, which potentially are in the high agency end of the spectrum, since the property of agency can change over the course of a session.’ 11 In each of these three contexts, the avatar is the anchor for a personality in a virtual world. The relationship between the avatar and the person(ality) that animates it is guided by what determines agency in the virtual environment. Avatars, like everything in a virtual online environment, are constructed from computer language code. How an avatar is able to move, what sounds it makes, how it communicates and physically interacts with other avatars, and what it looks like are all enabled by the code from which it is composed. However, in regards to the point/s of reception for the human participants in three-dimensional worlds, it is the Graphic User Interface (GUI) that presents options regarding how the avatar can behave. The visual and spatial attributes of the GUI are what the person behind the avatar responds to in interacting with the virtual world space. These attributes include such simulative and symbolic characteristics as the space between a door (a place of entry) and a sofa (resting or meeting place) and the physical dimensions of the avatar. The avatar is the line of difference between the person controlling and the visual and spatial attributes of the virtual world. Interpreting the virtual world is performed from the perspectives and abilities of the avatar. The avatar as such a line of difference is determined by the agency granted to it as part of the narrative architecture. Agency is granted to avatars in virtual world reception within the structures of simulative representations. Sexuality, violence, family, domesticity, socializing, work, art, and learning, for example, are some of the cultural and social systems that are enacted out by avatars in online virtual worlds. The avatar is the embodied agent working within these structures that allows for particular forms of expression while not allowing for others. It was not until The Sims 3 (2009) that same sex marriage was permitted in the game. The Sims Online adopted the same protocol and allows for gay marriage, but does not permit children from the relationship. In contrast, the representation of gendered pairs in Second Life is not restricted to binary forms. Male avatars can take on the physical appearances of pregnancy, as well as adopt children. The representation of child avatars in virtual worlds for sexual simulation has recently been made a criminal offence in Germany, and while the coding of virtual worlds such as Second Life allows for this practice, it

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__________________________________________________________________ contradicts the terms of service. 12 Dual gender in a single avatar and even interspecies relationships between avatars are possible in Second Life. In regards to work and economy, it is possible to earn money by working as an avatar in virtual worlds such as Second Life and Planet Calypso. In many online virtual worlds social relationships are common, and the concept of virtual adultery is a contentious one. 13 Groups of avatars construct families in Second Life, with members being given titles such as father, mother, brother and sister. Finally, learning with virtual online worlds is an established area, with universities, colleges and schools from around the world using virtual worlds for teaching. Research has found that many of the roles traditionally associated with the figure of the teacher, such as an authority in the classroom and as gatekeeper in regards to knowledge, is compromised by the more horizontal communicative structures of virtual worlds. 14 By responding to the choices granted to avatars through narrative architecture in virtual worlds, readings of them as texts can be performed. The movements through the narrative architecture of virtual worlds suggest particular readings of discursive systems such as sexuality, violence, family, domesticity, socializing, work, art, and learning. In these explorations the navigation takes on meaning, or as Jenny Sundén argues, ‘what if computing gaming experiences are not primarily about narratives or the game-specific, but about moving through the game world? To become through navigation.’ 15 The social simulations, such as marriage and family, which are acted out by avatars in the virtual worlds, are products of the narrative architecture of each. The prefaces such as the Terms of Service and End User License Agreement (EULA), attempt to control responses to the narrative architecture of the virtual world. The design of the world itself, in its material configuration, is this narrative architecture. The third element of narrative architecture that is meaningful in relation to the avatar is the interpellation that hails the avatar’s human person(ality) and anticipates the possible responses that can be made to the virtual world. Design and code, copyright, and address, thereby direct possible narrative outcomes in virtual worlds. Within narrative architecture, the agency granted to avatars in virtual online worlds has consequences for the embodied subject in physical space. 4. Point of View Narrative architecture in relation to the avatar and reading is best illustrated by the point of view that the avatar instantiates. In the majority of online virtual worlds, there are multiple visual perspectives available in relation to the avatar. Third person, first person, and a so-called God-view are the most commonly used visual perspectives in relation to the avatar. Third person is usually from a raised position above the avatar’s shoulders from behind. First person is the visual perspective the avatar has based on the visual configuration of the human eyes. In first person, what the avatar sees, to a perspective of about ninety degrees, is what

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__________________________________________________________________ the person attached to the avatar sees. The God-view is the omniscient perspective over the virtual world, usually from far above. Each of these perspectives grants its own set of relations to the virtual world as a text that is both interpreted and experienced. Enacting narrative events in virtual worlds from a first-person perspective places the avatar in the centre of the action and restricts the visual field to an immediate temporal space. Actors can enter and leave the field of vision in a relatively short amount of time. Events and actions related to those actors and the avatar witnessing them are compressed according to the linear format afforded by the restricted dimensions of the field of vision, which often has a corresponding audio field. One can analogise the first-person perspective in virtual worlds as a window looking out over a busy street. When pedestrians pass by the window, the person sitting behind it can see, as well as possibly hear, them for the short duration it takes to pass by. If the window were larger, then the figures moving across it would take more time to do so. In the god-view perspective of virtual worlds, the window is much larger; consequently, more actors and events can be linked together in much longer chains and, as a result, have a greater potential to follow simultaneously multiple narrative pathways. In the case of first-person perspective, fewer narrative events can be linked together than in the God-view perspective, but the speed with which events occur can make for particularly intense interactions with the virtual world space. The most famous example of this intensity, in terms of rapid time and space changes within the first-person perspective, is the first-person shooter genre of computer games. Games such as Call of Duty, Counterstrike, Quake and Doom are intense mediations in the speed and continuity provided by the first-person perspective in virtual environments. It is the reading of these spaces, as narrative architectures that is very much influenced by the perspective adopted by the avatar. The line between the space of the virtual environment and the player of the game is sealed in the avatar as the cybernetic embodiment of the person. 5. Conclusions In the navigation and manipulation of the virtual space and the enacting of narrative events, the reading of virtual worlds has points in common with the narrative traditions of pilgrimage, megalithic sculpture, and place-bound religious rituals. When my avatar circumambulates a Tibetan stupa in Second Life, it is as an embodied agent in a three-dimensional space. The same reverence for the sacrality of the stupa can be observed in both the virtual and physical spaces it occupies. It is in this sense that the reading of virtual worlds has much in common with premodern narrative forms. The perspectives and design of such mega-structures as Borobudur in Java, Indonesia places the visitor to the site in a narrative relationship with the figures from the life of the Buddha. The architecture of the space creates

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__________________________________________________________________ this connection. The costumes and rituals of pilgrimage operate in a similar fashion, by creating embodied agents within narrative, and often sacred, spaces. Locating the individual subject in the narratives of a virtual online world is not a one-dimensional situation. Rather, narrative realised through the navigation of virtual worlds is a balancing act between the hermeneutics of interpretation and the phenomenology of experience. In reading the virtual world, a person is both in the virtual space and operating the computer in a cybernetic relationship. In the virtual world, a person can have a presence, a reputation, an identity, and even a life. The concept of the Self in this telematic network is an area that raises further questions. In the virtual space, a person can evoke and participate in the sacred, get married, and even start a family. Of course none of these activities are presently seen as ‘real’, but they do have consequences in time and space, and, in this sense, they can be regarded as posthuman forms of embodiment.

Notes 1

For a visual recounting of this sequence go to http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=9g-kYvK3P-Q. 2 The posthuman in this context is concerned both with the technological augmentation of the human and the state of distributed embodiment that can be attained with that technology. 3 By phenomenological I mean the basis for any evaluation of virtual worlds lies with the virtual world’s objects, their components and how they are experienced. Hermeneutics is the focus on the sign-like attributes of texts and in this particular case, textual environments. 4 D. Haraway, ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century’, Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, Routledge, New York, 1991, p. 149. 5 E. Aarseth, Cybertexts: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1997 p. 55. 6 K. Hayles, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1999, p. 27. 7 See H. Jenkins, ‘Game Design as Narrative Architecture’, First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, N. Wardrip-Fruin and P. Harrigan (eds), MIT Press, Cambridge, 2004, p. 118. 8 Jenkins 2004, p. 123. 9 M.S. Meadows, I Avatar: The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life, New Riders Press, Berkeley, 2008, p. 13. 10 N. Stephenson, Snow Crash, Bantam Dell Press, New York, 1992, p. 32. 11 M. Jää-Aro, ‘Reconsidering the Avatar: From User Mirror to Interaction Locus’, PhD Thesis, Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, Stockholm Sweden, 2004, p. 23.

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__________________________________________________________________ 12

http://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2007/05/10/accusationsregarding-child-pornography-in-second-life, Accessed 27 May 2010. 13 The BBC Television program Wonderland documentary entitled ‘Virtual Adultery and Cyberspace Love’ (2008) follows the lives of two married couples and their extra-marital relationships in Second Life. See http://www.guba.com/ watch/3000122615/Virtual-Adultery-and-Cyberspace-Love, Accessed 23 May 2010. 14 See M. Deutschmann and L. Panichi, ‘Instructional Design, Teacher Practice and Learner Autonomy’, Learning and Teaching in the Virtual World of Second Life, J. Molka-Danielsen and M. Deutschmann (eds), Tapir Academic Press, Trondheim, 2009, p. 34. 15 J. Sundén, ‘Digital Geographies: From Storyspace to Storied Spaces’, Geographies of Communication: The Spatial Turn in Media Studies, J. Falkheimer and A. Jansson (eds), Nordicom, Göteberg, 2006, p. 291.

Bibliography Aarseth, E., Cybertexts: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1997. Deutschmann, M. and Panichi, L., ‘Instructional Design, Teacher Practice and Learner Autonomy’. Learning and Teaching in the Virtual World of Second Life. Tapir Academic Press, Trondheim, 2009. Haraway, D., ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century’. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. Routledge, New York, 1991. Hayles, K., How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1999. Jää-Aro, M., ‘Reconsidering the Avatar: From User Mirror to Interaction Locus’. PhD Thesis. (Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan. Stockholm Sweden, 2004). Jenkins, Henry. ‘Game Design as Narrative Architecture’. First Person: New Media as Story, Performance and Game. MIT Press, Cambridge, 2004. Linden, R., Accusations Regarding Child Pornography in Second Life. (Blog Entry). Second Life Blog 2007. http://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features /blog/2007/05/10/accusation-regarding-child-pornography-in-secondlife. Accessed 28th May 2010.

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__________________________________________________________________ Meadows, M.S., I Avatar: The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life. New Riders Press, Berkeley, 2008. O’Brien, F., ‘Wonderland: Virtual Adultery and Cyberspace Love’. (Online Video) BBC Two Television. London 2008. http://www.guba.com/watch/3000122615/ Virtual-Adultery-and-Cyberspace-Love. Accessed 27th May 2010. Stephenson, N., ‘Snow Crash’. Bantam Dell Press, New York, 1992. Sundén, J., ‘Digital Geographies: From Storyspace to Storied Spaces’. Geographies of Communication: The Spatial Turn in Media Studies. Nordicom, Göteberg, 2006. Jim Barrett is a final stage PhD candidate and a research assistant with dual affiliation between the Department of Language Studies and HUMlab, a digital humanities lab at Umeå University, Sweden.

Part II Issues of Immersion, Ethics and Identity

The Ethical Experience in Controversial Videogames Daniel Riha Abstract This chapter considers several approaches to players’ ethical experiences of serious content in advanced video games. For Sicart, the ethics of videogames is the result of the relations among three ethical elements, creating the distributed network of responsibilities: a designed object, a player and an experience or process, and the gameplay. Although Sicart’s approach to the distributed network of responsibilities is mainly theoretical, it is potentially a very useful tool for the ethical analysis of today’s advanced videogame titles. The author identifies the application of this approach as the most relevant option for any researcher attempting both to deconstruct and to analyse the ethical structures and problems found in the latest videogames. The chapter focuses on the ethical implications of unethical game content in single-player games with defined win conditions, as well as implementation issues of unethical content in serious videogames. Key Words: Videogames, videogame ethics, serious videogames, videogame controversy, videogame agency. ***** 1. Introduction The vast majority of the latest research on ethical issues of videogames deals with the effects of violent videogames on the players. The results of this empirical research have gained extensive attention from mass media and have become influential in swaying public opinion against a number of successful videogame titles. Although this research has varied in methodology, none of the latest studies have proven a direct link between controversial videogames and ethically disruptive behaviours in the real lives of players. In the 2008 study ‘Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth about Violent Video Games’, 1 researchers Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K. Olson refute the proposition that an increase in violent behaviours is caused by violent videogames. Previous research, such as Jonathan Freedman’s (2001) study that reviewed majority of media-violence research published in English, declares that: This body of research is not only extremely limited in terms of the number of relevant studies, but also suffers from many methodological problems. Insufficient attention has been paid to choosing games that are as similar as possible except for the presence of violence; virtually no attention has been paid to eliminating or at least minimizing experimenter demand; and the

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__________________________________________________________________ measures of aggression are either remote from aggression or of questionable value. 2 Interestingly, the increasing success of graphically advanced videogames published since the 1990s is in surprising contradiction to the decreasing numbers in violent crime among both juveniles and adults in the USA. 3 However, this chapter is not intended to contribute to the discussion and research on relationships between real crimes and controversial videogames. Rather, the focus of this chapter is on the ethical implications of unethical game content in single-player games and the question of advisability to simulate unethical actions with special respect to serious games. 2. Ethical Understanding of Videogames In his seminal work 4, Sicart analyses these issues from the perspectives of both Virtue Ethics (VE) and Information Ethics (IE), and introduces the concept of Distributed Responsibility. Sicart argues that the VE approach, which links videogames including with unethical content with the development of vices and unethical behaviours, lacks an understanding of the inner workings and nature of videogames: The VE analysis that permeates the public understanding of this issue does not take into account that players are specific bodysubjects capable of applying ludic phronesis, nor that games not only foster their own virtues, but that they also have ethical values of their own, that have to be understood within the perspective of the game as a moral object. A player … is seeing the simulation of violent acts within a gameworld not with her ethics as a human being outside the game, but with the ethics of the game player. Unless the player interprets her actions as contradictory with stronger ethical values from her self outside of the game, in which case the subjectivization process is broken and there is not a playersubject experiencing a game … The virtuous behavior of a game player is that behavior which shows an understanding not of the best strategies and actions to win the game, but to ensure a satisfactory game experience. 5 So the players may take part in unethical videogame scenes because, for the player-subject, these only have meaning within the game. The violent simulations are only meaningful to the player as challenges in the videogame itself. Sicart

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__________________________________________________________________ redeploys increased responsibility on the player as a moral being who encounters and experiences this unethical content: Could there be a transfer of values? In the mature, ethical being, both as a player and outside the game, that would not happen – the process of ludic phronesis and its evaluation by the external subject avoid in principle the transfer of values, within the given condition of moral maturity. 6 Videogames containing unethical scenes should only be experienced by ludically matured players. Here the adjustment of the pertinent videogame content rating system gains increased importance. Many of these systems have been introduced in the last decade, such as the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) rating system in the United States, as well as the PEGI rating system in Europe. Following Sicart, VE is adequate when dealing with the ethics of computer games mostly from a player perspective, but Information Ethics 7 is better suited for the analysis of most of the elements that make videogames ethically relevant experiences. IE identifies the need for operation within different informational perspectives by working with concepts of Level of Abstraction (LoA) and Gradient of Abstraction (GoA). Sicart sets the relevant videogame LoAs as including: 1. The game system as informational environment: the game as a designed infosphere, 2. The player as informational being, 3. The player as an informational being related to and determined by other informational beings in the infosphere, 4. The player as a homo poieticus: how the player creates the values of the infosphere. 8 According to Sicart, understanding the ethical balance of the videogame, and how the informational relations between the agents and patients of the infosphere shape the ethics of the game, requires using the concepts of LoA and GoA mentioned above, because they show relevant aspects of the informational complexity of videogames as infospheres: An unethical action, in the case of games, would be any action, including system design, which modifies the informational structure of the infosphere creating an imbalance in the

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__________________________________________________________________ experience of the system, and unwanted informational asymmetries. An informational asymmetry, in the context of computer games, is a situation in which one or more agents have an influence on the infosphere that is either not contemplated or is seen as illegal by the rules of the game. 9 Although, in relation to the ethical implications of unethical game content, increased responsibility might be redeployed to the player, and game designers also play a role, due to the Distributed Responsibility concept introduced by Sicart: In a computer game understood as an informational system, every informational being that plays a role in the infosphere has a shared role in the ethical value of that infosphere. The task of the ethics of computer games is, then, to identify the distributed network of responsibilities relevant to a specific ethical issue, determine the structural relations in terms of responsibility of that structure, and suggest solutions for the ethical problems found. 10 Sicart proposes that from the VE point of view, the design of the videogame should promote the progress of the player’s virtues; otherwise we might recognize such a product as an unethical game. From Sicart’s and the IE perspectives then, wrong videogame design must be identified as unethical because it will generate unwanted entropy in the system and so be harmful to the players. Sicart concludes his analysis with a proposition for a fair ethical experience in videogames: An ethical game experience is one in which the player, a skinsubject that takes place in the game system, can interact with the game system as a moral agent; an experience that allows for the player’s ethical behavior, interpretation and, in the best possible case, contribution to the value-system of the game experience. … Computer games can and ought to use their language and simulational capacities to create interesting experiences that make their users reflect upon their being, culture and society. 11 Sicart’s approach to the distributed network of responsibilities is mainly theoretical but it seems to be a potentially very useful tool for the ethical analysis of today’s advanced videogame titles. The author proposes the application of this approach as the most actual and relevant option for any researcher trying to

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__________________________________________________________________ deconstruct ethical structure and propose treatment for the ethical problems found in the latest advanced videogames. 3. Implementation of the Unethical Content in Serious Videogames For single-player games with a defined win condition, the successful closed ethical game design operates with two types of designs, which Sicart calls ‘subtracting ethics’ (SE) and ‘mirroring ethics’ designs (MED): Subtracting ethics designs an ethical experience, but leaves the ethical reasoning to the players, thus respecting their presence as moral agents in the networked ethical system of computer games. A mirror ethical design closes down the ethical options of the player in the game, forcing her to experience what the designers wanted her to experience. The gameworld and occasionally the gameplay acts as a mirror of the ethical experience the player has to go through in order to play the game, reflecting and reacting to that experience. 12 Serious and documentary videogames attempt to implement political or social ideas into their design. For example, in the videogames September 12th or JFK Reloaded (JFKR) designers try to develop interaction scenarios with ethical meaning. Here, MED has become an appropriate design method. We might include in this list other controversial commercial videogame titles designed under mirror ethical design, such as Manhunt or RapeLay. According to Sicart, MED offers space for development of political and satirical games, where if players are open to playing and at the same time to reflecting on the activities in the game, then the players would not be ‘given information – they would experience the political ethical dilemmas, because they are ethical agents.’ 13 So, for Sicart, unethical content then must be implemented only as meaningful: ‘The use of unethical content has to be justifiable within the ethical nature of the game experience, either as a way of creating meaningful challenges, or as a tool for conveying an agenda.’ 14 Unethical simulation within serious and documentary videogames might have a similar role; Raessens suggests that, in documentary games like JFKR: players enact experiences of rupture that separated the past and present in a traumatic way. These experiences are paradoxical in a sublime way in the sense that they, as experiences that transcend the individual level, involve and unite both the loss and pain of the trauma and, at the same time, the satisfaction of

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__________________________________________________________________ overcoming these feelings in terms of precognitive historical insights. 15 For Poremba, an alternate reading of JFKR could be that players are not ‘role‐playing’ Oswald at all, in the fantasy sense, but instead, ‘by engaging the historical record, the game places the player in a role similar to that of a forensic investigator.’ 16 Poremba doesn’t identify JFKR as a strong assassin simulator, but an interesting engagement with forensic documents. She proposes this technique to be involved in engaging with lesser known archives. Another surplus might represent the implementation of relatively fixed historical facts in a game structure that would offer the possibility of handling them as multi‐form ‘truths.’ Poremba calls for a critical reading of JFKR that should ‘foreground the way formal structures can be used to frame certain kinds of actuality, and in the end, can also be used to critique such structures and worldviews.’ 17 The ludologist and serious videogame designer Gonzalo Frasca discusses the controversial issue of the development of an imaginary humanist game about the Holocaust. This type of game would probably be too controversial for videogame designers to develop, because such a videogame would likely be perceived by the public as even more unacceptable than, for example, a neo-nazi imaginary videogame. But Frasca even tries to speculate about an imaginary Holocaust videogame based on videogame design rules: Basically, it would simulate a character that is a prisoner in a concentration camp. Through his eyes but also through his actions, we will try to make the player feel and think about life in such an extreme condition. As designers, we will be particularly interested in creating an environment for exploring such concepts as moral, hate, solidarity, suffering, and justice. 18 He proposes that such a videogame would be highly criticized mainly for the following reasons: Firstly, it would free the player from moral responsibilities. Since the game could be restarted at wish, the player would not have to face the consequences of his actions. … the environment could become a simulator for sadists. Secondly, if we applied the win-lose binary logic the Holocaust would become a secondary issue, an obstacle to overcome. … the player would be able to jump from life to death back and

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__________________________________________________________________ forth. Therefore, those concepts would loose their ethical, historical and social value. 19 As a result, Frasca rejects the possibility of implementing a game logic to simulate tragic events. As a solution for such a serious videogame design he proposes to develop a gaming system that would allow for designing single user games with irreversible actions. He calls it a ‘one-session game of narration’ (OSGON). With features of irreversibility, limited time to finish the game, and limited options to analyse such a ephemeral game, OSGONs might then become a good strategy even for the development of such serious videogames. 4. Conclusion Unethical simulation within serious and documentary videogames might have a different role than in popular commercial videogames. Especially in the case of truthful historical representations/simulations design or in serious videogames, the usage of unethical content might seem to be unavoidable. As a writer of documentary games, the author finds the research questions related to the implementation of unethical content of crucial importance.

Notes 1

L. Kutner and C. Olson, Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth about Violent Video Games and What Parents can Do, Simon & Schuster, 2008, p. 272. 2 J.L. Freedman, Evaluating the Research on Violent Video Games, Retrieved on 16 May 2010, http://www.isfe-eu.org/tzr/scripts/downloader2.php? Filename =T003/F0013/24/53/f87cc810f411c4a0623a382758665ec3&mime=text/plain&orig inalname=Evaluating_the_Research_on_Violent_Video_Games.htm. 3 Interscience Publishers, ‘Could Violent Video Games Reduce Rather Than Increase Violence?’, ScienceDaily, http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2008/ 05/080514213432.htm, Retrieved May 18, 2010 or U.S. Crime Statistics available at, http://www.ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/ojstatbb/crime/JAR.asp. 4 M. Sicart, Computer Games, Players, Ethics, PhD Thesis, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark, 2006, p. 293. 5 Ibid., p. 239. 6 Ibid., p. 240. 7 In Floridi and Sanders’ words, IE ‘is an Environmental Macroethics based on the concept of data entity rather than life (Floridi and Sanders, 2004, p. 3)’. The infosphere might be seen as an ecological environment of informational agents, patients, and their mutual relations. Cited in M. Sicart. 8 Sicart, p. 214. 9 Ibid., p. 214. 10 Ibid., p. 220.

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__________________________________________________________________ 11

Ibid., p. 229. Ibid., p. 266. 13 Ibid., p. 205. 14 Ibid., p. 243. 15 J. Raessens, ‘Reality Play: Documentary Computer Games beyond Fact and Fiction’. Popular Communication, Vol. 4, 2006, p. 222. 16 C. Poremba, ‘Frames and Simulated Documents: Indexicality in Documentary Videogames’, Shinyspinning Online, p. 13, Retrieved on 10 May 2010, http://www.shinyspinning.com/jfk_paper_cporemba.pdf. 17 C. Poremba, p. 15. 18 G. Frasca, ‘Ephemeral Games: Is it Barbaric to Design Videogames after Auschwitz?’, Ludology Online, p. 5, Retrieved 10 May 2010, http://www.ludology. org/articles/ephemeralFRASCA.pdf. 19 Ibid., p. 6. 12

Bibliography Frasca, G., ‘Ephemeral Games: Is it Barbaric to Design Videogames after Auschwitz?’. Ludology Online. Retrieved 10 September 2009. http://www.ludol ogy.org/articles/ephemeralFRASCA.pdf. Freedman, J.L., Evaluating the Research on Violent Video Games. Retrieved on 16 May 2010. Available at: http://www.isfe-eu.org/tzr/scripts/downloader2.php? filename=t003/f0013/24/53/f87cc810f411c4a0623a382758665ec3&mime=text/pla inoriginalname=Evaluating_the_Research_on_Violent_Video_Games.htm. Fullerton, T., ‘Documentary Games: Putting the Player in the Path of History’. Playing the Past: Nostalgia in Videogames and Electronic Literature. Whalen, Z. and Taylor, L. (eds), Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville, 2008. Huesmann, L.R., ‘The Impact of Electronic Media Violence: Scientific Theory and Research’. Journal of Adolescent Health. Vol. 41, Iss. 6, 2007. Interscience Publishers, ‘Could Violent Video Games Reduce Rather Than Increase Violence?’ ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 18, 2010 at: http://www.science daily.com/releases/2008/05/080514213432.htm. Kutner, L. and Olson, C., Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth about Violent Video Games and What Parents can Do. Simon & Schuster, 2008.

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__________________________________________________________________ Poremba, C., ‘Frames and Simulated Documents: Indexicality in Documentary Videogames’. Shinyspinning Online. Retrieved on 10 September 2009. http://www. shinyspinning.com/jfk_paper_cporemba.pdf. Raessens, J., ‘Reality Play: Documentary Computer Games beyond Fact and Fiction’. Popular Communication. Vol. 4, 2006, pp. 213-224. Riha, D., ‘Game Design Technology as a Tool for Research and Education in Cultural History’. Humanity in Cybernetic Environments. Riha, D. (ed), InterDisciplinary Press, Oxford, UK, 2009. Sicart, M., Computer Games, Players, Ethics. PhD Thesis, IT University of Copenhagen, 2006. Waddington, D., ‘Locating the Wrongness in Ultra-Violent Video Games’. Ethics and Information Technology. Vol. 9(2), 2007, pp. 121-128. Williams, D. and Skoric, M., ‘Internet Fantasy Violence: A Test of Aggression in an Online Game’. Communication Monographs. Vol. 22(2), 2005, pp. 217-233. Woods, S., ‘Playing with an Other: Ethics in the Magic Circle’. Cybertext Yearbook 2007: Ludology. 2007.

Ludography Frasca, G., September 12th. Newsgaming.org. Online Flash Game. Available from http://www.newsgaming.com/games/index12.htm, 2006. Frasca, G., Madrid. Newsgaming.org. Online Flash Game. Available from http://www.newsgaming.com/games/madrid/index.html, 2008. –––, JFK Reloaded. Traffic Software, PC, 2004. –––, Soviet Unterzoegersdorf. Monochrom, PC, 2005. –––, Under Siege. Afkar Media, PC, 2005. Daniel Riha, Ph.D. Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. His research includes issues on Serious Games, Interactive Documentary Production and Multi-user Virtual Environments

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The Ethical Experience in Controversial Videogames

__________________________________________________________________ Design. He is as well an award winning artist - Kunst am Bau (Art on Construction) International Art Competition, Constance, Germany.

Making Science Fiction Personal: Videogames and Inter-Affective Storytelling Kevin Veale Abstract Videogames bring science fiction into the affective present. By and large, videogame texts are structured so that there is none of the mediation presented by the protagonists of books or films; instead, the relationships which the player forms matter to them because they are personal. The agency provided to game players means that they have a direct relationship to the consequences of their actions, which give science fiction videogames impact at a personal level. In ‘System Shock 2,’ the player is confronted with body-horror. Enemies yell for the player to hide or run away, even as those enemies cannot prevent their bodies from attacking, after being taken over by alien worms. ‘System Shock 2’ then makes the body-horror personal by creating situations where the player questions her/his own humanity, due to cybernetic modification. The game asks the player, ‘What do you do? How does that feel?’ The affective experience of videogame texts is distinct from that of other forms of media because the questions are directed to the players themselves, rather than to a character with whom they identify. Since videogames are distinguished by the player’s experience of the text, tools from phenomenology can be applied to consider how the player forms affective relationships with fictional characters and science fiction concepts. Affect, the dynamic and transportable zone of potential emotions, functions through cathexis, whereby an individual becomes invested in something regardless of what that may be. The investment occurs within a contextual world-of-concern which envelops the player and grounds his/her investment in the experience of the game’s story. The impact of having the player directly involved and affectively invested in the experience presents opportunities for inter-affective storytelling which would not be possible outside of an interactive context, since agency is a fundamental part of what makes the affective connection personal. Key Words: Affect, immersion, responsibility. ***** 1. How Mediation Shapes Experience The texts which mediate the stories with which we engage are not neutral to our experiences of them. The processes each medium requires of us in order to negotiate the texts help to shape the way we perceive the story. As an example, House of Leaves 1 is a novel which presents a sequence where there are a small handful of words to a page, and as events become more tense the number of words gets smaller and smaller: readers physically turn the pages faster and faster the

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__________________________________________________________________ fewer words there are to read, increasing the apparent pace of the story, and this is folded into their affective experience of the text. Videogames bring science fiction into the affective present as part of the way we engage with their textual structure, because they offer players a direct feeling of responsibility for how the problems of alternative worlds are negotiated. The responsibility provided to the players of videogames is part of a distinctive affective experience which sets games apart from other methods of textual storytelling, and means that the person playing the game has a different experience of the text than someone watching a film or even watching the game being played. Phenomenology provides a useful toolset for analysing the experience of engaging with a text, and thus the extent to which the textual structure modifies that experience. Videogames provide the person playing them with agency, which Janet Murray defines as ‘…the satisfying power to take meaningful action and see the results of our decisions and choices’. 2 One of the consequences of player agency is the feeling of responsibility for the decisions the player has made, which makes the experience of games a personal one: when players of a game achieve something, they achieve it rather than reading or watching someone they are intended to sympathise with achieve it. Videogames thus present a different way of engaging with the speculative questions and issues presented by science fiction texts, by making players personally responsible for the outcomes they choose; they are immersive in ways in which other media forms are not, which results in a different affective tenor for the experience. 2. Affect and Immersion The difficulty in comparing different subjective ‘experiences’ lies in the extent to which experience is non-cognitive and happens, in some ways, where we are not watching. Or, to put it another way: to be self-consciously aware of what you are feeling as you are feeling it is to alter the experience, precisely because you are making a conscious effort to do so. Affect is the term used to distinguish the noncognitive component of subjective experience from the emotions, which we are more cognitively aware of and which thus present fewer obstacles to critical discussion: it is possible to specifically name an emotion and pin it down, whereas the affective tenor of an experience is by definition harder to label. 3 Affect functions through an economy of cathexis, whereby an individual becomes invested in something, regardless of what that something may be. Affective investment occurs within a ‘Heideggerian world-of-concern,’ which Lars Nyre defines as a space shaped by human engagement, rather than an objective space. 4 Nyre argues that an objective space is everything present within an environment, such as all of the furniture and fittings within a lecture theatre, whereas a world-of-concern is grounded in contextual relevance. In the context of a seminar, a world-of-concern would involve the speaker, the audience and the

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__________________________________________________________________ subject at hand while the majority of the room fittings would remain irrelevant or uninvolved. In the context of a videogame, the player is invested in experiencing the game as a lived space with its own chain of sensible cause-and-effect relationships, and in engaging with the characters within the world-of-concern as legitimate entities in their own right. The importance of this investment is such that Laurie N. Taylor argues for two distinctive forms of immersion based on different subsets of player engagement. Diegetic immersion is where one can become ‘lost in a good book,’ remaining ‘unaware of the creation and relation of the elements within the text.’ 5 In comparison, Taylor also offers situated immersion, which is where the player is acting within the digital environment. Situated immersion describes the successful world-of-concern established when engaging with videogame texts: the world-ofconcern is contextual, and what is affectively relevant to the player’s experience (and thus what they are invested in) is acting within the diegetic space of the game world, rather than upon it. When situated immersion has been achieved, the person playing the game or exploring the digital environment is no longer policing the dividing line of the virtual, and is invested in being perceptually inside the diegesis of the game text. 3. Coherence and Responsibility Stephen Poole uses the term incoherence to describe situations where an action undertaken within the diegetic space of the game environment does not have the consequences which would be expected if the same action were taken in the real world; such incoherence is an impediment to situated immersion. 6 The action can be as simple as your movement knocking a piece of stone into a river; if the stone sinks with a splash, this is a consequence that fits the contextual world-of-concern as a zone of legitimate cause and effect. On the other hand, if the stone sits unmoving on the surface of the ‘water,’ this will emphasise the mediated nature of the world-of-concern and arguably damage the investment the player has in the notion that they are occupying a legitimate space. Situations with structural coherence introduce the feeling of responsibility into the experience, which itself reinforces situated immersion: the reason for this is that if you make a choice, then you are responsible for the consequences of that choice. When a decision has a sensible outcome, the player is aware that their next decision will have a legitimate consequence, and this awareness becomes enfolded into the experience of decision-making. This feedback loop reinforces the contextual world-of-concern, and constructs the diegetic environment of the game world as a lived space where there are consistent rules, producing a logic of causeand-effect. Responsibility is affectively powerful because within the contextual world-of-concern, being and feeling responsible for other characters is a significant component of forming relationships with them that matter to you. Structural incoherence makes it less likely that the player will feel responsibility within the

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__________________________________________________________________ contextual world-of-concern, because the rules of cause and effect are shown to be inconsistent and determined by something outside the player’s control. System Shock 2 7 presents a good example of what a significant impact responsibility (and a lack of incoherence) within a sci-fi world-of-concern can have for the player’s experience of the text. System Shock 2 is set within an experimental space ship which has been taken over by alien forces far from home. The game provides a detailed three-dimensional sound-scape for the diegetic environment, in which you can typically hear enemies before seeing them. The key to situated immersion lies in the fact that the reverse is also true, which provides concrete consequences to any actions the player takes in exploring the environment. The result of this sound-scape for the experience of the text is that every action is taken in the certain knowledge that you are being hunted. In turn, this knowledge leads to two generalised responses within the world-of-concern, each informing two different ‘styles of play,’ possessed of their own affective register. If the player runs through the diegetic environment with their guns blazing, the noise will attract enemies from across the level; the dread fuelled by this style of play arises from the uncertainty of whether the player will run out of ammunition before they run out of enemies, within a context of constant threat. The alternative is to use stealth, and thus minimise the amount of noise produced in exploring the diegetic environment within the world-of-concern; the tension in this approach is drawn from the ongoing attempts to avoid detection and slip past the opposition, and bursts of frenetic conflict when those attempts fail. Both approaches are entirely appropriate for the science fiction/horror genre of System Shock 2, but the experiences are affectively distinct. 4. The Experience of Affectively-Unmediated Science Fiction Videogames present contextual worlds-of-concern which the player actively invests in, and the economies of cathexis and immersion at work mean that the person playing the game has a fundamentally different experience of the text than someone else who is watching the same game being played: someone who is an audience to game play has no agency, and no responsibility for how events unfold. There is less affective mediation inherent to the experience of videogame texts than would otherwise be provided by a protagonist within textual prose or filmic diegesis: feeling a character feeling is different than feeling yourself being. It is the player who responds affectively to the awareness of being hunted within the diegesis of System Shock 2, not the character he/she occupies, and not the protagonist of a novel or film whom the audience is expected to sympathise with. Mass Effect 8 is an example of a game which demonstrates how significant a difference in feeling can be. The game misses an opportunity to confront the player with a genuinely alien social context by associating the humanoid with the safe and familiar. Two alien races are relevant within the context of Mass Effect’s world-ofconcern, in which humanity is a newcomer to a society of pre-established star-

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__________________________________________________________________ travelling species. Firstly, there are the Asari, a race of diplomats, socialites and concubines with a great deal of economic and social influence on the society of the game; they resemble blue humanoid women with tentacles for hair, and are capable of mating with any species. It is possible to have a romantic and sexual relationship with an Asari character as part of playing the game. Secondly, there are the Rachni, which are remorseless insect-like soldiers believed to be extinct, and which all of the other races of Mass Effect’s diegesis are terrified of. Imagine how different the experience would be if the lore behind the two races were kept the same, but the visual design were swapped: the Asari would be socialites and concubines who resemble giant insects, and the Rachni would be remorseless soldiers who look very similar to us. Doing so would confront the player with a contextual world-ofconcern which would feel very different and raises the possibility players would have to ask themselves how they felt about a romantic and/or sexual relationship with a giant insect, as opposed to a blue woman. The game (not unreasonably perhaps) went with the more marketable, but decidedly less alien and discomfiting option. Even the minor difference of having the Asari designed as a race of blue men rather than women would have a detectable shift in the feel of the experience; presenting what we understand as potentially lesbian relationships within the world-of-concern was apparently a less threatening way of marking the Asari as different than potentially gay relationships would have been. Fallout 3 9 presents players with the moral responsibility of choosing between different levels of suffering. The series of games is set in a nuclear post-apocalypse setting where human society has largely been destroyed, leaving a vast divide between the technologically advanced descendents of the inhabitants of gigantic vaults, and everyone who has been surviving outside. One particular moral responsibility which Fallout 3 hands the player lies in valuing life: an expanding oasis has formed in the irradiated wastelands around an apparently immortal mutated man conjoined to a tree, who is suffering and wishes to die. The situation is complicated by the fact that players of earlier games in the Fallout series will have encountered the character, Harold, across more than a century of in-game history, and thus have invested in him as a legitimate entity within the contextual world-of-concern. Killing Harold would destroy the oasis which shelters other survivors, driving them out into the wilds; leaving the oasis intact requires sacrificing Harold to an eternity of misery. There is also the possibility of deliberately accelerating the growth of the tree he is conjoined to, which will spread the oasis but increase his pain. The game sets up a situation in which no matter what the player chooses, suffering will result, and they will be personally responsible. The question is, what do you do? Kill your friend, or doom a growing settlement? An interesting point is that there are players who are motivated to hunt down a fourth alternative, presenting an affective tone of defiance to their experience: none of the options are good enough, so they will find a better way.

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__________________________________________________________________ A moral dilemma about the role and value of artificial life confronts the player in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, 10 a game set many millennia before George Lucas’ original series. A woman named Elise asks the player for aid in locating her missing droid, which she believes has been stolen, but the situation is not as simple as it seems. Elise’s husband has died, leaving her grieving and unable to move on, to the point where she has transferred her feelings to an unhealthy attachment to the droid her husband had built to take care of the family. The droid has run away into the desert in an attempt to destroy itself, on the grounds that it had tried to reason with its mistress and failed, and that this was the best thing it could do to help her heal. The droid asks you to destroy it and to tell Elise that it is gone, so that she might eventually gain closure. Alternatively, you can order the droid back to the household, where Elise will continue to fall apart and be unable to move on. There is also a third option: You tell the droid that once you have destroyed it, you will lie to Elise, persuading her that the droid is out in the desert somewhere, and she should keep looking for it – condemning her to an unending misery, and taunting the droid with the fact it ‘wanted to die’ before you finally murder it. What is interesting about this dilemma is the extent to which players who deliberately seek to create evil characters can remain deeply uncomfortable with this option, because of the responsibility they hold for spreading misery for its own sadistic sake. 11 The fact that you can feel bad for being cruel to a robot underlines how affectively important having responsibility within an experience can be: games can present a very different feeling of relating to artificial life than what is presented by watching Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation or WallE emote. 5. Conclusion Videogames bring science fiction into the affective present. They are personal experiences because of the agency provided to the player, which means they feel responsible for the outcomes of the choices they make through the course of negotiating the text. This allows videogames to present players with dilemmas and issues within a science fiction context in a way which would not be possible in other media forms, because the outcome is experienced as immediate and hence felt differently. The lack of affective mediation allows videogames to present science fiction experiences in a distinctive and memorable fashion, because of the ways in which players engage with, and relate to, videogame texts.

Notes 1

M.Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves, New York, Pantheon Books, 2000. J. Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, Cambridge Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1998, p. 126.

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M. Kavka, Reality Television, Affect and Intimacy: Reality Matters, Basingstoke and New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, pp. 30-31. 4 L. Nyre, ‘What Happens When I Turn On the TV Set?’ The Media and Phenomenology, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2007, p. 26, http://www.wmin.ac.uk/mad/pdf/ WPCC-VolFour-NoTwo-Lars_Nyre.pdf. 5 L.N. Taylor, Videogames: Perspective, Point-of-View and Immersion, University of Florida, Gainesville, 2002, p. 12, http://etd.fcla.edu/UF/UFE1000166/taylor_ l.pdf. 6 S. Poole, Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution, New York, Arcade Publishing, 2000, p. 95. 7 K. Levine, System Shock 2, Looking Glass Studios, 1999. 8 C. Hudson, Mass Effect, BioWare, 2007. 9 E. Pagliarulo, Fallout 3, Bethesda Softworks, 2008. 10 D. Falkner, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, BioWare, 2003. 11 J. Walker, ‘Bastard of the Old Republic’, RockPaperShotgun.com, 2009, http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/04/26/bastard-o-the-old-republic-part-3/.

Bibliography Danielewski, M.Z., House of Leaves. Pantheon Press, New York, 2000. Falkner, D., Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. BioWare, 2003. Hudson, C., Mass Effect. BioWare, 2007. Kavka, M., Reality Television, Affect and Intimacy: Reality Matters. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke and New York, 2008. Levine, K., System Shock 2. Looking Glass Studios, 1999. Murray, J., Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1998. Nyre, L., ‘What Happens When I Turn On the TV Set?’ The Media and Phenomenology. Vol. 4, No. 2, 2007. http://www.wmin.ac.uk/mad/pdf/WPCCVolFour-NoTwo-Lars_Nyre.pdf. Pagliarulo, E., Fallout 3. Bethesda Softworks, 2008. Poole, S., Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution. Arcade Publishing, New York, 2000.

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__________________________________________________________________ Taylor, L.N., Videogames: Perspective, Point-of-View and Immersion. University of Florida, Gainesville, 2002. http://etd.fcla.edu/UF/UFE1000166/taylor_l.pdf. Walker, J., ‘Bastard of the Old Republic’. RockPaperShotgun.com. 2009. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/04/26/bastard-of-the-old-republic-part-3/. Kevin Veale is a PhD student in the Film, Television and Media Studies department of the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His current work focuses on how the processes of engaging with different textual structures shape the experience of storytelling in different media forms.

Heterotopias of Genders in Digital Space: Gender Representations in Facebook Sophia Damianidou, Konstantina Vasiliki Iakovou and Katerina Zygoura Abstract This chapter considers the combination of cyber and physical identities of human beings. Over time, the scientific community has attempted to find the gender traces in space and their relationship in between. The connection between space and gender creates an interactive scientific field. Constantly, this field is converted through social, political and cultural processes giving new spatial models. In each society we can detect ‘heterotopias’, namely spaces that carry feminine or masculine identities. Heterotopias belong simultaneously to reality and illusion. Nowadays, this is clearer due to the direct contact of both real and mental space in cyberspace. In digital space, there is an aspect of socializing. Generally, somebody can observe that cyberspace is a more abstract space, containing all the characteristics of physical space in an abstract way as well. So, it is possible to identify signs of gender heterotopias in this space. In the socializing web platforms one shows his/her character more or less sincerely, so we come across individuals that have only profiles, and we have a partial image of their personality. In blogs, groups, and social networks, discussions take place that may contain gender stereotypes. To be more exact, one can observe that the current social position of a woman or a man, and generally of the feminine and the masculine, appears clearly on the web. However, this raises important questions: By what means are both genders expressed and revealed? What can one assume about the gender of someone by only visiting his or her site? How does the possibility of being invisible and anonymous affect the definition of the engendered space? And, finally, what is the interaction between the physical space-time continuum and cyberspace under these circumstances? These questions appear in many aspects of contemporary living. Key Words: Gender representation, cyberspace, architecture, social networking, heterotopias, Facebook, stereotypes. ***** Woman is the opposite, the ‘other’ of man: she is non-man, defective man assigned a chiefly negative value in relation to the male first principle. But equally man is what he is only by virtue of ceaselessly shutting out this other or opposite, defining himself in antithesis to it, and his whole identity is therefore caught up and put at risk in the very gesture by which he seeks to

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__________________________________________________________________ assert his unique, autonomous existence. Woman is not just another in the sense of something beyond his ken, but another intimately related to him as the image of what he is not, and therefore as an essential reminder of what he is. 1 1. Heterotopias of Gender and Space This chapter focuses on gender representations in Facebook, as an example of digital space, and has as its starting point the term heterotopia, 2 introduced by Foucault. 3 This term describes both the dipole female – male and the dipole physical – digital space. Heterotopias are created through various dipoles. The definition of one pole’s identity can lead to the construction of identity for the other. In our attempts to describe ourselves, we can use various identifiers: human beings, women, daughters, students, unemployed, etc. Our intention is to define me or us, the female, the woman. Thus, the other becomes the male, the masculine. The contemporary digital revolution has created new forms of space. According to Derrick de Kerckhove, 4 there is a system consisting of three spaces: the physical space, the mental space, and the space of networks. 5 The networked space can be the new field of activity for the new kind architecture that arises, the architecture of connectivity. Its alphabet is the dyadic system, its structure is textual and it consists of cyberspace, virtual reality and digital architectural environments. Agger defines cyberspace as a mass of social relationships. 6 This mass functions as a meeting point of the self with the community, of the personal with the public, and of consciousness with social identity. It is a new kind of public space, within which certain features are always accessible to everybody. Simultaneously, however, there is a space related completely to a subject who creates a totally personalized identity. In other words, it is, at the same time, both a public and a private space. When public and private spaces intertwine, the boundaries between the subject and the world are liquefied. Cyberspace is a space structured by data. If it is identified as the extension of physical and mental space, then it has a subjective character. The new space that results is related to the experiences and personality of the user. In particular, descriptions of computer spaces commonly use words from architectural vocabulary. Words like ‘cyber-space’, ‘sites’, ‘windows’, ‘home-page’, and ‘wall’ are not only used every day in digital communication, but also gain new meanings. According to Tentokali, 7 gender is a social construction. In every society there is a set of arrangements by which sex is transformed to gender. 8 These arrangements are imparted from one generation to another through socialization, producing gender-based behaviours. Through the process of gender construction, stereotypes for each gender are created. Architecture is a hybrid of arts and sciences, and is influenced by current artistic and ideological movements. The arrangements mentioned above are

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__________________________________________________________________ reflected also in the spatial organization of a society. Beliefs such as: ‘men build and women inhabit’; ‘men belong in the public sphere, women in the private’; and that both the gentle and violent versions of nature are attributed to women, while civilization (as the triumph over nature), is attributed to men; are most times automatic mechanisms of thought and perception. Similarly, and within the same framework, the ‘truth’ of the spatial association of the sexes has been constructed. As Simone de Beauvoir wrote in her book The Second Sex, ‘Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth.’ 9 Space is yet another social product, its representation and organization made through architecture. This space is masculine; it doesn’t by itself define the relations, but prohibits, excludes, frightens, and enforces our fears, projecting and causing the silence. 10 The spatial needs throughout the history of architecture were defined by male needs. For example, the ‘Vitruvian Man’, by Leonardo da Vinci, and the houses of Modernism (e.g. the Modulor of Le Corbusier), which were designed and constructed according to the male body’s ergonomic characteristics. Even the city itself is not a neutral human construction, but encloses the notion of gender. The historical social oppositions that appear create prohibitions that are projected in space. Consequently, even architecture is infused with gender differences. 2. Gender and Cyberspace In cyberspace, representations of gender are directly linked with those of identity. Whether cyberspace features a virtual extension of physical space, or, instead, represents an entirely new and autonomous space free of physical restrictions, is open to question. Similarly, the question arises whether, internet users reveal their real, ‘physical’, identity; and, if so, to what extent? Facts like partial representations, pseudonyms, fake identities or multiple profiles show two main tensions: the maintenance of anonymity and the disaggregation of identities. 11 In cyberspace, the identity is less ‘socially constructed’ than in physical space. The flexibility of self-presentation provides network users the freedom to experiment with different aspects of behaviour and identity. One’s construction of an identity that potentially includes a gender other than one’s own, the appropriation of the ‘other’, is considered acceptable in the virtual environment. Gender is disembodied containing a strictly social meaning. A woman who is able to behave like a man, and vice versa, is allowed in the virtual environment to possess ‘legally’ those presented identities. In cyberspace, the preference for ‘gender switching’, over, say, simply adopting an identity with a ‘neutral’ gender, enhances the entrenched idea that gender is an essential basis of communication, even online. The anonymity, denial, or false specification of gender are not only issues that thrive in the ianomorphic 12 character of the chaotic digital system, but may reflect also a critical view of gender construction in our society.

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__________________________________________________________________ Historically, women have had a problematic relationship with technology, as they did not participate as energetically in its creation. Thus, women often feel insecure in their understanding and use of current technologies. So, due to socialization, the feminine gender abstained from the technological progress, and still does. Digital space, the most rapidly developing contemporary technology, contains all of the above stereotypes, not only in its structure and development, but also in its reflection of social and gender discriminations that occur in physical space. Specifically, even today, women continue to deal with impediments in their relationship with new technologies. With the success of women in the workplace, modern society was forced to accept new roles for women. However, there remained no provision for the proper means of freeing women of their traditional roles as good mothers and loyal housewives. Having to balance the demand of multiple roles and responsibilities, the modern woman has neither enough time, nor enough temper to become familiar with new, digital environments. Moreover, she is often discouraged from active participation in cyberspace, as she, given her gender, considers herself more vulnerable to possible harassment, or, even, involuntary involvement in the traffic of pornography. These new environments are based primarily on written communication, which can reveal a number of clues to somebody’s identity. According to Herring, women and men have recognizably different styles when posting to the Internet, contrary to the claim that computer-mediated communication neutralizes distinctions of gender. Also, women and men have different ethics of communication - that is, they value different kinds of online interactions as appropriate and desirable. 3. Gender Representation on Facebook A Facebook site, while still socially constructed, is a more dynamically changed space than the physical. Both the creation of the structure and its diffluent limits rely on users’ social relationships and ‘connections.’ This is why network ‘architects’ promote the notion of friendship as the most valuable priority of this new world. One of basic aims is to attract and gain more ‘friends’, as this virtual popularity enhances both the user’s status and power. The reasons for social networking are directly connected with the space that these sites create. As the main function of Facebook is the communication of the users with old friends and familiars, it mirrors the relations of the real, physical world. Owing to Facebook’s fluid structure, the relevant studies can express only a provisional, rather than permanent, view. However, according to researchers, globally, the participation of females in Facebook is continuously increasing, representing 57% of the site’s active population. Moreover, women on Facebook tend to have more friends and participate more actively in ‘sharing’. In Greece, there are still more male than female users, but there is a continued increase in female profiles. So, it is undeniable that there is a general tendency toward a

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__________________________________________________________________ dominant female presence in social networking spaces. This could be explained using several stereotypical ideas concerning the off-line communication between men and women. The issue that is highly controversial, however, is whether such explanations are accurate and/or sufficient. Traditionally, women are thought to be the more socially sensitive than men, dedicating more time and feelings to their relationships; while men, by contrast, are commonly thought to be more logical and political, concerning themselves only with their careers and personal success. According to this perspective, this is demonstrated in the more active participation of men on the work-oriented, socialnetworking site LinkedIn; while women remain more active on the discussionbased Facebook. In the same vein, some assert that women feel closer to social media, and believe it promotes a more ‘feminine’ form of communication, namely expressions of positive and supportive feelings. Here, however, it is important to point out that this perspective fails to address whether the more feminine mode of communication in these sites partially reduces the male presence in Facebook, or whether this limited male participation allows women this mode of communication. Finally, there are many who believe that this differentiation conforms to the widely held, but not scientifically proven, argument that women have a greater need to communicate, that they are more analytical and use a larger number of words per day. One of the most significant differences between the administration of female and male profiles is that women appear more hesitant to mention certain characteristics and information (e.g. sexual orientation, personal address, and mobile phone number). According to a research held by Pew Internet & American Life, even younger women are more aware of possible bullying, harassment, or violation of their privacy through the internet. By partially protecting their privacy in cyberspace, women continue to support their attributed dominance in the private space of the home. However, as women more often prefer to have an open profile and to upload photos than do men, one can observe a contradiction what is mentioned above. Furthermore, women tend to adapt more easily a kind of ‘liberated’ persona, open to a number of challenges and provocations. This observation could undermine the stereotype of females as characteristically maintaining a ‘controlled personal image’. A post-feminist woman balances the undertaking of tasks in fields traditionally dominated by men, without losing her position as an object of desire. The ‘right use’ of femininity can lead to success and the augmentation of a woman’s status. Women are often keener on ‘friendly’ sexism that presents women as weaker and pure, and that encourages their protection. This disposition of exploitation of a sexist-produced image of a woman is reflected in their profile administration on Facebook. Many women present themselves as friendly, cute, and not so serious, characteristics that do not threaten the typically serious man. Even her choice of activities and favourite movies and TV series reveals a tendency toward more

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__________________________________________________________________ ‘feminine’ matters. The need of women to present themselves as attractive is more obvious in the photographs they publish. According to research done by Aegean University, these photos are often mannerist displays of femininity, provocative, or cartoon images. The association of the ‘childish’ with the feminine is very common in these profiles. Moreover, women often produce a mysterious persona that waits to be uncovered by a user with admirable capabilities, such as quick writing and the use of humour. According to Megan Kelly’s research, there are also other differences in the online behaviour of women. Women feel uncomfortable with their image and want to update it more often than do men. When questioned why they have deactivated their Facebook account, 50% admitted that it was due to an over occupation with their profile, while only 20% of men offered this response. While this seemingly indicates that women are more obsessed with Facebook, it also serves as evidence of a more conscious use of the site. The stereotypical beliefs that enter and modulate the realm of Facebook are demonstrated in the profiles of men as well. Such stereotypes would include: that men are interested only in women, sports and cars; and that they associate sentimentality with femininity, assigning greater value instead to physical strength. 4. Conclusion The representations of gender in cyberspace are not likely to overcome the stereotypes of physical space. While this new and undiscovered space may have not yet freed its inhabitants from the myths supporting gender discrimination, it offers new possibilities for redefining gender. ‘Cyberspace is a world unto itself, touching the conventional world at every point but remaining entirely distinct from it.’ One can trace these stereotypes in all aspects of digital space, whether cyberspace, virtual reality, or video games. In the majority of video games, these discriminations like female participation and appearance of characters are more obvious. The structure of each kind of digital space can suggest the behaviour of a user, the degree and the way the feminine or the masculine gender is expressed. Analysing how women and men participate in social networking site, it is assumed that there is a reductive tension of the digital gendered chasm. As a result, the increasing feminine presentation in new technologies can lead to the emergence and promotion of woman matters and also lead to a more fruitful conversation to equality. Finally, the speculation of the representation of a gendered identity in such a new and in progress space remains open. As far as our two pairs of heterotopic dipoles male-female, physical spacecyberspace are concerned, we close with the rest of Eagleton’s phrase that was left incomplete in our introduction:

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__________________________________________________________________ Man therefore needs this other even as he spurns it, is constrained to give a positive identity to what he regards as nothing. Not only is his own being parasitically dependent upon the woman, and upon the act of excluding and subordinating her, but one reason why such exclusion is necessary is because she may not be quite so other after all. Perhaps she stands as a sign of something in man himself which he needs to repress, expel beyond his own being, relegate to a securely alien region beyond his own definitive limits. Perhaps what is outside is also somehow inside, what is alien also intimate - so that man needs to police the absolute frontier between the two realms as vigilantly as he does just because it may always be transgressed, has always been transgressed already, and is much less absolute than it appears.

Notes 1

T. Eagleton, Literary Theory, 1983. In 2008, the book republished by University of Minnesota Press in Minneapolis 2 The term heterotopia etymologically derives from the greek words « έτερος» (‘hetero’ - other) and «τόπος» (‘topos’ place). 3 M. Foucault, Des espaces autres, 1984. 4 D. de Kerckhove, The Architecture of Intelligence, Switzerland, 2001. 5 These three spaces are the realm within the connected architecture acts. By the term connective architecture or architecture of connectivity, Kerckhove implies a new kind of architecture that takes into consideration the interconnections of physical, mental and networked space. 6 Agger, 2004. 7 V. Tentokali, ‘Η κοινωνική δόμηση της ταυτότητας των δύο φύλων’, Σύγχρονα θέματα (eds), 1991. 8 Sex-Gender System, Rubin, 1975. 9 S. de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, Vintage Books, NYC, 1989. 10 The women’s fears. 11 Fraser and Duta (2008) introduce the terms of 3-D approach; disaggregation of identities, democratization of status, diffusion of power. 12 The word ‘ianomorphic’ derives from the Roman god ‘Ianos’ (a deity with two faces). It implies the multiplicity of identities.

Bibliography Barzon, F., The Charter of Zurich, Eisenman, De Kerckhove, Saggio. Birkhauser, Switzerland, 2003.

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__________________________________________________________________ Benavent, M., UK Facebook Statistics for June 2010. Available at http://www.clic kymedia.co.uk/tag/facebook-demographics/. Accessed 20 May 2010. Bourdieu, P., Η ανδρική κυριαρχία. Δελφίνι, Αθήνα, 1996. Bryant, E., A Critical Examination of Gender Representation on Facebook Profiles. Available at http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research citation/2/5/8/0/7/pages258071/p258071-2.php. Accessed 02 April 2010. Burcher, N., Facebook Usage Statistics by Country - Dec 31st 2009. Available at http://www.nickburcher.com/2009/12/facebook-usage-statistics-by-country.html. Accessed 20 May 2010. de Beauvoir, S., The Second Sex. Vintage Books, NYC, 1989. de Kerckhove, D., The Architecture of Intelligence. Birkhauser, Switzerland, 2001. Desser, D., Who’s Online? Gender Morphing in Cyberspace. Available at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?cjep;view=text;rgn=main;idno=33364 51.0006.103. Accessed 06 April 2010. Donath, S.J., Identity and Deception in Virtual Community. Available at http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html. Accessed 02 April 2010. Eagleton, T., Literary Theory. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2008. EU, Europe for Women. Available at http://www.scribd.com/doc/28455817/ Europe-for-Women-2010. Accessed 20 May 2010. Facebook-Press Room, Statistics. Available at http://www.facebook.com/press /info.php?statistics. Accessed 20 May 2010. Finke, L., Women: Lost in Cyberspace? Available at www.enhanced-learning. org/prox/paper5.htm. Accessed 06 April 2010. Foucault, M., Des espaces autres. 1984.

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__________________________________________________________________ Goudreau, J., What Men and Women are Doing on Facebook. Available at Forbes.com, http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/26/popular-social-networking-sitesforbes-woman-time-facebook-twitter.html. Accessed 15 May 2010. Gregory, P., Newscapes: Territories of Complexity. Birkhauser, Switzerland, 2003. Hayles, K., Chaos Bound. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1999. Herring, S., Gender Differences in Computer-Mediated Communication: Bringing Familiar Baggage to the New Frontier. Available at http://www.mith2.umd.edu/ WomensStudies/Computing/Articles%2BResearchPapers/gender-differences-com munication. Accessed 15 May 2010. Jasken, J., Introduction to Helene Cixous. Available at http://www.engl.niu.edu/ wac/cixous_intro.html. Accessed 06 April 2010. Jenainati, C. and Groves, J., Introducing Feminism: A Graphic Guide. Gutenberg Press, Malta, 2007. Klages, M., Helene Cixous: The Laugh of the Medusa. Last revision: November 24, 1997. http://www.colorado.edu/English/courses/ENGL201Klages/cixous.html. Accessed 06 April 2010. Lada, S., Μετατοπίσεις Φύλο, διαφορά και αστικός χώρος. Futura, Αθήνα, 2009. Leach, N., Designing for a Digital World. Willey Academy, West Sussex, 2002. Leggatt, H., Pew Identifies Social Networking Gender Split. Available at http://www.bizreport.com/2007/12/pew_identifies_social_networking_gender_split .html#. Accessed 15 May 2010. Liberman, M., Language Log Sex-Linked Lexical Budgets. Available at http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003420.html. Accessed 20 May 2010. Mitchell, W., The City of Bits. MIT Press, 1996. Palumbo, M.L., New Wombs, Electronic Bodies and Architectural Disorders. Birkhauser, Switzerland, 2000.

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__________________________________________________________________ Rackham, E., Gender Pretender: Who’s the Sender? The International Journal of Urban Labour and Leisure. Vol. 7, No. 2, October 2006. Available at http://ijull.org.uk/vol7/2/rackham.pdf. Accessed 06 April 2010. Smith, J., Latest Data on US Facebook Age and Gender Demographics. Available at http://www.insidefacebook.com/2008/09/18/latest-data-on-us-facebook-age-andgender-demographics/. Accessed 20 May 2010. Strano, M.M., User Descriptions and Interpretations of Self-Presentation through Facebook Profile Images. Available at http://www.cyberpsychology.eu/view. php?cisloclanku=2008110402&article=5. Accessed 20 May 2010. Stutzman, F., Η χωρική παραγωγή της φιλίας. Available at http://www.republic.gr/?p=246. Accessed 15 May 2010. Tentokali, V., Η κοινωνική δόμηση της ταυτότητας των δύο φύλων. Σύγχρονα θέματα, 1991. Sophia Damianidou, Konstantina Vasiliki Iakovou and Katerina Zygoura are students of the Architecture Department in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece). They are currently engaged with their diploma research thesis.

Immersion and Surveillance in Virtual Worlds George J. Stein Abstract This chapter explores the tension between the emergence of independent cybercultures through Virtual Worlds such as Second Life, the internal tensions between ‘immersionists’ and ‘augmentationists,’ and the already demonstrated interest by national intelligence and law enforcement agencies in applying a system of surveillance in Virtual Worlds. Key Words: Virtual worlds, Second Life, augmentationists, privacy, anonymity, terrorism.

surveillance, immersionists,

***** 1. Introduction Using the well-known Second Life as illustration, I argue that the original vision of building a country or community with its own laws and society, the socalled ‘immersionist’ community, is threatened by an ‘augmentationist’ approach to this virtual world by those who see SL as more a ‘platform’ for other ‘real world’ (RL) activities such as continuing education, commercial activities, conferences, etc. – all of which have a considerably lower commitment to privacy and anonymity. The more serious challenge to emerging virtual world cybercultures is surveillance by government agencies. It is appropriate that a conference on visions of humanity in cyberculture, cyberspace and science fiction is being held in Oxford as, in a sense, this all began when J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings inspired the invention of the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. 1 Since 1974, thousands of players were introduced into a game system defined by (a) an alternative ‘universe’ with ‘alternative rules’ of behavior, (b) the need to develop a fictional ‘persona’ or character (ultimately becoming what we know as an avatar), and (c) the requirement or opportunity for collective behaviour among the players. These three characteristics continue to inform most emerging virtual worlds. With the development of computers, it became possible to expand the circles of D&D players from the college dorm to a world-wide universe of players who communicated in the old-fashioned text only manner. These early Internet-based and text-constrained ‘chat room’ communities of D&D and other games were known as ‘Multiple User Dungeons (or Domains).’ 2 Today, computing power, graphics capability, and the evolution of the Internet support what are known as ‘Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games’ or MMORPG. 3 Currently well over twelve million people participated in WOW and revenues for the commercial developers, operators and owners of this and other

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__________________________________________________________________ cyber-based virtual worlds exceeded a billion dollars. One’s personal character or ‘persona’ from D&D days is now called an ‘avatar’ in MMORPG virtual worlds. In essence, there are a lot of people ‘living’ in two worlds. The most important developments in post adventure/fantasy gaming are best seen in the virtual cyberspace world known as Second Life. 4 Unlike ‘WoW,’ the ‘residents’ of Second Life create not only their avatars but create, ‘own’ and develop the virtual world. There are currently over 18 million registered ‘residents’ with about 50-80 thousand people in-world at any one time. Technically, Second Life and other newly developing virtual worlds are known as a ‘metaverse’ as they seek to be fully-immersive, avatar-driven, and permit the ‘players’ to duplicate (almost) any activities of the ‘real’ world. Most of the metaverse systems are self-identified as inspired by Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science fiction novel, Snowcrash, which explores emerging computer technologies permitting people to live in ‘two-worlds’ and the implications of ‘actions’ in virtual reality affecting ‘real world’ events. 5 It is this later point that ultimately will concern public authorities – do avatar social, behavioural and cultural norms developed in-world affect real-world or physical-world behaviours? The metaverse concept has moved well-beyond ‘gaming’ and is currently emerging as the cutting-edge issue in the exploitation of cyberspace. The reader is strongly encouraged to review briefly the various aspects of metaverse development discussed in the ‘Metaverse Roadmap’ Project. 6 Likewise, wellestablished research universities (e.g., MIT) and think-tanks (e.g., Xerox PARC) have initiated projects examining the issues of two-world cyberspace developments. Dozens of American and international universities have opened ‘campuses’ in Second Life for recruiting and actual conduct of distance learning. The professor’s avatar, played of course by the professor himself, interacts directly with the student avatars from around the world. Naturally, real-world corporations have moved into these virtual worlds to place advertising, test products, etc. 7 Whether and how government, military or intelligence agencies might participate in these virtual worlds is the key question of privacy and surveillance. One must assume that in-world universities and companies believe that experiences in the virtual world will translate into actions in the real-world. Will the State make the same assumption? 2. Interest by the State In the emerging virtual social worlds like Second Life, the problem is potentially more serious. Issues of real-world government regulation and intervention in virtual reality are highlighted by the decision (July 2007) by the owners of Second Life (Linden Labs) to suspend in-world gambling as ‘Lindendollars’ can easily be converted back into real-world currencies. Linden Labs has also begun to exercise greater oversight of the various in-world ‘banks’ after a number of irregularities caused the collapse of several banks and the loss of virtual

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__________________________________________________________________ assets. E-Bay, the world-wide auction site, has attempted to stop the on-line sale of virtual world assets to control gold farming (an annoyance) and potential money laundering (a crime). It is perhaps appropriate that the original governmental interest in virtual worlds, especially Second Life, came from the UK ‘Revenue and Customs’ seeking to tax in-world financial transactions. The London Times reported that Revenue & Customs was using the computer program ‘Xenon’ to scan Second Life and other VW worlds like Entropia to detect tax cheats. The Revenue spokesman noted ‘our primary target lies with traders who are running a business in Second Life.’ 8 Precisely how, or even if, the authorities can link a SL avatar with their real world identity is not clear, especially as SL’s server farm in located in the United States. Nevertheless, ‘the taxman cometh’ as similar hearings before the US Congress discussing money laundering in VW were also held during August 2009. ‘Follow the money’ leads from tax cheats to terrorists in VW. It is probably not accidental that computer security firms like Symantec began raising the alarm that terrorists could use VW to transfer funds and launder money. To facilitate this, a criminal enterprise could open several thousand MMOG accounts. Each account could be used to trade with other players in the purchase or sale on in-game assets, the funds from which would ultimately be withdrawn…Since thousands of accounts may engage in millions of transactions, each with small profits or losses, it would be difficult to trace the true source of the funds when they are withdrawn. 9 While the idea of getting ‘several thousand’ al-Qaida terrorists siphoned off from terror attack planning to wander around WoW or Second Life seems, in fact, a brilliant counter-terror tactic, it is the ‘unknown’ of VW that permit such fantastic paranoia. German authorities brought a case against Linden Labs for permitting virtual child pornography. In the USA, the Supreme Court decision in Ashcroft vs. Free Speech Coalition seems to have ruled that as virtual pornography does not involve ‘real’ people, it is protected speech. 10 Whether this frankly ambiguous precedent will apply in the EU, or even continue to stand in the USA, remains to be seen. As other virtual worlds permit unregulated exchange of money between their virtual world (e.g., Entropia Universe) and the real world, various European banking authorities are concerned with both criminal and terrorist money laundering. In essence, if it’s a crime in the real-world, someone is probably attempting to hide the activity in cyber-based virtual reality worlds. 11 While European regulators and police concentrate on crimes, the relevance of virtual worlds for international politics is not being ignored. The Beijing Municipal Government’s ‘Cyber Recreation Development Corporation’ has partnered with

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__________________________________________________________________ the Swedish Mindark’s Entropia Universe for a project to develop a Chinese virtual world capable of supporting seven million ‘residents’ simultaneously for the conduct of business. 12 Other Chinese companies like HiPiHi seek to develop methods that permit their avatars to move freely between the various virtual worlds. Recognizing the growing political and security aspects of virtual worlds, China has recently banned all foreign investment in Chinese virtual worlds. China will operate in cyberspace and virtual space. 3. Terrorism The issue of terrorist use of ‘conventional’ cyberspace for propaganda is wellknown and, hopefully, effectively addressed. Rather, it is the perception or fear that there is a potential for effective use of virtual worlds like Second Life, Entropia and others for communication of terrorist ideology, direct recruitment, fundraising, covert funds transfer and, most importantly, distributed training that draws the attention of intelligence agencies. According to the Washington Post, the US government’s Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) report on virtual worlds argues that the unique characteristics of virtual worlds ‘have made them into seedbeds for transnational threats.’ 13 The Congressionally mandated Data Mining Report of 2008 by the Office of the (USA) Director of National Intelligence notes that ‘Reynard is a seedling effort to study the emerging phenomenon of social (particularly terrorist) dynamics in virtual worlds and large-scale online games and their implications for the Intelligence Community.’ The cultural and behavioural norms of virtual worlds are generally unstudied. Therefore Reynard will seek to identify the emerging social, behavioural and cultural norms in virtual worlds and gaming environments. The project would then apply the lessons learned to determine the feasibility of automatically detecting suspicious behaviour and actions in the virtual world. If it shows early promise, this small seedling effort may increase its scope to a full project. 14 However, in the January 2009 Report, the ODNI notes that Reynard ‘continues as a seedling effort within IARPA however, the focus of the effort has changed…[and]…is currently exploring the feasibility of understanding and characterizing behaviour in virtual worlds by leveraging expertise in the social science research community.’ 15 Clearly then, study of the internal ‘social, behavioural and cultural norms’ of virtual worlds has already caught the attention of intelligence agencies at the highest levels. This is, understandably a very contentious issue. An earlier discussion appeared in a Counterterrorism blog and a wide ranging follow-up. 16 More significantly, a

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__________________________________________________________________ writer for The Australian interviewed various Australian law enforcement and security authorities on the use of Second Life and other virtual worlds by terrorists for actual training. 17 The article provoked an explosion of derisive commentary from Second Life bloggers with a typical observation being ‘terrorists drink coffee too, should we monitor coffee shops?’ 18 It is perhaps unfair to say that SL residents do not see a problem with people up-loading streaming video on bomb making or rehearsing real-world activities in Second Life. Rather if anyone is actually monitoring SL – say monitoring ‘radical’ Muslims or the local imam in Second Life’s mosque, the Islamic world is certainly aware already of US government interest. 4. Privacy In reality there is no ultimate privacy in Second Life or other virtual worlds. The ‘owner’ of the ‘world,’ in this case Linden Labs, is able to monitor, record and store all in-world activities and, again, notes in their Terms of Service (TOS) that they are prepared to respond to requests for resident information from lawful authorities. The issue is less anonymous privacy than what residents tend to call ‘pseudonymous’ privacy: the expectation that the distinction between their realworld and in-world identities is preserved and that their in-world privacy vis-à-vis other residents is maintained to the degree that they themselves choose. Some residents, however, try to ‘spy’ on others (q.v. ‘Mission Spy’ software) and, of course, other residents have developed in-world software to foil such spying (q.v. ‘MystiTool’ & ‘hippoSecure’). Thus, while ‘Group (open) Chat’ and visible actions can be monitored and recorded covertly, to date there is no evidence that any in-world means has been developed to eavesdrop on ‘Individual (person-toperson) Messages’ (IM). Whether such capability exists within the law enforcement or intelligence communities to capture and record in-world IM is a matter of speculation. There is, likewise, no in-world means to link an individual avatar to their real-world identity beyond what an individual avatar may choose to reveal. Again whether such capability exists within the law enforcement or intelligence communities is a matter of speculation but, logically, monitoring a bunch of avatars without being to establish their real world identities would seem pointless. Currently, then, interest in ‘goings-on’ in virtual worlds are focused on the fear that terrorists might be hiding in Second Life to communicate secretly, plan and rehearse. Future surveillance will be based on a more nuanced understanding of the epistemology of virtual worlds. Briefly, the ‘rules of the game’ in a virtual world without rules of the game become a new set of rules that can/ may/will translate into the real world. If, say, it were observed (as technically easily done) that ‘immersionist’ SL residents Brendan, Clancy, Connor, Finbar and Seamus were building a community/island based on radical ‘republican’ principles and began discussing regicide, would not MI-5 employ techniques within Second Life to

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__________________________________________________________________ discover the real world identity of these residents? Bluntly, neither we nor SL residents know. On the one hand, and ironically, the increasing success of Linden Labs to market Second Life for ‘augmentation’ use by corporation business meetings and collaboration, universities for distance learning, and government agencies (e.g., NASA) for public relations decreases the overall concern for privacy. After all, anonymous students or fellow university researchers defeats the purpose of inworld presence. Authority’s old chestnut ‘if you’re not doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear’ can seem acceptable to those who are essentially tourists. On the other hand, the pioneers of Second Life, the ‘immersionists,’ who are in-world as part of an experiment to build relationships and communities difficult or perhaps impossible in the physical/real-world have been consistently most insistent on maintaining pseudonymous privacy. Residents engaged in various role-playing communities maintain the strongest commitment to privacy, rarely putting any ‘1st Life’ information in their in-world profile. They are in-world literally for a second-life or second-chance to explore and build ‘social, behavioural and cultural norms’ that, indeed, may represent a revolt against or secession from the real-world. They are in-world because they may, in fact, want to be different. 5. The Unresolved Tension Finally, Second Life, like any real-world or even other virtual world society rests on the substantive communication and understanding among its members. In the philosopher Eric Voegelin’s terms, this is no mere external structure of relationships; it is a ‘cosmion’-- a universe ‘illuminated with meaning from within by the human beings who continuously create and bear it as the mode and condition of their self-realization.’ 19 Whether an increasingly augmentationist inworld population will begin to regard those who choose pseudonymous identities as ‘hiding something’ (and thus, to be avoided) or whether a perception that pseudonymous residents represent an ethical secession from ‘real’ norms and the creation of communities potentially antithetical to ‘proper’ law and behaviour drawing, then, increased surveillance by law enforcement or intelligence agencies, the effect will be the same. The development of a creative cyberculture through virtual worlds, ‘illuminated with meaning from within by the human beings who continuously create and bear it as the mode and condition of their self-realization,’ will have been effectively killed.

Notes 1

Wikipedia, ‘Dungeons & Dragons’, 19.08.2010, http://en.wikipedia.prg/wiki/ Dungeons_%26_Dragons.

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__________________________________________________________________ 2

Wikipedia, ‘MUD (Multiple User Dungeon)’, 19.08.2010, http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/MUDs. 3 Wikipedia, ‘MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game)’, 19.08.2010, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMORPG. 4 Wikipedia, ‘Second Life’, 19.08.2010, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life. The company’s commercial website is: http://secondlife.com. 5 N. Stephenson, Snow Crash, Bantam Dell, New York, 1992. For a sense of the impact of the book, see the 500+ online reviews at Amazon.com: For a sense of the impact of the novel, see the 500+ on-line reviews at: http://www.amazon.com/Snow-Crash-Bantam-Spectra-Book/dp/0553380958/ref =pd_bbs_1/002-0401700-4479257?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186326203&sr=8-1. 6 Acceleration Studies Foundation, ‘Metaverse Roadmap: Pathways to the 3D Web’, 19.08.2010, http://www.metaverseroadmap.org/index.html. 7 MIT Media Lab, ‘Hacking Second Life’, 19.08.2010, http://www.media. mit.edu/resenv/second_life_iap_2007_workshop/. 8 D. Budworth, ‘Taxman Gets Tough on Virtual World Earnings’, The Times Online, 26.08.2007. 9 ‘Symantec Warns against Virtual Worlds Money Laundering and other Threats’, Virtual World News, 18.09.2007, http://www.virtualworldnews.com/2007/09/ symantec-warns-.html. 10 Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (00-795) 535 U.S. 234 (2002); 198 F3d 1083, affirmed. ‘The argument that virtual child pornography whets pedophiles’ appetites and encourages them to engage in illegal conduct is unavailing because the mere tendency of speech to encourage unlawful acts is not a sufficient reason for banning it, Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 566, absent some showing of a direct connection between the speech and imminent illegal conduct, see, e.g., Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, (per curiam). 11 N. Monroe, ‘Technology Regulating Fantasy’, National Journal, 30.06.2007. 12 Marketwire, Entropia Universe Enters China to Create the Largest Virtual World Ever, 30.05.2007, http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/EntropiaUniverse-Enters-China-to-Create-the-Largest-Virtual-World-Ever-737761.htm 19.08.2010. 13 R. O’Harrow, ‘Spies’ Battleground Turns Virtual: Intelligence Officials See #-D Online Worlds as Havens for Criminals’, Washington Post, 06.02.2008, p. D01. 14 Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Data Mining Report, 15.02.2008, p. 5, http://www.dni.gov/reports/data_mining_report_feb08.pdf. 15 Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Data Mining Report, 2009, p. 7, http://www.dni.gov/electronic_reading_room/ODNI_Data_Mining_Report_10.pdf. 16 A. Cochran, ‘MetaTerror: The Potential Uses of MMORPGs by Terrorists’, Counterterrorism Blog, 01.03.2007, http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/03/ print/metaterror_the_potential_use_o.php. And A. Cochran, ‘Part II of

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__________________________________________________________________ MetaTerror: The Potential Uses of MMORPGs by Terrorists’, Counterterrorism Blog, 12/03.2007, http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/03/print/part_ii_of_meta terror_the_pote.php, 19.08.2010. 17 N. O’Brien, ‘Virtual Terrorists’, The Australian, 31.06.2007, http://www.the australian.com.au/news/features/virtual-terrorists/story-e6frg6z6-1111114072291. 18 T. Burke, ‘More Dots! Cried the Terrorist’, Terra Nova, 19.08.2010; http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2007/08/more-dots-cried.html; G. Dvorsky, ‘Second Life’s In-World Terrorism and the Struggle for Digital Rights’, Sentient Development, 03.01.2007, http://www.sentientdevelopments.com/2007/03/secondlifes-in-world-terrorism-and.html; M. Wagner, ‘Terrorism in Second Life? Give Me a Break’, Information Week, 31.07.2007; http://www.informationweek. com/blog/main/archives/2007/07/terrorism_in_se.html;jsessionid=LSJBYC2TG3L RFQE1GHOSKH4ATMY32JVN, 19.08.2010. 19 E. Voegelin, The New Science of Politics, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1952, p. 27.

Bibliography Acceleration Studies Foundation, ‘Metaverse Roadmap: Pathways to the 3D Web’. Viewed on 19 August 2010, http://www.metaverseroadmap.org/index.html. Au, W.J., The Making of Second Life. Harper-Collins, New York, 2008. Bainbridge, W.S. (ed), Online Worlds: Convergence of the Real and the Virtual. Springer-Verlag, London, 2010. Balkin, J.M. and Noveck, B.S. (eds), The State of Play: Law, Games and Virtual Worlds. New York University Press, New York, 2006. Biegel, S., Beyond Our Control: Confronting the Limits of our Legal System in Cyberspace. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2001. Boellstorff, T., Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2008. Budworth, D., ‘Taxman Gets Tough on Virtual World Earnings,’. The Times Online. 26 August 2007. Burke, T., ‘More Dots! Cried the Terrorist’. Terra Nova. 01 August 2007, Viewed 19 August 2010, http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2007/08/more-dotscried.html.

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__________________________________________________________________ Cochran, A., ‘MetaTerror: The Potential Uses of MMORPGs by Terrorists’. Counterterrorism Blog. 01 March 2007, Viewed 19 August 2010, http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/03/print/metaterror_the_potential_use_o.php. Cochran, A., ‘Part II of MetaTerror: The Potential Uses of MMORPGs by Terrorists’. Counterterrorism Blog. 12 March 2007, Viewed 19 August 2010, http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/03/print/part_ii_of_metaterror_the_pote.php. Dvorsky, G., ‘Second Life’s In-World Terrorism and the Struggle for Digital Rights’. Sentient Development. 03 January 2007, Viewed 19 August 2010, http://www.sentientdevelopments.com/2007/03/second-lifes-in-world-terrorismand.html. Hayles, N.K., How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1999. Legal Information Institute, Cornell University Law School, ‘ASHCROFT V. FREE SPEECH COALITION (00-795) 535 U.S. 234 (2002)’. Viewed 19 August 2010, http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-795.ZO.html. Meadows, M.S., I, Avatar: The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life. New Riders, Berkeley, CA, 2008. MIT Media Lab, ‘Hacking Second Life’. 2007, Viewed on 19 August 2010, http://www.media.mit.edu/resenv/second_life_iap_2007_workshop/. Monroe, N., ‘Technology Regulating Fantasy’. National Journal. 30.06.2007. Mosco, V., The Digital Sublime: Myth, Power, and Cyberspace. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2005. O’Brien, N., ‘Virtual Terrorists’. The Australian. 31 June 2007, http://www.the australian.com.au/news/features/virtual-terrorists/story-e6frg6z6-1111114072291. O’Harrow, R., ‘Spies’ Battleground Turns Virtual: Intelligence Officials See 3-D Online Worlds as Havens for Criminals’. Washington Post. 06.02. 2008. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Data Mining Report. 15 February 2008, p. 5, http://www.dni.gov/reports/data_mining_report_feb08.pdf.

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__________________________________________________________________ Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Data Mining Report. 2009, p. 7, http://www.dni.gov/electronic_reading_room/ODNI_Data_Mining_Report_10.pdf. Stephenson, N., Snow Crash. Bantam Dell, New York, 1992. Turkle, S., Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. Simon & Schuster, New York, 1995. Voegelin, E., The New Science of Politics. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1952, p.27. Waggoner, Z., My Avatar, My Self: Identity in Video Role-Playing Games. McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 2009. Wagner, M., ‘Terrorism in Second Life? Give Me a Break’. Information Week. 31 July 2007, Viewed 19 August 2010, http://www.informationweek.com/ blog/main/archives/2007/07/terrorism_in_se.html;jsessionid=LSJBYC2TG3LRFQ E1GHOSKH4ATMY32JVN. George J. Stein is the Director of the Cyberspace and Info-Ops Study Centre at the USAF Air University, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, USA. His interest in virtual worlds is focused on e-education and the implications for national security of the interaction between synthetic (virtual) and physical (real-world) environments. The views expressed or implied in this chapter are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Air University, the Department of Defense or the United States Government.

Part III Technology, Community and Anthropology

Anthropological Reflections on Knowledge Interfaces: Swarm, Wikinomics and Design Michał Derda-Nowakowski Abstract Anthropological reflections on knowledge interfaces are connected here with the visions of humanity in the context of various aspects of cyberculture. The main reflection stems from Marshall McLuhan’s prophecy of cultural transformation within the range of consciousness. The chapter discusses the issues of cultural paradigm shifts connected with the emergence of networked civilisation, knowledge interfaces, user experience, wikinomics and swarming. The author reflects on the problem of design as the most important tool for changing ‘consciousness into environment,’ redefining social relations and the human condition. Key Words: Webanthropology, interface, design, media literacy, HCI, user experience, wikinomics, swarming, knowledge, communication, information literacy. ***** 1. Narcissus’ Mirror and Cyberhumanity Traces leading to the contemporary imagination of designers of increasingly tactile and haptic interfaces originate from the belief that it is necessary to imitate and extend our sensory experience. The practice of creating interfaces (which have a utilitarian aspect and are not in principle works of art) is all about appropriately designing this experience. For statistical purposes, it is necessary to: establish the pattern of the interaction, put it in the framework of the standard deviations, situate the human being within the calculated ergonomics of behaviour, and draw this model together with as much of the anthropological background as can be reconstructed. This sort of approach is distinctly less sublime than concepts referring to the mystery of numbers, such as the Vitruvian Man, whom Leonardo da Vinci made into an almost cosmological model. Equally missing here is the zest characteristic of the modernist ideas of the ergonomic world, scrupulously calculated in Le Modulor by Le Corbussier, 1 in keeping with the best ideas of Bauhaus. Following in the footsteps of Henry David Thoreau in the 19th century, one may be cautious of the technocratic reality and come to see it as a certain form of captivity. This captivity is brought about by replacing the ‘natural’ solutions with technology that ensures a peculiar sort of safety (clearly obliging in its own right). ‘But lo! Men have become the tools of their tools,’ Thoreau called from the depths of nature. 2 These days, there is a fashionable trend to come back to low-tech

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__________________________________________________________________ methods of producing life’s necessities. Low-tech philosophy goes hand in hand with uncontaminated foodstuffs (slow food), do-it-yourself philosophy, and anticorporation acts of protest against user-friendly, MacDonaldized products and services. Anti-technocratic thinking seems to spare the space of digital interfaces, much as this area is full of oddities and tribal wars over the only true simplicity and transparency of technology. These days, it is very difficult to remain an off-line, sovereign Mennonite, in much the same way as there are basically no communication technologies without electricity. Today the ‘face’ of humanity is reflected in the Narcissus’ mirror of interfaces. 2. Knowledge Interfaces and CyberSavoir-vivre Nowadays, it is considered good manners to know how to operate machines. However, it is not only a question of proper upbringing, but also an appropriate social status within the new type of information society stratification. The tendency to abandon writing in favour of new methods of transferring information has also been observed. New ways of reading (unrelated to literacy in a direct way) are not more primitive than the traditional reading technique and may become an art of understanding the world involving the use of not only computer interfaces but also new types of perceptive sensitivity. It is to be noted that we are not talking about a metaphor of ‘reading’ (as used by Umberto Eco) or a departure from writing in favour of secondary orality, whose presence in the media has been noticed by Walter J. Ong. 3 The contemporary (transitory) homo sapiens is a being dependent on information. It accepts and processes far more information during a single lifetime than several generations of its ancestors taken together. It seems that today the species possesses a far more extensive knowledge of the world than its representatives did in the recent past. This state of affairs must have its anthropological consequences. There seems to be no need for the sort of change in human biology that posthumanists advocate. The problem of processing the excess of information is inherent in both nature and culture. Information noise is necessary for the proper development of each system, including social and biological systems. It is a better idea to customise the transmitter so that the content is more orderly. Lack of relevance cannot directly lead to the radical gesture of breaking off with the biological humanity. Communicational relevance is, in fact, a term belonging to the area of aesthetics rather than human-computer relations. In recent years, humanity has spent much effort constructing new interfaces. There are technologies that are able to process the abundance of data quite well and provide a customized set of information. This information can reach the recipient through an RSS channel or through a customized interface of a networked service where the content user installs a suitable set of useful widgets.

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__________________________________________________________________ Personalising the communication channel can be done anonymously and does not directly infringe the sphere of privacy by tracing preference and tastes of the user. The Net protects humanity against the hegemony of writing and restores the traditional order, in this case, the order of secondary orality space of culture. It also saves writing, however, creating new ways of recording and interpreting texts of culture in the form of different types of information literacy, but also interactions themselves that result from handling interfaces. The Net is not only a new memory, necessary to transfer information, but also a space of new knowledge, extension of ‘consciousness as an environment.’ 4 3. Cyberculture as Disease Seeing the Net as a rubbish heap is an ahistorical way of thinking, in accordance with the pedagogic utopia, cultivated by the critics of the new media, who see it mainly as the source of misinformation, sometimes even a retreat from the path of progress. The ahistorical character of this way of thinking, however, should be set against facts. Extensive research into illiteracy was only started after WW II by UNESCO. The researchers categorized and rationalized the inability to write, read and count as a plague, on equal footing with contagious and parasitic diseases, but also with addictions (including, recently, addiction to the Internet). The research into illiteracy has been carried on for over 60 years now and has presented us with a historical picture of change in the familiarity with writing as an extension of memory and printing as an interface of official knowledge. However, we have virtually no global testimonies that refer to the extent of knowledge of the world as a cultural capital, with the obvious exception of the officially approved curricula. True, there are ethnographic, anthropological, or court records, but they are not a reliable source of recordable knowledge, contaminated as they often are with the language whose aim is to adjust individual judgments to the needs of power and law. Ethnographic transcription of a registered spoken statement is a rather troublesome task, too, as it has to be done on a one-to-one scale. Rather than faithfully reproduce the recording, researchers who carry out transcription tasks often find themselves building structures compliant with linguistic patterns they have acquired in the process of socialization, education and language improvement. Such cognitive layers and models of correctness can sometimes considerably interrupt the process of transferring the oral into the written, while the technical character of writing reveals its rules in opposition to principles of speech. The Net presents the speech as computer-mediated without the need of such transcription of everydayness. From a certain point of view this might be a problem, but this is yet another dimension of the departure from the Gutenberg Galaxy to McLuhan Galaxy that we have to understand.

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__________________________________________________________________ It is addiction to the Internet that can be the real problem, also constituting a certain psychological barrier to cyborgisation. In the old days, the only parameters researched were the reading levels of the population: nobody ever dreamt of a ‘reading addiction’ that should be treated. A person afflicted with the reading disease was simply seen as an eccentric, anti-social bookworm, or a great scientist and erudite. The measure we use to conceptualise the Net is unfair, for nobody has ever thought of adding ‘addictive reading’ to the lists of the World Health Organisation, 5 even if it went beyond the norms of healthy living and a balanced development of an individual. Technophilia has become a sort of disease, while bibliophilia will forever remain a virtue. 4. Consciousness as an Environment Apart from the simple ability to deal with interfaces, acquired from early years, today the different educational and cognitive mechanisms that form information literacy are being informally incorporated into the catalogue of cultural competences. These competences go beyond the ability to read and write and include the capacity to understand the code of images, infographics and multimedia narratives in the form of games and interactive animations. Cognitive procedures no longer consist in decoding the hidden meaning of allegories or symbols in the mimetic world of art and other forms of knowledge and memory. These days, they refer both to the body and the mind, which take part in the cognitive process mediated by media. Understanding visuality, thus conceived, refers to methods of surfing the Net and handling interfaces, which is more than just functionalizing and rationalizing visual messages or putting codes in order. The aim is to create an inter-culturally understandable code of visual references, compliant with the rules of digital ergonomics (or usability) and using the graphical user interface. We do not need any contemporary Cesare Ripa 6 to read this sort of meanings. It is not any new ‘iconology’ that would allow us to understand narrative and symbolic meanings hidden by texts of culture. Neither is it any of the known forms of hermeneutics. The problem is that while the new information literacy (also understood as the ability to handle digital interfaces of knowledge) has grown out of the old analogue visual literacy, it nevertheless calls for an entirely different set of sender-recipient skills. Neglected and unpractised, these skills will never afford the user as many possibilities as are offered by print and linear reading of a text. Codes of visual communication, similarly to hypertext, hypermedia and interaction, have to be learned functionally, in much the same way as humanity has learned how to write or print as an extension of the senses and how to use the book as an interface of knowledge. Consequently, one can be media-illiterate and not suffer from secondary illiteracy. Unfortunately, one can also be an excellent decoder of media meaning, but completely illiterate when it comes to writing. Users need to know how to use new interfaces; and this is the challenge the

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__________________________________________________________________ educational establishment is facing today. The establishment tends to see the new media as a threat to civilizational progress, a threat to privacy and identity, psychological danger, risk of information addictions and lack of referentiality. New areas of perception and knowledge are not discourse-less, as it is claimed by those who announce that civilisation is retreating into a ‘visual culture.’ Thus, grieving over the fall of the culture of print (and the simultaneous fall of the West) is groundless. New possibilities and cultural competences set a much higher standard than what it takes to read a sort of biblia pauperum of our times. Someone who is well-adjusted to machines should, for instance, be able to touch-type (type without looking at their hands). Contemporary users should also know the secrets of the enquiry syntax (so as not to be deceived by the simple answers of the Google servers), know how to write a simple script (for instance, to meet the requirements of living and rules of surviving in the virtual environment of Second Life). They should also know how to deal with the excess of information (for instance, by using suitable filters that block unsolicited content such as ads). Another thing to know is how to modify the interface to make this most intimate link with machines more useful. 5. Swarm, Wikinomics and Design Users of the digital world who create content (even those who only inadvertently copy and process data in the name of sharing ideology) simply have to demonstrate a far broader knowledge of how to handle the reality around them and their own habitat than their ancestors did. Compared to several previous generations, these users need to have far more extensive cultural competences when it comes to using instruments of memory and knowledge. It was easy to handle books (in the form of a codex), newspaper, magazine, disk and cassette or to make use of a TV remote control to use texts of culture. To be ritually different from the network trolls (cyberspace barbarians), a truly ‘cultured’ provider of user generated content (but not as much as a digital shaman – a geek) must believe in the ideology of simplicity (as the lack of redundancy), usability, validity (conformity with standards) and accessibility. 7 Of particular importance is that access to data should be provided for people who cannot directly reach the content expressed as an extension of the sense of sight or hearing. This worthy idea sometimes turns into a true ideological war over cultural and ideological norms of simplicity and compliance with (communication) standards. This war is underpinned by usability as the central problem of anthropology of interfaces within multidisciplinary research into human interaction with the computer. The structure of the content must allow for it to be accessed not only as sentences of a natural language that can be reproduced by machines (for instance, voice screen readers), but also as a sort of conscious and planned information architecture. Consequently, these cultural and technical competences are becoming norms of

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__________________________________________________________________ behaviour that also apply to rules formulated as a symbolic code of ‘real virtuality.’ 8 New models of communication, for example wikinomics 9 and swarming, 10 become increasingly important. These models are the anthropological base of content and information channels creation, with special regard given to users acting in new media environment. 11 Extremely important are social behaviours and the role of community in creating new types of knowledge. Wikinomics, as the base of knowledge construction, became a new indicator for the construction of economic models. Concepts connected with wikinomics may be traced in 19th century, European science. The fundaments are to be found in discourse of natural sciences and in theory of evolution, as well as in biological models of society. The model of swarm as a productive system of meanings creation is present in contemporary design, organic programming, in ‘the long tail’, 12 and in relations between the producers and the active users. The issues of wikinomics and swarm, as cognitive models, are becoming more and more valuable in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence. The webness of knowledge and the mode of interaction with interface and social interactions are today among the most explored areas of design, and will shape the future of humanity. Without question, it will provoke new problems within the range of sociotechnics and cybersurveillance. The control and creation of interactions of the individual and the group activities of wikinomic types are today the objects of corporate and governmental interest. New media design becomes a space of argument about the sovereignty of an individual, the individual’s role in society, and the meaning of freedom. The wikimodel of society, and the swarm as a technological model, refer to the discourse of natural sciences, using communication solutions present in animal communities. Discoveries in natural sciences, and their implementation in design, ought to redefine more and more the methods of the humanities and our understanding of humankind. Nowadays, cultural phenomena have to be determined by technology. In one of his prophetic thoughts, Marshal McLuhan bluntly announced in the late 1960s: ‘It seems that our survival depends on extending consciousness as an environment.’ 13 These words do not refer solely to technocratic and, at the same time, posthumanist projects of cyborgisation. Interference of culture and technology evolved into a form of culture in which technology plays the role of nervous system.

Notes 1

Le Corbussier, Le Modulor. Essai sur une mesure harmonique à l’échelle humaine applicable universellement à l’architecture et à la mécanique. Boulogne, L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, 1950. 2 H.D. Thoreau, Walden, or Life in the Woods, Courier Dover Publications, Mineola, 1995.

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__________________________________________________________________ 3

W.J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, New Accents, T. Hawkes (ed), Methuen, New York, 1988. 4 E. McLuhan and F. Zingrone (eds), Essential McLuhan, Routledge 1997. 5 International Classification of Diseases (ICD). URL: http://www.who.int/ classifications/icd/en/, Accessed 14th June 2010. 6 C. Ripa, Iconologia overo Descrittione dell’ Imagini universali cavate dall’antichita et da altri luoghi Da Cesare Ripa Perugino. Opera non meno utile, che necessaria à Poeti, Pittori, & Scultori, per rappresentare le virtù, vitij, affetti, & passioni humane, Heredi di Gio, Gigliotti, Roma 1593. 7 A. Maj and M. Derda-Nowakowski, ‘Anthropology of Accessibility: Further Reflections on Perceptual Problems of Human-Computer Interactions’, Emerging Practices in Cyberculture and Social Networking, D. Riha and A. Maj (eds), Rodopi, Amsterdam-New York, NY, 2010. 8 See M. Castells, The Rise of the Network Society. The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Blackwell, Cambridge (MA)/Oxford (UK), 1996. 9 D. Tapscott and A.D. Williams, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, Portfolio, USA, 2006. 10 See P.A. Gloor, Swarm Creativity: Competitive Advantage through Collaborative Innovation Networks, Oxford University Press, 2006. 11 See D. Weinberger, ‘When Things Aren’t what They Are’, Hybrid: Living in Paradox, G. Stocker and C. Schöpf (eds), Hatje Cantz, Linz, 2005, pp. 76-78. 12 C. Anderson, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, Hyperion, New York, 2006. 13 McLuhan and Zingrone (eds), op. cit., p. 425.

Bibliography Anderson, C., The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More. Hyperion, New York, 2006. Castells, M., The Rise of the Network Society: The Information Age, Economy, Society and Culture. Blackwell, Cambridge (MA)/Oxford (UK), 1996. Christakis, N. and Fowler, J., Connected: The Amazing Power of Social Networks and how They Shape Our Lives. Harper Press, London, 2009. Kurzweil, R., The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. Duckworth, London, 2005.

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__________________________________________________________________ Le Corbussier, Le Modulor. Essai sur une mesure harmonique à l’échelle humaine applicable universellement à l’architecture et à la mécanique. L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, Boulogne, 1950. Maj, A. and Derda-Nowakowski, M., ‘Anthropology of Accessibility: Further Reflections on Perceptual Problems of Human-Computer Interactions’. Emerging Practices in Cyberculture and Social Networking. Riha, D. and Maj, A. (eds), Rodopi, Amsterdam-New York, NY, 2010. McLuhan, M., The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. University of Toronto Press, 1962. Minsky, M., The Emotion Machine: Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence and The Future of the Human Mind. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, New YorkLondon-Toronto-Sydney, 2006. Ong, W.J., Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word New Accents. Methuen, New York, 1988. Ripa, C., Iconologia overo Descrittione dell’ Imagini universali cavate dall’antichita et da altri luoghi Da Cesare Ripa Perugino. Opera non meno utile, che necessaria à Poeti, Pittori, & Scultori, per rappresentare le virtù, vitij, affetti, & passioni humane. Heredi di Gio. Gigliotti, Roma, 1593. Tapscott, D., Grown Up Digital. How the Net Generation is Changing Your World. London-Chicaco-San Francisco, McGraw Hill, 2009. Tapscott, D. and Williams, A.D., Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. Portfolio, USA, 2006. Weinberger, D., ‘When Things aren’t what They Are’. Hybrid: Living in Paradox . Stocker, G. and Schöpf, C. (eds), Hatje Cantz, Linz, 2005. Michal Derda-Nowakowski, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Electronic Media, University of Lodz. He is also the founder and editor-in-chief of ExMachina Academic Press. Interested in web anthropology, HCI, design, information architecture, visual communication and typography; currently his research and writing is devoted to the issue of accessibility and perception.

Intelligent Shoes, Smart Teeth and Lunch with a Cyborg: Anthropological Reflections on the Change of Communication Paradigms Anna Maj Abstract The chapter analyses the change of communication paradigms caused by digital technologies, especially networked, mobile and intelligent devices, assistive technologies, supporting communication systems, prostheses and chips. The important questions raised by cyberculture and cyborgisation are discussed and shown here through examples within the context of media anthropology and cultural studies. They concern the nature of biological and artificial intelligence, the problems of perception and cognition in digital environment, ubiquitous and instant interconnectedness, the question and consequences of the process of merging of nature and technology, and the convergence of the real and the virtual as well as its incorporation into acting body. The author’s approach stems from technological determinism but covers traditional anthropological analysis as well. Examples used in the chapter are selected from the areas of biomedia, digital and cyborg art, bioengineering, assistive technologies design, human-computer interaction research and anthropological analysis of cybercommunities. The author proposes a new communication model to enable description of cognitive and interactional aspects of new situations of cyborg communication (cyborg-tocyborg, cyborg-to-objects and human-to-cyborg) as well as situations of ubiquitous networked communication. Key Words: Cyborgisation, cyberart, bioart, bioengineering, genetic manipulation, humanisation of technology, nanotechnology, wearable computers, communication paradigm shift, cyborg communication model. ***** 1. Introduction It is possible nowadays to observe several paradigm shifts: in networked communication, in understanding the human being and thinking self as well as in art and technology, in conceptualizing the nature and the process of creation. Thanks to nanotechnology, genetics and robotics, and due to various artistic and scientific experiments the paradigm of communication has been changing as well as human body, brain and its cognitive processes and thus the human identity. Some of the most important changes for the future of human culture are to be shown and interpreted in the following research on the basis of several scientific experiments and works of cyberart.

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__________________________________________________________________ 2. Upgrade Human Body .

The year is 2050, and we are still here. […] In 2050 the Earth is dominated by machines, robots if you like. Not one species like humans, but machines with different forms, shapes and sizes, depending on what each is doing. 1 Although this quote from Kevin Warwick’s March of the Machines still appears to be a narration typical for science-fiction genre or at least a dark futuristic prophecy, its author successfully accelerates the progress of cyborgisation of humanity. The commencing steps were taken almost two decades ago when the first RFID chip was inserted into the researcher’s body in order to let him communicate with the computer directly via his nervous system. After several years of researches and successes in miniaturization a next generation microchip was inserted into Warwick’s arm as well as into his wife’s one, so they became the first cyber-family communicating directly nervous system-to-nervous system. Although it may sound marvelous, it was rather far from telepathic understanding of someone’s thoughts. Warwick suggests that this was a body-based subconscious communication, similar to sending and receiving electrical signals between transmitter and receiver in traditional communication models by Claude Shannon & Warren Weaver or the one by Harold Lasswell. Researcher from the University of Reading finds this results promising enough to promote the idea of upgrading human brain by chipping technology. 2 It is necessary to mention that Warwick shares his ideas with numerous futurists, engineers, cyberartists as well as with theoreticians and creators of new technologies, as Marvin Minsky, Raymond Kurzweil or Howard Rheingold or another cyborgs as Steve Mann or Stelarc. However, more important here is the fact that a transhumanist trend is developed also with regard to various benefits for disabled people who thanks to radical scientific experiments can now use electronic prostheses, implants or wearable assistive devices. Steve Mann regards these people to be cyborgs as well. Thus, the cyborgisation tends to be a massive process which progresses discreetly however. Humanity increasingly incorporates not only various chemical substances but also high technologies. 3. Let’s Meet Edunia While human beings become more and more technological and electronic, they become also subjected to various efforts of bioengineering and genetic experiments. nature transformed by technology results in the creation of multiple hybrid forms. This is the case of Edunia, which is the first ‘plantimal’, the genetic manipulation on the border between an animal (a human being - in this case the artist) and a plant. 3 Although it looks just like a regular pink flower, Edunia is a mixture of DNA of Eduardo Kac and petunia. The artist uses genetics to select a

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__________________________________________________________________ part of the DNA from his blood to modify the flower DNA so that it appears in red color in the veins of the flower blossoms and thus signify the transition between various species. The artist states that it is quite easy to feel that humans are close to animals, especially to those who communicate in a visible way, like dogs or cats. But it is hard to feel the feeling of community with species located far from humans on the Darwinian tree of life. Giving his work the title Natural History of the Enigma, Kac suggests that it is directly connected with the mystery of life and that it serves to disclose general public the feeling of unity of the whole nature. But taking a different perspective it is possible to regard this piece of art as technological infiltration of the biological nature of life, as the act of violence, a symbolic scientific rape of the flower being. This is not the first time when Eduardo Kac promotes activity raising ethical questions. Since Time Capsule in 1997, which began his ‘bio art’ history, and in which Kac experimented on his own body, RFID microchip, webcast and TV transmission technologies, his artistic approach has crossed the borders of nature and technology. Sometimes it provoked protests of general public for being unethical as his GFP Bunny (2000), a creation of a green fluorescent rabbit (named Alba) with the use of jellyfish gene. The goals of such understood ‘bio art’, ‘genetic art’ or ‘transgenic art’ are explicitly shown in artist’s manifesto GFP Bunny. 4 A similar manipulation of biological structure as well as the importance of conducting the social discourse connected with cyberart is presented by Stelarc who for several decades has been useing robotics, genetics, IT and medicine to expand his body abilities like in Third Hand, Extra Ear or Ear on Arm. The last experiment is located somewhere between Warwick’s and Kac’s ideas of approaching the body with technology and science. Stelarc uses surgery and genetics to obtain the results which could be called the bioengineering with aesthetic background. The Ear on Arm project consists of several steps: complicated process of the construction and growth of ear implant, its surgical incorporation into artist’s arm, its wiring and connecting to microphone and wireless communication with the Internet. Stelarc sketches the goals of his work as ‘sculpting the body architecture’ with the help of genetics, stem cells growth, implantology and surgery. All these experiments and artistic projects seem to cross the boundaries of the unknown, the boundaries of species and kingdoms, the limits of biological evolution and show the possibilities of changing the paradigms of biological body structure by the use of different modes of manipulation: genetical, nanotechnological, surgical or pharmaceutical. Thus, body is appearing to be something else than it used to be. The humanity is bored with its form. This corresponds with the development of plastic surgery and cyborgisation trend.

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__________________________________________________________________ 4. Intelligent Shoes, Smart Teeth and Wearable Computing The next shift is the changing identity of objects. As they become intelligent, they start to control us. Although they fulfill HCI design principles being more user-friendly, smaller and multifunctional, they are as well increasingly independent and less visible. They are closer to us, transformative, hidden in pockets, integrated with clothes, jewellery or quite soon - our bodies. Several examples should describe best the progressing process. The Martin Frey’s project Cabboots can be a perfect example of the technology located on the border between an assistive technology and the technology of control. Cabboots are ‘shoes with integrated guidance system’, which is placed in the sole of the shoe and connected with the mobile device in the pocket. 5 The shoes are designed for people with Alzheimer disease or with visual impairment. They are programmable, so they can remember the way home or another route. The shoes can ‘see’ the obstacles thanks to the infrared detectors connected with small motor modules which change the angulation of the sole of the shoe, enabling the walking person to bypass the obstacle in a subconscious and safe way. But it is possible to imagine the situation when somebody controls the device or hacks the program. The shoes control the walking person, they see, decide, stimulate to walk, show direction and do not allow making mistakes. It should not be forgotten as well that such a subtle technology can be in certain situations dangerous (i.e. letting blind person to cross the street on the red light). It is also dangerous as it encourages the user to allow being controlled, it releases from responsibility and thus from alertness. There are also other questions that should be raised here. Nokia Morph is a project of the future cellphone using nanotechnology - transformative materials which are said to enable programming changeability of the form of the device. According to Nokia such a phone will be easy to use and then change into a watch, a credit card or a bracelet. 6 Some futuristic ideas go further - if a phone can be everything, it can be as well an ear jewellery or even a tooth implant. The Audio Tooth Implant project by students of the Royal College of Art in London, James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau, presented on the summer exhibition in 2002, suggested this technology is possible. 7 Young designers have shown a cellphone tooth implant prototype and presented the idea of the device, speculating on possible usages. The project was interpreted by multiple Internet sources as a real, until several serious media reported it to be a fake one. 8 The project was in fact an artistic manipulation which was supposed to raise a social dispute on the limits of technology incorporation to the body. Although not really tempting so far, this kind of technology and protechnological fashion can prevail within several years or decades. Paradoxically, it is not far from Stelarc’s aims of the project Ear on Arm. 9 This can be regarded as a radical exemplification of the idea of wearable computing developed by Steve Mann and other designers-futurists. 10 Alois Ferscha draws a straight line between Edward Thorp’s miniaturised computer from 1961

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__________________________________________________________________ (developed for cheating in casinos in Reno and Las Vegas), Steve Mann’s wearable computer from 1981 (built in a rucksack for creating a first lifelog), and contemporary usage of mobile phones by 3.2 billion people. 11 He suggests that wearable computing is a design process which aims at creating technologies which will be adapted to the needs of the users, not vice versa as in the case of universal computers, to which people have to adapt. On the other hand, it is hard to imagine such a technology without the side effects, as i.a. ‘painful disconnect’ mentioned years ago by Steve Mann. 12 5. Lunch with a Cyborg: Cyborg Communication Model Probably the most important shift can be observed in the field of communication paradigms. Cyborgs communicate differently than humans do. The technologically reconstructed objects, animals or plants, too. And the technologically reworked environment serves as a totally unprecedented arena for communication activities. All these factors create the possibility to think about the need of the actualisation of communication models. It should be mentioned here that the first impulse for such modeling was the lunch which I had with Steve Mann, Derrick de Kerckhove and several friends in chinese district of Toronto during summer 2009. 13 There are of course several variable factors which should not be forgotten in such modeling process. The first factor is a form of a cyborg, i.e. Steve Mann, Kevin Warwick and Stelarc are cyborgs of different types, each of them communicates differently. This should be taken into consideration for future analysis. What is also important is the factor that, at least so-far, not everyone is a cyborg - this means that the model should consider also the situation of mixed communication (h - h+) between a biological person and a cyborg. A biological person can also use media (phone, camera, photo camera, GPS, voice recorder etc.) which would impact the communication act (h+o - h+o). The other issue is the constant and sometimes almost invisible presence of technosphere and cultural environment. The new mediatisation of life changes the communication situations more and more often. This fact has not been fully recognised by the communication studies (communicology). Traditional models (h - h) of communication do not describe cyborg communication which occures simultaneously on multiple levels. So far it has occurred at least on six: [1] interpersonal communication with the interactor (personal level), [2] internal communication with the technical supporting system/part of the cyborg body, i.e. camera, computer, GPS, microchip (technical level), [3] communication with the Web environment and information (data level), [4] (inter)cultural level of communication (cultural level), [5] external communication with the technosphere, public or shared, (technosphere level), [6] communication with other objects (non-mediatised), (objects level).

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__________________________________________________________________ The important matter is the type of cyborg - Kevin Warwick communicates using the chip in his forearm with the computer, objects or people. This means that some actions as opening doors are done by the chip itself and that the part of communication is purely electrical (felt as impulses). Steve Mann perceives the world through the eye of a camera connected via the Web to the computer and specific software which modifies the world image according to the choice and comes back through the Web to the display in Steve’s glasses. This causes multiple perceptual modes (i.e. X ray perception) and also - a span in a communication, necessary for the visual signal to go to the private Steve’s technosphere, be processed there and come back to his eye to be analysed by himself. Stelarc's case is also different - his body becomes subjected to various actions of Internet users and moves in the way they want or hears the words spoken by somebody accessing the Web. The technosphere is an important factor of cyborg communication and should be described closer. New media appear to be everywhere nowadays. They reconstruct the communication situations as well. It can be assumed that they have three main functions: [1] they become the object of communication, [2] as well as reproduction or recording machines, [3] and the independent actors of communication. But the cyborg communication (h+ - h+) is different. The technosphere is the level of technology - devices, systems and networks. For cyborgs the technosphere is not only outside but also inside the body. The technosphere for a cyborg is a natural environment, it becomes similar to culture, which cannot be separated from a person. For every cyborg the technology becomes a culture. But technosphere can be also private, shared and public. Using a technical device creates a private zone, sharing it (i.e. showing photos) can make it semipublic, while the public level occurs when it is evident and common for every actor of communication. Generally, it seems that the history of communication can be described as a three step evolution: [1] h - h (human-to-human), [2] h +o - h+o (human+media object - human + media object), [3] h+ - h+ (cyborg-to-cyborg), of course, with regard to the fact that situations of mixed communication occur and not forgetting about the fact that there is always a technosphere and a cultural level of communication (language, gestures, culture, stereotypes, values etc.). It should be remembered also that both, an interpersonal level of communication as well as a traditional cultural level of communication (and all problems connected with it) still exist in cyborg communication. On the other hand, cyborg-to-cyborg communication can be regarded as a communication of identities sharing the same culture, whereas human-to-cyborg communication can be regarded as an intercultural communication. It should be also remembered that the new communication situation, which has not been perceived by communication theory, is also the communication with intelligent objects and environments, another specific examples of a new intercultural communication.

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__________________________________________________________________ 6. Conclusion It seems that the most important paradigm shifts concern the definition of human being, other organisms, as well as anthropogenic artifacts and communication processes between them all. Maybe instead of arguing whether it is good or bad for humankind, it would be better to quote, in the role of coda, Marvin Minsky whose words actually in a way paradoxically correspond to Kevin Warwick’s cyborg prophecies quoted in the beginning. Minsky suggests that the situation is not so evident, and - especially in this specific context - nothing is really sure about the future. ‘Will robots inherit the earth? Yes, but they will be our children’. 14

Notes 1

K. Warwick, March of the Machines: The Breakthrough in Artificial Intelligence, University of Chicago Press, Urbana and Chicago, 2004, p. 21. 2 K. Warwick, I, Cyborg. Illinois, 2004. See also Infonomia, Cyborg Life: Kevin Warwick, 14th April 2008, Video published on YouTube, http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=RB_l7SY_ngI, Viewed 20 April 2008. 3 E. Kac, Natural History of the Enigma. See also H. Leopoldseder, C. Schoepf and G. Stocker, Prix Arts Electronica: CyberArts 2009, Linz, 2009, pp. 104-109. 4 E Kac, GFP Bunny, Kibla, Maribor 2000, pp. 101-131, Available at http://ekac.org/gfpbunny.html#gfpbunnyanchor. 5 M. Frey, Cabboots, http://www.freymartin.de/en/projects/cabboots, Accessed 14 June 2010. 6 Buddesign, Nokia Morph Concept. 25 February 2008, Video published on YouTube, Accessed 20 April 2009, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXgTobCJHs&feature=fvw. 7 J. Auger and J. Loizeau, Audio Tooth Implant, http://www.augerloizeau.com/index.php?id=7, Accessed 14 June 2010. 8 T.V. Wilson, ‘How Cell-Phone Implants Work’, How Stuff Works, 1 April 2002, http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cell-phone-implant.htm, Accessed 14 June 2010; ‘Put Your Mobile Where Your Mouth Is’, BBC News World Edition, 20 June 2002, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/2055654.stm, Accessed 14 June 2010. 9 Stelarc, op. cit. 10 S. Mann, ‘Humanistic Intelligence’, Arts Electronica Facing the Future: A Survey of Two Decades, MIT Press, Cambridge (MA)/London, 1999, pp. 420-427. 11 A. Ferscha, ‘Wearable IT: How much Technology can Humankind Bear?’, Human Nature, Hatje Cantz, Linz, 2009, pp. 308-309. 12 Mann, op. cit., pp. 422-423. 13 Symbols used in the model are: ‘h’ for human being, ‘h+’ for cyborg of any form, ‘o’ for object/medium (h+o means that it is used by a person, without ‘h’

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__________________________________________________________________ means that it is intelligent and independent), ‘t’ for technosphere, ‘c’ for cultural background. 14 M. Minsky, ‘Will Robots Inherit the Earth?’, Scientific American, October 1994, http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/sciam.inherit.html, Accessed 5 July 2010.

Bibliography Auger, J. and Loizeau, J., Audio Tooth Implant. loizeau.com/index.php?id=7. Accessed 14 June 2010.

http://www.auger-

Buddesign, Nokia Morph Concept. 25 February 2008. Video published on YouTube. Accessed 20 April 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXgTobCJHs&feature=fvw. Burton, M., ‘Nanotopia/Future Farm’. Human Nature: Arts Electronica 2009. Hatje Cantz, Linz, 2009. D’Andrea, R., Dean, M. and Donovan, M., ‘The Robotic Chair’. Prix Arts Electronica: Cyberarts 2006. Hatje Cantz, Linz, 2006. Delvoye, W., ‘Cloaca’. Prix Arts Electronica: Cyberarts 2007. Hatje Cantz, Linz, 2007. Ferscha, A., ‘Wearable IT: How much Technology can Humankind Bear?. Human Nature: Arts Electronica 2009. Hatje Cantz, Linz, 2009. Frey, M., Cabboots. http://www.freymartin.de/en/projects/cabboots. Accessed 14 June 2010. Infonomia, Cyborg Life: Kevin Warwick. 14 April 2008. Video published on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB_l7SY_ngI. Accessed 20 April 2008. Kac, E., GFP Bunny. http://ekac.org/gfpbunny.html#gfpbunnyanchor. Kibla, Maribor, 2000. Kac, E., ‘Natural History of the Enigma (2003-2009)’. Prix Arts Electronica: Cyberarts 2009. Hatje Cantz, Linz, 2009.

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__________________________________________________________________ Kaku, M. (dir), Visions of the Future: The Intelligence Revolution. BBC Series, 2007. Mann, S., ‘Humanistic Intelligence (1997). Arts Electronica Facing the Future: A Survey of Two Decades. MIT Press, Cambridge (MA)/London, 1999. Minsky, M., ‘Will Robots Inherit the Earth?’. Scientific American. http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/sciam.inherit.html. Accessed 5 July 2010. Popp, J., ‘Microflow’. Prix Arts Electronica: Cyberarts 2008. Hatje Cantz, Linz, 2008. Stelarc, The Ear on the Arm: Engineering Internet Organ. http://www.stelarc.va. com.au/projects/earonarm/index.html. Accessed 14 June 2010. Warwick, K., I, Cyborg. Illinois University Press, Illinois, 2004. Warwick, K., March of the Machines: The Breakthrough in Artificial Intelligence. University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 2004. Wilson, T.V., ‘How Cell-phone Implants Work’. How Stuff Works. http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cell-phone-implant.htm. Accessed 14 June 2010. Anna Maj, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Institute of Cultural Communication, University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland. Interested in media anthropology and theory of perception. Currently her research and writing is connected with media education strategies and the impact of new technologies on the brain and perception.

Mission to Earth: Planetary Proprioception and the Cyber-Sublime Marc Barasch and Ksenia Fedorova Abstract Our sense of the self and its relation to its surroundings is being increasingly reshaped by telematic prostheses. Geotagging, Google Earth, biomapping, telepresence, augmented reality (AR), and distributed intelligence are creating new locative sense-perceptions, unprecedented narratives, and new feelings (and praxes) of agency-at-a-distance. The chapter considers methods of enhancing connectivity and efficacy between a person and his/her surroundings via mapping techniques, storytelling, and social and artistic projects using telecommunication and locative media. Roy Ascott’s question ‘Is there love in the telematic embrace?’(1990) underpins others: Is there engagement beyond entertainment? How might the creative force of the imaginal be potentiated by new media platforms to make measurable change in the world? Can locative media deepen our sense of embeddedness, recreating those ancient reality-maps where selfhood was co-extensive with community and Nature, perhaps spurring us to address today’s urgent social and ecological challenges? Or will these media further abstract actual relatedness, narrowing it to more quantifiable and qualifiable instrumental operations? Key Words: Proprioception, mapping, locative media, augmented reality, prosthesis, environment, geo-tagging, virtual reality, ‘imaginal’, cyber-sublime. ***** 1. Mapping Meaning: Where is the World, Where Are You? Our quotidian sense of self—the real-time ‘I’ – is formed through constant cognitive and autonomic ‘mapping’ of the relationship between various parts of the body (proprioception), and the body’s surroundings (exteroception). It is moulded as well by culturally determined assumptions about the space—the distance – between self and other, and self and environment. From Bachelard and Lefevre to Derrida and Foucault, the issues of ‘space’ – its mental and social construction and representation – converge on principles of connectivity and heterogeneity. It’s an old philosophical question: Where is ‘the world’ located? We’ve gone from truncated, planar medieval maps squeezed between ‘You Are Here’ and ‘Here Lie Dragons’ to their Mercator and Dymaxion successors, to lunar explorers’ iconic images of the ‘Big Blue Marble’ (‘There We Are!’), to Google Earth’s malleable mapplets (we’ll omit post-Einsteinian ‘nonlocality,’ where nothing is anywhere).

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__________________________________________________________________ No matter how accurate it is, the map is not the territory. A map is inherently a connecting point between the subjective and objective realms, between the real and the abstract. With everyone now digitally empowered to be a new cartographer, Deleuze and Guattari’s strategy of ‘releasing’ of the territory from its previous mappings (‘deterritorialization’) and placing new meanings on it (‘reterritorialization’) 1 becomes particularly relevant. Writing about interactive media, Jeremy Hight stresses: ‘To ‘read’ a place is no longer about placing a singular narrative upon it, triggered from a map, nor is this notion of ‘reading’ only to have a singular, unalterable experience or interpretation…’ 2 Instead, we can now embed multiple readings at GPS coordinates that augment our collective understanding. New mappings are taking closer notice of ecologies, cultures, migrations, indigenous meta-realities, the Umwelt beneath the visible surface configurations. But will they help us develop a needed sense of personal and collective agency? Technology’s radical acceleration and diffusion of communication creates an ever-greater virtualization and immaterialization in our relationship to our natural surroundings (the core of the famous critique by Paul Virilio, 3 among others). Is our feeling for the environment attenuated, its speculative and fantasy aspects weakened, when Earth is transmuted into Google Earth, marvellously overlaid with ever more finely granulated data- points? Or does this ever more perfect digital simulacrum help us experience our identity within a ‘global body’ with greater ontological certainty? Our geolocated position and that of other people and objects becomes a foundational element in an interactive neural net resembling the emergence of an autopoietic living system. 2. The Global Body and the Proprioceptive Self As tropes like ‘global brain’ and ‘global body’ become unavoidable, it is relevant to note the recent evolution of medico-scientific views of the body: rather than the corporation of organs and organelles mapped since the time of Galen, the body is now revealed as a web of real-time, omnidirectional communication. Psychoneuroimmunology has shown that cells and organs constantly twitter information back and forth via neuropeptides and their receptors, and that these receptors show up on every cell from gut to brain. (It is the paradigm suggested by ancient Hindu depictions of the human body studded with eyes: the anatomy as panopticon.) Analgously, James Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis suggests the Earth, too, is a kind of aggregate life- form, 4 with members of the biosphere constituting receptors that adjust dynamically to maintain an environment within their own range of lifesupport (a homeostasis being drastically stressed by the effluence of human industry). Technological innovation is creating a type of receptor system. 5 There are 3.1 billion mobile phones disseminated worldwide (and the stock will not only grow

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__________________________________________________________________ but be upgraded by models with greater ‘intelligence’ and connectivity). There is now intensive R&D on ‘smart dust’ (early researchers’ coinage was ‘smart matter’), a hypothetical wireless network of tiny microelectromechanical sensors (MEMS) that can detect light, temperature, or vibration, etc. Plans calls for scattering MEMS in the environment for uses by the military, security, geophysical, and ecological monitoring communities. This will create different levels of planetary proprio-/extero-perception, even a swarm-like distributed intelligence. 6 The most advanced real-time imaging of our planet—the Google Earth Observation (GEO)—is now focused on monitoring of the world’s forests. A highperformance satellite imagery-processing engine in the online ‘Google cloud’ aggregates all of the Earth’s raw satellite imagery data and can with mind-boggling speed analyze deforestation processes; illegal logging can not only be quickly detected, but its precise locations dispatched to local law enforcement authorities and potentially halted. In mapping, as in other domains, knowledge is power. Google’s efforts might be regarded in the tradition of H.G. Wells’ sci-fi classic, The Shape of Things to Come, where rational-technologist Airmen act as relatively benign planetary managers (they might as well have ‘Don’t Be Evil’ as part of their insignia). On the other hand, once the bad guy in James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ has at his disposal a complete 3-D map of the Home Tree, he is able to destroy it to exploit its trove of ‘unobtainium,’ shredding the human and ethnobotanical mapping layers into cannon fodder. The challenge becomes to embed (and extract) meaning and not just information in these new maps of our surroundings. That stream of petabytes in the cloud leaves out a subjective emotional depiction of space. The rational-objective thrust, which comes to govern decisions of what information and interactions are relevant, 7 can marginalize or omit truths of subjective vision. 3. ‘The Imaginal’ as Augmented Reality Satellite imagery is superior for global navigation and environmental monitoring than medieval maps based on ignorance and fancy. But the growing digital verisimilitude of mappings driven by utilitarian data acquisition also leaches the world of its imaginal aspects. Humans have always aspired to populate the world with their creative artefacts. Art constitutes a vital platform for experimental (and experiential) freedom. It is inherently an augmented reality, extending our perceptive abilities, inducing empathy, and deepening our sensibilities. It fosters awareness of our multilayered field of connection to the world and each other, of the fractal isomorphism of the ‘big picture’ and the telling detail. In the case of new media, Christiane Paul, the new media curator at the Whitney Museum, defines ‘context awareness’ as physical (bound to a location);

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__________________________________________________________________ social (connected to human interactions); organizational and economic (attached to structures of governance and systems of value). We might cite various analogues pointing to the interoperability (in a manner of speaking) of objective cartography and the social and subjective phenomenologies of space and place. The ‘songlines’ of the Australian Aborigines famously integrate mythopoetic narratives of the landscape with startlingly accurate and functional mappings. They fuse stories of the ancient acts of creator gods, songs, images and ritual movement with vast tracts of landscape they must navigate. They show how the world can be apprehended in its exteriority and interiority at the same time, deriving and deploying a sophisticated empirical knowledge system, while existing in an intersubjective state with their surroundings. They move, as it were, through an augmented reality (AR). Today’s AR is not that far from this aboriginal superimposition (fusion, really) of narrative and environment. Elements in an AR system include computer vision, object recognition, and information (usually geotagged) about the user’s surroundings, rendering it interactive in real time and digitally usable. (A new app called ‘Layar’ allows external developers to laminate new information onto reality to see, for example, the architecture of the past superimposed over that of the present. iPhone4 today adds a gyroscopic function to create an experience of seamless integration). Milgram’s Reality-Virtuality Continuum, proposed in 1994, shades gradually from the real environment to a pure virtual environment, with the space in between consisting of Augmented Reality (more reliant on the real environment) and Augmented Virtuality (nearer to a purely virtual environment). This liminal in-between space is a reminder of Kant’s theory of the sublime. Applied to digital practices, it describes the decentering, dislocation, and disruption of conventional contexting cues, challenging the reliability of ordinary senses for locating one’s subjective and objective ‘self.’ The experience of the sublime enhances the feeling of potentia, evoking the presence of something not only aweinspiring, but uncanny, even frightening in its unpredictablity. This classic aesthetic category can be also usefully compared to Henri Corbin’s description of the Islamic concept he translates as ‘the imaginal’, 8 in which ‘we are no longer reduced to the dilemma of thought and extension…[or] limited to the empirical world and the world of abstract understanding. Between the two is placed an intermediate world… ‘alam al-mithal, the world of the Image, mundus imaginalis: a world as ontologically real as the world of the senses and the world of the intellect… This faculty is the imaginative power, the one we must avoid confusing with the imagination that modern man identifies with ‘fantasy’ and that, according to him, produces only the ‘imaginary.’

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__________________________________________________________________ 4. Making Connections through Locative Art A certain cohort of consumers have retreated from the objectively-mapped real world into gaming and social networking virtual worlds that feel ‘ontologically real.’ It is in these virtual realities that the individual and the collective creative process can yet be imprinted on the world. There is a discernable trend toward bringing a sense of participation and agency into gaming (‘geocaching,’ for example), and some locative art practices do conduce toward engagement with the real environment. Site-specific new- media art uses locations in space as a ‘canvas,’ and its spatio-temporal dimension creates a dynamic emotional experience transcending veridical cartography. Locative media art strategies, implemented via Internet or mobile phones, include: 1) Facilitating personal effects on the impersonal built environment: For example, Masaki Fujihata’s ‘Light on the Net’ project, which allows the user-visitor to turn on or off any of a bank of 20-watt lights in the lobby of Gifu Softopia Center west of Tokyo, Japan. 2) Embodiment with augmented reality or ‘biomapping’: For example, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s ‘Pulse Front,’ which was a matrix of light over Toronto’s Harbourfront, made by beams from twenty powerful robotic searchlights controlled by a network of sensors measuring the heart rate of passersby; and ‘Biomapping’ by Christian Nold (UK), which uses galvanic skin response measurements --the kind used in lie detector tests --to record anxiety and stress levels of participants as they move through the city. 3) Mapping invisible characteristics of space, such as radio and sound waves, as well as the very physical characteristics: For example, Steve Symons’s (UK) ‘Aura,’ which is ‘a virtual sound environment accessed by walking through a space equipped with GPS and digital compass. Individual users can ‘hear’ the location of other participants, and work together to create sonic tapestries through their relative movements.’ 9 Additional examples include ‘E-Turns’ by Jens Brand (DE), which creates direct sonic connections between two arbitrary locations on Earth, as well as the experiments by Martin Howse and his team, which mash-up ‘psychogeographics’ with earth science measurements (site

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__________________________________________________________________ forensics and geophysical archaeology), charting local and global geophysical effects like electromagnetic phenomena on people’s lives. 10 4) User-led social mapping: For example, ‘Britglyph’(UK) created country-wide virtual land art pieces, large patterns analgous to land glyphs like the Cardiff Giant, but viewable only in virtual space. This socially collaborative connect-the-dots relied on mobile phones with cameras and network connectivity, online maps, GPS and the connected community who make the whole thing ‘real’ by their actions. Different-but-related examples are the ‘urban computing’ done across multiple groups at Intel Research and UC Berkeley; 11 and ‘Hullabaloo’ (2007), which dynamically generates new urban sonic experiences that reflect the verve of people in transit. (Here each person contributes a unique, personal sound to this place-based ringtone mix using a phone app.) The thrust of most pieces of this type is to build connections within the communities via developing diverse relations to local urban environments. 5) Environmentally oriented projects: Some, like ‘The Tele-Garden’, by Ken Goldberg and Joseph Santaromman (growing plants at a distance), make allusions to natural feedback loops. The witty ‘S.W.A.M.P’ by Douglas Easterly and Matt Kenyon automates the distant watering of a Home Depot-purchased plant by keying it to the company’s Dow Jones stock price. The uniqueness of most of these pieces is that the artwork exists in that strange liminal space that we have created between the internet and the physical universe. In the case of pieces incorporating telepresence, the remote user has a sensory experience that also interfaces with an actual distant physical action whose results can be observed (and sometimes, adjusted) via a feedback loop. Locative media and telematics projects aim to enhance both the experience of one’s physical surroundings as well as the social dimension. This latter can be seen in ‘Blast Theory,’ where people in different locations follow each other in both reality and virtual reality by transmitting their coordinates. This has the effect of developing trust between dislocated people in a mediated universe. The immediacy of this connection, facilitated by such new art practices, tends to be not alienating and atrophying as some gaming tends to be, but enlivening.

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__________________________________________________________________ 5. Mission to Earth Can interactive social-artistic processes, by connecting one point of here-andnow to a bigger reality, help us observe, reconceive, and eventually affect the structures of our environment? How might ‘social art’ –Joseph Beuys, conceptual art progenitor and co-founder of the German Green Party, coined the term ‘social sculpture’—incorporate telematic and locative media art, psycho-geophysical performances, and other forms of ‘aesthetic interventionism’? As with any tool, the new telematic prostheses can be used to heal or to harm. In telesurgery, a surgeon moves a joystick to control a robot scalpel to cut into a distant patient’s delicate flesh across a continent. At a military base in Ohio, a soldier-technician detects the movement of human figures limned in infrared on a real-time aerial surveillance image, twitches a joystick at his videogame-like console, and sends a Hellfire missile into a mud-brick house in Waziristan. How can new media technologies help us not only to apply measurements and develop new forms of multisensory engagement, but achieve the level of agency that can affect actual transformation? One project, developed by the charity Green World Campaign (www.greenworld.org), proposes to use interactive geolocation to catalyze global treeplanting. Media facade installations planned for major cities will enable people to use cell phone shortcode to fund the planting of trees on degraded land, with stands of trees geo-tagged and displayed on a dynamic map. The project also encourages ‘global citizens’ to upload the geocoordinates of trees they have planted and embellish them with their own media content, embedding personal narratives of a ‘green world’ into a growing forestation map. 12 Could a ‘global brain,’ with cyber-mediated hands and feet, instantiate verifiable alterations in the natural world? With civilization itself threatened by environmental crisis, the conventional sense of where our own body begins and leaves off is incomplete without an intimately felt sense of the world we inhabit. Lacking this, the most technologically elaborate planet management will fall short. We love what we can touch and that which touches us back. We care about people and places whose narratives are vividly present to us. We act to protect what we cherish, with any means available. Could a cyber-enhanced collective self extend its proprioception to the very ‘skin’ of the Earth? Could we harness the transformative potential of the Web by jacking into the planet itself? New media technologies and collaborative ‘social sculpture’ introduce fresh imaginal dimensions to our relationship with the natural (and human) environment, perhaps leading to a more tender and generative embrace.

Notes 1

G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, A Thousand Plateaux, trans. B. Massumi, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1987.

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J. Height, Writing within the Map, Viewed on 2 August 2010, http://www.neme. org/main/1111/writing-within-the-map. 3 P. Virilio, Open Sky, trans. J. Rose, Verso, London, New York, 2003. 4 The eco-activist conference the BIoneers—which often refers to the soil’s pervasively interconnected mycelium mat as ‘the Earth’s Internet’ has as its slogan a statement redolent of natural cybernetics: ‘It’s all alive, it’s all intelligent, it’s all connected.’ 5 There are nearly two billion cellphone users on Earth, who as they upgrade to GPS- enabled smart phones will become neurons sending afferent and efferent signals. Interactive devices are being embedded directly in the world, granting connectivity and RFID-chip trackability to objects. A Hawaiian company in May, 2010 became the first to embed RFID chips in trees so investors can track the growth of their hardwood loa investments. 6 It is speculated that more advanced nanobots will be able to move, communicate, and work together; conduct molecular assembly; even replicate themselves (sci-fi writers speculate on the emergent properties of swarming pseudo- intelligence; cf. Stanislaw Lem, The Invincible, (1964) or Michael Chrichton’s Prey (2002) 7 Compare to Deleuze and Guattari’s ‘rhizome’ theory of non-hierarchichal data representation, characterized by heterogeneity, mutualism, and multiplicity, where, as they put it, ‘any point can be connected to anything other, and must be.’ 8 H. Corbin, Mundus Imaginalis, or the Imaginary and the Imaginal, Viewed on 3 May, 2010, http://hermetic.com/bey/mundus_imaginalis.htm. 9 D. Hemment, Locative Arts, Viewed on 3 May, 2010, http://drewhemment.com/ 2004/locative_arts.html. 10 http://www.1010.co.uk/org/breakthrough.html, Viewed on 4 June 2010. 11 http://www.urban-atmospheres.net/projects.htm, Viewed on 4 June 2010. 12 Beuys connected his famous 7000 Oaks project ‘with the metamorphosis of the social body in itself’, ‘bringing it into a new social order for the future.’

Bibliography Bachelard, G., The Poetics of Space. Beacon, 1994. Bourriaud, N., Relational Aesthetics. Les Presse Du Reel, 1998. Corbin, H., Mundus Imaginalis, or the Imaginary and the Imaginal. Viewed on 3 May, 2010, http://hermetic.com/bey/mundus_imaginalis.htm. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F., A Thousand Plateaux. Trans. Massumi, B., University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1987.

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__________________________________________________________________ Foucault, M., ‘Of Other Spaces’, Heterotopias. Viewed on 3 August 2010, http://foucault.info/documents/heteroTopia/foucault.heteroTopia.en.html. Height, J., Writing within the Map. Viewed on http://www.neme.org/main/1111/writing-within-the-map.

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2010,

Hemment, D. (ed), ‘Locative Media Special Issue’. Leonardo Electronic Almanac. Vol. 14, Iss. 3. Locke, M., ‘Are You In Love?’. Camerawork: Journal of Photographic Arts. Vol. 30, No. 2, 2003, pp. 30-32. Lovelock, J., Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000. Thayer, P., On Narrative, Abstract and Location: A Few Words on Location-Based Data in Art. Viewed on 1 July 1 2010, http://pallit.lhi.is/~palli/NarAbsLoc.pdf. Thompson, N. (ed), Experimental Geography: Radical Approaches to Landscape, Cartography and Urbanism. Millehouse Publishing, New York, 2009. Virilio, P., Open Sky. Trans. Rose, J., Verso, London, New York. 2003. Marc Barasch is the founder of the Green World Campaign, which fosters tree planting in five countries (www.greenworld.org). He is the author of Remarkable Recovery (1995), a biospsychosocial investigation of spontaneous remission; Healing Dreams (2001), a phenomenology of numinous experience (www.healingdreams.com); and The Compassionate Life (2005), a study of empathy and altruism (www.compassionatelife.com) He was the writer-producer of a 1992 environmental TV special for broadcaster Ted Turner that was shown to over a billion people. He is developing interactive media projects with collaborators in Europe and the U.S. to engage the public in ‘regenerative ecology.’ He is working on a new book on synchronicity. Ksenia Fedorova is a lecturer at the department of Philosophy and the department of Art History and Cultural Studies, the Ural State University (Ekaterinburg, Russia) and a senior researcher and curator at the Ekaterinburg branch of the National Centre for Contemporary Arts. She is currently working on her PhD dissertation ‘New Media Art and the Technological Sublime’. The sphere of her research interests includes philosophy, aesthetics, ethics, cultural

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__________________________________________________________________ studies, theory and history of contemporary and media art, philosophy of technology, museology.

Avatar: A Tale of Indigenous Survival? Dolores Miralles-Alberola Abstract This chapter explores the obvious connections between worldwide indigenous peoples and the Na’vi, the humanoid inhabitants of the satellite Pandora in the film Avatar (2009) directed by James Cameron. It also considers the present and future implications of these connections on the representation of the indigenous persona in mainstream culture, and on indigenous vindications of land, ecology, sovereignty, survival, history and culture. Departing from a methodology that prioritizes Native American scholars’ analysis on indigenous contemporary narratives of the Americas and on depictions of indigenous peoples in mainstream culture, and studying the compilation of several current articles and opinions from a variety of forums from Native American intellectuals and activists after the release of the film, I propose that this sci-fi film provides a symbolic liberation and a metaphorical decolonization. Nevertheless, this chapter takes into account the stereotypes appearing in the film, namely the good savage and the warrior princess images, and the messianic mission of the outsider. The explicit message of Avatar addresses current issues affecting not only indigenous survival worldwide —such as the plundering of their natural resources and the destruction of sacred land by corporations—but also affecting the human race in general. And I say explicit, because there is no doubt the film seeks to send the message to as many people as possible. In this case, the cinematographic language does not show any intention of literary specificity; it does not have a subtle screenplay and leaves very little to audience interpretation. Instead, it relies on an overwhelming use of 3D technology and science-fiction semiotics. The anticipation created by the release of Avatar, and the debate it has opened, along with the negative and positive responses from diverse sectors of society highlight, once more, the influence of film, in general, and science fiction, in particular, on popular culture. Key Words: Avatar, indigenous transnational activism, liberation narratives. ***** I say that tribal literatures are not some branch waiting to be grafted onto the main trunk. Tribal literatures are the tree, the oldest literatures in the Americas, the most American of American literatures. We are the canon. 1 When concerning indigenous peoples, the history of narrative is full of appropriations, Western literatures pretending to represent aboriginal traditions. In this sense, Avatar is another white film about indigenous colonized peoples. It is

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__________________________________________________________________ beyond any doubt that this film is a Hollywood product made to reach the widest possible audience, and it falls again into the same old appropriations and misrepresentations by showing cliché after cliché about indigenous peoples in mainstream culture, while making references to representations in other Hollywood blockbusters. Among these representations are: the messianic 2 image of the white soldier destined to be the best Indian 3(a reference, as many have pointed out, to Dances With Wolves, 4 but also to Pocahontas, Dune, The Emerald Forest, At Play in the Fields of the Lord and District 9); the representation of the warrior princess that falls in love with the white man (e.g. Pocahontas and Malinche); and the elimination of the main male characters, since the deaths of the chief and the young warrior are required so that the white conqueror and the Indian princess may give birth to the mixed-blood nation. The representations of female and male roles in relation to the elimination of the indigenous male for the sake of the creation of the mestizo nation are something deeply rooted in places like Mexico, 5 with the foundational fiction being MalincheHernán Cortés giving birth to the ‘first mestizo’, a story in which the woman is seen as a traitor to her people, and is later abandoned by the man –a theme likewise rooted in the myth of ‘la Llorona’ which has extended throughout Latin America. Thus, in the film Avatar, the main indigenous male characters are eliminated for the sake of the white man’s leadership, who, in this case, goes native and stays. Nevertheless, I was perplexed when, near the end of the film, the Na’vi—a clear representation of indigenous peoples worldwide—defeat the humans—a scarcely-concealed representation of Western colonialism—and make them leave Pandora. My perplexity was due to the fact that although the film shows concern for environmental and, to some extent, indigenous issues, wrapped in a New Age out-of this world atmosphere, I was not expecting such a resolution. In the end, white people lose, and there is no possibility of dialogue and reconciliation. Only the ones who decide to ‘go native’ may stay. The film neither concludes with a happy ending for Western people, nor portrays any attempt at reconciliation. On the contrary, the humans’ defeat is nonnegotiable. Considering the film’s adoption of the previously mentioned representations, its ending is very strange. Even in indigenous films, the ‘cowboys always win.’ A paradigmatic instance of this tendency is Smoke Signals (1998), the first commercially successful movie written, directed, co-produced, and acted by Native Americans. In this film, there is a representative scene where the protagonists Victor and Thomas, two young Coeur d’Alene, are traveling by bus to Arizona. They have a conversation in which Victor enlightens Thomas on how to be a real Indian: ‘First, (…) you have to look like a warrior. (…) Second you got to look as if you have secrets. (…) And third you got to know how to use your hair’. Thomas takes his braids out of his hair at a convenience store and when they go back to the bus their seats have been taken by two tough-looking white men wearing sun glasses and cowboy hats. Putting his own advice into practice, Victor looks mean and mysterious as he attempts to

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__________________________________________________________________ reclaim their seats. One of the cowboys, however, responds: ‘Now, you listen up. These are our seats now. And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. So why don’t you and Super Indian there find yourself someplace else to have a powwow, okay?’ After taking seats on a bench near the bathroom, Thomas remarks: ‘Jeez, Victor, I guess your warrior look doesn’t work every time.’ 6 Alexie solves the situation with disarming humor, as Thomas and Victor improvise lyrics for a drum song caricaturizing John Wayne, the actor who represents in fiction ‘the toughest cowboy of them all’. 7 The song goes as follows: Oh, John Wayne’s teeth, John Wayne’s teeth, hey, hey, hey, hey, ye! Oh, John Wayne’s teeth, John Wayne’s teeth, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, ye! Are they false, are they real? Are they plastic, are they steel? Hey, hey, hey, hey, yeeeee! 8 All the passengers on the bus, including the two tough cowboys, have no choice but to listen to the tribal song, and are thus confronted with voices they believed extinguished long ago. Nevertheless, Native Americans have been erased from the mainstream narratives of nineteenth-century nation building in the United States. As pointed out by Lakota-Sioux scholar Elizabeth Cook–Lynn, the degradation to which establishment imagery has relegated indigenous peoples’ identity and culture, has resulted in the creation of a stereotype of vanishing people, trapped between two cultures. Such a stereotype—promoted by intellectuals and writers since the nineteenth century—has excluded the Native element from the nation. The consequence of this conscious exclusion is a declaration of Western superiority in the process of nation building. As Cook-Lynn explains: The strong literary argument in defense of the narrative voice of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Euro-American culturists seeks to declare the indigene persona non grata and imaginatively dominate the literary landscape. The result has been, until now, an almost unchallenged vision of America’s superiority over those whose ancient mythologies of the land, it has been thought, might deform and transfigure the newcomer. 9 It was precisely during the nineteenth century, the moment of the formation of American nationalism, when indigenous voices were silenced and forced to be seen in the collective memory as objects, losing their identities as subjects. The supposedly extinguished indigenous culture has become instituted in intellectual thinking to such a degree that, according to Cook-Lynn, even many indigenous intellectuals have accepted it. This is why it is necessary to deconstruct cultural paradigms and build new imaginaries from a Native perspective.

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__________________________________________________________________ The aim of indigenous fiction, as Cook-Lynn argues in part three of her book, ‘Who Will Tell the Stories?’, is for it to become a literature of liberation, which she defines as containing the use of ‘nationalistic/tribal resistance’. 10 However, the author explains, ‘[t]he unfortunate truth is that there are few significant works being produced today by the currently popular American Indian fiction writers which examine the meaningfulness of indigenous or tribal sovereignty in the twenty–first century.’ And she points out that even important indigenous writers, such as Scott Momaday and Gerald Vizenor, ‘seem to leave American Indian tribal peoples in this country stateless, politically inept, and utterly without nationalistic alternatives’. 11 It is a condition sine qua non that Native American literature needs to provide imaginary solutions to decolonization and propose nationalistic schemas, beyond a prescriptive nationalism associated with Eurocentric models of nation-states. Works of fiction must contain what Cook-Lynn interprets as ‘the political reality of the imagination’. 12 In her analysis Cook-Lynn proposes that imagination is an essential part of nationalism, since ‘imagination is the source of history’. 13 So, nationalism must be contained in literature, a point the author explains thusly: In this current movement of critical thought away from Europeanism, native traditionalists are telling scholars it is time to abandon the idea that without pope or emperor nationhood has never been achieved, that, on the contrary, national affiliations are a part of the urgency of contemporary thought and writing for American Indians, whose own national histories have never been appropriately defined in reality-based, historical contexts. It is the challenge of modern thinkers and critics to find out what these nativist ideals mean in terms of the function of literature. 14 Cook-Lynn prompts indigenous intellectuals and writers to seek selfdetermination, which disappeared from the political and philosophical arena without even being born. Accordingly, the need for sovereign affiliation is urgent for Native intelligentsia, because national stories have never been properly contextualized in reality. There is nothing more connected to the land than Native tradition, which emphasizes the sacredness of land by prioritizing a connectedness with both nature and the community. Therefore, if nation is defined in terms of place, nothing is more nationalistic than Native tradition, where ‘[e]ven language is rooted to a specific place’. 15 Thus, returning to the film, while Avatar is a futuristic tale, it nonetheless poses intriguing questions about the past: what if a confederacy of indigenous peoples had expelled the Western colonizers from the Americas? What if Christopher Columbus had been invited to leave the territory? What if the Ghost Dance Religion had reached its purpose of making the white man disappear from

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__________________________________________________________________ America? What if the confederacy led by the North-American indigenous leader Tecumseh had been successful? All these questions revolve around historical landmarks and make reference to attempts of resistance against colonialism. It might be a mere coincidence, but this is a strategy used by Native-American storytellers as a way to rewrite history and disarm the arguments that EuroAmerica has put forward to justify the colonization of the continent, portraying it as the result of a fair war between masculine armies. Kimberly M. Blaeser summarizes this strategy as follows: ‘By a deft twist of the popular vision of history, they [the writers] submerge their readers in the ‘what ifs’ of historical interpretation: What if the actions of history were reversed?’ 16 In Gerald Vizenor’s novel Harold of Orange, when one of the characters is asked about his opinion of the Bering Strait migration theory, the character responds: ‘Which way across the Bering Strait?’ Christopher Columbus is a Mayan who civilizes Europe in Vizenor’s The Heirs of Columbus. Carter Revard has his protagonists claim England in ‘Report to the Nation: Clamming Europe’. 17 Alexie’s short story ‘Imagining the Reservation’ begins as follows: ‘(…) Didn’t you know Jesus Christ was a Spokane Indian? Imagine Columbus landed in 1492 and some tribe or another drowned him in the ocean. Would Lester FallsApart be shoplifting in the 711?’ 18 By means of such satiric visions of history, Native American writers suggest that any particular order of experience can be arbitrary and subjective. Some indigenous scholars, such as Paula Gunn-Allen and D’Arcy McNickle, claim that most indigenous tribes were pacific, something that they relate to the matrilineal structure of the tribes. According to Paula Gunn-Allen this is one of the stereotypes Western society uses to justify its expansion. The creation of such an image legitimizes the occupation of Native land, by affirming that genocide was a fair war between virile armies, where victory perpetuated the power of the winners. As she states, it is another strategy of official history. The image of the warrior represented only a small percentage of Native American population during the invasion, but this image of the ‘real Indian’ took over the image of the real people in the collective imagination. 19 Nevertheless, we can take its message, not as a violent one, but as a metaphor that calls for and supports a transnational indigenous confederacy of resistance to what is happening presently with multinational gold mining companies in Guatemala, oil exploitation in the Amazon and Nigeria, logging and mining companies in the Penan’s lands in Borneo, and many other examples of the plundering of indigenous natural resources and the destruction of sacred land by corporations. As demonstrated in a number of current articles and the opinions expressed by indigenous intellectuals, activists and communities in a variety of forums, the overwhelming success of the film has helped to give visibility to their claims. Individual indigenous groups, along with activist organizations are saying they feel depicted by the Na’vi when they tell the world ‘Hey, this is about us, we are

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__________________________________________________________________ them… this is not a fantasy, oil companies are stealing our sacred lands, our way of life, our dignity’. 20 In conclusion, I believe Avatar and the debate this film is fostering work in two ways. Firstly, by retelling history and compensating injustice with imagination, it is helping to spread a new representation of indigenous peoples in mainstream culture, but also providing an imaginary liberation for indigenous peoples themselves. In spite of being a story about the past, about the possibilities of an altered history, it has an influence upon the present and future representations of tribal people. Secondly, the film is helping to give visibility to individual groups, but also to global indigenous organizations, who are claiming their rights in peaceful ways. In the online publication Survival, Stephen Corry sums up the situation with these words: ‘One of the best ways of protecting our world’s natural heritage is surprisingly simple; it is to secure the land rights of tribal peoples’’. 21 Finally, to the question: ‘is Avatar a tale of indigenous survival?’, the answer is, probably not in its conception, but it has been and still is in its aftermath in mainstream culture. However, as spectators, we must look first at the narratives produced inside the indigenous community, since such narratives are the authentic tree.

Notes 1

C.S. Womack, Red on Red: Native American Literary Separatism, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1998, pp. 6-7. 2 G. Boucher, ‘Interview with James Cameron: Yes, Avatar is Dances With Wolves in Space... Sorta’, Los Angeles Times, 14 August 2009, Viewed on 10 March 2010, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2009/08/james-cameron-the-new-trek -rocks-but-transformers-is-gimcrackery.html. 3 T.M. Clapper, ‘The Great White Male Messiah Complex in James Cameron’s Avatar’, Associated Content, 20 January 2010, Viewed on 20 March 2010, http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2604397/the_great_white_male_messiah _complex.html?cat=40. 4 Boucher, op. cit. 5 G.S. Estrada, ‘The ‘Macho’ Body as Social Malinche’, Velvet Barrios: Popular Culture and Chicana/o Sexualities (New Directions in Latino American Cultures), Palgrave MacMillan, New York, 2003, pp. 41-62. 6 S. Alexie, Writer. Smoke Signals. Dir. C. Eyre. Cast: A. Beach, E. Adams, I. Bedard, Miramax Home Entertainment, 1998. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 9 E. Cook-Lynn, Why I Can’t Read Wallace Stegner and Other Essays. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1996, p. 64. 10 Ibid., p. 85.

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__________________________________________________________________ 11

Ibid. L.M. Silko, Almanac of the Dead. Penguin, New York, New York, 1991. 13 Cook-Lynn, op. cit., p. 91. 14 Ibid., pp. 86-87. 15 Ibid., p. 88. 16 K.M. Blaeser, ‘The New ‘Frontier’ of Native American Literature: Dis-Arming History with Tribal Humor’, Genre, Vol. 25.4, 1992, p. 360. 17 Ibid., pp. 360-362. 18 S. Alexie, ‘Imagining the Reservation’, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Harper Perennial, New York, 1993, p. 149. 19 P.G. Allen, The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions, Beacon Press, Boston, 1992, pp. 209-221. 20 The following are online sources that show, in some way, the identification of some indigenous struggles worldwide with Avatar: S. Corry, ‘Avatar is Real Say Tribal People’, Survival, 25 January 2010, Viewed on 20 February 2010, http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/5466; S. Corry, ‘Tribal People Appeal to James Cameron’, Survival, 8 February 2010. http://www.survivalinter national.org/news/5529; S. Escárcega, ‘Avatar: An Indigenous Story? Reflections on the Conversations that Indigenous Peoples Had with James Cameron’, Facebook, 28 April 2010, Viewed on 29 April 2010, http://www.facebook.com/#!/ note.php?note_id=410629049746; J. Hance, ‘The Real Avatar Story: Indigenous People Fight to Save their Forest Homes from Corporate Exploitation’, Mongabay.com, 22 December 2009, Viewed on 2 April 2010, http://news.mogan bay.com/2009/1222 hance_avatar.htlm; J. Lee, ‘Avatar Activism: James Cameron Joins Indigenous Struggles Worldwide’, The Indypendent, 26 April 2010, Viewed on 1 May 2010, http://www.indypendent.org/2010/04/26/avatar-activism/; M. Lo, ‘Actress Sigourney Weaver Joins Dozens of Indigenous Leaders from Around the World Who are Participants of the UN Permanent Forum’, Facebook, 26 April 2010, Viewed on 28 April 2010, http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_ id=396726809384&id=702175310; B. Powless, ‘Avatar and the True Defenders of the Land’, rabble.ca: News for the True Defenders of the Land, 14 January 2010, Viewed on 7 April 2010, http://rabble.ca/news/2010/01/avatar-and-true-defendersland; J. Smith, ‘Movie Review: Avatar and Real World Struggles’, Grand Institute for Information Democracy, 27 December 2009, Viewed on 5 January 2010, http://grid.org/2009/12/27/movie-review-avatar-and-real-world-struggles/; S. Tree, ‘Blockbuster Avatar Translates Ongoing Plight of World’s ‘Native? People’, Vernon County Broadcaster, 4 March 2010, Viewed on 10 May 2010, http://www.vernonbroadcaster.com/articles/2010/03/03/opinion/storyop; J. Utset, El argumento de Avatar centra la atención del Foro de Indígenas de la ONU’, elcomerciodigital.com. 24 April 2010, Viewed on 10 May 2010, http://www. 12

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__________________________________________________________________ elcomerciodigital.com/agencias/20100424/mas-actualidad/internacional/argument -avatar-centra-atencion foro_201004240833.html. 21 Corry, ‘Avatar is Real…’, op. cit.

Bibliography Alexie, S., The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. Harper Perennial, New York, 1993. Allen, P.G., The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. Beacon Press, Boston, 1992. Blaeser, K.M., ‘The New ‘Frontier’ of Native American Literature: Dis-Arming History with Tribal Humor’. Genre. Vol. 25.4, 1992. Boucher, G., ‘Interview with James Cameron: Yes, Avatar is Dances With Wolves in Space... Sorta’. Los Angeles Times. 14 August 2009, Viewed on 10 March 2010. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2009/08/james-cameron-thenew-trekrocks-but-transformers-is-gimcrackery.html. Clapper, T.M., ‘The Great White Male Messiah Complex in James Cameron’s Avatar’. Associated Content. 20 January 2010, Viewed on 20 March 2010, http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2604397/the_great_white_male_messiah _complex.html?cat=40. Cook-Lynn, E., Why I Can’t Read Wallace Stegner and Other Essays. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1996. Corry, S., ‘‘Avatar Is Real’ Say Tribal People’. Survival. 25 January 2010, Viewed on 20 February 2010, http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/5466. –––, ‘Tribal People Appeal to James Cameron’. Survival. 8 February 2010. 20 February 2010. http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/5529. Escárcega, S., ‘Avatar: An Indigenous Story? Reflections on the Conversations that Indigenous Peoples Had with James Cameron’. Facebook. 28 April 2010, Viewed on 29 April 2010. http://www.facebook.com/#!/note.php?note_id= 410629049746.

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__________________________________________________________________ Estrada, G.S. ‘The ‘Macho’ Body as Social Malinche’. Velvet Barrios: Popular Culture and Chicana/o Sexualities (New Directions in Latino American Cultures). Gaspar de Alba, A. (ed), Palgrave MacMillan, New York, 2003. Hance, J., ‘The Real Avatar Story: Indigenous People Fight to Save their Forest Homes from Corporate Exploitation’. Mongabay.com. 22 December 2009, Viewed on 2 April 2010. http://news.moganbay.com/2009/1222 hance_avatar.htlm. Lee, J., ‘Avatar Activism: James Cameron Joins Indigenous Struggles Worldwide’. The Indypendent. 26 April 2010, Viewed on 1 May 2010. http://www.indypendent. org/2010/04/26/avatar-activism/. Lo, M., ‘Actress Sigourney Weaver Joins Dozens of Indigenous Leaders from Around the World Who are Participants of the UN Permanent Forum’. Facebook. 26 April 2010, Viewed on 28 April 2010. http://www.facebook.com/note.php? note_id=396726809384&id=702175310. Newitz, A., ‘When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like Avatar?’ Io9. 18 December 2009, Viewed on 7 April 2010. http://io9.com/5422666/when-willwhite-people-stop-making-movies-like-avatar?skyline=true&s=x. Powless, B., ‘Avatar and the True Defenders of the Land’. rabble.ca: News for the True Defenders of the Land. 14 January 2010, Viewed on 7 April 2010. http://rabble.ca/news/2010/01/avatar-and-true-defenders-land. Rogers, I.H., ‘Avatar: The Most Racist Movie of All Time’. The Progressive Corner. 27 April 2010, Viewed on May 2 2010. http://progressivecorner.word press.com/. Silko, L.M., Almanac of the Dead. Penguin, New York, 1992. Smith, J., ‘Movie Review: Avatar and Real World Struggles’. Grand Institute for Information Democracy. 27 December 2009, Viewed on 5 January 2010. http://griid.org/2009/12/27/movie-review-avatar-and-real-world-struggles/. Tree, S., ‘Blockbuster Avatar Translates On-Going Plight of World’s ‘Native People’. Vernon County Broadcaster. 4 March 2010, Viewed on 10 May 2010. http://www.vernonbroadcaster.com/articles/2010/03/03/opinion/01storyop.txt .

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__________________________________________________________________ Utset, J., El argumento de Avatar centra la atención del Foro de Indígenas de la ONU’. elcomerciodigital.com. 24 April 2010, Viewed on 10 May 2010. http://www.elcomerciodigital.com/agencias/20100424/mas-actualidad/internacion al/argumento-avatar-centra-atencion-foro_201004240833.html. Dolores Miralles-Alberola PhD in Spanish with a DE in Native American Studies (UCDavis). She works for the Department of International Relations at the University of Alicante, Spain. Her current field of research has to do with indigenous film and representations of Native peoples in film.

Part IV Science Fiction and the Literatures of Cyberspace

Loss of Connection: Science in Romanticism and Modern Science Fiction Susan Rose Nash Abstract Science has been presented as a method of solving the problems humanity faces; and scientists have been lauded as the saviours of the world. However, writers of Romantic-era fiction and of modern science fiction share a fear of the future that humanity could create using science unchecked by humane judgment. Nathaniel Hawthorne explores the power of science in the hands of humanity. Hawthorne’s ‘Rappaccini’s Daughter’ and ‘The Birth-mark’ show science entering the domestic sphere, with scientists as a father and a husband, both stories ending in tragedy. Dedication to scientific experimentation creates separation between these men and their humanity. This attitude continued in modern science fiction. In the twentiethcentury science influences the general public with little thought of the consequences. Society changes because of science. Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 shows the same lack of humanity that Hawthorne demonstrates in his scientists, but on a societal scale. The Montags accept science and technology because it has always been present in their lives. For both Hawthorne and Bradbury, a world guided by science results in families being destroyed, society failing, and violence being considered inconsequential. The human drive to control and destroy creates a direct link between the Romantic period and modern science fiction. Key Words: Romantic, Science Fiction, Hawthorne, Bradbury, Isolation. ***** The focus of humans’ lives guides the relationships they gain, the goals they attempt, and the impact they have on the world. For the Romantics and many modern science fiction writers, science serves as both a distraction from and a distortion of a positive focus for a person’s life. In the early days of science, it seemed the only people who were affected by science were those who were dedicated to scientific exploration and the people around them. As science grew to affect average people, the distractions and distortions also grew. Both the Romantic writer Nathaniel Hawthorne and the science fiction writer Ray Bradbury explore the ways lives can be lost as a consequence of science. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘The Birth-Mark’ explores the loss of two lives: Georgiana and her scientist husband, Aylmer. Aylmer washes away the ‘furnacesmoke, […] the stain of acids from his fingers, and [persuades] a beautiful woman to become his wife.’ 1 Aylmer appreciates her beauty, but after the marriage it becomes clear that he desires her for other reasons. Rather than creating a life with

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__________________________________________________________________ his wife, Aylmer becomes obsessed with proving his ‘faith in man’s ultimate control over nature.’ 2 Aylmer’s scientific interests bring destruction to ‘the union of reverence and love, [causing it to yield] to cold, clinical detachment.’ 3 Aylmer sees Georgiana as his chance to improve upon ‘the best [woman] that the earth could offer,’ thus proving himself superior to Nature. 4 If Aylmer could remove this mark, then he would have created the perfect wife. This attitude toward science steals the joy from Aylmer and Georgiana’s lives. Aylmer’s obsession with the mark infects and controls Georgiana to the point that she would sacrifice her life to gain his scientific goal. 5 Aylmer takes Georgiana under his control by imprisoning her in his laboratory. He gains power over her by isolating her from humanity and Nature, even separating her from the sun. 6 Aylmer divides his laboratory into two areas, an apartment for Georgiana and a conventional laboratory, stark and plain. Georgiana’s room is beautiful, but a prison nonetheless. By taking complete possession of Georgiana, he steals her humanity and uses her as a tool. Aylmer begins to experiment upon Georgiana without informing her. 7 Even when he learns that the mark goes to the depths of Georgiana’s being, he does not stop. 8 Aylmer proves his lack of love and respect for Georgiana when he is willing, at best, to change her nature and, at worst, to kill her. His scientific goals mean more to him than his relationship; his actions ‘[reveal…] that his ambition is stronger than his love.’ 9 To further explore the ramifications of the scientific goal of controlling Nature, Hawthorne creates another scientist, Rappaccini. Rappaccini could have a full life. He does not have a wife, but he has a beautiful daughter, Beatrice. Like Aylmer, Rappaccini proves willing to sacrifice someone he should love for scientific achievement. Rappaccini ‘ignores all other values in his quest for knowledge and power.’ 10 Using scientific control, Rappaccini cultivates a garden on poison. Hawthorne describes Rappaccini as a ‘tall, emaciated, sallow, and sickly looking man.’ 11 His experiments have destroyed his own health, but his work on his child shows the depth of his obsession and depravity. Rappaccini raises his daughter on the poisons he has used in his garden. While Rappaccini’s continuous abuses of his child have not harmed her physically, she has no place in humanity. Hawthorne identifies Beatrice as a possession in the very title of the story. Beatrice has no independence separate from her father. Rappaccini has trapped Beatrice in his laboratory as effectively as Aylmer trapped Georgiana. Rather than a decorated holding cell, Beatrice’s father has named himself, ‘God of an unnatural Paradise, his garden a perverted Eden.’ 12 Rappaccini holds control over every part of Beatrice’s life. She cannot touch any living thing without his approval. 13 He allows Giovanni to enter the garden and become a companion to Beatrice. 14 However, had he not seen their union as scientifically desirable, Beatrice would have remained in isolation. 15

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__________________________________________________________________ Rappaccini’s absolute devotion to science has so completely cost him his humanity that he cannot see that he harmed his daughter. When Beatrice asks why her father would do this, he does not understand her emotions. He asks, ‘Dost thou deem it misery to be endowed with marvelous gifts, against which no power nor strength could avail an enemy.’ 16 Rappaccini asks Beatrice if she would rather be an average woman, without power; he cannot see that by giving her this ‘gift,’ by not respecting her as an individual, he has made her an object. Beatrice correctly points out that rather than saving her from ‘evil,’ her father has force fed it to her. 17 He brags that his ‘science [… has] so wrought […] that [Giovanni] now stands apart from common men, as […] does [Beatrice], daughter of [his] pride and triumph, [stand apart] from ordinary women.’ 18 When Beatrice fully realizes the depth of her father’s evil, she chooses to die rather than remain under his power. She sees that the ‘poison’ of science fills her father with no room for anything else. With her father’s inability to love and Giovanni’s rejection, Beatrice decides that death provides the only escape from enforced isolation. Science’s impact on Beatrice’s life goes beyond her father’s betrayal. The three men in her life, Rappaccini, Baglioni, and Giovanni, are all men of science. None of the men take Beatrice’s well being into account. Rappaccini sees Beatrice as an opportunity, as an inhuman tool to use. Baglioni, a scientist that believes he exists in Rappaccini’s shadow, seeks an opportunity to destroy his rival. Giovanni sees Beatrice from a distance and wants her as his own. He only seeks to gain possession of her. While Giovanni claims to be a victim, warnings surround Beatrice and her father. Giovanni continuously ignores the dangers he observes around Beatrice: the dead insects, the dead lizard, the wilted flowers, and the mark left by her touch. All of these signs register in Giovanni’s mind, but he easily ignores them for the prize of Beatrice. Hawthorne parallels the warning signs that surround the sciences of the mid 19th century. He sees and writes about the destruction of the home and community through the creation of the woodstove in ‘Fire-Worship.’ 19 Hawthorne believes that, because of the ease and convenience gained with scientific progress, most people will accept this change without concern. He accurately predicts that the potential dangers of science will be ignored by all but a few, until the consequences become real and irrevocable. Humanity and Giovanni refuse to see the dangers in their choices, because doing so would require the loss of their prizes. More than a hundred years later, few writers still speculate about the dangers of technology. Industrial pollution, war on a global scale, and the use of atomic bombs have demonstrated the destruction born of science. Instead, many sciencefiction writers now consider the results of society’s dependence on science. Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 considers a world caught in science’s conveniences to the point of indolence. Bradbury creates a world where anything

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__________________________________________________________________ that breeds difficulty is erased. The products of science that essentially control this world cause these societal attitudes. Science, in the form of technology, has created a barrier between humanity and Nature. Guy Montag describes his home as ‘the chamber of a tomb world.’ 20 They hear only the radio ‘seashells’ in both of their ears and barely communicate with each other. 21 The parlour walls consume anyone who sits in front of them. No one but the ‘odd ducks,’ interact with the world. 22 The distractions provided by science allow a cocoon of numbness to surround people, stealing their humanity. Guy Montag begins as a model citizen of this dead world. Montag’s work as a fireman allows him to act without thinking; and Mildred, his wife, makes no demands of him. Science allows him to sleepwalk through his life. Society believes that its highest goal is ‘to be happy,’ and that ‘happy’ means unaware and unchallenged. 23 Once Montag truly observes the world around him, he realizes, ‘Nobody listens any more. [He] can’t talk to the walls because they’re yelling at [him]. [He] can’t talk to [his] wife; she listens to the walls,’ leaving him to live in complete isolation in a crowded city. 24 Clarisse McClellan immediately captures Montag’s interest. He sees the differences between her and the others around him. Clarisse serves ‘as a metaphorical mirror to begin reflecting truths that Montag otherwise would not see.’ 25 Montag sees something ‘shining and alive [and] quite wonderful’ in her. 26 He sees in ‘her face […] a soft and constant light [….] [N]ot the hysterical light of electricity [….] But the strangely comfortable and rare and gently flattering light of the candle.’ 27 Bradbury’s connection between the candle and Clarisse shows the lack of science’s influence in her life. The vitality and energy in Clarisse contrast with the emptiness that fills Mildred. Mildred has the seashell radios in her ears constantly; the parlour walls that she refers to as her ‘family’ fill her whole world, she rarely speaks to anyone, and then she says nothing of consequence. Bradbury says Mildred ‘[feels] no rain, […] no shadow, […] and her eyes [are] all glass.’ 28 She attempts to kill herself, she forgets Clarisse’s death, and she turns her husband over to the firemen. Emptiness in Montag’s world has become so common that death has no consequence. ‘The impersonal operator of the machine’ sent to drain Mildred of the drugs, claims that suicide happens so frequently that ‘[they] get these cases nine or ten a night.’ 29 According to Jack Zipes, witnessing this allows Montag to see ‘the manner in which technology is being used […] to deaden the senses while keeping people alive as machines.’ 30 Montag eventually realizes that life has little value when ‘[n]obody knows anyone.’ 31 Every aspect of human life shows the influence of science. Interactive television has replaced the traditional family. Mildred and Guy have no children. Mildred’s friend, Mrs. Bowles, has children, but they play no part in her life. Doctors pulled her children from her body rather than her having to feel their birth; and she ‘plunk[s] the children in school nine days out of ten,’ and on the tenth she

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__________________________________________________________________ ‘heave[s] them into the ‘parlor’ and turn[s] the switch.’ 32 She knows that her children would ‘just as soon kick as kiss [her].’ 33 Once again, science has taught society to ignore difficulties and accept that ‘families are hollow and loveless, suicide is commonplace, violence is endemic on the streets and in broadcast entertainment, and jet bombers circle ominously in the night.’ 34 The Hound tells the most about the relationship between civilization and Nature. In the Hound, science has created a piece of technology that keeps people numb and under control. The Hound and the people of the time have activities to carry them through the day, but neither has a spark, a purpose. Humanity has sold itself for peace, and ended up trapped in ‘its gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the firehouse.’ 35 Guy runs from the firemen and the Hound, but also from the society that science and humanity created. Montag reconnects with Nature when crossing the river. For the first time Montag is able ‘to touch, to feel’ the world around him ‘fully aware of his entire body.’ 36 His connection to the physical world ‘help[s] heal the split between man and nature, which rational enlightenment and science have brought about.’ 37 Crossing the river brings Montag into Clarisse’s world. 38 Bradbury shows that ‘despite the overwhelming powers of state control through mass media and technology, [Bradbury] has his hero Montag undergo a process of rehumanization.’ 39 Science’s purpose was to create ease and peace, but only by escaping science do any of these characters find peace. Science creates a distance, a destruction of bonds between humans; focus becomes entirely external, causing a lack of selfknowledge. Rather than aiding humanity, the progression of scientific development has allowed the isolation of the individual to deepen. Science locked Georgiana, Beatrice, and Montag into lives separate from meaningful contact. Death and exile provide a better world than those lives. By turning their backs on the worlds science created, they escape the fate of becoming cogs in society’s machine.

Notes 1

N. Hawthorne, ‘The Birthmark’, Nathaniel Hawthorne: Tales and Sketches, Literary Classics of the US, New York, 1996, p. 764. 2 Ibid., p. 764. 3 H.G. Fairbanks, The Lasting Loneliness of Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Study of the Sources of Alienation in Modern Man, Magi Books, Albany, 1965, p. 105. 4 Hawthorne, op. cit., p. 780. 5 Ibid., p. 768. 6 Ibid., p. 770. 7 Ibid., p. 773. 8 Ibid., p. 773.

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T. Stoehr, Hawthorne’s Mad Scientist: Pseudoscience and Social Science in Nineteenth-Century Life and Letters, Archon Book, Hamden, 1978, p. 118. 10 R. Harter Fogle, Hawthorne’s Fiction: The Light and the Dark, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1964, p. 92. 11 N. Hawthorne, ‘Rappaccini’s Daughter,’ Nathaniel Hawthorne: Tales and Sketches, Literary Classics of the US, New York, 1996, p. 978. 12 Fogle, op. cit., p. 99. 13 Hawthorne, p. 985. 14 Ibid., p. 988. 15 Ibid., p. 1004-05. 16 Ibid., p. 1005. 17 Ibid., p. 1005. 18 Ibid., p. 1004. 19 N. Hawthorne, ‘Fire-Worship’, Nathaniel Hawthorne: Tales and Sketches, Literary Classics of the US, New York, 1996. 20 R. Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Del Rey Books, New York, 1996, p. 11. 21 Bradbury, p. 18. 22 Ibid., p. 60. 23 Ibid., p. 59. 24 Ibid., p. 82. 25 R.O. McGiveron, ‘To Build a Mirror Factory: The Mirror and Self-Examination in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451’, in Harold Bloom (ed), Modern Critical Interpretations: Fahrenheit 451—New Edition, Bloom’s Literary Criticism, New York, 2008, p. 64. 26 Bradbury, p. 6. 27 Bradbury, p. 7. 28 Bradbury, p. 13. 29 Bradbury, p. 14-15. 30 J. Zipes, ‘Mass Degradation of Humanity and Massive Contradictions in Bradbury’s Vision of America in Fahrenheit 451,’ in Bloom (ed), op. cit., p. 6. 31 Bradbury, p. 16. 32 Ibid., p. 96. 33 Ibid., p. 96. 34 McGiveron, op. cit., p. 68. 35 Bradbury, p. 24. 36 Ibid., p. 145. 37 J.R. Eller and W.F. Touponce, ‘The Simulacrum of Carnival: Fahrenheit 451’, in Bloom (ed), op. cit., p. 92. 38 Bradbury, p. 145. 39 Zipes, p. 10.

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Bibliography Bradbury, R., Fahrenheit 451. Del Rey Books, New York, 1996. Bloom, H. (ed), Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: Fahrenheit 451 — New Edition. Bloom’s Literary Criticism, New York, 2008. Fairbanks, H.G., The Lasting Loneliness of Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Study of the Sources of Alienation in Modern Man. Magi Books, Albany, 1965. Fogle, R.H. Hawthorne’s Fiction: The Light and the Dark. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1964. Hawthorne, N., Nathaniel Hawthorne: Tales and Sketches. Literary Classics of the US, New York, 1996. —, ‘Fire-Worship’. Nathaniel Hawthorne: Tales and Sketches. Literary Classics of the US, New York, 1996. —. ‘Rappaccini’s Daughter’. Nathaniel Hawthorne: Tales and Sketches. Literary Classics of the US, New York, 1996. —. ‘The Birth-Mark.’ Nathaniel Hawthorne: Tales and Sketches. Literary Classics of the US, New York, 1996. Stoehr, T., Hawthorne’s Mad Scientist: Pseudoscience and Social Science in Nineteenth-Century Life and Letters. Archon Book, Hamden, 1978. Susan Rose Nash is a Masters student in the Literature department of Western Kentucky University.

Human Identity in the World of Altered Carbon Grzegorz Trębicki Abstract Subjects such as the changing idea of a body in the era of cyberculture, various biotechnical advances and their impact on life, death, human identity and individuality, as well as political and social consequences of electronic revolution have long lain within the range of more ambitious science fiction and cyberpunk. The American SF writer Richard Morgan’s recent ‘Takeshi Kovacs’ trilogy (Altered Carbon, 2002; Broken Angels, 2003; Woken Furies 2005) also seems to elaborate on these problems. However, in comparison to many previous works of the genres in question, Morgan’s extrapolation remains especially moving and convincing. This is partly because his vision manages to successfully background daring technological advances against complex psychological, social and economic issues. An unobtrusive yet serious critique of contemporary corporate, social and religious systems gives it an additional mundane perspective that is absent in many similar texts. On the other hand, the core idea of the entire trilogy – Morgan’s concept of the digitalization of human consciousness and the subordination of the whole motif to the social and economic contexts - provides a convenient pretext for raising fundamental questions concerning humanity. This chapter will attempt to analyze the most essential elements of Morgan’s vision with a special emphasis placed on how the very concepts of human identity and individuality are put to the test in the world of altered carbon. Key Words: Cyberpunk, science fiction, posthumanism, biotechnical advances, cyborgs, bodies in cyberculture, human identity. ***** 1. Borders of Humanity Not surprisingly, cyberpunk 1 seems to be the genre that is particularly wellsuited for putting the very concept of humanity to the test. For the last 30 years, the broadly understood cyberpunk, 2 both in literature and in film, has offered a whole spectrum of impressing and strikingly gloomy visions of the futuristic/posthuman world. 3 The very idea of cyberspace prompted the perennial dichotomy of the virtual vs. the real, whereas such subjects as - the relationship between the human and the machine or the advent of cyborgs, the impact of the biotechnological advances on life, death and human identity, the changing idea of a body in the era of cyberculture, and even deliberations on the possibility of the dis- or reembodiment of a human being - created a convenient pretext for moving into the sphere of the ultimate questions concerning the very nature of humanity, its limitations and its borders.

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__________________________________________________________________ Richard Morgan’s recent ‘Takeshi Kovacs’ trilogy (Altered Carbon, 2002; Broken Angels, 2003; Woken Furies, 2005) is a work of complex generic origin, exhibiting elements of such diverse literary genres as the traditional space-opera or the novel noir (much in the vein of Raymond Chandler and his numerous followers). Cyberpunk, however, is central to the trilogy’s structure and message, and the novels draw heavily (albeit unobtrusively) on the seminal work of the genre, William Gibson’s Neuromancer. While using extensively cyberpunk’s stock motifs, Morgan’s vision remains at the same time especially convincing and original. This is, in my opinion, due primarily to the fact that the trilogy successfully manages to background classical cyberpunk conventions (daring technological advances, cyborgization of human body, descriptions of the futuristic underworld, etc.) against complex psychological, social and economic issues. In this chapter, I will attempt to touch upon the most essential elements of Morgan’s vision with a special emphasis laid on how the very concepts of human identity and individuality are explored in the world of ‘altered carbon’. 2. The World of Altered Carbon The plot of the first novel, Altered Carbon, takes place in the twenty-fifth century. After the discovery of the ruins of an ancient, extra-terrestial civilisation on Mars and other planets, humanity has managed to successfully implement alien technology which, in turn, completely re-defined human life. The major advancement is the digitalization of the human mind. All people are at birth implanted with a cortical stack which stores all the person’s experiences, thoughts, feelings and memories – in other words everything that we label as ‘consciousness’. This revolutionary achievement is bound to alter dramatically our views on life and death itself, but also, exert a tremendous influence on virtually all spheres of life, including social and economic structure as well as religion. Since cortical stacks can be very simply extracted and re-implanted in another body, a sort of practical immortality has been gained. After death people are usually ‘re-sleeved’ into new, cloned or artificially created (and sometimes genetically engineered or technologically/electronically enhanced) bodies. Thus, there is a clear distinction between the ‘ordinary’ death - the termination of a particular body or a ‘sleeve’ and the ‘real death’ when the cortical stack itself has been destroyed and the victim’s personality is not retrievable (although the rich and the powerful, apart from their stacks, have sometimes additional back-ups of their selves stored in safe data-banks which are updated regularly). Digitalization also enables instant interstellar-travel – only the mind of the traveller is momentarily transferred via needle-cast into another world and downloaded into a body available on spot. The protagonist and the 1-st person narrator, Takeshi Kovacs, is an ex-member of the Envoy Corps, ‘the enforcement arm of the despotic UN Protectorate, which rules Earth and its colonies with an iron fist […].’ 4 While envoys’ special training

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__________________________________________________________________ and various enhancements transform them into perfect long-distance warriors and flawless investigators, they also make them psychotic. 5 Throughout the trilogy Kovacs assumes numerous roles, including that of a mercenary, a criminal and a private investigator; all of them enable him to move across huge vistas of space and uncover the mechanisms that rule his universe. Kovacs himself is presented as a man of sharp contrasts - an emphatic psychopath, pragmatic sentimentalist, ruthless for his enemies but capable of sympathy for the week, the defenceless and (especially) women; a relentless pursuer of his own aims but at the same time a reflective and analytical observer of the reality that surrounds him. He is also well aware of the ethical choices although his moral code may be perceived as inconsistent and definitely differs from the mainstream morality. The sophisticated narrator/protagonist of Morgan’s fiction stands in contrast to mostly unreflective, morally indifferent, self-centered, and often strictly subcultural hero of a typical cyberpunk novel (here Neuromancer’s main character, Case could serve as an example). This is to a large extent owing to the use of this narrator that complex economical, social, moral and psychological issues can be introduced. In contradistinction to many other cyberpunk novels – (especially the seminal Neuromancer to which as the archetypal cyberpunk text I refer on several occasions) – apart from the description of the futuristic underworld and picturesque subcultures, the texts present a relatively wide range of characters, contexts and situations, in an attempt to a create possibly coherent and complete vision of reality. Morgan’s extrapolation is cynical, pragmatic, and – in a manner of speaking – very mundane. He does not follow the numerous science fiction writers in whose work futuristic discoveries and technological developments are paralleled by equally stunning social, religious or spiritual transformations, often narrated with a prophetic tone. As one might reasonably expect, in Morgan’s world the impact of the already mentioned advances on the human nature itself is rather marginal. While describing social life, Morgan draws on and magnifies the tendencies and threats that already exist in modern post-capitalist, fragmented society. What is especially notable, Morgan’s social life is realistically ruled by the laws of economy, and the economy that prevails here is the corporationist and oligarchic economy at its worst. Thus, in the world of the altered carbon, the privileged can take full advantage of the digitalization of the human mind, switching on a whim between a broad range of beautiful, specially engineered bodies and spending centuries of orgiastic leisure whereas the dispossessed cannot afford even an ordinary ‘sleeve’ and have to wait in storage for the same centuries without much hope for resurrection. Morgan’s texts abound in descriptions of complex and difficult life situations, like, to mention just one, the case of Irene Eliott, who in order to pay her and her husband’s clone and resleeving policy engaged in illegal activity for which she was

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__________________________________________________________________ convicted to 30 years in storage (the penal system, for economic and practical reasons, no longer stores live criminals, but only their digitalized personalities) 6 whereas her body was bought by some corporation from the municipal storage facility. As Irena’s husband reveals Kovacs bitterly: ‘I was okay for six months , then I turn on the screen and see some corporate negotiator wearing Irene’s body […] Paid five times what I could have afforded. They say the bitch wears it only alternate months.’ 7 Another interesting motif is that of people who – like the Roman Catholics on Earth and members of some sects on Harlan’s world - voluntarily reject the blessings of resleeving from religious reasons. The narrator condemns such attitudes as inhuman and primitive, but at the same time sympathizes with particular individuals who are taken advantage of, like a young prostitute from the first novel, who is murdered because her oppressors know that as a catholic she will not be resleeved and consequently, will not testify against them. As I have already pointed out, it is not the main leitmotif of the trilogy itself the digitalization of the human consciousness (or other inspiring ‘technological’ ideas that continually appear in the trilogy, and are no less imaginative or impressive than those found in the texts by other leading SF and cyberpunk writers), but rather an attempt to explore the social, religious, economical and psychological consequences of the described advancements, that is central for the narration of the trilogy. The subject which seems, however, to be most obviously in focus is that of human identity. 3. The Question of Human Identity Where are the borders of our selves? What is the relationship between our body and our consciousness? Do we need bodies to be human beings? Can we survive the death of our bodies? Is our identity and self-awareness intrinsically and inseparably connected with the body we were born with? What makes us who we really are? These are only some of the ultimate questions touched upon by Morgan’s texts. Again, the trilogy supplies a wide range of interesting problems and cases related to the question of human identity and individuality. What is also notable, whereas in Gibson’s books, especially in Sprawl cycle, similar motifs were described in terms of unusual experiences that befall chosen individuals, in ‘Takeshi Kovacs’ texts all the revolutionary advancements have been broadly implemented and analyzed from various angles; the extreme has become the ordinary, the statistical,; the digitalization of the mind is no longer a personal epiphany – but rather a routine procedure, a social convention, with all the consequences resulting from this fact. Quite obviously, in the world of altered carbon, the body is not what primarily identifies a person; sleeves can be switched like clothes or used like professional gear conveniently suited for a particular job or situation, as, for example, durable, armoured and enhanced combat suits many of the characters wear. The characters’

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__________________________________________________________________ attitude towards the body is purely practical as can be seen from Kovacs’ interior monologue at the beginning of the first book: In the shower I whistled my disquiet away tunelessly and ran soap and hands over the new body. My sleeve was in his early forties, Protectorate standard, with a swimmer’s build and what felt like some military custom-carved onto his nervous system. Neurochemical upgrade, most likely […] There was a tightness in the lungs that suggested a nicotine habit […] but apart from that I couldn’t find anything worth complaining about. […] Every sleeve has a story. If that thing bothers you, you line up over at Syntheta’s or Fabricon. I’d worn my fair share of synthetic sleeves […] Cheap […] and they never seem to get the flavour circuits right. 8 At the same time, Kovacs or other characters almost never have doubts concerning their own identity. They are simply the personalities recorded in the cortical stack – the sum of their feelings, emotions and past experiences. Bodies can be lost, switched or replaced, but the personality – as well as, what is interesting, the relationships between people – remain. Occasionally, human individuality can be perceived even from behind a sleeve, as in this scene when Kovacs meets a long-lost friend: It wasn’t the face I remembered, not even close. He’d sleeved to fairer or broader features […] But the body wasn’t much different […] And his moves still radiated the same casual poise when he made them. I knew him as certainly as if he’d torn open the coverall to show me the scars on his chest. 9 As it might be expected, in the world where bodies are temporary, confirming one’s identity is also a matter of important social convention: Ascertainment. In today’s society, it’s as common a ritual as parental acknowledgement parties to celebrate a birth, or reweddings to cement newly re-sleeved couples in their old relationship. […] on every planet I’ve been to, it exists as a deeply respected underlying aspect of social relations. Outside of expensive hi-tech psychographic procedures, it’s the only way we have to prove to our friends and family that, regardless of what flesh we may be wearing, we are who we say we are. Ascertainment is the core social function that defines ongoing identity in the modern age […]. 10

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__________________________________________________________________ The common digitalization of the human mind does not, as one might suppose, obliterate family ties or human relationships. The Elliots desperately struggle to reunite. The former quellist revolutionaries are still eager to follow their miraculously and out-of-her-époque resurrected leader who has been believed to be dead for more than two centuries. Takeshi Kovac’s affection for Sarah – his oldtime lover - does not fade in spite of the enormous vistas of time and space or their individual experiences that have separated them, and his main obsession in the last part of the trilogy becomes to retrieve the woman’s cortical stack, buried deep in the ocean. As the narration suggests, bodies can be easily replaced or modified but they cannot be completely abandoned if we want to experience our humanity at its full. Although technology makes it possible to renounce the reality for the sake of the virtual world, only the few follow this path. As the surfer and rebel Jack Soul Brasil states, while arguing with his ex-comrade who has become a member of the Renouncers sect: I was standing on a ten-metre wall four days ago […] That’s worth all of this virtual shift twice over. […] Out there actions have consequences. If I break something, I’ll know about it because it’ll fucking hurt. 11 Virtual reality is used frequently throughout the trilogy for practical purposes (it provides, for example, highly effective interrogation and torture chamber), but it is seldom the cause of any ontological doubt on the part of the characters. Despite all the revolutionary developments, the concepts of reality and individuality seem to be solid and stable. Another interesting motif concerning human identity is that of ‘doublesleeving’ or – in other words – a situation in which two copies of the same person exist side by side. In the whole Protectorate double sleeving is a serious crime and one of the most important taboos whose breaking may result in punishing the culprit with the ‘real death’, but from various reasons it is illegally applied on several occasions in the trilogy. The most extreme is the case from the last volume, when Kovacs’ opponents in order to pursue him effectively, sleeve his own copy from an earlier stage of life. Thus, the protagonist himself becomes his most virulent and dangerous enemy; the younger version hates the older one for what he has done with his (their?) life, and the older Kovacs, tamed by age and experience, despises the ruthless and cruel ways of the youth he used to be. The situation creates a convenient pretext for deliberating on who we really are, what has made us the way we are, and how much we can change ourselves. ‘Takeshi Kovacs’ trilogy is an impressive and sophisticated extrapolation that multi-sidedly and pragmatically reviews basic concepts of the cyberpunk genre. The futuristic reality it presents appears gloomy, though it is perhaps not because

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__________________________________________________________________ of the technological advancements but despite them. After all, they cannot really change human nature, but only emphasize some of its aspects – not necessarily the more favourable ones. The vision of humanity Morgan offers is rather cynical, if not openly nihilistic. Yet, paradoxically, it contains also a trace of reassurance, since this is the human individuality and identity that seem to remain most reliable and constant elements in the shifting, merciless world of altered carbon.

Notes 1

Obviously, the word cyberpunk has become as much a social and cultural label as a purely literary term (or perhaps even more so; see, especially, J. Rauleson, ‘The Politics of Cyberpunk’, Inter-Disciplinary Net. Visions of Humanity in Cybercultures, Viewed on 12 March 2010, http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/ci/ cyber/hub/visions/v1/raulerson /paper.pdf). In this article, however, I will use it in its original generic meaning, referring to a science-fiction genre. 2 Even as a strictly generic term, cyberpunk appears as vague as postmodernism itself, within which it is, presumably, ‘well-situated’ (B. McHale, ‘POSTcyberMODERNpunkISM’, Storming the Reality Studio: A Casebook of Cyberpunk and Postmodern Science Fiction, Duke University Press, Durham, N.C., 1991, pp. 308-323). 3 Among the most significant and influential cyberpunk books and movies such titles as William Gibson’s ‘Sprawl’ and ‘San Francisco’ trilogies, Bruce Sterling’s Schismatrix, Neal Stephenson’s Snowcrash, the Matrix Trilogy, film Casshern by Kazuaki Kiriya and Japanese anime movies Ghost in the Shell and Akira should be mentioned. 4 V. Strauss, ‘Altered Carbon: A Review’, SFSite, 1996, Viewed on 15 March 2010, http://www.sfsite.com/03a/al123.htm. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 R. Morgan, Altered Carbon, Ballantine Books, New York, 2006, p. 105. 8 Ibid., p. 15. 9 R. Morgan, Woken Furies, Gollancz, London, 2005, p. 214. 10 Ibid., pp. 335-336. 11 Ibid., pp. 270-271.

Bibliography Akira. DVD. Directed by Otomo, K., IDG, 2006. Casshern. DVD. Directed by Kiriya, K., Vision, 2005. Ghost in the Shell. DVD. Directed by Oshii, M., IDG, 2005.

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__________________________________________________________________ Gibson, W., All Tomorrow’s Parties. Putnam, New York, 1999. —, Count Zero. Ace Trade, New York, 2006. —, Mona Lisa Overdrive. Bantam Spectra, New York, 1997. —, Neuromancer. Ace Trade, New York, 2004. —, Idoru. Berkley, New York, 1997. —, Virtual Light. Bantam, New York, 1993. The Matrix Collection. DVD. Dir. Wachowski, A. and Wachowski, L., Warner Home Video, 2008. McHale, B., ‘POSTcyberMODERNpunkISM’. Storming the Reality Studio: A Casebook of Cyberpunk and Postmodern Science Fiction. Duke University Press, Durham, N.C., 1991. Morgan, R., Altered Carbon. Ballantine Books, New York, 2006. —, Broken Angels. Ballantine Books, New York, 2004. —, Woken Furies. Gollancz, London, 2005. Rauleson, J., ‘The Politics of Cyberpunk’. Inter-Disciplinary.Net. Visions of Humanity in Cybercultures. Viewed on 12 March 2010, http://www.interdisciplinary.net/ci/cyber/hub/visions/v1/raulerson /paper.pdf. Stephenson, M., Snowcrash. Bantam Spectra, New York, 2005. Sterling, B., Schismatrix Plus. Ace, New York, 1996. Strauss, V., ‘Altered Carbon: A Review’. SFSite. 1996. Viewed on 15 March 2010, http://www.sfsite.com/03a/al123.htm. Grzegorz Trębicki, Ph.D., is an assistant-professor of English and American literature at Jan Kochanowski University of Sciences and Humanities, Kielce, Poland.

The Mind Body Problem through Science Fiction: Charles Stross and Richard Morgan in Philosophical Review Benjamin Manktelow Abstract The works of Charles Stross and Richard Morgan make frequent mention of the brain being the seat of the person, and are awash with technologies which map, upload and transmit minds, by scanning brains and, therefore, people. The science fiction of Charles Stross, as encapsulated in ‘Accelerando’, and to a different degree ‘Glasshouse’, evokes futures and societies coming to grips with a person who can be mapped and uploaded into a virtuality, specifically relying upon the brain of the individual. Stross does not stop at the upload or the idea that the status quo of humanity will continue, he posits futures in which humanity is different from the one we currently know. Stross’s speculative work promotes discussion and debate concerning what it means to be human. Richard Morgan takes a different tack, through his collection of Takeshi Kovacs novels, in which humans can be uploaded and then beamed to other planets, because physical movement is too slow or impossible. People are downloaded into bodies, but not their own, unless they have serious wealth. These two simple conceits allow Morgan to open up a large range of ideas concerning who we are as humans and who we think we are. Both Stross and Morgan offer visions of the future in their novels which should be given closer critical and philosophical reflection. Key Words: Science Fiction, philosophy, mind, body, science, technology. ***** Science fiction is an especially good vehicle for thought experiments. I like to think that this includes Rene Descartes’s musings on a brain trapped in a jar, living a simulated reality it believes to be real: a thought experiment which reflects upon what the world is and who we are who live in and with it. For this very reason I find the writings of Charles Stross and Richard Morgan fascinating. Both writers deal with worlds and characters, which profoundly question who we think we are and where we think we are at. Charles Stross and Richard Morgan are science fiction authors currently residing in Scotland. The novels of Charles Stross are often utopic and show a positive view of science and technology in society and culture. In this chapter I refer primarily to the works Accelerando, 1 Glasshouse, 2 and Saturn’s Children. 3 Richard Morgan, however, writes about dystopias in his Takashi Kivacs trilogy, which I discuss in this chapter. The trilogy includes the novels Altered Carbon, 4 Broken Angels, 5 and Woken Furies. 6 The picture I paint below is a landscape of ideas and thoughts captured in the novels of Stross and

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__________________________________________________________________ Morgan; I let the authors give answers from which I ask new questions, as asking questions is as important, sometimes more important, than having answers. The questions and possible answers in which I am most interested are those that surround the aged ideas of the mind/body problem in philosophy. Succinctly put, the mind/body problem considers the connection and understanding of the mind and body, whether they are at all separate, and how this relates to the way we understand who we are individually and as a group. Questions and considerations which penetrate the depths of what it is to be human, to be a person. This chapter will concentrate on several views taken from the writings of Stross and Morgan, to highlight the power that science fiction has on our understanding of the mind/body problem in philosophy. Before discussing the ideas and their philosophical consequences, a caveat should be given: for those people wanting, or thinking that, what follows will involve a great deal of philosophical and technical jargon, fear not. This chapter focuses more attention on Stross and Morgan as philosophers themselves and what they are telling us, than to ‘actual’ philosophers. By following Rowlands 7 and calling science fiction philosophy SciPhi, I offer a complimentary approach to science fiction that sits alongside Wellsian or Orweilian takes on science fiction, in which the story is an extended allegory, specifically dealing with social criticisms of the world the author inhabits. Following this approach is not to say that it is outside Stross and Morgan’s writings, simply that here I am interested in SciPhi. Many of the ideas expressed within the novels mentioned make for good fiction. For example, the idea of the protagonist Takashi Kovacs, in Richard Morgans’s novel Altered Carbon, copying himself so he can be in two places at once. However these ideas become more interesting when the two versions of the character meet and decide together what will happen to themselves as one version has to die. For me, this decision was more interesting because it is not simply a question of someone existing or not, but rather questioning what the ability to copy oneself means to the person(s), and the self in relation to the mind/body dilemma. This inevitably leads to questions pertaining to what it means to exist, to experience the world, and the role experience has on deciding who we are, and who we become. Therefore, I do not discuss the real world arguments surrounding the possibility of upload-able minds, but focus on what such a feat would mean if actually achieved. The ability to up- and down-load one’s mind from a body into a computer, or vice versa, or from one body to another body are all concepts present in both Stross and Morgan’s novels and is nothing new within contemporary SciFi. Such arguments usually view the brain as housing the mind, where the mind is physical and, thereby, the seat of the self. Daniel Dennett 8 wrote a wonderful short story called Where Am I? in which his brain is saved after an accident. Here again we see philosophy dressed up in thought experiment and science fiction. As

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__________________________________________________________________ mentioned, these ideas are not new, nor are the arguments for and against them . In Stross’s Glasshouse, the characters are able to embody whatever or whomever they wish. The idea of creating an avatar in cyber-space is no longer a virtual, all but physically existent, pursuit, but do-able. In Surrogates 9 we see that the beautiful female surrogate, an android avatar, in reality turns out to be an overweight man, which itself spoofs the very fact that many overweight males play skinny, sexy, characters in online video games such as World of Warcraft. It is in this very creation of an avatar that delineates from one’s physical appearance that we see the use of control and communication of the systems of self. Cyberspace frees the self to be as it wishes and chooses. This process is taken into a physical reality in Stross’s Glasshouse. Yet, we rarely see the darker edges of what such freedom does to people. It is seen to be freeing and wonderful to design and decide who you will be today, yet we are never shown that there might be drawbacks in playing with one’s body. Similarly, in Greg Egan’s Permutation City 10 we are presented with the fact that the mind-copies uploaded to cyberspace can be switched off, or their mental states can be changed, or even delete sections they no longer like. Again, we never get the idea that this may be damaging. Perhaps it is something elusive to us at this stage. The point at which post-humanity changes who we are as people. However, in Morgan’s Altered Carbon, we find a very different view of the body in relation to the self. In Altered Carbon, the mind of a person can be downloaded and transmitted to another planet by what is called ‘needlecast transmission’. This procedure is easier than a manned space-flight, which is difficult, slow, and expensive. The downside is that if you do not have the money to clone a body (and not many people do), then you are ‘sleeved’ into a body you can afford, usually one belonging to someone who has been downloaded and transmitted elsewhere. Such re-sleeving in Morgan’s dystopia highlights that only the wealthy have choice, while everybody else must deal with what is given to them. For example, early in Altered Carbon, Morgan shows us what happens when a family does not recognise their husband/father because he has been sleeved in a body that isn’t his own. The relationship is alien at first because the family is expecting a specific (physical) person’s arrival, but are faced with someone, or something, else. Contrary to this, what happens when the ‘sleeve’ worn is recognised by others to be someone other than you? This is exactly what happens in Altered Carbon. The reader slowly finds out that Kovacs, the protagonist, is sleeved into a body that has a specific meaning for several other characters in the book, a deliberate ploy by the man who hired Kovacs, especially as he is rich enough to have Kovacs sleeved into any body he desired. In Stross’s storylines, there is a sense of freedom in changing the body and becoming who we are; technology allows transference and gives us freedom from our ‘original’ genetics. Morgan provides a vision of the body as imprisoned, which is the price one pays for travelling away from their planet, their home.

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__________________________________________________________________ The ability to look as we wish pushes the notion of the individual to the extreme. The ability to change the physical self pushes traditional perceptions of the physical self into flux, as do changes of mental states and memories. In many ways, the self is set free from its specific and un-changeable meat-body. What is strange, however, is that the characters always have bodies. They are forever portrayed as embodied beings. In Accelerando, the space-ship crew chooses to upload themselves to a cyberspace. In this space, the characters are able to decide what they look like and the environment they want to be in, much like the beginning of Icandescence, 11 by Greg Egan in which the characters are in a cyberspace and communicating, but each character has his or her own environment, language and avatar, so that one character may see everybody on the beach and the language being spoken as English, while another character may see everybody on a space station speaking a completely alien dialect. The notions of freedom, autonomy, and the creation of the wanted self are factors which influence science fiction through cyberculture, which itself comes through cybernetics. Cybernetics dates back to the early post-war years in America. Norbert Wiener coined the term ‘Cybernetics’ drawing on the ancient Greek term for ‘Steersman’. 12 It is also in this vein that Wiener subtitled his book ‘Control and Communication’. 13 Yet, the central aspect of Wiener’s thoughts was not ‘power’, but understanding: how humans, non-human animals, and machines functioned. So, ‘Steersman’ and ‘control and communication’ are of the self and the world of systems, not dominion over them. Wiener’s second book on cybernetics is entitled The Human use of Human Beings. The fear Wiener harboured was that the military or government would utilise these ideas, with what he believed were dark motives, to control people. In a philosophical sense, then, cybernetics, as viewed by Wiener, is about autonomy and freedom, ideas which are deeply rooted in the pages of Stross’s and Morgan’s plots. For example, Manny, in Accelerando is free of traditional nations and currency; and, in Glasshouse, the characters are free to design and re-design their bodies. This happens similarly to the characters in Accelerando in the second act, which takes place in Cyber-Space. This is tightly linked to the notions of cyberspace present in Gibson’s Neuromancer 14 and Bethke’s Headcrash. 15 It is also evident in Stephenson’s Snow Crash. 16 In these Cyber-spaces/places, it is possible to decide and design who you are, making you the master of your own destiny. All the ideas presented in these novels and within cybernetics itself revolve around the understanding of the systems that make something function. Most important are those underpinning the mind and body, where the communication and control between both are of the upmost importance. Speaking of memories, early in Accelerando, Stross introduces us to Bob, who is externally backing up his memories so that there will be a semblance of himself

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__________________________________________________________________ when he dies, if not the/a full upload. When we next encounter Bob, it is as a partial upload who is ‘performed’ for a collective as part of his charitable foundation bequest. People in his collective take turns channelling him. Once again the key questions resurface: what does this do to the mind/body disconnect? What does this say about who the person was, is, and continues to be beyond death? And what does this mean for experiences and memories (re)building? This question of who is a person, or what does the term person mean, engages with a core theme of the first novella of Accelerando, in which the idea of personhood is debated and discussed. What is or can be defined as a person, especially when uploading becomes possible and, especially, if other animates can also become conscious? This includes lobster uploads, or even cat-mind uploads which move Aineko, the protagonist’s android cat, forward in his evolution and consciousness. The notion of artificial intelligence, including android cats such as aineko, reaching a level of consciousness higher than that of a human is called the singularity. The whole idea of the singularity is that humans will no longer be the smartest in the room, let alone the smartest biological life forms in the room. How does this make us feel about consciousness, mind, body and the person? At the other end of the spectrum is the ‘eschaton’, the super Artificial Intelligence in Stross’s Singularity Sky 17 and Iron Sunrise. 18 This godlike form is not embodied. In many ways, it is easy to identify it as not-human because it lacks a body, for keeping a body keeps one human, as all humans have bodies. It can also be said that all that humans know is embodiment, making us unable to imagine or create what we do not know. This reconnects us with the idea of writing about truly alien or other people/things. Of course the other fascinating idea within Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise is the very fact that the eschaton was made by humankind and the very moment it was switched on, became sentient and copied itself to every point in time and decided to do something about the people on earth who were behaving like children. At the same time, eschaton also dictated rules governing how people would/should react in relation to itself. Therefore, the human’s godlike creation became God itself and took its parents in hand; God became a projection and creation of humanity. A key plot development, and interesting philosophical question, arises in Altered Carbon when Kovacs creates a copy of his mind, which is illegal in his world. Kovacs does this so that he can be in two places at once. Of course, once Kovacs accomplishes what he needed to do, the copy and the original meet to decide which one will be the primary Kovacs when they integrate their minds. Such a situation leads the reader to question the role of experience and its role in moulding who we are. After all, when Kovacs splits himself, both copies have the same memory up until that point. It is only as they start to experience different things that they diverge and become different people.

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__________________________________________________________________ Such questions of copying, authenticity and primacy, also come to a head when the starship crew of the Starwisp return to the solar system and are informed of what happened to their ‘original’ physical selves in Accelerando. This involves learning that the protagonist’s physical self is now bankrupt, which means that the uploaded copy is held liable and seen as bankrupt, resulting in her not having any way to re-embody herself. This leads to her accepting the help of her son, who was born while she was away and of whom she has neither knowledge nor memory. The protagonist also has no understanding of whom she married or why, and cannot work out why she would have pursued that course of action in the first place, as if the ‘original’ were not her, or she not the original. Woken Furies sees Takashi Kovacs hunted by an earlier version of himself, who is awakened and told that he has been suspended for several hundred years without his knowledge. However, for the reader, and for the older Kovacs when he finds out, it is not that simple. It is learned that the younger Kovacs was copied illegally. Additionally, the younger Kovacs is not a straight copy of Kovacs, not anymore, as he is a younger, different person. Throughout Woken Furies it is the older Kovacs we follow as the protagonist, as we did in the other two volumes, yet the other Kovacs in Woken Furies are no less original, only that the protagonist was a Kovacs copied earlier in his life. In seeing two different Kovacs, we are able to compare and contrast them, see what is important to them, how they operate, and why. Again, it gives rise to questions of who we are and how we become who we are. Also, if it is possible to make a copy of our mind and come back to it later, to interrogate it and learn about how history and experience change who we are and how we feel, what might we gain from this ability? This chapter has articulated a SciPhi which does not see or use science fiction as an introduction to philosophical issues, but instead sees science fiction as a legitimate source of philosophical speculation and argument. It is the power of fiction, specifically fantastical fiction, whether it is science fiction, fantasy or children’s stories, that allow thought experiments to take shape, and to answer ‘what-ifs’. Stories tell us about the world we inhabit and within which we function in such a way that they provoke our attention and curiosity. It is important to interact with stories, to look beyond the surface to see what they have to say. Sometimes it takes a little learning, but once learned one is able to see stories, in this case science fiction, not as escapism or stories for children, but as sources of meaningful engagement with the world around us.

Notes 1

C. Stross, Accelerando, Orbit, London, 2005. C. Stross, Glasshouse, Orbit, London, 2006. 3 C. Stross, Saturn’s Children, Orbit, London, 2008. 2

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R. Morgan, Altered Carbon, Gollancz, London, 2002. R. Morgan, Broken Angels, Gollancz, London, 2003. 6 R. Morgan, Woken Furies, Gollancz, London, 2005. 7 M. Rowlands, The Philosopher at the End of the Universe, Ebury, London, 2003. 8 D. Dennett, Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology, Bradford Books, 1978. 9 R. Venditti and B. Weldele, The Surrogates, Top Shelf Productions. 10 G. Egan, Permutation City, Orion, London, 1994. 11 G. Egan, Incandescence, Gollancz, London, 2008. 12 N. Wiener, Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, MIT Press, Cambridge 1965. 13 Ibid. 14 W. Gibson, Neuromancer, Gollancz, London, 1984. 15 B. Bethke, Headcrash, Orbit, London, 1995. 16 N. Stephenson, Snow Crash, Roc, London, 1993. 17 C. Stross, Singularity Sky, Orbit, London, 2004. 18 C. Stross, Iron Sunrise, Orbit, London, 2005. 5

Bibliography Bethke, B., Headcrash. Orbit, London, 1995. Dennett, D., Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology. Bradford Books 1978. Egan, G., Permutation City. Orion, London, 1994. —, Incandescence. Gollancz, London, 2008. Gibson, W. Neuromancer. Gollancz, London, 1984. Morgan, R., Altered Carbon. Gollancz, London, 2002. —, Broken Angels. Gollancz, London, 2003. —, Woken Furies. Gollancz, London, 2005. Rowlands, M., The Philosopher at the End of the Universe. Ebury, London, 2003. Stephenson, N., Snow Crash. Roc, London, 1993.

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__________________________________________________________________ Stross, C., Accelerando. Orbit, London, 2005. —, Glasshouse. Orbit, London, 2006. —, Iron Sunrise. Orbit, London, 2005. —, Saturn’s Children. Orbit, London, 2008. —, Singularity Sky. Orbit, London, 2004. Venditti, R. and Weldele, B., The Surrogates. Top Shelf Productions, 2006. Wiener, N., Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. MIT Press, Cambridge, 1965. Benjamin Manktelow is an anthropologist and archaeologist who has just finished his Mphil at the University of Sheffield. His main research interests are the philosophy and anthropology of science and technology and role they play in society and culture.

Human Magic, Fairy Technology and the Place of the Supernatural in the Age of Cyberculture Anna Bugajska Abstract Artemis Fowl, written at the dawn of the twenty-first century by Eoin Colfer, hails a new era of cyberculture, one so immersed in technology that even a book for young adults is hardly understandable without the knowledge of a specialized jargon. Part of the success of Colfer’s series lies in his striking combination of supernatural and technical elements. He forces us to take a new vantage point, which no longer allows for the ordinary division of the ‘technical’ from the ‘magical.’ In the age of cyberculture, yesterday’s magic is today’s technology. The twentieth century was a time of rapid technological advancement. Even at its start, one could read in Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough how technology had replaced the magical, the supernatural, and the fantastic. More than a century later, however, we cannot confirm his description. The two spheres co-exist and merge, being indispensable for humans. The ‘Supernatural’, the ‘magical’, and the ‘fantastic’ become separated, which is clearly visible in Artemis Fowl. All of these, traditionally considered together, come to interact with a highly technical world: fairies deprived of natural wings use their artificial counterparts; dwarves are practically walking machines; invisibility is achieved by ‘shielding’; and Artemis uses ‘human magic’ to heal a fairy, but must rack his brain to escape ‘fairy technology’. The convergence point comes at the search for a Booke of Magick and at a failed ritual performance. This chapter intends to examine the consequences of the meeting of these two worlds. Apparently, the supernatural has not been swallowed up by technology, and is vital to human life. It is, rather, our approach to it that has changed; and this needs to be discussed. In the face of scientific progress, we have to redefine our stance and combine ‘fairy’ with ‘technology’. Key Words: Artemis Fowl, Colfer, supernatural, technology, magic, Cyberculture. ***** 1. Introduction The second decade of the twenty-first century opens with a vibrant keynote, connecting a sci-fi, highly technological world with a widely popular sword-andmagic swashbuckling adventure story. Kids flock to the theatres to learn from a juvenile technician how to train their own dragons, as a more mature audience is lured by the fluorescent world wide web of Pandora, presented in James Cameron’s Avatar. If this accord of technology and magic does not strike us as a

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__________________________________________________________________ dissonance, it is because somehow this connection seems to us in tune with what we intuit about our nature as human beings. Cyberculture, as noted by Lèvy, is a space in which culture, society and technology permeate one another, creating a fluid, processional environment of ever-shifting particles. 1 If we touch one of them, there is the immediate shooting of synapses, inviting us to embrace more than we originally intended. Although a century ago the realms of technology and magic were set at opposite poles by Frazer, 2 these concepts are now brought together. By delving into the mythologies of the past we rediscover the truth known to archaic societies: it was the blacksmith who was complementary to the shaman, 3 so technology and magic have been intertwined all along. The re-emergence of this idea to the surface of our collective-cultural consciousness could be spotted ten years ago in literature. The dealings of the infamous teenage criminal, Artemis Fowl, saw the light thanks to his selfproclaimed biographer, Eoin Colfer, unearthing at the same time the underworld of high-tech fairies, equipped with iris-cams, detachable wings and electrocuting batons. The LEPrecon Captain, Holly Short, spurting out specialized jargon, is a long shot from charmingly malicious Tinker Bell. Artemis, a twelve-year-old child prodigy, flanked with his faithful bodyguards, Butler and Jill, sets off on a quest not unlike the challenge humanity faces in the age of cyberculture. Since the death of God, famously announced by Nietzsche, orphaned humans have been seeking to access the supernatural world by means of psychology and culture studies, or to explain away the inexplicable with the use of natural sciences, in the attempt to master the world. 4 Similarly, Artemis tries to step into his missing father’s shoes to restore the family fortune. He ceases to be on the constant lookout for Artemis Senior’s return, focusing instead on his goal: fairy treasure, which he hopes to obtain by illegal means. Is the young criminal mastermind, then, an example of the ‘last man’, 5 interested solely in material gain, and forsaking morality for worldly riches? Indeed, the coat of arms of his family reads Aurum est potestas, which would suggest such an interpretation. However, in the course of the story, we learn that said gold is strongly associated with the supernatural, so connected by a special link with the fairies. 6 If we borrow Mr Pullman’s alethiometer and substitute ‘gold’ with ‘fairy’, and this with ‘supernatural’, we face an equation which is not easily dismissed. For if the supernatural is in fact what young Artemis seeks and desires, what is its character and quality? In a world where fairies rely on blasters and bio-bombs to take out their enemies, is there any place for good ol’ magic? Or is it, by any chance, homogenous with ‘man-made magic’, 7 i.e., technology?

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__________________________________________________________________ 2. Hand, Head and Heart The alliterative ‘hand, head, heart’ title of this section of the discussion invites an association with nursery rhymes, and, perhaps, causes us to imagine children standing in a circle, waiting to be counted ‘out’, or dubbed ‘it’, in some game. Yet, in this enumeration, none of the constituent parts of the system can be discarded without a threat to the integrity of the whole. In this three-dimensional reality of human interior, we are aiming at the convergence point, rather than pursuing each of these axes individually to infinity and beyond. Traditionally, in our handling of the perceived world, it would be ‘head’ and ‘heart’ that contend for primacy. The eighteenth century clash between the rigidly scientific ‘head’ and the divinely inspired ‘heart’ has become, by now, a classic. What tends to be overlooked, however, is the third factor, namely, the ‘hand’. It expresses the stance of understanding the human being as a tool-maker, who subdues the Earth and has dominion over all creation. While initially, the heartman looked for salvation in divine providence, after the death of God, he was forced to take refuge in a sterile and ordered world of science, with ‘head’ necessarily gaining ascendancy. Technology was employed in the service of dissecting reality and understanding it better, and found its niche as a sort of technoscience. Yet, since it exists in opposition to the spiritual side of humanity, the two were perceived as parallel and separate. If we accept this vision of the three axes of the human predicament, then we clearly see that pursuing only one of them leads nowhere. With the development of technology, humanity as tool-maker reached out to embrace the heart. As a result, a new hybrid was created, which, for the sake of this discussion, we can call ‘technospirituality’. The visible form of technospirituality may be spotted in such phenomena as technopaganism. In Grahame’s Representations of the post/human we read that the: digital world is animated and enchanted, that information technology is the continuation of hidden codifications of wisdom known only to initiates, and in their recovery of neopagan rituals to celebrate not only the cycles of nature but the wonders of technological invention, such high-tech adepts are the direct descendents of the hermetic magi. 8 The associations with memory and an arcane elitist knowledge are, perhaps, those which most ring true in our daily experience of a more and more technicized world. The modern quest for knowledge resembles the journey of the Gnostic search for enlightenment. 9 It is popular to seek spiritual experiences through techniques, trying to control and channel the sacred. While pure reason and unrestrained fantasy each proved unreliable, technology remained the only option.

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__________________________________________________________________ Such a stance is clearly visible in Colfer’s book, where overblown emotions are locked away in the dark and dusty attic, in the person of Angelina, Artemis’s mother, who, after her husband’s disappearance, descends into mental illness. She suffers from delusions, photophobia, and mood swings, leaving the young criminal to his own schemes. Any association between hallucination and the supernatural is renounced. 10 It appears, the question of the ‘physical’ vs. the ‘virtual’ is no longer valid. ‘I see,’ fibbed Butler. ‘Metaphorically or literally?’ smiled his employer. ‘Exactly.’ 11 As long as the bodyguard sees something clearly, the matter of the ‘reality’ of the experience is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the degree of trust we can put in our equipment. On the other hand, science is perceived as a mere prop for the efficient handling of the world. Root, the Commander of the fairy LEPrecon force, finds it hard to cooperate with Foaly the chief scientist, and psychoanalysts are openly ridiculed. As Root says, ‘science is taking magic out of everything.’ 12 The directness of the experience is lost, as Foaly ‘feels’ Holly’s pain through sensors, removing the ‘human factor’ from the time-stopping ritual. Magic in Artemis’s world exists only in a rudimentary form of blue sparks, which are used for healing and regeneration, and of mesmer, used for hypnothising. It is the very power both to subdue Nature and to gain domination over people, which Artemis seeks to obtain in his attempts to restore the family fortune. Thus, it bears an uncommon resemblance to technology, which is used to excess by both sides of the conflict use. The key to the world of fairies is the Booke of Magick, which Artemis coerces from one of them. He learns their secret language and their rules, which he later uses to fulfil his wishes. Culture, with its symbols to be deciphered, stands at the convergence point of the supernatural and the human worlds, opening the door to creation through imagination. 3. The Ghost in the Machine The Booke of Magick must necessarily assume a form that is acceptable and easily manageable in the contemporary world. Thus, each leaf is photographed with a digital camera; and the images are stored in multiple files, saved to minidiscs, and projected into virtual space with the help of the internet. The mechanical decoding of the fairy language is taken care of by Artemis’s computer translator. The humans are left only with ‘jigsaws’ to rearrange and make sense of the disconnected pieces. 13

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__________________________________________________________________ The supernatural, then, is forcefully put into a man-made machine, and acclimates there pretty well. It is drawn into the world wide web of associations, instantly linked to ancient cultures, and digested through analytical systems. Not only Mud People (i.e. humans), but the fairy People as well, cram their magic into technical devices, as is the case with the ritual of time-stopping, channelled by Foaly to the lithium batteries. Are not Colfer’s fairies then, yet another version of the ghost in the machine dilemma? Science fiction offers us cyborgs, animated with artificial intelligence. Instead of breathing life into a new construct, people reheat old mythologies to suit the age of technology. Supernatural creatures, locked in the realm of fantasy and armed with advanced weaponry, are now gaining ground. The age-old stories look slightly different when processed through the modern mind, just as the Booke of Magick had to change its form to be analysed by Artemis. Cyber-fairies do not wield wands, but electrocuting batons, and are largely deprived of traditionally sacred powers. The abilities of ‘farseeing’, ‘farhearing’, invisibility, and flying appear to be possible thanks only to advanced technology. The actual ‘magic’, in the shape of blue sparks, much akin to electricity, is kept in a rudimentary form to enhance natural processes in the organism (as is the case with regeneration). Other than that, it is present in the life of fairies as a system of rules, preventing the supernatural from interacting too closely with the human. Thus, breaking into a human household results in the instant loss of magical powers; and disobeying host’s eyeball orders is punished with a severe allergic reaction. However, one can live without this kind of magic, as demonstrated in the examples of Holly and Mulch. They can work efficiently without resorting to tricks; and the protection against mesmer is all too simple: putting on sunglasses provides enough security from supernatural influence. Fairies, eons ahead of humans in the realm of technology, bear a resemblance to medieval intelligences. 14 Still, divinities, with their magic, now come under the threat of becoming mere tools for achieving human desires. Artemis uses the laws of the fairy world to heal his mother, but keeps fairy treasure as well, being the ultimate winner of the human vs. supernatural clash. The characters of Artemis Fowl live in the abstract, virtual space, where the body is redundant. The ‘disembodied breathing’ of Commander Root meets Artemis’s voice, coming from a box. 15 Explaining away supernatural phenomena by the means of science, concerned with the physical, becomes inadequate. Instead of trying to fit the supernatural into the natural, we ponder the utility of the phenomena that appear to us in the virtual world. More often than not, the interaction depends on outsmarting the other party, with crime and violence commonly serving as the currency of exchange.

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__________________________________________________________________ 4. Conclusion If the quest for the supernatural in cybernetic space is fraught with so much danger (not to mention morally dubious actions), is it worth pursuing? Fairies themselves wish to remain hidden safely in their Haven and avoid the hazards of contacting Mud People. Yet, both races are threatened by uncontrollable predators, trolls, and both seek to eliminate them. It appears that in order to rise above our animal instincts we must turn to the supernatural and risk the unstable balance that it brings. One of the many aims of young Artemis is to escape the time field, in which he and his companions are trapped. Thanks to the observation of his mother Angelina, he learns that the rigid rules of the fourth dimension do not apply to individuals who are sunken in their unconscious. To escape death from a bio-bomb, he finds it necessary to remove himself from the realm of consciousness. This breaking from human constraints is in agreement with the transhumanist aim to escape mortality, and testifies to a new kind of idealism, tailored to the needs of modern times. Artemis Fowl, it appears, is a book that invites us into a virtual world that is wholly dependent on imagination. This time, however, the goal is not to provide us with an escape from a harsh everyday reality, but to suggest that we create our own world, one which we can tame and inhabit by means of technology. To battle our trolls we must don medieval suits of armour, with the combination of magic and modern appliances giving us every chance at survival.

Notes 1

P. Lèvy, Cyberculture, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2001, p. 1. J. Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, January, 2003, http://www.manybooks.com, pp. 26 and 37. 3 M.A. Czaplicka, Shamanism in Siberia: Aboriginal Siberia, A study in Social Anthropology, Forgotten Books, 2007, http://books.google.pl/books?id=o9b4L67 k528C&pg=PA58&dq=shamans+descend+from+blacksmiths&hl=pl&ei=AAj1S9 HiDNCssAaex5iIBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6 AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false, Viewed on 20 May 2010, p. 58. 4 L.W. Ortmann, ‘Human Nature and the Creation of New Values’, Journal of the Alabama Academy of Science, July 2004, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/ mi_hb178/is_34_75/ai_n29150666/?tag=content;col1, Viewed on 20 May 2010. 5 B. Waters, From Human to Posthuman: Christian Theology and Technology in a Postmodern World, Ashgate Publishing, Farnham, 2006, p. 25. 6 E. Colfer, Artemis Fowl, Puffin Books, London, 2002, p. 255. 7 Ibid., p. 13. 8 E.L. Graham, Representations of the Post/human: Monsters, Aliens and Others in Popular Culture, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2002, p. 168. 2

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J.A. Herrick, The Making of the New Spirituality: The Eclipse of the Western Religious Tradition, InterVarsity Press, Westmont, 2004, p. 272. 10 see, e.g., Colfer, op. cit., p. 233. 11 Ibid., p. 131. 12 Ibid., p. 94. 13 Ibid., p. 28. 14 Herrick, op. cit., p. 275. 15 Colfer, op. cit., pp. 108-109.

Bibliography Colfer, E., Artemis Fowl. Puffin Books, London, 2002. Czaplicka, M.A., Shamanism in Siberia: Aboriginal Siberia, A study in Social Anthropology. Forgotten Books, 2007, http://books.google.pl/books?id=o9b4L67 k528C&pg=PA58&dq=shamans+descend+from+blacksmiths&hl=pl&ei=AAj1S9 HiDNCssAaex5iIBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6 AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false. Viewed on 20 May 2010. Frazer, Sir J., The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. January, 2003, http://www.manybooks.com. Graham, E.L., Representations of the Post/Human: Monsters, Aliens and Others in Popular Culture. Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2002. Herrick, J.A., The Making of the New Spirituality: The Eclipse of the Western Religious Tradition. InterVarsity Press, Westmont, 2004. Lèvy, P., Cyberculture. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2001. Ortmann, L.W., ‘Human Nature and the Creation of New Values’. Journal of the Alabama Academy of Science. July 2004. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb1 78/is_34_75/ai_n29150666/?tag=content;col1. Viewed on 20 May 2010 Waters, B., From Human to Posthuman: Christian Theology and Technology in a Postmodern World. Ashgate Publishing, Farnham, 2006. Anna Bugajska is a PhD student at the Jagiellonian University of Cracow in Poland. Her main fields of study are children’s and fantasy literature, 18th-century literature and the Age of Sensibility. She is interested in anthropology, history of ideas and comparative studies.

Part V The Future of Humanity in Film and Television

Enemy Metaphors and the Countdown for Mankind in the American TV Series Space: Above and Beyond and Battlestar Galactica Petra Rehling Abstract Nearly ten years lie between the two American television series, Space: Above and Beyond (S:AAB) and the highly acclaimed Battlestar Galactica (BSG), an extremely political drama and product of the Bush administration period. This chapter analyses how both shows are connected to reality, how they deal with the intensity of human emotions in times of war and inner crisis in a highly militarized and technological environment, and how we could come to understand our ‘technological selves’ through a show like BSG. While the humans in S:AAB are facing a totally alien and hostile life form, the enemy in BSG was created by humankind itself. These sentient AIs turn out to be the mirror-image of humanity at its worst; they have chosen to remodel themselves in the image of their makers in what looks like an attempt to infiltrate and destroy the rest of humankind. In the stand-off between humans and enemy fractions, the alien ‘Other’ in S:AAB or the Cylons (‘toasters’) in BSG, both sides are attempting to justify their own survival and searching for reasons to commit genocide. In S:AAB, the treatment of In Vitros (‘tanks’), genetically engineered humans, symbolizes a first level in the alienation of humankind from other life forms and, as it were, from its own humanity, which then culminates in the wars against the Silicates (AIs) and the ‘Chigs.’ While first peace talks with the adversary in S:AAB end in disaster, the conflict in BSG is eventually resolved and humankind – ‘lesson learned’ – discards its technological heritage to return to a life in nature, only to begin a new cycle of slow ‘dehumanization.’ BSG is about humankind’s journey to (re-)discover its humanity and the struggle with itself after a catastrophe, but it is also about the Cylons’ quest for self-definition, two journeys which, as it turns out, have the same destination. In both shows the fight is as much with the enemy outside as it is with the enemy inside, the loss or the gain of what it means to be human. Key Words: TV, enemy, other, mankind, artificial intelligence, technology. ***** 1. Introduction The new Battlestar Galactica (BSG) series was produced during the era of the Bush administration, a time of militarization, fear and attack on human rights and freedoms. Space: Above and Beyond (S:AAB) came out in a different time, when genetic engineering was the latest media scare. So much has changed between then and now. Today, both shows are often discussed alongside each other, due to their

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__________________________________________________________________ similarities in content and atmosphere. S:AAB is regularly identified as a precursor to BSG, which has picked up some of the earlier show’s threads and ideas. Among other parallels, humans in both tales are in some way related to their enemies and go through confrontations that could read ‘human nature fighting itself.’ In BSG humankind’s journey in the end converges with the Cylons’ own identity quest and helps both sides to discover or rediscover humanity and initiate an understanding of the enemy as ‘next of kin.’ In BSG this is done by encouraging the audience to explore its own technological heritage and becoming. In S:AAB technology and humans are not blending into each other like they do in BSG. Otherness is never completely negated; therefore, when one alien in the end tells the humans about their genetic relationship, this merely serves to further alienate the opponents. In both tales the fight is both with the enemy outside and inside. In confrontations with Others and by facing extinction, a mirror is held up to humanity and, as in reality, the countdown for mankind is running. 2. Enemies In BSG we are always reminded that the clock is ticking for humankind. Many viewers have noticed that the Cylons’ rationale to eliminate all humans seems logical; their machine minds have ‘calculated’ their odds of survival, but it is wise to say that there is no moral superiority among the Cylons. However, despite their devastating first strike, Cylons do not appear as a classic genocidal culture. They do not use language to demean humans or try to prolong or enjoy the annihilation. However, we later learn about their fascistic breeding factories, their prison and torture camp on New Caprica, and their rather dirty development of humanoid models. Thus, even if they considered their odds, Daniel J. Goldhagen would say that ‘genocide is a political, and purposefully calculated, act.’ 1 We see how the Cylons’ eliminationist notion is later reviewed by some individuals, such as the characters Six, Sharon and others. Consequently, their change of heart should and ultimately does annul the human rationalization to eliminate the Cylons in return. Human distrust against the Cylons is based in their clone-like community, which makes it difficult to identify or become an individual. It is easy to accuse them as a collective. They do look a lot alike, which makes it easier to kill them. Enemies are often perceived as faceless in war; see, for example, the way Westerners often perceive terrorists as being characteristic of and indistinguishable from the other members of the ethnic, cultural, and/or religious communities they ‘represent,’ thus identifying all members as potential threats. How similar Cylons are to humans is shown when the human fleet finds its own opportunity for a genocidal counter strike and the human leaders do not hesitate to carry it out. They are stopped only by an individual who calls the bio-attack a ‘crime against humanity’ 2 and commits what any real government would call an act of high treason. Goldhagen says that ‘They started it’ is an emotionally

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__________________________________________________________________ powerful rationale used by children on the playground as well as men, and is especially powerful when they really did start it and continue their attacks, but we should understand all eliminationist acts as criminal. 3 Enemies need to be Others, they need to be dehumanized, so that we can justify our own equally hideous actions and move on to eradicate them. Enemies are thus identified by names that stress and demean their difference. In S:AAB humans call In Vitros ‘tanks’ or ‘nipple-necks,’ the aliens are ‘Chigs,’ Silicates are ‘walking computers,’ ‘units’ or ‘things.’ On the other side, Silicates call humans ‘carbonites,’ and even the aliens have a term for humans, ‘red stench.’ In BSG the Cylons are ‘skin-jobs,’ ‘chrome-jobs’ or ‘toasters.’ The Cylons are the only Other in this list who manage to enrich the word ‘human’ with otherness without turning it into a swearword. In contrast to the Cylons, the Silicates have rudimentary emotions; they can act independently through their ‘Take a Chance’ virus, but their decisions are based on chance, not reason. They are gamblers and their ‘freedom’ is mechanical, and their reactions can be triggered like some kind of automatism. When the show first aired, viewers likely focussed on the humanness of these AIs; they have some kind of evolution and emotions, but in comparison with the Cylons, the Silicates are clearly portrayed as artificial. They need batteries, emit computer sounds, have wires in their faces, and are not really killed, but, rather, ‘turned off’ or ‘exterminated.’ They cannot reproduce and come with an expiry date, they are childish and flawed creations, and their extinction is desired by humans and considered just a matter of time. In the world of this story, there is not even a rudimentary discussion about them being ‘people.’ Genetic relatives like the Chigs or In Vitros remain Other because they stay unfamiliar. Mere knowledge about difference often suffices to trigger hatred, as religious conflicts continue to prove. In Vitros look like us, but they were not ‘born’ in the human sense, they were grown and harvested and as a result are only one step away from being ‘artificial intelligence.’ In the 1990s, the Orwellian idea that humans could be designed continued very much to scare the public; while today’s technological advances have caused the ideas of designer children and beyond, sound less and less like science fiction. While the humans in S:AAB struggle with their humanity, the In Vitro Cooper Hawkes develops a human identity, much like the Cylons do in BSG. Here, however, the show seems to follow a certain clichéd checklist for what it means to be human. Hawkes learns through his life as a solider about love, friendship and more. In a way, like the Silicates, he rebels against his ‘programming’ as a human assassin, which is something the Silicates are unable to comprehend. In comparison, another In Vitro in this tale, McQueen, fails to rise above his training as a soldier, which does not however make him less human, but hints at the idea that soldiers have a lot in common with machines.

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__________________________________________________________________ It is primarily the Chigs who progressively enrage and scare the humans in S:AAB; they seem faceless, cruel and cunning. There are only brief encounters when communication seems possible. Mostly they are an invisible enemy, like fighters in the Vietnam War. Their presence looms in their terrifying weaponry and planes, their bodies hidden in space suits, causing them all to look the same. A human face of the enemy is presented in their Silicate allies, who often speak in the name of the aliens. But when, at the end of the show, the first alien face is shown, the humans cannot read it, and thus remain suspicious of the peace talks the aliens initiate, which are therefore doomed to fail. 3. Finding Earth Humanity is doomed, and nothing we can do will change this. Charles Eisenstein states ‘It is already too late.’ 4 He claims that there is a ‘purpose to the Fall’ 5 and humanity’s demise will come from the separation from each other and the world around. 6 In a way, Eisenstein creates the ultimate ‘enemy metaphor’ in nature itself by saying ‘The world is an Other.’ 7 The Galactica story is a condensed version about the fall of humankind. In the end, humans and Cylons unite to settle on Earth, and it is, literally, a miracle that guides them there. Charles Eisenstein speaks also of a miracle that will save humanity. His miracle however is less divine. He believes the world as we know it (and not per se) will come to an end. 8 Humanity will save itself through a change of motivation and organizing principles of technology, 9 new kinds of materialism and eco-friendly, new-age lifestyles. To achieve this, Eisenstein concludes, we will have to face the ultimate evil before we will ‘choose’ to step up to a higher level of humanity. 10 In fact, we are dealing with a double separation in BSG; humans have split from nature and from their technological selves. The reunification of Cylons and humans is not a final solution, but just the beginning of another cycle in what Eisenstein calls ‘the tides of separation and reunion,’ 11 initiated by handing down the technological gene to the next generations. Humanity is a technological species whose technological evolution feeds back into biological evolution. 12 The idea in BSG to move ‘beyond civilization,’ to leave the idea of building cities behind, is also in line with Daniel Quinn’s thought experiment in Beyond Civilization. Quinn suggests a change of lethal ‘memes’ and a return to tribal values and organization structures. 13 He understands this ‘New Tribal Revolution’ 14 not as old-style ethnic tribalism, but as new coalitions of people as equals who try to make a living. 15 In BSG the separation in the end is temporarily healed, but Eisenstein and Quinn’s ideas are revealed as idealistic when the story jumps to the cities of the future. Mankind has begun a new cycle. Although human nature is meant to return to nature, human separation from nature is like destiny; all we can do is forever yearn for it. Ultimately, so Eisenstein contends, technology will again distance us from nature. 16 Our genetic memory of nature is like nostalgia, an ideal that is eternally out of reach. ‘Finding Earth’ is, literally, humanity’s never-ending quest.

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__________________________________________________________________ 4. Technological Self In BSG the question is not whether AIs are human, but if humankind is. Humans have separated themselves from their technological self, but ultimately the Cylons make the same mistake by separating their human natures from their more mechanical selves. The human models distance themselves from the Raiders and Centurions, who in addition lose their ability to speak. Like humans, Cylons are scared of the free will of their mechanical selves and choose to lobotomize or constrict them. They make the same mistake humans did, who made slaves out of their robots. Because it was the Centurions who first created the human models; and, once again, the children turn on their parents, just as the Cylon robots turned on humanity. If we want to see the AIs in BSG as a metaphor for humanity, we can see it in their evolution, which did not reach for perfection. John C. Avise argues that natural selection in humans does not aim to create a more perfect species, but follows the short-term reproductive interests of individuals. 17 The Cylon god could be a substitute for Avise’s ‘genetic gods.’ He says that evolutionary processes are ‘mechanistic’ in nature and guided by a totally amoral and thoughtless natural selection. 18 The desire to be human shows in the Cylons’ desire for their flaws. At first this appears to be an odd idea of improvement and perfection. But replacing resurrection or quasi immortality with birth just means replacing one type of immortality with another. The ‘technological self’ is indestructible. The resurrection ship symbolises an anchor to a mechanistic self and prevents Cylons from becoming human. They discover that without death there is no meaning to life, especially when their being ‘alive’ is questionable from the start. ‘Genetic immortality,’ after all, is another type of mechanism, ‘biological mechanism.’ 19 It has a close relationship to sexuality which could make it as desirable as mechanic immortality. The Cylons are depicted as a sexualized species with female characteristics and strong female figures that help to amplify the sexual connotations and language of the show. This feminine facet does in fact serve the Cylon quest for identity. Explanations for why humans have sex include procreation, family bonding and ‘enjoyment.’ 20 If ‘[e]volving is not a goal but a means to solving a problem,’ 21 then the problem Cylons desire to solve is that of becoming human through selfreproduction, not replication. Avise’s understanding of the genetic gods could explain the religiosity of the Cylon race. Many researchers now understand religiosity as influenced by the genes. Avise calls the genetic god’s ‘material agents,’ which have ‘wrestled from the supernatural god’s considerable authority over human affairs.’ 22 BSG clearly voices contemporary desires to bridge old chasms between science and spirituality. The difference in how AIs are represented in S:AAB therefore shows how far our relationship to technology has advanced over only a decade.

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__________________________________________________________________ It is popular to interpret the Cylons as people, but they are also machines. For them humanness is a choice. Some models choose to turn their back on humanity or dismiss it from the start. An understanding of our bodies as machines roots in the fact that human life clearly is evolving from the natural to the artificial. The Cylons represent this ‘otherness in ourselves.’ 23 The desire to go beyond what is humanly, sensory and intellectually possible is traditionally at the core of drug use and now part of the fascination with virtual reality. The Cylons exemplify our inner debates and the fear that the knowledge we crave could trigger our demise. At the end of ‘The Plan,’ Cylon Cavil opposes the other models’ fascination with the human condition; he voices feelings of confinement and entrapment in his human body: ‘I’m a machine, and I can know much more.’ Ironically, though coming from a machine, his is the human voice of our time. Many researchers have hope that a future machine consciousness may choose humanity as the final stage of machine evolution and that humanity could embrace new hybrid life forms. Storrs J. Hall believes that the AI of the future will be capable of morality, and, therefore, advises that humans provide them with a conscience. 24 5. Conclusion BSG and S:AAB are not tales about post-humanism; human bodies are not redundant or merging with computerized creations. 25 It is ‘humanness’ or human materialism, not technological transcendence that reside at the cores of these stories. In BSG, humanity reaches a phase when it briefly understands itself completely and sets a course for life. But after this climax, it, once again, drifts and even tears itself apart. This tearing is done by first distancing humankind from nature and then distancing it from technology. Humans put a piece of themselves in their avatars, like artists who put a piece of their soul into their work. Like a chemical reaction, these divided human natures strive for completion and, in the very moment of success, inevitably set in motion a new process of rejection. BSG is telling us to embrace our technological heritage and self as part of human nature, a genetic condition we cannot and should not try to escape, despite is selfdestructiveness. But lessons can be learned from past failures. Eisenstein observes that warnings from past civilizations do exist in our world and in our myths; we simply don’t care to listen to them. 26 In S:AAB the tale remains unfinished, the ending both fabricated and unsatisfactory. In this version, we are offered only a glimpse of humanity’s path. The opportunity to embrace both otherness and oneself remain out of reach. Now that even the sanctuaries of human bodies are progressively designed by technology (e.g. growing up attached to iPods, mobile phones and chip cards), how can we still fear the technology carry in our pockets willingly? Therefore, it is no wonder that the robots in the stories of our time consistently have human faces.

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Notes 1

D.J. Goldhagen, Worse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity, Public Affairs, New York, 2009, p. 167. 2 Helo in Season 3, Episode 7. 3 Goldhagen, op. cit., pp. 201-204. 4 C. Eisenstein, The Ascent of Humanity, Panenthea Press, Harrisburg, 2007, p. 434. 5 Ibid., p. 534. 6 Ibid., p. 3. 7 Eisenstein, op. cit., p. 31. 8 Ibid., p. 438. 9 Ibid. 10 Eisenstein, op. cit., p. 534. 11 Ibid., p. 537. 12 Ibid., p. 59. 13 D. Quinn, Beyond Civilization: Humanity’s Next Great Adventure, Three Rivers Press, New York, 1999, p. 24. 14 Ibid., p. 163. 15 Ibid., p. 147. 16 Eisenstein, op. cit., p. 7. 17 J.C. Avise, The Genetic Gods: Evolution and Belief in Human Affairs, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, 1998, p. 14. 18 Ibid., pp. 50-51. 19 Ibid., p. 4. 20 Avise, op. cit., p. 125. 21 M. Ridley, The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature, Penguin, New York, 1993, p. 31. 22 Avise, op. cit., pp. 203-204. 23 C. Wertheim, ‘Star Trek First Contact: The Hybrid, the Whore and the Machine’, Aliens R Us: The Other in Science Fiction Cinema, Z. Sardar and S. Cubitt (eds), Pluto, London, 2002, p. 91. 24 J.S. Hall, Beyond AI: Creating the Conscience of the Machine, Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, 2007, pp. 346 and 367. 25 M. Kaku, Visions: How Science will Revolutionize the 21st Century and Beyond, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998, p. 17. 26 Eisenstein, op. cit., p. 544.

Bibliography Avise, J.C., The Genetic Gods: Evolution and Belief in Human Affairs. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, 1998.

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__________________________________________________________________ Eisenstein, C., The Ascent of Humanity. Panenthea Press, Harrisburg, 2007. Goldhagen, D.J., Worse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity. Public Affairs, New York, 2009. Hall, J.S., Beyond AI: Creating the Conscience of the Machine. Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, 2007. Kaku, M., Visions: How Science will Revolutionize the 21st Century and Beyond. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998. Quinn, D., Beyond Civilization: Humanity’s Next Great Adventure. Three Rivers Press, New York, 1999. Ridley, M., The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. Penguin, New York, 1993. Wertheim, C., ‘Star Trek First Contact: The Hybrid, the Whore and the Machine’. Aliens R Us: The Other in Science Fiction Cinema. Sardar, Z. and Cubitt, S. (eds), Pluto, London, 2002. Petra Rehling is Assistant Professor in the English Department at Dayeh University, Taiwan. Her research interests are media and cultural studies with a focus on popular culture, television and new media. She has published a book on Hong Kong cinema and several articles on the Harry Potter phenomenon.

Quest for Closure: Re-Visioning Humanity in Battlestar Galactica Dagmara Zając Abstract According to Russell Reising, no social text can resolve in its imaginative work the various crises and tensions that characterize the world of its genesis. The chapter examines the numerous narrative slips and loose ends that one may encounter while watching one of the most original and provocative sci-fi series of our time, which is Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica. The series is frequently described as controversial in that it upends some of science-fiction’s most recognizable clichés: the supposedly evil Cylon androids are principled and deeply religious, whereas most humans – including the figures of authority – emerge as fallible and often dishonest. Throughout the four airing seasons, the story abounds in unresolved mysteries, inconclusive episode endings and loose ends. Some developments in the storyline might be described as downright illogical; what is more, the ending lacks closure which would satisfy the disturbed viewer. I want to argue that this particular inability to close results from the series trying to confront the problem of the very survival of the human race in the post-industrial, or even post-humanistic era. I believe that there is a profound sense of anxiety inspiring this disruptive story, and for that reason alone it simply cannot close. It seems impossible to merely assume that Galactica’s quest is the quest for redemption: if the humans are being punished for going too far in the field of science and technology, why do the Cylon androids seem so very human? When our own creations turn against us and there is no place to go, there is a need to revise the most basic assumptions for our existence as a species. The chapter presents how Battlestar Galactica attempts to place humanity in this entirely new and unprecedented context. Key Words: Battlestar Galactica, closure, loose ends. ***** Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica, which is a reimagining of a 1978 TV series, has won widespread acclaim among many mainstream non-genre publications. Time and New York Newsday named it the best show on television in 2005. Other publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, National Review and Rolling Stone magazine also gave the show positive reviews. The critics and fans alike agree that the show transcends in some way the science fiction genre. Diane Werts of Newsday wrote: ‘You can look at this saga any way you want—as political drama, religious debate, psychological suspenser, sci-fi adventure, deep metaphor or just plain fun—and it’s scintillating from every angle.’ 1 Most reviewers emphasize that there is more to Battlestar Galactica than ‘plain fun,’ having two main reasons in mind.

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__________________________________________________________________ First of all, it is supposed to be ‘realistic’ and at the same time it upends some of science-fiction’s most recognizable clichés: the supposedly evil Cylon androids are principled and deeply religious, whereas most humans – including the figures of authority – emerge as fallible and often dishonest. The other important reason is that the show is said to reflect the fears and concerns of contemporary society. Joshua Alston of Newsweek declares that the show ‘captures better than any other TV drama of the past eight years the fear, uncertainty and moral ambiguity of the post-9/11 world’ 2 According to Joanna Weiss of the Boston Globe, ‘This is a show about religion, politics, parent-child relationships, and the moral dilemmas of insurgency. Consider it a workplace drama where the business is armed resistance.’ 3 The impression that the show is anchored in reality is strengthened by the myriad of external references and symbols of many kinds that abound in the show. Let us consider a few of the more interesting examples, redirecting the viewer outside the Battlestar Galactica universe. What we often get are the religious references, such as those referring to the Old Testament: in the tenth episode of the first season, President Roslin sees snakes on her podium while giving a press conference regarding the fuel shortage. She speaks with Priestess Elosha, who says that her dreams and visions are referred to in the sacred scrolls by the prophecies of the oracle Pythia. In the scrolls, Pythia declares that the human race will undergo exile and rebirth, and will be guided to their new homeland by a dying leader. The snakes and the nature of the quest, bringing to mind the biblical Exodus, make the viewer think of Laura Roslin as a Moses character. Some of the episode titles are also derived from Christian traditions: He That Believeth In Me and Valley of Darkness are clearly Roman Catholic references, whereas Blessed Be the Tie that Binds is a Protestant hymn celebrating the unity that comes from love. At the same time, the religious belief common to the surviving humans is polytheism based on the Greek pantheon. There are many other kinds of references, including, for instance, the ones coming back to the original series and other science-fiction productions, such as Star Trek. One of such quotes is ‘The Circle,’ a secret tribunal passing judgment on collaborators during the time of New Caprica occupation. From Blade Runner, we have the name skinjobs, used to refer to humanoid Cylons. The phrase ‘end of line,’ uttered by the Cylon hybrid, is homage to the film Tron, in which the Master Control Program finishes its sentences with ‘end of line.’ Battlestar Galactica also abounds in historical references. For instance, The events of the Cylon invasion and occupation of New Caprica were, clearly inspired by the 1940 German invasion of France and the subsequent collaborationist Vichy regime. The show is also rich in literary references: the eighteenth episode of the third season is titled The Son Also Rises which is of course a pun on the 1926 Ernest Hemingway novel. In the sixth episode of the fourth season, Baltar’s wireless broadcast contains a number of phrases from the ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy of

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__________________________________________________________________ Hamlet, including ‘shuffle off this mortal coil,’ and ‘the undiscover’d country, from whose bourn no traveler returns.’ 4 We also get ironic and pointed allusions to current political life, as in the nineteenth episode of season two: Roslin’s comment to Baltar after the last presidential debate, ‘Why don’t you go frak yourself,’ is likely inspired by the incident on June 22, 2004 in the US Senate, when Vice President Dick Cheney told Senator Patrick Leahy to ‘go fuck yourself,’ What emerges in the world of Battlestar Galactica are not isolated examples of quotations, but a whole network of references, intricately woven into the framework of the narrative, bringing out the symbolic and the implied. The myriad of references definitely makes the show more interesting to the viewer by complicating it and opening the episodes up for discussion. There is, however, one more characteristic feature to Battlestar Galactica, which, apart from making the watching process more rewarding, may also be a cause for significant destabilization on the part of the viewer. Throughout the four airing seasons, the story abounds in unresolved mysteries, inconclusive episode endings and loose ends. Some developments in the storyline might be described as downright illogical; what is more, the ending lacks closure which would satisfy the disturbed viewer. Let us briefly examine some of the numerous narrative slips and loose ends that one may encounter while watching Battlestar Galactica. First of all, there are problems connected with the supposed ‘realism’ of the series. The creators have introduced the term Naturalistic Science Fiction, which in their opinion should be applied to what they intend to achieve in Battlestar Galactica and to describe the show’s aesthetics. Ron Moore explains that Naturalistic Science Fiction is meant to be a realistic take on the genre, with its roots in drama rather than adventure tales. ‘It eschews science-fiction staples such as one-dimensional characterizations, clear-cut conceptions of good and evil, socalled technobabble and deus ex machina approaches. There is also more of an effort at continuity - the events in one episode have visible effects in subsequent episodes, unlike other science-fiction shows in which episodes are more standalone.’ 5 It is definitely true that sometimes the science behind the episodes is very real, as for example in the case of describing the consequences of decompression and vacuum exposure. At other times, however, the explanations are far from realistic. The example might be the Cylon virus, the science behind it being somewhat questionable. While the biological aspect is sound, the existence of a ‘bioelectrical feedback component’ appears to be in fact technobabble. It would be impossible for a biological virus, which is a physical pathogen, to be transmitted by downloading. It is definitely the case that in terms of realism and continuity, there are instances when attention to minute details can be observed. For example, When Lt. Gaeta takes his shirt off in one of the episodes of the third season, the tiger tattoo he got in one of the previous episodes can be seen. Still, some continuity errors and loose ends do disrupt this stability. Unanswered questions arise during the show:

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__________________________________________________________________ how are the consciousnesses of dead Raiders stored and where are they transferred? How could the Circle punishing the collaborators operate in Galactica’s launch tubes without William Adama’s notice or, for that matter, the notice of anyone on the usually-busy hangar decks? Why does the human-cylon child Hera need the medication for a curable disease, while her blood was used to cure breast cancer for President Roslin? Another problem with the show, which might be described as a problem of coherence, is the ending itself. As noted in the previous chapter, it failed to satisfy the fans and critics alike. What is lacking is closure – the viewer finds himself vexed with the unanswered questions and loose ends. What do the two mysterious beings – virtual Six and virtual Baltar – represent? What higher power was orchestrating the events? What happened to one of the most popular character Kara Thrace? The complex references, unanswered questions, loose ends, coincidences, and the series’ ultimate lack of closure all continue to inspire heated discussions, also among the academics. I believe that in order to better understand the primary concerns of this destabilized show and in order to better understand the semantic dynamics informing its narrative structure, we could refer to Russel Reising’s groundbreaking study, Closure and Crisis in the American Social Text. He examines the works as diverse as Phillis Wheatley’s poetry, Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland, and the Disney Studio’s animated classic Dumbo. Reising analyzes the ways in which these and other works struggle to ‘cordon off their narrative worlds, and how the moments of stoppage with which they conclude paradoxically function to exacerbate, to reopen, the very tensions they are meant to conclude.’ 6 It is worth emphasizing that Reising’s idea is that of an anti-closure, as opposed to standard ambiguous or open endings. He provides numerous examples of works with seemingly cryptic or unclear conclusions which might seem confusing. Still, These works all pulse toward these final moments, which, however ambiguous or ironic, nonetheless crystallize many of their narratives’ primary concerns. In all these cases, the openness and ambiguity of the conclusions are themselves versions of closural coherence, even when the coherence functions to conclude narratives without obvious or stable teleological end points. 7 Nevertheless, the works that Reising focuses on are characterized by an array of absences, excesses, and final passages which function very differently relative both to the thematic and structural dimensions of the works they conclude and to the extranarrative worlds with which these works have their most plausible relationships. He argues that the works he discusses in Loose Ends collapse into

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__________________________________________________________________ anti-closure ‘because of historically specific concerns and narrative agendas.’ 8 Some poems, short stories, novels, or films cannot close precisely because their ‘embeddedness within the sociohistorical worlds of their genesis is so complex and conflicted.’ 9 These are works that admit of no enclosing lines which would separate them from the outside world. As such, they repeatedly problematize the very possibility of such lines. ‘The loose ends which characterize the concluding moments of these works function largely as provocations for the reader to reproblematize the very assumptions brought to the aesthetic experience and to reimagine the entire world of the work of art.’ 10 The reimagining occurs as a shadow narrative is revealed: according to Reising, it is the construct that has been lying latent within the dominant thematics of the work from which it emerges. The shadow narrative is revealed through what Reising labels the ‘scaffolding’ within the recognizable world of material things and historical recollections. The scaffolding simply constitutes the frame of any narrative; still, sometimes it refuses to remain marginal and, instead, ‘infuses the work with the stresses inherent within their narratives.’ 11 The idea is something similar to traditional notions of ‘setting’ or ‘background’ or ‘environment,’ but Reising suggests that we can pursue them even farther into a denser field of material referents which constitute ‘the sociohistorical basis for narratives of all sorts, however tangential they may seem to the social world of their eras.’ 12 The scaffolding includes a variety of deictic gestures that virtually require us to supplement their narrative worlds with the discourses and concerns derived from many sectors of social and cultural practice to which these works allude and from which they draw. As a virtual requisite for any representational scheme, these elements I refer to as scaffolding comprise the entire range of social, economic, historical, political, psychological, even architectural assumptions and moments without which narrative theme or plot would be impossible, hopelessly abstract. But while they provide the structuring and complexity of details that fatten up any narrative and make coherence possible, these elements also have the potential to take on a counternarrative life of their own and, paradoxically, to make coherence impossible. 13 Let us finally try to apply some of Reising’s theoretical devices in our discussion of Battlestar Galactica’s quest for closure. The representational vehicles comprising the series’ scaffolding might seem to be mere props of little significance. Continuity errors of coincidental occurrences are often dismissed as simple narrative slips. Nevertheless, according to Reising, what appears to function merely as conventional, referential scaffolding for the work’s major thematics may by itself emerge as a set of alternative, disruptive, and, quite remarkably, dominant

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__________________________________________________________________ themes. Such moments commonly emerge with a high degree of counternarrative visibility as a result of the narratives’ closural failures. ‘We recognize, that is, the internal conflicts and referential instabilities of these works when, by virtue of their endings, they emerge as an alternative and supplementary referential grid capable of displacing what had been established by various generic and conventional practices as the works’ dominant thematics.’ 14 The ending of Battlestar Galactica may very well be considered as an instance of Reising’s ‘anti-closure.’ The series’ greatest question of who or what has been orchestrating the events remains without an answer. Even Ron Moore’s attempts at an explanation remain unsatisfactory. Clearly, we are supposed to believe that the one true god, who is in fact a Cylon god, meant for the humans and the Cylons to find the ‘promised land’ together and to coexist peacefully. Such superficial reading would also imply that the fear of science and technology could be easily dismissed: if the humans are being punished for going too far in the field of developing artificial intelligence, why do the Cylon androids seem so very human? The interplay between free will, and destiny/predestination clearly emerges as the pervasive theme for the series. Divine providence, manifesting itself in the numerous coincidences, visions, epiphanies, and direct actions by the virtual Six, appears to be the philosophy and the main deeper concern of Battlestar Galactica. Nevertheless, I would like to argue that through the series’ inability to close, another great theme, informing a ‘shadow narrative,’ emerges. First of all, the vision of a higher being protective of both the human and their creations can be easily dismissed as one considers the several loose ends and contradictions. At the beginning, the god clearly leads Virtual Six to help Gaius Baltar sabotage the actions of her own kind. In the very first episode, she reveals the Cylon tracking device. She later helps Baltar design a Cylon detector. Further, it is worth noting that as an agent of god, her knowledge is quite limited. For example, towards the end of the first season she is not aware of the fact that the baby Hera is not dead. As a consequence, apart from the ‘divine providence’ reading, the shadow narrative might reveal deeper layers of meaning. Let us look once again at the element of the scaffolding: a narrative slip which is seemingly devoid of any deeper significance. The seven Cylon models are initially referred to with their respective numbers. In one of the first episodes of the third season, Baltar calls one of the Number Threes ‘D’Anna,’ to which she responds. However, this is not the copy who was using the name as she was hiding in the Fleet. by mid season, all the Cylons start referring to themselves with their human names. In the course of the fourth season, Galen Tyrol refers to the Eights and Twos as ‘Sharons’ and ‘Leobens,’ but the Sixes as ‘Sixes.’ I believe that all those deictic prompts reveal the underlying tension that inspires Battlestar Galactica’s disruptive plot. It is connected to the contemporary crisis of identity and goes beyond the simple problem of identifying somebody – or oneself – as human or Cylon. It is a crisis of the post-modern, post-humanistic era:

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__________________________________________________________________ there are no superheroes just as there is no justice, and we are essentially flawed as a species. The supposedly inhuman as the Cylons are, they seem to redeem some of the very human qualities. On the other hand, most humans in the series are often cruel and dishonest. The Galactica’s quest for closure is not simply about the fear of technology. It is an attempt at re-visioning the place of humanity in an entirely new and unprecedented context; the context that might be described as postmodern, postreligious, or even post-humanistic. For this reason alone it simply cannot close: similarly to the contemporary horror fiction, featuring the vampire in an attempt to polarize the human/inhuman opposition, the narrative destabilizes the beliefs of readers, serves as a cultural artifact, and focuses on the darker aspects of the self, society, and the universe. To sum up: Battlestar Galactica is more than your usual space opera. In the tenth episode of the third season, the hybrid makes the possibly fourth wall-breaking statement: ‘Throughout history, the nexus between man and machine has spawned some of the most dramatic, compelling, and entertaining fiction.’

Notes

1

D. Werts, ‘Best Shows on TV’, Newsday, Friday 10 January 2009, Viewed on 10 May 2010, http://www.newsday.com/newsday/2.810/2.858. 2 J. Alston, ‘The Way We Were’, Newsweek, Sunday 12 December 2008, Viewed on 10 May 2010, http://www.newsweek.com/2008/12/12/the-way-we-were.html. 3 J. Weiss, ‘Moral Dilemmas Pulled into Battlestar Galaxy’, Boston Globe, Friday 10 May 2006, Viewed on 29 April 2010, http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/ articles/2006/10/05/moral_dilemmas_pulled_into_battlestar_galaxy/. 4 W. Shakespeare, Hamlet, Echo Library, London, 2006, p. 52. 5 R. Moore, ‘Essay on NSF’, BattlestarWiki, Viewed on 10 May 2010, http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/NSF#Ron_Moore.27s_Essay_on_NSF. 6 R. Reising, Loose Ends: Closure and Crisis in the American Social Text, Duke University Press, Durham, NC 1996, p. 3. 7 Ibid., p. 6. 8 Ibid., p. 9. 9 Ibid., p. 12. 10 Ibid., p. 13. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid., p. 15. 14 Ibid., p. 22.

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Bibliography Alston, J., ‘The Way We Were’. Newsweek. Sunday 12 December 2008, Viewed on 10 May 2010, http://www.newsweek.com/2008/12/12/the-way-we-were.html. Moore, R., ‘Essay on NSF’. BattlestarWiki. Viewed on 10 May 2010, http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/NSF#Ron_Moore.27s_Essay_on_NSF. Reising, R., Loose Ends: Closure and Crisis in the American Social Text. Duke University Press, Durham, NC 1996. Shakespeare, W., Hamlet. Echo Library, London, 2006. Weiss, J., ‘Moral Dilemmas Pulled into Battlestar Galaxy’. Boston Globe. 10 May 2006, Viewed on 29 April 2010, http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2006/ 10/05/moral_dilemmas_pulled_into_battlestar_galaxy/. Dagmara Zając is a doctoral student at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. Her primary research interest is the development of American Gothic/horror fiction.

Who’s Your Saviour? The Changing Messiahs of Contemporary Science Fiction Film and TV Sofia Sjö Abstract Increasingly, scholars in religious studies and theology are turning to science fiction for a greater understanding of both religion in this world and worlds to come. Though science fiction has sometimes been hostile to religion, this genre has also always shown interest in many religious themes. One such theme is the myth of a messiah. Modern science fiction clearly shows that this myth is alive and well today in at least popular culture. The messiahs we find in contemporary science fiction film and TV are however not quite the same as the one in the JudeoChristian tradition. Contemporary science fiction saviours challenge ideas about religion, the saviour’s gender, and the community’s role in the apocalyptic struggle. This chapter looks closer at these changes as they are represented in a couple of modern science fiction films and TV-series and reflects on what these representations suggest about the role of religion, spirituality and the messiah-myth in contemporary and future societies. Key Words: Science fiction, messiah, saviour, gender, religion, community, change. ***** 1. Introduction Theologians and scholars of religion have long shown an interest in science fiction. There are several reasons for this. With the study of religion and popular culture making progressively more headway in the wider field of religious studies, science fiction has naturally—considering its popular appeal—come into focus. Even if science fiction did not maintain the role it does in popular culture, it is likely that the genre would interest scholars of religion all the same. That is, as Farah Mendlesohn has shown, while science fiction often expresses a critical attitude toward religion, the genre, nevertheless, frequently also deals with questions of faith. 1 In a genre where a sense of wonder and a feeling of awe play such significant roles, theological and mythological ideas are bound to emerge. 2 Thus, while science fiction has criticized religion, it has also sought and found inspiration in religious themes. 3 One such theme is the end of the world and the related idea of a messiah. In science fiction, however, religious themes are also transformed. Consequently the stories of a saviour in science fiction films, for example, are seldom identical to those of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The changes that occur are noteworthy, both for what they suggest about attitudes in our culture, and for the ideas about humanity that they convey.

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__________________________________________________________________ In what follows, I explore three ways in which the story of a messiah can be demonstrated to have been changed in contemporary science fiction films and TVseries when compared with both religious traditions and earlier science fiction stories, and I reflect on how these changes can be read. The transformations I focus on concern religious concepts, gender and community. Saviour characters have been identified in many genres and they have been characterized in different ways. Many scholars have chosen to speak of Jesus-characters (characters in films about Jesus) and Christ-characters (characters that allegorically represent the Christian saviour). 4 I have here chosen to speak of messiah-characters, that is to say characters that take it upon themselves to save the world, humankind, or the universe, and are surrounded by clear religious references. The films and TV-series that make up the material for this study are relatively contemporary works. A majority of the material has been created in the USA. To balance this American dominance, however, I have also analysed some Nordic material. The films analyzed here include: the Star Wars (1977, 1980, 1983, 2000, 2002, 2005), Terminator (1984, 1991, 2003), Matrix (1999, 2003, 2003), and Alien (1979, 1986, 1992, 1997) series of films; The Fifth Element (1997); Wing Commander (1999); Avatar (2009); Deep Impact (1998); Vikaren (The Substitute, 2007); and Jadesoturi (Jade Warrior, 2006). The TV-series examined include: Dark Angel (2000-2002); Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-3003); and the Swedish TV-series Silvermannen (The Silver Man, 1996). 2. Changing Religion Since I have chosen to define messiah-characters as characters surrounded by clear religious references, we will naturally find religion in the material. The messiah myth is not unique to the Judeo-Christian tradition, but since we are here dealing with material made in the western world I use this tradition as my point of reference. Not surprisingly, we find clear references to be substantial Christian saviour in the selected material. We learn, for example, that Anakin’s birth in the Star Wars films was a form of virgin birth. Likewise, a large number of the messiah-characters pass through something akin to the passion found in Christian narratives—the characters give up their lives for others, die or disappear, and some are brought back to life. Examples of this are found in The Matrix, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Alien films, Terminator 2, and Silvermannen. Despite these connections to Christianity, it is worth noting that this religious tradition is far from the only one present in the films and TV series. Instead, we often find in them a mix of religious ideas. In the Matrix films, for example, one recognizes both Buddhist and Hindu themes, 5 along with a clear Gnostic undercurrent. 6 Likewise, in the Star Wars films, Joseph Campbell’s monomyth serves as a driving theme, 7 and is combined with Buddhist concepts. William Sims Bainbridge has identified in these films also certain similarities with new religious movements. 8 In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a Christian-inspired demonology is

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__________________________________________________________________ present, but the religion that wins out in the end is Wicca. In Silvermannen certain references to Egyptian mythology are made, while Jadesoturi mixes Finnish and Chinese mythology with a traditional saviour theme. In addition to combining religious traditions, the films and TV series also challenge religious hierarchies. While we do find religious elites in many of the films, they often have to give way to the messiahs. The messiah may be a representative of the faith, but traditional power structures are often defied. Thus, in the Star Wars films, both Anakin and Luke are Jedis who ultimately go their own way. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, authority goes to those who fight on the right side, not the religious experts. Though exceptions to this trend can be found elsewhere (e.g. Dark Angel), the picture the material draws generally is one of a lack of interest in institutional forms of religion. Religious questions, rather, become a more personal issue for many of the saviours. 3. Changing Gender The traditional myth of a messiah includes a fairly strict gender structure. A woman gives birth to man who subsequently saves the woman, the world, and himself, underlining (according to some) the idea that a man can save himself, while a woman cannot. This gender structure has lived on in the created worlds of science fiction. In the classic science fiction tales, women were generally absent. However, as Brian Attebery has shown, during the last 30 years a change has occurred. 9 In much of the more recent science-fiction literature, feminist ideas have been taken into account, 10 a trend that continues today in both TV and film. Though men are still usually represented as the saviour in contemporary science fiction, women are no longer confined to the sidelines. Instead, women are allowed to fight side by side with men, and, often, on fairly equal ground. This is the case, for example, in both the Matrix and the Terminator series of films. In other films and TV series, we find also female messiah-characters and saviours. This is true in the films Alien3 (and, to a lesser extent, the other films in this series), and The Fifth Element, as well as the TV series Dark Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Though female saviours and strong women on film are interesting from a feminist perspective, they have, nonetheless, often been found wanting. The films might present femininity as something active; but, as Sherrie A. Inness has illustrated, they also limit the characters in many ways. Consequently, strong women are usually an exception to the rule and are often only allowed to be strong if they act in a traditionally masculine way. 11 They do not want to be tough, and, further, feel guilty for the powers they possess. 12 The spheres of power to which they are allowed access are limited. Though they save the world, religious powers—in terms of religious leadership or a religious voice—are often not granted them. 13 Despite these problems, a changes have clearly taken place; and these changes are not limited to the female characters.

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__________________________________________________________________ The traditional saviour hero has often been a lonesome, strong male, who maintains a strict control over his feelings. Though this character still exists, many films today give us a different male saviour. In films such as Star Wars, The Matrix and Jadesoturi, the saviour is someone for whom love and emotions are important. While these emotions might lead to problems, they are sometimes what are required to save the world. From a feminist perspective the new male heroes are interesting but not unproblematic. Representing male characters in a new way does not necessarily result in equality between men and women. Instead, what we find, for example, in Wing Commander, Dark Angel and Vikaren is that the more emotional male characters are now used to educate female characters about their emotions. 4. Changing Communities The traditional messiah story is very much about community. It is in troubled communities that the idea of a messiah usually appears. The messiah is also closely connected to the community. Though messiahs can be seen as world-saviours, the ones they are actually expected to save are the members of a community of believers. In regard to the idea of a messiah, the relationship between God and the community also often becomes clear. It is God that sends the saviour, or the saviour is in some way divine. 14 In contemporary science fiction films and TV-series, this idea of community goes through some changes. Firstly, though the stories we are dealing with here are steeped in religious vocabulary and imagery, the human/God relationship is, as Conrad Ostwalt has pointed out, largely absent. God rarely appears in these stories, and it is no longer the one who sends the saviour. Instead, both the troubles from which the community needs saving and the saviours themselves are closely connected to the human community. 15 Thus, humanity both creates the apocalyptic situation and then chooses and trains their saviour. Instead of being a representative for God, the majority of messiahs represented in contemporary science fiction films and TV series are themselves representatives of the communities that they save. This also gives a new dimension to the communities. The supernatural aspects might be connected most clearly to the saviour, but this character is often not the only one with special abilities. Rather, a supernatural or divine element can often be found in other parts of the community as well. In some films and TV series the saviour is represented in a group or a whole community rather than just one chosen individual. In Deep Impact, for example, the saviours are the crew of the spaceship ‘The Messiah’, while in Buffy the Vampire slayer the saviour is always surrounded by friends and helpers. 5. Change for a Changing World There are, no doubt, many ways to understand the changing messiah stories analysed here. While, on the one hand, these changes should not be overestimated,

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__________________________________________________________________ that these changes point to something interesting cannot, on the other hand, be denied. Some scholars have identified in these tendencies a sign of the secularization of apocalyptic and messianic themes. Apocalyptic ideas are today a clear part of secular culture. When the divine presence is removed from the story it is commonly seen as a sign of the themes losing their connection to religion. 16 Though this is no doubt to a certain extent true, the picture is, as I see it, not that simple. Traditional religious institutions are losing influence in contemporary culture, and we can see this reflected in much of the material considered to this point, as religious leaders play no great part in the stories and belief in a God or a higher supernatural being is rare. This does not, however, mean that everything is becoming secular. The part popular culture plays in the religious lives of many today serves to contradict this reading. 17 I would argue that the material can instead (or also) be understood in reference to the changing religious landscape and the turn from religion to spirituality. For many, the divine is no longer found without but within. For these individuals, gods are not unimportant, but are simply not as important as in traditional religions. 18 This is, as we have seen, also often the case in the material we have considered. The myth of a messiah, then, is here, but has been, in a sense, detraditionalized, while retaining a spiritual core. The challenge to gender structures that we find in the material can be read as a challenge to both traditional gender structures and religious ideas about gender. The image that the material presents is one of a world where both religion and gender are a bit of a smorgasbord and do not have to be constructed according to traditional rules. The centrality of female characters in the messiah stories can be related to the feminizing process that is, according to Susan J. Palmer and others, taking place in many religions today. 19 Though some gender inequalities are eradicated in these stories the risk of new inequalities appearing is worth emphasizing. The fact that many films with female messiahs do not bestow female characters with religious power underlines the risk of certain power structures prevailing. When power structures are not even challenged in science fiction, we notice how taken for granted these structures are. The challenge of traditional gender structures in the material is noteworthy, but the question of whether the change also concerns ethnicity and class is worth exploring further. I would argue that the material for this study does not present humanity in an over idealized manner. From this perspective, it is interesting to notice the often multicultural worlds we find in the material. The saviours are still usually white, middleclass men, but the communities around them are often made up of a great variety of characters. When large parts of the community are allowed to take part in the battle many different people are then given a purpose. The vision of humanity we find in the stories is then sometimes of a humanity that has caused the apocalypse, but it is also in some cases a humanity where difference is the rule and not always a problem. Read in a perhaps over positive way the material then points to at least a wish for an acceptance of difference.

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__________________________________________________________________ 6. Conclusion Whether the changes identified in this chapter are good or bad thing is left for each reader to determine. That a change is taking place, however, is hard to deny. How this change in fictional stories relates to the real world is naturally a complicated question. The stories of popular culture are neither direct reflections of our world nor guaranteed predictions of the world to come; but, as Adam Possamai has pointed out, there is still always an element of truth in them. 20 Considering the importance of popular culture today, it is in any case clear that we cannot ignore popular culture if we want to try to understand our present world or predict the future. We might not then agree with the images being presented, but this does not mean that they do not say something about us and our world, both when it comes to religion and other matters. Though the stories do perhaps often predominantly function as a form of escapism, it is always possible that they might inspire us to think in new ways and work for a different future. If nothing else, the material for this study shows us that the story of a messiah lives on and can adapt to new times and challenge our ideas about who can be a saviour.

Notes 1

F. Mendlesohn, ‘Religion and Science Fiction’, The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, E. James and F. Mendlesohn (eds), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003, pp. 264-275. 2 J.C. Lyden, Film as Religion: Myths, Morals, and Rituals, New York University Press, New York, 2003, pp. 202-25. 3 J. Clute and P. Nicholls, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Orbit, London, 1999, pp. 1000-1003. 4 P. Malone, ‘Jesus on Our Screens’, New Image of Religious Film, J.R. May (ed), Sheed and Ward, Kansas, 1997, pp. 59-60. 5 J.R. Fielding, ‘Reassessing The Matrix/Reloaded’, The Journal of Religion and Film, Vol. 7, No. 2, October 2003, Viewed on 17 May 2010, http://www.unom aha.edu/jrf/Vol7No2/matrix.matrixreloaded.htm. 6 F. Flannery-Dailey and R. Wagner, ‘Wake up! Gnosticism and Buddhism in The Matrix’, The Journal of Religion and Film, Vol. 5, No. 2, October 2001, Viewed on 17 May 2010, http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/gnostic.htm. 7 A. Gordon, ‘Star Wars: A Myth for Our Time’, Screening the Sacred: Religion, Myth, and Ideology in Popular American Film, J.W. Martin and C.E. Ostwald Jr. (eds), Westview Press, Boulder, 1998, pp. 73-82. 8 W.S. Bainbridge, The Sociology of Religious Movements, Routledge, London, 1997, pp. 395-399. 9 B. Attebery, Decoding Gender in Science Fiction, Routledge, London, 2002.

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H. Merrick, ‘Gender in Science Fiction’, in The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, E James and F Mendlesohn (eds), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003, pp. 241-252. 11 S.A. Inness, Tough Girls: Women Warriors and Wonder Women in Popular Culture, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1999. 12 S. Crosby, ‘The Cruellest Season: Female Heroes Snapped into Sacrificial Heroines’, Action Chicks: New Images of Tough Women in Popular Culture, S.A. Inness (ed), Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2004, pp. 153-178. 13 S. Sjö, ‘Are Female Messiahs Changing the Myth?: Women, Religion and Power in Popular Culture and Society’, Reconfigurations Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Religion in a Post-Secular Society, S. Knauss and A. Ornella (eds), Lit, Graz, 2007, pp. 59-72. 14 H. Ringgren, ‘Messianism’, Encyclopedia of Religion Second Edition, L. Jones (ed), Thomas Gale, Detroit, 2005, pp. 5972-5974. 15 C. Ostwalt, ‘Armageddon at the Millennial Dawn’, The Journal of Religion and Film, Vol. 4, No. 1 April 2000, Viewed on 17 May 2010, http://www.unomaha. edu/jrf/armagedd.htm. 16 C. Ostwalt, ‘Apocalyptic’, The Routledge Companion to Religion and Film, J. Lyden (ed), Routledge, London, 2009, pp. 368-383. 17 C. Partridge, The Re-Enchantment of the West Volume I, T&T Clark International, London, 2004. 18 P. Heelas and L. Woodhead, The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion is Giving Way to Spirituality, Blackwell, Oxford, 2005. 19 S.J. Palmer, ‘Woman as World Saviour: The Feminization of the Millennium in New Religious Movements’, Millennium, Messiahs and Mayhem: Contemporary Apocalyptic Movements, T. Robbins and S.J. Palmer (eds), Routledge, London, 1997, p. 160. 20 A. Possamai, Religion and Popular Culture: A Hyper-Real Testament, P.I.E.Peter Lang, Brussels, 2005, p. 23.

Bibliography Attebery, B., Decoding Gender in Science Fiction. Routledge, London, 2002. Bainbridge, W.S., The Sociology of Religious Movements. Routledge, London, 1997. Clute J. and Nicholls, P., The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Orbit, London, 1999.

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__________________________________________________________________ Crosby, S., ‘The Cruellest Season: Female Heroes Snapped into Sacrificial Heroines’. Action Chicks: New Images of Tough Women in Popular Culture. Inness, S.A. (ed), Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2004. Fielding, J.R., ‘Reassessing The Matrix/Reloaded’. The Journal of Religion and Film. Vol. 7, No. 2, October 2003, Viewed on 17 May 2010, http://www.uno maha.edu/jrf/Vol7No2/matrix.matrixreloaded.htm. Flannery-Dailey, F. and Wagner, R., ‘Wake up! Gnosticism and Buddhism in The Matrix’. The Journal of Religion and Film. Vol. 5, No. 2, October 2001, Viewed on 17 May 2010, http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/gnostic.htm. Gordon, A., ‘Star Wars: A Myth for Our Time’. Screening the Sacred: Religion, Myth, and Ideology in Popular American Film. Martin, J.W. and Ostwald Jr., C.E. (eds), Westview Press, Boulder, 1998. Heelas, P. and Woodhead, L., The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion is Giving Way to Spirituality. Blackwell, Oxford, 2005. Inness, S.A., Tough Girls: Women Warriors and Wonder Women in Popular Culture. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1999. Lyden, J.C., Film as Religion: Myths, Morals, and Rituals. New York University Press, New York, 2003. Malone, P., ‘Jesus on Our Screens’. New Image of Religious Film. May, J.R. (ed), Sheed and Ward, Kansas, 1997. Mendlesohn, F., ‘Religion and Science Fiction’. The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction. James, E. and Mendlesohn, F. (eds), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003. Merrick, H., ‘Gender in Science Fiction’. The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction. James, E. and Mendlesohn, F. (eds), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003. Ostwalt, C., ‘Armageddon at the Millennial Dawn’. The Journal of Religion and Film. Vol. 4, No. 1 April 2000, Viewed on 17 May 2010, http://www.unomaha. edu/jrf/armagedd.htm.

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__________________________________________________________________ –––, ‘Apocalyptic’. The Routledge Companion to Religion and Film. Lyden, J. (ed), Routledge, London, 2009. Palmer, S.J., ‘Woman as World Saviour: The Feminization of the Millennium in New Religious Movements’. Millennium, Messiahs and Mayhem: Contemporary Apocalyptic Movements. Robbins, T. and Palmer, S.J. (eds), Routledge, London, 1997. Partridge, C., The Re-Enchantment of the West Volume I. T&T Clark International, London, 2004. Possamai, A., Religion and Popular Culture: A Hyper-Real Testament. P.I.E.-Peter Lang, Brussels, 2005. Ringgren, H., ‘Messianism’. Encyclopedia of Religion Second Edition. Jones, L. (ed), Thomas Gale, Detroit, 2005. Sjö, S., ‘Are Female Messiahs Changing the Myth?: Women, Religion and Power in Popular Culture and Society’. Reconfigurations: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Religion in a Post-Secular Society, Knauss, S. and Ornella, A. (eds), Lit, Graz, 2007. Sofia Sjö is a researcher connected to the Department of Comparative Religion at Åbo Akademi University with an interest for religion, film and gender. She tends to find saviour-characters everywhere and has infected several of her friends with the same (dis)ability.

Endgame: Mitchell and Webb’s ‘Remain Indoors’ Sketch Series, Absurdist Comedy and the Collapse of Meaning in Apocalypse Narratives Ewan Kirkland Abstract The ‘Remain Indoors’ series, from Mitchell and Webb’s BBC sketch show, is explored in this chapter as science fiction, as absurdist comedy, and as apocalypse narrative. This series of sketches takes the form of a futuristic game show being broadcast after an occurrence referred to only as ‘The Event’. Through the quiz master’s desperately cheerful banter, exchanges with deranged contestants, and the questions he asks - the correct answers to which are unknown to all concerned viewers are given random insights into this bleak world. While the nature of ‘The Event’ is never clarified, it appears most people are now blind, all the children have died, the word ‘water’ has lost all meaning, and both human civilisation and its memory are corrupted beyond all recognition. While rooted in dystopian science fiction, the ‘Remain Indoors’ series can also be related to absurdist theatre, and certain traditions in British comedy. Like the hapless characters of Beckett’s Endgame, both host and contestants seem trapped within a ruined landscape, possessing only a hazy sense of who, where, or why they are, and engaging in nonsensical conversations, which have no point or satisfactory conclusion. From Monty Python to Brass Eye to Psychoville, British comedy has echoed such dark and surrealist themes. This leads to a consideration of apocalypse narratives, which both the ‘Remain Indoors’ series and Beckett’s plays evoke. The surreal war-zones of science-fiction comic books, the tattered narrative style of Threads, or the breakdown of language in the linguistic zombie film Pontypool, reflect similar themes, in which the end of civilisation constitutes the end of meaning, the collapse of discourse, and the fragmentation of collective and individual memory. Key Words: Apocalypse, Beckett, comedy, Endgame, Mitchell and Webb, sketch show. ***** The focus of this chapter is the ‘Remain Indoors’ series of sketches from the third season of That Mitchell and Webb Look. 1 Across the three brief scenes which make up this dystopian vision, viewers are given an insight into a world overshadowed by ‘The Event’. As an unspecific occurrence, which has had a dramatic impact upon human civilisation, the catastrophe and its consequences are alluded to in oblique asides and details revealed throughout a game show – ‘The Quiz Broadcast’ – played and performed by a few survivors. This sketch is explored in terms of absurdist theatre, British comedy, and apocalypse narratives.

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__________________________________________________________________ Connections between absurdist theatre and British comedy are evident in the ‘Remain Indoors’ sketches, which provide many intriguing parallels with Samuel Beckett’s Endgame. 2 On a formal level, both take place on a single bleak stage, isolated from a cold and unforgiving outside world. The universe of Endgame is one of grey weather, flat seas, and a landscape devoid of nature; while the environment of ‘Remain Indoors’ is all fear, darkness, religious cults, and dead children. The contestant dreams of ‘sunshine, colours, smiling faces’ before the misery of post-Event life; just as Hamm dreams of forests, and Nag and Nell reminisce about crashing their tandem in the Ardennes during happier times. Outside the bunker of ‘The Quiz Broadcast’, as in Endgame, an unspecified ‘something’ appears to be ‘taking its course.’ As the game show host cheerily observes, most post-Event citizens are blind; similarly Clov’s eye’s are bad, Hamm cannot see, while Nag and Nell’s eyes are failing. Hamm needs constant medication, just as viewers of ‘The Quiz Broadcast’ are advised to ‘take whatever injections are recommended in your sector.’ Nag is losing his teeth, just as one contestant is losing his hair. Both symptoms suggest the effects of radiation poisoning following a nuclear holocaust; however, both play and sketch complicate such a straightforward interpretation of events. The sense of game is also evident in Endgame – the first words Hamm says are ‘Me to play’ – as too is an explicit sense of comedy – Clov asking despairingly, ‘Why this farce day after day?’ A similar sense of self-reflexivity is evident in ‘Remain Indoors’, a piece of comedic television pastiching an already self-conscious form of popular television entertainment. The announcer on the British Emergency Broadcast System, which airs ‘The Quiz Broadcast’, seems unclear what date it is, either March or November 2013, and somewhere between six-hundred and seven-hundred-and-fifty days since The Event; the season ambivalently announced as ‘The Dark Season.’ Similarly, time has become meaningless for Beckett’s characters: HAMM: What time is it? CLOV: The same as usual. HAMM (gesture towards window right): Have you looked? CLOV: Yes. HAMM: Well? CLOV: Zero. Time is reduced to zero; while ‘yesterday’ exists only in vague terms, as ‘that bloody awful day, long ago, before this bloody awful day.’

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__________________________________________________________________ Finally, both Beckett’s play and Mitchell and Webb’s sketch produce comedy through the suffering of their protagonists. As Nell, the woman in the dustbin, who possibly dies through the play’s course, says: ‘Nothing is funnier than unhappiness.’ Locating the ‘Remain Indoors’ sketch series in traditions of British comedy suggests that David Mitchell and Robert Webb are not alone in drawing on a theatre of the absurd or the comedy of misery. British sitcoms are traditionally organised around characters trapped in domestic spaces, locked in class-based hierarchical relationships, hating each other, yet unable, or ultimately unwilling, to leave. From Steptoe and Son 3 to Red Dwarf, 4 British comedy drama is often based on bickering and abuse, comparable to the exchanges of vitriol and resentment that constitute the conversation between Hamm and Clov. It is easy to see the relationship between the two reflected in the relationships of Tony Hancock and Sid James, 5 Basil Fawlty and Manuel, 6 Blackadder and Bladrick, 7 or, even, Victor Meldrew and his wife Margaret. 8 The clearest connection between Beckett and British comedy is represented by the double act of Ric Mayal and Adrian Edmondson, whose routines as ‘The Dangerous Brothers’, as Rick and Vyvyen in The Young Ones, 9 Richie and Eddie in Filthy, Rich and Catflap, 10 and (again) as Richie and Eddie in Bottom 11 have been explicitly linked to Beckett – indeed, during the first season of Bottom, the pair were starring in a West End performance of Waiting For Goddot. The duo’s routines, whether as stunt men, students, celebrity and minder, or unemployed losers, are characterised by argument and animosity, frequently spilling over into physical violence which, while cartoonish, has enough impact to draw blood and loosen teeth. Moreover there is frequently a surreal and slightly sinister quality to the worlds these characters inhabit, while the circularity of the British sitcom form is reflected in circular conversations between characters which lead nowhere. British sketch comedy also echoes with Beckettian influence. Monty Python’s Flying Circus 12 is characterised by its surreal sense of humour, where a faulty toaster is replaced by a dead parrot, the Spanish Inquisition erupt into a suburban living room, and a Bromley café is home to spam-loving Vikings. While Python rarely approaches anything as bleak as either Endgame or ‘Remain Indoors’, there is something a little Kafkaesque about the ‘Ministry of Silly Walks’, and the ‘Argument Clinic’ – situated next door to the ‘Abuse Clinic’ – where discussion descends into repetitive contradictions, followed by a self-reflexive debate about whether or not this constitutes an argument. Certainly the absence of punch lines in many Python sketches leaves the comedy routines void of traditional closure, or replaces the classic ending with a breakdown in performance where sets are dismantled, actors walk off mid-routine, or officials terminate proceedings for being too silly, again reflecting certain aspects of Beckett’s absurdist theatre. More contemporary comedy shows seem happier with the darker elements of surrealism. Chris Morris’ spoof news programme Brass Eye 13 combines an

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__________________________________________________________________ understanding of the often extreme discourse of the magazine television format, an attack on the common sense rhetoric that frequently informs mainstream news media, and absurdist comedy. The controversial paedophile special features: a child abuser disguising himself as a school to lure unsuspecting victims; ‘Trust Me Trousers’, which inflate to disguise a paedophile’s erection; and a duped celebrity earnestly explaining to the camera how a paedophile has more genes in common with crabs than humans. Morris’ Jam 14 is a stream-of-consciousness sketch show that features ambient music and audio-visual distortion effects, along with disturbing sketches in which a dead baby is plumbed into a central heating system, a man is forgiven by his girlfriend for kissing another woman because he was raping her at the time, and someone commits suicide by throwing himself repeatedly from a first floor window. The nightmarish atmosphere of the show, combined with its bleak and misanthropic content, align it with certain theatrical traditions. The League of Gentlemen, 15 a sketch show with recurring characters living in the north England town of Royston Vasey, constitutes the most recent articulation of themes of entrapment, class antagonism, and dark humour in British comedy. Characters include: Benjamin, a visitor to the town, who is effectively kept prisoner by his disapproving aunt and uncle; an unemployment office intent on keeping job seekers in ineffective job-training schemes; and a woman and her cleaner locked in a vicious game of one-upmanship. The most grotesque of Royston Vasey residents, an inbred brother and sister, live at the Local Shop, intent on both turning away anyone who seeks to buy the ‘precious things of the shop’ and ensuring no passing stranger leaves their premises alive. Likewise, the blind toy collector who is accompanied by his community-service ‘servant’ in Psychoville, 16 a follow-up to The League of Gentlemen, could be understood as a reference to Endgame’s Hamm. The ‘Remain Indoors’ sketch has roots also in the comedy quiz show. While the sketch’s relationship to panel series like Have I Got News for You?, 17 Never Mind the Buzzcocks 18 and Mock the Week 19 are slight, Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer’s Shooting Stars 20 has much in common with ‘The Quiz Broadcast.’ A development of Reeves and Mortimer’s Dadaist live show and subsequent sketch series Shooting Stars, employs the celebrity panel show’s question and answer format to afford a platform for the performers’ surreal comedy. The genre provides a structure to ridicule famous guests, allow running gags, and deliver punch lines to often inexplicable questions, operating under a surreal logic understood only by the two quiz masters. In many respects the series is not unlike the ‘Numberwang’ sketch on the first season of That Mitchell and Webb Look, another spoof game show in which contestants call out a series of seemingly unrelated numbers, while the host periodically and arbitrarily announces: ‘That’s Numberwang!’ Like Shooting Stars does with the celebrity quiz show, and Brass Eye does with the current-affairs programme, ‘The Quiz Broadcast’ takes the family game show

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__________________________________________________________________ and works within its structures and conventions, filling them with surreal content to produce something that is, in unequal measure, funny and disturbing. The game show of ‘Remain Indoors’ incorporates common elements of the television genre: question and answer, conveyor belt, sudden death, and ‘what happened next?’ rounds. However, in this game show, neither the contestants nor the host know the answers; no one can remember how to turn on the conveyor belt; a contestant dies before the sudden death round can start; and the noteworthy event to take place after the film clip – a snippet of dirty footage showing a 1960s-style dance party – is The Event itself. The following exchange mimics the light-hearted banter which traditionally takes place between questions, while revealing the devastating conditions of the characters’ world. Host: Peter, I’ve been meaning to ask you. You’re blind like most people. Were you blinded by The Event? Peter: No, I was blinded post-Event by raiders. Host: Well that certainly is a funny story. Other jolly exchanges reveal that nobody in the ‘Remain Indoors’ universe can remember how to grow food, and all the children are dead. As the host remarks with grim buoyancy: ‘Post-Event, the world would have been a different place if we had managed to keep even some of the children alive.’ Much of the humour results from the absurdity of a game show in a world where human knowledge seems to have become corrupted beyond recognition. Host: Books say that the body is 92% water. What was water? Peter: Was it an animal? Host: Could be. Sheila: Was it a country? Host: Equally plausible. Within Beckett’s work, a recurring theme is the collapse of meaning, with which comes the failure of language as a process of communication. Exasperated at his master’s inability to understand him, Clov, cries: ‘I use the words you taught me. If they don’t mean anything any more, teach me others. Or let me be silent,’ expressing his frustration with the breakdown of language, which accompanies the end of civilisation. Similarly, the quiz master asks contestants the meaning of the

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__________________________________________________________________ word ‘water’, and follows the question with another: ‘Books mention hope. What was hope?’ Less a cry of anguish, although this would seem appropriate, this seems a genuine expression of bafflement at a word which has lost all association. The contestants’ response makes this clear: Shelia: Was it a country? Host: Possibly. Peter: Was it a spice? Host: What’s a spice? Peter: I think it’s an animal. Host: Fair enough. One point each. While the status of both Endgame and ‘Remain Indoors’ as end-of-the-world narratives is open for debate – by their surreal nature both texts elide a clear narrative situation – the description ‘apocalyptic’ seems appropriate for both. Moreover, many more explicit texts present the end of the world, language, and meaning as somehow synonymous. When the bomb falls in Raymond Briggs’ graphic novel When the Wind Blows, 21 the force is so great it causes the geometric lines of the graphic novel panels to twist out of shape, as though the language of the comic world itself is warped by the impact. In Threads, 22 a chilling depiction of the reality of nuclear war, for the first half of the television play, before the bombs fall, events are depicted in drama-documentary style as characters are introduced and a sense of place is established. After the nuclear attack, this coherent narrative style fragments, as non-naturalistic techniques are introduced – still images, voiceover, and title cards – reflecting the disintegrating lives of the survivors suffering in the aftermath. Associations between apocalypse and the collapse of meaningful discourse are evident as well in more recent films. In M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening, 23 the first sign of the self-harming infection is the failure of the victim to speak coherent sentences; while the breakdown of communication similarly characterises the virus in the linguistic zombie film Pontypool. 24 This end of meaning is evident to the inhabitants of Endgame, and apparent in the following exchange: HAMM: We’re not beginning to... to... mean something? CLOV: Mean something! You and I, mean something!

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__________________________________________________________________ (Brief laugh.) Ah that’s a good one! HAMM: I wonder. (Pause.) Imagine if a rational being came back to earth, wouldn’t he be liable to get ideas into his head if he observed us long enough. (Voice of rational being.) Ah, good, now I see what it is, yes, now I understand what they’re at! (Clov starts, drops the telescope and begins to scratch his belly with both hands. Normal voice.) And without going so far as that, we ourselves... (with emotion) ...we ourselves... at certain moments... (Vehemently.) To think perhaps it won’t all have been for nothing! The ‘rational being’ of ‘The Quiz Broadcast’, as in Beckett’s play, is the real world audience who observe The Event’s survivors and try to make sense of the fragmented world in which they live. While the universe of ‘Remain Indoors’ appears to have more unity than the non-naturalist environment Beckett’s characters inhabit, mysteries concerning the exact nature of ‘The Event’ persist through all three sketches. It is never resolved whether the incident constitutes a scientific experiment gone wrong, along the lines of Half Life’s 25 Black Messa, or the killer plants in The Day of the Triffids; 26 a deliberate military attack as in On the Beach 27 or The Day After, 28 an act of God as in 2012; 29 or the intervention of alien intelligence, as in The Day the Earth Stood Still. 30 The game show might be synecdotal of the world itself –certainly its incorporation of uniformed attendants and public service messages suggests the broadcast is part of broader institutional efforts – or its stricken participants may be engaged in a personal nightmare, something entirely compatible with the sense of confusion with which the culture seems gripped. As Hamm suggests: ‘beyond the hills… Perhaps it’s still green… Perhaps you won’t need to go very far.’ Only the fear of leaving keeps everyone from venturing beyond their hole. Foreshadowing the nature of ‘The Event’ is the ‘Reality Bomb’, which appears in a 1986 Grant Morrison-authored Time Twisters story in 2000AD entitled ‘The Invisible Etchings of Salvador Dali’. 31 This tells of a world decimated by a military detonation, where whales fall from the sky, refrigerators bleed from shop doorways and zombies walk the streets, all realised through the dirty, scratchy penmanship of artist John Hicklenton. One undead figure encountered by the short story’s hero, described as: ‘repeating his national insurance number, as though it’s the only

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__________________________________________________________________ thing he remembers’, seems similar to the ‘Remain Indoors’ show’s master of ceremonies and contestants, who, like the characters of Beckett’s play, and like the traditional characters of British sitcoms, seem locked in a performance with roles and relationships which are beyond their control or comprehension. Mitchell and Webb’s ‘Remain Indoors’ sketch series resides amongst a range of apocalyptic narratives that elaborate upon an association between the collapse of human civilisation and the disintegration of language. Across film, television and comic books, popular forms are employing medium-specific conventions in presenting the end of the world and the end of meaningful discourse as somehow homologous. If humans are defined from other creatures by their ability to communicate through words, and if human civilisation is a process of ascribing meaning to the world, it is not surprising that many narratives chronicling human race’s extinction and the break down of civilisation employ such techniques. ‘The Quiz Broadcast’ uses the quiz-show formula to such effect; its familiar format providing a skeletal structure on which the shreds of a tattered culture in the wake of the apocalypse seem all the more ragged, grotesque and absurd.

Notes 1

That Mitchell and Webb Look, Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 2006 to present. 2 S. Beckett, Endgame, Faber and Faber, London, 2009. 3 Steptoe and Son, Television Programme, BBC UK, Broadcast 1962-74. 4 Red Dwarf, Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 1988-1999. 5 Hancock’s Half Hour, Radio and Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 1954-71. 6 Fawlty Towers, Television Programme, BBC, UK, 1975-1979. 7 Blackadder, Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 1983-1989. 8 One Foot in the Grave, Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 1990-2000. 9 The Young Ones, Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 1982-1984. 10 Filthy, Rich and Catflap, Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 1987. 11 Bottom, Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 1991-1995. 12 Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 1969-1973. 13 Brass Eye, Television Programme, Channel 4, Broadcast 1997-2001. 14 Jam, Television Programme, Channel 4, UK, Broadcast 2000. 15 The League of Gentlemen, Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 19992002. 16 Psychoville, Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 2009-present. 17 Have I Got News For You, Television Programme, BBC, Broadcast 1990 to present. 18 Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 1996.

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Mock the Week, Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 2005-present. Shooting Stars, Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 1993-present. 21 R. Briggs, When the Wind Blows, Penguin Books, London, 1987. 22 Threads, Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 1984. 23 The Happening, DVD, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, UK, 2008. 24 Pontypool, DVD, Kaleidoscope Entertainment, UK, 2010. 25 Half Life, Videogame, Electronic Arts, UK, 1998. 26 The Day of the Triffids, Television Programme, BBC, Broadcast 1981. 27 On the Beach, DVD, MGM Entertainment, UK, 2004. 28 The Day After, DVD, Fremantle Home Entertainment, 2008. 29 2012, DVD, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, UK, 2010. 30 The Day the Earth Stood Still, DVD, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, UK, 2005. 31 G. Morrison, ‘The Invisible Etchings of Salvador Dali’, Time Twisters, No. 8, 1987. 20

Bibliography 2012. DVD, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, UK, 2010. Beckett, S., Endgame. Faber and Faber, London, 2009. Blackadder. Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 1983-9. Bottom. Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 1991-5. Brass Eye. Television Programme, Channel 4, Broadcast 1997-2001. Briggs, R., When the Wind Blows. Penguin Books, London, 1987. The Day After. DVD, Fremantle Home Entertainment, 2008. The Day of the Triffids. Television Programme, BBC, Broadcast 1981. The Day the Earth Stood Still. DVD, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, UK, 2005. Fawlty Towers. Television Programme, BBC, UK, 1975-9. Filthy, Rich and Catflap. Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 1987.

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__________________________________________________________________ Half Life. Videogame, Electronic Arts, UK, 1998. Hancock’s Half Hour. radio and Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 1954-71. The Happening. DVD, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, UK, 2008. Have I Got News For You. Television Programme, BBC, Broadcast 1990 to present. Jam. Television Programme, Channel 4, UK, Broadcast 2000. The League of Gentlemen. Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 19992002. Morrison, G., ‘The Invisible Etchings of Salvador Dali’. Time Twisters. No. 8, 1987. Mock the Week. Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 2005-present. Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 196973. Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 1996. On the Beach. DVD, MGM Entertainment, UK, 2004. One Foot in the Grave. Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 1990-2000. Pontypool. DVD, Kaleidoscope Entertainment, UK, 2010. Psychoville. Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 2009-present. Red Dwarf. Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 1988-1999. Shooting Stars. Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 1993-present. Steptoe and Son. Television Programme, BBC UK, Broadcast 1962-74. That Mitchell and Webb Look. Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 2006 to present.

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__________________________________________________________________ Threads. Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 1984. The Young Ones. Television Programme, BBC, UK, Broadcast 1982-4. Ewan Kirkland lectures in film and screen studies at the University of Brighton. Specialising in the textual analysis of horror videogames, he also writes on popular cinema, fantasy television and children’s culture.