reality and subjectivity: digital films as cyborg texts in a post-modern world
DESCRIPTION
A look at how early fully-digital films are cyborg texts and represent a society that is full of cyborg citizens, with hybrid identities and boundaries.TRANSCRIPT
![Page 1: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Reality and Subjectivity
Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World
![Page 2: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
Purpose• To examine the potential of
digital film as a historical marker of society in the 21st century.
• To consider possible inroads and obstacles cyborgism face.
• On a macro level, it’s a basic test on how cyborgism is in action, and how it is received so far.
![Page 3: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
Cyborg Theory
• The cyborg, as Donna Haraway describes it, is a “cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction” (1991:151). In its most literal sense, the cyborg is a combination of the organic and machine, creating a symbiotic relationship between two seemingly irreconcilable things.
![Page 4: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
Cyborg Theory/Post-Modernism
Cyborgism• Committed to partiality,
irony, liminality, etc.• Embodies irony and
contradiction.• Is a combination of ‘fiction’
and ‘reality’.• One key theme is that the
cyborg resists the binary by inhabiting both ‘machine’ and ‘organic’.
Post Modernism• Rejects boundaries between
high and low forms of art.• Rejects rigid distinctions.• Emphasizes parody, irony,
playfulness.• Favors ambiguity,
fragmentation, and simultaneity.
• Emphasizes destructured, decentered subjects
![Page 5: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
Points of Consideration
• While it displays hybridity, it also highlights dependency.
• Cyborg theory is a contradictory idea. It attempts to break free of boundaries, yet it is limited by its own boundaries.
• Example: Fact/Fiction are both separate, and inseparable at the same time.
![Page 6: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
What is a ‘digital’ film?• It is shot in digital format, with a
digital backdrop.• The technology began with Star
Wars: Episode 1• Subsequently adopted by several
young directors as it was cheap and convenient.
• Early fully digital films include Sin City, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Immortel, Casshern.
![Page 7: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
![Page 8: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
Why Digital Film?• Film can be used as a historical
marker. Films pander to the times.
• Digital technology is extremely effective in breaking down boundaries
• CGI has often been used to create the ‘unreal’. Digital films, employs digital technology in an extreme way.
![Page 9: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
Digital Film Today
• Digital films are advanced means of fusing reality and fiction and presenting it as a whole.
• Digital films are good examples of cyborg expression – visually and thematically.
![Page 10: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
Digital Film/Cyborgism• This research is an attempt to see where these
films ‘pander’ to in today’s world.• How effective has digital film been in
promoting cyborg ideas.• It specifically deals with the relationship
between ‘reality’ and ‘fiction’.
![Page 11: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
Three Case Studies
![Page 12: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
Mirrormask• Mirrormask deals with a girl whose adventure
in her own dream has a direct impact on how events in the real world will transpire.
• Somewhat like The Wizard of Oz, Mirrormask utilizes imageries and designs that explores the relationship between reality and fiction.
![Page 13: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
![Page 14: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
Mirrormask• The key plot includes an exchange of positions
between the protagonist and antagonist. It is a clear picture of mixing reality and fiction.
• That exchange, however, was not approved, and was subsequently reversed in a violent manner. In the end, the boundaries of reality and fiction is re-established.
![Page 15: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
Sin City
• A comic book translation into film. It is made up of four separate storylines that intertwine with each other.
• It is set in a crime ridden city. Old Town, in particular, is the focus of this case study.
![Page 16: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
Sin City – Old Town Prostitutes
• The prostitutes of old town does not fully conform to traditional stereotypes.
![Page 17: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
Old Town Prostitutes
• “The sex industry relies on the assumption that the female associated with female traits have less value, represent the flesh, and can be reduced to commodities.” Brock 1996:234
![Page 18: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
Old Town Prostitutes
• In Sin City, the prostitutes are violators and resistive of the ‘official’ authorities who seek to control them.
• These prostitutes can be considered as cyborgs due to their ironic nature.
![Page 19: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
The Prostitutes’ Paradox
• Becky, a younger prostitute, betrayed the gang because the old stereotypes reasserted itself.
• Her reason for her betrayal is, “Sure there is money. Sure you could’ve moved my mom into Old Town and let her know that her own goddamn daughter is a whore.”
![Page 20: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/20.jpg)
Beowulf• The term ‘animation’ was
contested due to the film’s motion capture technology.
• The motion capture technology used brought about a more heated debate: Angelina Jolie.
• The big question people asked: Is Angelina Jolie naked in a film that was only PG-13?
![Page 21: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/21.jpg)
![Page 22: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/22.jpg)
Beowulf – Grendel’s Mama• Jolie, while filming, was in a blue
suit (not naked).• In post-production, Grendel was
made (naked).• Beowulf tests the boundaries of
film censorship in Western cinema with gore and nudity in a genre traditionally associated with ‘children’.
• The reception was not so great.
![Page 23: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/23.jpg)
Possible Significance
• Are we really living in a ‘cyborgian’ era? Are we really ushering into what some people believe to be a post-modern age?
• Perhaps progress is made, but we need to take into account the reception of the general populace.
• So far, this is based on the observation of these digital films and its production values.
![Page 24: Reality And Subjectivity: Digital Films as Cyborg Texts in a Post-Modern World](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022070317/55658e0ed8b42a093a8b468e/html5/thumbnails/24.jpg)
Future
• Further results through more extensive audience research?
• This field is changing rapidly, so are the definitions. It’s very difficult to nail the ‘latest’ trend.
• Will these cyborg themes continue to be explored or will this genre be shelved and phased out?