Class 2

During this class we studied Blade Runner and the idea of dystopia. This movie is a reflection about what being human means. We can find this idea in a lot of recent movies like Ex Machina or Her, Both of these movies are about artificial intelligence and suggests that, somehow, machines can be as human as us. 

In Her, the disincarnate voice of Scarlett Johansson, even if she's just a computer program, falls in love with Joaqin Phoenix's character. She feels human emotions, and that's why he loves her back and grows attached to her. But as she's not incarnate, she does not have a body, therefore she's not human and they can't properly bond. 

In Ex Machina, Ava, the A.I. portrayed by Alicia Vikander has a metallic body and the hability to feel. But that's not enough; she must have a skin, and be free. She's guided by her desires, as most human beings. 

So being human is more than having a body or having the ability to feel and think. According to Blade Runner, what makes us humans is our capacity of remembrance. 

In Memento, the main character has lost his immediate memory. It makes him a freak, a marginal. He's not even himself anymore. Yet, he's perfectly human. But his disability marks him as an outsider.

But in the previous movies I talked about, if these machines can be so close to human beings it's because they can remember things about their partners thanks to their abilities as A.I. 

But both of these films also demonstrate that a machine acting like a human is dangerous, because it's greater and smarter than us, like ameliorated humans (cf. the cyborg theory, a transhuman body that transcend humans capabilities). 

We can highlight the fact that, in Her, Ex Machina or Blade Runner, the marginal body/artificial intelligence are females. It looks like the extension of the phantasm about A.I : it's something men dream of having, and these female bodies are the object of their desire too.