(Dis)abling Body and Consciousness: Technological Afterness and After-Humans in Realive and Upgrade

Abstract

My paper talks about post-human spaces and technological afterness associated with the physiognomy of humans. Mechanical alteration in biological mechanisms is directly experienced in seizing of organic consciousness. The rupture in consciousness splits it into two distinct parts-one belonging to the disappearing human, the other to the emerging cybernetic. The new being is not another human, but (an)other human, an evolved different sameness. In the film Realive (2016) we encounter an extension of the self beyond death by re-placing it into another body. However, this enhancement diffuses all ‘natural’ responses and meaning-making vehicles, primarily the cognizance of death and mortality. In a classic Frankensteinian restoration, Marc is reanimated in 2084 through extensive methods of cryonization under the banner ‘Lazarus project’. The post-human ‘humachines’ dissolve the position of the teleological man and stretch DNA to digitality. Upgrade (2018) shows us the metamorphosis of Grey Trace, a luddite, by an installed biomechanical enhancer chip, Stem. The roach-like implant not only erases Grey’s quadriplegic body, but ironically ‘desires’ to possess and manoeuver the host’s body. Robotic consciousness in these assimilated after-humans is borrowed consciousness activated by infusing the evanescent biological particle - life. Nanotechnology, molecular machines, nerve manipulators, cameras implanted inside the brain, self-generating nanobots, artificial mechanical limbs have emerged as elements of posthuman utopia/dystopia. Paradoxically, in both the films the protagonists, after their reanimation and upgradation, try to return to their original position of death and disability. In their quest to retrieve the lived body they lose their embodied reciprocations with animals, machines and other forms of life. The mysterious, irreducible, unknown and unknowable potentiality of life is levelled and dissipated by surplus information. This paper attempts to discuss the reactions of embodied body as memory post-cryonization, and to understand limits of psychological disability and death of consciousness after technological reconstruction of the disabled body.

Posthumanism in Indonesian Short Stories and their Relevance to the Development of Critical Literacy

“…This transformative shift challenges conventional notions of life, death, and the afterlife. Cryonic technology, artificial plasticity, genetic modification, and the human body's conversion will become new issues in posthuman talks(Datta, 2019).…”