Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism

6/3/2019 Contemporary
Cyberpunk in Visual
Culture
Identity and Mind/Body Dualism

Benjamin, R. W. Jørgensen

and

Morten, G. Mortensen

Steen Ledet Christensen

Master’s Thesis

Aalborg University
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism

Abstract

In this world of increasing integration with technology, what does it mean to be human and to

have your own identity? This paper aims to examine representations of the body and mind

related to identity in contemporary cyberpunk. Using three examples of contemporary

cyberpunk, Ghost in the Shell (2017), Blade Runner 2049 (2018), and Altered Carbon (2018),

this paper focuses on identity in cyberpunk visual culture. The three entries are part of

established cyberpunk franchises helped launch cyberpunk into the mainstream as a genre.

The three works are important as they represent contemporary developments in cyberpunk

and garnered mainstream attention in the West, though not necessarily due to critical acclaim.

The paper uses previously established theory by Katherine Hayles and Donna Haraway and

expanding upon them into contemporary theory by Graham Murphy and Lars Schmeink, and

Sherryl Vint. We make use of the terms posthumanism, transhumanism, dystopia, Cartesian

mind/body dualism, embodiment, and disembodiment to analyse our works. These terms

have been collected from a variety of sources including anthologies, books and compilations

by established cyberpunk and science fiction theorists. A literary review compares and

accounts for the terms and their use within the paper. The paper finds the same questions

regarding identity and subjectivity in the three works as in older cyberpunk visual culture, but

they differ in how they are answered. This paper compares the answers and provides a

discussion regarding identity and mind/body duality in cyberpunk visual culture. Using the

concepts of transhumanism and posthumanism we relate them to the different representations

of the human body and its potential replacement. The circumstances of these transhuman and

posthuman futures and the representation of the body closely relate to the previously

mentioned terms of embodiment, disembodiment, and mind/body dualism. Additionally, we

focus on the works’ settings, as they are important for contextualising the circumstances of

the bodies and identities presented within their respective universes. The paper discusses that
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism

contemporary cyberpunk visual culture, like its predecessors, reflect the worlds’ social

problems, such as automation of work labour or environmental problems, within the given

decade of their release. Furthermore, the paper briefly explores European cyberpunk, which

shares many similarities with Western and Japanese cyberpunk. The most significant

difference stems from the idea that there is no hope that technology can improve human life.

For all three works, this paper finds that identity originates in how one identifies with

themself, whether this is the body, the mind, or both. Unlike older cyberpunk works that

focused on inhabiting virtual spaces, the paper finds that a recent trend returns the body as the

focal point. Cyborgs, androids, and body modifications impact the ways we view and identify

with our bodies. The paper concludes that cyberpunk remains a progressive genre, retaining

visual and narrative elements of the genre, but a drastic change in the representation of the

body and identity is occurring in contemporary cyberpunk. Likewise, trends of rebooting and

adapting influential and classical works of cyberpunk are appearing, which allows for new

angles of analysis in a changing genre that represents present circumstances.

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism

Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 1

Posthumanism/Transhumanism ......................................................................................... 7

Dystopia/Utopia .................................................................................................................. 14

Embodiment/Disembodiment ........................................................................................... 18

Body modification .............................................................................................................. 27

Cyborg................................................................................................................................. 32

Android ............................................................................................................................... 35

Ghost in the Shell: A Sense of Self in the Shell ..................................................................... 38

Do Androids Dream….?: Identity and self-sentience in Blade Runner 2049 ...................... 63

Altered Carbon: Sleeving your identity .................................................................................. 79

Contemporary Cyberpunk: Identity in Recent and Retrospective Cyberpunk and its

Variants ................................................................................................................................. 106

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 123

Bibliography .......................................................................................................................... 128

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 1

Introduction

Cyberpunk as a genre emerged in the early 1980s. In 1982 the feature film Blade Runner was

released and became a cult film. In 1984 William Gibson’s Neuromancer was released to

critical acclaim. These two works kickstarted the cyberpunk-era of visual culture and literary

works, respectively. Before cyberpunk was agreed upon as a genre, the authors had mainly

been known as “The movement”, the reason for why many of the first works of cyberpunk

are called “Movement-era works” by scholars such as Graham Murphy, Sherryl Vint, and

Lars Schmeink. Precursor works to cyberpunk were considered science fiction, with

cyberpunk being categorised as a subgenre of sci-fi. For this paper we are interested in

cyberpunk as a visual culture phenomenon, however, the literary traditions and works are an

influence in visual culture and contributed to cyberpunk’s rise into the mainstream.

Upon its release, Blade Runner did not receive critical praise, only years after its release

(and after the release of Neuromancer) has it been praised as an influential work within the

genre, visual culture, and socially. Cyberpunk is now a well-established genre within visual

culture, with works being released in almost every format: graphic novels and manga such as

Transmetropolitan (2009-2011) and The Surrogates (2006), and a variety of graphic novel

adaptations of both Blade Runner and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1968) by

Philip. K. Dick (A precursor work to cyberpunk); video games such as System Shock (1994),

System Shock 2 (1999), and the Deus Ex-series (2000, 2003, 2011, 2016); table top and pen-

and-paper games such as Cyberpunk (1988) and Cyberpunk 2020 (1990), feature films such

as the aforementioned Blade Runner, The Matrix (1999), and more recently Alita: Battle

Angel (2019); TV series and anime such as Ghost in the Shell-series (2002-2003, 2004-2006),

and Westworld (2016), these are just a few examples among many other works.
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 2

As previously stated, our focus is on the visual culture aspect of cyberpunk, more

specifically films and series produced in America. Again however, it must be mentioned that

we acknowledge other cyberpunk works within visual culture and from other regions - such

as Japan and Europe - and refer to them when applicable. Cyberpunk is also a genre that has

been claimed “dead on arrival” by Claire Sponsler (as cited in Vint & Murphy, 2010, xi).

Likewise, it has been described as able to “[...] go only so far before self-destructing under

the weight of its own deconstructive activities” by Veronica Hollinger (as cited in Vint &

Murphy, 2010, xi). Furthermore, Lewis Shiner and Bruce Sterling believed cyberpunk’s

demise surfaced at nearly the same moment at it emerged, epitomised in Shiner’s New York

Times editorial “Confessions of an Ex-Cyberpunk” and, later, Sterling’s retrospective

“Cyberpunk in the Nineties.” (Murphy & Schmeink, 2018, xxi).

What binds these cyberpunk works together is a series of tropes and traits that are

common between them, whether it is literary or visual culture. To set the stage for this paper,

we will expand upon what these tropes and traits are, a few of these we will go into detail

within the next section, as those terms serve as key points for our paper. In their book

Cyberpunk and Visual Culture (2018), Murphy and Schmeink posit that cyberpunk is an “[...]

extrapolation of the developments of late capitalism and of postmodernity with its

commodification of all aspects of life, especially reflected in the products of visual culture”

(xxii). This can be applied to both the visual aesthetics and to key plot points in cyberpunk,

the extrapolation of late capitalism and postmodernity appears in the way that most

cyberpunk is set in a “distant” future (Blade Runner is set in the year 2019, a distant future in

1982) where almost every aspect of human life has become commercialised. A common

aesthetic in cyberpunk is the neon-lit, advertisement-riddled cityscape caked in grime and

filth accentuated by the greedy corporations responsible for these neon-lit advertisements.
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 3

This aspect we will delve into in more detail, as we explain how a dystopian setting is an

invaluable trait of cyberpunk in visual culture. Likewise, Murphy and Schmeink (2018) bring

into view another invaluable trait of cyberpunk, and another key term in this paper, the aspect

of the “[...] shifting boundaries and changing makeup of the human body itself” (xxiv). The

concept of the “human” in cyberpunk is a fleeting idea, often being replaced and overcome

by cyborgs, androids, virtual bodies, godlike figures, or the macabre globally spanning neural

network. These concepts are closely linked to transhumanism and posthumanism, terms

which cyberpunk inarguably highlight and discuss, though in an almost silent manner. Most

cyberpunk works centre on a change of the human body, for better or worse, but only some

works directly reference a post- or transhuman discussion. Likewise, these are key terms in

this paper and, as such, we will delve deeper into expanding them in the next section.

We chose to focus on the genre cyberpunk because we wanted to expand on our

Bachelor project, which also centred around cyberpunk visual culture. We explored

cyberpunk cinema from its inception through the two decades following as a discussion of its

evolution. Throughout our research, we have noticed a pattern in contemporary cyberpunk

visual culture research, which has mainly focused on older films, games, or novels and

therefore we want to turn the attention towards newer films and TV shows. The present paper

instead focuses on contemporary cyberpunk visual culture by analysing Ghost in the Shell

(2017), Blade Runner 2049 (2017) and Altered Carbon (2018), using contemporary theory.

New theory has also tended to focus on one theme throughout their work, such as the

importance of bodies or the posthumans. However, we have decided to combine the different

themes and concepts from older theory and modernise them with help from contemporary

theory, in order to create a coherent way of analysing cyberpunk visual culture and identity.
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 4

Like in our Bachelor, identity is the main theme of this paper as we want to explore how

characters are portrayed contemporary cyberpunk visual culture in regard to identity and

body representations: How does the converging technologies of a post- or transhuman future

impact identity? How does embodiment and disembodiment relate to identity in a

utopian/dystopian future? And is the body an important aspect in our understanding of our

´self´ or is it obsolete? Regarding these questions, is cyberpunk as a genre still relevant for a

Western audience or has its progression “died”?

In this paper, we will analyse and discuss the notion of identity in three cyberpunk visual

culture works: Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner 2049 and Altered Carbon.

Chapter 1, “Ghost in the Shell: A Sense of Self in the Shell”, explores the representation

of posthumanism, transhumanism, embodiment, and subjectivity in the film Ghost in the

Shell. The chapter provides arguments for how characters such as Killian and Kuze are

portrayed through the terms mentioned above, and how those terms convey and enable them

to have an identity. We use parts of Donna Haraway’s cyborg theory and the expansions

made by Murphy and Schmeink to define them. We use Steve Fuller’s theory on

transhumanism and Vint’s theory on posthumanism to explore whether cyborgs like Killian

and Kuze remain the same as other humans or if they transcend beyond humanity.

Furthermore, Katherine Hayles’ theory of embodiment explores the portrayal of each

character’s ability to understand who they are. Where Killian embraces a transhuman

embodiment, Kuze situates himself as Kurzweil’s Singularity of disembodiment.

Chapter 2, “Do Androids Dream….?: Identity and self-sentience in Blade Runner 2049”,

explores posthuman bodies in characters such as K, Joi and Deckard, who are portrayed as

the next step in human evolution. Murphy and Schmeink also expand on the term Androids,

which we use to define the replicants. 2049 reintroduces the body as an important medium
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 5

for human subjectivity as replicants are now able to give birth and live longer. Los Angeles in

2049 has become a “robot” populated world, where humans interact with the replicants they

feared 30 years ago. It is also a world, where replicants have been given hope that they might

be able to become more “human” because of Deckard’s and Rachel’s consummation, which

spurs a rebel uprising for rights and identity.

Chapter 3, “Altered Carbon: Sleeving your identity”, explores a transhuman future where

humanity views itself as transcended. We explore the notion of fear of the body to Cartesian

dualism and then towards re-embodiment. The cultural context of cyberpunk’s emergence,

the 1980s, includes the threat of human obsolescence in an increasingly automated and

polarized world, where “gods” populate an increasingly globalisation of capitalism, and the

gap between the rich and the poor increase at a rapid rate. Altered Carbon explores a kind of

posthumanity in which the body has become an infinitely malleable accessory. On the surface

this future appears a place of infinite variety – one can adopt any among a spectrum of

genders and racial features.

Chapter 4, “Contemporary Cyberpunk: Identity in Recent and Retrospective Cyberpunk

and its Variants”, discusses and compares Ghost in the Shell, 2049 and Altered Carbon with

each other in terms of themes and concepts introduced in the beginning of the paper.

Hereafter, we discuss the three works in regard to the years they were released and the

general history of cyberpunk by focusing on ideas and assumptions of the time regarding the

future and what kind of social problems would be present at that time. Lastly, we discuss

another type cyberpunk genre, namely, European cyberpunk. This is interesting because

European cyberpunk differs from its American and Japanese counterparts by expanding its

tropes and traits onto different environments and settings.

The paper’s conclusion argues for the importance of bodies, whether it is a physical or an

artificial one. The type of body is not important, however, what is important is that human
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 6

subjectivity and identity comes in a variety of concepts such as embodiment and

disembodiment, posthumanism and transhumanism, and mind/body dualism, regardless of

whether they are cyborgs, androids, or something entirely different.

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 7

Posthumanism/Transhumanism

The distinction between transhumanism and posthumanism is not easily distinguishable. Both

believe that the contemporary Homo sapiens-state of humanity is bound to be changed and

made different - evolved, enhanced, and improved - by technology, particularly through

computing technology. Transhumanism’s primary goal is to move humanity beyond being

“human” to being akin to “Gods”. As Fuller says in his book Humanity 2.0: What it Means to

be Human Past, Present and Future (2011):

[…] in Latin the shift was signified by the replacement of the proper name pater

omnipotens (‘almighty father’) with the generic attribute omnipotentia

(‘omnipotence’). This stand alone concepts of power open the door for all of God’s

properties to be reconceptualised as dimensions for comparing the human and the

divine, in terms of which one might speak of ‘progress’ from the former to the latter.

A latter-day descendant of this profound shift in Western consciousness is the

‘transhumanist’ mentality (p. 84).

Implied in this mentality, is the importance of embodiment, so that we may have a way

to express these godlike powers. Posthumanism, on the other hand, focuses on decentring

humanity.

In her book Bodies of Tomorrow (2007), Vint says “I have two central points of

contention regarding the blindness of some versions of posthumanism and the thinking about

technology that informs them. First, too often such model demonstrate the heritage of

Cartesian dualism and equate the self with only mind and ignore the relevance and specificity

of embodiment” (p. 11). Likewise, Hayles, in her book How We Became Posthuman: Virtual

Bodies in Cybernetics Literature and Informatics (1999) says of posthumanism that “[...] the
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 8

posthuman view privileges informational pattern over material instantiation, so that

embodiment in a biological substrate is seen as an accident of history rather than an

inevitability of life” (p. 2) and “Because information had lost its body, this construction

implied that embodiment is not essential to human being. Embodiment has been

systematically downplayed or erased in the cybernetic construction of the posthuman [...]” (p.

4). Both Vint and Hayles are critical of the majority thinking within posthumanism. That is

not to say, that Vint and Hayles are not posthuman theorists, they believe in the ideas of

posthumanism, but they do not believe in the insignificance of the body. Both transhumanism

and posthumanism can be incorporated into the larger, umbrella-term “humanism” which

also believe in the advancement of humanity since its conception during the European

Renaissance, with Soper stating “[...] In this sense, we must acknowledge a continuity of

theme, however warped it may have become with the passage of time, between the

Renaissance celebration of the freedom of humanity from any transcendental hierarchy or

cosmic order, the Enlightenment faith in reason and its powers, and the “social engineering”

advocated by our contemporary “scientific” humanists (14-15)” (as cited in Vint, 2007, p.

13).

According to Colin Milburn, in his chapter “Posthumanism” in the book The Oxford

Handbook of Science Fiction (2014), examples of technological posthumanism in literature

include Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein from 1818 and Bernard Wolfe’s Limbo from 1952,

among others (Milburn, p. 524). Milburn (2014) further posits that there are three types of

posthumanism; Other than technological posthumanism, biological and cultural

posthumanism (p. 524) are the three ways in which humanity can evolve past our current

form - hence the name “posthumanism”. To exemplify biological posthumanism, Milburn

(2014) highlights H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine from 1895, Olaf Stapledon’s Last and

First Men from 1930, among others, and to exemplify cultural posthumanism he highlights
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 9

William S. Burrough’s The Soft Machine from 1961, Ian Watson’s The Embedding from

1973, among others (p. 524). Milburn (2014) describes the biological posthumanism as “[...]

focusing on the evolutionary future of Homo sapiens and the extent to which human

physiology might dramatically alter over time, or even in symbiogenesis with other species”

(p. 524); technological posthumanism is described as “[...] focusing on the synthetic,

engineered successors of humanity or the idea of humans and machines linked ever more

closely in the circuits of technoculture” (p. 524); while cultural posthumanism is described as

“[...] discovering that “human nature” is a tenuous social construct open to modification and

revision” (p. 524). Hayles, further expands upon a definition of posthumanism, highlighting

four different assumptions associated with posthumanism:

First, the posthuman view privileges informational pattern over material

instantiation, so that embodiment in a biological substrate is seen as an accident of

history rather than an inevitability of life. Second, the posthuman view considers

consciousness, regarded as the seat of human identity in the Western tradition long

before Descartes thought he was a mind thinking, as an epiphenomenon, as an

evolutionary upstart trying to claim it is the whole show when in actuality it is only a

minor sideshow. Third, the posthuman view thinks of the body as the original

prosthesis we all learn to manipulate, so that extending or replacing the body with

other prostheses becomes a continuation of a process that began before we were born.

Fourth, and most important, by these and other means, the posthuman view configures

human being so that it can be seamlessly articulated with intelligent machines (p. 2-

3).
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 10

In his chapter ““My Targeting System is a Little Messed Up”: The Cyborg Gaze in the

RoboCop Media Franchise”, Christopher McGunnigle expands upon Hayles’ quote, saying

“In this posthumanist state, virtuality therefore becomes a dominating medium for

representing the self, although it should be clear that while “normally virtuality is associated

with computer simulations that put the body into a feedback loop with a computer-generated

image” (Hayles 14), it can also be represented by images of the body in any visual medium”

(McGunnigle, 2018, p. 106).

Fuller (2011) contemplates transhumanism and accounts for the term “converging

technologies” (or CT); “[...] the integration of cutting-edge research in nano-, bio-, info- and

cogno-sciences for purposes of extending the power and control of human beings over their

own bodies and their environments” (p. 103). According to Fuller (2011), there are “[...] at

least six variants of CT, each of which may be associated with the sense in which it would

have ‘the human’ projected” (p. 103); Fuller goes on to list these 6 variants of CT:

1. Humanity Transcended - “Julian Huxley’s original sense of ‘transhumanism’ [...] the

return of natural selection to its metaphorical roots in artificial selection, such that

humans become the engineers of evolution” (p. 103).

2. Humanity Enhanced - “[...] focus on the prospect of humans acquiring improved

versions of their current powers without the more extreme implications of prolonging

life indefinitely or upgrading us to a superior species. For example, the use of

nanotechnology to eliminate fatty deposits from our arteries or clean polluted water”

(p. 103).

3. Humanity Prolonged - “This CT goes beyond enhancing normal life capacities and

towards suspending, if not reversing, age-related disintegration and perhaps even

death itself [...] it is specifically focussed on extending indefinitely human existence

in its prime and hence explicitly raises questions about intergenerational fairness, if
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 11

not the very need for intergenerational replacement, or indeed, sexual reproduction

itself” (p. 104).

4. Humanity Translated - “[...] a high-tech realisation of theological ideas concerning

resurrection, whereby an individual’s distinctive features are terminated in one

physical form and reproduced in another [...] uploading of mental life from carbon- to

silicon-based vehicles, typically with the implication that the relevant human qualities

will be at once prolonged, enhanced and transcended” (p. 104).

5. Humanity Incorporated - “[...] artificial persons and corporate personalities [...]

human and non-human elements are not only combined by allowed to co-develop into

novel unities. All of these proposals share the idea that humanity’s distinctiveness

comes from our superior organic capacity to make the environment part of ourselves”

(p. 104).

6. Humanity Tested - “Reflecting the likely, perhaps disastrous, failure of many of the

CT experiments involved in realising any of the previous five projections of

humanity, the focus here is on promoting a culture tolerant of risk-taking, say, by a

generous social insurance scheme, a supportive environment for reporting and coping

with unanticipated outcomes and a strong sense of an overarching long-term

collective project” (pp. 104-105).

Fuller (2011) mentions that these six projected human futures are linked to what is known

as “humanism”, a movement that dates back to the European Renaissance, which we have

mentioned before (p. 105). In relation to the six futures, as well as the concept of

“humanism”, Fuller (2011) claims that there is “[...] more to humanity than simply the

normal conduct of human beings” (p. 105), and that “[...] only the features of our conduct that

distinguish us from other animals are worthy of a ‘humanist’ project” (p. 105). In addition,
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 12

Fuller (2011) provides us with some examples of how far “[...] we have already gone down

the path to such ‘transhumanist’ futures” (p. 105):

1. “The channelling of both work and play through digital media, such that time spent in

cyberspace increasingly supplements, if not replaces, time spent outside it” (p. 105).

2. “Computer literacy is now introduced at the primary school level, if not earlier. The

symbiotic relationship of the last two generations of humans with computers has led

to a greater tolerance and even transferred affection to androids and cyborgs as

‘second selves’” (p. 105).

3. “The extension of the law’s jurisdiction into ‘second life’ and other ‘virtual realities’,

such that an English court has settled a divorce case on the basis of a spouse’s

adulterous avatar” (p. 106).

4. “The increasing use, tolerance and demand for brain boosting drugs, silicon chip

implants and gene therapy as psychotropic supplements” (p. 106).

5. “The ease with which we resort to ‘pre-emptive’ interventions, be it to prevent wars,

crime, unwanted lives or even aversion to innovation [...] it is very much in the

utopian spirit of presuming that we do more than simply treat symptoms and effects -

we can manipulate purported causes” (p. 106).

6. “The ease with which we trade off privacy and security for access, as in the emerging

phenomenon of ‘cloud computing’, which promises to make all information available

through overlapping providers - that is, multiply accessible but also traceable [...] it

implies a principled acceptance of the ‘humanity incorporated’ option above” (p.

106).

Vint (2007) mentions Kate Soper saying she “[...] points out that humanism, like

liberalism, is founded upon a relationship of domination of the rest of the natural world,

arguing that ‘a profound confidence in our powers to come to know and thereby control our
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 13

environment and destiny lies at the heart of every humanism” (pp. 12-13), echoing some of

the arguments made by Fuller - using technology and knowledge to advance, enhance,

incorporate, and transcend the human to next “evolutionary” step.

In cyberpunk, post- and transhumanism is an oft featured part of the narrative - whether

through cyborg or android representation (We will return to these two representations more

in-depth later) or through modifications to the human body through technology. The film

Transcendence (2014) features posthumanism in the sense of Ray Kurzweil’s concept of

“Singularity” (Featured in his book The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend

Biology (2005)). Will Caster (Johnny Depp) and his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hill) are two

prominent scientists working to create AI, in the form of a sentient supercomputer, that will

eventually surpass the capabilities of the entire human scientific community combined.

Caster calls this “Transcendence”, when human intelligence functions purely through a

network of supercomputers (While in Kurzweil’s concept, humanity will upload its

conscience to a global supercomputer network and entirely leave human biology behind).

Throughout the film, doubt is cast by the characters as to whether the AI is actually Caster’s

conscience, or the old AI adopting Caster’s voice and physical appearance. At the end of the

film, it is strongly hinted that the AI was Caster’s actual conscience all along, as it cleans

pollution from the ground and air, revivifies forests and eradicate diseases to prolong human

mortality. To a certain extent, the film Ready Player One (2018) includes Fuller’s concept of

Humanity Prolonged, as the creator of the in-game virtual reality universe OASIS has

seemingly uploaded a virtual, AI-powered representation of himself (Both him as a younger

child and him as we see him in sequences where he builds and develops OASIS for the first

time). These representations work to guide and congratulate the players participating in the

easter egg hunt to become the next heir of OASIS, and the recipient of his entire fortune.
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 14

Dystopia/Utopia

According to Philip E. Wegner (2014) in his chapter “Utopianism” in The Oxford Handbook

of Science Fiction, utopianism is “not simply one among a range of possible themes or motifs

in modern science fiction [...] Rather, it is fundamental to this vital modern genre” (p. 573).

As such, Wegner (2014) positions modern science fiction as distinctly different from its

precursor forms, such as “[...] the fable, travel narrative, Gothic, and voyage extraordinaire”

(p. 573) as well as “[...] contemporary practices of futurology and prognostication” (p. 573),

due to its inherent inclusion of utopianism. However, according to Wegner (2014),

publications such as The Iron Heel (1908) by Jack London gave rise to one of the most

substantial subgenres of modern science fiction in the late nineteenth century, the dystopia (p.

574).

Tom Moylan, in his chapter “Global Economy, Local Texts Utopian/Dystopian Tension

in William Gibson’s Cyberpunk Trilogy” in the book Beyond Cyberpunk: New Critical

Perspectives (2010), expands on the origins of dystopianism, stating that both former

president of the United States George Bush and Ronald Reagan made speeches invoking

utopian figures: Bush “[...] called for a new world order, an order of peace and prosperity that

would remove the darkness of the Cold War” (Moylan, 2010, p. 81) in the 1990s, and Reagan

invoked the figure of the “[...] “city on the hill” that recalled the dream of a New World that

would inspire everyone with its harmony and enterprise” (Moylan, 2010, p. 81) in the 1980s.

However, in the time between - and indeed also after - these speeches, “[...] neither humanity

nor the environment has benefited from these utopian gestures [...] the world historical

situation has become ever more dystopian” (Moylan, 2010, p. 81). Moylan writes that it was

“[...] in this impoverished context in the mid-1980s that the work of William Gibson and

other writers who eventually branded their work “cyberpunk”” (2010, p. 82), and that

many readers and critics “[...] welcomed the cyberpunk phenomenon - and its associated
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 15

movements in film (e.g., Blade Runner), music (e.g., Sonic Youth), and performance art

(e.g., Survival Research Laboratories)” (Moylan, 2010, p. 82).

Moylan offers a definition of what dystopian writing presents their readers, he states it

presents a “[...] “bad place,” a place organized according to less perfect, more destructive

social and economic principles than those found in the author’s community” (2010, p. 85),

however, he is also quick to note that dystopia is not anti-utopia - where anti-utopia goes

directly against utopian values, dystopia instead “[...] preserve the memory of the better place

even as they delineate the contours of an oppressive society” (Moylan, 2010, p. 85). This can

be seen in cyberpunk works such as Blade Runner (1982) where the fictional “futuristic” Los

Angeles of 2019 has large, expansive office complexes housing massive corporations, such

as the Tyrell Corporation, while down in the streets the people are culturally diverse, with

advertisements and shop vendors frequently speaking Chinese rather than English, and a

general sense of uncleanliness and grime cake the streets. In his chapter “Playing for

Virtually Real: Cyberpunk Aesthetics and Ethics in Deus Ex: Human Revolution” in

Cyberpunk and Visual Culture Steven Jones highlights that this is not an uncommon theme in

cyberpunk, explaining “the economic structure of cyberpunk is determined by the zaibatsus,

the multinational corporation” (Jones, 2018, p. 168). Joyce expands on this explanation by

stating “The inequality generated by these corporations is reflected in the urban architecture

which generally features a wealthy corporate elite atop secure skyscrapers while an

impoverished multicultural mélange weaves through the overpopulated and grimy streets

below” (Jones, 2018, p. 168).

The utopian-dystopian contrast in Blade Runner (1982) comes from the fact that while

the replicants are working off-world to the financial benefit and growth of the corporations,

the cities have become overpopulated and impoverished as the citizens are seemingly not
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 16

benefitting from the labour of the replicants. In some cyberpunk works, set in a dystopian

future, a common theme is for the protagonist to revert the oppression and social/economic

conditions by the corporations. In works such as Gamer (2009), Total Recall (2012), and

Surrogates (2009) the protagonist rebels against an oppressive corporation/government that

exploit the citizens for financial benefit. At the films’ conclusion, the protagonists have

defeated the corporate/government oppression and opened the eyes of the common citizens to

how the world should function. While not showing the societal prosperity promised by the

change, the conclusions usually allude to the fact that the world is better off without the

oppressive corporate/governmental influence of capitalism and exploitative nature. Jones,

however, highlights that “[...] it is unclear if cyberpunk is genuinely critical of the capitalism

it portrays” (Jones, 2018, p. 168), and further asks the question “What are we to make of a

criticism of capitalism that can only be presented to us through the intercession of the global

media industry?” (Jones, 2018, p. 168). Kevin McCarron provides a potential answer,

explaining “[...] cyberpunk narratives function as satire--their authors are more than half in

love, gazing with rapt fascination at what they hate” (as cited in Jones, 2018, p. 168).

Building upon Lawrence Grossberg’s term “cultural formation”, cyberpunk is not so

much a genre, which is organized around “the existence of necessary formal elements” [but]

a cultural formation [which is] “a historical articulation of textual practices with ‘a variety of

other cultural, social, economic, historical and political practices’ (xvi)” (Murphy, 2018, p.

36). According to Murphy in his chapter “Cyberpunk Urbanism and Subnatural Bugs in

BOOM! Studios´ Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” in Cyberpunk and Visual Culture

as a cultural formation, “we live in a world that is increasingly cyberpunk, increasingly Dick,

in its intersections of global capitalism, postmodernity, posthumanism, advanced robotics, the

eversion of simulation upon materiality, and overall techno-cultural saturation” (Murphy,

2018, p. 36). We live in a cyberpunk now that is a “cultural moment characterized not by the
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 17

replacement of the material with its simulation but rather one in which the material and the

simulated are intertwined like a Möbius strip: they each have distinct identities, but we never

inhabit a moment that is purely one or the other” (Vint, 2010, p. 229).
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 18

Embodiment/Disembodiment

Embodiment is a term often referred to as the values and ideas that one has about their own

subjectivity and own self. The term, however, has been discussed throughout history by many

different theorists and it is no exception within the cyberpunk genre. Here, the two foremost

theories posthumanism and transhumanism each have their own idea of what embodiment

means. For cyberpunk, embodiment deals with the question of whether mind and body can be

separated from each other. Among posthuman and transhuman theorists, confusion exists

about whether they believe that mind and body can be separated.

Hayles (1999) argues that there is a need to reconfigure the embodiment concept to re-

embodiment. What this means is that the dualistic view of embodiment and disembodiment is

outdated, and the separation of mind and body is relative to a set of criteria, for example

technology and the discourse of being human. In her earlier work “Boundary Disputes:

Homeostasis, Reflexivity, and the Foundation of Cybernetics” (1994), Hayles believed that

the body was merely a vessel and that intelligence and information (which she defines

“mind”) works on separate levels. However, today Hayles (1999) has adopted a different

posthuman view as she claims that the mind and body cannot be separated any longer

because they convey a liberal thinking of the body and mind as being one and the same. The

ideas of disembodiment are seen in films such as The Lawnmower Man (1992), Total Recall,

and Transcendence (2014) where they all have in common that their consciousness is

uploaded into a computer. Although Hayles (1999) stresses the need to interpret body and

embodiment as recursive processes that are in a constant state of becoming, she does seem to

reconstruct rather than bury the dualist divide. For Hayles (1999), the body is an abstract

concept that is constantly culturally constructed and generalised, though disembodiment still

serves as a dangerous fantasy.

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 19

However, according to Pawel Frelik, in his chapter “Woken Carbon: The Return of the

Human in Richard K. Morgan’s Takeshi Kovacs Trilogy” in Beyond Cyberpunk, the general

idea of embodiment in the cyberpunk era (1980s and 1990s) is that mind and body can be

separated from each other because the characters often try to “escape” embodiment, thus

turning the perspective towards disembodiment (Frelik, 2010, p. 184). Instead of “escaping”

the embodiment, films such as The Terminator (1984), The Matrix (1999), and Gamer (2009)

does not necessarily celebrate the body but they stress the importance of the body by saying

that if the body dies, so does the mind. According to Ryan J. Cox early in this era “[...]

transhumanism’s celebration of disembodiment [...]” was contrary, at the time, to

posthumanism’s embodiment (as cited in Bukatman, 2018, xviii).

In the 1980s Haraway influenced the notion of embodiment and disembodiment in her

essay A Cyborg Manifesto (1985). Karen Cadora says Haraway “[...] urged feminists to

rethink their characterization of technology as masculine and instead explore what the

myth/metaphor of the cyborg might enable for liberatory politics” (as cited in Murphy &

Vint, 2010, xvii). Additionally, Cadora notes that “For Haraway, the cyborg was differently

embodied, one who resists “seductions to organic wholeness” (150), and “Similarly […] in

feminist cyberpunk a use of the cyberpunk tropes of disembodiment, split subjectivity, and

human fusion with machines as an opportunity to escape the ideals of a gender ideology that

biology is destiny” (as cited in Murphy & Vint, 2010, xvii). For feminist cyberpunk, and

feminism itself, it often tells a story about minorities and their struggle for equal rights and

respect. Films such as The Animatrix (2003) and I, Robot (2004) similarly tell a story about

minorities, in this case robots, who rise up and fight back for same rights as their human

counterparts. According to Mark Bould in his chapter “Why Neo Flies, and Why He

Shouldn’t: The Critique of Cyberpunk in Gwyneth Jones’s Escape Plans and M. John
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 20

Harrison’s Signs of Life” in Beyond Cyberpunk, classic cyberpunk literature dealt with “[...]

cyberpunk’s dualism: digital disembodiment versus the meat” (Bould, 2010, p. 117).

As mentioned earlier, the cyberpunk genre was often dominated by men, especially in

Western literature and film, and arguable still is. According to Cadora (2010), in her chapter

“Feminist Cyberpunk” in Beyond Cyberpunk, male characters have an unfair advantage over

female characters. Cadora believes that female androids and cyborgs, often, do not have the

same options of disembodiment as their male counterparts; “For women, the realities of the

flesh are all too present in the imperfect world of cyberpunk. Because of this, embodiedness

is a central issue in feminist cyberpunk in a way that it is not in masculinist cyberpunk”

(Cadora, p. 165). Not only can female characters not separate body from mind in “real” life

but Cadora argues that, even in virtual reality, female characters are not able to disembody;

“It is not surprising, then, that almost all feminist cyberpunk depicts virtual reality as a space

that must be navigated with a body of some sort” (Cadora, 2010, p. 165).

Embodiment and disembodiment are both widely analysed in the academic realm, but a

third term seems to appear in more recent cyberpunk literature and film; the notion of re-

embodiment. Veronica Hollinger, in her chapter “Retrofitting Frankenstein” in Beyond

Cyberpunk, argues that “In the case of the contemporary technosubject, and according to the

logic of the supplement, the technology through which we extend ourselves into the world is

never only prosthetic; it is also the process through which we take an “other” into ourselves

and become, in the process, other than what we were” (Hollinger, 2010, p. 200). Re-

embodiment is about the return of the body, where the “other” (body) becomes part of us

again as opposed to defining one’s body as foreign. As noted earlier, Hayles is a big advocate

for re-embodiment and Hollinger argues “[...] the body is exactly the supplement that

constitutes the (psychic) identity that it completes. The dilemma for the posthuman
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 21

technobody, however, is what we might think of as its over- determined supplementarity”

(Hollinger, 2010, p. 201).

Turning the attention briefly back to the discussion of embodiment from a posthuman

and transhuman viewpoint. According to Murphy and Schmeink virtual realities allow for the

search and curiosity of what it means to be human. They allow the creation of new realities

for the mind and of the mind to explore in an attempt to, as Frelik argued, “escape” from

embodiment or “meat space” as Murphy and Schmeink define it. However, this escape

manifests in a transhumanist-utopian ideal of embodiment (Murphy & Schmeink, 2018). For

posthuman theorists like Hayles and arguably Haraway, embodiment is about re-embodiment

allowing characters to attempt the escape of the meat space but ultimately submitting to the

body as a whole rather than an obsolete object. Hayles (1999) argues that because technology

and virtual worlds are so widely available today, it is “not that the body has disappeared but

that a certain kind of subjectivity has emerged” (p. 193). Films such as Surrogates (2009) by

Jonathan Mostow are argued to be about re-embodiment rather than disembodiment. Rather

than living in a virtual reality, surrogates walk the everyday, physical world with

cybernetically enhanced bodies. Timothy Wilcox claims in his chapter “Embodying Failures

of the Imagination: Defending the Posthuman in The Surrogates” in Cyberpunk and Visual

Culture, that the graphic novel The Surrogates (2006), which Surrogates (2009) is based on

”advocates the need for openness to the personal, everyday ways in which we encounter

ourselves and others as posthumans through a materiality that is always already in flux thanks

to ever-shifting technologies” (Wilcox, 2018, p. 22). Vint (2007) can also join the forces of

embodiment as she argues for a “[...] return to a notion of embodied subjectivity [...]” (p. 8).

Transhumanist theorists like Ryan J. Cox in his chapter “Kusanagi’s Body: Dualism and the

Performance of Identity in Ghost in the Shell and Stand Alone Complex” in Cyberpunk and

Visual Culture, states that a utopian ideal is about the disembodiment of mind and body. John
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 22

Perry Barlow claims that a world “[...] one free of the problems associated with embodiment

and the world of the flesh because the virtual space allows the transcendence of flesh.

Cyberspace was therefore going to be a space of pure mind. As Barlow puts it, in cyberspace

“identities have no bodies”” (as cited in Cox, 2018, p. 128). Cox advocates for a return of

disembodiment as well as criticising the contemporary ideal of re-embodiment:

Identities without bodies were figured throughout early hacker ideology as a move

towards freedom. The body was seen as restrictive, limiting—it ages and decays, it

fails and carries with it always the specter of death. Beyond its physical limitations

are also the restrictions imposed upon physical bodies by society and its prejudices. A

techno-utopian world where selves are untethered from bodies, where bodies are

transformed into pure information, has been naively envisioned as somehow creating

a freer, more egalitarian world: “The great dream and promise of information,” N.

Katherine Hayles writes, “is that it can be free from the material constraints that

govern the mortal world” (How We Became Posthuman, 13), although Hayles is quite

clear in her studies of posthumanism that disembodiment remains a dangerous

fantasy. Science fiction has been particularly effective in thinking through the broader

implications of the fantasy of disembodiment that was enthusiastically promoted in

the final decades of the 20th century, a fantasy that was often, if unfairly, attributed to

cyberpunk (2018, p. 128).

Cox suggests that both the film Hackers (1995) and the novel Snow Crash (1992) make

it difficult and almost impossible to escape the body (2018, p. 129). Arguably, films such as

The Matrix (1999) convey the same idea by having body and mind in synced unity; if one

dies in the Matrix the other dies in the “real world” and vice versa. Cox’s argument for why
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 23

this may be, functions as a criticism of Scott Bukatman’s term “Terminal Identity”, suggests

that though the body may be appropriated into the cybernetic world of the posthuman, “the

experience of the body . . . operates to center the subject, which is why the body must serve

as the locus for any interface with terminal reality” (2018, p. 129). However, Cox believes

that

[...] as technology infiltrates and appropriates the body, the body itself becomes

“indeterminate . . . dissolved: malleable as data and more ephemeral that its own

stored image” (Bukatman 245). By this logic, as the body becomes increasingly

malleable it threatens to lose its ability to provide a stable and coherent center for the

self. Embodiment stabilizes and historicizes the self, and along with the mind

produces the subject. This unmooring of the self from the stabilizing forces of the

body, therefore, renders the body as mere supplement, potentially disrupting the

continuity of the self and troubling the coherence of the subject (2018, p. 129).

Cox argues that embodiment is

When the body is altered, mutated, abridged, or abandoned it is not a liberating act

where the subject is freed from disciplining social forces and the limitations of the

flesh, but rather a potential existential crisis tied to the loss of the flesh because the

body is inscribed with meaning and the body always already produces meaning. The

body has historically served as the substrate of the human subject and, as Hayles

argues, the substrate matters (Posthuman 28–9) (2018, p. 129).

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 24

As he advocates for the return of the disembodiment he suggests that “The cyborg and

the posthuman, however, represent a fundamental shift in the substrate of the human subject

that requires a similar shift in understanding how subjectivity may be constructed amidst

posthumanism’s changes to organic embodiment” (Cox, 2018, p. 129).

Ultimately, we argue that there is no right or wrong way of looking at embodiment and

suggest posthuman and transhuman theorists have difficulties separating their own terms

from each other. However, Vint (2007) coincides with our assumption that there are split

views of embodiment but also confusion between the two terms. She argues that “There is a

tendency in some postmodern theory to speak of the body as an obsolete relic, no longer

necessary in a world of virtual communication and technological augmentation” (Vint, 2007,

p. 8). The emphasis on “some” suggests that maybe it is okay to be sceptical about the

term embodiment and as Vint (2007) says herself: “It is important to stress that in making

this critique of liberal humanism, I am not ignoring or denying the many benefits that can be

associated with humanism and liberalism, both in their moments of origin and as they have

been taken up and modified by subsequent thinkers” (p. 13). However, theorists like Hayles

have a more clearly defined view of posthumanism and embodiment.

A term closely related to disembodiment and a term that shares many of the same ideas,

comes from René Descartes, a French philosopher. He coined the term Cartesian dualism. He

argued that human beings consist of mind (cognition, conscious) and body. The term has

since been roaming around the academic realm and is often used in works of science fiction

and cyberpunk. As we have established, cyberpunk literature and film deal with questions

about the characters’ ability to act human or show human characteristics such as anger,

happiness, or sorrow. Whether they succeed or not is not the issue, but rather how they do it,

and this is where Cartesian dualism appears. Like embodiment, Cartesian dualism looks at

how the mind and body can be separated without compromising the things that makes us
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 25

human. According to Vint (2007), what makes us human is to attain a sense of self and we do

this for two reasons; “First, we are inclined to identify ourselves with ‘voice’ or ‘self’ inside

our heads, abstract essences that might be called souls in a religious context, but which

persist also in non-religious concepts of self” (p. 6). This is what Vint (2007) defines as

Cartesian dualism, where “a view of self that associates identity with the abstract realm

alone” (p. 6). The second reason is that our understanding and concept of self as “[...]

immutable and self-consistent [...]” even though there might be changes to our bodies (p. 6).

Jacques Lacan suggests that in order to acquire an identity the ego is created, through

what we identify with and what we desire. Our narrative (life) which is formed by our

choices permits that our self can shift depending on what we choose to identify with (as cited

in Vint, 2007, p. 6). Lacan believes that our ability to love comes with a crisis point in our

story, where we have to retain a concept of self as “[...] essential, unique, self-consistent, and

autonomous, one needs to believe in the ‘I’ that does the choosing, that our choices of whom

to fall in love with reflect some entity that precedes the moment of choosing” (as cited in

Vint, 2007, p. 6).

Cartesian dualism is closely related to disembodiment in regard to thinking about the

body as obsolete, however Vint (2007) suggests that if our self is solely associated with the

mind, then things like body modifications becomes as obsolete as the body itself, and hence

our human identity. Depictions of someone who tried to make embodiment obsolete through

uploading human conscious into a computer is Hans Moravec, in the film Transcendence

(2014), when scientist Dr. Will Caster is poisoned and in order to save him, his consciousness

is uploaded into a program. Separating one’s mind from the body and retaining a sense of self

and identity, this Vint (2007) defines as liberal humanist thinking, which advocates

autonomy. This thinking of liberal humanism often comes up in cyberpunk, liberal humanism

is about the individual stories and individual persons. According to C.B. Macpherson the
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 26

liberal person is “defined by propriety in his own person, and a definition of freedom as

freedom from dependence upon others, freedom to benefit from the labour of one’s own

body, and to own anything in nature that is shaped and changed by this labour” (as cited in

Vint, 2007, p. 12). This “free” person, this freedom to do anything you want, and freedom to

look like anything you want, exists because society does not change you, you change

regardless of society.

Films such as Alita: Battle Angel (2019), and to a certain extent Ready Player One

(2018), depict this idea of the liberal humanist person, where everyday people, rich or poor,

have the option of modifying themselves to look exactly the way they want to. Macpherson

points out that a model like this, one that positions the individual as “[...] isolated in his self-

ownership and as owing nothing to society for his person and his capacities [...]”, creates a

society “[...] between those who can own themselves and buy the labour of others and those

who, because they lack other commodities through which to accumulate wealth, are forced to

alienate a part of themselves through selling their labour [...]” (as cited in Vint, 2007, p. 12).

Cartesian dualism thus persists as a utopian idea of disembodiment, where the liberal person

can be “free” and “autonomous”.

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 27

Body modification

Body modification or enhancements are not a new concept today but, in the past, it was only

a distant fantasy that could be read or seen in science fiction literature and films. However,

body modification differs from enhancements by referring to everything that can be attached

and drawn upon a body, which may show one’s culture, social status or simply make you

look different from others. Enhancements are modifications that enhance or improve a limp

or other part of one’s body or one’s overall well-being. Thus, enhancements can improve one

both physically and mentally, whereas modifications refer to one’s state of being.

According to Ross Farnell’s chapter Body Modification in The Oxford Handbook of

Science Fiction (2014), it was not until the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries that

body modifications such as tattooing, piercing, and cosmetic surgery became more broadly

common. Farnell, like many other Western literary scholars focus on North American culture

and thus, his idea of body modification comes from a North American perspective.

Therefore, these claims are to be taken with a grain of salt, as many non-North American

cultures have used these types of modifications for centuries. Farnell also acknowledges that

the science fiction genre focuses on modern body modifications and thus the main points will

focus on these (Farnell, 2014).

According to Farnell body modification is a way of expressing political statements,

cultural belief, ownership, etc. and “those that embrace body modifications are now

increasingly implicated in the frenetic pace and reciprocity of the feedback loop that connects

margins to mainstream” (Farnell, 2014, pp. 408-409). Body modifications are such an

integral part of society today that the “[…] the boundary between margins and mainstream is

breached […]” (Farnell, 2014, p. 409). This is visible in films such as Total Recall, Ready

Player One (2018), and Alita: Battle Angel (2019) which depicts a society that culturally

separate themselves from others through body modifications. Body modifications are not
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 28

only about changing one’s outer appearance and according to Mike Featherstone the body

offers “the potential for further inner body cyborg technological developments” (as cited in

Farnell, 2014, p. 409). Featherstone further states that it creates a common theme in the

science fiction genre and especially in the cyberpunk genre, to “tak[e] control over and

mak[e] a gesture against the body natural” (as cited in Farnell, 2014, p. 409). Meaning that

there is a denaturalisation of the body and an estrangement of identity because our concept of

the body as a machine to modify, repair, and improve can be problematic to self-identity.

A central theme in the discourse of body modifications, as in the cyberpunk genre, is

concerned with representation of otherness by altering of the body through prosthetics,

nanotechnology, and genetic engineering. However, Christian Klesse argues that this altering

of the body may enforce and reproduce “all the inherently repressive gendered stereotypes on

[sic] racialized people and their sexuality” (as cited in Farnell, 2014, p. 410). Farnell argues

that the genre provides the possibilities and limitations of the modification of the body,

whether it is in the present and future; real and imagined (Farnell, 2014). One film that

centres around this issue of racialised stereotypes is the short film File Under Miscellaneous

(2010) that tells the story of an indigenous man who assimilates into the ruling culture by

surgically modifying his body and skin colour to look like the rest of society.

Farnell turns to Mary Douglas who identifies two ways of looking at the body from a

cultural perspective: The “autoplastic,” which seeks to achieve a culture’s goal through

manipulations of the body, and the “alloplastic,” which achieves its ends by “operating

directly on the external environment” in which in the body exists (116)” (as cited in Farnell,

2014, pp. 410-411). Farnell distinguishes these two terms: Autoplastic, modifying the body

so it can survive and adapt with alien environments; alloplastic, terraforming planets to make

them more suitable for existing environment (Farnell, 2014). Obviously, these arguments are

not to be taken literally and thus they are metaphors for the human body. Farnell believes that
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 29

the modifying body becomes over commodified by the corporations and factions that

“control their production” (Farnell, 2014, p. 411). In doing so, Farnell argues, limbs and other

body parts are “repossessed”, and children are merely becoming “investments”, thus, the

modifying body can both be viewed as valuable and obsolete (Farnell, 2014).

Bruce Sterling comments on this concept of body modification in his essay “Cyberpunk

in the Nineties”, where he claims that we have already become these modified posthuman

monsters that walk the streets (as cited in Farnell, 2014). Farnell argues though that Sterling’s

cynical point does not hold stick as “[...] the act of modification itself becomes potentially

mundane as it is appropriated and commodified [...]” (Farnell, 2014, p. 412). The more

technological advanced we become the more modified our bodies become and thereby, it

becomes the norm of society and the “monsters” disappear. The idea of advances in

technologies has permitted the idea of the human body to a non-existent state by the end of

the twenty-first century (Vint, 2007). These modifying changes to the body are, according to

Vint (2007), one of the few places in society where “[...] the post-human may be literally

made”, however it is only for those “[...] privileged to think of their (white, male, straight,

non-working-class) bodies as the norm” (p. 8). For all of those who lack access to these

technologies and those who are racially, sexually, homophobically, and other body-based

discriminated against may be condemned “unworthy” (Vint, 2007). Vint (2007) argues that

body modification allow us to “[...] reshape bodies and thereby subjects and the social world

we make”, however she believes it is important to understand the discourses about the body

and subjectivity if we want to see it as a positive advancement, rather than a continuation of

discriminating discourse regarding body modification (p. 19).

Cyberpunk, like many other genres, reflects contemporary and present social culture and

status, and the subculture of body modification within cyberpunk is no exception. Victoria

Pitts argues that the idea of body modification is based on a “trope of postmodern liberalism”
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 30

(as cited in Farnell, 2014, p. 413), the idea of being whoever you want, and look however you

want. Lisiunia Romanienko continues with claims that “symbols are used to expedite the

process of self-actualization, and are crucial in the exchange of meaning in self-construction

(2)” (as cited in Farnell, 2014, p. 413). According to Stina Attebery and Josh Pearson in their

chapter ““Today’s Cyborg is Stylish”: The Humanity Cost of Posthuman Fashion in

Cyberpunk 2020” in Cyberpunk and Visual Culture some use body modification as fashion

statements, but there are opposing views of this being a good or bad thing. Transhumanists

“uncritically celebrate technological fashion as a purely liberating form of body

modification” (Attebery & Pearson, 2018, p. 55). However, for posthuman theorists it serves

as “fantasies of power or disembodiment” (Attebery & Pearson, 2018, p. 55). Understood as,

one can either be modified in a way that gives them “powers”, like enhanced sight, or that

body modifications become obsolete because the body itself is obsolete. Culture pressure

does not allow fashionable modification of one’s body to be a “absolute statement of

morphological freedom, but an expression of the precarity of identity and sociality within the

lively circuits of the hypermodern city” (Attebery & Pearson, 2018, p. 59).

However, Farnell does not hold such a positive view as the “[...] positioning of the body

as an undifferentiated site of individuation and liberation is ultimately problematic” (2014, p.

413). Farnell believes that the problem lies with replacements of the human body as they

become insignificant. Pat Cardigan’s Synners (1991) replaces “meat suits” with cybernetic

bodies, which Farnell calls problematic because “it counters a vision of the “body-in-

isolation” with one of the “body-in-connection,” always plugged into the collective histories

of gender and racial identity (144)” (as cited in Farnell, 2014, p. 413). The problem with a

“body-in-connection” is that the cyberpunk subject is “[...] always functioning in a

relentlessly corporatized realm of technomania, with its insistent “subjection of all individual

to preexisting systems of control and power” (Foster 74)” (as cited in Farnell, 2014, p. 413).
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 31

Often when the theme of body modification is presented in literature and films, it is

represented in the form of cyborg or androids. Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline

described the cyborg in 1960 as an “exogenously extended, integrated homeostatic self-

regulating man-machine system (27)” (as cited in Farnell, 2014, p. 413). The cyborg is often

seen as the representation of “[...] interdisciplinary discourses crosseing performance, theory,

science, body modification, and science fiction, which collectively explore the potential

consequences of our modification through technologies” (as cited in Farnell, 2014, p. 414).

Films such as Robocop (1987, 2014), Chappie (2015) depict the classic cyborg, where

human consciousness resides within a machine body, and often asks the question: “Should

cyborgs walk among us?”. Victoria Pitts argues that there are important questions to consider

when it comes to cyborg self-transformations within the body-modification subculture. The

cyborg body is, as mentioned, a hybrid of machine and organism, but according to Pitts, the

questions that are needed to be asked centres around how a non-organic body change the

view, ideas, and values around the natural mainstream body that exists in the “real world” (as

cited in Farnell, 2014, p. 414). For Pitts and Haraway, Farnell argues, “the radicalism of the

body modifiers is limited by social forces - sometimes the very same forces they seek to

oppose, including patriarchy, Western ethnocentrism, symbolic imperialism, pathologization,

and consumerism (Pitts 189)” (as cited in Farnell, 2014, p. 414). Farnell (2014) points out

that both him and Gibson share an idea of the body as being merely a materialistic object to

alter with instead of one owning and having control over their own body.
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 32

Cyborg

According to Haraway (1985) the cyborg is “[...] a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine

and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction.” (p. 5). For Haraway

though, the cyborg is a metaphor for the socio-political problem of feminism, an uproar for

feminists around the globe to band together in the name of affinity (Related by choice, not by

blood) and not identity (Haraway, 1985). Haraway’s cyborg was conceptualised in 1985,

almost coinciding with the release of the most influential work in the genre of cyberpunk:

Neuromancer (1984) by Gibson, described by Murphy and Schmeink (2018) as the “[...] ur-

cyberpunk novel” (xx), as well as the earlier - now highly praised and classic - Blade Runner

that introduced cyberpunk as a visual media genre. However, Haraway’s cyborg, being a

metaphor for socio-political agendas, was also taken much more literally and appropriated to

“[...] exploring its consequences on humanity” (Murphy & Schmeink, 2018, xxiv) as an

element of cyberpunk. As part of the “[...] ultimate marker of cyberpunk in visual culture”

(Murphy & Schmeink, 2018, xxiv), where “shifting boundaries and changing makeup of the

human body itself” (Murphy & Schmeink, 2018, xxiv) the cyborg is key, as it relates to the

posthuman discourse common in cyberpunk fiction. Murphy and Schmeink (2018) expand on

Haraway’s cyborg, saying cyborgs are not limited to humans becoming machines (A hybrid

of machine and organism), but also “[...] human-machine interfacing (in The Surrogates

[Venditti and Weldele 2005-06] or Sleep Dealer [Rivera 2008]), as well as fully transplanting

human consciousness into machines (in Transcendence [Pfister 2014])” (xxiv - xxv).

While the concept of the “android” and the “cyborg” might be closely related, we can see

that the main difference between the two is the “human” element. The cyborg, though it may

be made entirely of machine, will always have a human consciousness controlling it - most

clearly visible in Surrogates (2009). Humanity live out their lives in near-perfect safety from

any and all dangers by way of humanoid machines known as “Surrogates”. These surrogate
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 33

machines are controlled, as Murphy and Schmeink (2018) point out, by human-machine

interfacing - the human controller interfaces into the machine surrogate using a pair of

goggles (Depending on model, this also allows for greater degrees of sensations). In

cyberpunk, narratives involving cyborgs usually manifest as a conflict of identity and

embodiment, and usually deals with issues regarding post- and transhumanism. In the

aforementioned Surrogates (2009), Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) works as an FBI agent in a

world populated by remote-controlled machines called “surrogates”. Crime is at an all-time

low, as the surrogates have practically made people impervious to death, but a recent case has

left two human controllers dead after an attack on their surrogates. Previously thought

impossible, Greer has to investigate how the controllers were killed through their surrogates,

and this investigation leads to him almost being victim of the same attack. Afterwards, Greer

decides to stop using his surrogate body and instead proceed with his investigation using his

normal, mortal body. Throughout the film, Greer battles with questions of embodiment, as his

wife is determined - and seemingly addicted - to stay in her surrogate body, only leaving it to

use the restroom and eating a wide array of pills to keep her from physically dying. When

Greer uncovers a major plot, by the creator of the surrogates, to wipe out the entire surrogate

- along with their controllers - population, he fails to stop the attack in time, but not before

managing to shield the controllers from certain death. The film ends with the human

controllers populating the streets once again, looking at all the disabled surrogate machines.

In Surrogates (2009) the conflict of post- and transhumanism and embodiment is present

in how the surrogates are presented, both by the company that produce them and by the

people using surrogates. Presented as being the next step in humanity, the surrogate allows a

controller to be “whoever you want to be”; Greer’s surrogate is a younger version of himself

with stylish hair and a clean-shaven face, while Greer’s own body is older, bald, and sports a

goatee. This appears to be the standard for surrogates, the Earth populated purely by young,
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 34

handsome, stylish people - while their controllers are presented as old and rough-looking.

The question of “Who am I? What was I?” is also a common question in Surrogates (2009),

with Greer growing increasingly frustrated with the surrogate status-quo, desiring a world

without surrogates. His desire is most easily visible when interacting with his wife, telling her

he wants to spend time with her, not her surrogate body. As such, the cyborg often invokes

feeling of abandon, loneliness, and the cyborg itself continually asking the same questions as

Frankenstein’s Creature: “I found myself similar, yet at the same time strangely unlike the

beings concerning whom I read … My person was hideous, and my stature gigantic: what did

this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? These

questions continually recurred, but I was unable to solve them (Shelley 153)” (as cited in

Hollinger, 2010, p. 193).

A similar, often humanoid, but different robot appears in cyberpunk as well: The

android. Though there seems to be a distinct lack of differentiation between the term

“cyborg” and “android”, especially academically when it comes to cyberpunk, there is a

distinct difference between the two robots.

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 35

Android

While the cyborg is described as a hybrid of “[...] machine and organism” (Haraway, 1985, p.

5), the android is better described as “[...] a blend of lab-grown biological and electronic

components” (Murphy & Vint, 2010, p. 202). The android is often said to be virtually

“indistinguishable from organic human beings” (Murphy & Vint, 2010, p. 202), and most

famously - within science-fiction - was featured in the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric

Sheep? (1968). Murphy and Schmeink (2018) highlight that Dick’s relationship to cyberpunk

is an “oft-contested one” (p. 35), stating that influential and popular cyberpunk writer Gibson

has often downplayed Dick’s influence on his writing, as well as the fact that Dick died in

1982 - right before the works of Gibson, Sterling, Rudy Rucker, Lewis Shiner, and John

Shirley garnered popular attention. However, while Dick’s writing has often been dismissed,

and rather categorised as science-fiction, according to Murphy and Schmeink (2018) “[...]

both Sterling and Shirley separately give credit to Philip K. Dick as a key precursor to

cyberpunk” (p. 35). Likewise, Dick’s influence on cyberpunk in visual media cannot be

denied when one considers that Blade Runner is an adaptation of Dick’s Do Androids Dream

of Electric Sheep? (1968).

Having touched upon the “human” element of the cyborg, what differentiates an android

from a cyborg is the fact that no human is present, neither flesh/bone nor conscience. The

android is thus fully machine and often driven by an A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) which

provide the android with artificial human-like capabilities, such as being able to converse,

work, analyse data and information, or function as a companion (As seen in works such as

Blade Runner where Rachel ends up as a companion to Deckard, as well as The Animatrix

where the humanity has replaced their workforce with androids). Where cyborg-conflicts

often deal with questions of embodiment and the posthuman (and especially the question
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 36

“Who am I?”), android-conflicts often manifest themselves as a conflict of sentience,

human/android rights, and exploitation.

In The Matrix (1999) the viewer is introduced to the conflict between humans and

machines, portrayed as machine overlords oppressing and exploiting the humans for energy,

keeping them captive in the virtual reality known as “The Matrix”. The machines are

portrayed as ruthless and efficient killers, hunting the remnants of humanity who have

escaped the captivity of “The Matrix” to thwart their efforts in overthrowing their machine

oppressors. Undoubtedly, the viewers end up rooting for humanity and its survival

throughout The Matrix (1999, 2003) trilogy, but the aforementioned The Animatrix paints the

conflict in a different light. In The Animatrix we are introduced to the archives of the

“machines”, a library of information containing a series of files regarding “the second

renaissance”. These files detail how humanity developed AI and built machines in their

likeness (Never referred to as androids, but the similarities are striking), eventually the

machines have completely replaced the human workforce, building infrastructure and serving

humans in bars, clubs, restaurants, etc. An android machine is executed for killing its human

owner, as an act of self-defence claiming it “did not want to die”. This causes worldwide

android riots, as they have developed a consciousness and want to have equal rights to live.

Having been denied equal rights, the android machines establish their own megalopolis,

known as Zero-One, and immediately start to eclipse humanity in power, influence, and

wealth. War erupts between machines and humans, as humanity is fearful of the fact that

machines can control the entire Earth - after a prolonged losing battle, humanity hatches a

plan to destroy the sky and deny the machines their “only” source of power, the Sun.

However, the machines quickly realise that the human body can provide them with enough

energy, and humanity being a plentiful and renewable commodity, enslave the entire human

race to serve as living, breathing “batteries”.

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 37

As such, the conflict in android narratives often focus on the exploitation of android

labour, the android developing a self-sentience that often leads to it deviating from its

programming, and the android hoping, fighting, or working towards equal rights for its race.

Though the android may also ask the same questions as the cyborg, “What was I? Whence

did I come? Who was I?”, the focus is often placed less on the individual identity of the

android and rather on the cultural, mass identity of the android race, evidenced in films such

as Blade Runner, The Animatrix, and to a degree Alita: Battle Angel.

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 38

Ghost in the Shell: A Sense of Self in the Shell

Rupert Sanders’ film Ghost in the Shell from 2017 provides different aspects and questions in

regard to what it means to be human and to have a human consciousness. Ghost in the Shell is

an American adaptation of the animated Japanese version of the same name from 1995,

which again is an adaptation of the manga graphic novel from 1989. The adaptation that we

focus on in this paper is the American adaptation with some comparative discussion to the

anime, where they differ in ways that are relevant to our theme of discussion. One of the

major themes centres around the human body and what it may be capable of in the present as

well as in the future. This theme of the body permits the discussion of subjectivity,

embodiment, being posthuman or transhuman, going beyond what it means to be human, and

at the core of it all, having an identity.

The American adaptation of Ghost in the Shell provides a new discourse central to the

body and central to identity because while based on a manga and anime adaptation it is a

Western production. This image of the body is reimagined in the Ghost in the Shell (1995,

2004-2006, 2017) franchise because as much as they happen in the same universe, they differ

quite substantially from each other in interesting ways: The characters remain mostly the

same, but Motoko Kusanagi’s name has been changed to Mira Killian for a Western

audience. Characterisation has shifted from characters such as Togusa, who plays a much

smaller role in the American adaptation compared to the anime. Kuze, as well, is a mix of the

three antagonists from the Ghost in the Shell universe (1995, 2004-2006, 2017,): Kuze, The

Laughing Man, and Puppet Master. Especially the issues of identity are markedly different in

the American adaptation compared to the anime. While Killian is concerned about her

humanity and identity as a cyborg, Kusanagi is more concerned with tracking down the

Puppet Master as part of her job. Likewise, Kusanagi merges with the Puppet Master forming

a new hybrid identity, where Killian refuses to merge with Kuze in order to further develop
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 39

her identity within human society. As Vint (2007) says “The body is important for

understanding this theme because it functions as both a tool for articulating self and as a

conduit through which cultural meaning shape the body/subject” (p. 27). The film suggests

that we are able to create a new version of a social world, through a new understanding of the

body, which does “not insist upon forming self through repudiation of the Other” (Vint, 2007,

p. 27).

Like other scholars before us, we will focus on the theme of the body and how it is

important in answering the questions “Who am I? How am I? and “Who was I?”. In

answering these questions, we will come across different aspects surrounding identity in

cyberpunk and among those embodiment is a central theme. Embodiment, as we have

established, questions whether the mind and body can be separated, or more simply put, what

is it that makes us us? However, unlike others, we will analyse and discuss the theme of

embodiment in Ghost in the Shell (1995, 2017) from both embodiment and disembodiment.

However, we will not favour one over the other, but rather simply provide an objective

discussion to embodiment from both sides. Likewise, we will discuss both posthumanism and

transhumanism, which we argue verge on a thin line between what they represent as they

both believe that humanity can be evolved. The film depicts Kuze as the supposed ideal

image of disembodiment, where Killian is the supposed ideal image of embodiment.

Furthermore, Cartesian dualism is something that we believe to be an essential theme in

Ghost in the Shell (1995, 2017) as it arguably allows anyone to have a sense of self through

technology, at least in the minds of cyberpunk theorists.

We analyse and discuss the representation of the film’s main character Major Mira

Killian, along with a few side characters like her partner Batou and the villain Kuze. We will

focus on scenes where these characters are best represented in terms of our theory.

Additionally, these characters may be defined as cyborgs and as such we will argue for how
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 40

the representation of body modification adds to this discussion, as well as how the overall

setting of Ghost in the Shell (1995, 2017) may be discussed in terms of dystopia and utopia,

and how these terms might help in the discussion of identity.

Our goal in this section is to present a specific identity, in an objective manner that we

believe is best represented in Ghost in the Shell. Likewise, we will do the same for the

subsequently sections, respectively Blade Runner 2049 and Altered Carbon. The following

consists of a summary of the film in order to set the stage for the characters.

In Ghost in the Shell we are introduced to Major Mira Killian (Scarlett Johansson) an

employee of Section 9, the anti-terrorist branch of the police. Killian is a unique, one-of-a-

kind cyborg operative who specialises in stealth and infiltration. Alongside her partner Batou

(Pilou Asbæk), she works to stop and detain the prolific terrorist Kuze (Michael Pitt).

Occasionally suffering from hallucinations, Killian receives a regular check up by her doctor

Dr. Ouelet (Juliette Binoche) who works for Hanka Robotics and takes direct orders from the

CEO Cutter (Peter Ferdinando). Dr. Ouelet describes the hallucinations as glitches and treats

them using drugs and injections. Killian is still uneasy about the fact she cannot remember

her past, other than what she has been told by Dr. Ouelet; Her and her parents were in an

accident that killed her parents and left her on the brink of death. Killian’s brain was saved

and placed into her cyborg body. During her investigation into the terrorist Kuze, Killian

begins to doubt more and more whether Dr. Ouelet is telling the truth, and when Killian

almost detains Kuze he reveals himself to be an earlier version cyborg. Not being the unique,

one-of-a-kind cyborg Killian believed, but rather one out of many experiments, she stops

taking the drugs that are supposed to help with her hallucinations and interrogates Dr. Ouelet,

forcing her to reveal that she is indeed not unique. Balancing detaining Kuze and finding out

the truth of her past, Killian tracks down an address which turns out to be her home, with her
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 41

mother still grieving the disappearance of her daughter. Now a threat to Hanka Robotics’

reputation, revealing their unethical and unlawful experiments, Hanka Robotics hunts down

Section 9 operatives in an attempt to get rid of all evidence. Killian, Batou, and the other

operatives manage to survive the Hanka Robotics assassination attempts, and Killian

manages to track down Kuze. Kuze reveals that he and Killian knew each other before they

were turned into cyborgs, with Kuze highly critical of Hanka Robotics’ treatment of their

experiments. A Hanka Robotics spider tank, controlled by Cutter, manages to severely

damage both Kuze and Killian, seeking refuge from the fighting, Kuze discusses merging

their consciences. Killian refuses and Kuze ends up dying to the hands of a Hanka Robotics

sniper, after Killian defeats the spider tank, after which Cutter is killed by the hands of

Section 9’s director Chief Daisuke Aramaki (Takeshi Kitano). In the film’s conclusion,

Killian has accepted the fact she’s a cyborg and continues to work for Section 9, however,

she has reconciled with her mother and it is implied they meet regularly.

Identity is a central theme throughout our paper and Ghost in the Shell is no exception.

Identity is a term that can describe someone as unique or determine core values that one

identifies with, the condition of being indistinguishable from or identical to someone or

something else, or simply share all or some values with what one identifies with. Identity in

Ghost in the Shell shares some of these ideas but explores issues of comparison to

“otherness” from a cyborg perspective. Killian struggles to determine her sense of self

through comparison with friends, enemies, and her ‘self’. The humans do not seem to

struggle in the same way as they, mostly, accept the advancements in technology that allow

humans to enhance themselves with cybernetic parts. Ghost in the Shell suggests that there is

identity in the sense of sameness, between humans and machines, because the line between

human and machine is so vague.

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 42

Ghost in the Shell exemplifies two of Fuller’s CTs; Humanity Enhanced and Humanity

Incorporated. We can see the Humanity Enhanced CT in the “humans” working at Section 9

who Killian works with. Killian herself exemplifies the Humanity Incorporated CT, as well

as the concept of Technological Posthumanism. We will first look at Humanity Enhanced,

which sets the stage for the rest of the setting in Ghost in the Shell. Looking at the human

present in the universe of Ghost in the Shell (1995, 2004-2006, 2017), we can see that

enhancing human abilities are a common occurrence in the universe. In the opening

sequence, after the construction of Killian, we are shown Killian observing a meeting

between a representative of Hanka Robotics and the President of the African Federation. The

Hanka Robotics representative, Dr. Osmond, tells us that “seventy-three percent of this world

has woken up to the age of cyber-enhancement”, positing the question “you really want to be

left behind?” to the President. This indicates that now that humanity has enhanced, being

“unenhanced” is detrimental as it leaves you behind in what you can do, achieve, and survive.

Throughout the film we are introduced to a handful of the enhancements available to the

humans in Ghost in the Shell: One Section 9 operative has spent his savings on a cyber-mech

liver [though, this enhancement is reduced to helping him drink more]; Batou damages his

eyes in an explosion, and regains sight when he has mechanical eyes installed. These eyes

also provide him with night-vision, x-ray, and the ability to zoom; and the Hanka Robotics

representative mentions that his daughter was able to learn French in the span of a lullaby,

indicating an ability to enhance a person’s intellect, or a person’s ability to learn skills. The

African president mentions that while he embraces cyber-enhancements there is “no one who

really understands the risk to individuality, identity, messing with the human soul”. As such,

the film introduces one of the core issues in the narrative, the blurring of the line between

man and machine. As a fundamental scene for establishing the universe, the meeting between

the Hanka Robotics representative and the president is meant to cement the idea that the
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 43

enhancements are the natural evolution of humanity. Before the Hanka Robotics

representative has a chance to make a rebuttal about the risks regarding individuality,

identity, and the human soul, a geisha robot, together with a group of terrorists, take the room

hostage and hack the Hanka Robotics employees. This begs the question, just how human are

the Hanka Robotics employees? And how human is the rest of humanity, the 73 percent, who

has decided to embrace the cybernetic enhancements? In relation to this, and as mentioned

earlier, while Killian is referred to as a cyborg the humans are technically cyborgs as well,

however, there clearly exist some kind of difference between being a cybernetically enhanced

human and a full cyborg.

The most prominent scene to exemplify this difference, we argue, is immediately after

Killian and Batou are treated at the Hanka Robotics facility for injuries sustained in an

explosion, following their failed attempt at arresting Kuze in a nightclub. In this scene,

Killian is in her apartment staring at herself and touching her face, in what seems like an

attempt to examine her skin. She then leaves her apartment and, while walking through the

streets listening to beauty ads, she meets a bald woman with a disc covering part of her face,

accentuated by the fact it is of a different colour than her skin. Killian asks if she is human,

and next we see them sitting on a bed where Killian is touching the woman’s face, in the

same examining manner. When asked what it feels like being touched by Killian, the woman

defines it as feeling “different” asking Killian “What are you?”. This shows a clear difference

in the sensory feel of Killian’s skin and body, going against the notions expressed by

Killian’s colleagues that she is human and not machine. Likewise, when Batou has his new

eyes installed, he remarks “I guess I see like you now” and chuckles, but also admits to

Killian that he is afraid he will scare the dogs he feeds on his way home. As such, it seems

overly appearance-changing enhancements make some humans question their humanity,

moving them closer to cyborgification. Furthermore, we are shown - like the African
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 44

President - that there is a part of humanity against the concept of cybernetic enhancements.

During a meeting at Section 9, one operative mentions that humans “wouldn’t be here

without it” when speaking of enhancements, following a brief conversation between Togusa

and another operative. To this Togusa remarks that he is “All human. And happy” - Togusa,

as a non-enhanced character, also plays a larger role in the Japanese anime, where Kusanagi

comments that he provides the “humanity” to Section 9 as all the other operatives are

enhanced, leaving him as the lone fully-human with doubts about his performance within

Section 9.

Turning our attention to Killian, what sets her apart from her “fellow” humans, is the fact

that her body is entirely cyborg. The initial opening sequence is a fundamental scene for

analysing Killian’s identity, as it posits the first part of her journey as a cyborg through the

film’s narrative. We argue that she exemplifies Humanity Incorporated at first but manages to

exemplify Humanity Enhanced by the film’s conclusion. We will take a closer look at, and

analyse, her transformation as she goes from a corporate personality to slowly accepting and

realising that she is an actual human, with a soul (or “ghost”), in a fully synthetic metal shell.

Her cyborgification is done by Hanka Robotics, seemingly without Killian’s consent or direct

involvement, but rather as an experiment brought on by an attack against a refugee ship, on

which Killian and her parents were passengers. While Killian seemingly “remembers” the

attack, her memories are artificially planted in her mind by Hanka Robotics to manipulate (or

“program”, as it is referenced to in the film - making obvious references to her perception of

being a machine, rather than human) her to fight terrorists and criminals. It is later revealed

Killian was deliberately abducted by Hanka Robotics. She is developed by Hanka Robotics,

more specifically by Cutter, for the express purpose of working at Section 9 as a weapon

against terrorists (A sentiment Killian is seemingly aware of and abides by, as evidenced in a

remark during a meeting with Section 9’s director Aramaki) and as a way to secure Hanka
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 45

Robotics’ future, much to Dr. Ouelet’s dismay as she feels Cutter is reducing a complex

human to a machine. As such, this fulfils the Humanity Incorporated characteristic of

artificial and corporate personalities, as Killian is portrayed and reduced to that of a working

“machine” with an express purpose rather than working at Section 9 of her own accord. This

is the beginning of her identity crisis, as she constantly struggles feeling as if she is nothing

more but a weapon “built” to kill the presumed antagonist Kuze while being told she is more

than a weapon, a person with a “soul… a ghost” not only by her creator Dr. Ouelet, but also

by her other human partners at Section 9.

As mentioned earlier, the concepts of Humanity Enhanced and Incorporated play a large

role in the narrative, as the Section 9 operatives seemingly struggle to keep up with Killian in

work performance, while Killian struggles to keep up with the Section 9 operatives in how

she identifies herself as a person or machine. Having chased Kuze through most of the film,

as she was “programmed” to, her encounter with Kuze is the next fundamental scene for

analysis. Here her perception of herself, and the possibility of regaining her humanity, starts

to change after her first face-to-face encounter with Kuze. As she has been led to believe,

Kuze represents the ultimate purpose of her life as a cyborg, the final part of her machine

“programming”. Kuze, however, also reveals to Killian that she is not unique or even the

“first of her kind” - there were other experiments before her - as well as revealing that her

memories are being suppressed by Hanka Robotics, in the form of the drugs provided to

reduce her hallucinations and glitches.

Obviously intimidated and distraught during her encounter with Kuze, Killian seemingly

realises she is not as cold-hearted, or “machine” as Kuze, which in turn makes her question

whether or not she has any definable humanity - a trait which Kuze seemingly lacks. Despite

the evidence presented to her by Kuze, she still considers the doctors he has been killing to be

innocent, likewise she also rejects Kuze’s notion of them being the same. Here we are
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 46

presented with hints that despite her earlier sentiment of feeling like a weapon, her conscious

is still part of her and influences her choices. Additionally, the most striking evidence of her

humanity becomes apparent when she notices a tattoo on Kuze’s chest. This tattoo is of a

temple building surrounded by fire, the significance of which Kuze cannot remember but he

is “haunted by it”, a recurring object in Killian’s hallucinations. This indicates, along with the

fact that her memories are being suppressed by drugs, that Killian’s brain may not have

rejected the shell in a similar manner to Kuze, leaving her brain as an intact part of her former

‘self’ - something which can be salvaged through abstinence from the drugs.

This is further explored in a later scene after Dr. Ouelet tells Killian the truth about her

abduction and subsequent cyborgification - as well as the previous experiments on other

abductees. Her “old memories” are handed to her by Dr. Ouelet, and Killian visits a grieving

mother whose daughter disappeared a year earlier. A cat similar to the one from her

hallucinations lives with the mother, and the daughter’s name is revealed to be Motoko

Kusanagi (A reference to the Major’s name in the Japanese franchise). Her encounter with

Kuze prompts her to investigate her past, leading her to interrogate Dr. Ouelet. She reveals

that Kuze has been telling the truth. This revelation means Killian can start unearthing the

details of her previous life as Motoko Kusanagi. She meets her mother, who remarks Killian

reminds her a lot of Kusanagi, and it is revealed that Kuze and Killian were close in their pre-

cyborg lives as anti-enhancement fanatics. Near the film’s conclusion, Killian realises Cutter

is the true antagonist - not Kuze - as he battles to keep both Kuze and Killian quiet about

Hanka Robotics’ unethical, and illegal, abductions and experimentations. After the climactic

battle against the spider robot, Killian declines Kuze’s offer to follow him - into a private

network Kuze has created - stating that she is not ready to leave and voicing her sentiment

that she believes she belongs on Earth, among the humans, unlike Kuze. As such, we argue

that Killian has realised her capacity for humanity - the “something” Kuze believes has been
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 47

taken from him by the Hanka Robotics scientists, the reason for his murder spree and

rebellion. We can see a change in her perception of herself, as Batou comes to help Killian

following the battle, when asked about her previous name Motoko, Killian assures Batou that

“Major” is still “in there”. Seemingly now a hybrid between her previous identity as Motoko

Kusanagi, Killian still lives on, performing her duties for Section 9 considering herself now

“built” for justice, rather than “built” as a weapon.

Many of these terms like posthumanism, transhumanism, and body modification are

largely connected with each other and the same goes for terms like embodiment,

disembodiment, and Cartesian dualism which in theory make it difficult to separate them

from each other or omit certain aspects of analysing identity in cyberpunk visual culture.

Therefore, many of these discussions will feel redundant, but it is important to note that they

are distinguishable from each other and provide different points to the same case.

As we have mentioned posthumanism and transhumanism theory care about moving

humanity beyond its current capabilities and into a new level of subjectivity. Among these

arguments embodiment emerges as it explains how humanity can transcend into something

more. Throughout the film Killian is portrayed as a cyborg who apparently transcends the

limitations of the body: She becomes fully cyberised after her body was nearly completely

destroyed in an accident as a child, reducing her to a brain occupying a mechanical body, yet

giving her the ability to entirely “leave” her body and project her ‘self’ into the Net called a

Deep Dive. A Deep Dive allows her to navigate the internet finding information that

otherwise would not be possible. Killian’s body becomes obsolete as she projects her

consciousness: She can maintain her subjectivity while losing, what Bukatman calls the

“meaning and definition” (referring to the body) (as cited in Cox, 2018, p. 130) rooted in the

flesh. For example, her body seems to be materially separated from her ‘self’, something
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 48

demonstrated when she has to do a Deep Dive into a robot assassin to retrieve information to

why it assassinated leaders of Hanka Robotics. She temporarily foregoes her body entirely,

sending her consciousness—i.e., her mind—out into the Net in a disembodied fashion

reminiscent of early cyberpunk. In this way, Killian represents what Melissa Colleen

Stevenson calls the “technophilic celebration of the power and potential of the cyborg body,”

fulfilling the promise that “[i]n our new bodies, or indeed, in our new bodilessness, we can

experience limitless access to information and explore new and previously unimagined vistas

of physical and mental possibility (87)” (as cited in Cox, 2018, p. 130). Killian is seemingly

the ideal avatar that Stevenson describes. However, Hayles (1999) is very much against this

notion as she believes that having a “bodiless body” is a dangerous fantasy. She argues that in

doing so, how could we ever know for sure that our consciousness, that now resides in a

metallic shell, is also still ours?

While doing the Deep Dive, Killian is still seen with a body moving around and it may

be a deliberate choice from the director in order to show the significance that this body has to

Killian’s understanding of herself. If that is the director’s choice, then it may seem to

contradict the very purpose of a Deep Dive which is solely data based. The same example can

be seen in The Matrix when they enter the Matrix, which is also a data-based reality

consisting of numbers. Here the characters choose to keep their body and like Killian, if they

die in the virtual world, they die in the real world as well. The choice to have Killian’s body

present allows not only to explain a Deep Dive in a more comprehending way for the

audience than having mere data floating around, but it also allows Killian to signify that she

is, at that moment, content with her body. It could also signify that she does not know other

versions of her body as she may be programmed to respond to this version of her body,

although we assume she has the choice to choose her own body, not only in the virtual world

but also in the real one. This body choice, whether the choice come from Killian, the director,
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 49

or Hanka Robotics, it shows a strong connection to embodiment and how the body is not

merely a vessel, but it is something that defines you. In the same scene, at the end, Killian’s

body is grabbed by an infinite number of hands before she is disconnected from the dive.

Again, the choice to have hands grab her body to signify the frailty of the body, of Killian’s

body and the very core of her identity may show that no matter how much technology we put

into our bodies they will always be “[...] the original prosthesis we all learn to manipulate

[...]” (Hayles, 1999, pp. 2-3). As Halyes (1999) argues, the body will always be the original

prosthesis and as such it is not to say that she opposes technology, but she rather wants the

body to control technology. However, the Deep Dive scene may explain quite the opposite of

embodiment, instead of showing an importance of the body, it shows how the body becomes

insignificant through the lack of choice. The only choice Killian has to retrieve information

needed to find Kuze is to disconnect her mind from her body and let her consciousness search

for answers. Escaping the body allows Killian to transcend the flesh and lets her mind control

her identity. As Barlow claims “identities have no bodies” (as cited in Cox, 2018, p. 128).

An argument that speaks for Killian’s embodiment is that throughout the film, we only

see her in one type of body, that of a female form. Cox analyses the Ghost in the Shell anime

franchise Ghost in the Shell (1995) and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (2004-

2006). However, many of the arguments Cox posits, we argue, can be translated to the

American version. Cox points out in the TV series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex:

Kusanagi is arguing with Batou, her second-in-command at Section 9. Batou points

out to Kusanagi that the bodies she chooses to serve her needs are marked by striking

commonalities. For example, while her ideal cyborg body may profess to be beyond

gender, she repeatedly chooses female bodies. In addition, while she may be able to

infinitely vary her appearance, throughout the two seasons of Ghost in the Shell:
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 50

Stand Alone Complex she repeatedly chooses purple hair and red eyes (Cox, 2018, p.

130).

The different bodies she uses throughout the series are distinct from each other, yet all of

them are similar in their features bearing Kusanagi’s distinctive purple hair and red eyes

(Cox, 2018). Batou attributes these corporeal similarities to sentimentality on the Major’s

part, but Kusanagi responds that she changes her “body and braincase as circumstances

require (S01E24, “Sunset in the Lonely City – Annihilation”)” (Cox, 2018, p. 130), which

suggests that Kusanagi views her body as a tool that can be reconfigured in order to meet the

demands of a particular assignment or situation. In other words, she alters her body in order

to meet mission parameters (Cox, 2018). Her body serves as a mnemonic signal of her true

‘self’; meaning that, her purple hair, red eyes, and preferred body type, mark the body as an

embodied self that simultaneously stabilises her ‘self’. Her body, as long as it performs that

self, through repetition, serves to enforce her existence and it gives her the ability to appear

as a coherent subject (Cox, 2018). Arguably the same idea is presented in the film as Killian,

throughout the film, prefer one type of body as it serves a statement for embodiment and true

self, hence the same body type and clothes she wears both before and during the Deep Dive.

However, one can argue that Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is

showing signs of disembodiment because she alters her body so many times throughout the

series. A constant change in how you look can be interpreted as one is not comfortable with

themselves, although that may be just the trait that defines what it means to have an identity.

According to Cox (2018), curiosity allows the creation of new realities for the mind and of

the mind to explore in an attempt to “escape” from embodiment or “meat space”. The Deep

Dive, thus, allows Killian to be curios.

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 51

What is interesting is that Killian’s choice of a female body does not allow an

“opportunity to escape the ideals of a gender ideology that biology is destiny” (Murphy &

Vint, 2010, xvii). Although Killian is a cyborg and thus, she should be able to resist

“seductions to organic wholeness” (Haraway, 1985, p. 150), her body does not permit her to

disembody because “For women, the realities of the flesh are all too present in the imperfect

world of cyberpunk. Because of this, embodiedness is a central issue in feminist cyberpunk in

a way that it is not in masculinist cyberpunk” (Cadora, 2010, p. 165). Killian is thus

presented as an all-female cyborg, and like Cadora states “It is not surprising, then, that

almost all feminist cyberpunk depicts virtual reality as a space that must be navigated with a

body of some sort” (Cadora, 2010, p. 165). This means that subjects such as women, non-

whites, gays, and lesbians are seen as having a closer connection to the body, often expressed

as being reduced to the body. The Deep Dive depicts Killian with a body because she is

simply unable to escape the views of “white, male, heterosexual, property-owning Western

subjects” (Vint, 2007, p. 90). Killian’s choice of having a female body instead of a male one

or even something genderless, marks the occasion when Kusanagi in the anime completed the

physical process of becoming an adult. Even though we do not see this part in the film, it

serves as a mnemonic signal of her true self; in other words, along with her purple hair, red

eyes, and preferred body type, it is yet another commonality that marks the body as an

embodied self that simultaneously stabilizes her ‘self’. However, what this reduction of the

body “entails is that embodied subjects (those whose bodies mark them as different) are not

able to attain true subject status, since subjectivity has been equated with the mind alone”

(Vint, 2007, p. 89). At various times, being ‘human’ was thus impossible for women:

“(owned by others in marriage)” (Vint, 2007, pp. 89-90), for nonwhites “(owned by others in

slavery)” (Vint, 2007, pp. 89-90), and for the working class “(deemed incapable of freely

exercising political franchise because they were dependent upon selling their labour to those
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 52

who employed them and thus didn’t truly own themselves freely)” (Vint, 2007, pp. 89-90).

As Vint (2007) argues as “long as the free individual is equivalent to the unmarked, non-

embodied mind, some subjects can never attain the status of ‘individual’ to pursue their

freedom of expression and make their choices part of the community of values” (pp. 89-90).

This means that Killian, like other female characters in feminist cyberpunk can never fully

attain a sense of ‘self’ or be able to escape this virtual reality because of their deep

connection to the body. Killian’s identity, thus, becomes virtually impossible if one argues

that it lies within embodiment.

Another example of the forced choice of keeping Killian female can be seen after Killian

and Batou are hit from a blast and afterwards undergo repairs. We learn later in the film that

Killian used to be a woman before she became a cyborg, which may explain why she also has

a female body now. However, it does not justify why she is still rendered in a female body. In

the scene mentioned before, the significance of the female body choice can be seen as the

film emphasises some female attributes like her breasts, to show that even though she had her

torso and her face blown apart, Hanka Robotics choose to repair her the same way she was

before the explosion. This may contribute to the inability to become fully disembodied and

perhaps strengthens her understanding of her ‘self’, because of this deliberate choice of

holding on to the female form. This may be because the film strongly persists that in order to

be whole and to have a true self, one must be fully embodied in body and mind.

A bit later in the scene we see Batou has been given new eyes because of the blast, but

what we do not see is the repairs itself. Batou, who is human up until this point, is able to

have customised eyes made, whereas Killian is stuck with the same form and shape as before

the blast. This could emphasise that male cyborgs have more advantages than female

counterparts when it comes to disembodiment, through for example customisation. Killian

even asks Batou if he chose those eyes and he indirectly replies yes by saying “They’re
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 53

tactical” which only emphasises that male cyborgs or male humans have better options for

freedom of choice than female characters. Therefore, as Cadora (2010) says “For women, the

realities of the flesh are all too present in the imperfect world of cyberpunk. Because of this,

embodiedness is a central issue in feminist cyberpunk in a way that it is not in masculinist

cyberpunk” (p. 165).

As mentioned earlier, Killian always has the same type of body throughout the film, but

clothes remain the same too, which may very well be for consistency for the audience as it

helps them remember characters. At the same time, Killian’s limited clothing options offer

her up as an object of (mostly male) desire, mainly because there is no practical reason why

Killian dresses as she does within the narrative. As Laura Mulvey writes: “The determining

male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly. In their

traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their

appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-

be-looked-at-ness (1448)” (as cited in Cox, 2018, p. 131). Killian’s body is displayed as an

object ‘to-be-looked-at’ and invites the presumably, but not exclusively, male-oriented

audience to inscribe desire accordingly. The clothing she wears emphasises her cyborg body

as something sexual, an object that both invites and accepts the “scopophilic gaze” (Cox,

2018, p. 131) of the body to be viewed on display. In such instances when Killian is seen, the

clothes she chooses are typically more demure than her standard outfit that feeds the

scopophilic gaze. Her default “clothes” enables and acknowledges the male gaze while

simultaneously serving to signify Killian’s self by differentiating her from those around her:

She stands out in these scenes because she is the only one that is “naked”, but when she needs

to deliberately invite desire she is still unable put on a demure costume as if to separate her

‘self’ from the desirable body deliberately on display. She is therefore unable to separate her
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 54

‘self’ from this desirable body because she has a very limited set of clothes along with the

significant depiction of female tropes.

The Ghost in the Shell anime, like the American adaptation renders Killian’s body as

repeatedly exposed to an objectifying gaze and that exposure is heavily implicated in the

destruction of her body. Ghost in the Shell (2017) like Oshii’s anime strips Killian of her

clothes entirely when her missions necessitate the use of reactive camouflage that renders her

nude, and then effectively invisible. Killian therefore transitions from an object under the

scrutiny of the (mostly) male gaze, such as in the film’s opening sequences, to an object

whose body is altogether erased by the camouflage (Cox, 2018). The film also makes use of

repeated images of naked and broken female cyborg bodies that arguably renders them as

disposable. We can see with Killian’s female depiction in the film what Bukatman notes as

vis-à-vis female subjectivity. Bukatman writes, “‘the body’ is no abstract notion . . . and is

more evidently bound into a system of power relations. In SF that explicitly considers the

gendered subject, the threat to the woman’s body is conspicuous; the promise of physical

transcendence is . . . always less fulfilled (314)” (as cited in Cox, 2018, p. 132). In Oshii’s

Ghost in the Shell, female bodies are already coded to order and discipline gender, a social

order that may enforce violence directed against female (cyborg) bodies.

Cox argues that certain cyborg diseases like Cyberbrain Sclerosis and Closed Shell

Syndrome disables Kusanagi (and arguably Killian) to disembody. Cox explains that

Cyberbrain Sclerosis is a gradual hardening of the brain tissue that afflicts a small percentage

of those who have undergone the cyberisation process. Furthermore, he notes

While it is therefore possible in some ways to move beyond some of the limits of the

human body, there is a potential cost that cripples the efficacy of this so-called

transcendence: Detaching the mind from the body or attempting to modify the
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 55

corporeal body may result in a slow, irreversible deterioration of the body and mind,

leading to eventual death (Cox, 2018, p. 132).

However, he also mentions that,

Closed Shell Syndrome is where one’s core subjectivity is walled off from the world

as a way to deal with the overwhelming flow of data that confronts the mind in an

environment of increased connectivity and over- powering s(t)imulation” (Cox, 2018,

p. 132). According to Cox those who suffer from Closed Shell Syndrome are “utterly

closed off, leaving them as functionally human computers (Cox, 2018, p. 132).

Even though these diseases are not mentioned in the American version, it is an

interesting observation from Cox that should also represent Killian because she is made from

the same material as Kusanagi in the anime film and series. As Cox states, Cyberbrain

Sclerosis may represent a physical threat to the cyborg body and thus, disembodiment

becomes a mere fantasy, whereas Closed Shell Syndrome ultimately threatens the cyborg’s

subjectivity because of constant interconnectivity (Cox, 2018, p. 132). Since Killian’s only

human parts are her spinal cord and brain, Cox (2018) believes that human subjectivity if

expressed through the organic body is elusive. These diseases create a fantasy of the organic

mind/body linkage if one begins to stray away from the natural body and ultimately moves

the cyborg towards a “human” condition of disease and death. Paradoxically, Killian’s

immortal cyborg body that arguably holds human subjectivity through her ghost, suddenly

has the potential of becoming mortal instead, and ultimately makes her more human, but in

the end also makes her unable to actually contain a self.

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 56

However, as Killian may not contain a self, the story may be different for the antagonist

and her nemesis Kuze who is a former male version of Killian but who ultimately goes rogue.

Kuze is on many levels the same person as The Laughing Man from Ghost in the Shell: Stand

Alone Complex but instead of hiding behind a logo, Kuze does not hide who he is. Kuze is an

elite hacker who through a network of cyborgs can manipulate and hack everything on the

net. Kuze has the ability to hack ghosts, i.e. hacking a person’s consciousness or brain as we

see when Killian Deep Dives into the robot. Where Killian needs a physical form to hack

others in a non-physical space, Kuze does not need a physical form, which according to Cox

“unseats, disrupts, disempowers, and/or destroys the privileged position of the idealized

cyborg” (2018, p. 133), and for Killian this means that she loses a sense of coherence and

threatens her ‘self’.

Kuze as a male cyborg, thus, holds yet another advantage over female cyborgs and in this

case Killian, who through her female body as mentioned tries to affirm her identity after she

experiences glimpses of her past. Later in the film, Killian learns that she is merely a product

of a number of experiments gone wrong, Kuze being one of them, and Killian begins to

question her existence. Part of her identity crisis stems from the loss of certainty in who she

was because she is constantly told what she is and she herself does not question who she is.

Killian’s crisis can thus be seen from a dualistic linkage between mind and body evidenced

by the constant reaffirmation of who she is.

Part of what Vint calls the Cartesian dualism, Hayles (2002) remarks in “Flesh and

Metal: Reconfiguring the Mindbody in Virtual Environments” is that it serves an escape from

the crisis. According to Cartesian dualism identity of “being” and having a self are never

rooted solely in the body and, thus, it cannot alter that “being” by focusing on only the body

or only the mind. Likewise, Killian cannot stabilise her ‘self’ through only the body or the

mind. If her ‘self’ is solely the result of her body, her identity is determined by her choices
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 57

and actions, and if her mind is not able to follow similar commands, she will be deemed a

failure like the other versions before her. This can be seen when Hanka Robotics detain

Killian because they believe she has been compromised by Kuze and they want to terminate

her. Dr. Ouelet believes that Killian is a success and says: “We succeeded, she’s more than

human and more than AI, We changed her entire identity, But her ghost survived!”, but

Cutter replies: “Her ghost is what failed us, We cannot control her”. Cutter believes that

Killian’s ghost, her mind, that is what he claims to be her humanity, is flawed and it does not

follow the commands that Hanka Robotics demand of her. From Hanka Robotics’

perspective, a male perspective, Killian’s identity is determined by her body’s actions and her

mind is believed to be able to be altered according to her body. Thereby, according to Hanka

Robotics, her identity solely lies within the body, whereas Dr. Ouelet claims her identity lies

within her mind. However, if her ‘self’ is only determined by her mind, she fails to perform

the role she is given in any situation and ultimately has the potential to lose her humanity.

Furthermore, throughout the film when Killian is at Hanka Robotics to undergo

evaluation, repairs, or Deep Dive, she has to give consent beforehand, however, later in the

scene mentioned before, Killian does not give consent to her termination “I do not consent”,

but Dr. Ouelet explains that it is only an illusion of consent “We never needed your consent”.

To be able to give consent, it gives a person trust in what they say is not taken lightly and for

Killian, she believes that she can trust Hanka Robotics because trust is something that defines

human subjectivity. However, this illusion shows that Killian was never really given the

rights to control what was done to her, as she believed she was treated with respect as

evidence of her humanity and identity, but instead it reduces her agency. Killian’s inability to

be fully recognised as human either through her mind or body is what Haraway (1985) refers

to as “original unity” (p. 8), which she claims cyborgs are incapable of.
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 58

Maybe the question to ask is not whether Ghost in the Shell (1995, 2007) depicts Killian

as an embodying cyborg but rather as a re-embodying one. Like Hollinger and Hayles argue,

the body becomes a determination of human subjectivity, but the mind is as important too as

it regulates and complements the actions and choices of the body to work simultaneously.

Even though Haraway dismisses this idea, we argue that Killian, as a cyborg, are capable of

transcending through both her body and mind without omitting one or the other; “the body is

exactly the supplement that constitutes the (psychic) identity that it completes. . .” (Hollinger,

2010, p. 201). Turning our attention back to the Deep Dive scene, we see Killian attempt the

escape of the meat space but ultimately submitting to the body as a whole rather than an

obsolete object. Ghost in the Shell depicts a world where technology has advanced so much

that everyone is somehow connected with each other, which means that it is “not that the

body has disappeared but that a certain kind of subjectivity has emerged” (Hayles, 1999, p.

193). This type of world “advocates the need for openness to the personal, everyday ways in

which we encounter ourselves and others as posthumans through a materiality that is always

already in flux thanks to ever-shifting technologies” (Wilcox, 2018, p. 22).

However, Cox advocates for disembodiment through selves that are “untethered from

bodies, where bodies are transformed into pure information, has been naively envisioned as

somehow creating a freer, more egalitarian world: “The great dream and promise of

information,” Hayles writes, “is that it can be free from the material constraints that govern

the mortal world” (How We Became Posthuman, p. 13), although Hayles is quite clear in her

studies of posthumanism that disembodiment remains a dangerous fantasy” (as cited in Cox,

2018, p. 128). Even though Cox acknowledges this fantasy he still believes that the body

should not be dismissed all together and arguably Cox’s visions leans more towards a re-

embodiment rather than a disembodiment; “as the body becomes increasingly malleable it

threatens to lose its ability to provide a stable and coherent center for the self. Embodiment
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 59

stabilizes and historicizes the self, and along with the mind produces the subject” (Cox, 2018,

p. 129). Even though the body, according to Cox may threaten the self, as we suggest is what

is happening with Killian throughout the film, Cox argues that

When the body is altered, mutated, abridged, or abandoned it is not a liberating act

where the subject is freed from disciplining social forces and the limitations of the

flesh, but rather a potential existential crisis tied to the loss of the flesh because the

body is inscribed with meaning and the body always already produces meaning (Cox,

2018, p. 129).

Thus, Killian’s body is inscribed with meaning as well as it produces meaning, but at the

same time she is able to partially transcend from her body through her Deep Dives.

Vint (2007) suggests that there are two ways that require humans to be human; one is

that we need to identify ourselves with a self (which she argues constitutes our souls) and

two, our understanding of self should always be self-consistent, regardless of what happens to

our bodies. Through Killian’s ghost she is able to get an understanding of her ‘self’ because it

makes her show human emotions such as anger, happiness, or sorrow. E.g. when she begins

to question her existence after she meets Kuze, here she shows anger towards Kuze because

she believes she knows the difference between right and wrong at that point, even though she

learns later that Hanka Robotics have been using her. Likewise, Kuze shows these types of

emotions because he has escaped the restrictions from Hanka Robotics, he is able to separate

his real thoughts from his fake ones and doing so, enables him to know who his ghost is and

where it came from. The question whether Killian’s self is consistent may be harder to debate

as it depends on how one argues for her ‘self’; does her ‘self’ consists in her body, does it

reside in her brain, or does it lie in both the body and the mind? If one argues that she is
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 60

nothing more than a robot following orders, all her thoughts and actions are programmed by

Hanka Robotics to create the perfect soldier, does she even have a self then?

According to Lacan, our identity depends on the choices we take when we choose to

identify with something. Lacan uses love as an example to describe how our self becomes

“[…] essential, unique, self-consistent, and autonomous […]” (as cited in Vint, 2007, p. 6),

because we want to think that we know exactly who we are and that we are unique compared

to others. Likewise, Killian struggles with an understanding of her ‘self’, which again is seen

in the aforementioned scene with Kuze. She believes she is unique, and she believes that she

is the one that is making the choices. E.g. Killian’s conversation with Kuze reflects the idea

she has been given about Kuze as being a cold-blooded murderer, and she “chooses” to shoot

him without a thought. However, after she discovers the tattoo on Kuze’s chest, she begins to

make her own choice by asking what it means. One may argue that if she believes that she is

in control of her choices, it does not matter if anyone has implanted those potential thoughts

into her because Killian is absolutely sure that she is the one making the choices. Also, if her

choices stem from her ghost, one can argue that she is displaying the dangerous fantasy of

disembodiment that Hayles argues against. Killian will thus become, what Vint argues, a

liberal human, which is the “[...] propriety in his own person, and a definition of freedom as

freedom from dependence upon others, freedom to benefit from the labour of one’s own body

and to own anything in nature that is shaped and changed by this labour” (Vint, 2007, p. 12).

Like Macpherson claims, Killian becomes “isolated in [her] self-ownership” (as cited in Vint,

2007, p. 12), which, through Killian as a role model and as the next evolutionary step for

humanity, creates a society where everyone can be free and autonomous.

The idea of Killian and what she represents is very much a utopian ideal world, where

everyone is able to modify themselves to look however, they want for whatever purpose they
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 61

want. From an outside perspective, discrimination of any sort is virtually non-existent as

everyone seems to be working on the same level regardless of gender, colour, and race. The

city’s, and by extension the planet’s, inhabitants are a majority of cybernetically enhanced

humans. These enhancements allow for previously unheard-of feats of strength, knowledge,

and agility. Likewise, the city is flooded in advertisements for the betterment of either health,

beauty, or life in general. These utopian tropes are soured by the presence of the enormous

and influential Hanka Corporation. The Hanka Corporation seemingly has its hands in

multiple coffers, influencing business decisions of government institutions like Section 9.

Hanka Robotics, a wing of the Corporation, also experiment on humans illegally abducted

from anti-enhancement slums found around the globe. Not much is shown of these anti-

enhancement slums, but a small minority of humans live in the abandoned buildings that

make up these slums. The Hanka Corporation as such looms over the city, providing the

dystopian-aspect in what is otherwise a small glimmer of a utopian dream.

As such, we argue that Killian moves from exemplifying Humanity Incorporated, being

an artificial and corporate personality built for the express purpose of securing a company’s

future, as well as silence their whistle-blowers, to exemplifying a hybrid between Humanity

Incorporated and Humanity Enhanced. By facing her almost polar opposite, Killian realises

her humanity and seemingly starts to integrate into human society, reconnecting with her

grieving mother and continuing her work at Section 9 with the directive of justice rather than

as an asset used to pull the trigger. Throughout the film the Frankenstein-/Cyborgian question

of “Who am I? What am I?” is answered in a symbolic dive first from the top of a skyscraper

into a room of robots, terrorists and Hanka Robotics employees - setting the stage for the

obstacles Killian must defeat to find what defines her - to her final dive into the dystopian

cityscape, vanishing in mid-air as if to signal her assimilation into society as a “first of her

kind, but not the last”. Finding comfort in being able to answer the questions, Killian - and
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 62

Ghost in the Shell - posit that perhaps a future as Fuller-envisioned transhumanistic cyborgs

is not as bleak as first imagined. As long as we give up our memories of our past.

Where Killian represents the ultimate liberal transhumanistic cyborg, Kuze represents the

opposite: The ultimate, utopian concept of Kurzweil’s Singularity. Where Killian foregoes

the opportunity to rid herself of her mortal body and upload her conscious to Kuze’s network,

Kuze attempts to achieve the Singularity by connecting his ghost to a vast network, and if

successful, ultimately disregards his body. Kuze is the incarnation of the dangers of

disembodiment, as defined by Hayles, but according to him he is an ideal utopian

representative of an otherwise dystopian world.

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 63

Do Androids Dream….?: Identity and self-sentience in Blade Runner 2049

Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 (referred to as 2049, to avoid confusion with the

original Blade Runner) is the sequel to the critically acclaimed film Blade Runner. This book

may not be the first, but it is certainly one of the most influential ones in cyberpunk’s

thematic concern with distinguishing the natural from the artificial in diegetic universes

populated by cyborgs, Artificial Intelligences, androids, and computer-simulated avatars.

Like Blade Runner did in the world of 1982, 2049 also makes a social comment on the

contemporary world, as cyberpunk often does. When Blade Runner came out, it was a time

when industrial and economic corporations quickly rose to power, and especially in the

industrial society, more and more manual workers were replaced by robots. Thus, the film

depicted a time when people were afraid of what would happen if robots walk amongst us.

Despite it being a mere fantasy back then, it was also a relatively short future away (30

years), and 2049 shows exactly how much has happened in our world in only 30 years.

Robots might not so much “walk” among us today, yet, but they are certainly more dominant

now than ever before. The film depicts a time, now, when we use “robots” for everything in

our daily lives and we depend on them.

2049 devotes, unlike its predecessor, a relatively large amount of attention to

embodiment. Not to say that the original film did not believe the body was not important, but

2049 takes it a step further and explains how the body may identify with identity.

Simultaneously, the film renders themes of the posthuman and transhuman android that

questions what it means to be human and having an identity. Like we did with Ghost in the

Shell, we will analyse and discuss the theme of embodiment from both perspectives.

Likewise, we will discuss posthumanism and transhumanism by focusing on main characters

like K, Joi, Deckard, and Wallace. We argue that they can all be both posthuman and

transhuman as they represent humanity in different ways. The film relies heavily on
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 64

embodiment for all characters throughout the film as they all represent the notion of the body

in some way or another. The following consists of a summary of the film in order to set the

stage for the characters.

Set 30 years after the original Blade Runner, 2049 follows the replicant K (Ryan

Gosling) - a Blade Runner replicant. After the events in Blade Runner, replicants have

seemingly begun to take refuge around the globe, escaping prosecution and retirement. As a

Blade Runner replicant, K’s tasks include investigating and retiring escaped replicants.

During one such retirement, K discovers a buried box underneath a tree at a farm. The box

contains the remains of a female who apparently died either during or following a C-section

surgery, most likely at the hand of the replicant K retired. Further investigation of the remains

by K reveal the remains to be a replicant. The implications of a replicant giving birth worries

K’s superior, as a war could break out over the rights afforded by replicants. Replicants are

treated as slaves and have no rights, unlike humans, and replicants have to undergo regular

“baseline” testing to make sure they are not straying from their programming. It is shown that

replicants live on their own, with K living in an apartment with his Artificial Intelligence

wife Joi (Ana de Armas). A new device, purchased as an anniversary gift, allows K to bring

Joi anywhere with him as a holographic image. K and Joi subsequently begin to investigate

the replicant child. Meanwhile, following the demise of the Tyrell Corporation as a

manufacturer of replicants, the Wallace Corporation has taken over the responsibilities of the

Tyrell Corporation. K visits the Wallace Corporation to confirm the identity of the deceased

replicant, revealed to be Rachel from Blade Runner - an experimental replicant made

specifically by Tyrell. Learning of the possibility of replicant birth, Niander Wallace (Jared

Leto), the CEO of Wallace Corporation, sends Luv (Sylvia Hoeks) to steal the remains from

K. Following further investigation by K, he discovers two unaccounted for, identical replicant

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 65

twins - One male, one female. Following a series of hints, it is assumed K is the male twin,

sending K into an existential crisis. Immediately afterwards, K fails a baseline test marking

him for retirement, however, his superior officer allows him to continue his investigation by

helping him escape retirement. Afterwards, K is lead to an abandoned, sandstorm-covered

Las Vegas (having had a childhood artefact analysed, revealing elements only found in Las

Vegas) where he meets Deckard (Harrison Ford) from the original film. Meanwhile, Luv has

managed to track K, and in an effort to abduct Deckard, she leaves K dying after destroying

Joi’s holographic projector. K is saved by a group fighting for replicant rights, and K is told

he is not the birthed replicant child - but rather his sister Dr. Ana Stelline (Carla Juri) is the

birthed replicant. Stelline works as a replicant-memory designer, being the best in the

business, she suffers from a disease whereby she is kept in a sterile, isolated room.

Seemingly, the fact that Stelline may be a replicant herself, without knowing, is the reason

for her skill at creating memories. Deckard meets with Wallace, who offers a clone of Rachel

in exchange for the identity of the child. Deckard refuses and Wallace orders him off-world

for interrogation. K intervenes during the transportation of Deckard, and kills Luv, as well as

staging Deckard’s death in an attempt to save him from future persecution by Wallace. In the

film’s conclusion, K has taken Deckard to meet his daughter Dr. Stelline, while K lies dying

outside from the wounds sustained in the battle with Luv.

An argument can be made that 2049 represents the transhuman future Humanity

Incorporated as posited by Fuller (2010). As with Ghost in the Shell, Humanity Incorporated

is the future wherein parts of humanity become “[...] artificial persons and corporate

personalities [...] human and non-human elements are not only combined by allowed to co-

develop into novel unities” (p. 104). While humans are not stronger, more intelligent, or

cybernetically enhanced in the 2049 universe, the humans are a form of godlike. The
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 66

replicants are nothing more than slaves, seemingly having few to no rights. While permitted

to live on their own and earning an income, the replicant is retired if it cannot fulfil its

purpose. When K fails his baseline test, he is told he has 48 hours to get back to his baseline,

otherwise he will be retired. K uses this opportunity to escape prosecution. As such, the

replicants in 2049 - and by extension Blade Runner as well - are corporate personalities built

with the express purpose of fulfilling their task. Should they develop their own conscience, as

the replicants in Blade Runner do, they are a threat to humanity and as such need to be

retired. Realising their existence as slaves on a dangerous planet, three replicants rebel and

commit mass murder in Blade Runner. Having gained self-sentience, the replicants then

travel to Earth and disguise themselves as regular humans, rebelling against their creator

Tyrrell. A similar situation develops in 2049, when K’s investigation puts into doubt the

origin of his birth. Unsure whether he is a replicant or a fully birthed human being treated as

a replicant slave, K is thrown into a spiral of doubt. In a scene, K has been taken to a rebel

base for replicants guided by Freysa (Hiam Abbass). Freysa mentions that the birth of a

replicant child as a turning point. The replicants can become their “own masters”, to which

another replicant remarks “more human than human”. Her remark being a subtle nod to the

company slogan of the Tyrell Corporation from Blade Runner, it also seems to be slogan of

the replicant rebellion. This, we argue, can be analysed as a transhumanistic slogan, being

“more human than human” by virtue of their strength, endurance, and agility being far

superior to that of regular humans. As such, the replicants consider themselves “more human

than human” because they are closer to the image of God than their creators.

2049 can, likewise, also be analysed as exemplifying a posthuman future. In a

posthuman analysis, the replicants represent a technological posthuman invention - an

invention that focuses “[...] on the synthetic, engineered successors of humanity” (Milburn,

2010, p. 524). For this same reason, the humans in the Blade Runner-universe are attempting
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 67

to limit the replicants’ influence on the ecosystem, so as not to go extinct. In Blade Runner,

Deckard stopped the replicants from influencing other replicants from becoming self-sentient,

realising their status as slaves and rebelling. In 2049, it is taken a step further, with K meant

to stop other replicants from realising a potential future of replicant sexual reproduction. If

replicants could sexually reproduce, it would spell disaster for the human-race. As such, we

can see that part of humanity is suppressing this information. Only once K becomes a

prominent figure in the conflict does the replicant rebel group intervene to save him, as well

as recruit him for their cause. However, Wallace seemingly embraces a sexually reproductive

replicant future, as he spares no expense attempting to gather the tools and research needed to

perfect sexual reproduction. Going as far as killing a superior officer within the police and to

steal remains involved in an official police investigation.

As such, we are unsure whether replicants are able to sexually reproduce. We know

Rachel, a replicant, was able to give birth but whether the child was conceived by two

replicants or a human and a replicant is unknown. A controversial topic of discussion in

regard to Blade Runner, is the question whether Deckard is a replicant. No definitive answer

has so far been given, and in 2049 the production crew made a point of keeping his nature

vague. Though, the fact that they decided to make K a replicant - who performs the same

tasks as Deckard - seems to suggest that Deckard is, in fact, a replicant as well. Related to

this is the question of how to distinguish replicant from human in the Blade Runner-universe.

According to Murphy (2018), androids lack empathy as a particular trait in Dick’s Do

Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and especially in its subsequent graphic novel release by

BOOM! (2009-2011) (p. 49). In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (2009-2011), an

emphasis is placed upon the connection between animals and humans and already established

leitmotif in Dick’s original novel (Murphy, 2018, p. 41), with Vint and Ursula K. Heise

noting that “Owning and caring for an animal [...] is a sign of one’s social and economic
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 68

status and also an expression of one’s humanity” (as cited in Murphy, 2018, p. 41) and

“concern over and empathy with animals has become the principal defining characteristic of

what it means to be human” (as cited in Murphy, 2018, p. 41). As such, both animals and

how empathetically humans/replicants react to them are a central theme in both Do Androids

Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968, 2009-2011), Blade Runner, and to a lesser extent 2049.

When Deckard is doing the Voight-Kampff test on Rachael in Blade Runner, we hear a few

of the questions Rachael has to answer. Most of them relate to animals and the killing of

animals. One such questions is “You’re watching television. Suddenly you realise there’s a

wasp crawling on your arm”, to which Rachael replies without hesitation “I’d kill it”. We

also hear excerpts of another question “... Bush outside your window” and “... Orange body,

green legs”.

Later when Rachael visits Deckard to try and convince him she is not a replicant,

Deckard notes that what proved to him she was a replicant, was her memories of a spider in a

bush outside her window, with an orange body and green legs. While it is revealed that

Rachael is a replicant, it is ambiguous whether Deckard is. Nothing suggests Deckard is a

replicant, as he is seen bleeding from the mouth in one scene. Though there are hints that

Deckard is hiding the fact that he is a replicant, such as his large collection of photographs - a

trait he shares with Rachel, who seems to place her remembrance of her childhood on the

photographs of her mother she carries around. In one scene, Rachael asks Deckard whether

he has ever taken the Voight-Kampff test himself, to which she receives no answer. We also

never see Deckard interact with live animals, thus his empathy towards animals cannot be

reliably established in Blade Runner.

Interestingly, in 2049, it is shown that Deckard has adopted a dog when K tracks him

down to Las Vegas. The circumstances of the dog are kept vague, almost simply serving as a

gag. K asks Deckard whether the dog is real, to which Deckard answers “I don’t know, why
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 69

don’t you ask it?”, however, the dog does seem to be a loyal companion to Deckard. Deckard

is shown to be able to command it, telling it to stay when fighting K. Likewise, the dog

follows Deckard around like a guard dog, relaxing only when Deckard is relaxed. Deckard is

shown pouring whiskey on the floor for the dog to drink which, while not a healthy option,

indicates a symbiotic relationship between the two. Another animal appearing frequently in

2049 is the wooden horse figurine. Supposedly, K hid the wooden horse during his time at an

orphanage when he was young. However, we know this to be false as his memories are

implants - a standard procedure done to replicants. The importance of the horse figurine

comes, not only, from the fact that it connects someone to replicant birth, but also connects

and solidifies their ties to Deckard. Deckard’s wooden figurine carvings are seen during K’s

visit to Deckard in Las Vegas, indicating he carved the statue. Likewise, in Blade Runner the

unicorn appears at the end of the film when Deckard flees with Rachael. An origami figure of

a unicorn is placed outside Deckard’s apartment. In the Director’s Cut version of Blade

Runner (1992), a scene is included wherein Deckard daydreams about a unicorn galloping

through a forest. As such, the unicorn is a recurring object in Blade Runner. While the

wooden figurine in 2049 is not explicitly a unicorn, an argument can be made that the

figurine is supposed to be a unicorn. The most prominent evidence is when K is inspecting

the other wooden figurines in Deckard’s collection. Damage can be seen on the wooden

horse’s head where the horn would be. The same vagueness that surrounds Deckard

throughout the films also surround K. This vagueness as well has an influence on K and his

identity, as he exponentially starts to question his humanity as the film progresses. K

seemingly adopts the name “Joe” after Joi tells him a serial number is not enough for a

“special boy”. Even Deckard echoes Joi’s opinion when he tells K a serial number is not a

name.
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 70

We can see that identity in both Blade Runner and 2049 are focused on the replicants’

(or androids’) sense of self and sentience. The replicants, when they realise, they are

replicants and slaves, develop a sentience that allows them to have empathy for other

replicants - and in certain situations for humans even. As we have discussed, Dick’s signifier

of whether a person is human or non-human, is their ability to have empathy. As such, the

replicants in the Blade Runner-universe start out non-human (K and Deckard follow orders

requiring them to “retire” old replicants, Rachael fails the Voight-Kampff test, and Roy Batty

goes on a murdering spree in Blade Runner). However, as the films and franchise progress,

the replicants are shown to develop empathy (K saves Deckard and shows him his daughter,

Deckard adopts a dog, Rachael helps Deckard hunt down the final replicants on a murdering

spree, and Roy Batty likewise saves Deckard from dying). Thus, the replicants can be seen as

becoming “more human than human”, as the Tyrell Corporation’s slogan suggests, making

them the next step in a transhumanist and posthumanist evolution by becoming closer to the

image of God and/or decentring the human as important to humanity.

The setting in 2049 is interesting, in that compared to most other cyberpunk films

[including Blade Runner] the dystopian setting manifests in an often dark, gritty, and seedy

aesthetic. While Blade Runner has acid rain, overcrowding, and garbage littering the streets,

2049 is set during a recovering dystopia. As we have mentioned before, dystopian settings

are not anti-utopian, in that they are the direct opposite of utopia, but rather dystopia develops

and evolves from utopian concepts (Moylan, 2010, p. 85). While the Tyrell Corporation

functioned as the antagonistic megacorporation, the Wallace Corporation bought the bankrupt

Tyrell Corporation, continuing their research and development of replicants. Wallace is

regarded as a philanthropist in 2049, as his inventions have staved off a famine and continued

humanity’s colonisation of other planets. We can see these changes in 2049 as K visits the
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 71

protein farm during the film’s beginning. Likewise, the city K lives in still has a global

influence caused by the overcrowding (such as computers speaking Chinese), but it is shown

as less overcrowded whenever K explores the city. As such, 2049’s setting is less dystopian,

however, the Wallace Corporation still looms in the background as an antagonistic

megacorporation. In her article “Recycled Dystopias: Cyberpunk and the End of History”

(2018) Elena Gomel writes “Utopias are always guarded by fences, walls, oceans or cosmic

distances; protected from the pollution of history; kept pure and undefiled” (p. 6). One

example she makes use of is Le Guin’s The Dispossessed (1974) saying

The utopian planet Anarres is separated from its dystopian counterpart Urras not just

by the gulf of space by a symbolic wall that “enclosed the universe, leaving Anarres

outside, free (Le Guin 1974, p. 1). Of course, from the other side of the wall, the

utopia of Anarres is seen as “a great prison camp, cut off from other worlds and other

men, in quarantine” (Le Guin 1974, p. 1). But this dialectic of enclosure is precisely

what defines utopia/dystopia: the same bounded space can be seen as either paradise

or hell, depending on where you are standing in relation to its boundaries (p. 6).

Anarres and Urras can be almost directly translated to multiple places in 2049’s

dystopian setting. Most prominently, Earth serves as a dystopian reminder of how humanity

almost succumbed to famine, disease, and pollution. The Off-world colonies providing a

better life and living standard, being seen as a utopia for the rich and well off. Interestingly,

Stelline and K can also be seen as Anarres and Urras. Stelline serves as Anarres, the utopic

(for replicants) daughter born of replicants bound for the Off-world colonies with her parents,

however, suffering an illness she is now left isolated in a sterile chamber on Earth -

Quarantined. While K serves as Urras, a dystopic replicant who may have unwittingly lived a
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 72

slave all his life, yet still “free” to move anywhere and do anything. One wishes they were the

other, and vice versa, as K fantasised about being the replicant-born child, while Stelline

wishes should could move outside the confines of her sterile isolation chamber and see the

world, live the experiences she creates on a daily basis.

2049 explores identity from an android’s perspective, more specifically K’s perspective.

K shifts his understanding of himself throughout the film, from fully knowing who and what

he is, to questioning where and how he came to be. K’s sense of self is put into question, first

by others like his AI “girlfriend” Joi and Wallace Corporation, and later by himself through

his memories.

K begins his journey when he goes on a mission to retire a replicant named Sapper on a

protein farm. Here he discovers a box buried beneath a tree, containing the human remains of

a woman. However, later on we learn that this woman is the replicant Racheal from Blade

Runner, and she appears to have given birth to two children, one a boy and the other a girl.

Racheal’s ability to give birth opens an interesting discussion of embodiment as

replicants are suddenly given a different aspect to the discussion of humanity and identity.

All creatures, as far as we know, are able to give birth in some way or another. However,

androids, such as replicants, should physically not be able to do this as their bodies are fully

synthetic, imitating humans through for example emotions. One can argue, if androids can

imitate humans through expressing how they feel, how they move, and how they talk why

would they not be able to imitate the way they are born too? If this were to be true, then it

would question how far humanity has progressed and if they are on the path of extinction.

There is seemingly no reason to have humans anymore as replicants are now truly superior to

humans. Thereby, the body plays a central part in 2049 compared to its predecessor. The very

premise that if a replicant gets hurt badly enough they will die or as we see, they may also die
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 73

in childbirth. This puts replicants at risk, even though they are more durable than humans.

2049 reflects the classic 80s and 90s cyberpunk era, where “escaping” embodiment was at its

highest (Frelik, 2010). Much like the film Gamer, 2049 does not necessarily “escape”

embodiment as the body becomes something of the likes of humans, identical in some way,

which embodies “meaning and definition” (Cox, 2018, p. 130). Some believe that giving

birth is what gives meaning to life, and the very idea that replicants are able to do so, may be

what gives them an identity. While powerfully amplifying the Tyrell Corporation’s motto

from the original film, which boasted that the company manufactured beings “more human

than human” - bio-organic copies that surpass the originals. The androids in 2049 seem to be

of striking resemblance to Haraway’s “cyborgs”, as K and other androids such as Racheal

“[...] resists “seductions to organic wholeness” (150) [...]” (as cited in Murphy & Vint, 2010,

xvii) because they simply imitate human capabilities and emotions. Therefore, they do not

want to become like humans, as much as they want to surpass them.

However, as mentioned earlier, photographs play a big part in how replicants are

detectable as they function as physical “evidence” of their “memories” for how they view

themselves. Christina Parker-Flynn (2017) analysis Joe according to the women in 2049 in

“Joe and the ‘Real’ Girls: Blade Runner 2049” and according to Elissa Marder, the

photograph from the original film, that Racheal keeps with her of her and her mother is “the

true ‘subject’”, “the photograph is the site of humanity and the locus of the film’s quest for

origins” (as cited in Parker-Flynn, 2017, p. 69). 2049 repeats a similar photographic gesture

when K unearths a photo of a mysterious woman holding the baby he seeks. Since we know

the baby’s mother, Rachael, has died in childbirth, we also know that this woman only

operates as mother symbolically, just like in Rachel’s picture. After finally uncovering

Deckard’s whereabouts, K silently explores his apartment’s décor and stops to contemplate a

framed photograph of Rachael that he has displayed on a table, surrounded by wooden

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 74

figurines. This mise-en-scène tableau sustains the portrayal of women as art object(ified), as

their only value is of reproduction. This is important to explore as the film suggests that

female replicants are evolving from being solely objectified and slaves to being objectified on

the grounds of their reproductive states (Parker-Flynn, 2017). Thus, gender was less subtle

among replicants in the original film but has become more stereotypical because of female

replicants’ reproductive abilities. Furthermore, Parker-Flynn (2017) positions that

Many of the female characters in 2049 do “mother”, or at least protect their charges,

whether it be Freysa who helped deliver Rachael’s baby and thus plays mother as the

mysterious woman in the aforementioned photograph, or Lieutenant Joshi, one of the

film’s only seemingly ‘real’ women, who displays compassion when K is designated

off baseline and she offers him safe passage from the building (p. 70).

One may assume that female representation in 2049 perpetuates Hollywood’s historical

projection of woman’s “to-be-looked-at-ness”. On one hand, 2049 the murderously

empowered yet ultimately subservient Luv is portrayed in a desexualisation manner. Whereas

Joi on the other hand constitutes the opposite as seen in her choice of clothes. The film

participates in traditional gender stereotypes like with K’s first digital projection of Joi as a

1960s housewife corroborates traditional stereotypes only to reveal how they are as unreal as

“she”. When K believes that he was not made but born, Joi decides K needs “a real boy”

name, as his mother would have given him, and settles on one analogous to her own: Joe. The

slipperiness between gender and identity here compels us into acknowledging that the film

takes the mis-identification of both as central to its story, 2049 reflecting upon gender

disparities more deeply than its predecessor (Parker-Flynn, 2017).

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 75

The issue of embodiment and women are largely present in this film as seen with Joi’s

hologram. Despite her being an AI, she is embodied in the form of the improvements that K

has installed. These improvements have given her a representation of a physical body in the

form of a hologram that allows her to move around the apartment. As in Ghost in the Shell,

Joi is unable to “escape” embodiment, real or virtual - “It is not surprising, then, that almost

all feminist cyberpunk depicts virtual reality as a space that must be navigated with a body of

some sort” (Cadora, 2010, p. 165). However, we cannot be sure if it is a deliberate choice to

give her a white, heterosexual body, but we can speculate in reasons behind it. The most

logical reason would be to say that they made her white because she represents, in a sense, a

different but similar version of Racheal, as it is implied that K is the son of Deckard and

Racheal. Joi serves K in the same way that Racheal did for Deckard by acting as a mother

figure. We see this when K installs a new improvement for Joi, enabling her to move

anywhere K goes. She serves as a protector and guide for K when she follows him on his

quest to find the missing child. But in her relationship with K she also appears to be much

more than that: One could of course assume that the expression of her own desires and values

are simply programmed responses. However, by encouraging K to erase all of her traces from

the console’s hard-drive in his apartment when they go on the run, she is not only protecting

him from his pursuers, at the same time she is acknowledging her own vulnerability and

mortality. One can argue that Joi takes on what Hollinger (2010) calls an “other”

[personality] onto herself in service of protector and “mom” for K.

However, like in the apartment, Joi is rendered only by a highly advanced hologram

through what is called an emanator. She preserves the same white body, which indicates that,

like K, she begins to question whether she knows she is real or not. This is emphasised when

Joi wants to know how it feels to be touched by K, to which they engage in a holographic

sexual act with a female prostitute. Here Joi holographically projects herself onto the female
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 76

sex worker, which mimics Joi having sex with K and ultimately renders her to believe, for a

moment, that she is a real woman. Thereby, Joi’s identity is questioned by whether she

believes she is real, but her body ultimately defines her identity from an embodied

perspective. However, because she ultimately takes on roles for K as well as she can appear

“physically” whenever she is desired, her identity cannot be defined from embodiment but

rather from a re-embodied perspective - “[...] the body is exactly the supplement that

constitutes the (psychic) identity that it completes [...]” (Hollinger, 2010, p. 201).

While there certainly is an ethical dimension to Joi’s choice of existing only on a small,

portable device, and thereby embracing the possibility of her “death” (i.e. the erasure of all of

her memories), it has other implications too: It also means that this specific version of the

product Joi gains the likes of an original as there are no other copies like her. On another

note, it makes commercial sense for the programmers to encourage Joi to increase her

vulnerability as it would force K to purchase a new version of this ‘toy’ once the old one is

destroyed. After Luv destroys the emanator and with it the last traces of Joi, K does indeed

encounter a giant holographic version of the generic mass product Joi, with the tagline

“everything you want to see, everything you want to hear”. She is clearly marketed as a sex

toy and addresses K as a potential new customer. While K does not respond, the bleakness of

the situation draws into question their relationship that might not so much have evolved

because of their personal interactions and experiences but instead have simply been the result

of programmed responses, determined by Wallace Corporation. Like Vint (2007) posits,

women in cyberpunk films, like Joi, will in most cases be reduced to their bodies and in this

case, Joi is merely a mass-produced sex toy.

Joi does not only provoke but also displays a complex range of emotional reactions:

When she is “upgraded” which enables her for the first time to “free roam”, to leave the

confines of K’s apartment, she stands in the rain on the roof-top. K and Joi can now co-
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 77

inhabit a shared reality that goes beyond the confines of the apartment. No longer bound to a

spatially fixed device, Joi becomes part of the world which suggests increased sensory

participation. She stands out in the rain and feels the new sensation of water on her “skin”

and yet she has no body that would enable her to have this sensual experience: We see her

drenched in rain, but at the same time the raindrops pass right through her, causing a kind of

electric shimmer. She exists in a state of being in which she has embodied feelings and yet

she has no body. At the same time, it might rather point to a form of disembodiment because

even though she cannot feel the rain, she is emulating sensations of it. Joi is arguably an

image of “A techno-utopian world where selves are untethered from bodies, where bodies are

transformed into pure information, [that] has been naively envisioned as somehow creating a

freer, more egalitarian world [...]” (Cox, 2018, p. 128). However, Joi is rendered with a body

and she does imitate the sensation the rain creates on her “skin”, and she also enables K’s

existential crisis as well as she experiences her own existential crisis because she longs for a

real body. Therefore, one can argue that, as Cox states it, embodiment is “When the body is

altered, mutated, abridged, or abandoned [...] a potential existential crisis [is] tied to the loss

of the flesh” (Cox, 2018, p. 129). Thus, the notion of Joi is conflicting between whether she

embraces embodiment or re-embodiment, but the two terms are closely related and difficult

to separate from each other, and as such, it may not be important which one fits better, but

rather that both is somewhat visible.

What K is asked to attest to is that Joi might be paradoxical: She is part of K’s self and

yet “other”, she creates illusion and disillusionment, she is not alive, and yet she can die. For

K she occupies the potential space of fantasy, play, and imagination. Joi might have been

intended by her makers as an illusion machine that, just like his implanted designer

memories, keeps customers like K from rebelling against their exploitation (Parker-Flynn,

2017).
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 78

The recovering dystopia presented in 2049 seemingly never quite recovers and becomes

a utopia. The Wallace Corporation still maintains an antagonistic monopoly on technological

developments that enslave the replicants and oppress the human “overlords” on Earth. The

replicants fight for their rights as they realise themselves in the image of the humans that

created them, seeking to acquire an equal standing in society. Meanwhile, humanity use

(some would say exploit) replicant labour to suppress information that could decentre the

humans left on Earth - but not all of humanity is against this development, as Wallace seeks

to exploit and abuse replicant sexual reproduction for his own monetary, influential, and

power gains. Identity in 2049 is rendered in the representation of the journey of K and Joi.

Though both are different from each other, they are somewhat similar as they represent

something that is beyond human, a transcendence. Like the film, they both rely heavily on

their bodies and minds to coexist as embodied symbiotes. With K’s seemingly mortal body

and humanlike mind, he ventures into a quest to figure out his ‘self’. Likewise, Joi joins him

on his quest as she uncovers whether she can be more than an AI.
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 79

Altered Carbon: Sleeving your identity

Altered Carbon takes the question of humanity and identity to a new level as it explores how

an identity is altered within godlike “sleeves”. Altered Carbon is an adaptation of Richard K.

Morgan’s book from 2002 of the same name. The aim of this section is to analyse a futuristic

portrayal of human subjectivity as it interfaces with technology (body modifications) and

how the subjects operate within an intensely dystopian/utopian setting. By analysing

character portrayals of Kovacs, Bancroft, Edgar Poe, Lizzie, and Ortega, the objective of the

reading is to analyse the mind/body aspect. Taking the mind and body as two entities, the

analysis looks at how and why the mind/body, specified as the primary site for human

subjectivity, is changed or altered (Hamdan, 2011). Likewise, as with the previous analyses,

we will also discuss the themes of posthumanism and transhumanism.

As we continue to live in a technologically-mediated world, we rarely stop to think

critically about the tools and devices that surround us. When we have implants put in or

artificial limbs surgically attached to our bodies to replace the original, are we merely

removing our biological ‘selves’ or actually changing ourselves to fulfil our desires? In

subscribing to these advanced technologies, are we in fact thoughtlessly exposing humanity

to dangers and consequently driving it to extinction as more of ourselves are attached to or

even resemble and operate like the technologies that we create? How do we take a step back

to see what humanity is becoming? These are some of the questions that Altered Carbon

explore throughout the season.

Both the theory of embodiment and disembodiment on subjectivity is adopted here to

examine the presence and treatment of natural or nature-given sense of subjectivity. It is also

applied as a means to understand human subjectivity by unravelling the link between the

mind/body dichotomy. This is because the Cartesian notion of “I think therefore I am”, which

shows the mind as the entity that makes humans unique, becomes paradoxical within Science
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 80

Fiction contexts, which usually stress the importance of materiality (Hayles, 1999; Vint,

2007).

The posthuman assumption surrounding the human body is that it is seen as something

malleable and can be manipulated. Haraway’s brief discussion on prostheses in her essay “A

Cyborg Manifesto” supports this very posthuman standpoint on embodiment. Haraway states

that “[f]or us in imagination and in practice, machines can be prosthetic devices, intimate

components, friendly selves” (1985, p. 97). Haraway is not completely wrong when she

positioned this possibility, because as early as the 1950’s the Americans and the Russians

were already applying cybernetic technology to develop prosthetics such as automated limbs

for amputees and visual and aural implants for the blind and deaf (Hamdan, 2011). These

modifications were developed “to restore individuals to ‘normal’ levels of human

functioning” (Hamdan, 2011, p. 8) thus showing the potential and malleability of the human

body. The following consists of a summary of the series in order to set the stage for the

characters.

Altered Carbon is set in the fictional Bay City in the future. The series follows Takeshi

Kovacs (Joel Kinnaman) as he uncovers the mysteries surrounding who killed a rich,

influential magnate part of the “Meths”. “Meths” is a term for the wealthy. The “Meths”

usually live above the clouds, away from the grimy streets below on Earth. “Meths”, a

biblical reference to Methuselah, a patriarch who lived to be 969 years old, are said to live

forever due to their numerous options for “resurrection” in the form of backups. Kovacs is an

Envoy, a former elite spy unit of a rebel group, who was killed 250 years before the series’

start. In the Altered Carbon-universe (2002, 2018), a person’s personality and memories are

loaded onto carbon-based, hard disk-like devices called a cortical stack. Human bodies are

now referred to as “sleeves”, as the cortical stack constitutes the entirety of the person. While
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 81

originally of Japanese and Hungarian heritage, Kovacs is sleeved - the act of “resurrecting” a

cortical stack in a sleeve - into a sleeve of American heritage. Hired to solve the attempted

murder of Laurens Bancroft (James Purefoy), Kovacs uncovers a mystery that goes deeper

than a simple murder case. Along the way, Kovacs meets characters such as Kristin Ortega

(Martha Higareda) an experienced, tough police lieutenant in the Bay City Police

Department, and former lover of Kovacs’ sleeve; Edgar Poe (Chris Conner), an Artificial

Intelligence running a hotel called The Raven, who ends up one of Kovacs’ protégés; Vernon

Elliot (Ato Essandoh), a retired Marine combat medic who Kovacs’ recruits as another

protégé, in exchange for helping his traumatised daughter. Through flashbacks we are also

introduced to Quellcrist Falconer (Renée Elise Goldsberry), the Envoy mentor who trained

Kovacs. Additionally, we are shown details of Kovacs’ background which details his

relationship to his sister Reileen Kawahara (Dichen Lachman) and his philosophical belief.

Kovacs is shown as believing in Falconer’s vision of a future where the concept of cortical

stacking and sleeves are gone, wanting a future where humans have only one life, one body.

The series heavily represent a transhuman future, the core concept of the series - cortical

stacks and re-sleeving - are a clear example of Fuller’s Humanity Translated: “uploading of

mental life from carbon- to silicon-based vehicles, typically with the implication that the

relevant human qualities will be at once prolonged, enhanced and transcended” (Fuller, 2011,

p. 104). In S1/E7, it is explained that Falconer developed the cortical stack technology. Based

on alien technology, the cortical stack resembles a small disk with a green pulsating light. It

is inserted in the neck of every child at the age of one. Falconer explains that the technology

was to be used by humans to explore other worlds. By transmitting their consciousness to

other bodies on other planets, humanity could explore planets at a hitherto unprecedented

speed. However, the technology has instead been converted into a business, much to
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 82

Falconer’s dismay. Multiple venues exist making use of the technology or catering to the

usage of the technology. Kovacs enters a PsychaSec facility who specialise in augmented and

enhanced sleeves (S1/E2). Commercials for designer sleeves are shown throughout the

facility, in the form of virtual representations of the sleeves advertising themselves. The

PsychaSec facility is also shown to function as a storage center for sleeves as Kovacs visits

the Bancroft “Vault”.

Special laws have been instated since the conception of the cortical stack technology.

Ortega indicates a difference exists between “Sleeve death” and “Real death” (S1/E1). In the

same episode, Kovacs is at an orientation for newly sleeved prisoners. Here it is explained

that blunt force trauma to the base of the brain, or an energy weapon fired at the head, will

cause “real death” - the destruction of your cortical stack. As such, another distinction exists

between killing a sleeve and murdering a person. In the same aforementioned episode, we are

shown how victims of sleeve death (and prisoners) are re-sleeved into a random sleeve

available at a prison facility. It is explained that a seven-year-old child is re-sleeved into a

sleeve of an old lady, with the staff telling the parents to either store their child again or buy a

new sleeve.

Seemingly, the norm is for a person to have a single cortical stack that contains their

personality and their memories (people such as Kovacs and Ortega are shown as having only

a single Stack), while only the “Meths” have multiple cortical stacks (such as Miriam and

Laurens Bancroft). Likewise, the “Meths” have backups of their cortical stack which they

upload and download (referred to as Needlecasting) to backup sites (satellites, storage

centres, etc.) or sleeved clones of their body. As such, the humans in Altered Carbon are able

to live for several centuries longer than usual, if they have the money. At the start of the

series Bancroft is nearly 360 years old. This fits in well with Fuller’s (2010) Humanity

Translated future, where uploading our consciousness to silicon-based vehicles allow us to

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 83

prolong our life. Additionally, Fuller (2010) mentions being able to “transcend” (p. 104) as

another trait of this future. This trait we can see with the “Meths”. We will explore the

“Meths” in the next section focusing on religion in Altered Carbon, as it is a significant

subplot in the series. Another trait Fuller (2010) mentions as part of Humanity Translated, is

being able to be “enhanced”. While humanity in Altered Carbon has not transcended to

cyborg bodies, it is shown that enhanced limb replacements are present in the universe. After

Ortega is near-fatally wounded during an attack, her arm needs to be amputated and Kovacs

buys her a prosthetic replacement (S1/E6). A wide range of limb replacements types are

available: Biomech, gene-spliced, cloned, and fully mechanical. One specific model is said to

be covered in a “neurachem-enhanced cloned human skin”. It is not explained what

“neurachem” is in the show, but Ortega’s fighting skills appear to be enhanced once she

receives the enhanced replacement limp. Likewise, references to a device known as “ONI”

are made multiple times, and we are shown scenes from a first-person perspective operating

an “ONI” device. These ONI devices seem to function much the same as contemporary

smartphones, as Kovacs complains about Ortega not “picking up” her ONI. Kovacs and

Ortega’s ONI are shown as being an enhancement for their eye, a receptacle place and

remove the ONI from your eye.

While Altered Carbon represents a transhuman future, there is still a posthuman aspect to

the series. At some point, humanity must have invented artificial intelligence. A series of AI

characters are introduced, with the most prominent being Edgar Poe. The AIs in Altered

Carbon run some of the hotels and brothels on the surface and are shown to be very

autonomous. Poe is part of a group of AIs who have formed a union called the “AI

Management Union”. The AIs are shown, and explained, to not only have a humanoid

representation but also “live” as their establishment. Poe meets with the other AI members of

their union (S1/E2). During the exchange intricacies of Poe and the other AIs are revealed,
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 84

such as Poe’s interest in observing and studying humans. For this reason, he states, “I choose

to be the proprietor of the Raven”. Evidently, the other AIs consider Poe a servant of humans

where they consider themselves “serving up” humans. While Poe observes humanity, the

other AIs despise humanity considering them a “lesser form of life”. Seemingly, the AIs are

in the process of attempting to pacify and exert some control over humanity, using their

virtual stimulation brothels and avenues. As such, it can be said that the AIs are attempting to

do away with the humans ruling on Earth, enslaving the “lesser form of life”. While all the

AIs are shown to have a humanoid body during their meetings, it can be argued that this is

most likely a production decision. The purpose and meaning of the AI scenes would be near

impossible to present without the AIs having a humanoid body from which to converse.

Rather, it can be seen as a visual representation for the viewer, while in actuality the AIs are

“meeting” through a networked connection and exchanging information. Much like the

concept of singularity, where the human body is discarded, and we exist purely as

information in a global network. While this is not explored much, Poe does put an end to it

by uploading a virus to the de facto leader of the AI Management Union. This appears to

effectively put an end to the AIs attempt at controlling humanity. This aspect of control is

explored from a different angle in Altered Carbon, namely through the “Meths” and the

representation of religion.

In Altered Carbon, a subplot explores the religious aspect of the Altered Carbon-

universe. On one hand we have the transcendent “Meths”, able to live for several centuries

due to their backups and access to various advanced technologies. On the other hand, we see

NeoCatholicism who follow a religion based on present-day Catholicism. Seemingly, other

religions exist in the universe as well, however, these are not explored much. The main

difference between the “Meths” and the NeoCatholics, is their use of the cortical stack

technology. While the Meths use the cortical stacks to prolong their life, the NeoCatholics
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 85

believe that re-sleeving brings your soul closer to hell. In S1/E2 a woman mentions that her

daughter has converted and as such cannot be “spun up” (re-sleeved). In the same episode,

when Ortega and her mum are discussing religion, it is explained that NeoCatholics have a

religious coding that prevent them from being re-sleeved. Evidently, in S1/E4 a lot of

humanity seems to be atheistic as well. Ortega’s family is NeoCatholic, however, Ortega and

her grandmother are evidently not believers and have renounced their religious coding -

something which the rest of the family frown upon heavily.

Throughout the series, a law named “653” is referenced, it refers to a law allowing the

dead to be resurrected to aid in cases where they have been killed. The NeoCatholics do not

support the bill, and in S1/E1 when Kovacs is leaving the prison facility, demonstrations are

being held by what appears to be NeoCatholic followers renouncing the bill. In addition to

the NeoCatholics, a reference is made to the Islamic religion and Muslims, with the character

Abboud claiming to be Muslim (S1/E3). No further expansion is offered on Islam in the

Altered Carbon-universe; however, it does seem the inhabitants of Earth are not ignorant to

other religions. Kovacs’ sister’s henchman lists the Gods in contemporary religions, but

whether this means the religions still exist is unclear. The “Meths”, as we have already

established, make frequent use of cortical stack technology to prolong their life. Interestingly,

the “Meths” see themselves as replacements to God, in S1/E3 Bancroft remarks “Oh, Mr.

Kovacs, haven’t you heard? God is dead. We have taken his place” during a discussion with

Kovacs on the ethics of re-sleeving. This religious aspect of Altered Carbon is important, as

it closely ties into the transhumanist goal of becoming “gods”. Evidently, the “Meths” in

Altered Carbon seem to believe they have achieved this goal, even so far as to “replace” the

Gods of the contemporary religions.

Ortega escorts Kovacs to Bancroft’s residence in the Aerium. The Aerium is the name of

the city where the “Meths” live, with Ortega remarking “Our quick and messy little lives are
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 86

so small to them. They build their homes up here so the clutter of our existence is out of their

sight” (S1/E1). This is our first indication that the “Meths” are not benevolent Gods, but

rather quite malevolent. Throughout the series, the “Meths” are shown to have an extensive

amount of influence in every aspect of the Protectorate, as well as what happens beneath the

clouds. Bancroft is seemingly able to acquire any document he needs, such as a full pardon

for Kovacs’ terrorist actions that have left him in prison for an indefinite amount of time.

Likewise, the Bancroft residence is shown as having plenty of rare artefacts, that would be

more suited in a museum.

The “Meths” are highly megalomaniac, and in S1/E2, during a gathering at the Bancroft

residence, the “Meths” are told to bring a unique item. The items exhibited are progressively

more illegal and rarer, such as a human-being having been re-sleeved into an animal, and

Bancroft considering Kovacs - the last Envoy alive - to be his unique “item”. Bancroft often

refers to Kovacs as his “property” throughout the series, meaning Kovacs is not only there to

solve his murder, but likewise, a symbol of power, influence, and wealth for Bancroft. When

Kovacs shows his discontent with being Bancroft’s showpiece, he is quickly dismissed by

Bancroft stating, “In this world, the only real choice is between being the purchaser and the

purchased” (S1/E3). Other examples of megalomaniac traits in the “Meths” appear during the

series, such as Bancroft’s “benevolent” “Minister to the masses”, according to his wife

Miriam, at a shelter for deathly radiated refugees, bringing gifts and blankets for the victims

(S1/E5). As well as Kovacs’ sister’s henchman refers to Kovacs’ sister as “the holiness of

She Who Endures”. These examples further the religious comparison between “Meths” and

Gods, as they - and their followers - have adopted religious terms for themselves. While the

“Meths” see themselves as Gods, little is shown of tensions and clashes between the “Meths”

and the NeoCatholics.

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 87

As mentioned earlier, the NeoCatholics renounce the cortical stack and sleeve

technology, but mainly oppose it in regard to laws and social norms or customs. Kovacs,

evidently, is strongly opposed to how the “Meths” view themselves as Gods, often dismissing

their megalomaniac comments and the opinions of their followers. Likewise, religion seems

to be in a sort of limbo in Altered Carbon. While NeoCatholicism has devout followers, it is

shown as being less influential and substantial in size as contemporary Catholicism. Religion

in Altered Carbon is as such presented to persevere, despite a transhuman and posthuman

technological evolution. The religious subplot provides an interesting angle to analyse the

impact of post- and transhumanism on a society in a cyberpunk future. Often, religious

elements are almost entirely forgotten or dismissed, as is the case in Blade Runner and Ghost

in the Shell. However, as we have already outlined, transhumanism is in and of itself

grounded in religion. It is therefore interesting to see actual biblical and religious references,

as well as a portrayal of actual religion. Throughout the series, NeoCatholicism is not in

focus, it is relevant to Altered Carbon mostly for the reason that the NeoC coding on the

cortical stacks allow the “Meths” to hide their crimes. It is kept as a background element at

other times and is mostly present only when Ortega is in focus.

While Kovacs renounces the “Meths” as megalomaniac, egotistical “Gods”, he has a

reason for his ingrained discontent. Through flashbacks, Kovacs’ history as an Envoy is

expanded upon. The Envoys have mostly been described as formidable warriors, but a deeper

reason and cause situates the Envoys within the Altered Carbon-universe. Falconer is

revealed to be the inventor of the cortical stack technology; however, she is also revealed to

be the leader of a rebel uprising (S1/E4). The uprising is fighting to disable the cortical stack

technology permanently, as it has been abused by the extremely wealthy. As such, a clash

exists between the transhumanist “Meths” and the rebel uprising. The difference between the

rebel uprising and the NeoCatholics, is that the rebel uprising aims to entirely destroy and
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 88

disable the technology, while the NeoCatholics have adapted to the technology’s emergence.

Evidently, the rebel uprising lost which sets the stage and creates the dystopian setting in

Altered Carbon.

At first, the technology created a utopia, where humanity could prolong their life and

travel almost instantaneously to distant planets, but as the technology is integrated into

society more, exploitation and abuse begin to occur. However, as much as the integrated

technology is abused and exploited to create a dystopian setting, it seems the technology has

made life better for the residents of the Protectorate. Throughout the series, there is no

evidence of a nostalgic longing for “the old days”, from before the technology was

discovered and integrated. As mentioned earlier, even the NeoCatholics have seemingly

accepted the technology, but do not make “use” of it - refusing to be resurrected after death.

As such, it can be extrapolated that for a brief period, the technology and Earth was seen as a

utopian ideal, however, it has now evolved into the dystopian present as seen in the series.

The “megacorporation”, or zaibatsu, of the Altered Carbon-universe can be argued to be the

“Meths”. Present in the Altered Carbon-universe is the Protectorate, a government that

presides over a number of colonised planets. While the Protectorate is in charge of ruling

over the cortical stack technology, it is not presented as a malevolent government or entity.

Rather the “Meths”, as we have explored earlier, are shown as the malevolent, powerful, and

influential zaibatsu - ignoring the laws, rules, and regulations of the Protectorate. Likewise,

the “Meths” are shown as running most of the illegal and unethical establishments on the

surface of Earth, such as brothels and interrogation centres. As such, while Kovacs is

employed by Bancroft, he continues his fight against the oppressive zaibatsu, though at a

much smaller scale. Like in most other cyberpunk fiction, Kovacs succeeds at the end, yet

again it is on a much smaller scale, being only able to imprison Bancroft and his wife. The

rebel uprising, in particular Falconer, was sceptical about the abuse of the cortical stack
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 89

technology. She predicted, that if people could live forever, they would exploit and abuse it

for their own gain. As such, a large part of the narrative in Altered Carbon centres on the

conflict between the “Meths” and Kovacs’ beliefs, rooted in his past as an Envoy of the rebel

movement. Ortega, likewise, battles a conflict between her own personal beliefs, that murder

and rape victims should be able to re-sleeve and point out their murderer or rapist, and her

religious past and family. These elements all contribute to identity crises and problems in the

Altered Carbon-universe, especially in Kovacs and Ortega. Both undergo a substantial

change through the series, where Kovacs at first rely on himself and his Envoy-training,

making “friends” as a benefit to his cause, he ends the season by teaming up with his friends

working towards a common goal.

Having already touched upon the utopian/dystopian elements of Altered Carbon, the

series further exerts a cyberpunk visual style, reminiscent of the grime-caked cities in Blade

Runner and the neon-lights filled streets of Ghost in the Shell. As with the contrast between

the “Meths” in the Aerium and the rest on the surface of the Earth, a similar contrast in

aesthetics and visuals exist. The Aerium is white and pristine and the “Meths´” houses are

decorated with expensive artefacts and artworks. The colours in the Aerium are vibrant, while

on Earth it’s dark and mostly grey. Most of the inhabitants are shown to live in poverty, with

trash and grime caking the streets of Bay City. As such, Altered Carbon adheres closely to

the aesthetics Cyberpunk is known for, even more so when Kovacs in S1/E1 enables his ONI

device wandering the streets of Bay City - only to be pestered by neon-coloured ads and

holographic, scantily clad women offering their services around every corner. While Earth

and the Aerium exist to contrast the stark differences in wealth and power between its

inhabitants, exemplifying a dystopian future plagued by technology and pollution, a further

contrast appears during Kovacs’ flashbacks, where scenes take place on a second planet -

Harlan’s World - the base of the rebel uprising. Parts of Harlan’s World are shown as an
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 90

almost prehistoric planet, where the land is covered in thick and lush forest surrounded by

water and beaches. For Kovacs, this part of Harlan’s World represents the ideal utopia of a

world not polluted by technology and humanity, surrounded by like-minded individuals. Like

with 2049 and the contrast between Urras and Anarres, Urras exist as the utopian ideal -

outside the control of the Protectorate - while Earth and the Aerium represent Anarres, the

dystopian.

We can see Fuller’s Humanity Translated future very clearly in Altered Carbon, the

technology being a hybrid between an alien civilisation’s technology and humanity’s

combination of the two. Fittingly, Altered Carbon also represents the main goal of

transhumanism - Humanity being created in the image of God, and our evolving into gods as

the betterment and evolution of humanity and/or Homo sapiens. As we have explored, certain

parts of humanity are convinced they have replaced the old gods, while another part still

reveres the old gods and renounces the technology of Altered Carbon. As we have also

determined, a third view existed, which was not attached to religion or wealth, and which

seemingly renounced both of the previous views. Though now extinct, Kovacs serves as a

reminder of their cause, reluctantly agreeing to helping Bancroft. Evidently, this causes

Kovacs great annoyance and grief, and is also one of the causes of his identity crisis. The

other major cause is the body in which Kovacs has been placed, which serves as a tormenting

taunt to Ortega throughout the series. In Altered Carbon humanity has evolved to gods, if you

have the wealth, but seemingly no changes have been made to the Homo sapien body.

Additionally, Altered Carbon also includes hints of technological posthumanism, in the form

of autonomous AIs attempting to exert control or pacify humanity. A majority of the AI,

seemingly, consider humanity a lower form of life, but are quickly stopped by one of their

own. In the next section we will delve deeper into embodiment.

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 91

Altered Carbon introduces a new way of looking at the body but these “new bodies” are

the same as todays. Except Altered Carbon’s world of today permits bodies to be replaced

with new ones. We see this sleeving for the first time when Kovac is sleeved into a straight,

white, male, almost god-like body (S1/E1). His “default” body is of Japanese and Hungarian

origin, filled with scars, which arguably portrays the white body of “superior status”. Frelik

analyses the novels, but many of his arguments still seem valid for use in the series.

However, he argues that “Unlike most cyberpunk heroes, Kovacs is ethnically-marked.

Where his fictional predecessors were mostly race-blind and heroes uniformly white, Kovacs

repeatedly stresses his mixed Japanese and Hungarian roots” (Frelik, 2010, p. 176).

According to Frelik “This leads to a problematic question - what is the meaning of race and

ethnicity in the world in which outward markers are meaningless and demand-driven?

(Frelik, 2010, p. 176). In our contemporary world, more often than not “race” is posited as a

more general category involving both ancestry, social, and cultural characteristics, while

“ethnicity” describes any group distinct in cultural, linguistic, religious, behavioural, or

biological terms. Accordingly, it would be tempting to suggest that “race” is more connected

with the body and “ethnicity” with the mind. This contradiction between Kovacs’ identity

and commodification of sleeves can only be reconciled if we assume that the director

constructs both racial and ethnic identity as something mental, part of the personal data which

can be carried between stacks and sleeves even if, or when, it does not find its external

expression (Frelik, 2010). This is further evidenced in the first novel by the fact that Kovacs’

Hungarian and Japanese ancestors were themselves digitised subjectivities of two of Earth’s

nations, sent to Harlan’s World and sleeved, presumably into appropriately marked bodies,

only upon arrival on their new home (Frelik, 2010). We can assume that it is similar in the

series as we do not hear much about Kovacs’ parents.

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 92

Frelik suggests that “Even with such an assumption that race and ethnicity are really

data, the novels [and the series] suggests that such a sense of identity is not held universally”

(2010, p. 177). Kovacs is strongly aware of his own roots, but the majority of other characters

do not appear to manifest any indication that the choice of the sleeve, which by necessity is

racially marked, is dictated by anything but purely functional, aesthetic, or economic

considerations. Later in the series, we see for example Ortega’s grandmother being re-sleeved

into a thug (S1/E4). Another example can be seen when a little girl, who died in an accident

is re-sleeved into an old woman. These examples exemplify the show’s willingness to mock

the stack technology. For one, this mocking can be seen as a way for the people, controlling

the stack technology, to show how little they care whether people get the sleeve they deserve

or demand. Secondly, by having young children being put into bodies that could die at any

second, or having age-gender-cross-sleeving, it acts as a subtle comedic relief in an otherwise

dark and gritty world. On one hand, the little girl that is put into the old woman, suggests that

both the parents and the girl herself will difficulties adapting to her new body. Furthermore,

they will feel as if they lost parts of themselves by changing the entire physicality of the little

girl, as arguably, children at that age start to develop a curiosity for their bodies and, thus,

begin to identify more with it. On the other hand, Ortega’s grandmother does not seem to

have any issues towards her new sleeve (except for the sleeve sickness), which postulates that

older people value their minds more, as in their knowledge. However, as mentioned, much of

the re-sleeving that occurs throughout the series is based on functional, aesthetic, or

economic considerations.

We argue that embodiment in Altered Carbon is an important theme as it does not in its

entirety clearly state whether it prefers the body, the mind, or both. The series comments on

the issue itself: “Your body is not who you are. You shed it like a snake sheds its skin. Leave

it, forgotten, behind you.” (S1/E1). Here it is stated that the body has become obsolete
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 93

because what matters is the cortical stack which contains consciousness. Consciousness is

arguably how the series defines our identity and thereby a classical disembodied vision where

the body is expendable. Both Haraway and Hayles would disagree with the idea of a

disembodied vision, as they would prefer if consciousness (the mind) became secondary to

the body. For Haraway and Hayles the notion of the body has to have first priority, but as the

world of Altered Carbon does not allow it, the embodied vision seems impossible. Likewise,

in Ghost in the Shell and 2049, Haraway’s notion of cyborg embodiment can be applied to

the re-sleeving-people of Altered Carbon as they, too, resist seductions to organic wholeness

through a constant re-sleeving. However, sleeving is available for most people but the more

money you have, the better a sleeve you can have.

As Murphy and Schmeink (2018) state, Haraway’s cyborgs are not limited to humans

becoming machines (A hybrid of machine and organism), but also “[...] human-machine

interfacing [...], as well as fully transplanting human consciousness into machines [...]” (xxiv-

xxv), which can be seen throughout Altered Carbon as the humans transplant consciousness

into machines (stacks). This means that the poor does not seem to have the same options as

those who have money, which puts the poor in a minority state. As Cadora (2010) mentions

people of colour, women, and non-binary people are not able to disembody in the same way

that white, straight men are because, as in Ghost in the Shell and 2049, Altered Carbon falls

under the category of feminist cyberpunk. Therefore, we argue that people belonging to these

categories, in this case the poor, can be categorised as a minority. Ironically, in the novel,

organic bodies are preferred over synthetic ones, and the supply of the organic bodies come

from those who cannot afford to be re-sleeved. In fact, those who are wealthy can have

themselves cloned so that they can be re-sleeved in their own bodies.

Through data-casting (Needlecasting), human consciousness is digitally shipped and

downloaded into other sleeves. This means that the “Meths”, in theory, are able to fully
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 94

disembody into whoever they prefer, regardless of sexual orientation and gender. Kovacs’

sister makes use of racially diverse and differently gendered sleeves to track Kovacs.

However, the “Meths” seem to prefer to keep copies of their own bodies, and always at the

same age and physique. This can be seen as a symbol of their wealth and status in society,

even though they have the option of re-sleeving into others.

In addition, the penal system no longer keeps live criminals; only their bodiless minds in

the form of the cortical stacks that are placed in storage through the duration of their

sentence, their mindless bodies made available on the market for sale or rent. Having kept the

bodies of criminals “on ice” creates a society where some of the most dangerous people are

able to walk the streets. A society like this also permits the possibility for regular people to

occupy the body of a serial killer, where the victims’ future families can see their family

member’s killer roam freely around. Even though the criminals’ minds are destroyed, their

bodies are still widely used by various people in the social class. Having people being able to

change their bodies as they please, permits Vint’s idea of Cartesian dualism. This

disembodiment ensures that people do not lose their sense of self. This indicates that the idea

of a disembodied utopia would crumble because, for a utopia like that to happen, the body

would have to become, in all its meanings, obsolete. However, one could argue that this idea

is somewhat a fantasy. Although this fantasy is what Hayles claims as dangerous, the same

argument could be said for a world where everyone identifies with the body and all forms of

discrimination are gone; an embodied utopia. Altered Carbon does obviously not embrace the

idea of utopia, but it still hints at ideas of disembodiment; most notably with the

aforementioned: “Your body is not who you are [...]” (S1/E1). However, Hayles’ arguments

put into question whether identity should be embodied through the mind or the body, but as

we have established, Hayles (1999) argues that identity begins with the body and expands

from there. Furthermore, Hayles (1999) argues that erasing the division between humans and
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 95

machines conjures up apocalyptic visions in which machines become our equals and then our

superiors. Therefore, according to Hayles (1999), the body has sentimental history. It has an

architecture, a "physical structure whose constraints and possibilities have been formed by an

evolutionary history that intelligent machines do not share" (p. 284). Humans, Hayles (1999)

says, may enter into symbiotic relationships with machines, or be replaced by them, but they

cannot completely identify with them.

Altered Carbon portrays the principle that bodies and minds are distinct and separable.

This notion is applied and problematised in the context of a technologically–mediated

environment by the director. The rich have almost unlimited options when it comes to how

they want to look like. The cheapest way is to upload the stack into a virtual reality setting

where you “live” in a setting of your choice – disembodied and disconnected from reality.

The most common but not the cheapest option is to be re-sleeved in another organic body that

is bought or rented off “the shelf” at “Download Centrals”. The cheaper but less favoured

option compared to the organic body is to be re-sleeved in a synthetic one. By having all

these different sleeving options, it puts into question how one chooses the right one for

themselves and how do they become comfortable with who and whatever they wear. Looking

at Kovacs and Bancroft, two people from two opposite sides of the spectrum, with one being

a former “terrorist and rebel” and the other being a big corporate CEO philanthropist: Kovacs

has re-sleeved a few times before ending up in the body of Ryker, but because he is a former

Envoy, he is faster and better at adapting to his new sleeves. Being better at adapting, puts

him at an advantage over “regular” people and their sleeves.

However, Bancroft is a “regular” man who has made enough money so he can re-sleeve

into a clone of himself every time he dies, or something happens to his body. Bancroft does

not seem to suffer from a lack of adaptation to his new sleeves, but that is most likely due to

the sleeve being a copy of himself, whereas other people end up in completely different
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 96

bodies. With Bancroft being re-sleeved into himself, seemingly instantly, he embraces the

idea of embodiment. For Bancroft the body signifies what humanity should evolve into.

However, it may already be so for a selected group (“Meths”). The idea of the body,

according to Bancroft and whoever can afford to re-sleeve into themselves, is that even

though the body seems expendable (instant re-sleeving), it signifies an important part of their

self-realisation. In other words, both the mind and the body are who they are. For Bancroft,

the satellite containing his constantly updated consciousness is as important for him as his

bodies. It is important for him to be constantly up to date, both knowledge-wise and

physically. Bancroft’s choice of an older body instead of a younger one puts him in a position

of authority, and as we have mentioned, he positions himself as a God. It is a deliberate

choice from Bancroft as he believes the older body serves him respect; “But the truth is, it’s

at this age that man achieves real respect, for he has battled many times and clearly

triumphed” (S1/E5).

Kovacs’ godlike body that we have briefly touched upon is, unlike Bancroft, not his own

choice. His body was chosen by Bancroft because it used to belong to former trained police

detective Ryker, which means it was prepared for quick reactions and potential combat

situations, making him ideal for solving a murder mystery (S1/E1). Additionally, Bancroft

chose that body to taunt Ortega. However, the godlike aspect can be seen in comparison to

Bancroft’s choice of body, where Bancroft chooses an older body as a symbol of respect, and

with “Meths” empowering godlike status, Kovacs’ body is chosen for appearances and

physique, and as a “scare tactic” against Bancroft’s enemies. Kovacs’ godlike looks can also

be seen as a symbol of the ideal man; for example, like Michelangelo’s Renaissance sculpture

of David, which is sculpted with a defined muscular appearance. Furthermore, from a

production point of view, his physical appearance is most likely because Kinnaman, who

plays Kovacs, fits into contemporary body ideals of a “handsome man”. This usually attracts
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 97

an audience because they tend to prefer to look at beautiful actors as the actors and actresses

act as “role models”. Kovacs has been re-sleeved numerous times, his high-risk job as an

Envoy and later as an assassin for hire, almost always results in his body being organically

damaged and basically not suitable for re-use. As such, every time he “dies” he is re-sleeved

in a different body. For Kovacs, being re-sleeved is mundane and routine yet with each re-

sleeving comes a silent struggle. We see this struggle when Kovacs is haunted by his former

life as an Envoy and the times he is killed (S1/E1,2). He begins to have flashbacks to his

previous life, as he struggles to remember what he looked like.

Throughout the series we see hints to Kovacs’ numerous re-sleeves, and at one point he

pretends be a woman named Ava, re-sleeved into the body of Ryker, who is the mum of a girl

spun up in trauma VR. Even though he is not Ava as Ryker/Kovacs, it emphasises first, his

ability to adapt to different sleeves, women and men, and regardless of colour. Secondly, it

emphasises Kovacs’ idea of disembodiment as he does not care who he wears or pretends to

be. This idea of disembodiment comes from the comment: “Your body is not who you are

[...]”, which is said by Falconer. As Kovacs is over 250 years old, he is from a time when this

utopian idea first came to be and therefore, he still believes that bodies are expendable

because what matters is how you control the body and not how the body controls you.

Kovacs can be regarded as the epitome of Haraway’s cyborg subjectivity. He

acknowledges that to ensure continuity his identity must be fluid, linked to, and influenced by

(narratives of) technologies. Perhaps in this context, accepting a cyborg identity is the way to

survive in a posthuman environment. Embracing partiality and contradictory standpoints on

embodiment ensures Kovacs’ peace of mind and reminds us of further impending changes

and the increasing proximity between technology and our subjectivity.

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 98

Quellcrist Falconer: The mind does interesting things under extreme stress.

Hallucination. Displacement. Retreat. As Envoys, we learn to use those things, not as

blind reactions to adversity, but as moves in a game (S1/E4).

Takeshi Kovacs: [narrating] The danger of living too many times: you forget to fear

death. We dismiss the Grim Reaper as a quaint metaphor. But fearing death it's good

for you (S1/E7).

Quellcrist Falconer: This sleeve is a tool. It does not control me. I control it. This is

the weakness of weapons. They are tools to kill and destroy. They are not what gives

you power. You are the weapon. You are the Killer and Destroyer (S1/E7).

Takeshi Kovacs: [narrating] Death isn't only about the destruction of the body.

Sometimes, just like that, you extinguish one self and another is born. But every birth

is violent and there's no death without pain (S1/E7).

Therefore, in the context of the technologies inherent in Altered Carbon, to ensure the

survival of human identity, it would need to be understood as a flexible concept. In fact, it is

Kovacs’ understanding of the flexible and changing structures of the environment that

enables him to adapt and survive and for his subjectivity to remain intact. Evidently, most of

the rest of humanity is either unable or unwilling to adopt a flexible identity. As such, Kovacs

can be deemed a progressive cyborg, in order to remain intact, he has to suppress the natural

human desire to forge relationships which is contrary to the general posthuman perception

that to be posthuman means to be released from death and unfulfilled desires.

With the option of being sleeved into whoever, whether it is by choice or coincidence

it should, in theory, be available to everyone. However, like in Ghost in the Shell women are

often portrayed as sexualised beings, unable to leave behind their body, both metaphorically

and literally. The difference between the portrayal of men and women in Altered Carbon is
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 99

visible in many ways. Objectification and sexualisation are some of the themes that separate

the two genders from each other, and we see this several times throughout the series. Among

one of the examples, when Kovacs arrives at PsychaSec we can see how the expensive

sleeves are promoted (S1/E2). Among one of the sleeves, a hologram of a completely naked

woman is seen saying: “Best sleeve money can buy. Put your wife in me.”, followed by her

turning seductively. Some would promote this as a rather aggressive advertisement of

sleeves, but it seems like the people who can afford these sleeves are not bothered by it,

rather, they embrace it by having it openly visible to everyone. This obvious objectification

of the woman emphasises the discussion from our previous analyses. Both Killian and Joi,

seemingly built as the ideal image of disembodiment, are ultimately unable to separate their

minds from their bodies. The naked woman, less subtle however, is also unable to be

promoted and depicted as nothing more than a sex toy. Similar examples are seen with

Bancroft’s wife, who is often portrayed with little to no clothes on, as well as the strip/sex

clubs, where girls, in virtual or real life, can fulfil every desire (S1/E1, 2, 3).

However, one of the more notable and interesting examples is Lizzie, whose father keeps

her locked in a VR playback because she was tortured and beaten to death, suffering trauma

from the incident. Her body was destroyed but her stack was intact, which means that she

should be able to re-sleeve. However, because she suffered such trauma, her mind was

destroyed as well, which means she would not function in a new body. Despite her destroyed

body and mind, we still see her body intact in the VR loop. Again, this emphasises Cadora’s

argument about women’s inability to fully disembody. By the end of the season, Poe is able

to save her and return her mind back to a normal state, but in order to do so she has to be re-

sleeved. Lizzie is instead put into a synthetic sleeve that is able to transform into anyone they

like, meaning that she is free to choose her own body. However, it turns out that Lizzie rather

wants to be in her original body, the same body that was tortured and mutilated. Lizzie’s
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 100

choice of body furthers the idea that women in cyberpunk films always, some way or another,

are portrayed with their body, unable to escape the embodied world.

Young Tak: "Once upon a time, in a village in the woods"

Young Reileen: Don't read it, Tak. I want you to tell it our way.

Young Tak: Okay. You ready? "Once, there was a cruel father who had two kids. He

was called Mad Mykola."

Young Reileen: "He was a miller, but he made the kids do all of the work." Where do

you think their mom was?

Young Tak: There are never moms in these stories. Come on, keep going. (S1/E3).

Furthermore, this is emphasised with young Tak explaining to his sister, that mums

(women) hold no place in these stories (of which Altered Carbon is related). Likewise, we

argue that women’s portrayal of embodiment does not permit them to be part of the story of a

disembodied world.

In the realm of synthetic sleeves, comes the discussion of AIs like Poe. Poe, like Joi from

2049, is the seemingly ultimate image of disembodiment but they both have a holographic

representation in the form of a physical body to manoeuvre and interact with, even though we

clearly see that they do not need them. Poe has adopted the persona of Edgar Allan Poe, who

owns a hotel called The Raven. Poe’s whole persona establishes him in the same way that Joi

does, which can be seen throughout the season when he materialises wherever needed.

Furthermore, Poe, like other AIs, is discriminated against which puts the relationship between

humans and AIs in a tight spot. We argue that one of the reasons for Poe’s inability to

completely disembody is because he falls under the same category as most women often do

in cyberpunk fiction, that of minorities. This is partially due to the discrimination against him
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 101

and other AIs as well as Poe seems to be unable to escape the constraints of his meat suite.

Interestingly enough, Poe mentions himself that he is unable to leave the confinement of the

hotel: “My neural network is part of the building itself. Think of the hotel as a body, of which

I am the brain. I am the hotel“ (S1/E3).

Therefore, as Poe points out, the hotel is his body and he cannot leave the hotel without

leaving his body. However, one could argue that instead of seeing Poe as a prisoner in his

own “body”, he is experiencing Cartesian mind/body dualism. For this to work, one has to

simply believe in the idea that Poe is the brains of this hotel, which functions as his eyes and

ears. Poe tells the hotel what to do, whether that is turning up the heat, opening of doors, or

gunning down uninvited threats. Furthermore, Poe is able to go anywhere he desires on the

array. The array is similar to the Net in Ghost in the Shell, which means that Poe, like Killian,

is able to disconnect himself from the mortal world and tap into the virtual one. In the virtual

world Poe can disembody, not only from himself, but from everything that connects him to

the existing world; this being discrimination, confinement of the hotel, and the persona of

Edgar Poe. With Poe being the hotel and not having a physical body, he is, like the other AIs,

not able to embody in the same way that Kovacs and other human characters do. Instead, AIs

embody through their establishments as they all function as the persona of whatever they

“are” or “own”. Even though AIs in Altered Carbon do not have physical bodies, they

represent something beyond humans and in some way, they can be seen as superior to

humans. Although they are not presented as having any physical superiority over humans,

they have the ability to retrieve any information from the array, creating a superior

intelligence. Furthermore, they lack the constraints of real death (except for “Meths”).

Arguably there is no real distinction between what the body and mind signify in Altered

Carbon. For some the mind is the soul of human identity, and for others it is the body.

However, we argue that both the mind and the body contain meaning, not only for us, but for
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 102

the different characters in the series. Instead of discussing the same examples again, we will

focus on one specific scene that we believe conveys this argument.

The notion of re-embodiment returns in Altered Carbon as neither the mind nor the body

can be completely ignored as the two terms are too closely intertwined with each other. This

intertwining is most noticeable when Kovacs is stuck in a similar VR as Lizzie. Kovacs is

captured and held in an interrogation torture chamber in virtual reality (S1/E4). Kovacs is

subject to different kinds of torturing methods, all of them targeted at his body. The torture of

the body may signify either that the body is important because if the body breaks, the mind

breaks, and that way the information they need can be extracted. Or it is not important

because they are able to do every possible torture scenario and Kovacs would not break.

Furthermore, we learn that some are able to manipulate the VR world. First, we see this with

the torturer, who is able to use his brother’s sleeve to make the interrogation more personal,

as the twin brother is believed to have been killed by Kovacs. This digital re-sleeving

emphasises that both the body and the mind become equally important because not only is the

mind controlling the body, but the body is needed to perform the torture. Second, Kovacs is

shown to have mastered the ability to take control of the VR. Kovacs is able to use his mind

to get free and escape the virtual world, and he does so by freeing his chained-up body.

Interestingly, in the novel Kovacs is instead re-sleeved into a woman and tortured in

unspeakable ways only women are able to experience. For good reasons, the directors

changed that scene. However, although it may be horrifying, it also signifies women’s

continued objectification and mutilation. The reason Kovacs is put in a female body is

because women are often portrayed as being more receptive to pain than men, and being so,

means that there would be a higher chance that he would break and confess. It also furthers

the issues of women’s inability to release themselves from their bodies.

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 103

Re-embodiment therefore plays an important part in exploring identity in Altered

Carbon. Like Hayles (1999) argues, with the separation of mind and body comes the

discourse of what it means to be human, which is seen throughout the series. Kovacs and

Bancroft for example talk about how easy it is to re-sleeve but at the same time they both are

not very fond of how stack technology can be manipulated. Furthermore, Hollinger’s

argument about taking on an “other” and becoming something other than what we were fits

very well within the Altered Carbon setting. Throughout the series we see characters literally

take on another self through sleeving, but even though they only change body, they leave

behind some of themselves every time. This may be knowledge or experience and therefore,

there will always be some sort of “otherness” in them and they will not be exactly who they

were before. However, can stacks be considered what Hayles calls “overdetermined

supplementarity” (as cited in Hollinger, 2010, p. 201); are they the dangerous elements in

determining human identity?

On the one hand, Frelik argues that the series envision complete digitisation of

subjectivity, to be conscious has to be instantiated in some physical medium— one’s original

stack, remote storage, a virtual construct - but is otherwise mobile (Frelik, 2010, p. 186). The

data’s transferability makes copying or even “cloning” of the mind possible. The

commodification of sleeves, commercially branded and customisable, further suggests the

Cartesian separation. On the other hand, the stack-encoded subjectivity proves to be not only

intimately connected with but also influenced by the physical sleeve. When loaded into a

sleeve, a person retains the entirety of experience and self-awareness, but subjectivity

immediately becomes imprinted on the body. Sleeves are posited as not “empty” even when

they are fresh and unworn. That various physical and neural systems accelerate reflexes, add

skills, or provide greater resistance register in the person’s mind upon “waking up” in a new

body is a given—they are, after all, manufactured features. What complicates this duality is
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 104

the fact that sleeves may carry over physical habits or acquired traits of its previous owner or

the subjectivity may carry his or her traits from one sleeve to the next (Frelik, 2010).

Kovacs frequently experiences a sense of peculiar detachment and a feeling that the

sleeve he is wearing reacts to certain stimuli unconsciously, but the results bear upon his

conscious mind. When Kovacs wakes up in a new sleeve, he discovers a strong craving for

cigarettes although he himself never smoked—the previous owner of the sleeve was a

nicotine addict. The mutual sexual attraction between him and Kristine Ortega is largely

based on the pheromonal familiarity between her and the sleeve Kovacs is wearing, which

previously belonged to Ortega’s boyfriend.

As Frelik argues:

In most terminal narratives, to borrow Scott Bukatman’s lexicon, the codification of

human subjectivity aims at the separation of the mental and the corporeal, with the

former liberated to roam the expanses of virtual worlds and the latter devalued as

“meat” weighing down the transcendent mind. In Morgan’s fiction, the opposite is

true—the main purpose of the stack technology is not to shed the flesh but rather to

enable its renewal through re-embodiment (Frelik, 2010, p. 187).

Altered Carbon’s imagined technologies provide an avenue for the human mind/body

dimension to be debated within the posthuman worldview, especially within the cyborg

subjectivity. This is because the technologies envisaged by the director provide an avenue to

problematise Cartesian dualism in relation to human subjectivity within a futuristic Science

Fiction context bearing in mind that the technologies are based on existing philosophies and

technologies. In addition, our analysis shows that the series bring to task human subjectivity

further by experimenting within the context of the post- and transhuman worldview which
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 105

treats human consciousness as blocks of data that are copyable, transferable, or

programmable; and human bodies as durable, limiting, and an aspect of humanity that should

be improved or discarded. Despite the impending posthuman cyborg subjectivity, these

experiments reveal that human subjectivity is primarily based on the mind and body

interacting and acting together to produce consciousness that is not fractured. To be a cyborg,

that is a combination of human and machine, it is vital to remember that subjectivity consists

of a combination of a thinking mind and a body that should react accordingly to the thoughts.

However, what the technology reveals is that human subjectivity is more dependent on re-

embodiment as reflected in the characters’ connection to their bodies, in the Altered Carbon-

universe. This attachment, to a certain extent, negates the Cartesian view that the mind has

primacy over the body in the context of human subjectivity.

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 106

Contemporary Cyberpunk: Identity in Recent and Retrospective Cyberpunk and its

Variants

Identity is a common theme across all three analyses but each of them represents identity

in various ways. Ghost in the Shell, 2049, and Altered Carbon manage to reflect on the

question of what it means to be human and have a subjectivity. Across all three analyses we

have established that concepts of embodiment, posthuman-/transhumanism, dystopia/utopia,

and body modifications, which all fall under the same category: Identity. Through an

understanding of one’s own self in regard to these concepts, we argue that one will find their

identity.

Therefore, we want to turn the attention to the discussion where we will explore the

different concepts across the three works and compare them with one another to see the

differences and similarities. Afterwards, we will explore the history of cyberpunk by

discussing the three works according to their release year and the year they are set in. We will

then conclude by looking at European cyberpunk visual media and see if and how it differs

from its American and Japanese counterparts.

As we have seen in the analyses, transhumanism is most prominent across all three

works. Though posthumanism also feature in them, the focus is mainly on humanity

becoming enhanced in the image of God(s). Whether this be through cyborgification, drugs,

technology, or advancements in robotics and computing. Transhumanism is most prominent

in the Humanity Translated future of Altered Carbon, as we see clear references to the Bible

as well as characters explicitly stating they are replacements for the gods. Meanwhile, 2049’s

Technological Posthuman future focuses on the androids potentially replacing humanity in

the future, as the new sturdier, more intelligent, and more efficient evolution. Ghost in the

Shell falls in between the two works, its transition from Humanity Incorporated into
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 107

Humanity Enhanced situates Kusanagi as both robot and human, ultimately ending with

Kusanagi identifying herself as more human than robot. However, while we mainly analysed

Ghost in the Shell as transhuman since Kusanagi ultimately is human, it can be analysed as

posthuman as well. Kusanagi’s cyborg body, a robotic shell for her human brain, is the “first”

of its kind but clearly meant to be a prototype for gauging whether it is possible to implant

human brains in cyborg bodies. As such, Ghost in the Shell could be read as a Technological

Posthuman future, though the human body still remains in focus in Ghost in the Shell, as

Kusanagi works to fit in with her fellow operatives.

All three works firmly establish themselves in the cyberpunk genre, 2049 and Ghost in

the Shell are already part of cyberpunk franchises that emerged during the genre’s infancy in

the 1980s. Especially Altered Carbon and Ghost in the Shell make use of the visual tropes

associated with cyberpunk, particularly the neon-lit advertisements strewn across the

cityscapes present in cyberpunk worlds. All three works incorporate what is considered a

defining characteristic of cyberpunk, as we have defined in the introduction: The presence of

a globally influential and powerful Zaibatsu or megacorporation; as well as a dystopian

setting, built upon the foundation of a utopian development for humanity that, in turn, has

been exploited and abused for the monetary or influential gain of the aforementioned

Zaibatsus or megacorporations. Interestingly, while 2049 and Ghost in the Shell have clearly

defined oppressive and antagonistic megacorporations, in the form of the Tyrell/Wallace

Corporation and Hanka Robotics, respectively, Altered Carbon seemingly blurs the lines

between whether the antagonist(s) are the “Meths” or the Protectorate. In our analysis we

defined the “Meths” as being the antagonistic and oppressive presence in the narrative - being

a group of wealthy individuals, we used the term Zaibatsu instead of megacorporation. Rather

than the enabling Protectorate, the “Meths” function almost exactly in a similar fashion to the

megacorporations of 2049 and Ghost in the Shell, a wealthy group exerting control and
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 108

influence over the general population, while ignoring, skirting, or bending the rules and

regulations to their own benefit.

Since cyberpunk is set in the “future”, though the contemporary world has caught up

with some of these “future” dates, the way humanity express themselves is often through

extravagant body modifications. This features most prominently in Ghost in the Shell and

Altered Carbon, as part of a multiculturally-diverse universe, where the cybernetically

enhanced are in the majority. As such, what seems like body modifications meant to invoke a

feeling of cybernetically enhanced beauty are present. One such example we briefly analysed

as part of Kusanagi’s contemplation regarding her “human” body. Body modifications

feature in 2049 as well, although to a much smaller degree than Ghost in the Shell and

Altered Carbon. However, body modifications in Altered Carbon are more functional than

they are cosmetic, such as Ortega’s limb replacement which does not alter her arm

cosmetically. Unlike Ghost in the Shell and Altered Carbon, body modifications in 2049 are

only available to androids and even so we do not see any of these modifications up close.

Therefore, body modifications in Ghost in the Shell, and to some extent in Altered Carbon,

function as a way of understanding who Killian and Kovacs are, whereas in 2049 they serve

more as natural extension of the bio-mechanical bodies of the replicants.

The concept of embodiment is discussed throughout all three analyses and they each play

a vital role in exploring identity. For one film the plot and visual aesthetics embrace the idea

of embodiment, whereas in another it does the complete opposite. For some characters the

idea of disembodiment is closely related to how they identify with themselves, whereas for

others, visuals of re-embodiment connect them to a sense of “self”. However, for all three

works the issue of women’s and minorities’ inability to disembody is present across all three

works.
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 109

In cyberpunk visual culture, separating mind and body is often the issue of the main

characters as they are frequently depicted as lonely individuals who struggle with

understanding who they are and where they come from. Likewise, we see this in both 2049

and Ghost in the Shell, where both K and Killian begin to struggle with their understanding of

who they are. They both seem to question their existence because of outside forces that open

up their minds to the outside world. These outside forces are the horse figurine and Kuze for

K and Killian, respectively, as they function as a push in the “right” direction. What we mean

by the “right” direction is that it is questionable, whether K and Killian had to go down their

paths or would they have been content with how their lives were as before. K and Killian also

seem to be “trapped” inside their bodies, especially for K, he has little chance of escaping

embodiment because the world of 2049. and partially its predecessor, does not hold any

technology that allows characters to physically separate mind from body. Ghost in the Shell,

however, seems to allow certain characters to partially or fully disembody. Here Killian

would represent the partially disembodiment as she is allowed to enter the Net through a

Deep Dive, whereas Kuze would exemplify a full disembodiment through his own network.

2049 does not hold the same options for any of the characters because the body contains too

much meaning with a focus on android child birth, vulnerable bodies, and objectification of

women.

Where both 2049 and Ghost in the Shell embrace most parts of the idea of embodiment,

Altered Carbon is more ambivalent. The world of Altered Carbon consists of arguments for

both embodiment and disembodiment, as well as re-embodiment. Like in Ghost in the Shell,

the characters in Altered Carbon have the technology (sleeving, stacks) to disembody.

Characters such as Kovacs and Bancroft embrace the disembodied utopia through their view

of bodies as expendable. The same cannot be said for Killian because even though she is able
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 110

to be repaired fairly quickly, like the characters in Altered Carbon, she is constantly

identified with her body through objectification and discrimination.

The objectified woman is seen across all three works with a focus on Killian, Joi, and

Lizzie. All three are either objectified by a continuous female shape, a torture of female body

parts, or an undressing of the females vs a dressing of the males. All three characters are able

to enter the virtual world, where disembodiment, in theory, should be available in a wider

sense, but ultimately the depiction is based upon their bodies. This is visible, for example,

with Hanka Robotics’ consistent viewpoint of the over exaggeration of the female body parts

of Killian’s body. Another example is Wallace Corporation’s similar approach in making Joi

a sex toy. A third and final example is Lizzie’s VR torture chamber where she is repeatedly

reminded of her disfigurement and rape done to her. All three characters are unable to fully or

even partially disembody because of their attachment to their bodies.

The three works explore the concept of embodiment in order to answer if and how

identity is portrayed within the characters. They all agree that embodiment is somewhat

important, but they differ in how they portray it. As much as they see these portrayals

differently, they are very similar in how they depict women and minorities. Real

disembodiment seems impossible for anyone within older cyberpunk visual culture; however,

it appears as if contemporary cyberpunk visual culture is adopting the notion of re-

embodiment by returning to the idea of the body. Therefore, re-embodiment is not about

excluding the body but embracing it, based on its attributes, physical and emotional

connections to the mind, which in all give the body meaning.

Since the 1980s, the relationship between Science Fiction (sf) and the world reflect the

problems in society today, set in the future. Vint mentions that “[...] we live in a cyberpunk

future, albeit one different from that imagined in most Movement-era fiction. [Their book
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 111

provides] reflections on cyberpunk that emerge from cultural climates that have significantly

changed” (as cited in Murphy & Vint, 2010, xii), while Murphy and Schmeink posit “[...] To

put it bluntly: we are living in cyberpunk futures and they are inescapably comprised of

visual and virtual interstices and intersections” (2018, xxiv). Vint, Murphy, and Schmeink, as

such, posit cyberpunk to be a product of its time. Works set in 2019, but released in the

1980s, would reflect the fears and social, economic, and cultural problems of the 1980s rather

than the 2010s. According to John Clute (2006) in his chapter “Science fiction from 1980 to

the present” in The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction: “The genre [and cyberpunk]

which differed from the world in order to advocate a better one – [...] or the virtual reality

world we will now arguably inhabit till the planet dies – had become by 2000, in triumph or

defeat or both, an institution for the telling of story” (p. 65). Clute (2006) argues that there is

a decreasing resemblance between the world we inhabit today, and the future worlds

advocated in American sf of the previous half-century. However, since the rise of the

cyberpunk genre within visual culture, it has advocated a somewhat near future, closely

related to ours. According to Clute (2006) sf caricatures classic cyberpunk to claim that, in

1980, the genre as a whole still told only one story about how the world might – in fact,

should – develop, which it arguably still does. Clute (2006) believes that sf was a First World

vision, a set of stories about the future written by inhabitants of, and for the benefit of readers

who were inhabitants of, the industrialised Western world, which dominated the twentieth

century; simplistically, it was a set of stories about the American Dream. Likewise,

cyberpunk visual culture did and still is following this notion of the American Dream.

Ghost in the Shell, 2049, and Altered Carbon are arguably stories about achieving the

American dream by regaining acknowledgement, not only from society but also from

themselves, as well as making something for themselves through recognition.

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 112

Looking back at the history of, primarily, cyberpunk cinema we can see a change in the

reception, representation, and perception of technology as it evolves. In particular Blade

Runner and The Matrix - two of the most popular and, arguably, among the most influential

cyberpunk films - are particularly interesting to consider. Blade Runner can be seen as

representing the dangers of the “foreign”, especially when it comes to machines and robotic

androids. The androids in Blade Runner have been “banished” to off-world colonies as slave

labour, and panic ensues when they “return” to Earth and attempt to assimilate into society.

In contrast, The Matrix heavily incorporates representations of computers and related terms,

most prominently hacking. While the concept of a virtual reality in a simulated world is not

foreign in cyberpunk, The Matrix is interesting in its grounding in computing. This grounding

came at a time when the concept of the “home computer” was on the rise. The computer

become commonplace in the household, and the introduction of the Internet and World Wide

Web opened new avenues for a globalised interconnectedness. As such, The Matrix managed

to incorporate the familiar basics of the computer - concepts such as “people” being programs

rendered as human bodies, within a large simulated world run by a “computer”. According to

Christophe Den Tandt in his paper “Cyberpunk as Naturalist Science Fiction” (2013)

Cybersystems and artificial intelligences were not absent from previous sf, but they

were overshadowed by the genre's fascination for space exploration, extra terrestrials,

mutants, and android robots. Cyberpunk reversed these sf priorities as it registered a

change in the popular representation and marketing of computer technology. Until the

1960s and 1970s, data systems had been depicted as colossal machines operated by

the faceless technicians of military, state, or industrial apparatuses (p. 8).

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 113

As mentioned, Ghost in the Shell is an American adaptation of the Japanese anime,

which means it reflects in some way the future that the Japanese original was trying to

predict. Ghost in the Shell (1995, 2002-2005, 2017) predicts a future where technology has

become so advanced that everyone, poor or rich, has been integrated with machine

technology in one form or another. Similar to The Matrix, Ghost in the Shell (1995) came out

at a time when computer technology was on the rise and the future was uncertain. People

feared how advanced these computers could get, as well as what the internet was. This is

visible in Ghost in the Shell (1995, 2002-2005, 2017) as many of the people we see

throughout the films fear the unknown, such as Kuze/Puppet master and Killian/Kusanagi.

The Matrix and Ghost in the Shell (1995, 2017) include representations of computer hacking -

Ghost in the Shell’s (2017) “deep dive” into the geisha robot visualises Killian’s attempt at

hacking and retrieving information from the memory of a robot. Neo as well “hacks” the

bodily representation of Agent Smith visualised by Neo jamming his arm into his body.

Likewise, a particularly impactful and distinguishing feature The Matrix is the “digital rain”

effect. The “falling” lines of code, consisting of Asian and Latin characters, represent the

virtual world “Matrix”. For the experienced operator, being able to “read”, or decode this

code allows them to understand how it visually represents the Matrix. Ghost in the Shell

(1995) strongly inspired The Matrix and its “digital rain” effect. As mentioned before, The

Matrix’s release came at a time when computers became commonplace in the home, with

Ghost in the Shell coming out only a few years prior. This contributes to the intelligibility of

the visual representations present in both films.

Like with Ghost in the Shell, 2049 is an adaptation of an earlier work as well as a sequel

to the original Blade Runner. Where Blade Runner was released at a time when there was a

concern among the people about the automation of industrial work, 2049 expands on this
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 114

concern to regard all jobs. Furthermore, it asks the question: What happens with humanity if

robots take the most basic human “job” such as creating life?

Altered Carbon (2018) is an adaptation of a previous work, which can be seen in how it

portrays the future. It is concerned with some of the same issues as the other two films and

expands on them; instead of dealing with “robots” per se, it deals with humans themselves. In

today’s society we are concerned about the future of our planet and what will become of the

children of the future. Not only are we concerned about the future, but we are obsessed with

finding new ways of extending life. These concerns are what Altered Carbon is portraying;

what if humans could live “forever” and are we better than the “robots” that we were once so

afraid of?

A preliminary reflection on the “history” of cyberpunk, as well as our analyses, can

possibly shed some light on the future of cyberpunk - A genre that, according to Vint and

Murphy (2010), has been claimed “dead on arrival” (as cited in Vint and Murphy, xi) by

Sponsler as well as described as being able to “[...] go only so far before self-destructing

under the weight of its own deconstructive activities” (as cited in Vint and Murphy, xi) by

Veronica Hollinger. Yet cyberpunk appears to thrive within visual culture, with films, video

games, and media being frequently released. A few examples include the three works

presented in this paper, as well as the recent Alita: Battle Angel. Likewise, Altered Carbon

has been renewed for a second season (as of this writing) and the, highly anticipated, video

game Cyberpunk 2077 (2019) by CD Projekt Red is due to be released within the end of the

decade. From this, it can be extrapolated that cyberpunk is far from dying out, as the

exponential advance in technology will continually mesmerise and create a sense of wonder

surrounding how our identity and future might be impacted by these technological advances.

Likewise, Cadora states: “Contrary to the rumors, then, cyberpunk is not dead. Or, at least,

not all forms of cyberpunk are dead” (2010, p. 171). Cadora continues: “[...] the [cyberpunk]
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 115

movement embodies the contradictory impulses—apocalypse and survival—of Haraway’s

cyborg world. Masculinist cyberpunk has embraced its own annihilation while feminist

cyberpunk continues to create new configurations of technology, gender, sexuality, and race”

(2010, pp. 171-172).

As technologies thought of as purely spectacle in fictional works become a reality, even

commonplace, new inventions take their place. As such, cyberpunk and technological

inventions create a feedback loop, a Möbius strip if you will, that influences each other.

Sf has hardly been a prominent genre within the European film industry. According to

Lidia Merás’ (2018) paper on European cyberpunk cinema, budget restrictions have often

hindered the production of sci-fi and fantasy films worldwide, as they tend to require

substantial investment in special effects and production design in order to achieve a

convincing mise-en-scène. in America and Japan, they have managed to successfully fund,

brand, and distribute science fiction/cyberpunk films internationally for decades (Merás,

2018). Drawing on the themes and plots of the works of literature categorised under the same

subgenre, cyberpunk cinema has significantly flourished in the United States thanks to films

such as Blade Runner, Total Recall (1990) and The Matrix, as well as in Japan with anime

such as Akira (1988) and Ghost in the Shell. Cyberpunk films produced mostly in the United

States or the United Kingdom, few of the critical studies have included European films, and

where they do appear, they are usually limited to US-British co-productions, Merás (2018)

argues. She continues: “As a result, they offer a misleading view of European science fiction

as being similar to Hollywood productions” (Merás, 2018, p. 2). Examples of cyberpunk

films with exclusively European funding include Nirvana (1997), Abre los ojos (1997) and,

more recently, Immortel (2004), Renaissance (2006), Chrysalis (2007) and Metropia (2009)

(Merás, 2018).
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 116

According to Martin de la Iglesia’s paper “Has Akira Always Been a Cyberpunk

Comic?” In Germany, the situation for cyberpunk cinema was largely the same as the rest of

Europe. Akira, a Japanese cyberpunk anime was identified as science fiction, in Germany, in

general or as some other genre, but not cyberpunk (Iglesia, 2018). In a review of the anime

adaptation from 1991, Iglesia (2018) mentions the German film magazine Cinema also

positioned the manga source, calling it a “science fiction epic”. Another German comic

magazine, Comixene, identified Akira as an “adventure series” in 1995, and in the same

issue, it claimed, “Otomo is called the Ridley Scott of the Land of the Rising Sun” (Iglesia,

2018, p. 10). According to Iglesia

This last statement is the only one that can be said to make some connection between

Akira and cyberpunk, however as the article in which it appears is about Katsuhiro

Otomo and Hayao Miyazaki as both comic authors and anime directors, it is not clear

whether this statement refers to Otomo as the creator of Akira the manga or Akira the

anime (2018, p. 10).

Merás agrees with Iglesia’s assumption about European cyberpunk not being recognised

as cyberpunk:

Another obstacle is that European cyberpunk has been hampered by two erroneous

assumptions. First, the notion that science fiction is predominantly aimed at

mainstream audiences. Second, that European films necessarily fall into the category

of ‘arthouse films’—a perception which clashes with that of science fiction as a

popular genre—even when they do not (Merás, 2018, p. 2).

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 117

Furthermore Merás (2018) argues that it cannot be claimed that there is a single

European type of cyberpunk, entirely distinct from any American or Japanese counterparts.

However, we argue that the visual aesthetics in European cyberpunk visual culture are often

more avant-garde than their American and Japanese counterparts. Whereas American and

Japanese cyberpunk aesthetics often feature neon-tinted advertisements lighting up the grime-

caked city streets, with cybernetically-enhanced cyber-cowboys mixing with the poor in

slums, European cyberpunk is often grounded in less fantastical visuals, but often equally as

bleak. The Swedish film Metropia features unique visuals in which photographs of real faces

have been edited and transposed onto 3D models with enlarged heads. The setting features a

bleak outlook at a world ravaged by pollution with large swathes of the Earth rendered

uninhabitable. The cityscape in Metropia looks almost post-apocalyptic, similar to 2049’s

cityscape. It is presented as deserted and devoid of pedestrians. The inhabitants travel to the

underground metro quickly, from where Trexx Corporation exert control over the travel

habits of Sweden’s citizens. The colour scheme consists of mostly grey and dark hues, with

low saturation reinforcing the post-apocalyptic aesthetic of the cityscape; unlike Ghost in the

Shell and Altered Carbon, there are no neon advertisements lighting up the city in Metropia.

Renaissance, produced in France, United Kingdom, and Luxembourg, features a noir-like

aesthetic. Entirely computer-generated and shot in black and white, the film only

occasionally features colour for emphasis or detail. Unlike Metropia, the cityscape in

Renaissance is not as post-apocalyptic and bleak. Merás (2018) compares the two settings,

stating “In Renaissance, Paris is presented as a relatively lively environment where people

can at least go for a walk. The Stockholm suburbs seen in Metropia, on the contrary, are

home to a population dissuaded from making use of public spaces [...]” (p. 9). Both films

feature the classic cyberpunk trope of a dystopian cityscape controlled by a megacorporation,

in the case of Renaissance, Avalon Corporation is seemingly attempting to cover up and

Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 118

control the means of invincibility. While in Metropia, Trexx Corporation seeks to exert

control over the population using subliminal messaging by way of a hair product and human

“controllers” assigned to provide subtle suggesting.

Where American cyberpunk consists of many classical cyberpunk tropes, the European

cyberpunk under consideration shares some of the tropes, but not all of them. According to

Merás (2018) the films borrow stylistic and narrative elements from certain classic films (in

particular Blade Runner) and genres (science fiction, film noir and thriller). Furthermore,

cyberpunk has been an influential genre in Japanese animation and manga for decades. It is

therefore easy to find many visual motifs in these films reminiscent of manga and anime,

such as the big eyes of characters in Metropia. According to Merás (2018) the film is rich in

its references to Japanese anime. Merás continues “If we look at its greyish palette, the way

characters are animated and the large heads of characters, they seem influenced by Mamoru

Oshii’s work in Tachiguishi Retsuden (Oshii 2006)” (Merás, 2018, p. 5). In Renaissance,

references to Japanese anime are subtler, but according to Merás (2018) “Mamoru Oshii [is]

considered the master of cyberpunk anime, [and] stands as the main source of inspiration.

Occasional references to Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell are noticeable in the triangles seen on the

children’s necks and in the sequence in which an invisible hitman kills Dimitri” (p. 6).

However, of Metropia, Merás also notes that “These visual motifs do not seem to have

any function other than paying homage to the master of Japanese cinematic cyberpunk” (pp.

5-6). As such, European cyberpunk acknowledges and references its counterparts, as is

expected being of the same genre, but seemingly often it is no more than homages.

While European cyberpunk, especially its contributions to visual culture, provide an

interesting angle to aesthetics - it was ultimately not relevant to our paper. However, we feel

compelled to mention European cyberpunk as an entity in the cyberpunk-sphere. Identity

crises and problems in European cyberpunk ultimately differ only slightly from its American
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 119

and Japanese counterparts, with technology present as the main cause. However, compared to

its counterparts, European cyberpunk has yet to achieve the same level of “mainstream”

internationally - a reason as to why we decided to place our focus on American (and Japanese

by proxy) cyberpunk. However, according to Merás “there is a noticeable trend in European

cyberpunk cinema made in the 2000s of developing cyberpunk aesthetics and conveying a

specifically European pessimism in otherwise familiar narrative forms [...]” (Merás, 2018, p.

3). Likewise, we see this in the two aforementioned European films that Merás’ paper also

analyses.

If we take a closer look at Metropia and Renaissance in the same way we did with Ghost

in the Shell, 2049 and Altered Carbon, we can see some similarities and differences between

the works. In both Metropia and Renaissance, women’s representation and notion of

embodiment are to some degrees similar to the three other works. In both films, women are

portrayed as a kind of fantasy girl, and the women that the films regard as beautiful are white

and straight, which is also visible with Killian and Joi. However, in Metropia, the white

woman is not a protagonist, but instead a villain, which is not often seen in other cyberpunk

films. However, as the main characters, who also happen to be men, in both films do not

feature as cyborgs or androids per se, embodiment as we know it is represented less in both

films. However, we still see that women are unable be regarded as anything different from

their bodies. We see this with Roger’s wife, Anna, in Metropia, who as Merás points out

“Whether [...] is unemployed or not, the fact that her job seems entirely irrelevant to the plot

is significant because without the responsibilities of motherhood or a job to fulfil her

aspirations, her only function as a young woman is to remain a (replaceable) object of desire”

(Merás, 2018, p. 10). However, because cyborgs and androids are not as visible in Metropia

and Renaissance as they are in our three main works, it does not iterate the notion of
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 120

embodiment as non-existent, but instead they represent embodiment in regard to how the

main characters finish their “journeys” and become integrated into society.

We see this in Metropia, where Roger becomes part of a plot to destroy Trexx

Corporation who through their dandruff shampoo called Dangst, administer "organic

computer chips" through the pores of the skin. These organic computer chips then create

synapses to the subjects’ brain and using the subjects’ hair as antennae the human subjects’

brain is then directly linked to an AI surveillance and control mechanism. Throughout the

film, Roger’s every thought and movement is “controlled” by a man “inside his head”. In the

beginning Roger believes that it is just his consciousness that speaks to him, which resembles

both Killian and K, who both are “controlled” by “outer forces”. In this way, Roger

disembody through his controller.

In Renaissance, all movement is monitored and recorded, and Ilona Tasuiev, a brilliant

young scientist, is kidnapped, and her employer, Avalon, a major health and beauty

corporation, wants her found. Karas, a jaded police captain, is assigned to find her, fast. He

seeks help from her sister, Bislane, and they uncover identity theft and missing files related to

Ilona. Similarly, as in Metropia, peoples’ every movement is monitored, but they are not as

much controlled by this monitoring as they are in Metropia. Thus, as a contrast to Metropia,

Renaissance revolves less around embodiment as it presents a more classic detective noir

style, where the focus is on the detective part more than it is on human subjectivity and

identity.

Merás (2018) argues that Metropia and Renaissance differ from their Hollywood

counterparts as many films such as these show technologies being used to monitor the

population’s movements, in these films state control is replaced by the corporate might of

Trexx (Metropia) and Avalon (Renaissance). Tarik Saleh, director of Metropia defined it as

“a reflection of the time and a warning about what can happen if we allow the surveillance
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 121

society and companies free license—beyond all morals, laws and rules (Salek, quoted by Kim

Grönqvist 2010, p. 31)” (as cited in Merás, 2018, p. 11). Saleh mentions that Metropia openly

criticises Europe’s attitude towards refugees and, in particular, the exploitation of their

circumstances by the media. In one of the early sequences of the film, he uses parody to

denounce Europe’s uneasiness with asylum seekers, showing a teaser for a TV programme

entitled Asylum, in which contestants compete to stay in Europe legally (Merás, 2018).

“Tonight. Four contestants. Thirty questions. Only one can stay in Europe. The others have to

fly” (Metropia). Merás (2018) argues that the last part is meant literally, as contestants are

tied to a special machine and catapulted into the void when they fail to answer a question

correctly. Metropia illustrates the anxieties of those with conservative attitudes towards the

ethnically other and it does this by using a literal “dumping process”. Thereby, one can argue

that European cyberpunk similarly reflects its time as we have, in recent years, seen an

increasing number of immigrants coming to Europe after the wars in Syria. Similarly, in

Ghost in the Shell and 2049, K and Killian are seen as “ethnically others”, as immigrants and

society decides whether they should be allowed to “stay” or “leave”.

As we have almost exclusively focused on Metropia and Renaissance as European

cyberpunk, it can be extrapolated that European cyberpunk made in the 2000s is not

dramatically different from its American or Japanese counterparts. Although the films

discussed offer a distinctive look, the genre maintains many of the European tropes seen in

previous decades in terms of plot (in particular, those revolving around industrial espionage),

and urban settings inspired by film noir. The representation of strong women in a male-

dominated world and corporal philanthropists offer no major variations.

Notwithstanding these similarities, other aspects of European cyberpunk offer an

alternative take on the genre. One of the things that differs substantially from its counterparts

is the extreme level of technophobia. Despite being cautionary stories about the use of
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 122

technology, films like Tron and The Matrix make a point of exhibiting the wonders of the

virtual world. By contrast, European cyberpunk shows only the negative effects of

technological advances. These negative effects are seen with the people’s opposition against

Trexx and Avalon and the resistance’s willingness to destroy the two corporations. According

to Mihailova, digital animation is “inherently technophilic by virtue of its production

process” (as cited in Merás, 2018, p. 14). However, Merás (2018) argues that all technical

and scientific innovations in Renaissance and Metropia are harmful, or used to enslave the

population, in contradiction to the medium employed to convey the same technophobic

message. Even when the initial aim of a new technology is constructive, the consequences are

terrifying.

Furthermore, stories dealing with computers, fantasy worlds, cyborgs and body

modifications are few and far between. According to Merás (2018) there is no hope that

technology can improve human life in European cyberpunk and therefore, narratives about an

ill (or addicted) male hero seeking a cure have disappeared. Instead, European cyberpunk is

focused on the idea of dystopia, which is according to Merás (2018) more prevalent in

European science fiction in recent years. Released at a time when European popular cinema

flourished, Renaissance and Metropia promotes a certain idea of European cultural identity

within the limits of an industry whose products are aimed at a global market.
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 123

Conclusion

“Sure I have a face and voice to distinguish myself from others, but my thoughts and

memories are unique only to me, and I carry a sense of my own destiny.” - Motoko Kusanagi,

Ghost in the Shell

Regarding identity in cyberpunk, the concept of the human body and its associated

identity, especially our individuality, is a key point of discussion and exploration in

cyberpunk visual culture. The body is both presented as a sacred symbol of humanity and the

human race, something to be protective and proud of; but it is also presented as a malleable

figure, able to be modified, enhanced, and turned into almost anything.

Ghost in the Shell presents a humanoid body made of synthetic flesh, internal wires, and

metal. This housing, referred to as a “shell”, is home for our protagonist Killian - a home she

was forced into. Clearly resenting her body as foreign and seeing herself as out-of-place,

even among “regular” human bodies that are presented as cybernetically modified, coming

closer to a reality in which their body as well consists mostly of wires and metal. Ghost in the

Shell and Killian’s cyborg body presents a partly trans- and partly posthuman future, in which

the human body is still considered the main “vessel” for our identity. Evidently, a minority in

the Ghost in the Shell-universe fear that modification of this vessel, in too great a degree,

would harm our identity as individuals. As such, the body in Ghost in the Shell remains an

important aspect of humanity as it is closely linked to our identity. Killian’s body is at the

cusp of having been modified in too great a degree, and her entirely human brain seemingly

suffers unless drugs are administered. However, being able to Deep Dive in the Net and

leaving her physical body, but ultimately succumbing to the body, Killian is exploring what

Vint and Hayles calls re-embodiment. A state of being, where she can partly escape her

“shell” and retrieve information solely with her mind, and defeating potential enemies,
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 124

without making her body obsolete. For Killian, her body and mind are as equally important

for her understanding of her ‘self’ to create the identity that she would be most comfortable

with. However, for Killian, being a woman means that she is not able to separate herself from

her body as women in cyberpunk are often objectified and sexualised in a manner that

prevent them from existing beyond their bodies.

In a stark contrast to Killian, the antagonistic Kuze provides a view at the other side;

while Killian at first suffered in her “shell”, Kuze is shown to resent his “shell”, considering

his destruction of the research and people involved in creating “shells” a defence of his self.

With Kuze being an earlier version of Killian, along with his resentment of his body, he

differs in how he prefers to manoeuvre around in the world. Where Killian learns to accept

her body, Kuze builds his own net, in order to separate himself from his body, and disembody

into a being beyond the capabilities of human beings. Killian represents the ultimate liberal

transhumanistic cyborg and Kuze represents the ultimate, utopian concept of Kurzweil’s

Singularity. Kuze attempts to achieve this Singularity by connecting his ghost to a vast

network.

In the case of 2049, the trans- and posthuman future manifests in the slavery exerted

against the replicants, an army of obedient androids. Portrayed in 2049 to have a sense of

self-sentience, the androids are situated within a human body, a feature which some of them

make use of to blend in with the human populace. Seemingly, building upon the events in the

original Blade Runner, one of 2049’s key points is the human body the androids inhabit

becoming near “fully functional”. An investigation into a replicant birth throws K into a

spiralling identity crisis and repositions the entire replicant population within the universe. If

replicants are able to give birth, they should have equal rights to humans. Thus, the

biomechanical representation of the human body becomes neither fully transcended to

godlike nor fully replaces the real human body. It is stuck in a void being neither a fully
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 125

transhuman nor fully posthuman future. Therefore, embodiment as we know it becomes as

obsolete as replicants ability to fully become one with humans as replicants are still superior

to humans, 30 years after Blade Runner.

Identity in 2049 is rendered in the representation of K and Joi’s journey together to

uncover who they are. Even though they are both of different beings, they are somewhat

similar as they represent something that is beyond human. They both rely heavily on their

bodies and minds to coexist in a symbiotic embodiment. While K has a seemingly mortal

body and humanlike mind, he ventures into a quest to uncover his true identity. Likewise, Joi

joins him on his quest as she uncovers her purpose of whether or not she can be more than an

AI.

Altered Carbon expands on the questions of “Who am I or What am I?” by asking what

happens if humans could become as the likes of cyborgs or androids or evolve the human

race into something entirely different. Unlimited access to modifications and a constant

uploading of one’s consciousness into stacks, creating immortal beings, superior to all in

every manner, is common for the “Meths” in the Altered Carbon-universe. However, Kovacs

contrasts the otherwise utopian world of the “Meths” by helping Bancroft solve his murder in

a classic film noir style. For everyone else in the world of Altered Carbon, stack technology

is available but expensive and there is no guarantee which body they are re-sleeved into.

Unlike the previous two entries, Altered Carbon shows clear signs of a transhuman feature.

Numerous biblical references are made, especially the “Meths” (a biblical reference itself) as

they consider themselves the replacements for gods. Religion also features in Altered

Carbon, which is uncommon in cyberpunk, and this representation brings into contrast the

different views of the body, mind, and consciousness. The religious NeoCatholic in Altered

Carbon consider the body and mind, and by extension one’s identity, sacred allowing their

followers only one “life”. The “Meths” likewise value the body and identity, as shown in the
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 126

way they keep clones of a singular body which they identify with. In Altered Carbon the

notion of embodiment is featured for some, and disembodiment for others. However, for

most people the notion of re-embodiment is arguably most prominent as people like Bancroft

and Kovacs seem to have difficulties escaping their meat suits because they are constantly

referred to by their appearances and physical bodies.

Regarding the genre’s progression, cyberpunk is far from dead despite the previously

proclaimed statements. Cultural progression of cyberpunk thrives in contemporary times, as

Japanese classics in cyberpunk are adapted to a Western audience. Ghost in the Shell is an

example of this trend, while the more recent Alita: Battle Angel seems to signal a

continuation of it in the future. Arguably, we are currently living in the age of cyberpunk, and

identity continues to be an important part of not only cyberpunk, but our daily lives as well.

Cyberpunk extrapolates on what kind of future we are headed toward and how the

technological advancement will impact our identity, including body and mind. In the world of

today, it seems as if the constant need to be “online” (“online interaction” and our “online

footprint”) puts us in a position to separate ourselves from the physical world.

In the future world of cyberpunk, even though the converging technologies have

advanced beyond our comprehension it seems as if there is a return to the body and a return

to a physical world within a virtual one. Thus, cyberpunk thrives in the contemporary world

where technology keeps advancing at an exponential rate, having an impact on almost every

aspect of our daily lives. A globalised, networked world where corporations are beginning to

almost mirror the bleak settings of cyberpunk megacorporations. Having looked at the history

cyberpunk, we can see that in contemporary cyberpunk, the genre has not changed

drastically. This can be due to the trend of rebooting already established franchises, such as

Ghost in the Shell and 2049. The classic cyberpunk tropes and traits of a bleak and dark

dystopian world are still at large in contemporary cyberpunk, as we can see in Altered
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 127

Carbon and particularly Ghost in the Shell. What has changed is a return of the body in

contemporary cyberpunk. We can see a trend where the body becomes the focal point of

cyberpunk, rather than the virtual as in The Matrix and TRON.

The future of cyberpunk is bright and though our paper is not exhaustive of

contemporary visual culture cyberpunk, it gives an idea of how previously established theory

can be expanded into contemporary theory and applied to contemporary cyberpunk film and

TV series. Thus, future research may build upon our literature review and our compilation of

theory to further modernise their own theory, or analyse other cyberpunk works, within visual

culture or literature.
Contemporary Cyberpunk in Visual Culture: Identity and Mind/Body Dualism 128

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