Until Death Do Us Part and They Upload Us Into Clones: An Analysis of Film Narratives About Mind Uploading and the Myth of Immortality
The fear of death and the myth of immortality are themes long present in various narratives, whether literary or visual. Science fiction as a genre offers us many venues for new explorations of this idea. Mind uploading is one of them. This fictional technique, related to cloning, is performed when...
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University of Belgrade
2021
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oai:doaj.org-article:b7457894698b4659a2e28d06d90456e22021-12-02T17:02:39ZUntil Death Do Us Part and They Upload Us Into Clones: An Analysis of Film Narratives About Mind Uploading and the Myth of Immortality10.21301/eap.v16i2.90353-15892334-8801https://doaj.org/article/b7457894698b4659a2e28d06d90456e22021-07-01T00:00:00Zhttps://eap-iea.org/index.php/eap/article/view/1139https://doaj.org/toc/0353-1589https://doaj.org/toc/2334-8801 The fear of death and the myth of immortality are themes long present in various narratives, whether literary or visual. Science fiction as a genre offers us many venues for new explorations of this idea. Mind uploading is one of them. This fictional technique, related to cloning, is performed when the mind and consciousness of a person are transferred to another biological body or machine with the help of technology. In this way, a person continues their social life through their brain functions. This paper looks at four separate recent screen narratives – the movies Self/less, Transcendence, and Replicas, and the episode “Be Right Back” of the TV show Black Mirror. With the help of Tzvetan Todorov’s structural analysis, we find clauses that are present in all of the plots and see what ideas and topics they share. The paper also uses the idea of anthropological reading of science fiction and therefore uses scientific research to analyze these themes. By looking at anthropological findings of immortality, mortality, death in modern society, and digital techniques, we see how the analyzed narratives portray a unique mixture of fear of and longing for all the mentioned processes and ideas. Finally, this paper shows how science fiction could possibly reflect reality – both through presenting thoughts of society and inspiring future technological advances and ideas (in this case, the quest for immortality). While humans are still far from achieving eternal life, the mentioned screen narratives portray the growing stream of ideas that deal with mind uploading in the age of the internet and social media. Anja ZlatovićUniversity of Belgradearticlemind uploadingfear of deathmyth of immortalitytechnologypopular culturefilmAnthropologyGN1-890ENFRSREtnoantropološki Problemi, Vol 16, Iss 2 (2021) |
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mind uploading fear of death myth of immortality technology popular culture film Anthropology GN1-890 |
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mind uploading fear of death myth of immortality technology popular culture film Anthropology GN1-890 Anja Zlatović Until Death Do Us Part and They Upload Us Into Clones: An Analysis of Film Narratives About Mind Uploading and the Myth of Immortality |
| description |
The fear of death and the myth of immortality are themes long present in various narratives, whether literary or visual. Science fiction as a genre offers us many venues for new explorations of this idea. Mind uploading is one of them. This fictional technique, related to cloning, is performed when the mind and consciousness of a person are transferred to another biological body or machine with the help of technology. In this way, a person continues their social life through their brain functions.
This paper looks at four separate recent screen narratives – the movies Self/less, Transcendence, and Replicas, and the episode “Be Right Back” of the TV show Black Mirror. With the help of Tzvetan Todorov’s structural analysis, we find clauses that are present in all of the plots and see what ideas and topics they share.
The paper also uses the idea of anthropological reading of science fiction and therefore uses scientific research to analyze these themes. By looking at anthropological findings of immortality, mortality, death in modern society, and digital techniques, we see how the analyzed narratives portray a unique mixture of fear of and longing for all the mentioned processes and ideas. Finally, this paper shows how science fiction could possibly reflect reality – both through presenting thoughts of society and inspiring future technological advances and ideas (in this case, the quest for immortality). While humans are still far from achieving eternal life, the mentioned screen narratives portray the growing stream of ideas that deal with mind uploading in the age of the internet and social media.
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| format |
article |
| author |
Anja Zlatović |
| author_facet |
Anja Zlatović |
| author_sort |
Anja Zlatović |
| title |
Until Death Do Us Part and They Upload Us Into Clones: An Analysis of Film Narratives About Mind Uploading and the Myth of Immortality |
| title_short |
Until Death Do Us Part and They Upload Us Into Clones: An Analysis of Film Narratives About Mind Uploading and the Myth of Immortality |
| title_full |
Until Death Do Us Part and They Upload Us Into Clones: An Analysis of Film Narratives About Mind Uploading and the Myth of Immortality |
| title_fullStr |
Until Death Do Us Part and They Upload Us Into Clones: An Analysis of Film Narratives About Mind Uploading and the Myth of Immortality |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Until Death Do Us Part and They Upload Us Into Clones: An Analysis of Film Narratives About Mind Uploading and the Myth of Immortality |
| title_sort |
until death do us part and they upload us into clones: an analysis of film narratives about mind uploading and the myth of immortality |
| publisher |
University of Belgrade |
| publishDate |
2021 |
| url |
https://doaj.org/article/b7457894698b4659a2e28d06d90456e2 |
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