How should we define authenticity? As humans grow more attached to digital media, the distinction between the virtual world and authentic, \u201creal life\u201d grows convoluted. Alison Landsberg\u2019s chapter, \u201cProsthetic Memory: Total Recall and Blade Runner\u201d, demonstrates the tendency of viewers to adopt emotional movie scenes as authentic memories of their own. In \u201cThe iPhone Erfahrung: Siri, the Auditory Unconscious, and Walter Benjamin\u2019s \u2018Aura\u2019\u201d, Emily McArthur demonstrates how Siri, a voice-activated personal assistant, situates users in seemingly authentic human power dynamics. Both Landsberg and McArthur emphasize the \u201cposthuman\u201d nature of our modern world where memories and identities, manufactured by media, become injected into our bodies. Together, their texts question whether mediated memories and identities can be deemed authentic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Landsberg believes authentic human representation exists in mediated memory. Unlike Baudrillard who believes modern society is divorced from the \u201c\u2018real\u2019\u201d and entrapped in \u201ca world of simulation\u201d (qtd. in Landsberg 178), Landsberg argues such a distinction never existed in the first place since \u201cinformation cultures\u201d and \u201cnarrative\u201d have always mediated \u201creal\u201d, lived experience (178). She expands her belief by discussing how movie scenes can feel just as real as lived memories. Like Walter Benjamin and Siegfried Kracauer, she emphasizes cinema\u2019s ability to produce societal change and \u201cpolitical\u201d collectivism (181). During a moving cinematic experience, audience members may identify with characters and their on-screen adversities; as a result, Landsberg notes films hold \u201cpotential to alter one\u2019s actions in the future\u201d (179-180). To Landsberg, movie scenes are not mere fragments of mass media, but \u201cprosthetic memories\u201d which audiences adopt as their own. Unlike natural memories\u2013experienced individually and firsthand\u2013prosthetic memories are acquired virtually, without truly experiencing them (180). Nevertheless, like all memories, prosthetic memories construct identity and how we empathize with others (176).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As suggested in the title of her text, Landsberg explores the portrayal of prosthetic memories in popular dystopian films such as Total Recall<\/em> and Blade Runner<\/em>. In Total Recall<\/em>, the protagonist, Quade, discovers his life has been manufactured by \u201cthe Agency\u201d (Landsberg 181). As a result, he recollects a past he has not experienced; his life has been constructed of injected memories, raising the \u201cquestion of his identity\u201d (181). His privileging of these memories over his natural self is especially prominent when he is unable to recognize \u201chis face on a portable video screen\u201d (181-182); he associates his authentic self with his prosthetic memories, rather than his facial features, posing the question of whether Quade\u2019s implanted memories are more authentic than his own human body (182). Blade Runner<\/em> similarly investigates the difference between authentic and inauthentic memory. Rachel, the love interest to Deckard, the film\u2019s protagonist, is an enslaved humanlike robot known as a \u201creplicant\u201d; her memories are manufactured by her employer, Mr. Tyrell, who ensures control over replicants by manipulating their pasts (Landsberg 177). When Rachel plays the piano for Deckard, she states she \u201c\u2018remember[s] lessons\u2019\u201d; here, Deckard ignores her fabricated past (185). She plays \u201cbeautifully\u201d regardless of whether her lessons were prosthetic or \u201c\u2018real\u2019\u201d, posing the question of whether lived, self-produced memories are better than prosthetic ones (185). To Rachel, her memories of these lessons are real, authentic, and personal even though they are manufactured. Altogether, Landsberg interprets the film as a demonstration that memories, regardless if they are prosthetic or lived, construct meaningful, seemingly authentic identities. Like Total Recall,<\/em> Blade Runner <\/em>obscures our distinction between inauthentic, manufactured memories and real, lived experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While Landsberg merges the worlds of prosthetic and authentic memory, McArthur blurs the distinction between machine and human by discussing Siri, a virtual voice-activated assistant. McArthur defines Siri as a \u201cnatural language processor\u201d (NLP), a machine that communicates with users through \u201chuman language\u201d (116). She notes that \u201clanguage ability\u201d is typically defined as the factor that \u201c\u2018makes us human\u2019\u201d; however, digital programs like Siri who produce human speech subvert this notion (116). She notes that Siri produces a humanlike voice through invisible processes of \u201ctranslation and synthesis\u201d (117). She can be similarized to a being, rather than a set of machinic parts, since a user only hears Siri\u2019s personalized speech that uses \u201ccolloquial language\u201d and addresses the user by their name (117). While a traditional Google search produces innumerous results, Siri replicates authentic human communication by providing a singular response to its user\u2019s inquiry (117). In addition to prosthetic memories, Siri\u2019s computer-engineered, anthropomorphic state obscures the difference between inauthentic and authentic.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Overall, Landsberg and McArthur demonstrate the ability of media to construct identity. Landsberg demonstrates how prosthetic memory defines \u201cpersonhood and identity\u201d by citing Herbert Blumer\u2019s studies of young adult reactions to films (187, 179). In his studies, Blumer found several respondents practiced \u201c\u2018imaginative identification\u2019\u201d–the unconscious projection of \u201c\u2018oneself into the role of hero or heroine\u2019\u201d (qtd. in Landsberg 179). Landsberg illustrates \u201cimaginative identification\u201d as especially impactful; she emphasizes that one respondent who adopted the identity of The Sheik<\/em>\u2019s \u201c\u2018heroine\u2019\u201d even felt the kisses of a fictional love interest (Blumer qtd. in 179). Conversely, McArthur demonstrates how NLPs like Siri produce \u201csocial hierarchies \u201d in addition to identity (116). She notes Siri imitates classist and gendered human dynamics by resembling a \u201c\u2018personal assistant\u2019\u201d who answers to the wishes of her user (119). Additionally, Siri\u2019s effeminate voice accentuates her \u201csecretarial\u201d tone; by acting as an assistant, her user adopts the identity of a master (119, 120). Furthermore, the user, regardless of their class, becomes a \u201cbourgeois subject\u201d by gaining an immediate \u201csense of power\u201d over Siri (119). In combination, Landsberg and McArthur demonstrate how media and technology form authentic human identities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Prosthetic memory and NLPs are also theorized to produce authentic bodily effects. For example, Landsberg mentions the \u201cPayne Studies\u201d which aimed to calculate the ability of film to physically affect \u201cthe bodies of its spectators\u201d (180). Observations of spectators\u2019 \u201celectrical impulses\u201d, \u201c\u2018circulatory system[s]\u2019\u201d, \u201crespiratory pulse and blood pressure\u201d revealed the potential of film to cause \u201cphysiological symptoms\u201d (180). This hypothesis aligns with \u201c\u2018innervation\u2019\u201d, a Benjaminian view that \u201cbodily experience\u201d and \u201cthe publicity of the cinema\u201d can generate collective social movements (Landsberg 181). While films potentially induce diverse biological responses, NLPs like Siri, transform the human body\u2019s processing of sound. McArthur notes humans unknowingly \u201ctune out\u201d noises, transferring them to their \u201cunconscious\u201d; she equates this instinct to seeing \u201c\u2018without hearing\u2019\u201d (Simmel qtd. in 121). Siri, a \u201cdisembodied technological voice\u201d, however, forces users to hear \u201c\u2018without seeing\u2019\u201d; her lack of physical form forces users to rely on different senses (122). As a result, prosthetic memory and NLPs alike produce authentic, corporeal effects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In our lectures and tutorials, we have often discussed media\u2019s establishment of body standards, virtual identities in video games, and avatars on dating sites; this comparison of texts expands this discussion by showing a melding of virtual and \u201creal\u201d life through film and NLPs. The authentic and anthropomorphic qualities of new media demonstrate that the \u201cposthuman\u201d era is not a faraway prediction embedded in dystopian futures; rather, it is situated in our present. Modern reliance on media as a guide for identity formation is prominent in our adoption of cinematic prosthetic memory and our widespread use of humanlike NLPs. While Landsberg demonstrates films\u2019 abilities to implant prosthetic memory and construct identity, McArthur demonstrates natural language processors\u2019 abilities to construct identity by placing users in power dynamics. The impact of prosthetic memory and natural language processors\u00a0 can also be perceived through their corporeal effects. Altogether, these powerful forms of media entangle the concepts of inauthentic and authentic.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Works Cited<\/p>\n\n\n\n McArthur, Emily. \u201cThe iPhone Erfahrung Siri, the Auditory Unconscious, and Walter Benjamin\u2019s \u2018Aura\u2019.\u201d Design, Mediation, and the Posthuman<\/em>, edited by Dennis M. Weiss, Amy D. Propen, and Colby Emmerson Reid, ch. 6, Bloomsbury Publishing, 14 Aug. 2014, pp. 113-127.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Photo Credit<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yap, Jeremy. turned on projector<\/em>. Unsplash<\/em>, 9 Nov. 2016, https:\/\/unsplash.com\/photos\/turned-on-projector-J39X2xX_8CQ<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Written by Emily Shin<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How should we define authenticity? As humans grow more attached to digital media, the distinction between the virtual world and authentic, \u201creal life\u201d grows convoluted. Alison Landsberg\u2019s chapter, \u201cProsthetic Memory: Total Recall and Blade Runner\u201d, demonstrates the tendency of viewers to adopt emotional movie scenes as authentic memories of their own. In \u201cThe iPhone Erfahrung: … Continue reading Are We Living Authentically?<\/span>
Landsberg, Alison. \u201cProsthetic Memory: Total Recall<\/em> and Blade Runner<\/em>.\u201d Cyberspace\/Cyberbodies\/Cyberpunk: Cultures of Technological Embodiment<\/em>, edited by Mike Featherstone and Roger Burrows, SAGE Publications, 1995, pp. 175-189.<\/p>\n\n\n\n