Man, Mutt and Machine

** Update: As of May 2013 my senior project is completed and titled "Establishing a Post-human Identity through Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell and Innocence Films." It can be found on the Post-humanity tab above, and is available in PDF format.

 

Wow. Nearly a month and a half since I posted last, and I feel rather rotten for waiting so long. But Nelson's been a busy boy, and I have some work to show for it. My senior project has evolved into a beautifully complex essay on the significance of non-humans (animals, objects, nature) in shaping social events. I didn't expect my paper - originally focused on anime cyborgs - to have as much potential as it does now. 

That's enough of me talking. Below is a mess of an introduction from yours truly, far from the organized paper I hope to churn out in several weeks. There's lots of loose ends for me to tie up, so consider this a log of where my mind has been rather than a solid thesis. I've hyperlinked the more academic terms and references so that curious readers can understand what I'm writing about. Enjoy!

Man, Mutt and Machine: Mamoru Oshii's Posthumanist Legacy in the Animation of Production I.G

     Objects have always held a role in facilitating relationships between people, aiding in the construction or destruction of social connections; indeed, the unique use of tools and objects is what distinguishes modern homo sapiens from its ancestors. Humanism through John Locke went on to underscore that the freedom to possess and rule over “things” is what makes us human, extending the principles of divine right and manifest destiny to all of mankind. In our increasingly postmodern culture, however, the idea of a white male ownership of the globe through physical colonization is challenged by a posthuman realm of technologically mediated relations. Is it man or machine-things that creates bonds between other men?

Shortly before the turn of the century the Internet revolutionized the way humans exchange information. In many respects, mankind managed to create a world parallel to our own, composed entirely of binary code, red/blue/green displays and unquantifiable amounts of data. There have been countless works of fiction devoted to exploring our inception of virtual reality, Gibson's Neuromancer and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner popularizing these changes through cyberpunk lore. Human beings, as such fictional works continue to demonstrate, are curious as to what our lives can evolve into if only we were able to directly connect with this intangible network of raw data. In order to access this wealth of information, machine technology must serve as mediator, presenting us with a triumverate – man, machine and information technologies– that pushes traditional Western humanist philosophies to its breaking points in the formerly fantastical cyborg, both a man and a machine.

At the heart of these cultural changes was the Macy Conferences on Cybernetics, a series of interdisciplinary academic discussions following World War Two which unveiled “that three powerful actors—information, control, and communication—were now operating jointly to bring about an unprecedented synthesis of the organic and the mechanical" (Hayles). In the spirit of preserving the liberal humanist subject, first-wave cybernetics observed that homeostasis is the ability for organisms to maintain equilibrium when resisting harsh environments; environment and organism were two separate systems that constantly exchanged information flows. Second-wave cybernetics introduces the notion of reflexivity, where an organism's “one and only goal is continually to produce and reproduce the organization that defines them as systems. Hence, they not only are self-organizing but also are autopoietic, or self-making... We do not see a world 'out there' that exists apart from us. Rather, we see only what our systemic organization allows us to see.” The third wave grants that reflexive self-organization is the “springboard of emergence” and is of utmost importance for those who see that in a universe governed by information, adaptable computer programs constitute life forms because information is the essence of material things. While artificial intelligence research is still ongoing, the first wave emphasis on homeostasis can be extended to even the most basic machines, meaning that they participate in information flows between systems, or as Bruno Latour might say, they become agents that break down the subject-object narrative of liberal humanism, instrumental parts to our social systems.

It is out of this milieu that a newly found focus on materialism eventually forms. The objects that surround us form a vital part of not only modern culture's social relations, but all of mankind's interactions with all other humans and non-humans. Bill Brown's thing theory and Bruno Latour's actor-network theory threaten the liberal humanist subject by placing man on equal terms with the objects he relates to on a daily basis [relates is the keyword here], for these objects are anthropomorphized to an astounding degree. Objects now possess biographies as ordinary people do: a development process and a birth, a career and retirement, and a death (which by all means is metaphorical considering most non-perishable items can be appropriated for other means.) Commercial goods may be forged by human hands for particular purposes, but much like how Adam and Eve went on to forge their own futures apart from God's will, so too does thing theory and the new materialism it alludes to allow mass-produced, designed items to become actors and creators in their own right. Humans, once superior to everyday items because of the creator-created dyad, are recognizing that items play a vital role in shaping social interactions, even participating in them as non-human agents working within a cybernetic network. But the anthropomorphic rhetoric thing theory uses ignores very real, non-theoretical limits that face non-humans, and unduly threatens humanism through a narrowly skewed existential nihilism.

Japanese animation studio Production I.G has explored many of the contemporary models surrounding human/non-human systems since its inception in 1988. The first production by the studio was the OVA series Patlabor, about society's dependence on large robots used both in heavy construction work and police investigations. I.G. certainly wasn't the first Japanese animation studio to engage in the massive giant robot phenomenon (Sunrise' Mobile Suit Gundam series is largely responsible for that), but Patlabor puts its armored machines to use within a non-military context for the enhancement of everyday society. This is a unique remove from the general uncertainty many fictional works of the 1980s had towards technology, particularly cyberpunk that focused much of their energies on deconstructing liberal humanism's facade of autonomy for all people, depicting urban life as a conflagration of high-tech and low quality of life, and rejecting the material world for a digital Shangri-La, free of carnal woes. Compare 1988's Patlabor with Akira, the world renowned cyberpunk film of the same year: Akira's fixation with technologically created superhumans capable of inducing atomic war reminds audiences that there are things mankind is not capable of understanding despite all our perceived scientific progress (as Heidegger would argue, man has been subsumed by technology.) Patlabor treats technology with just as much gravitas, but adopts an attitude of practical acceptance rather than paralyzing fear. To echo the words of Patlabor director Mamoru Oshii, “Humans are always changing, and they need to change, with the development of technology. However, they should not fear change or evolution, but rather accept it and learn to live with it” (Eye).

Oshii's influence can be felt throughout many of the science-fiction works from Production I.G. Oshii's successful Ghost in the Shell adaptation, coupled with its original sequel Innocence, confronts artificial life and its implications in a future Japan that has already advanced so far as to place human consciousness within mass produced cybernetic bodies. The difference between life and death, animate and inanimate, and human and non-human states of consciousness are questioned to the point of meaninglessness. As one character states in Innocence, “Humans are nothing but the thread from which the dream of life is woven. Dreams, consciousness, even ghosts are no more than the rifts and warps in the uniform weave of the matrix.” Oshii's Ghost in the Shell adaptation inspired director Kenji Kamiyama (who consciously tried to emulate Oshii's style) while working on Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (productionig.com) and Eden of the East. Particularly with Eden of the East, the term “cyborg” evolves from its simplistic 'man made of metal' implications and grows closer to validating Katherine Hayles' notion that mankind is already posthuman, as the protagonist Akira uses a cell phone and an internet connection to stimulate economic growth in Japan. This also speaks to Heidegger's ideas on human subordinance to technology and Latour's actor-network theory, as the use of cell phones proves capable of unifying groups of differing socio-economic status to enact social change. And one of I.G's latest science-fiction projects, PSYCHO-PASS, is inextricably tied to the original Ghost in the Shell through its similarities to The Matrix franchise (Matrix directors Andrew and Lana Wachowski cite the film as a major source of inspiration.) PSYCHO-PASS takes a uniquely humanist stance that embraces our cognitive processes as capable of perfect rationality, and paradoxically justifies rule over the majority using numerical values and information.

It is to these works that this essay looks toward, as their posthumanist themes engage currently debated issues in the realms of transhumanism, liberal humanism, interspecies solidarity and the role of non-humans in shaping social networks. I will argue that while transhumanism certainly has a utopian charm, it is an ill-fitting vision of the future that often takes embodiment for granted and assumes physical perfectability is panacea for society's woes. As Ghost in the Shell and Innocence demonstrates, increased intimacy with digital and material realms complicates ontology unto death and reduces the difference between humans and non-humans to being merely a recognition of said differences. Traditional humanism still holds relevance because of its immanence to reality, but acknowledging that humans are different from animals and objects is not a conclusion in and of itself – does difference automatically imply hierarchy?

- http://www.midnighteye.com/interviews/mamoru-oshii/

- Hayles, N. Katherine (1999-02-15). How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. University of Chicago Press - A. Kindle Edition.

Nelson Rolon, "Man, Mutt and Machine: Mamoru Oshii's Posthumanist Legacy in the Animation of Production I.G." The Anime Guardians, March 2013. 

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