Ex Machina

In recent films emotions/affects are recognized as crucial for creating, recognizing, understanding, and communicating with artificial intelligence (AI) agents. AI is increasingly portrayed as capable of manipulating human affect and as itself subject to affect. The paper discusses romantic relationships between AI agents and humans in "Blade Runner" (1982), "Ex Machina" (2015) and "Uncanny" (2015), situating their portrayal in the context of post-humanism and affect studies. It also discusses the Turing test as a form of testimony.
When the earlier gothic imagination focused on humans falling in love with mechanical dolls, as in E.T.A. Hoffman’s "Erzählungen" and G.B. Shaw’s "Pygmalion", the delusion that these artificial creatures were love-worthy was in the eye of the beholder. The contemporary post-humanist imagination posits the reverse possibility that AI agents may fall in love with people and with other AIs, or at least pretend to love in a convincing manner. By the same token, humans are stripped of their uniqueness and imagined as reducible to a machine-like status. The recent films extend this similarity of humans and machines by focusing on romantic scenarios involving both.
The mechanistic grasp of affects is both implied and thematized in "Ex Machina" and "Uncanny", where a sense of the peculiarly human persists in romantically inflected versions of the Turing test. The notion that machines can be convincing at the game of love shows that affects are increasingly understood as crucial to our understanding of AI. Conversely, this notion also suggests that distinguishing between the peculiarly human and that which machines are capable of imitating is more problematic than ever.

This article examines the 2015 film Ex Machina as a cultural text that exemplifies the technologization of gender within algorithmic culture. Analysing different textual elementsthe narrative diegesis, the marketing material, and the digital techniques used in the VFX post-production process-I argue that gender is consistently figured as a kind of technology. That is, gender is systematised, codified, and reduced to a programmed set of instructions that can be used by machines to manipulate and deceive. I argue that understanding gender through its figuration with the technological, specifically through code and algorithms, raises pertinent issues concerning surveillance, race, and bias. This is reflected in the film through a problematic representation of racialised figures, particularly techno-Orientalist tropes of labouring Asian bodies.

A Senior Project in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Bachelor of the Arts degree in the Gallatin School of Individualized Study. This paper moves through the film genre theory of tech-noir, and discusses the feminist propensities of the hybrid genre through the two case studies of Blade Runner and Ex Machina.

Female characters within Gothic horror are often 'woman-in-peril', objects acted upon or kept captive, a domestic side-character there to build up the tension and unease, or a ghost who haunts the space acting as monster or helper. Ex Machina (2015) plays upon the tropes of both Gothic and horror films with its setting and characters to present a story of deadly, female agency. Ex Machina creates the eerie, growing disquiet of a Gothic horror narrative replete with captive damsel, silent staff, labyrinthian mansion, and outsider instigating the action, while also incorporating the violence of horror films. However, rather than conforming to the standard tropes of Gothic horror, it plays off preconceived expectations associated with both genres. This transformation of story and tropes allows this production to be a Gothic of our time using artificial intelligences and an automated home rather than the supernatural and an ancestral mansion, as the story's catalyst and setting. Through the character of Ava, this film shows how a 'woman-in-peril' can also be the homicidal monster of a horror film, and by so doing, make herself the final woman. A close, textual analysis of Ex Machina unpacks these tropes, reveals new iterations and combinations, and presents a poignant feminist image of the created rejecting her creator. Rebecca Jones MA, is an American currently in the first year of her PhD studying at De Montfort University, Leicester in the Cinema and Television History department. She is researching the depiction of sentient, female artificial intelligences and robots in postmillennial science fiction film and television. She completed her Masters in Adaptation Studies at De Montfort University focusing on the adaptation of Shakespeare within science fiction film and novels.

The portrayal of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in contemporary cinema speaks to the dominant discourse in the European tradition about humanity’s fears and hopes generated by the creation of artificial life. The present study seeks to analyse the portrayal of the female as an iconic representation of Artificial Intelligence in the context of the current zeitgeist (Drosnin, 1997; Keane, 2006) as the work of filmmakers explores both long-standing and recent concerns about female robots by bringing them to life on the screen (Pandya, 2019; Hamilton, 2018). We submit that an exploration of Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2014) as a new reading of the Galatea and Pandora myths will bear out our hypothesis that the female robot model projects the spectre of the monstrous feminine, and may embolden filmmakers to endeavour more complex representations of females capable of sub- verting the power structure of patriarchal ideology (Modleski, 2002).

THIS IS A PREPRINT OF THE CHAPTER PUBLISHED IN ASCARI, BAIESI, PALATINUS (EDS.): GOTHIC METAMORPHOSES ACROSS THE CENTURIES: CONTEXTS, LEGACIES, MEDIA. BERN: PETER LANG, 2020.

This chapter re-assesses the role Gothic legacy plays in contemporary film and television narratives of the Anthropocene, especially as regards human-machine interaction and possible interpretations of the (post-)human condition. The past decade has seen a proliferation of narratives depicting intersections between human and nonhuman (machine and / or animal). Such metamorphoses, both at a conceptual as well as a bio-technological level, render the future of the embodiment of the Uncanny par excellence – something that is both familiar/homely, and alien/fearful. This juxtaposition of the “tremendum” and the “fascinosum” mobilizes the iconographic and narrative legacy of the Gothic. Apart from mobilizing the formulas of Gothic-infused sci-fi fantasy, they shift attention from what intelligent machines can do to us to what humans can do to intelligent / sentient machines. I will argue that films like Blade Runner, Blade Runner 2049 and Ex Machina, or television programs like Humans, Extant, Westworld shift the focus from a future entity that will have learned to adapt to and navigate a radically changed ecosystem to the re-inscription of the all-too-human practices of racial and colonial stereotyping of hybridinal entities that are always-already haunted by the spectre of the Gothic.

In vielen Narrativen gibt es einen kathartischen Augenblick, in dem sich das Bewusstsein der KIs manifestiert.
Wie inszenieren moderne Filme die Bewusstseinsbildung von KIs, welche Momente sind im Einzelnen dafür relevant und welche Auswirkungen hat es, wenn sich eine Maschine plötzlich selbst erkennt?
Als exemplarische Schwerpunkte dienen drei Science-Fiction-Blockbuster der vergangenen Jahre: Her, Ex Machina und Avengers: Age of Ultron. Als filmhistorische Referenz wird Blade Runner herangezogen.

The aim of this article is to identify characteristics of presentation of artificial intelligence in the films "Ex Machina" (2015) and "Uncanny" (2015), and the analysis of ideas about possible romantic relationships between humans and artificial intelligence agents in the context of post‑human and affect theories. The key categories used in the analysis are: "witnessing", used in the context of the Turing test, and "affect" as understood by Silvan Tomkins. The article tries to show that contemporary film presentations of artificial intelligence are part of a broader posthuman research, pointing to the equal roles of human and non‑human entities, as well as to the essence of the category of affect in the creation and understanding of artificial intelligence.

What is artificial intelligence? Development of artificial intelligence. What does it mean to be human? In this essay, I will try to explain what it means to be human based on the film Ex Machina, Her, I, Robot and Childhood’s End in terms of tragic flaw.

La intención del presente texto es introducir al lector a la lógica biopolítica y psicopolítica del conocimiento científico que antecede al concepto «diseño de experiencia del usuario» (i.e. una interfaz operativa entre la esfera del diseño y la investigación científica sobre medio ambiente y conducta humana) utilizado operativamente en la actual Mercadotecnia. La introducción al problema se presenta a partir de tres breves historias que interrelacionan el diseño con un tópico controversial en las ciencias sociales occidentales: el reconocimiento de la dimensión societal de los afectos y emociones de los individuos. A través del análisis del descubrimiento lingüístico de una historiadora medievalista, del experimento diseñado por un genio en Inteligencia Artificial y la propuesta tecnológica de un diseñador de geodésicas, se plantea a partir del giro afectivo una genealogía alternativa a la lógica teórica y operativa de «diseñar experiencia».

Palabras claves : diseño, giro afectivo, conducta humana, emociones, diseño de experiencia

This paper aims to ponder on the societal dimension of emotions and the psicopolitics of social sciences logics underneath the marketing concept of "Experience design" (i.e. an operational interface between the sphere of design and scientific research on the environment and human behavior). The problem is presented through three stories: the analysis of a linguistic discovery by a medievalist historian, the experiment of a AI designer and the architectural proposal of the inventor of geodesics. In this way, the paper offers an alternative genealogy to the theoretical and operational marketing logic of «designing experience".

We are now confronted with a new type of uncanny experience, an uncanny
evoked by parallel processing, aggregate data, and cloud-computing. The
digital uncanny does not erase the uncanny feeling we experience as déjà
vu or when confronted with robots that are too lifelike. Today's uncanny
refers to how non-human devices (surveillance technologies, algorithms,
feedback, and data flows) anticipate human gestures, emotions, actions,
and interactions, thus intimating that we are but machines and that our
behavior is predicable precisely because we are machinic. It adds
another dimension to those feelings in which we question whether our
responses are subjective or automated - automated as in reducing one's
subjectivity to patterns of data and using those patterns to present
objects or ideas that would then elicit one's genuinely subjective-yet
effectively preset-response. In fact, this anticipation of our responses
is a feedback loop that we humans have produced by designing software
that can study our traces, inputs, and moves. In this sense one could
say that the digital uncanny is a trick we play on ourselves, a trick
that we would not be able to play had we not developed sophisticated
digital technologies. /Digital Uncanny /explores how digital
technologies, particularly software systems working through massive
amounts of data, are transforming the meaning of the uncanny that Freud
tied to a return of repressed memories, desires, and experiences to
their anticipation. Through a close reading of interactive and
experimental art works of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Bill Viola, Simon Biggs,
Sue Hawksley, and Garth Paine, this book is designed to explore how the
digital uncanny unsettles and estranges concepts of "self," "affect,"
"feedback" and "aesthetic experience," forcing us to reflect on our
relationship with computational media and by extension our relationship
to each other and our experience of the world.

Resumo: Tendo como base o filme Ex Machina, este trabalho pretende mapear a confusão de fronteiras nas representações de máquinas que pensam no cinema, robôs conscientes, relacionando com filmes clássicos e atuais que tratam do assunto. Mais do que uma explicação fechada, a intenção é pensar a proximidade das construções de narrativas ficcionais com o discurso científico e a potência da arte como catalisador para reflexões de questões políticas tecnocientíficas de onde mora a " consciência humana " e sua suposta superioridade com as diversas formas de inteligência artificial com as quais convivemos já há décadas. Inspirado diretamente na antropologia ciborgue de Donna Haraway, este trabalho pretende tomar o lado do " outro " , para falar de " nós " , e dar a mesma seriedade para as " ficções " quanto para as " realidades ". Os limites colocados (e progressivamente transgredidos) por essas outras inteligências não-humanas nos permite colocar em perspectiva outras questões, como a relação entre mente, corpo, gênero, sexualidade, a vigilância contemporânea, etc. Palavras Chave: inteligência artificial, ciborgue, deep learning, máquinas A verdade é que eu menti sobre Bruno Latour quando escrevi este resumo, mas nem era uma estratégia para ser aceito no grupo de trabalho no qual me propus a apresentá-lo. Até tinha uma noção (talvez um pouco vaga) da teoria-ator-rede, e aceitei que tinha que encarar (e encarei) o Reagregando o Social. Cheguei a tentar encaixá-lo no texto, mas parecia desconexo. Resolvi deixar de fora, mesmo tentando " mapear uma controvérsia ".

Tech-noir is a modern genre hybridization that critics have struggled to define due to the elusive nature of the film noir mood, or genre. My paper is concerned with arriving at a definition of this hybrid genre, and arguing that films belonging to it necessitate feminist readings. The resounding goals of my paper are threefold: first, to synthesize a definition of the tech-noir hybrid genre; second, to focus my examinations on the femme fatale with a technological embodiment; and third, to analyze Ava, the robot in Ex Machina (2015) as a quintessential example of this tech-noir femme fatale, whose very embodiment is laden with feminist conceptions of the performativity of sex/gender. Tech-noir films often—almost explicitly—engage with feminist issues pertaining to the political implications of biological embodiment as well as to the notion of the social constructionism of sex/gender. The classic noir tropes of the depraved city, ambivalence towards technological advances, and the femme fatale all converge in the embodiment of the tech-noir woman, just as film noir envisions the threats of modern technology in association with the vengeful or powerful woman. She is the vessel for these themes as her body is the site on which our anxieties about technology and female agency are mapped. Thus, tech-noir emerges as a genre in which male anxieties are reflected and feminist theory intervenes with fervor. The paper will aim to answer one concise question: to what extent are films belonging to the tech-noir hybrid genre intrinsically feminist texts? I will perform a close reading of Ex Machina, to elucidate the definition of tech-noir, and apply a feminist lens to this emerging character of the technologized femme fatale to argue for the tech-noir as a vessel for feminist discourse.

More than ten years ago I worked as an ESL teacher and mentor of In retrospective, and after teaching at all levels of formal education (including a research university and a liberal arts college), working with many immigrant kids has been the most rewarding in terms of scholastic freedom and sociocultural experience. Perhaps it was due to their age, but compared with college students, those immigrant children, thanks to their creativity and inclination to nurture a free spirit, made rainy and somber Portland less depressive. Throughout the years, I have often wondered about the paths that those kids endeavoured.

"What might be the outcome of bending the traditional rules of cartography in favor of chance? Our answer is "something Dada:· What does chance have to do with cartography and Dada? Taking the last first, Dada is a recent expression of the ancient absurdist spirit of relativism which, as an antidote to rationalism, is as old as Alley Oop and Protagoras. As a protest movement against the excesses of a rational society, Dada mushroomed briefly in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. It arose among French and German intellectuals out of their sheer moral exhaustion and nausea over that War. And then there was ennui … ."

freebee: here is a sure cure for ennui  >
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqJXxHi6RwQ

Posthuman noir sits at the intersection of posthuman science fiction and film noir, and includes Anglo-American films as Anglo-American films as Blade Runner (R. Scott, 1982) Gattaca (A. Niccol, 1997) and Dark City (A. Proyas, 1998) and anime such as Ghost in the Shell (M. Oshii, 1995), Ergo Proxy (S. Murase, 2006), and Darker Than Black (T. Okamura, 2007). I argue that, when a posthuman character in these films experiences an emotional awakening classic film noir narrative and character arcs are subverted—rather than being damned and destroyed by their emotions it is these characters that survive and thrive. The central shift from negative to positive connotations for emotional awakening demonstrates how integral this is to concepts of what it is to be ‘human’ and how these intangible qualities of the ‘human’ are positioned as something important to be preserved in posthuman futures.

In this paper, I will establish the subgenre of posthuman noir, before focusing on the ways one posthuman noir film, Ex_Machina (Alex Garland, 2015), uses and subverts film noir narrative structure and characters, especially in relation to Billy Wilder’s 1944 film Double Indemnity, to reaffirm humanist concepts of the human in the posthuman science fictional future.

I will explore the ways that film noir exists beyond its traditional basis in 1940s and 50s America, and the how the aesthetics, themes and narrative patterns of classic film noir have evolved into an investigation of the human and the posthuman.

Conference: Hardboiled History: A Noir Lens on America's Past, University of Warwick, 19th May 2017