Science Fiction Film and Becoming Otherwise: Woundedness, Posthuman Performativity, and Reinventing Subjectivity

Abstract

This thesis is about becoming otherwise. The notion of Man, occupying the central position within the processes of meaning-making, needs to be accounted for affirmatively. Doing so becomes increasingly pressing as our particular world that we live with wants to, more or less gradually, implement the technology of genetic engineering. Despite being present in our awareness since the 1970s, this technological development is still proving to face us with questions that are not at all easy to answer. They ceaselessly make us wonder: what would it mean to engineer genetically? What and who would emerge if this technology was engaged with? How would we think of ourselves if genetic engineering became an integral part of how we make sense of the world?

This thesis shows that we are not at all oblivious to those questions. We have already been developing particular literacies upon discourses that are already there. Those literacies can be found in science fiction cinema, a genre that has always remained curious about newly emerging scientific and technological developments. This thesis offers a reading of two science fiction films – "Blade Runner" and "Gattaca" – to let us come closer to the question of what would it mean to find a new unit of reference and become otherwise about frameworks upon which we have been developing our subjectivities.

Frameworks around genetic engineering and science fiction films might not be generous. Nevertheless, this thesis shows that thanks to the notion of woundedness, one might come closer to developing an affirmative outlook on those frameworks. Becoming otherwise can take place thanks to the wound. Becoming otherwise, in the case of this thesis, means reinventing subjectivity and inventing a posthuman performative subjectivity. Nothing should be seen as predetermined. This thesis embraces this thought and offers us respite.