Embodied virtuality is the idea that the mind and body are separated. Katherine Hayles went into further detail discussing this topic in her essay titled “Toward Embodied Virtuality”. The author described how there are many factors, that can separate the mind and the body. Individuals should put this concept into consideration, so that they can avoid the negative effects. One of the negative results are; becoming a Posthuman. There are two examples in which the media represents this concept. One being an episode from a television series Black Mirror. The second example is a film titled Stepford Wives. These two films represent how the mind and body can be separated, and be used for harm rather than good.
The first example is the Black Mirror series. Here is a clear description of the episode. A couple has decided to move into a home together. The character Ash, has died (it is not told to the audience how he has died). The woman names Martha becomes depressed. In the episode she later realizes that she is pregnant. Unable to cope with the loss of her lover Martha decides to sign up for a program that create a virtual embodiment of Ash. How this works is every text message, email, social media that Ash has used has been saved. The computer program then uses the recent words that Ash has used to talk to Martha. Martha then becomes obsessed with this technology. With her baby on the way Martha wants her boyfriend to be there, so she takes the next step, and orders a robot version of Ash. The robot not only looks like Ash, but has studied every word/phrase Ash has ever said/written. Ash best represents the concept of what it means to be Posthuman. From Katherine Hayles essay she described what a Posthuman is “It is important to recognize that the construction of the posthuman does not require the subject to be a literal cyborg. Whether or not interventions have been made on the body, new models of subjectivity emerging from such fields as cognitive science and artificial life imply that even a biologically unaltered Homo sapiens counts as posthuman.” This concept applies to Ash, since before he died, he was always glued to his technology. Examples include: In the car, when Martha was getting coffee. Or on the couch when he was on twitter. In a way his phone was a part of him, he could not go a day without out it. This makes him posthuman, how he needs access to technology at all times. Since he was always on his phone, this allowed an opportunity for humans to create a computer version of Ash. This is also what the author Katherine Hayles worries, that technology will be used for the wrong purposes. Now-a-days everyone can be considered a posthuman. Children, teens, adults always have their phones on them at all times, and this is considered “normal”. In a way we all are cyborgs because we need this technology to survive. The argument to this is, could be: Are these programs that create a robot version of an individual be all bad? Some individuals, are unable to move on with their lives when someone has died. Some go to extreme measures such as suicide, because they are unable to cope with their loss. Would it be a bad thing if an individual who had just lost a family member, wanted to have one last conversation with them?
The second example is the film Stepford Wives. This film is about a group of men who have total control of a small town. In result, the wives plan to start their own clubs, and businesses. Suddenly one-by-one all of them decided its best that they do the housework instead. The wives even look, and sound different. The main character Joanna Eberhart tries to find a reason to why all these women have suddenly change. The more Joanna investigates the more she realized that the women have not only changed their appearances, but also their hobbies. An example could be; one of the women who was excellent in tennis, had suddenly given up. Claiming that her priority is to make sure, her husband is pleased. Towards the end of the film Joanna finds out that, the husbands have killed all of the wives, and replace them with robots. These robots look, and sound just like the wives. However, there is a clear distinguishing between the wives, and cyborgs personality. Katherine Hayles mentioned in her essay,“Human essence is freedom from the wills of others, the posthuman is ‘post’ not because it is necessarily unfree but because there is no priori way to identify a self-will that can be clearly distinguished from an other-will.” My interpretation of this is that, we as humans have our own-will, but there could be other people, or elements such as faith that destroy that freedom. This applies to Stepford wives, because the husband’s took their wives freedom. The wives can no longer play tennis, paint, bake, or take photographs, because the husbands to that away from.
In conclusion, both films show how embodied virtuality could be applied, in reality. In my opinion, both films do display wonderful examples, of dualism. I however would never agree on the fact that we should record everyone’s social media in order to “recreate” them. Even though this could help someone cope with the loss of a loved one, I believe that things that are natural should stay natural. This phrase also refers to Stepford Wives, how robots who look exactly like humans should never be created. The mind and body are separate, and shouldn’t be tainted by science.