In her book Toward Embodied Virtuality, Katherine Hayles discusses her shifting perspective on dualism. Her text defines this as the separation of body and mind. Throughout Hayles’ text, she suggests that although skeptical at first, this separation is possible and this possibility has been hinted at since the early 1950’s. Even the very premise of Star Trek is produced in a setting where they “imagine that the body can be dematerialized into an informational pattern and rematerialized, without change at a remote location,” (Hayles 1). Throughout the Be Right Back episode of Black Mirror and the movie Stepford Wives, it is evident that the human synthesis of mind and body may not be as theoretically clear as one would imagine.
Hayles’ idea of virtual embodiment is perfectly captured in season two episode one of Black Mirror. It is set during a morbid time in Martha’s life due to the recent death of her husband Ash. Coming to grips with the reality of Ash’s death was proving to be near impossible until Sarah, Martha’s family friend, introduced a new form of experimental technology to her, making it possible for Martha to talk to and interact with a cyborg version of Ash through the use of a computer program. As an avid user of social media, this program gathered all of Ash’s past activity and compiled it to make a very real and lifelike cyborg version of the old human Ash. With the fast-approaching arrival of her new baby, Martha grew attached to this cyborg version and took “him” with her everywhere she went so that she can escape the loneliness she feels. However soon she came to realize that although this cyborg embodied Ash physically, the only mental connection it had to the human Ash was the compilation of all the internet data it could gather. Martha came to realize that no matter how hard she tried, this cyborg could never embody the personal feelings or emotions of the human Ash because ultimately, this cyborg was just one giant physical hard drive holding living proof of Ash’s existence and nothing more. Hayles’ concept of virtual embodiment is applicable throughout this episode because Ash’s cyborg does not fully embody his true self and as this becomes more evident to Martha she grows frustrated and attempts to get rid of him. Things as simple as his submission to her even when she ordered him to jump off the cliff was proof to her that this clone could not embody Ash because nothing of his mind or body was original. Other than the cyborg’s exact replica of Ash, cyborg Ash would have to be “programmed” to cry in essence. As Hayles explains, this cyborg was simply a matter and product of experimental science and nothing more because no cyborg can truly embody a living person according to Hayles’ reasoning that “central to the construction of the cyborg are informational pathways connecting the organic body to its prosthetic extensions,” (Hayles 2). Based upon this logic, the cyborg version of Ash was only as good as the connection it had to Ash’s activity on the internet.
Another example of Hayles’ explanation of virtual embodiment can be seen in the movie Stepford Wives. The story takes place in a classic suburban town called Stepford, where Joanna and her husband and kids moved to from New York in their search for a quieter and more stable life away from the city. Joanna, a carefree spirit quickly finds out that the women of Stepford are a rare breed in accepting the extreme patriarchal society in which they live in. All of the women are submissive to their husbands and represent the idealistic version of “the perfect wife.” They cook, clean, stay home, and take care of the children and tend to their husband’s needs with no mind or personality of their own. Joanna soon discovers that this submission was forced upon the wives of Stepford as the Stepford Men’s association would kill their wives and create the perfect idealistic housewife cyborg version of each of their wives, personalizing them in looks alone. Hayles’ idea of dualism is personified by the wives in that their mind and body are separated. Although each of the wives are personalized to look exactly like their human forms, their minds are essentially altered completely to fit their husbands’ standards of an ideal submissive wife, thus creating the perfect post human.
Toward Embodied Virtuality discusses Katherine Hayles’ shifting perspective on dualism. She explains this separation of the mind and body as an unavoidable result of ever growing technology. Season 2 episode 1 of Black Mirror and the movie Stepford Wives both illustrate this ideology perfectly. In Black Mirror, Ash’s cyborg version physically embodies his human counterpart however, his mind can only collect the information that the human Ash stored on the internet. This left no possibility for raw emotion from the cyborg. In Stepford Wives, the men’s association killed all of the women and created cyborg versions of their wives that were true to each of their human physical forms yet their minds were completely altered. These substantiate Hayles’ theory that due to our continuous growth in technological innovations with the creations and inventions of smarter machines, one day we all may just become a population of cyborgs.