“Is this him? Yes, this is him.” A Zoe chip is handed to the Cutter (scene from The Final Cut)
Through my wider research several recommendations have come up recently for moving image representations of digital afterlife. I have now watched two in this genre ‘The Final Cut’ (Dir: Omar Naim) and ‘Be Right Back’ (Dir: Owen Harris) an episode of Black Mirror (the series on Channel 4, exploring the impact of technology on modern lives).
The storyline of The Final Cut is based around the notion of lifetime memory capture. A ‘Zoe’ chip, manufactured by Eye Tech, can be inserted inutero that then records a lifetime of memories and experiences. This has spawned an industry of Cutters who are commissioned to create an edited film drawn from that lifetime of data. On the death of an implant bearer the edited highlights of their life are then shown cinema style at a ‘Remembering‘ ceremony. As long as the format remains uncorrupted friends and family can retain the data of their loved one. The Cutters are faced with a range of editing choices, particularly where memories are problematic, in one case child abuse is alluded to.
The film also shows a growing anti-Zoe movement intent on abolishing the chip because of concerns about privacy, data rights and living in the here and now rather than enacting a life under the awareness that your movie of self will be shown on a big screen at some point in the future.
The film is poignant, moving and raises lots of philosophical and moral questions. It is even more emotionally powerful as the lead character is played by Robin Williams. Interesting from my perspective is a moment towards the end of the film where Ronin Williams shares playback of surreal and dream like sequences, that are described as a glitch in the chip. There is a final twist as Williams is murdered by the anti-Zoe brigade in order to acquire a chip from a deceased executive of the company that creates them that will prove incendiary in terms of exposing his dubious ethics and past.
‘Be Right Back’ takes a different approach to a technological afterlife. After Martha’s (Hayley Atwell) boyfriend Ash (Domhnall Gleeson) is killed in a car accident a friend signs her up to a service that uses his digital footprint and social media to recreate his voice. Through machine learning Ash is reborn as a bot accessed via Martha’s phone. After initially resisting she comes to rely on using her mobile device to ‘talk’ to Ash. She then upgrades to a synthetic Ash and this is when things shift; while he looks and sounds like Ash it is clear after a while that he is not a complete replica of the man she knew. He is passive but also slightly creepy and Martha ultimately deicides this was a mistake. The final scene shows Martha’s daughter, born after her father’s death visiting synthetic Ash who has been confined to the loft, only to be visited at weekends and birthdays.
Both films deal with issues of loss and grief, and also question how our relationship to technology might in future have an impact on how we regard our mortality and those we leave behind. They raise questions about what it is to be human in the post-digital era. Neither seem to support a view that machine learning will ever fully replicate the human condition.
In terms of my own work it gives me lots to think about and causes me to reflect again on the question that Nick Goss asked me about whether I was optimistic about our future relationship with technology. I am certainly not as apocalyptic as some, I think it does bring real opportunities but that is not to say it is purely benevolent. I caught the tail end of a radio interview the other day, unfortunately I didn’t hear who it was, his view was that human beings have extraordinary capacity for invention, but we are not always good at understanding the potential implications of our inventions. This strikes me as a useful way of thinking about our future digital selves.
I have plenty more reading to do and will now watch ‘Marjorie Prime,’ (Dir: Michael Almereyda), ‘Her’ (Dir: Spike Jonze) and ‘Enter the Void’ (Dir: Gaspar Noé). It is useful to be thinking about my developing narrative and how to represent further the notion that my pixels have the capacity to live on after my death.