The Eyes of The Electric Man

“Our path leads through the poetry of machines, from the bungling citizen to the perfect electric man”. — Dziga Vertov, “We: Variant of a Manifesto” (1919)
The technological development of the last century has had an exponential growth that continues until today. In that sense, each important innovation radically changes and redefines aspects of everyday life. The introduction of the car has redefined the design of cities; the radio opened a new era for communication, and, admittedly, it is difficult to explain today’s society without the introduction of the moving images.
However, what is technology? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is “The application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry.” The close relationship between industry and scientific knowledge, reveals that the definition has undergone a conceptual modification, presumably, after the industrial revolution. In order to find an earlier definition, it is pertinent to asset the Greek root of the word.
The Merrian-Webster Dictionary defines Technē as “art; skill, especially: the principles or methods employed in making something or attaining an objective.” This definition emphasizes technology as a mechanism through which an objective is achievable. In this sense, it offers the possibility of applying the concept in different contexts. For example, it is possible to argue that the human need to carry out tasks such as grazing, hunting, or the recovery of prey induced the breeding and domestication of wolves. Through selecting and enhancing the animal’s natural abilities, man designed the specialized breeds of dogs that, under the definition of technē, could be understood as technology.
If we analyze the evolution of the human species under the definition of technē, we can argue that the development of limbs, senses, and organs such as the brain, respond to improvements in the methods of the species to achieve the goal of subsistence. The human being is born equipped with technology, designed over thousands of years of evolution.
It is practically impossible to think that some organ in the human body is less important than another. All integrate an interlocking system. However, being responsible for eighty percent of the external information we receive, the sense of sight plays a predominant role in learning and behavior. Thanks to the eyes, we acquire knowledge, and we can also apply it. The importance of sight has been recognized by several ancestral cultures that have made the eye a mystical symbol associated with the divine, knowledge, and power.
For the Russian director Dziga Vertov, the film “Man With a Movie Camera” provided the means to explain how humanity can overcome his limitations and thus evolve to an elevated state. This idea contained in “We: Variant of a Manifesto” (1919), guided his work in the film “Man With a Movie Camera” (1929). The film suggests the ability of this new technology to articulate new meanings based on moving images. Throughout the film, a series of sequences present an opportunity to capture new perceptions based on the idea of the camera as an autonomous entity. This action is nuanced with occasional superimposed images of the human eye and the lens. However, at 1:01:14 minutes, both tripod and camera develop a series of moves to makes explicit how the camera is independence from human beings. Immediately, the succession of images acquires a frenetic rhythm, evidencing part of the kino-glasz creed “I am the Cine-Eye. I am the mechanical eye. I the machine shows you the world as only I can see it. I emancipate myself henceforth and forever from human immobility.” Finally, the last scene (minute 1:08:20) reveals the inevitable fusion between the human eye and camera lens.
Vertov’s vision is optimistic about the role of technology in society; for him, the fusion of eye and camera represents the first step towards full integration. Through establishing the poetry of the machine based on images, Vertov seeks to inspire humanity to pursue its evolution in the machine. However, perhaps more importantly, the director’s aspiration refers us to that previously mentioned relationship between eye and knowledge by adding camera technology as the factor that will allow the being to expand his sense of sight and, therefore, his knowledge. Vertov aspires to culminate in a new man fused with the machine (an electric man) devoid of any failure and free from the limitations of immobility.
“Man With a Movie Camera” presents a key message for the man of tomorrow; at the same time is a testament to the capabilities that humanity can acquire through this new mechanical eye, this explains the intensive editing work, the dutch angles, the overlays, fades and other resources that try to show new ways of seeing, new meanings and new ways of learning.
Vertov shows confidence in the machine, both his manifesto and “Man With a Movie Camera,” are testimonies of the exciting moment that was the beginning of the last century. Technological innovations, electric power, the car, and a long list of machines seen for the first time, contributed to the notion of technology and progress as synonyms. The road to the future was paved with technological advances, with the man in harmonious symbiosis with the machine. The future for humanity- according to Vertov- involved the extinction of human error and the adoption of perfection through machines in order to create the new being, the electric man.
This longing transcended in time, even though technology showed its most sinister side when the Second World War ended with the explosion of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the heat of a polarized world between radically different systems, Philip K Dick envisioned a plausible scenario in 1968. “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” Is the book that serves as the basis for the script for Blade Runner (1982), a film by Ridley Scott that contributes to the technology paradigm in response to human evolution.
The vision of Blade Runner introduces the concept of the Replicant, an android built with organic material, designed to perform manual labor in the construction of off-world colonies. A group of Nexus 6 Replicants riots and escape to earth. At 28:20 minutes in the movie, the leader, Roy Batty and Leon Kowalski look for a way to reverse their life limit. To attain this goal, they look for the eye manufacturer Hannibal Chew, upon finding him, Roy recites a deliberately modified fragment of “America: A Prophecy” (1793) by William Blake. “Fiery the angels fell; deep thunder rolled around their shores; burning with the fires of Orc. “In the mythology built by Blake, the Orc is a creature imprisoned by the chains of jealousy. Through the power of imagination, the Orc manages to summon a deity that frees him; after that, he embarks on a rampage.
In this film, The eyes play an important symbolic role. One of the first frames portraits an eye looking over Los Angeles. The test to detect Replicants is administered by observing eye reactions. A strange eye glare serves as a clue for the viewer to distinguish a replicant from a human.
In the scene described above, we return to the allusion to the eyes as doors of knowledge. Hannibal Chew, the eye manufacturer, is assumed to be the one in charge of providing vision and, therefore, knowledge. Batty comes to meet him, and by misquoting Blake reveals his situation. He is the fallen angel who has acquired knowledge. His imagination has freed him, and he is about to start a rampage.
In the universe of Blade Runner, technology has been achieved to improve humanity. The longing for the fusion between humans and machines that Vertov posed occurs precisely 100 years after his manifesto, and the consequences are not favorable. Ridley Scott shows us that in the capitalist perspective, technology only works for those who can afford it, for those who were selected to leave earth towards the off-world colonies. The goal is no longer to improve humans through technology. The goal now is to improve other planets to reproduce the way of life that the exhausted planet earth is unable to provide.
The fusion that Vertov aspired, that electric man, turned against its creator and, just like the fallen angel, this new man commanded a revolution ignoring its creator and seeking to annihilate it. That Cine-eye that promised a new way of seeing the world, unbiased by conventions, awakened the conscience and instead of looking at the horizon, turned furiously towards its creator.
This dialectical tension is part of the ongoing debate about the limits between humanity and technology. The fictional scenarios, the manifestos, are ideal instances to bring ideas to the discussion table and imagine scenarios that can give us some answers under certain assumptions.
While Vertov presents unwavering confidence in technology, Scott — through Philip K. Dick- presents us with a post-atomic bomb vision, in which it is inevitable to weigh a pessimistic scenario for humanity in which technology is widely responsible for both the depletion of the planet and the creation of the replicants and their fatal outcome. A disappointment for that trust placed a hundred years ago.
Once in the presence of his creation and upon learning that his life would end hopelessly, Roy Batty murders Eldon Tyrell, sinking his eyes into the skull and ending with his ability to acquire more knowledge and, therefore, with his life. Desolation invades him and enters a violent psychosis. Batty knowing that his existence is an artifice, knows he has a price to pay for his acquired knowledge; it is the awareness of his death and its inevitability.
In his last seconds of life, Roy Batty saves Deckard from death and establishes a final connection between eyes and memory, he remembers those unlikely events he witnessed, while regretting the disappearance of his memories with him. “All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain” (Blade Runner, 1:46:20).
The relationship between eyes, knowledge, and memory means the process by which the human being learns and subsequently applies his knowledge constitutes a constant cycle that somehow defines what it is to be human. In that sense, the phrase of René Descartes can be rearranged by “I learn, I remember, I apply, therefore I am.” Similarly, “Man With a Movie Camera” proposes a new way of knowing the world through the Cine-Eye, and therefore a new way of remembering it.
“Man With A Movie Camera” and “Blade Runner” start from the conception of technology as the way to improve humanity. While Vertov proposes fusion as the only means to eliminate human fallibility, Scott responds with an uninviting scenario. The new human being has awakened to consciousness, has seen through that Cine-Eye, and has denied his condition.
Through this analysis, we have shown that the meaning of technology is continuously changing. In the pre-industrial era, the linked notion points towards knowledge were necessary to achieve an objective. A post-industrial definition adds the industry as the primary field to exercise technology. Regarding uses for technology, Vertov proposes the improvement of human beings and the elimination of his mistakes through the fusion between machine and man in order to produce the electric man, the highest step in evolution. Ridley Scott presents us with a future in which the ideal proposed by Vertov derives in an unforeseen scenario. The improved humans have gained knowledge of their condition and have decided to turn against their creator.
Humans have been adding layers of technology to their daily lives for quite some time. At some point, technology was limited to bodies, then to clothing, utensils, weapons, and an infinity of devices. Now with computers, phones, and wearables, humanity continues on the path of improving by adding layers of technology. Just as the definitions of technology change over time, it is plausible to think that the definition of humanity deserves revision. As always, science fiction, movies, manifestos, and utopias lend themselves as the ideal field to project the possible results of what we only can imagine today.
References
Man With a Movie Camera. Directed by Dziga Vertov, VUFKU, 1929.
Blade Runner. Directed by Ridley Scott, performances by Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, and John Goodman, Warner Brothers, 1982.
Merriam Webster website. 2019 Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/techne. Accessed 05 oct. 2019.
Lexico powered by Oxford website. 2019 Lexico, https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/technology. Accessed 05 oct. 2019.
We: Variant of a Manifesto, Monoskop website. 2016 Monoskop, https://monoskop.org/images/6/66/Vertov_Dziga_1922_1984_We_Variant_of_a_Manifesto.pdf. Accessed 05 oct. 2019.
