(For a CTCS505 assignment.)
In both Videodrome and eXistenZ, director David Cronenberg makes use flesh-objects - otherwise recognizable items that are composed of an undulating, human-like, fleshy organic material - to highlight the central themes of the movie. Videodrome is, at least in part, about the power of mass media to transform foreign ideas into cultural norms. In the movie, the gun is first shown as a normal, mechanical object. Soon after Max Renn ingests the gun through the orifice which opens in his abdomen, he is overcome with pain and unable to move until he has removed it. This demonstrates how the gun, as a mechanical object, is fundamentally incompatible with Max Renn's being. The gun is then subsumed by a mass of fleshy tendrils, which transform it into a flesh-object. As a flesh-object, the gun can be consumed without any ill effect. The transformation of this object represents the transformation of the character: Max, who had previously shown himself to be somewhat resistant to the idea of sadism even within the context of sadomasochistic sexual play, has become utterly impassive about committing acts of homicidal violence against other human beings and, eventually, against himself. With television acting as a catalyst, Max has managed to transform himself to the point of internalizing a value structure that was previously alien to him.
Flesh-objects in eXistenZ operate in a similar way, for a different purpose. Rather than symbolizing transformation, the eXistenZ game-pods represent self-inflicted delusion. The game-pod is both an interface between reality and fantasy and the embodiment of that fantasy - it is referred to both as a controller and as the storage medium for the entire game world. As an interface, the implication is obvious: the game-pod is the method by which Allegra and Pikul repeatedly seek to undermine their own sense of reality. As an embodiment of the game, the fleshy nature of the pod takes on special significance. The game-pods are surrounded by natal symbolism: their plump, hairless, membranous appearance; the mewling sound they make as they quiver; the maternal attitude that Allegra shows toward her pod; the vaginal nature of the connection port; and perhaps most powerfully, the "umbicord" with which they are connected. All of these symbols point toward the nature of the relationship between Allegra and her game-pod, that of creator and progeny. The derangement of understandable reality which pervades the film is a consequence of Allegra's own, deliberate, actions. When the virtual world is viewed as a symbol for the ideological fanaticism that compels Allegra (or, rather, the player who inhabits the character of Allegra, one level of diegesis removed) to assassinate Yevgeny Nourish at the end of the movie, it is particularly poignant that immersion in that world is not only voluntary but, in fact, the culmination of a great deal of effort. Under this interpretation, the moment when Allegra, the creator figure, plugs the pod's umbicord into her port and inverts her relationship with the flesh-object, becoming both engulfed by the virtual reality provided by the pod and sustained by it, is a powerful metaphor for the moment when faith becomes zealotry.
All this is to say that flesh-objects play a significant role in Cronenberg's construction of a world imbued with meaning. And now the flesh-object has another role, outside the particular films of David Cronenberg.
The Epidermits Interactive Device is a conceptual artwork created by Stuart Karten as part of a series titled "Cautionary Visions". The Epidermits is a bionic organism intended to represent the logical conclusion of several current trends in toy design, if they were combined without any consideration for human interactions. The following quote, from the Epidermits website, covers the basic design goals:
In a world where the value of life decreases daily, where boundaries between real and artificial are increasingly blurred, comes the toy that will truly confuse kids and rob them of any remaining sense of the natural. Epidermits are fully functioning organisms, resulting from advanced tissue engineering and the latest fuel cell and electronics technology. They don't feel pain - or think - but follow a complex set of algorithms. They require minimal maintenance, can be stored in a state of forced hibernation in a standard refrigerator, and are customizable with different body, skin and hair selections and through tanning, tattooing and piercing.
It's interesting to note the similarities between the Epidermits and the flesh-objects employed by Cronenberg, especially the pods from eXistenZ. Both are explicitly designed to blur the boundaries between real and artificial by merging organic material and behavior (representing the abstract real) with mechanical and technological gadgetry (representing the man-made, or artificially constructed). Both deal with the human desire to control through customization, although the Epidermits does so only by presenting a highly customizable facet of the audience's external world, while the game-pod has the more ambitious intent of replacing it entirely with a customized fantasy world. Perhaps most interesting, though, is the idea of technology's progression toward an ambiguously lifelike state. What, after all, really differentiates thinking - or feeling, for that matter - from "following a complex set of algorithms" that govern our attitudes and behaviors?
For more information on the Epidermits, see the designer's page, this article in Wired, and this page from the New York Museum of Modern Art.