Page 166 - Cyberculture and New Media

Cyborg Goddesses: The Mainframe Revisited

Leman Giresunlu

Abstract
In current popular film media, human technology interface
representations are often characterised through the female gender in the role
of both creator and terminator, lending an omnipotent attribute to this gender.
The use of godly female images in the service of human-to-machine
technology interfaces is also reminiscent of both major technological
innovations and well-known vessels in history and literature, all of which
took names with feminine qualities. Thus, the mythological goddess cult’s
manifestations evident in Anatolia and neighboring regions inspired echoes in
classical American literature as well as in current popular films. This affords
a comparative cultural perspective evolving towards futuristic openings.
Current science fiction movies employ the omnipotent female image
with a dual capacity of realizing good and evil combined into one, as evinced
in several well-established works, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Lara Croft: the
Cradle of Life, Resident Evil, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Resident Evil:
Extinction, Minority Report, I Robot and Ghost in the Shell. These movies
incite critical questioning of faith, science, technology, self and identity
formation in race, class and gender from a feminist perspective and as an
alternative to conventional codifications of power.

Key Words: American Literature, Archaeology, Mythology, Popular
Culture, Science Fiction, Cyborg, Goddess, Donna Haraway, Hollywood.

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1. Introduction
I will analyze gender articulations along race and class lines in
human machine interfaces seen in recent movies such as, Lara Croft: Tomb
Raider, Lara Croft: The Cradle of Life, Resident Evil, Resident Evil:
Apocalypse, Minority Report, I Robot, Ghost in the Shell, Ghost in the Shell
2: Innocence. In these examples, human-machine interfaces manifest through
the female gender as a creator, and terminator, lending a godly attribute to the
gender. The choice of an omnipotent female image to negotiate the human
machine interface is reminiscent of significant technological inventions or
well-known vessels in history and literature, christened with names
projecting feminine aspects. Almost any quick glance at classic and recent
works provides a rather long list of such examples: the vessels Rachel and
Pequod in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick; the mainframe computer Red
Queen in the movie Resident Evil, where, additionally, Queen’s holographic