Page 191 - Cyberculture and New Media
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182          Cyborg Goddesses: The Mainframe Revisited
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                             trilogy: Resident Evil: Extinction. The T-virus contamination, wiping out all
                             living  beings  and  leaving  the  rest  zombie-like,  enacts  major  scenes  on  the
                             Nevada  desert.  Therefore,  desert  scenes  intertwine  with  high-technology
                             science laboratories. In this sequel to the film, entry to the high technology
                             lab is through a  shabby hut  in the  middle of the desert, as opposed to the
                             mansion in the first two films: reinforcing strong suggestions of extinction in
                             the desert. Alice in her sand color sexy attire operates with high-powered in
                             built and external weapons to rescue the survivors together with other officers
                             she  meets.  Superimposed  over  this  background  is  Alice’s  cloning.  The
                             scientist this time ventures into multiplying Alice innumerably to obtain the
                             antidote  through  her  blood.  Alice’s  multiplication  however  is  a  hopeful
                             remark  of  survival  to  the  benefit  of  those  who  still  exists  in  the  north.
                             Therefore,  the  female  figure  is  yet  again  future’s  hope  after  the  techno
                             deluge.
                                    Thus,  as  opposed  to  the  emphasized  technological  dimension,  the
                             pastoral element loses ground. The friendly raccoon of the former two films,
                             in Resident Evil: Extinction leaves its place to the crows. Alice destroys all
                             contaminated  and  mutated  ferocious  crows  feeding  over  contaminated
                             humans. Quite a gothic literary symbol the crows, get wiped-out in Alice’s
                             concentrated  superhuman  power.  Therefore,  in  the  Resident  Evil  films  a
                             technologically enhanced human nature wins over both bland nature and evil.
                             Alice’s artificially multiplied body is another example to this condition. In
                             the  American  myth  and  symbol  context,  Leo  Marx’s  The  Machine  in  the
                             Garden, (1964) emphasizes the train as a well-known symbol for technology,
                             just as the bridge is, in Alan Trachtenberg’s the Brooklyn Bridge: Myth and
                             Symbol for a Nation, (1979). These are former examples  bringing together
                             the technologic and the natural as part of an understanding of a usable past
                             bringing together fact and fiction. The contemporary technologic era evolves
                             exponentially in an accelerated pace. All the way from the Corliss engine, the
                             steamboat, the train, the cars, the rockets, and computers towards an age of
                             genetics an update in reconciliation of new means of technologic expression
                             along with classical understandings of myth and symbol seems to indicate a
                             necessity.  In  this  respect,  scientific  developments  along  with  literary  and
                             cultural reference points need reevaluation at each stage in relation to their
                             cultural contexts.
                                    Within  the  context  of  the  cyborg  goddess,  the  feminine  as
                             technology’s  vessel  adds  further  into  the  myth  and  symbol  construction.
                             Different  from  Donna  Haraway’s  cyborg  with  no  origin  story  but  a  mere
                             oppositional  utopic  construction  at  the  critical  edge,  the  cyborg  goddess,
                             combines in one the past, present and the future. All the way from the Cybele
                             cult onwards as a builder of civilizations, an understanding of regeneration by
                             means of violence oscillated from gender to gender through history. First, to
                             the detriment of the male gender, then the feminine and now in the present
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