Film series: Human Resources: Alienation, the Body, and Science Fiction
In recent years, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic, increased attention has been given to the intensification of social alienation as a consequence of rapid technological development. People increasingly seek online social spaces to find community and human connection, leading to a rise in political radicalization and techno-fetishism. This phenomenon, alongside the rise of artificial intelligence and the lionization of tech figures such as Elon Musk, raises complex ethical questions about the relationship between human beings and technology.
“Human Resources: Alienation, the Body, and Science Fiction” brings together a dynamic selection of science fiction films that position the human body as a site for examining the extractive nature of a hyper-technologized, capitalist society and its consequences. From the use of a random, passing pedestrian as a shield against bullets in Total Recall (1990) to the use of men as live blood banks and women as “breeders” for milk and children in Mad Max: Fury Road (2019), a common thread across these films is their focus on the body — through violence, extraction, and modification — as an arena in which to shed light on, and disrupt, our contemporary notions of human experience, temporality, and selfhood.
This series ultimately proposes that science-fiction can be seen not only as an imaginative realm for possible futures, but also as a genre that can help us understand contemporary social relations, the contradictions inherent within capitalist society, and the dangers of focusing on the optimization of human life.
The series curated by graduate student Duncan Eaton, PhD candidate in the Department of History at Cornell, in collaboration with Cornell Cinema.
