Posthuman Lessons of the Televisual: Science Fiction and the Praxis of Techno-Humanity

Abstract

The figure of the cyborg has been extremely popular in both science fiction film and in posthuman theory as a leading visual trope of human-technology interaction and even fusion. While the cyborg represents different variations of this symbionic relationship, the cinematic medium and the genre in which it often appears set up a practice between viewer and technological media which gives rise to a techno-human mode of seeing and thinking. This practice is examined here through the notion of the “televisual,” understood as the ability of the medium to bridge over various spatial, temporal, and ontological distances by means of the visual image. The lessons of the televisual teach us that beyond the fictional plots and worlds of technologically driven science fiction film, its praxis engages us in a techno-human epistemology and in an ontological expansion that goes beyond the present. At the same time, while the technological and spectacular innovations of science fiction continue to create new kinds of images for us, this article concludes, tools and technology have constructed human identity from the start, forming humanity as homo technologicus.