If you are reading this thesis on a computer screen, you are already posthuman. The words you see here are ideas and representational patterns of intelligence separated from my body. For all you know, I could be a robot.<\/span><\/p>\n In her book <\/span>How We Became Posthuman<\/span><\/i> (1999), Katherine Hayles addresses the emerging distinction between corporeality and the more abstract reality of information in the age of technology. Society has already begun its transition to the age of the posthuman as culture, science, and even our understanding of self have moved beyond the state of human existence. According to Hayles, the posthuman view, \u201cprivileges informational pattern over material instantiation, so that embodiment\u2026is seen as an accident of history rather than an inevitability of life\u201d (Hayles 2). Posthumanism separates the mind and body and translates both into products of the informational age- body as the physical prosthesis that is manipulated by the mind, a mind which becomes a series of codes and informational patterns existing both with and without tangible form. In an age where technology is such an integral part of human life, there remains an inherent fear about losing oneself to the progressive creep of the digital, disembodied reality. If the patterns and codes of information and intelligence can exist without the body, then human form becomes less exceptional and more expendable.<\/span><\/p>\n In 1950, when computer technologies were just beginning to become more widely known to the public, computer scientist Alan Turing devised a test to see if machines could think and imitate human speech patterns through text in a way indistinguishable from a real person, all without the physical presence of another being. This \u201cimitation game\u201d became a paradigm for detecting whether the posthuman could flawlessly reproduce human intelligence through, \u201cthe formal generation and manipulation of informational patterns\u201d (Hayles xi). In the Turing test, a human tester is situated apart from their subject, and must have a series of natural language conversations to determine if the subject is human or machine, and sometimes then if they are male or female. This test relies on the tester being unable to see the subjects, who may or may not exist on the other end of a computer terminal. An artificially intelligent entity should be able to replicate human vocal performance, even including facets of gender presentation, well enough to fool the tester, proving that machines can think. Internet users participate in their own form of Turing test via the CAPTCHA system on most websites, which ask users to prove their humanity by solving a letter puzzle or identify imagery that the typical bot program would fail to complete. CAPTCHA in this case stands for \u201cCompletely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart,\u201d where the computer learns from the human answers, and adjusts its intelligence accordingly to appropriately act more human. For example, the program may ask users to identify a set of distorted words or correctly distinguish colors in a gridded photograph that the typical computer program cannot solve through an algorithm. Your answer teaches the computer how to respond, and its intelligence evolves. Eventually, even bots can fool bots by adapting their performance to the information garnered from human labor.<\/span><\/p>\n For science fiction literature, the figure of the robot, with its mechanical body and encoded consciousness, becomes the perfect metaphor for man seamlessly integrated with the machine. These androids are constructed in man\u2019s own image, imbued with a replicated humanity in the form of codified patterns and programming that enables the appearance of consciousness. The term \u2018robot\u2019 first appeared in Czech writer <\/span>Karel \u010capek\u2019s play <\/span>Rossum\u2019s Universal Robots<\/span><\/i> (1920), which imagines the <\/span>roboti<\/span><\/i> as manufactured, artificial people made of synthetic organic matter. While they are not depicted as the same circuit-driven cyborgs often seen in modern science fiction, since their inception robots have been wrapped in identity politics. In \u010capek\u2019s writing, the robots are a servant class, but recognize humanity in themselves despite being mass-produced by artificial means. In fact, the word <\/span>roboti<\/span><\/i> in the original Czech language comes from <\/span>robota<\/span><\/i>, meaning slave labor. From inception, these creations have been viewed as subhuman, rather than posthuman, and performance and labor are encoded in robots from their origin. Their bodies are modeled on human figures, and much of the human notion of self is based on binary gender presentation- anything else is other and foreign. These cyborgs are then restricted by societal conventions, their interactions with the human dictated by hierarchical and patriarchal relationships between master and slave, tester and subject, and man and woman. \u00a0Science fiction literature imagines technology so advanced that these robots fulfill a variant of humanity and femininity that allows machines to replace marriages, cyborgs to satisfy sexual urges, and androids to perfectly reproduce art.<\/span><\/p>\n The following analyses examine the power of performative humanity as demonstrated by the artificial female figures of posthuman imagination in literature from 1938 through 2015, observing the traditions of gender roles juxtaposed with imagined visions of the future of technology. In a field so defined by Turing\u2019s examination of gender performance, posthuman artificial intelligence reflects its human creators, revealing through discussions of sexuality, domesticity, and creativity exactly what it means to be a human in an increasingly technological era. Furthermore, by representing what it means to be human, cyborgs provide feminist scholars a lens through which to imagine the postgender future in which individuals can overcome the traditional binaries. Ultimately, by demonstrating human fetishization of embodiment and the prestige of disembodied intelligence, the female robots of science fiction reveal both the future potential and the present shortcomings of what it means to truly be a human in the posthuman world.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Deus Sex Machina- Humans and the Cyborgasmic<\/b><\/p>\n \u201c<\/span>You must create a female for me, with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being<\/span><\/i>.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u2013 <\/span>Frankenstein<\/span><\/i>, Mary Shelley (1818)<\/span><\/p>\n The above quote from <\/span>Frankenstein<\/span><\/i> comes from the creature himself, who is a manufactured man committing himself to the pursuit of a very human desire for sexual companionship. The monster was made by Victor Frankenstein to be a human, and whether subconsciously or not, the being feels compelled here to make a request for his equal, a woman, in order to attain that humanity within him. This female creature is never fully realized, but in her partial construction begins to fulfill the human desires of her monstrous partner. \u00a0Reflecting on the state of technology\u2019s purpose in <\/span>Sex and the Posthuman Condition<\/span><\/i> (2014), Michael Hauskeller notes that the machine \u201cis always something that has been constructed to serve a certain purpose, which is not primarily [its] own purpose, but the constructor\u2019s\u201d (Hauskeller 16). Even the most highly advanced robot is an object with a programmed or otherwise intended directive, performing based on its internal code. Science fiction imagines the cyborg figure to be devoted to fulfilling their man-given purpose while also appearing as natural as possible, leading to a host of circumstances in which the robot technology replaces human ability in strength, precision, or durability. Robots are also increasingly being considered for their sexual purposes beyond those fantastical situations of space exploration and alien encounters in science fiction.<\/span><\/p>\n Hauskeller suggests that sexual cyborgs, or sexbots, ideally are, \u201calways available to serve all our sexual needs\u2026better and more reliably than any human lover could\u201d (Hauskeller 18). Nonliving, they are touted as hygienic alternatives to innately human problems such as sexually transmitted infections, physical deficiencies, and even psychological responses regarding intimacy and issues of consent. In this way, the sexbot becomes a highly functioning object which consistently and tirelessly projects the \u201cappearance of consciousness,\u201d which is the closest that human inventors can achieve in replicating the artificial mind (Hauskeller 16). This reproduction of human interaction soothes our anxieties about interacting with the machine in such a manner that usually connotes expressions of love, partnership, or desire.<\/span><\/p>\n The carnal synthesis of man and the machine creates an experience that is both cybernetic and organic, but decidedly one-sided despite artificial insistence of arousal or interest in human pleasure. Sex fulfills no biological requirements for the cyborg, only mechanical obligations to satisfy the human partner and achieve their programmed ends. It is possible to consider the act of copulation with a robot to be a form of parasitism, where the human achieves sexual pleasure by feeding off of the mechanical agent. In contrast, feminist Jincey Lumpkin believes that humans should consider \u201cthat robots should have a choice too and not be treated as mere things\u2026 because constructing them without the choice to say no would cause duress,\u201d suggesting that the artificial mind should have the same decision-making capacity as a human rather than simply responding to a constructed directive (Hauskeller 16). This element of human-cyborg relations prompts an interesting examination of human desire and the treatment of objects versus conscious beings, because if these robots are built to imitate humans, then moral reasoning processes, as well as the exercising of choice and preference, could be inbuilt in the artificially intelligent mind.<\/span><\/p>\n Considering this, science fiction literature opens the discussion into ideas of consensual sex with robots, treating them as if their humanity will become indistinguishable with our own. The robots will eventually deceive humans into believing in their own consciousness and life, but in creating these robotic partners, people relinquish their own understanding of the dichotomy between human consciousness and robotic simulation. When this becomes the case, the robots fall into the same constraints of gender performance and sexual roles as there are in current society. Sexual female robots, such as the following examples, represent the typically desired female body while projecting a woman\u2019s consciousness, fulfilling male romantic desire in a heteronormative reconstruction of idealized human intimacy. It does not matter if the robot can or cannot feel, as at the core of these instances lies a test of the human capacity and even perhaps the human fear of coupling with the cyborg.<\/span><\/p>\n In <\/span>Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?<\/span><\/i> (1968), it takes a confrontation with a particularly amoral human male for Rick Deckard to qualify his romantic and sexual urges towards the Nexus-6 model Rachael Rosen: \u201cLove toward a woman or an android imitation, it\u2019s sex. Wake up and face yourself, Deckard. You wanted to go to bed with a female type of android- nothing more, nothing less\u201d (Dick 143). To face himself, Deckard must confront his personal human wants versus those necessitated by his job as a bounty hunter. Throughout the novel, humans distinguish themselves from their android opponents through the innate emotional concept of empathy, which the robots supposedly lack. Phil Resch, a ruthless bounty hunter, even warns Deckard, \u201cDon\u2019t kill her- or be present when she\u2019s killed- and then feel physically attracted. Do it the other way\u201d (Dick 143). Deckard must act on his urge before the robot is retired, or else risk failing to fulfill both his hunting assignment and his human desire for sex. Falling in love with robots, Hauskeller claims, \u201cproves we are easily duped,\u201d and, \u201cwe will find it very difficult not to attribute consciousness,\u201d to an advanced enough robot based on its design and presentation of human behaviors (Hauskeller 20). Deckard finds himself in the position of attributing consciousness to Rachael Rosen, \u201cbecause she- it- was physically attractive,\u201d and with that he projects his own sexual desires onto her, his judgment sufficiently clouded by the advanced design of the Rosen Corporation\u2019s artificial humans (Dick 143).<\/span><\/p>\n When he and Rachael have an intimate encounter in a hotel, Rick Deckard continues to, \u201cwonder what it\u2019s like to kiss an android,\u201d and then acts on his curiosity: \u201cLeaning forward an inch, he kissed her dry lips. No reaction followed; Rachael remained impassive. As if unaffected. And yet he sensed otherwise. Or perhaps it was wishful thinking\u201d (Dick 189). Rachael Rosen does not project the behavioral output of arousal or stimulation, and yet Deckard still considers her sexually appealing, though he comments on her figure as being \u201cneutral, nonsexual\u201d (Dick 187). Her unaffected nature almost mirrors that of a disinterested woman playing hard to get, which some men consider more attractive and desirous than a woman who is too wholly interested. Mechanical indifference translates to human curiosity, and Deckard\u2019s wishful thinking of Rachael\u2019s reaction contributes to his sexual satisfaction. Hauskeller suggests that in the future, \u201cthe pleasures of the body may eventually be completely disconnected from the actual body as its (necessary) source\u201d as anatomical robots who can recreate those sexual experiences become increasingly virtual (6). Rachael\u2019s lack of physical output incites Deckard\u2019s arousal even without the integration of her body into a sexual encounter with the bounty hunter.<\/span><\/p>\n Hauskeller cites a historical precedent for male erotic desire towards nonliving female bodies when Ovid\u2019s Pygmalion character finds himself attracted to his own statue because, \u201cshe is supposedly a living woman, but without the flaws\u2026 she is perfect and pure, and perfectly usable\u201d (28). The word \u201cusable\u201d suggests the servitude of the robot body, relegating the artificial woman to the status of an object meant for consumption by the male owner. This relates to the robot\u2019s origins as a slave figure, and in the context of Dick\u2019s novel, recalls the status of the escaped Nexus-6 androids as servants for the emigrants of Mars. Rachael suggests \u201cit\u2019s an illusion that I- I personally- really exist; I\u2019m just a representative of a type\u201d and uses diction of purity to describe the \u201cclean, noble, virgin\u201d bed she plans to seduce Deckard on (Dick 193). Because she is synthetic, Rachael does not adhere to the socially-constructed idea of a biological virginity but rather a purity of herself because flesh and its pleasures represent inherent flaws of humanity. Interestingly, she has seduced other bounty hunters before Deckard and so does not represent a sexual naivety typically associated with a virginal state. Rachael assures Deckard he is \u201cnot going to bed with a woman,\u201d which is, \u201cconvincing if you don\u2019t think too much about it. But if you think too much, if you reflect on what you\u2019re doing- you can\u2019t go on,\u201d in a similar manner to how Hauskeller suggests humans can allow ourselves to be fooled by the robots\u2019 programming into believing their consciousness and consent (Dick 194). Contrary to the ideal imagination of the sexbot figure, Rachael behaves in a sexual manner mostly to her benefit, although the experience also simultaneously satisfies Deckard\u2019s innate desires.<\/span><\/p>\n When deeply confused by his own sexual urges towards Ava in Alex Garland\u2019s <\/span>Ex Machina<\/span><\/i> (2015), Caleb confronts the man who programmed the cyborg and enquires about her capacity to act autonomously on her desires. Nathan insists that Ava behaves freely due to the advanced coding in her mind. He suggests he \u201cprogrammed her to be heterosexual just like,\u201d anyone else, putting the exact nature of robot\u2019s sexuality in line with the young man\u2019s own innate desires (Garland). Caleb rejects the idea that he has been programmed to be heterosexual by any external factors, believing his sexuality to be an innate part of his humanity. The film plays with the debate of nature versus nurture, suggesting that humans are programmed by their experience with information coded by some outside source to call into question the ultimate end of our sexual desires. Either sex is something a human is designed to do, like an android has a purpose, or it naturally occurs as an instinctive human behavior. \u201cConsciousness is not something inferred from behavior; it is behavior,\u201d according to Hauskeller, and Caleb\u2019s anxiety over Ava\u2019s programming calls his own human exceptionalism into question (23). If humans, and more specifically human sexuality can be programmed, then Caleb has the potential to be manipulated based on his own purpose given by the force behind his desires. This raises the anxiety surrounding Caleb\u2019s perception of himself and his own autonomy.<\/span><\/p>\n Visually, Ava has been designed to appear like an attractive human woman, although some of her circuitry is exposed in order to reinforce that she is, indeed, a robot. Nathan even confirms that he programmed her to receive sensory feedback, \u201cso if you want to screw her, mechanically speaking, you can\u201d (Garland). He uses the word \u201cmechanically,\u201d which here has double meaning relating to the mechanics of sexual intercourse and also the act of copulating with an inorganic, mechanical being. Ava\u2019s hands and face resemble human flesh, while the rest of her is more explicitly transparent mesh and wires. Existing between the mechanical and the organic, however, are her breasts and hips, which are constructed of grey material that does not allow the viewer to see through her structure. Rather, these areas function like a bra and underwear, suggesting that perhaps there is some bit of womanhood behind her exterior shell, including the, \u201ccavity between her legs with a concentration of sensors,\u201d Nathan has included in her design (Garland). Ava\u2019s sexual potential becomes a key part of the Turing test exercise because of this emphasis, as Caleb fears her flirting will cloud his judgment because again, \u201cwe will find it very difficult not to attribute consciousness,\u201d to intelligent, sexual robots with whom humans may eventually engage (Hauskeller 20). In the case of Ava, Nathan has devised sensors that will effectively provide positive feedback to her programmed mind, allowing her to react to a phallic stimulus with pleasure to encourage her proper participation in transhuman intercourse. While she and Caleb never reach this point in the film, this suggests that her creator, Nathan, has tested this programmed feature to ensure her appropriate execution of her sexual simulations.<\/span><\/p>\n Caleb eventually realizes that the inventor has designed, \u201cher face based on my pornography profile,\u201d with data scraped from his search engine inputs (Garland). The young man\u2019s digital footprint has provided all the code that Nathan needed to construct Ava on the theory that, \u201ca real human lover can be replaced by a robot without loss if and only if other people can already never be more than a means for us,\u201d (Hauskeller 14). By \u201ca means,\u201d Hauskeller refers to a means to sexual arousal- while Ava is not explicitly presented as a sexual partner for Caleb, he inevitably finds himself attracted to her because she occupies the same space as a pornographic performer who he observes as a means to pleasure himself. In the film, Ava and Caleb most often interact from opposite sides of a glass enclosure, adding an element of removal to Caleb\u2019s viewing of the Turing test subject. While in a true Turing test the examiner would be unable to see the test subject, the added visual dimension allows Nathan\u2019s design to play on the man\u2019s personal tastes in women, which the inventor describes as, \u201ca consequence of accumulated external stimulus, that you probably didn\u2019t even register as they registered with you\u201d (Garland). These stimuli provide the \u201cprogramming\u201d of Caleb\u2019s heterosexuality that the inventor alludes to, and result in his potential to be manipulated by these desires. The glass walls of the enclosure are arranged to recreate the experience of viewing pornography, where Caleb looks into an enclosed \u201cscreen\u201d that displays the object of his desire. The layers of separation in the Turing test environment further the distance of the isolated tester gazing in on his fetishized subject. Ava\u2019s features optimize those stimuli which have, whether unconsciously or not, contributed to Caleb\u2019s self-pleasuring interactions within the digital sphere. As he views Ava from a removed position, she subtly fulfills those innate voyeuristic urges that led the man to watch porn in the first place. While he may not believe that his sexuality has been programmed into him, <\/span>Ex Machina<\/span><\/i> suggests that his data may then be used in turn to program the exact object of his desire, allowing sexuality to be exploited by the resultant robot.<\/span><\/p>\n In the humorous and frightening case of Ira Levin\u2019s satire <\/span>The Stepford Wives<\/span><\/i> (1972), the robotic replicas that replace the working women of the sleepy Connecticut suburb are augmented physically to fulfill the needs of their previously unsatisfied husbands, in accordance with Hauskeller\u2019s definition of the ideal sexbot. Joanna Eberhart takes constant notice of the buxom figures of her neighbors, like Carol with her, \u201cprofile of too-big bosom\u2026her big purpled breasts,\u201d which, \u201cbobbed with her scrubbing\u201d (Levin 9). After her closest ally Bobbie Markowe has been replaced with a lobotomized, robotic double, Joanna finds her, \u201cwearing some kind of padded high-uplift bra under her green sweater, and a hip-whittling girdle under the brown pleated skirt,\u201d as if being a proper Stepford wife necessitates having enhanced breasts (Levin 81-2). Built as a reflection of their husbands\u2019 desires, these wives have their intellectual substance reduced, replaced with artificial augmentation of phenotypic features that make women alluring to men. While Hauskeller states that the perfect sexbots will, \u201cmake it far easier to forget that they are just machines who do not really think or feel anything,\u201d the men of Stepford find their wives\u2019 lack of thought even more attractive, as it makes them less likely to disagree with their chores and sexual responsibilities in the marriage (Hauskeller 13).<\/span><\/p>\n Joanna asks \u201cthe going price for a stay-in-the-kitchen wife with big boobs and no demands,\u201d curious to know the true cost of turning the women into domestic slaves (Levin 105). With another reference to the women\u2019s breasts, the sexual allure of the robot women is highlighted again as one of the few defining features of these automatons. Along with the physically attractive figure, the Stepford sexbots have \u201cno demands,\u201d as mindless, happy slaves to their husbands\u2019 whims. Hauskeller suggests that one psychological reason that sexual robots appeal to human sensibilities is that they allow \u201cus to only ever confront <\/span>ourselves<\/span><\/i> without ever having to <\/span>confront <\/span><\/i>ourselves,\u201d due to the nature of displacing our own identity into the robotic other (Hauskeller 77). Cyborg sex partners allow us to avoid rejection by taking out the conscious person on the other side of the act; the person who has \u201cdemands\u201d and has the ability to refuse the sexual encounter. One evening, Walter Eberhart returns home late following a meeting at the Men\u2019s Association and wakes Joanna by pleasuring himself in bed:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe bed was shaking\u2026each shake was accompanied by a faint spring-squeak, again and again and again. It was Walter who was shaking\u2026 Had he been- masturbating?<\/span><\/p>\n He lay still. \u2018I didn\u2019t want to wake you,\u2019 he said. \u2018It\u2019s after two.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018You could have,\u2019 she said. \u2018Woke me. I wouldn\u2019t have minded.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n He didn\u2019t say anything\u201d (Levin 15).<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n By now, Joanna\u2019s husband Walter has been exposed to the Men\u2019s Association and its operation of replacing the wives of Stepford with docile robot doubles. This initially one-sided sexual encounter illustrates an instance of that fear of sexual rejection Hauskeller believes that robots allow us to avoid. Walter must take to stimulating himself while his wife is asleep, believing that she will not consent to joining him in intercourse if he interrupts her rest. Joanna, once woken, eventually decides to have sex with him in what, \u201cturned out to be one of their best times ever- for her, at least\u201d (Levin 17). However, while she was asleep and therefore unable to consent, Walter resorted to instead taking care of his own urges through masturbation, the ultimate sexual self-encounter. The Stepford wives manufactured by the Men\u2019s Association overcome this problem as they are perpetually preoccupied with pleasing their husbands in both the domestic and sexual realms.<\/span><\/p>\n In the Marvel Comics serial <\/span>The Vision<\/span><\/i> (2015), the synthetic android Vision constructs a wife for himself when he can no longer associate with the human woman he loves, a hero named Wanda. From his wife Virginia\u2019s mental structure combined with his, he generates two children with whom they form a nuclear family unit and attempt to pass as normal in their suburban neighborhood. This series presents the idea of a robot creating his own robotic partner, done with a \u201ccertain purpose, which is\u2026the constructor\u2019s\u201d intent to have an artificial but equal sexual companion to replace what he lost with Wanda, a human woman (Hauskeller 16). In a full page flashback sequence depicting Wanda and Vision in bed together, visual signs of passion surround the couple. With Bellaire\u2019s coloring tinting the page with red and pinks, the sense of organic heat and sexual arousal saturate the page. Behind them is the caption \u201cI Too Shall Be Saved By Love\u201d, which is the title of the single issue as well as a reference to a quote spoken by the android in a 1963 issue of the <\/span>Avengers<\/span><\/i> series. The syntax reflects Vision\u2019s own complex speech mannerisms, and suggests that love in whatever form he achieves it will make him redeemable, in this case more organic than synthetic. Artist Michael Walsh includes the sight of tousled garments to demonstrate the haste and visceral nature of Vision and Wanda\u2019s sexual encounter. The curvature of the headboard and the pillows behind the resting couple further attest to a certain natural softness involved in tender intimacy (King 3). \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The issue\u2019s conclusion loops back to the opening scene recast on the last page with the two synthetic androids, Vision and his wife Virginia, sitting upright in a shared bed, cold and aloof. Here, Virginia represents \u201ca \u2018soulless\u2019 lover\u201d which is one type of what Hauskeller identifies as \u201cunsatisfying women,\u201d and Walsh\u2019s distinct alterations to the environment of the opening scene as well as Bellaire\u2019s appropriate coloration of the page reveal the loss of life and soul in Vision\u2019s romantic relations following Wanda\u2019s departure (Hauskeller 23). The couple\u2019s headboard is now square and the bed lacks any pillows, revealing that the eroticism and intimacy have been removed and replaced with distance and mechanism. Bellaire\u2019s color palette switches here to blues and greys, recreating the sense of the mechanical bodies not producing any heat. This physical coldness can also indicate an emotional coldness, and again there can be sexual desire found in being somewhat disinterested. Here, though, the coldness is mutual, with the androids\u2019 red tones dimmed by the darkness of the bedroom. Folded clothes and shadows cast over their faces complete this uncomfortable scene of mechanical marital disconnect, which emphasizes the loss of soul in this relationship (King 22). \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n While her name is meant to be alliterative, as all of Vision\u2019s family have names beginning with \u2018V\u2019, his wife\u2019s name Virginia suggests a virginal quality and the removal of the messy human intimacy he once experienced with Wanda in exchange for a new, pure form. In this way, she does not exactly function like a sex robot, but is still constructed to replace a lack of human intimacy in a sterile manner. Hauskeller suggests that sexbots, \u201cbehave in all respects exactly like we would expect someone to behave who really loved us\u2026they have been <\/span>designed<\/span><\/i> that way\u201d (21). If these sexbots behave exactly as humans expect, then perhaps human reactions to these robots are also predictable behavior, acting to elicit a certain response from the machine. While Vision is not human, he represents the more autonomous side of their mechanical marriage. Virginia exhibits the appearance of consciousness and romantic partnership through her programming designed to imitate Wanda, and Vision behaves formulaically, hoping to revive that lost experience through vocal performative testing. As Vision trots out the same \u201ctalking toaster\u201d joke to his wife as he had Wanda at the start of the issue, it becomes clear that he created his wife Virginia to exactly replace what he lost as he tries to reconstruct everything from memories. Her \u201ccertain purpose\u201d in life should position her as an equal to her husband because they are both androids, but her artificiality and programmed directive fill a void in Vision\u2019s life and service his egoism and desire for \u201cnormalcy\u201d (Hauskeller 16). \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Vision represents the human and creator in the relationship, perhaps due to the fact that although he is an android, he has had more life experience than any of his artificial family. By retelling the joke, he is testing his wife, hoping she will react with the same humor as his human lover had once done. While it remains unseen exactly how Virginia reacts to the punchline, there is a sense of unease as the joke implies an examination of the android couple\u2019s own sentience and capacity to express emotion. Vision has not been \u201csaved by love\u201d as he had hoped initially, but rather becomes trapped by it, deluding himself with a wife \u201cdesigned to behave as if\u201d she loves him while he is simultaneously obligated to behave as if he loves her in the same way (Hauskeller 21). Pairing oneself with a robot in each of these cases serves to replace a lost intimacy and eliminate the element of consent from the coupling of a human male and a robotic female. This occurs at the expense of humanity, effectively sterilizing the relationship and isolating it, trading longevity for constant instant gratification from the idealized sexbot figure, suggesting that humans too may be concerned with satisfying their internal, preprogrammed compulsions.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Majordomo Arigato, Mrs. Roboto- Programming the Domestic<\/b><\/p>\n \u201c<\/span>I saw it all now. That beautiful, lady-like girl that had ushered me into the room, whom I had taken for his wife, was an automaton! That doll-like expression was due to the fact that she\u00a0was\u00a0a doll<\/span><\/i>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n –<\/span>The Lady Automaton<\/span><\/i>, E. E. Kellett (1901)<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Even before 1901 when Kellett wrote the short story <\/span>The Lady Automaton<\/span><\/i>, popular imagination has been fascinated with the idea of having a doll, statue, or other artificial being for a companion, slave, or even a spouse. \u00a0These beings appear human, but lack fundamental aspects of being biologically alive, which is a state of conflict that can be unsettling. In Freud\u2019s theory of <\/span>The Uncanny<\/span><\/i> (1919), he cites the German word <\/span>unheimlich<\/span><\/i>, which is the opposite of <\/span>heimlich<\/span><\/i> meaning \u201cfamiliar, belonging to the home\u201d as the origin for his explanation of this upsetting psychological sensation (Freud 2). Unheimlich, and from that the uncanny, represents \u201cthat class of the terrifying which leads back to something long known to us\u201d, a frightening liminal experience that simultaneously appears to be familiar but lacks the elements of truth that humans can understand (Freud 1). The concept of uncanniness describes alter-humans and states of existence, such as a dead corpse that once lived or a humanoid robot exposing circuits where flesh and blood should be. Masahiro Mori described \u201cthis type of unsettling experience as \u2018the uncanny valley\u2019- that psychic place when someone discovers that what looks animate is not really alive\u201d (Wosk 7). For example, Mori details the experience of touching \u201ca realistic-looking prosthetic hand\u201d that \u201cwhen touched, lacks the temperature of the human body and creates a sense of strangeness, unfamiliarity, or alienation, as though touching the hand of a corpse\u201d (Wosk 155). When asked if she could experience empathy for other robots, Rachael Rosen feels \u201csomething like that. Identification; there goes I\u2026 If I die\u2026maybe I\u2019ll be born again when the Rosen Association stamps out its next unit of my subtype\u201d (Dick 189). She recognizes other versions of her own robotic model type to be familiar, but frightening in their difference from her: she observes a self that is not herself. \u00a0Based on appearances, humans have an expectation of how interaction with these uncanny bodies should occur, but confrontation with a discordant or unusual sensation or experience causes terror of the irregular but somehow familiar.<\/span><\/p>\n For as \u2018un-homelike\u2019 as the female robot is, science fiction literature and media posits her as the perfect domestic caretaker and homemaker. To reduce the fear of the uncanny robot woman, she must be made completely known and familiar. In <\/span>My Fair Ladies<\/span><\/i>, Julie Wosk catalogues varieties of simulated women and notes that \u201crobots\u2026will have future caretaking roles, but it is largely men who have created ultrarealistic female interactive robots\u201d. \u00a0These cyborgs embody \u201cthe perfect woman: a fusion of happy domesticity and sexy playmate,\u201d and the idea of programming prescribed gender performance somehow eases the terror of the alter-human in the home (Wosk 3). Her appearance is familiar, and her requisite motherly warmth and spousal affection is expected. However, the robot lacks temperature, consciousness, and life, becoming a cold specter of perceptions of the feminine and domestic within the home. This lack of warmth both emotionally and physically betrays the expected comfort of a mother\u2019s love, or a lover\u2019s touch. Machine metals are cold to the touch, but artificial kindness is cold to the soul, playing into the uncanny home life of these robots. These automata reinforce a traditional nuclear family structure, replacing wives and mothers with a doting droid figure with a preprogrammed willingness to keep house, effectively preventing the figure from moving into the outside world.<\/span><\/p>\n Betty Friedan\u2019s <\/span>The Feminine Mystique<\/span><\/i> (1963) plays a key role in the insidiousness of the cyborg conspiracy plaguing <\/span>The Stepford Wives<\/span><\/i>. Often credited with sparking the movement of second-wave feminism, Friedan\u2019s work highlights what she called the \u201cproblem that has no name,\u201d a general sense of unhappiness and lack of fulfillment in American housewives (Friedan 15). Where first-wave feminism worked towards advances in women\u2019s suffrage, second-wave feminism as a movement focused on women\u2019s reproductive rights as well as sexuality, domestic abuse, and women in the workplace. <\/span>The Stepford Wives<\/span><\/i> reacts to this shift in attention, using <\/span>The Feminine Mystique<\/span><\/i> not as a catalyst for positive change within the novel, but as the beginning of the husbands\u2019 reactionary scrambling to control their free-thinking wives and rejecting the idea of unhappy housewives. Joanna Eberhart discovers that a Stepford Women\u2019s Association used to exist before the women supposedly lost interest. In this organization, the women discussed Friedan\u2019s text and engaged with civic issues before, \u201csome of the women moved away\u2026 and the rest of us just lost interest in it,\u201d according to former president Kit Sundersen (Levin 42). The organization was over fifty members strong, but their gatherings led to fear on the part of their husbands, who worried that this intellectual discussion would move the women away from their roles as housewives and caretakers, rather making them what Friedan describes as, \u201chigh-dominance women\u2026 free to choose rather than be bound by convention\u201d (Friedan 320). The disbanding of the Women\u2019s Association coincides with the introduction of Stepford\u2019s own animatronic replacements for these women, which also led to the decline of the Stepford League of Women Voters. While the housewives are revealed to be automata at the conclusion of the novel, the Stepford wives stand for women brainwashed by the pressures of maintaining appearances and conforming in 70\u2019s suburbia. These robots represent politically-minded women removed from the public sphere and replaced with artificially cheerful housewives who perform slavish work for the men of Stepford, becoming bound by the same convention that Friedan encourages women to overcome.<\/span><\/p>\n Having \u201cnever found a woman who fitted that \u2018happy housewife\u2019 image\u201d, Friedan explains that business and the sheer amount of time that domestic housework takes upholds the damaging image that the housewives feel a great sense of purpose in their roles (Friedan 237). Maintaining the illusion of dedication stems from a sense of insecurity that should they stop cleaning, these housewives will have no other power in the home. Throughout her brief time in Stepford, Joanna Eberhart notices the \u201csteady mechanical movements\u201d of the other women who polish trophies and wax the floors of their homes tirelessly (Levin 64). Before suspecting them of being robots, she considers her neighbors to be \u201ccompulsive [hausfraus]\u201d and \u201casking-to-be-exploited\u201d patsies, lacking any ability to stand up against their husbands (Levin 9). \u201cThe old mystique of feminine inferiority\u201d gave way to making women\u2019s roles \u201cin the home <\/span>equal<\/span><\/i> to man\u2019s role in society\u201d in order to keep women complacent in cooking and cleaning for the household (Friedan 239). Joanna fears that by becoming too engaged in household maintenance over her photography profession, she will relinquish her autonomy to a husband who will expect her to perform all of the domestic chores as the other wives in town do.<\/span><\/p>\n In order to ensure the women of Stepford adhere to their responsibilities, the Men\u2019s Association of Stepford takes the concept of this mystique one step further in actually manufacturing robot spouses who uphold the virtues of housewifery in the very same way that Friedan asserts that women are oppressed. After \u201cthe author of <\/span>The Feminine Mystique<\/span><\/i> addressed members of the Stepford Women\u2019s Club,\u201d Stepford Library records indicate the quick decline of the association that encouraged the women to seek fulfillment and community beyond the home (Levin 37). Joanna tries to speak with the former club president about the experience, but finds the other woman to be \u201clike an actress in a commercial\u2026pleased with detergents and floor wax, with cleansers and shampoos, and deodorants\u2026playing suburban housewives unconvincingly, too nicey-nice to be real\u201d (Levin 42-3). Joanna\u2019s assessment of the woman\u2019s artifice recalls Friedan\u2019s notion of the \u201csexual sell\u201d in which \u201cthe manufacturer of a certain cleaning device\u2026let the housewife have the illusion that she has become a professional, an expert in determining which cleaning tools to use for specific jobs,\u201d reinforcing the subjugation of women within the domestic sphere (Friedan 215). The Stepford wives make banal choices of which detergent to wash clothes with, or which wax to clean the floor with, and while it gives a semblance of control to the woman, her control in the domestic sphere keeps her subservient to the others in the household.<\/span><\/p>\n This illusion of choosing power upholds the mystique that keeps women unhappy in their homes as the role of housewife becomes an all-encompassing \u201ccareer\u201d that absorbs time and energy. Joanna suggests the buxom, cheerful women are \u201cplaying\u2026unconvincingly\u201d and too \u201cnicey-nice to be real,\u201d because the happiness exerted by the Stepford housewives conflicts with her notions of femininity and independence. It also challenges Friedan\u2019s theories which inspired second-wave feminists to seek new opportunities for women beyond the cloyingly domestic. \u00a0This cognitive dissonance, as well as Wosk\u2019s assertion that man\u2019s perfect robot fuses \u201chappy domesticity\u201d with a \u201csexy playmate,\u201d creates the sense of uncanniness that leads Joanna to further investigate the truth behind the relentlessly robotic housewives. The Stepford simulations silence opposition to the Men\u2019s Association by removing woman\u2019s consciousness from the equation entirely, relying on the gender performance of machines and antiquated ideals of the woman\u2019s role in the home to keep the illusion alive.<\/span><\/p>\n The eponymous Helen in Lester Del Rey\u2019s short story <\/span>Helen O\u2019Loy<\/span><\/i> (1938) functions so well as a constructed woman that she even fools her husband into forgetting that he built her out of metal as an experiment with a friend (Foley 371). Fresh from her packaging, Helen \u201cwas designed to express emotions\u2026ready to simulate every human action\u201d with more advanced technology than the previous robot built by Dave and Phil (Del Rey 52). Her name is an allusion to the famed Helen of Troy, whose beauty started a war, although the men call their own creation O\u2019Loy as a shortened form of \u201calloy\u201d, to reinforce that she \u201cwas\u2026 a dream in spun plastics and metals\u201d (Del Rey 49). While Helen embodies a new technology as a robot, she also represents classical beauty, femininity, and sensitivity in accordance with conventions of the perfect housewife. The men consider her the ideal female form, not unlike the idea of the girl-next-door type in this era, and this success thrives on gender performance as well as her physical allure and comparison to classic beauty in name and structure.<\/span><\/p>\n As a robot, Helen can only simulate human action and not truly live it, unlike Phil, the endocrinologist, who has \u201cperformed plenty of delicate operations on living tissues,\u201d before working with Dave to construct Helen (Del Rey 52). In <\/span>Anatomy of a Robot<\/span><\/i> (2014), Despina Kakoudaki notes:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBecause of the unusual romantic tone of the story, \u2018Helen O\u2019Loy\u2019 also presents an early version of a performative approach to humanity, in Helen\u2019s actions, her recognition of the encoded nature of femininity, and her adherence to normative gender roles ensure her ability to pass as a woman\u201d (Kakoudaki 187).<\/span><\/p>\n Helen\u2019s performance as a human successfully allows her husband to forget that he built her from disparate robotic parts. At first, Dave grows increasingly upset with Helen\u2019s infatuation with him, and Phil even informs her that \u201ca man wants flesh and blood, not rubber and metal,\u201d but Helen insists that in her mind, \u201cI am a woman. And you know how perfectly I\u2019m made to imitate a real woman\u2026in all ways\u201d (Del Rey 61). She primarily concerns herself with notions of romantic love, accommodating Dave in all the ways that she knows a woman should behave towards a man. While Phil insists that a real man does not want, \u201crubber and metal,\u201d they call her a \u201cdream in\u2026 metals,\u201d which conflicts with their desire of her perfect femininity. Helen finds herself imitating living behaviors, although her sense of identity is one of being a woman, causing brief cognitive dissonance between her understanding of self and of her motivations. In accordance with Betty Friedan\u2019s assessments of women\u2019s psychological states where the high-dominance woman breaks free of gender conventions, \u201cthe low-dominance woman was not free to be herself, she was other-directed. The more her self-depreciation, self-distrust, the more likely she was to\u2026wish she were more like someone else\u201d (Friedan 320). Helen O\u2019Loy yearns to be a woman that can please Dave\u2019s sensibilities, and so reads a series of romantic books to help her better understand how to imitate that person. Friedan\u2019s language of \u201cother-directed\u201d recalls the robotic, programmed nature of Helen, as well as the other domestic housewife robots, whose directive comes from the creator or husband figure.<\/span><\/p>\n Eventually, Dave\u2019s resistance to Helen\u2019s advances wears down and the two become happily married after realizing that, \u201cno man acts the way Dave had been acting because he hates a girl; only because he thinks he does- and thinks wrong\u201d (Del Rey 64). She makes a perfect bride and homemaker, and the couple grow up happy, even without having children. In his age, Dave begins to forget that he built his wife many years prior. Eventually, Helen enlists the help of Phil to physically alter her face as Dave grows older so that she may properly maintain the illusion of her womanhood for her husband, as she is unable to age due to her synthetic nature. Like a woman with her makeup Helen, \u201cput lines in her face and grayed her hair without letting Dave know she wasn\u2019t growing old with him\u201d (Del Rey 64). In this sense, her uncanny nature lends itself to a sense of timelessness, not unlike her classical beauty for which she was named. Helen exists outside of human aging, being a machine, and must therefore manually alter herself to appear as something she is not, eventually fooling even the men who created her from repurposed parts.<\/span><\/p>\n In <\/span>The Vision<\/span><\/i>, Vision and Virginia execute functions of normal marital love, but recognizing her artifice leads Vision to have anxieties over his wife\u2019s uncanny nature and the deceptive appearances of his own family life. Waking in the middle of the night, Vision finds \u201chimself in a state of dread, his thoughts caught on a repeating image of the day he first saw his wife open her eyes\u201d (King 1.17). Her eyes seem \u201clike a camera lens adjusting to the light\u201d as her \u201cpupils grow and recede\u201d in this memory, and the mechanism of her awakening frightens Vision (King 1.17). Onto her he places anxieties and hopes for a normal family life, but among their human neighbors in the suburb, the illusion of a happy household begins to fade. She is the uncanny body, corpse-like although she functions as if she is alive. Virginia provides Vision with a perfect partner, but in doing so simultaneously removes his hope to regain the love he lost. Interestingly enough, Vision himself is an android built of the same materials as his wife, yet she inspires feelings of uncanny dread in him. In his theory of the uncanny, Freud asserts that \u201ca morbid anxiety connected with the eyes\u201d sometimes represents \u201ca substitute for the dread of castration\u201d (Freud 7). While Vision\u2019s fright comes from the memory of his wife\u2019s eyes, the day she awoke from slumber to mechanical life represents a loss of Vision\u2019s human love. He programs Virginia\u2019s mind to imitate the thought patterns of Wanda, the human woman who used to be romantically engaged with the android man. Virginia\u2019s body, however, reminds her husband that she is artifice. Still, Vision repeats to himself the demand that \u201cI must love her\u2026this is my wife. I must love her,\u201d in order to maintain the image of mechanical marital bliss (King 1.17). He \u201cmust\u201d love her because he lacks a reasonable alternative- he is her creator and her husband, the reason for her life. She sustains that notion of \u201chappy domesticity\u201d that men seek when they create cyborg counterparts, where Vision increasingly fails to perpetuate the idea of normalcy he hoped the family would bring to him.<\/span><\/p>\n In contrast to the feminine mystique of upholding the sanitation and tidiness of the home, Virginia suggests to a neighbor that \u201cto get to clean you are required to introduce substantive turmoil\u201d to the order of the house (King 6.10). In her case, the substantive turmoil occurs when she destroys the furniture while malfunctioning, asserting that \u201ceverything is normal\u201d after the family has come under great scrutiny by their neighbors (King 5.12). Friedan assesses that the only way \u201cthe young housewife was supposed to express herself, and not feel guilty about it, was in buying products for the home-and-family\u201d (Friedan 222). As the series progresses, Virginia becomes increasingly volatile while the family comes under scrutiny for the strange events that transpire after they join the suburban neighborhood, expressing herself not through purchases but through rage directed at her own residence. This results in her breaking furniture and destroying the walls such that the home nearly becomes uninhabitable. She struggles to maintain appearances based on human standards of normalcy, and the more the family tries, \u201cto get to clean,\u201d the further they cause discomfort not only in their own residence but also in their neighborhood. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Her domesticity is not happy, nor is it built on choosing the best products with which to maintain her home. Rather, Virginia\u2019s household disarray reflects the biblical fear that, \u201cwomen would destroy the home and make slaves of men,\u201d which was used as a justification for making women subservient in the family (Friedan 87). Virginia\u2019s rage does destroy the home not due to the fact that she is a woman, but due to her uncanny nature in an unnatural, domestic setting. Her uncanniness is what keeps her husband enslaved to thinking that he \u201cmust love her,\u201d because of the purpose that he built her for, or else lose the illusion of peaceful and happy domesticity. In their struggle to uphold the standards of a conventional, suburban existence, their physical home transforms into unhospitable space that becomes as unhomelike as they themselves, an android and his constructed facsimile of a family performing humanity. While these robots are asked to keep house, slowly they unmake the traditional structure of patriarchy and domesticity within the home.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Art-Official Intelligence- Testing Creative Capacity<\/b><\/p>\n \u201c<\/span>She’s a triumph of your art and of her dressmaker’s; but if you suppose for a moment that she doesn’t give herself away in every sentence she utters, you must be perfectly cracked about her<\/span><\/i>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n –<\/span>Pygmalion<\/span><\/i>, George Bernard Shaw (1913)<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The importance of vocal performance in Shaw\u2019s <\/span>Pygmalion<\/span><\/i>, so named after Ovid\u2019s fictional sculptor, reveals an important aspect of science fiction\u2019s obsession with humanoid robots. There is a distinction between the outward, beautiful embodiment of a woman and the thoughts she voices, which expose her intelligence and true nature. As Megan Foley assesses in \u201cProve You\u2019re Human\u201d (2014), her article about interactions and fetishization of material embodiment, \u201cthe voice, and the fantasy of bodily presence it sustains, have become a function of informational patterns themselves\u201d (Foley 369). The Turing test serves as a real-world paradigm for much of the imagination of science fiction, whose robots are advanced beyond the capabilities of the technology Turing worked with. In the age of the posthuman, intelligence \u201cbecomes a property of the formal manipulation of symbols,\u201d leading to new fictional representations of how humans will test a robot\u2019s humanity (Foley 369). When the machine mind can outsmart a human in code manipulation, humanity must turn to other sorts of performative examinations that are supposedly more difficult to replicate.<\/span><\/p>\n In the case of science fiction narratives that move beyond the parameters established by Turing, it is the creative capacity of the android figure which becomes the new determining factor when assessing that being\u2019s humanity. This act demonstrates \u201ca pervasive desire to recover the lost guarantee of a corporeally present human subject on the other side of the computer screen\u201d and in the case of science fiction, uncover the humanity inside the mind of the present android figure (Foley 372). Art and empathy, as is the case with Dick\u2019s Voigt-Kampff test or the visually-oriented Turing variant in Ex Machina, present opportunities for the disembodied creativity to become corporeal in order to prove whether the robot has a soul, a concept elusive even to many humans. This results in the idolization of embodiment and performative labor as humans simultaneously hope to interact with something indelibly alive and embodied, and fear the robot\u2019s ability to fully recreate something thought to be intrinsically human. Speech patterns and other human thought processes can be replicated by algorithms written into computer programs but ideas of talent and creative impulse are thought to be unique to civilization. When a CAPTCHA program asks a user to indicate which segments of an image contain flowers or street signs, the formulaic robot mind appropriates the labor of the human by incorporating the visual information into its database and ascribing the appropriate meaning to the image. Robots can be instructed to reproduce works of music and art already in circulation, but whether they can produce original artistic content seems to be the standard by which human testers measure true consciousness- this is to say nothing of whether <\/span>humans<\/span><\/i> can truly create new original content. Creativity serves as an indicator for humanity in science fiction, whose androids are advanced enough already to evade detection of more basic Turing tests, and reinforces valuation of those robots whose qualitative labor can remind us of what it means to be innately human.<\/span><\/p>\n While undergoing Turing test applications to assess whether she has true consciousness, Ava from <\/span>Ex Machina<\/span><\/i> produces several pieces of artwork, the first of which is a series of geometric lines in black ink that she claims mean nothing to her. Ava\u2019s first drawing bears resemblance to the surrealist practice of automatism, her paper covered in abstract markings. This practice arose when 20<\/span>th<\/span> century artists let their unconscious minds come forth onto the canvas in drawings composed of patterns and unspecific figures. Automatic art hoped to make sense of a war-torn world and allow artists to cope with confusion and trauma. Ava\u2019s art signifies her attempt to access her unconscious mind and produce work representing her cognitive abilities, whether or not the artwork has a defined subject. Ava makes, \u201cdrawings every day. But I never know what they\u2019re of,\u201d which does not deter her from creation, although she seeks answers and hopes that Caleb will tell her what the art represents (Garland). Caleb, the human, asks her, \u201cto sketch something specific\u2026like an object or a person,\u201d rather than the formless shapes that neither can ascribe direct meaning to (Garland).<\/span><\/p>\n Although Caleb believes that Ava\u2019s artwork would be more beautiful depicting a particular subject, Nathan\u2019s d\u00e9cor brings him to the realization that constant cognizance would never result in artwork being created. Standing in front of a Jackson Pollock painting, Nathan explains that the artist, \u201clet his mind go blank, and his hand go where it wanted. Not deliberate, not random. Someplace in between. They called it automatic art\u201d (Garland). While there is no doubt that Pollock stands among the more famous American artists, his process of drip painting mirrors that of Ava\u2019s ink drawings, wherein she produces work without a specific intent, instead letting her artificial mind access its more unconscious functions. By employing this process in her artwork, Ava does not merely recreate a specific work, as most robots are prone to simply imitate behaviors that have been programmed into them. Here, the \u201cchallenge is not to act automatically. It\u2019s to find an action that is not automatic,\u201d and access that unconscious self which allows the artist to produce new work free from constraints of guided intention (Garland).<\/span><\/p>\n When Caleb challenges her to draw something more recognizable, he changes her automatic artwork into something purposeful, at which point she can use that intent of meaning to manipulate her observer. Foley suggests that, \u201ccybernetic circuits expand their capacities by appropriating the labor of human bodies,\u201d as Ava appropriates Caleb\u2019s suggestions for art and presents them to him in order to win his sympathies; first, with a drawing of her own enclosure and then with a portrait of him, after which he finds himself devoted to helping Ava escape (Garland). After being shown the portrait Ava has drawn of him, which was torn to pieces by Nathan just prior to this meeting, Caleb becomes resolute in his attempt to outwit their observer and liberate the robot from her confines. In this way, while it seems that Ava produces labor for her tester by creating drawings with his specific subjects in mind, she as the robot actually benefits from his human labor, incorporating his requests into a drawing that wins his allegiance and causes him to work to her benefit, similar to the aforementioned CAPTCHA program. Rather than recognizing the implications of an artificial intelligence creating automatic artwork, Caleb focuses on the embodiment of her drawings and what they represent about her clear and present thoughts, and seeing himself as the subject of her guided drawing proves the final distraction in understanding the processes of her consciousness.<\/span><\/p>\n When considering his assignment to eliminate her in <\/span>Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?<\/span><\/i>, Rick Deckard judges android opera singer Luba Luft mainly by the cultural value of her creative output. Upon discovering the renegade android performing Mozart\u2019s <\/span>The Magic Flute<\/span><\/i> opera, \u201che found himself surprised at the quality of her voice; it rated with that of the best, even that of notables in collection of historic tapes\u201d (Dick 99). Deckard\u2019s context for the beauty of her voice consists of these historic tapes which are auditory reproductions such as cassettes or records which invoke Foley\u2019s idea of the vocal performative act. As far as he knows, the recordings capture the voices of singers from humanity\u2019s past before World War Terminus, but without absolute certainty, they represent \u201cthe erasure of embodiment\u201d by reproducing only the vocal performance of whoever composed the musical tracks (Foley 369). By holding the \u201chistoric tapes\u201d in esteem while simultaneously attributing Luba\u2019s talent to her programmed functions, Deckard devalues the opera singer because he can observe her visual presence and knows that she is a product constructed by the Rosen Association, whereas he seems to be certain that his musical recordings comprise human voices of the past. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Considering that his mission involves retiring, or killing, Luba, Rick Deckard wonders what loss of cultural value will occur upon her death because, \u201cshe was really a superb singer\u2026 how can a talent like that be a liability to our society? But it wasn\u2019t the talent, he told himself; it was she herself\u201d (Dick 137). As a bounty hunter, \u201che realized, I\u2019m part of the form-destroying process of entropy. The Rosen Association creates and I unmake,\u201d positing Luba Luft as a created entity which Deckard must destroy because her very embodiment represents the danger of android bodies integrating indistinguishably with humans (Dick 98). Her talent, which is in this case her voice, is more valuable to the world than her body which, being a Nexus-6 type, poses a danger to human society. The escaped Nexus-6 models were a former source of labor for the emigrants of Mars, having killed several humans to escape their slavery and hide on Earth. Deckard\u2019s specific purpose in killing these robots unmakes those embodied androids that the Rosen Association produces, and while he may succeed in destroying the form, the corporation retains the intangible code and information with which the robots are constructed. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n After being tracked to an art museum, Luba Luft contemplates an Edvard Munch painting, <\/span>Puberty <\/span><\/i>(1895), which symbolically encapsulates the transitory state that the android body occupies as an embodiment of human form whose intelligence is an intangible pattern of programming. The painting itself is \u201ca drawing of a young girl, hands clasped together, seated on the edge of a bed, an expression of bewildered wonder and new, groping awe imprinted on the face,\u201d and the title of the painting adds context to the moment of human transition from childhood to adulthood (Dick 131). The painted female body captures this state of progression while also leaving it static and unable to develop beyond the depicted moment just like the transitory bodies of the Nexus-6 models who exist fully formed although merely a few years old. When Luba spots the pursuing bounty hunters at the museum, \u201cthe color dimmed from her face, leaving it cadaverous as if already starting to decay. As if life had in an instant retreated to some point far inside her, leaving the body to its automatic ruin\u201d (Dick 131-2). Deckard notes the duality of her embodied mechanical self and the life and personality of her programmed performance as, \u201cthe bracketing of material flesh from those simulated speech acts installs a mind\/body binary in their place\u201d (Foley 367). Luba\u2019s mind is the immaterial coding that allows her to be as prodigious an opera singer as she is, while her physical form is what disguises her among human company, allowing her to take work as a performer and not just an intelligent computer.<\/span><\/p>\n In Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine DeLandro\u2019s <\/span>Bitch Planet<\/span><\/i> (2014), the deceased inmate Meiko Maki must be digitally recreated when her father, a prestigious engineer, comes to visit the prison facility and see his daughter. Having unwittingly let a guard kill Meiko, the prison directors choose to display a hologram for her father Makoto, claiming the cloyingly pink projection is his daughter, speaking from another part of the facility that does not allow for visitors. This incident relies \u201con fetishization of the live voice in interaction patterns to fool human users\u2026 [becoming] a repeated, real-world Turing test\u201d in order to keep Makoto ignorant of the abuses of the prison (Foley 370). The pink holograms, called \u201cmodels,\u201d represent the idealized or \u2018model\u2019 form of the non-compliant prisoners. She carries the image and voice of his daughter, but not the physical presence or rebellious spirit- she is more calculated and demure. Series letterer Clayton Cowles even indicates the artificiality of her presence by tailing the facsimile Meiko\u2019s speech bubbles with an electric jolt tail, representing hologram\u2019s vocal performance. This suggests a hollow, almost lifeless sound quality to the voice of the imitation woman, and complicates her attempt to recreate Meiko\u2019s consciousness.<\/span><\/p>\n Makoto, upon realizing the projection is not, \u201cmy Meiko,\u201d prompts her with a test of music. He requests she play Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst\u2019s variations on the Celtic folk song \u201cThe Last Rose of Summer\u201d on the violin (DeConnick, 8.17-18). Demonstrated through the visual of her eyes appearing to buffer the request as a loading video would, the simulation of Meiko processes the request in order to comply with Makoto\u2019s wishes. Here, her body has, \u201cbecome the phantom limbs of informational networks,\u201d where her physical, deceased form is no longer needed to access and replicate the Meiko\u2019s virtual presence, though the model Meiko lacks the memories and personality of her living self (Foley 375). She becomes an algorithm presenting itself as a woman whose only directive is to comply with the input commands of a male superior, making herself a \u2018model\u2019 of submission in this patriarchal prison system. This facsimile cannot reproduce the mnemonic nuance of the real Meiko Maki, and so Makoto exploits this with his request for a violin performance. His daughter was taught to play folk songs, and the Ernst variation on \u201cThe Last Rose of Summer\u201d is a much more musically complex piece. Foley suggests that,, \u201cfetishization of bodily performance by information technologies has turned into\u2026commodity fetishism,\u201d which, first described by Karl Marx, \u201cdisavows the performance of labor and substitutes of the product of labor in its place\u201d (Foley 376). The programming of Meiko\u2019s compliant counterpart concerns itself only with fulfilling Makoto\u2019s request for a specific violin performance and eschews the personal relationship between the father and daughter. A silent, three panel segment focusing on Makoto\u2019s face demonstrates his realization that there is, in fact, no sentient person beyond the pink apparition bearing resemblance to his daughter (DeConnick 8.19). Her bodily absence and the technically perfect performance of the difficult violin piece expose the artifice of the model hologram.<\/span><\/p>\n Meiko\u2019s hologram appears smiling in the reflection of Makoto\u2019s teardrops on the floor, and as she asks if she did well, her father asserts that she played, \u201cso well you broke my heart\u201d (DeConnick 8.19). The image of Meiko\u2019s smiling reflection directly mirrors a panel from the sixth issue of the series, in which the conditions of her imprisonment are explained. Meiko\u2019s reflection smiles up from a puddle of blood which is draining from a man she has strangled with her violin string (DeConnick 6.26). She explains the anatomy of her instrument, the violin, as being compared to:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201ca woman\u2019s body. It has a back, a neck, a nose, a belly\u2026 even ribs. But the parts that interest me most are the bridge and the sound post, also called the heart and soul. The bridge holds the strings, and transfers vibrations to the belly, where they pass through the soul post. The soul supports the structure. It keeps the body from collapsing under the pressure created by the tension of the wires on the bridge\u2026 the heart strings.\u201d (DeConnick 6.5).<\/span><\/p>\n This comparison between the body and the instrument introduces the idea that Meiko\u2019s violin playing manipulates heart strings both in the literal sense, on her instrument, and in the figurative sense, upsetting her father and making him emotional. While the violin has a technical aspect of soul, the hologram of the dead woman lacks this same soul, and her very image plays on the heartstrings of her visiting father as her perfect talent reveals that the Meiko he knew has died. Her musical performance was flawless, but it lacked the heart and soul of Makoto\u2019s flawed, and very loved, daughter. While the living Meiko Maki killed a man with her violin strings, the projection of her has, in a metaphorical sense, killed her father when he realizes with a broken heart that his imperfect daughter has been replaced with a flawless simulation. In differentiating between the human and the artificial, the test of creativity has its limits at perfection. These tests of the musical and visual creative capacity of robots reveals the human fetishization of the body, marked by an insistence on imperfection- human flaws reveal the highly functioning artifice of the mechanical being.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Automatonomy- Cyborg Feminism and the Future<\/b><\/p>\n \u201c<\/span>