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(2018) Film in the anthropocene, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
Janus's celluloid and digital faces
the existential cyborg—autopoiēsis in Christopher nolan's memento
Daniel White
pp. 15-55
This chapter argues that Leonard Shelby, protagonist of Memento, is a model of selfhood in the Anthropocene. His subjectivity is self-reflexive as he, despite impaired memory, shapes his identity and course of action in a recurring cycle of signs. Recording clues by Polaroid camera and tattoos, he becomes a human artifact, a cyborg or 'spiritual automaton … reflected in its own content," as Deleuze writes, displaying externalized memories like hieroglyphics, positioning himself existentially in an encircling mental ecology where he finds himself cast away: humanity "thrown" on the shore of a new era.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-93015-2_2
Full citation:
White, D. (2018). Janus's celluloid and digital faces: the existential cyborg—autopoiēsis in Christopher nolan's memento, in Film in the anthropocene, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 15-55.
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