mTrends - mobile media lifestyle trends - m-trends.org

I asked: “Blade Runner?” [Ridley Scott, Blade Runner, 1982 (the Director’s cut!)]
_ “Sci-fi” section!
_ “Sci-fi? Really?”… [I think: “Weird!”]
Because I feel awkward to borrow the movie [it is a must have after all… but I am a nomad so I don’t like carrying things] I say:
_ “I have seen it five times [true!]; I am showing it in my class on digital culture and mobilities… Cyborgs, you know…”
_ “Do you think they are among us already?”
_ “I think so!” [That is why I find it weird it is classified… sci-fi!?]

I have been for a long time interested in cyborgs for that I feel the cellphone is a prosthetic, embodied, we can’t deal without it, it is part of us. Because we are hybrids, flesh-machine or flesh-network, identity is blurred, a mix. Hybrids always live in between, in a third space, denied or absorbed, embrace one, the other or both cultures, often long for recognition. I find it powerful that in the movie the doubt on Rick Deckard’s identity subsists, though many clues suggest that he is a replicant:

In the script:

_ “3”
_ “4”… “Didn’t you know she is a replicant?” [The number of replicants left to kill]

_ “How long have you lived for?”
_ “Four years! … More than you!”

_ “This test of yours, have you taken that test yourself?”
_ “…” [No answer]

_ “She doesn’t know, right?” [That she, Rachael, is a replicant]

_ “It is quite an experience to live in fear, isn’t it?” [Said twice in the movie]

_ “It is too bad that you won’t live… But then again, who does?”

Visually:

Deckard’s dream of the unicorn (it is the only dream of the movie, hence stands as important) which is singularly brought to mind again by the paper unicorn that the shady Gaff produces and leaves in front of Deckard’s apartment (seen as both Deckard and Rachael run away)… As if he knew it all…

But why does he know it all?

Is he a replicant?

Aren’t we all?