The continual emergence of new forms of technology and media has instilled a sense of trepidation in many people who are concerned about the systematic deprivation of our pre-established, cultural conventions and traditional experience that will be surrendered only to be replaced by these new forms of technology. While we may have little choice but to utilize the new technologies, to use them will create new, and entirely different experiences. The film, Robocop, depicts a futuristic world confronted by a new form of technology, a cyborg. In conjunction with the introduction of the cyborg into society, new forms of experience have been created as well.
From the onset of the film, the viewer is immediately drawn into a world of video. Not only does the credit sequence in the introduction of the film display video images, the word "Robocop" is illuminated by some sort of videographic static. Not surprisingly, the first scene is one of a television newscast with two cheerful anchorpersons whose vivacious reports on grave matters of nuclear threats and a space weapons disaster seem banal. Nevertheless, the newsbites feel extremely real as if we were there experiencing it. This is supported by the political topics mentioned by the newscasters, which carry much relevance in our world today. We, thus, become forced to ask ourselves: is this what is going to happen in the future? This whole opening sequence sets the tone for the entire movie. And, it is the video image that is the medium for which reality is set. Surely, if you can have artificial hearts (as the commercial on the video screen depicts), you can also have a cyborg.
The movie treats the invention of cyborgs as the matter of course for technology and society. And, with the introduction of the cyborg, the human sensorium undergoes dramatic changes. First (as the opening sequence hints at), the transition from man to cyborg is complemented by the transition from the filmic image to a videographic...