Translating Physics, Teknolust, Transmen?

So, I've been thinking about Teknolust constantly. Trying to take apart the various subtle and not so subtle implications of the film...and its plot. One of the major aspects of the film, the transition of the robots from inhuman (robotic) to human, has consistently come up in my deconstruction of the film. What's interesting about this transition is that it is so stereotypically "feminine". In a film that makes so many statements about female physicists and sexuality, I was surprised to find that through this transition these theoretically inhuman beings, Marine and Life (?) become flighty, ditzy, retail loving, super sensitive women. I suppose that this class has, in fact, not made me a pessimist as the literature we've come across might encourage...instead i have come to expect more from those who might be able to create something pivotal or challenging. I expected (i was hopeful) that this movie, considering the many statements it attempts to make, that perhaps the writers would have used this opportunity in the plot to do just that - make a statement about femininity. Perhaps hollywood got in the way. Despite the fact that this film clearly did not have the intention to access the main stream community of hollywood films, judging from its very unusual plot line, perhaps the writers were still influenced by the shallowness and superficiality that surrounds them as producers of "entertainment". What was the motivation to make this film? From what angle was this movie produced? I am dying to know!

class has been so interesting this week; i can hardly wait for wednesday.  i mean, i didn't get to experience the conceptual physics class that y'all went to together, so that conversation was both very interesting and very alienating for me.  i'm sure it was weird for the specs, too.  so i'd rather talk about teknolust here tonight.  wow, weird and wonderful.  and somehow both very funny and very sad - as stereotypes often are.  in my head, (and maybe this is me being really odd), the three sra's seemed not just to be kind of "ideal" people, as computer programmed, gorgeous adult women, but perhaps parodies of children... and in some sense, of men.  ok, bear with me here - they're super dependent on a female "mom" figure, but struggling for independence, they get cranky if they can't experience the physical contact and specific food that they crave, and they (ruby, at least) are being taught to suppress their natures and their emotions.  they sound a lot like conflicted little kids to me - ruby because she's expected to the provider without ever having emotions, olive because she's the nurturer but also the gatekeeper, and marinne with her pickiness and "acting out."  and somehow, (maybe, again, this is just me and please feel free to tell me i'm talking crazy), that makes me think of little boys.  so maybe we still have a fairly deep ideal of the perfect person as intrinsically male... or, more likely, the perfect person as that-which-we-have-socially-constructed-as-being-male.  i don't know, perhaps i'm nuts.  i'm looking forward to hearing what everyone else got out of the film, though.  it sure was interesting.

Switching gears between talking about physics pedagogy and Technolust is pretty rough for me. Before I move onto film-mode (traveling from the island of science into the land of what david called the non-technical laypeople realm), I'd just like to reiterate one thing. I realize that I may seem a bit stubborn at times in my insistence on a need for changes in upper level physics pedagogy. And that may be confusing, since my experiences cannot be accessed as texts in the class the same way that something like Barad's writing can be. But I am stubborn because I really believe it's possible and necessary. It troubles me deeply to encounter the attitudes that both "real physics" cannot be understood without sophisticated math and physics for physicists cannot be taught in any new way without threatening students' graduate school chances. I am not interested in legitimizing barriers to knowledge. I agree with Liz that education and science literacy is about accessibility. And this accessibility cannot be gained with insistence on hierarchical models of knowledge. Just because a change in pedagogy is hard does not mean it is impossible or even would not be more effective. But all of this writing is just talk, since I am a physics drop-out and cannot actually teach innovative upper level courses myself. I don't know that all our critiques from mostly outside the physics community would be as effective as one person changing from within (i.e. Barad). After all, I'm just one of the non-technical laypeople now.

But back to Technolust-- Wow! I liked it! Not sure how I felt about the idea that a successful female scientist is, of course, a lonely, frustrated virgin who uses her mind to make herself a family that pursues sexual exploits she doesn't have the guts to. Weaponizing of sexuality/stealing masculinity certainly did not seem very new or interesting to me. What I was interested in was the exploration of personhood. I liked the parts about patenting life, talking in code (time = love) and especially autonomy as crucial to happiness.

Looking forward to discussing it further.

Flora