ABSTRACT
Scientists who are currently designing ways to integrate human consciousness with computers describe a future in which human bodies will be obsolete, replaced by computers that retain human intelligence on software. When humans interface with computer technology in popular culture texts, the process consists of more than just adding external robotic prostheses to their bodies. It involves transforming the self into something entirely new, combining technological with human identity. Although human subjectivity is not lost in the process, it is significantly altered. Nowhere is the confusion of boundaries between humanity and electronic technology more apparent than in films involving cyborg imagery. The Terminator, for example, can be recognized as nonhuman only by dogs, not by humans. Even when cyborgs in films look different from humans, they are often represented as fundamentally human. If there is a single feature that consistently separates cyborgs from humans in films, it is the cyborg’s greater capacity for violence, combined with enormous physical prowess.
