ABSTRACT
This chapter is devoted to the semiotic analysis of the video game Nier: Automata and reflects on how the different occurrences and forms of the digital faces of its protagonist figures play a key role in attributing the quality of person and even human to androids, robots, and drones. The theme at the heart of this chapter is thus the contemporary tendency of semantic extension of the category of human to nonhuman agents, here declined by focusing on the rhetorical role of the face and digital technology in this transhumanist resemantization and revalorization. Through the study of Yoko Taro’s transhumanist narratives and the rhetoric of the digital face that he employs, it will emerge how the contemporary inclusiveness of the category of human refers back to a transcendental conception of face that in turn refers back to a transcendental and supra-individual idea of subject. A conclusion will highlight the central role of the digitization of the face in the recognition of this transcendental dimension and the specificity of the digital face in digital games such as mask and prosthesis.
