Published: 2018-12-30

“Souls Cross Ages Like Clouds Cross Skies.” Network Identity in Cloud Atlas

Sonia Front

Website: https://silesian.academia.edu/SoniaFront

Abstract

Sonia Front
Institute of English Cultures and Literatures

Faculty of Philology
University of Silesia in Katowice
Poland

“Souls Cross Ages Like Clouds Cross Skies”
Network Identity in Cloud Atlas

Abstract: In 21st-century science fiction narratives, the figure of the cyborg has been replaced by a new group of liminal characters: avatars, clones, sentient AI, genetically modified humans and time- -displaced individuals. Through these characters, the narratives explore philosophical questions about the unity of personal identity. One of the films that investigate this question is Tom Tykwer’s and Lilly and Lana Wachowski’s film Cloud Atlas (2012), as it proposes the notion of network identity, divorced from time. Network identity – in the form of transmigration of souls – is enacted in the film by the concept of eternal recurrence which is the film’s overriding framework. This identity is what connects the six juggled stories, spanning through various historical eras from the nineteenth century to the distant future. The paper analyses the film’s concept of twenty-first century subjectivity, singular and manifold, separated and connected simultaneously, and how it taps into the theme of global interconnectedness and co-temporality brought about by the media and globalization.

Keywords: film, network identity, Cloud Atlas

JEL Codes

Film Studies, Culture Studies, Literary Studies

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Citation rules

Front, S. (2018). “Souls Cross Ages Like Clouds Cross Skies.” Network Identity in <i>Cloud Atlas</i>. Er(r)go. Theory - Literature - Culture, 2(37). Retrieved from https://trrest.vot.pl/ojsus/index.php/ERRGO/article/view/6273

ER(R)GO No. 37 (2/2018) - mask/pseudonym/avatar

No. 37 (2018)
Published: 2019-02-05


ISSN: 1508-6305
eISSN: 2544-3186
Ikona DOI 10.31261/errgo

Publisher
University of Silesia Press | Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego i Wydawnictwo Naukowe "Śląsk"

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