Mapping the Temples of Cyborgism: Exploring the Numinous Potential of Replicants in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner
Description:I wrote this in 2007 as a student trying to think about Blade Runner through both religious studies and anthropology. An updated version is in progress.Excerpt:"By threatening binary systems and insisting on an identity of plurality, replicants and cyborgs are granted access to a sanctuary in which they can interface with the numinous place of origin; the place Jenna Tiitsman describes as the chaotic “territory of creation.” The following analysis is a journey of exploration to mapthe cyborg sanctuaries in that chaotic territory of Tiitsman’s “creative becoming.” This expedition will explore the web of shared conversation between discourse in three regions: investigation into human reactions to robot humanness, relational ordering of religious experience, and the capacity of cyborgs to access the numinous.At the intersection of these cognitive spaces emergent from the “territory of creation” are conceptual-crossroads where cyborgs mediate access to the supernatural. To situate these emergent conceptual-crossroads within more familiar cognitive spaces with supernatural access, I will refer to them as the temples of cyborgism."Keywords: Blade Runner, cyborg, uncanny valley, numinous, creation, supernatural.Please cite as:Oman-Regan, Michael P. 2007. "Mapping the Temples of Cyborgism: Exploring the Numinous Potential of Replicants in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner." Manuscript. SocArXiv, Open Science Framework. https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/vwa79