Prosthetic MemoryProsthetic memory is a conception that was brought forward by Alison Landsberg in her article "Prosthetic Memory: Total Recall and Blade Runner." This notion is actually relevant in terms of examining the ways that different forms of media have contributed   to the era of the post-human. As explained by Landsberg, "by prosthetic memories I mean memories which do not come from a person's lived experience in any strict sense."[1] When someone views for instance, a film or television program, they have a memory of storyline events which transpired without actually having practically felt or lived in those events in any way. In her book Prosthetic Culture: Photography, Memory and Identity, Celia Lury takes a keen look into specific roles that photograph plays in the prosthetic memories shaped by mass culture. Everyone recalls the dreadful events of September 11, 2001, but most of those who remember that day did not witness the event with their own eyes. The media has "fundamentally alter[ed] our notion of what counts as experience."[2] Preciously because it "bring[s] the texture and contours of prosthetic memory into dramatic relief."[3] It is media technologies that make it possible for humans to posses, like the replicate of blade runner vivid memories of experience that are not their own. In that instance, the following film literature reviews are going to be used to support my stand on prosthetic memory as brought by media technologies.Review of Dark City (1998)If you are the type of person who adores mind twisting movies that stick with you for days and even weeks and make you question the human existence and our reality as we know it then this is the movie for you. Though similar in settings to the later released 'The Matrix,' the film is centered on Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) who becomes unexpectedly and unwittingly aware that his world is not what it is. The film starts with Murdoch waking up in a bathtub with no memory and a dead body in the same room. He has no recollection as to how and why he is there. As he tries to put pieces together of the occasion, he notes that at every midnight on the dot not only him but other inhabitants in the city falls a sleep. It is only then that he comprehends that something much more bigger than his memory loss is happening. Alex Proyas (director) manages to fit well tantalizing and interesting Sci-Fi screenplay with dark and drab yet brilliantly mysterious cinematography and he pulls it off. After getting a dead body which is brutalized and ritualistically mutilated along with a knife, Murdoch flees from the scene after the phone call from Dr. Schreber who tells shim to run away because a group of men are after him. As soon as he flees the scene, figures known as strangers arrive in the room. In the long run Murdoch learns his real name and finds his wife Emma. On the other hand Murdoch is sought by police inspector Frank Bumstead for series of murders which he cam not remember to have committed.   As Strangers pursue Murdoch he discovers his ability of psychokinetic and can now operate just like strangers, he uses the ability to escape from them.  Murdoch moves about the city which experiences pitch darkness, he is able to see people fall deep a sleep at midnight as the cityscape get altered along with people's identities being changed at that time. The Strangers troubled by the existence of a human who possesses psychokinetic powers, program one of their men, Mr. Hand with Murdoch's memories in an attempt to find him. Murdoch in the long run finds Bumstead who recognizes Murdoch's innocence and has his own questions about the nature of the dark city. Together they find and confront Dr.Schreber who explains that Strangers are dying out extraterrestrial parasites that use corpses as their hosts. Having communal consciousness the Strangers have been experimenting with humans to examine the human soul in the hope that some imminence might be revealed that would help their race survive.  Dr. Schreber reveals Murdoch as an anomaly who accidentally awoke during the midnight process when Schreber was in the middle of tailoring his identity as a murderer. The three men embark on finding Shell Beach which is Murdoch's home town. The coastal town exists as a billboard at the edge of the city, frustrated, Murdoch tears through the wall which reveals a hole into outer space. The three men are confronted by Strangers who hold Emma hostage. In the consequent fight, Bumstead along with one Stranger falls through the hole in the space revealing the city as a massive space habitat which is surrounded by a force field. The Strangers take Murdoch to their home underneath the city and force Dr. Schreber to imprint Murdoch with their combined memory believing that Murdoch is their final answer to their experiment. Schreber betrays them by inserting false memories in Murdoch which unnaturally reestablishes his childhood as years spent training and honing his psychokinetic abilities and learning   about the Strangers and their machines. Murdoch awakens, fully realizing his abilities, frees himself and battles with Strangers defeating their leader Mr. Book in a battle above the city. After learning that Emma is gone and can not be restored, Murdoch utilizes his new found powers through the Stranger's machine to create actual Shell Beach by flooding the area inside the force field with water and forming mountains and beaches. On his way to Shell Beach, Murdoch meets Mr. Hand and informs him that Strangers have been looking in a wrong place -the head- to know humanity.  Murdoch opens the door leading out of the city and steps out to sight a sunrise that he created.  Away from him is a dock where he finds Emma, who now has new memories and new identity as Anna. Murdoch reintroduces himself as they walk to Shell Beach beginning a new relationship. Themes Parable of the CaveThe film Dark City is a retelling of the Allegory of the Cave which was used by Plato who conveyed the allegory as a fictional dialogue between his teachers and brother. In the movie, the city inhabitants are prisoners who do not realize that they are prisoners. John Murdoch's escape from the prison parallels the escape from the cave in the allegory.  He is assisted by Dr. Schreber who explains the city's mechanism as Socrates explains to Plato's brother Glaucon how the shadows in the cave are cast. Murdoch all the same, becomes more than Glaucon; "he is Glaucon who comes to realize that Socrates' tale of an upper, more real world is itself a shadow a forgery" [4] as Loughlin writes. Murdoch defeats the Strangers who run the inhabitants and recreates the world based on childhood memories which were in themselves illusions arranged by the Strangers. Loughlin writes of the lack of background," the original of the city is off-stage, unknown and unknowable" Murdoch casts new shadows for the city populace who must trust his judgment.   The film Dark City was directed by Alex Proyas who coincidentally wrote the story. He originally   conceived a story about a1940s police officer who is obsessed with facts and cannot solve a case here facts do not make sense.  Proyas say "He slowly starts to go insane through the story. He can't put the facts together because they don't add up to anything rational." [5] The film is described as Kafkaesque and Proyas wanted the science fiction film to have an element of horror to startle people in the theatres. The film's sound track was released on February 24, 1998 by TVT Records and features music from the original score by Trevor Jones and versions of the songs 'Sway' and 'The Night Has a Thousand Eyes that is performed by singer Anita Kelsey. The sound track also includes music by Hughes Hall from the Trailer as well as songs by Gary Numan.  The movie takes place everywhere, and it takes place nowhere because the city is built of pieces of cities  so you do not actually   know where you are , a piece will look like London, a portion of architecture like New York and the bottom architecture looks again like a European city.  You feel you are somewhere but you do not know where. It gives a feel that each time you travel you get lost. The designs taken for production include themes of spirals, darkness and clocks.  There is no sun in the city's world and the spiral designs that sink when approached are used in the film. The major clock used in the movie shows no hours and as Tatopoulos said "But in a magical moment it becomes something more than just a clock." [6] The production designer fashioned the city architecture to have an organic presence with structural element [7] The Strangers are energy beings who live in dead human bodies, when the design first started the filmmakers considered having bugs as the Strangers but since bugs were overused  in others films Tatopoulos said that Proyas wanted to make Strangers energy beings, "Alex called me and said he wanted something like an energy that kept re-powering itself, re-creating itself, re-shaping itself, sitting inside a dry piece of human shape"[8] the reception was varied with film critic Roger Ebert citing it as the best film of 1998 [9] Steve Biodrowski of Cinefantastique found the film's production design and cinematography overwhelming  even as he considered the  narrative engagement of Sewell's amnesiac character to be ultimately successful. He wrote, "As the story progress, the pieces of the puzzle fall into place, and we gradually realize that the film is not a murky muddle of visuals propping up a weak story. All the questions lead to answers, and the answers make sense within the fantasy framework." The reviewer compared Dark City to the director's preceding film The Crow in style but found Dark City to introduce new themes and to be a "more thoroughly consistent" film" [10] Biodrowski finished by saying that, "Dark City may not provide profound answers, but it deals seriously with a profound idea, and does it in a way that is cathartic and even uplifting, without being contrived or condescending. As a technical achievement, it is superb, and that technique is put in the service of telling a story that would be difficult to realize any other way." [11] Strange Days (1995) reviewEffects of prosthetic memory are also experienced after one views the movie Strange Days. The movie is a 1995 cyberpunk science fiction film that was directed by Kathryn Bigelow and was produced and co-written by James Cameron and Jay Cocks. The film stars Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, Juliet Lewis, Vincent D'Onofrio, Tom Sizemore and Michael Wincott. The movie starts in December 1999 in Los Angeles, the town has become as night mare  with heightened police tensions and civil turmoil stemming from the brutal; murder  of Jeriko One (Glen Plummer) , a hip hop artist who is stalwartly critical of the Los Angeles Police Department's persistent brutality. In the last days of the millennium, ex-police detective who is turned street hustler Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes) deals in 'SQUID' recordings: experiences recorded directly from the cerebral cortex   which when  played back through a MiniDisc like device allow the user to experience all recorded sensory inputs as if they  are actually doing it.  Despite his charming and urbane appearance, Lenny is a profoundly an unhappy man who persistently yearns for his ex-girlfriend Faith (Juliette Lewis) over and over again reliving their happier times through his own SQUID recordings of her at the same time relying on his bodyguard friend Lornette 'Mace' Mason (Angela Basset) for emotional support. Lenny is also friends with Max (Tom Sizemore) who is an ex-cop wounded in the line of duty and who now works as a private investigator.  While dealing with erotic SQUID recordings, Lenny receives a 'black jack' disc portraying the excruciating rape and murder of Iris (Brigitte Bako) a prostitute he is familiar with and who met him hours before her death. Profoundly distressed by both the tape and warnings Iris had made sure that Faith is safe because they were friends. But convinced that the killer will strike again, Lenny straight away overreacts using his paranoia as a justification to try to get Faith away from her new boyfriend, music industry mogul Philo Gant (Michael Wincott).  Over period of time Lenny gets more snuff tapes obviously made by the same person as the original recording  and he and Mace ultimately discover that  the case is tied to a cover-up of murder of Jeriko One by LADP officers fed up with the trouble his message is causing.  As Lenny and Mace get sought after by two police offices (Vincent D'Onofrio and William Fichtner) who committed the murder (Jeriko One's death) and being constantly repelled by Philo's goons, they find themselves in a race to uncover the full truth before  the murderer catches up  with them and before civil war descends on Los Angeles. In the meantime, Lenny and Mace's relationship begins to become deeper and strengthen as Lenny finds out the truth about Faith while trying to protect her. The cast list has Ralph Fiennes as Lenny Nero, Angela Bassett as Lornette 'Mace' Mason, Tom Sizemore as Max Peltier, Juliette Lewis as Faith Justin, Michael Wincott as Philo Gant, Vincent D'Onofrio as Burton Steckler, William Fichtner as Dwayne Engelmen, Glenn Plummer as Jeriko One, Brigitte Bako as Iris, Josef Sommer as Palmer Strickland, Nicky Katt as Joey Corto, Richard Edson as Tick, Michael Jace as Wade Beemer and David Packer as Lane.  The sound truck is made of the following songs, Lords of Acid- the real thing, Skunk Anansie-Selling Jesus and Feed, Deep Forrest  -Coral Lounge, Strange Fruit-No white Clouds, Juliette Lewis- Hardly Wait, Me Phi Me/ Jeriko One- Here We Come, Prong/Ray Manzarek- Strange Days, Satchel-Walk in Freedom, Kate Gibson-Dance Me to the End of Love, Lori Carson/Graeme Revell-Fall in the Light and Deep Forrest  featuring Peer Gabriel-While the Earth Sleeps. The movie received various reception which is normal with any kind of art but what makes the film outstanding is the fact that it was given a limited release on October 6, 1995   in only one theatre and was grossed at $ 311,062 on its opening weekend    but a wide   release was   done on October 13, 1995 in 1,691 theatres and   was grossed at $ 3.6 million on its opening weekend. The change in fortunes is basically explained by the prosthetic memory the film had on the first viewers and they were not getting enough of what they viewed so that had to recommend it to others as they held their breaths for the wide release which took place a week later. The film went a head to make $ 7.9 million in North America [12]. Movie critic Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and wrote "The movie is a technical tour de force ... The pacing is relentless, and the editing, by Howard Smith, creates an urgency and desperation [13] Janet Maslin had her review for The New York Times and she hailed performances by  Angela Bassett and  Ralph Fiennes "Mr. Fiennes gleefully captures Lenny's sleaziness while also showing there is something about this schlockmeister that is worth saving, despite much evidence to the contrary. As for Ms. Bassett, she looks great and radiates inner strength even without the bone-crunching physical feats to which she is often assigned."[14] Owen Gleiberman and Entertainment Weekly gave the movie a B- and Gleiberman wrote "Strange Days has a dazzling atmosphere of grunge futurism, but beneath its dark satire of audiovisual decadence lurks a naggingly conventional underworld thriller." [15] Peter Travers of the Rolling Stone magazine called  the film Bigelow's 'magnum opus' and  penned down this "In a film of striking performances, Bassett's is the standout -- she is fierce, funny and heart rending." [16] For the San Francisco Chronicle, Edward Guthaman commented this "Strange Days wants to say something about faith and redemption -- about the importance of maintaining one's humanity in a darkened world. That's a worthy intent, but Bigelow is so enamored of high-tech thrills, and so mesmerized by the violence she seeks to condemn, that her efforts at 11th-hour moralizing seem limp and halfhearted." [17] The Los Angeles Times' Kenneth Turan wrote, "No matter how much thought may have gone into Strange Days, terribly little has come out the other end."[18] This surely shows that Cameron had laid his hands on this film and its superb plot, great timing and spectacular ending one of the best   ever if I can add.  Everything you see in this film adds to the impetus because if you take a look at the background there is always something going on for instance someone is getting arrested or stealing something or even burning something. Everything adds and enhances the doomsday feeling you get when you watch.