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"The Afropessimistic Ghost in the Machine in Damir Lukacevic’s Transfer"
The idea that racism and discriminatory practices could be eliminated by the wonders of technology was one of the founding fictions of the digital age in the 1990s. The fiction was based in an imagined future in which disembodied, placeless, raceless avatars in a virtual reality world would take the place of stubborn flesh to create a post-racial society free of social, ethnic and racial categories. The intervening years have proven the exact opposite to be true. My project aims to investigate the intersection of technology, racism and identity in Damir Lukacevic’s 2010 film Transfer, with particular emphasis placed on the analysis of the afropessimistic tendencies apparent throughout the work.
The technology in the film involves consciousness transfers of aging, white, mega rich Europeans into the bodies of young, poor, People of Color. The process involves not just the selection of a physically appealing host, but both parties must be psychologically, emotionally, and intellectually compatible. Considering the necessity for compatibility on such intangible planes, the film situates questions of identity at the forefront of its narrative, allowing the audience to ponder the essence of who we are once we are separated both in mind and body from familiar, superficial, external, cues. On the heels of these ruminations arise the questions: Is consciousness alone the essential component of identity? If consciousness can be shared, might it be the answer to overcoming racism, or are racism and the construction of race such entrenched actions and concepts, as afropessimists would argue, that no amount of future technology can ever overcome them? What role does technology play, behind its façade of neutrality and objectivity, to reproduce, reinforce and amplify existing racial hierarchies, to manifest what James Baldwin had so astutely observed over four decades ago that “The great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.”1 My project will be exploring the answers to those questions in Lukacevic’s work as part of a larger project which investigates issues of identity and technology in contemporary German science fiction.
Mary Rodena-Krasan is a Lecturer IV and Undergraduate Advisor for the German Department.
1. Baldwin, James. 1998. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. New York: Library of America. Pg 723.
