Cyborg brain in Robert Lepage's Possible Worlds

According to Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline, the two scientists who coined the term 'cyborg', artefact-organism systems could extend human unconscious, with self-regulatory controls being only one possibility. Their research was not only concerned with improving humans' physiological and psychological performance through drugs and body prostheses, but also through their imagination. If these scientists were more interested in altering astronauts' spirits for outer space explorations, the brain in a vat in Possible Worlds (Robert Lepage, 2001) suggests the possibility via a brain connected to a computer of exploring alternative inner worlds and split subjectivities produced by parallel states of consciousness. The concepts of the brain in a vat and possible worlds have already been examined separately in film studies, but the combination of the two has received less consideration. This essay examines how the nested worlds suggested by the envatted brain and the multiplication of possible worlds in this film may function as metaphors for ideologically saturated subjectivities in a computational world. Through reflexive strategies, this film encourages viewers to use their imagination and curiosity to increase their awareness about the network of information they are part of, and the fast-paced, changing world that surrounds them in an era of globalization and bioengineering revolutions. © The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Screen. All rights reserved.