Gendered transmediation of the digital from<i>S1m0ne</i>to<i>Ex Machina</i>: ‘visual pleasure’ reloaded?

Abstract

The article engages with a recurrent audiovisual-narrative pattern: the frequent association of female characters to instances when the Internet, mobile digital devices or formations of artificial intelligence (robots or software) are involved in the diegesis. In titles such as S1m0ne, The Congress, Her, Clouds of Sils Maria or Ex Machina, the transmediation of the digital through melodramatic, closed-space encounters of male/masculine authentic characters looking for actual escape or spiritual redemption by artificial digital females is examined in a feminist film, and media theoretical framework (Mulvey, Grodal, Elleström, Kittler, Johnston). The intention is to describe and understand the remarkable consistency of this ‘script of perception’ in films that have been written and directed by contemporary Euro-American auteurs, while arguing for the ongoing validity of Laura Mulvey’s concept of ‘visual pleasure’ in spite of the apparently highly progressive medial re-encodings in a digital environment.