We are only the co-authors of our own narrative selves. Nevertheless, there are many authors (i.e. Foucault) who defend that we don’t participate at all in the construction of this narrative and that we are merely the result of a tale told by others. Black Mirror 1.2 helps us to understand this theoretical choice which defends the fact that our selves are completely molded by power.

1. Professor: Jorge Martínez Lucena

2. We are only the co-authors of our own narrative selves. Nevertheless, there are
many authors who defend that we don’t participate at all in the construction of
this narrative and that we are merely the result of a tale told by others.
Narrative Self and NewTechnologies

3. One of these authors is Michel Foucault, who considers that power molds us
(our narrative self) into normal citizens through what he calls “technologies”.
These technologies modify what we are and the idea we have about
ourselves.
Foucault and His “Technologies”

4. He listed four types of these technologies in the text Technologies of the Self.
A Seminar with Michel Foucault (1988):
1. Technologies of Production:These let us produce, transform and
manipulate things (For example: the press is strongly related to the
appearance of modernity and its rationalism. Nowadays, realityTV, the
Internet, and other technologies are cooperating in the deep
transformation we are suffering as a society)
Foucault and His “Technologies”

5. 2.Technologies of Sign Systems:These let us use signs, senses, symbols and
meanings (For example: the symbols on the doors of the toilets are
establishing a distinction between genders)
Foucault and His “Technologies”

6. 3.Technologies of Power:These determine the behavior of individuals,
forcing them to submit to certain goals and regimes.They consist of an
objectification of the self (For example: Psychiatric hospital or prison)
Foucault and His “Technologies”

7. 4.Technologies of the Self: These let individuals realize, by themselves or
with the help of others, a certain number of operations over their bodies and
their souls, thoughts, behaviors, or any way of being.These operations allow
people to transform themselves in order to get a certain state of happiness,
purity, wisdom or immortality (For example: Religions, Gyms, Consumerism,
etc. However, every society and era has had its so-called pieces of power-
knowledge, which are certain types of knowledge that our society considers
as especially prestigious and which have an enormous power – Psychiatry,
Medicine, Science, Self-help, etc. These pieces of power-knowledge
proposes a way for us to reach our real self)
Foucault and His “Technologies”

8. • Leisure time and working time are not clearly divided.The border
between them has been blurred.The job of the people is to pedal (athletic
activity).They can buy things and watch several TV channels while they
are working.
Technologies of Production in BM 1.2

9. • The real world and the virtual world are completely intertwined.Their
consumer agency in their isolated bedrooms is shown in the virtual world
through their own avatar.
Technologies of Production in BM 1.2

10. • There is no place for intimacy. Being spectators of TV shows means that
you appear in the show as an avatar who makes your reactions public .
This means that the culture of reality is very present in the portrayal of
this distopic world.
Technologies of Production in BM 1.2

11. • You are not the master of your leisure time.You are continuously
interrupted by adverts that you cannot avoid unless you pay merits
(money).
Technologies of Production in BM 1.2

12. • The distopic world is audio-visually codified. People are reduced to their
roles as consumers (or pro-sumers) or as spectators, being converted into
an virtual avatar whose participation in the system and its meanings is
more direct and authentic than the one which the real person has.
Technologies of Sign Systems in BM 1.2

13. • The advertising world is one of the sources of meaning.The name of the
porn-channel is “Wraith Babes” and “wraith” means spirit or ghost.This
channel allows the endemic solitude of the viewers to be re-enchanted.
Ironically, the plastic soul of the current man become a spiritual girl, a
porn-star.
Technologies of Sign Systems in BM 1.2

14. • The committee on the TV-show Hot Shots consist of three judges named
“Wraith”, “Hope”, and “Charity”.The theological virtues of Christianity
are “Faith”, “Hope” and “Charity”.These were traditionally the path to
follow in order to attain salvation.The change from “Faith” to “Wraith” is
justified because our faith is now on the virtual world.The new salvation
is to be successful, to obtain a more real virtuality, to get more wellbeing,
to become a celebrity.
Technologies of Sign Systems in BM 1.2

15. • Yellow is associated with low socio-economic status (the videogame
where you have to kill yellow men reinforce this insight)
• Everything is measured in merits.
Technologies of Sign Systems in BM 1.2

16. • The System is a kind of Panopticon where the citizen is being observed
and measured at every moment in a very amusing and digital way (the
system saves any information about you and your consumer bevavior).
Nevertheless, the violence is inflicted not only in a physical (closed
bedroom where you are constrained to watch) way but in symbolic way
(you choose freely to wear headphones in the common spaces instead of
chatting with others).
Technologies of Power in BM 1.2

17. • Every activity is planned in order to maintain the productivity of the
system (life is mediated by consumerism) and to keep the citizens fit
(wealthy job, ridicule fat people), his activity as a consumer (you cannot
do anything but consume), his education as a searcher of success (viewing
TV-shows), his relative isolation from the rest of the citizens in the
system (single rooms instead of houses), etc.
• Not watching pornography incurs a penalty.
• They medicate against guilt.
Technologies of Power in BM 1.2

18. • Every person in the system has a role to play. He has to work continuously
in order to maintain his status. And, if anyone wants to improve his
situation, he can follow certain established paths in order to meet more
social and economic success (even the down-market yellow citizens can
aim to be a TV star in “Botherguts”).These ways to be more famous
makes you more real in the sense that you appear more in TV and are
more recognized socially (we cannot see in the plot what happens when
the spectators and the system consider you no longer a celebrity).
• The system promotes an idea of authenticity and the citizens are
pursuing this authenticity according to their possibilities and situations.
Technologies of the Self and BM 1.2

19. • As a good nietzschean philosopher, Foucault
considers that our self is a mask, an artificial
creation, something shaped by all these
technologies which redirects us to different
external forces which determine us
absolutely.
• We are then made by others, by the system,
by the anonymous power.
• Nevertheless, Foucault fights this power,
denounces its agency and influence on us,
devotes his philosophy to obtaining
knowledge about different strategies that
power uses to marshal our lives in established
directions,…
Paradox in Foucault

20. • This seems to be contradictory, because Foucault is a man, is a self
strictly sculpted by this evil and anonymous power, but, at the same time,
he is trying to avoid the effect of power on him and on the rest of
humanity through his philosophy.
• This would imply that there is something in the self that is previous to the
effect of the power on us, something that escapes the manifold of forces
that constrain us in order to be normal according to the established roles
and rules defined by the system.
Paradox in Foucault

21. There are certain moments in which we can detect the presence of this
previous or original self in BM 1.2:
• Bing’s anomie disappears in the very moment he meets Abi. He is struck
by Abi’s beauty.
• Bing is perfectly capable of giving 15 million merits freely to Abi, which is
against the rules of their milieu, where everything is reduced to economy.
The Previous Self in BM 1.2

22. • Bing is perfectly capable of practicing an extremely demanding ascetism
in order to earn enough merits to participate in Hot Shot.
All these moments are evidence of the self beyond the self moulded by
power.
The Previous Self in BM 1.2

23. • Bing’s awakening makes evident the fact that the system is a huge lie,
that the ideals proposed by power are alienating people instead of
making them happier, that the star system is not the response to our
human demand or desire of authenticity.
• Abi fell in love with Bing as well, perhaps impressed by his free gift.
Self and Power in BM 1.2

24. • Neither Abi nor Bing are infinite or perfect beings but they each become a
sign of the infinite for the other, they awake an infinite desire in the other
which lets them be free from the determined economies of the system.
Self and Power in BM 1.2

25. BUT power reduces this infinite human desire (with the required assent of
their freedom) converting it in fuel for the system.
• Abi accepts being a porn-star instead of being a regular worker doomed
to pedal until her old age (but in this case there is doubt about the
freedom of the assent, because she has been asked to consume a drug
before her performance)
• Bing accepts selling his protest as a commodity in the system. His
authenticity is commercialized and nothing changes in the world.
Self and Power in BM 1.2

26. Question: Do you find any parallel between Bing and Charlie Brooker, the
creator of BM?
Self and Power in BM 1.2