Bioculturalism, simulation and satire : the case of S1mOne

Abstract

This study offers a close look at Andrew Niccol’s (b 1964) satirical film S1mOne from a biocultural perspective emphasising the technological simulation of a Hollywood celebrity and the farce ensuing from her creation. The film is based on Niccol’s assumption that the hypertrophied culture into which he places his cultural object will be one in which human traits of sociality will be well advanced and the highly demanding genre of satire will be entertaining, persuasive, and on occasion punitive in its ridicule of Hollywood. The study makes a contribution to the idea that a cultural object/text operates as a rapid mechanism for propagating cognition — it shows how Niccol has adapted to less than optimal conditions in his world of Hollywood — in this case he parodies the role of the director of Hollywood films in the figure of Taransky. Cognition is understood as that series of mental processes which include attention, memory, learning (from mimicry as well as other forms), problem solving, ratiocination, and making decisions. Niccol relies on his audience's embodied capacities and skills of recognition, thinking, feeling, remembering, and accounting for his message to be understood. Niccol’s technical skill in editing his narrative to emphasise the satire of the narrative of Taransky and Simone is a critical part of the film’s success. Interpersonal and social propagation of cognition is achieved through reference to other cultural artefacts recalling a variety of similar ideas used in film and other visual creations. The cultural significance of the simulacrum, Simone, is that she is a vehicle for and a form of socially propagated cognition. The powerful imagistic impression of film helps to structure internalised cognitive artefacts in the viewers who are expected to reflect on their habits of viewing and thinking. When a film, artwork, poem or novel is analysed, then such a cultural object becomes a vehicle of and for propagating cognition.