Embodied Death, Experience, and the Posthuman Self in the Artificial Memories World in Blade Runner 2049

Abstract

The article aims to analyze memories in the philosophical film Blade Runner 2049. The film presents a posthuman existence, which challenges traditional definitions of memory and experiences. In the film, memory is presented as digital data that can be duplicated into spherical glass objects to prevent the loss of digital data if the digital space collapses. Additionally, memory is displayed as objects created by the memory architect that can be implanted into humanoid beings known as Replicants. The article begins by presenting the differing perspectives of two important philosophers, John Locke and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, to illustrate different views on explaining the relationship between identity and experience. Based on the film, memory can appear as digital data and be preserved as physical materials. Memories, therefore, can be in both tangible and electronic forms. Both forms refer to each other or retrieve if any form of memory is lost. The designed and implanted futuristic memories continue to play a crucial role in shaping identity. Moreover, the article aims to analyze K-officer, the main character. K’s memories can be divided into two parts, that is, artificially implanted memory and authentically experiential memory. The article argues that experiential memories that arise from his questioning about his existence profoundly influence him more than implanted memories. In the final scene of the film, K fulfills his meaning of life through saving Ana and Deckard's lives. Those moments illustrate how his actions determine his existence and identity. After analyzing K's existence through the philosophical lenses of Donna Haraway's cyborg theory and Katherine Hayles's embodiment, it could be argued that K's existence can be described as a mixed being that is formed by the relationship between technology and embodiment. K can choose the meaning of existence through embodied actions that involve cooperation with technology. K exists through the embodiment of actions, choices, and real experiences, and K's existence ends with embodied death.

Highlights
• Blade Runner 2049 presents two forms of memory. Memories exist as both physical objects (glass spheres, implanted replicant data) and digital files. They challenge the traditional boundary between physical and non-physical experience in posthuman existence.
• The film shows that artificial and experiential memories co-constitute identity. The protagonist K's existence is shaped not only by the entanglement of implanted memories but by phenomenologically lived experience also. This point suggests a new perspective for understanding posthuman identity.
• Haraway's cyborg theory and Hayles's posthumanist embodiment are applied to analyze memory and selfhood in the film. The analyzing found that K exists as a post-dualist hybrid being irreducible to either technology or organic life.
• The concept of "embodied death" is introduced as an original contribution, which implies K's sacrificial death is argued to be a phenomenologically unique, non-replicable event that confers existential meaning. The argument presents that embodiment remains the irreplaceable ground of selfhood even when memories can be digitized and transferred.
• The paper argues that embodiment and technology are co-constitutive rather than hierarchical in posthuman existence. They together form a relational structure in which embodied situatedness mediates technological memory and anchors existential meaning.