IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2017 - 44

manner that seems recuperative, tragic, and redemptive,
rather than transcendentally augmentative. Due to his
debilitating illness, Da Costa requires an exoskeleton to
overcome his beleaguered condition. The film foregrounds themes of poverty, inequality, pollution, and
distress. In this instantiation, exoskeletons draw on
transhumanist theme 4 vulnerability in a heavy-handed
and overt manner; humanity's subsistence depends
upon technology as a need, rather than a choice.
Edge of Tomorrow (2014) [2] frames the vulnerability theme again when humans battle an alien race in a
dystopian thriller that foregrounds, not only the celebration of a so-called ideal, technologically-evolved soldier,
but simultaneously, humanity on the wane and threatened with extinction. The extraterrestrial robotic, octopus-like enemies the "Mimics" reset time each day in
order to alter the future. On the side of humanity, the
main character, Major William Cage, uses his standard
issue military exoskeleton to give him strength, stamina
and arm-mounts for his automatic weapons. The Edge
of Tomorrow exoskeleton clad body is summed up well
in one of the character's claims "You are not a soldier,
you are a weapon". The 85 pound-suits carry heavy-duty
weaponry (Markovitz 2014); however, they also seem to
dwarf the characters whose faces and other body parts
stick out at various points, making them seem exceptionally weak. Unlike the Iron Man suit, the Edge of
Tomorrow exoskeleton typifies constant susceptibility
to danger and lack of control (Theme 4).
Finally, Pacific Rim (2013) [39] evolves the exoskeleton motif another step in terms of both its physical
representation as well as its political connotations in
light of an apocalypse, a war with alien creatures,
known as Kaiju. The Kaiju are organic creatures that
look like gothic monsters rising from the sea, killing
millions of humans and consuming the ear th's
resources. In retaliation, humans create the Jaegers,
which are massive robotic exoskeletons that stand
250 feet high. Jaegers are controlled by two soldiers
inside the suits whose minds are united in a special
neural bridge, yet humanity is still on the brink of losing throughout most of the film. Humans wear exoskeletons the size of buildings to fight alien foes, and
nearly fall victim to them in Pacific Rim. While exoskeletons are still associated with superhero excitement, their imagery signifies apocalypse, with a
human death rattle sounding in the background.

Intertexutality
We argue that it is almost impossible to discuss real
exoskeletons without thinking of them first as fictional products. As Gillian Rose suggests, "intertextuality
refers to the way that the meanings of any one discursive image or text depend not only on that one text or

image, but also on the meanings carried by other
images and texts" [40]. With heightened attention to
celebrity [30], and the discursive dependence on fictional scenarios in the news of real-world innovations,
films glorify exoskeletons and hype the sense of fear
and vulnerability playing across all the discourses.
They coalesce with war-on-terror mainstream news
and abstracted threats on the public, all of which
require a sense of urgency but rarely a sense of logical explanation.
Taken as a triad, these discourses operate intertextually, even though we presented them as isolated entities. Exciting news about technological innovations
thrive across networked channels. People consume
and circulate popular techno news as entertainment to
tantalize, to scandalize, and to authorize, but as a
result, society simultaneously accepts values in terms
of this hyped technology. Thus, these discourses indirectly feed the accommodation of contemporary war;
combat technology seems the same as any other tech
innovation. Perrault discusses the "discursive work" of
popular science and the result of how knowledge
gleaned about science (which seems unbiased, despite
the fact that it is heavily enculturated) eventually
"become[s] solidified into social action" [12]. Likewise,
we argue that the exoskeleton invention discussed in
popular accommodated science publications in the
last two decades, such as Popular Science and Popular Mechanics, ought to be analyzed alongside values
propagated in fiction in order to come to terms with
the phenomenon.

Conclusion
We make salient an irony. On the one hand, stories
about exoskeletons are circulated amidst mainstream
gadget-loving techno-news. In post-millennial, network
society, they represent a sign of societal progress and
a sensationalized transhuman rhetoric of human
improvement or utopian betterment in accommodated
science. Legitimate science innovation sites and university research hubs release updates in support of
this news. But they also draw on what Turner [30] calls
the "celebrification of the media" whereby, in-demand
Hollywood stars drive the news value, the ethos of the
invention, to the point that it is believable because of
celebrities, not despite them. "Celebrity power" now permeates serious fields of inquiry [30]. On the other hand,
exoskeletons also defy this view. Fictional exoskeletons
frame a dystopian transhuman and oftentimes-militarized
identity that instantiates vulnerability. They reveal defenselessness and fear rather than idealized liberal-humanist
hope that we so commonly expect from our mainstream
news. The friction makes them alluring. But the intertextuality operating between fictional representation, blatant

IEEE TEchnology and SocIETy MagazInE

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march 2017

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