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Date Created
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2024
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Description
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Using embroidery thread and careful knotting, this piece reimagines Edvard Munch’s iconic painting in physical, tactile form. The craft process–maintaining tension and creating order from knots–parallels the novel’s tension between the artificial and genuine. Empathy is central to defining “humanness”, yet it is ironically exhibited only by androids and those deemed “sub-human,” while the “standard” human relies on mood devices to stabilize their emotions. In a pivotal moment, bounty hunter Phil Resch compares the androids’ existential crisis to the tortured figure in Munch’s painting, a creature rejected by society. Like the figure in The Scream androids such as Luba Luft experience profound emotional pain as they realize they lack the necessary status for acceptance. When Luba Luft is shot, she reacts with “a spasm of frantic haunted fear,” huddling “screaming”– a chilling echo of The Scream, further likening her to the tortured figure, a representation of the android’s existential plight.
ALLYSON MCMAHON ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US:
Philip K Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? engages with the politics of affect, identity, and the human condition by exploring the distinction–or perhaps lack thereof–between humans and androids in a post-apocalyptic society. Alongside my design, a reimagining of Edvard Munch’s The Scream, the structures of my knotted work uncovered a compelling narrative about the role of empathy in the novel. My project evolved into a synthesis of all the reflections and lessons I had gathered throughout the course, blending them into one final piece. As the hypocrisies ingrained in the human condition unravelled during my weaving, so too did the question of who–or what–possesses the so-called “appropriate affect,” and whether, in turn, this affect should determine the right to life.
First published by Doubleday in 1968, Dick’s novel initially received positive reviews, though it was neither widely reviewed nor commercially successful at the time (Stevenson). In online correspondence with his friend and collaborator Roger Zelazny, Dick expressed satisfaction over receiving “9,000 for Electric Sheep” (Fisher). However, this sum would seem modest compared to the novel’s subsequent success when it was reissued as Blade Runner after the 1982 film adaptation, which debuted just three months after Dick’s death (Stevenson). While the film generated extensive scholarly attention, the novel has been overshadowed by its cinematic counterpart despite its status as a cornerstone of the science fiction literary genre. This duality became apparent in my exploration of the text. When discussing my novel with friends, I would often be met with blank stares. I would then ask, “Do you know the film Blade Runner?” and their eyes would suddenly light up: ah, yes. The relative invisibility of the novel in the film’s shadow intrigued me, prompting me to wonder if this overshadowing was not unlike my craft, as I was similarly met with confusion when displaying it: what exactly is that? exhibit goers and classmates wondered.
The origins of knot-tying are debated, with some tracing it back to China between 381 and 221 BC, while others attribute it to Arab weavers or Indigenous peoples (Kleň). It is likely, then, that knotting developed independently across various regions, initially used for practical purposes such as making rope. The practice saw an aesthetic resurgence in the 1990s, largely because of friendship bracelets, often produced by children as symbols of affection–a labour of love. To create my project, I started with background strings and used double-hitch knots to attach various coloured leading strings, forming a grid image. While this form of craft is not formally named, it shares similarities with weaving, macramé, and other knotting crafts. As a result, categorizing my work proved challenging. While my piece uses bracelet-knotting techniques, it is not itself a bracelet; instead, it is a picture intended for display rather than wear. Just as my attempt to define my object by limiting it to a single craft technique challenged me, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? challenges the rigid distinction between "human" and "android," urging us to rethink what it means to embody humanity. Much as my craft resists categorization, Dick’s characters are made up of complex fragments that defy society's strict classifications.
In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the boundaries between humans and androids are defined by the presence of empathy. However, this framework—like the inconsistencies in my knotting—reveals the instability of defining human emotion. Deckard is tasked with finding and killing rouge androids using the Voight-Kampff test, which measures emotional responses. In knotting, the precise placement of each coloured knot creates a coherent pattern. If I made a colour mistake, I had to work backward, undoing the knot that did not belong. Similarly, the Voight-Kampff test is designed to maintain a structured society, eliminating anyone who fails to exhibit empathy. This system constructs a “clear” definition of humanity, a neat, ordered framework. However, as I continued to knot, I faced difficulty in my tension, as some knots become too tight or too loose, much like how empathy can become misaligned. Just as uneven tension in knotting disrupted the perfection of my pattern, controlled emotions distort the authenticity of human experience. Early in the novel, we are introduced to the Penfield mood organ, a technology that allows people to manipulate their emotions. When Iran, Deckard’s wife, shuts off the television, she hears only “empty apartments,” realizing how “unhealthy it was, sensing the absence of life,” the “absence of appropriate affect.” She then “[sits] down at [her] mood organ” and “finally [finds] a setting for despair” (5). Later, during an argument, despite being in a “382 mood,” Iran dials despair again on the mood organ, feeling it is a more “appropriate” response. As scholar Peter Goldman notes, it is “ironic that Iran dials in ‘despair’ since that seems to be her usual response to her situation” (3). Iran can no longer maintain even a “normal” mood; all her moods must be simulated, making her emotions seem as artificial—if not more so—than the androids who are killed for failing to exhibit the correct emotional responses. Like the knots in my work, any attempt to characterize and control emotion is an imperfect and fragile endeavour, revealing the contradictions in both human nature and the structures that seek to define it.
The image I chose to knot, The Scream, not only appears in the text but also symbolizes the androids’ desire to experience emotions. When Deckard and his partner, Phil Resch, visit an art gallery on a mission to eliminate an android named Luba Luft, they encounter The Scream. As they view the painting, Resch remarks, “this is how an android must feel” (121). With a lifespan of only four years, androids seek meaning beyond servitude. Luba Luft, an opera singer, longs for a larger purpose and to experience the emotion she sees reflected in art. When Resch shoots Luba, she reacts with “a spasm of frantic haunted fear,” huddling against the “wall of the elevator screaming,” echoing the anguish of The Scream (124). Here, Luba demonstrates a capacity for fear, revealing her growing understanding of human emotion. Like the figure in the painting, Luba exists in existential anxiety, alienated and unable to express the "appropriate affect" that society demands–and ultimately killed for it. Yuying Wang and Tianhu Hao argue that “androids do not want to remain enslaved”; they seek “merely the ability to have desires and emotions,” to “live a life like every man.” Luba Luft, like other androids, longs to feel and to be acknowledged. Her portrayal suggests that denying anyone—the artificial included—the ability to feel and be seen is inherently unjust, regardless of whether they can exhibit the “appropriate” affect. As Deckard himself comes to realize, “the electric things have their life too” (239).
John Isidore’s character illustrates the complexity of genuine empathy, which, much like the untidy back of my craft project, is often messy and found in unexpected places. As Sherryl Vint notes, in the novel, owning an animal showcases both wealth and the ability to care for “a precious living being” (119). However, “animals are treated as commodities” rather than living creatures with whom humans share life (Vint 119). Isidore, dismissed as “subhuman” and barred from reproduction due to his failure to pass a minimum faculty test, is the only character who genuinely empathizes with animals, whether real or artificial. Isidore’s empathy is evident when he tends to a cat that he believes is a replicant, feeling the pain of its “burning out drive-train,” its cries tying his “stomach in knots” as he wishes for a job that did not involve the “synthetic suffering of false animals” (68). When he learns the cat is real, his employers express sheer anger at the “goddamn waste” rather than empathy (73). Isidore offers to replace the owner’s cat with a mechanical replica, an option that his employers dismiss in favour of compensation, assuming that the owner’s distress stems from economic loss rather than emotional attachment. Like the front of my craft object, the world of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? may seem orderly at first, displaying a society that exhibits empathy through the ownership and care of animals. Yet, if empathy were truly as integral to human culture as it is to the human and android divide, then the ownership of a real animal should reflect a relationship based on genuine care, not just material value—something only Isidore understands (Vint 119). While others display empathy superficially, Isidore’s empathy is raw and unrefined, much like the back of my woven piece. Forced to live in isolation in an abandoned apartment, Isidore reveals the deeper emotional work often overlooked or hidden from view, much like how the true effort behind my craft object visible only on its hidden back.
The crafting process unexpectedly became a tapestry of my reflections throughout this course, weaving together elements of my analysis of Isidore, the mood organ, and Luba Luft, allowing me to further explore the themes that intrigued me most. Both my craft design and the process of creation revealed the underlying hypocrisies in the society Dick portrays, prompting my critical reconsideration of what it truly means to be human—and who or what deserves life. This question remains unresolved in the novel, much like the threads left dangling at the bottom of my craft—interwoven, yet never fully integrated. Perhaps, in the end, it is up to each of us to decide where we stand.
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References
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Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? First Ballantine Books trade paperback edition. New York, Ballantine Books, 1996.
Goldman, Peter. "Mimesis in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Anthropoetics: The Journal of Generative Anthropology, vol. 27, no.2, 2022. https://anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap2702/2702goldman/#:~:text=In%20Philip%20K.,serve%20more%20effectively%20as%20slaves
Kleň, Jackub. “History.” BraceletBook, 2010, www.braceletbook.com/history/.
Makarova, Maria. The Beginner’s Guide to Friendship. 1st edition., Rocky Nook Inc., 2022.
Stevenson, Simon. “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” Encyclopedia Britannica , 2024, www.britannica.com/topic/Do-Androids-Dream-of-Electric-Sheep.
Vint, Sherryl. “Speciesism and Species Being in ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’” Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, vol. 40, no. 1, 2007, pp. 111–26. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44030161.
Wang, Y., & Hao, T. "A Study of Desires and Emotions in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Neohelicon, vol. 49, 2022, pp. 477–493. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/10.1007/s11059-022-00668-4.