Ex-Machina
What is the essence of being human, or being a woman, for that matter? At what point do you lose that quality, and can a cyborg be human. Ryonen and Rachel are in some peril, as the cyborgs decide what to do with them. What if cyborgs and machines didn't just destroy humans, but try to assimilate or improve them, while taking on human characteristics themselves? Where is the blurry line between woman and machine here? What parts of the human do you keep, and what do you replace? These are questions that are explored by a number of science fiction authors and artists. I've tried to be a bit more "sexy" in my own interpretation here.
Technical stuff: The image has 25 distinct layers with additional filtering and adjustments added. The girl in the "tube" is Playboy model Rachel Cook (who I think appeared in the Lovely Ladies thread). Ryonen (hanging from the frame) is no stranger to CF manips, and the Hegre fitness photoshoot was an evocative source of interesting photos of her. The hanging head/torso cyborg girl and the white robot woman are artistic renderings from the internet. Possibly the most interesting figure (to me, at least) is the close up on the left of the image - This is the head of actress Alicia Vikander from the movie "Ex Machina" (not a bad film). The torso is that of model Marilu, overlaid on Vikander's actual body in the same position as the original photograph, and then gently erased at a level of about 5% to let the "cyborg" mesh show through. I think it gives a sort of eerie foreboding to the image.
In the movie, "Ex Machina", Alicia plays a cyborg who has been designed with AI to simulate a human perfectly. One of the themes of the film is whether this makes her human. This image, I think goes the other way round - what if you start turning people into machines? At what point do they stop being humans and become artificial. Is that a real line? I think there is some peril here.
What is the essence of being human, or being a woman, for that matter? At what point do you lose that quality, and can a cyborg be human. Ryonen and Rachel are in some peril, as the cyborgs decide what to do with them. What if cyborgs and machines didn't just destroy humans, but try to assimilate or improve them, while taking on human characteristics themselves? Where is the blurry line between woman and machine here? What parts of the human do you keep, and what do you replace? These are questions that are explored by a number of science fiction authors and artists. I've tried to be a bit more "sexy" in my own interpretation here.
Technical stuff: The image has 25 distinct layers with additional filtering and adjustments added. The girl in the "tube" is Playboy model Rachel Cook (who I think appeared in the Lovely Ladies thread). Ryonen (hanging from the frame) is no stranger to CF manips, and the Hegre fitness photoshoot was an evocative source of interesting photos of her. The hanging head/torso cyborg girl and the white robot woman are artistic renderings from the internet. Possibly the most interesting figure (to me, at least) is the close up on the left of the image - This is the head of actress Alicia Vikander from the movie "Ex Machina" (not a bad film). The torso is that of model Marilu, overlaid on Vikander's actual body in the same position as the original photograph, and then gently erased at a level of about 5% to let the "cyborg" mesh show through. I think it gives a sort of eerie foreboding to the image.
In the movie, "Ex Machina", Alicia plays a cyborg who has been designed with AI to simulate a human perfectly. One of the themes of the film is whether this makes her human. This image, I think goes the other way round - what if you start turning people into machines? At what point do they stop being humans and become artificial. Is that a real line? I think there is some peril here.
Last edited: