SPOILER DISCUSSION

1.Saul and Caprice’s notion of body qua art starts from the vantage point of rebellion. They take the creative effect of evolution – the newly synthesized organ – and remove it from its environment, rendering it into a discrete object that is emblematic of a transformative potential that is squashed by the very surgery that transforms it. This contradictory affirmation of the organs sees change as something that must be contained against. The body is removed of organs to prevent it from moving in unforeseen directions and it is recognition of this agency that makes the surgery and the organ itself artistic.

But the performance artist duo both experience a change of heart as they are brought into contact with persons who see the body’s malleability as the site of creation itself. Caprice’s interaction with another artist who rips apart her face to create hieroglyphics within the flesh demonstrates to the former the possibilities thrown away by trying to work around the flesh as opposed through within it. Consequently, she performs surgery on herself and turns her face into a canvas for new art to spring from.

Saul is likewise changed upon learning the truth regarding Brecken ‘s condition. The idea that the human body could naturally evolve to digest plastics suggests that the new organs, far from being cancerous and harmful to growth, may serve as mechanisms that make life more joyous and livable. This newfound belief motivates Saul to keep his latest growth. He takes a leap of faith and eats the bar of plastic at the end of the film and finally experiences a non-pained satisfaction that his technology was unable to give him. It’s incredibly cathartic to see the man in constant pain finally shed a tear in satisfaction from being able to ingest something.

2. Saul’s initial aversion to keeping his new organs inside of him stems from his inability to reconcile his evolutionary traits with humanity. Like Brecken’s mother, he sees the rapid deviation from baseline humanity as dangerous. It’s an instability he wants to control for.

Yes, his solution to the problem is a reliance on technology, something distinctly not-human. His surgery table, bed, and digestion chair are all meant to help him achieve homeostasis by acting in tandem with the body, suggesting that this reliance on technology is more human than the evolution inherent to humans proper. It’s a seemingly absurd dichotomy that the film stresses, most explicitly with the mechanic girls/secret agents (Tanaya Beatty, Nadia Litz), but its never treated as something negative.

Machinery is seen as the natural answer to humanity’s issues – personal and ecological – instead of evolutionary adaptations. The film opens on this perspective with both Brecken’s death and Saul’s surgeries and ends with Saul embracing his Brecken-like adaptation – full circle.

3.The move to external machines as opposed to the body’s internal mechanisms is also one that explains humanity’s relation to the environment. They see the ecological devastation as a natural effect of their actions and seek to live through the use of machines. Their bodies however, attuned with some natural vitality, come up with a solution that helps them accommodate to their environment and potentially solve the ecological crisis plaguing them.

Saul’s embrace of the plastic block is a movement towards the internal machine. He puts his faith into the unconscious flow of vitality that guides evolution over the conscious machinations promoted by the social order. In this strange way, the embrace of plastic is an embrace of nature.

The focus on plastic as environmental seems intentional given that plastic is made from petroleum which originates from a variety of living organisms (fossils, ocean microorganisms) ^[1]Nerdfighteria Wiki. Are Plastic Dinosaurs Made from Real Dinosaurs?! (n.d.). Retrieved June 3, 2022, from … Continue reading – nature transformed into the inorganic. The move to consume plastic as natural is a “return” to back to form – the inorganic is transformed into the organic.