Munire Bozdemir

Animating a Classless Society:: a Comparative Analysis of Metamorphosis of (Post) Human Bodies in the Matrix Trilogy and the Animatrix Munire Bozdemir

Is metamorphosing about getting adapted to a new social system or is it a reaction to the social and political changes that are imposed on the body? How does the gradual metal-morphing of the body as it is reflected on the screen deal with the issues of freedom, bodily ambiguation, boundary breaking that are associated with becoming post-human? What role can animation claim in being prosthesis for human body and/or mind or the externalization of the mind? In this study these questions are tried to be answered through a case study that involves the comparison of the metamorphosing post/human bodies as presented via different media of live action, animation and live-action and animation hybrids in The Matrix Trilogy (1999, 2003) and The Animatrix (2003) and through a focus group study involving three separate groups of mine-workers, housewives and high school students who were asked to interpret selected sequences from The Matrix Trilogy and The Animatrix with the aim of revealing influences of class and age difference in defining a new cultural understanding of how people associate freedom and technology in Turkey.