Nexus.05: The Motif of Vision and "Eyes"

The Power Structure of the Seeing Subject and the Seen Object

The gray nothingness at the end of environmental collapse, and the toxic glare of neon lights. In these apocalyptic and poetic spaces, what speaks most eloquently of the “whereabouts of the soul” is neither words nor a powerful physical body, but the “eye.” The motif of vision and the “eye” functions not only as a physical boundary separating humans and Replicants, but also as the ultimate philosophical symbol that poses existential questions.

If Descartes’s “Cogito, ergo sum” is applied to the cyberpunk worldview, the proof of existence transforms into “I see, therefore I am.” For Replicants with fabricated memories, the subjective visual experience of perceiving the world through their own “eyes” is the sole proof of truth that they truly existed. However, the social system has refused to recognize them as “subjects” who perceive the world, instead subjugating them as “objects” to be constantly monitored and analyzed through tests.

A Mirror Reflecting Purgatory — The Phenomenology Presented by the Opening Eye

The narrative of the 1982 version opens with an extreme close-up shot of an eyeball. The industrial landscape of Los Angeles (Hades), belching flames into the pitch-black night sky, is reflected in the iris of a clear blue eye. While it is never explicitly stated whose eye this is, philosophical deduction supports the interpretation that it belongs to Roy Batty, who has descended to Earth. The reflection of the flames indicates that the world they inhabit is a ruined purgatory, while simultaneously implying that the act of “seeing” is a process of internalizing the cruel external world into the soul within.

On the other hand, the opening of 2049 also begins with a massive close-up of an eye, but a decisive difference exists. Neither flames nor neon lights are reflected on the surface of the greenish eye; instead, it is match-cut to a vast sea of solar panels. The eye of 2049 has lost its reflection, possessing a nihilistic depth as if being sucked into an inorganic, gray world. This reflectionless eye visually represents the “soul bereft of emotional reflection” of the new model Replicants, in whom the flames of rebellion have been extinguished and absolute obedience has been programmed.

The Creator of Vision and the Epistemological Reversal

The decisive disconnect between the physical organ of the “eye” and the “visual experience (soul)” obtained through it is depicted by the presence of the eye designer, Hannibal Chew. Appearing in Chew’s laboratory, Roy Batty declares, “If only you could see what I’ve seen with your eyes.” Chew is the designer of the physical “eyes,” but it is Roy’s “mind” that has tasted the despair and terror at the edge of the universe through those eyes. This is the moment when a manufactured biological component is sublimated into a vessel of existence through the overwhelming experience of the subject, creating an epistemological reversal of subject and object where the manufacturer of the visual organ can never share the memory of that light.

The visual defects of the Creators also serve as a scathing critique of the myopia of the soul. The thick trifocal glasses worn by Tyrell imply a spiritual myopia: while he can manipulate microscopic code, he is entirely unable to “see” the existential screams harbored by his Creation. Furthermore, Wallace, who is completely blind, has acquired a “God’s-eye view” through drones, yet he recognizes his subjects only as exploitable objects; he is nothing more than a fallen god who has completely lost all empathy for others.

The Power Structure of Measurement and Surveillance — The Replicant as the “Seen”

The Voight-Kampff test, by which human society identifies Replicants, is a measurement system that exhaustively analyzes the subject as an object. To measure humanity—the most spiritual of qualities—an inorganic machine emitting a red light is used to gauge pupillary dilation and capillary blushing. Rachael’s eyeball is magnified on the machine’s giant monitor, dissected entirely as an “object to be seen.” The structure dictates that in order to prove one’s humanity, one must pass through the surveilling eye of authority.

The Baseline test in 2049 is even more violent. To confirm the absence of emotion, K is subjected to unilateral surveillance from an unseen location and vocal pressure, forced to repeat Nabokov’s poetry. This test, in which he must feign complete inanimacy under the surveilling eye of the outside world while harboring an internal vision (a white fountain), highlights the profound despair of being the one who is seen.

The Truth of Subjective Memory — “Her eyes were green”

As a hidden visual signifier indicating a Replicant, there is a cinematic effect where the back of the pupil momentarily reflects an eerie golden or red light. This is a special effect utilizing the Schüfftan process, which illuminates the “absence of a soul (artificiality)” existing within them, while simultaneously serving as the reverberation of a life attempting to blaze forth as a yearning for humanity.

The uncertainty of visual information and the truth of subjective memory are most beautifully sublimated in the scene where Deckard rejects the perfect replica of Rachael. The replica presented by Wallace was genetically perfect and possessed brown eyes. However, Deckard coldly rejects her, stating, “Her eyes were green.” For him, the real Rachael exists not in objective data, but only within the “subjective memory” of that moment when they gazed at each other’s loneliness through the green monitor of the testing equipment. In a world where capital and technology can replicate everything, it is the poignant “details of memory” of an individual that prove existence and love.

The Extinction of the Subject and the Eternity of Existence

Roy Batty’s monologue on the verge of death is the supreme culmination of the themes of vision and existence. “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.” What he speaks of is not who he was, but “what he saw with his own eyes.” It was his own will that burned the blazing light of the cosmos onto his retinas, and he makes a complete leap from a seen object to an absolute subject (the seer).

When he breathes his last, that subjectivity vanishes eternally from the physical world like tears in rain. Memory is a singular experience that perishes with the body, and for that very reason, the moment of its extinction paradoxically proves that he was undeniably a “life.” Life dwells only within the “finitude of the visual act”—gazing at the world with one’s own eyes, enduring the pain, and closing those eyes.

The system sought to monitor them and subjugate them as objects, but these manufactured lives captured the world with their own eyes and acquired existence by defending their subjective memories to the death. After their vision is closed in darkness, where does the resonance of their souls head? In the next chapter, we will listen closely to the genealogy of the “soundscape” that continues to beat the rhythm of their lives.