A Unit for Itself: An Alien Phenomenological Reading of Samuel Beckett’s Ghost Trio

Objects as depicted in Samuel Beckett’s television play Ghost Trio are much different from our usual understanding of them. Instead of serving our needs, objects and technology (which is comprised of the machine-like voice of a woman and a camera) direct our perception and give us a clinical objective view of things that we, alongside the sole human character in the play, become dependent on. This play defamiliarizes us to human perception and we get accustomed to the alien phenomenology represented by the perception of technology. However, in Act ۳, we suddenly become privy to the human perspective, highlighting the juxtaposition of technology’s objective output with the subjectivity of human eye. This division of perceptions frees the human mind and designates certain responsibilities to technology. Perceptual technologies, by virtue of being more objective, liberate the human mind from its associations with rationality and instead open ways for more subjective, aestheticized experiences. Objects in this play are not solely there to solve human problems, instead they are raised to the same bar of significance as any human.

کلیدواژه ها:

Samuel Beckett ، Television Play ، Ghost Trio ، Alien Phenomenology ، Object-oriented Ontology