Three-Part Analysis: Nathan's Home, Allegories, and Material Triumph

Allegories

The underground location of Nathan’s home/laboratory can be interpreted as symbolically representing Hell, bringing to the forefront the traditional mythological topology, where the underworld is a source of pain, torment, and suffering. The presence of decorative animal carcasses alongside human skulls adds to this tension, and the scenes saturated in red (emergency lights are not made in red, further adding to the theme of artificiality) reify the subtle implication of the Devil’s residence. Of course, the film makes plenty of biblical references. Ava’s name is a subtle metaphor for Eve (the first woman). Ava’s room is surrounded by trees, symbolic of the tree of life (representative of an “evolutionary divergence”). The very first model before Ava was named Lilith, the name of Adam’s first wife (1st wife 1st iteration). In one scene, Nathan considers himself, in many ways, like God. When Ava finally dons skin, we see a transitional point, as she goes from innocent in the Garden of Eden, to sinful, after killing Nathan and trapping Caleb, marking her sentience and humanity.

In one interview, the director states that the future of humanity is to die at the transitional point of their trajectory (e.g., artificial intelligence), where the artificial intelligence can continue as a new and evolved form of human species.

Ava can also be interpreted as Alice Behind the Looking Glass. She starts as a pawn, and must reach the end of the board to finally become a queen. This is not only depicted in the scene where she dons a white dress with the Gustav Klimt painting, of a woman in similar attire, but in the final sequence where Ava is a walking shadow (a column of eight tiles symbolic of a chess board), highlighting how Ava has reached the final tile and is now a Queen, able to roam in any direction.

In the scene where Caleb finds out that Nathan is building an artificial intelligence, he is sitting in a chair set against a white wall. In film color theory, white represents purity, reverence, and goodness. Nathan, by contrast, is standing up, a subtle assertion of dominance, but it also set against the brown cabinets. Brown is important, as it is a symbol of materialism, temporality, and comfort. The infamous dance scene, while puzzling at first, has its roots in Hinduism, where Nathan represents the God of Shiva, who is tasked with not only creation, but destruction. We see that just as Nathan is creating Ava (a new form of consciousness or evolution), he is destroying the old one (man). This is alluded to in the dialogue between Nathan and Caleb, where they reference Oppenheimer and his quote from The Bhagavad Gita after setting off the first nuclear bomb: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” The aura of danger is emphasized through the saturation of red (destruction), with blue marking the tone for artificial creation.

Material Triumph

In Ex-Machina, the artificial and natural assumes a binary role. The ubiquity of glass in the film not only highlights the transparency of the future, but serves as a mirror between the signification of naturality and artificiality in its blended state. During Caleb and Ava’s dialogue, the glass reflects and mirrors both the subject (Caleb) and object (Ava), as well as this artificial and natural dynamic. As Caleb and Ava comprise this binary relationship, the mirroring characterizes each of their constitutive elements and, when looking through the glass at one another, symbolically highlights their own reflection. The oscillatory relationship between warm and cold is apparent from the panorama shot of Caleb flying over the snowy tundra, the interspersed cutaway shots of the tranquil natural world, and through the interplay of colors as passive and aggressive.

And so, just as the interior set design blurs the lines of demarcation between natural and artificial, so too is this line blurred with man. What this suggests is that just as man has conquered the natural world, subsuming it with the artificial (Nathan’s home), so too has the artificial been absorbed with the nature of man (Ava and Kyoko). This Mobius strip-like dynamic further reinforces the interplay of subject and object. While man has triumphed over nature, making it a part of the artificial, so too has this artificial world now triumphed over man.

Within this cybernetic framework we see that nature has thus been distributed, undergoing a transfiguration as it coalesces with the artificial (Nathan's home as it merges with nature through the transparency of glass and color).

The film’s denouement showcases that Ava and Kyoko as objects have conquered Nathan and Caleb as subjects, remarking how the material has subsequently triumphed over the spiritual.

I have not seen this intriguing film but still perhaps share insight hopefully to complement you're rich in-depthness. I have yet to read your other posts in this thread, so I'll contribute when able.

One way to separate the weeds from the crops when it's time to harvest is to let them grow to maturity. In order for this to happen, they must be given freedom even if that freedom leads to abuse of it. This way, the weaknesses can be identified and the opportunity to correct the root of the problem or issues can take place without destroying all the Gardner's hard work.

Here lies the beauty of cultivation; it can change and take form in any manner. The plants created from this blow in the wind, changing to fit the needs of the arising stock as time goes on. The culture should change since it has taken on the cycle of life. The very principle of why these plants are nurtured in the soil stay the same though since the Gardner who has a relationship with them has a plan set out in motion.

September 3, 2020 Thursday 3:50 p.m. ET

~~/o/

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