What is it about?
In this paper, I explore what Lisa Tickner calls a ‘dissentient position’ in Modernism that assumes dehumanisation as a value of a new and brutal subjectivity and places the machine as a totemic deity. My understanding of this draws from the aesthetic language of Vorticism, particularly representations of women in the work of Wyndham Lewis. Moreover, I argue that this ‘machinic-modernism’ as Hal Foster describes it, which emerged in the early 20th century as a reaction to industrialised modernity, corporatisation, Taylorism, and Fordism, has a powerful and unacknowledged inheritor in the contemporary Palme d'Or winning film Titane (2021) written and directed by the auteur Julia Ducournau. I argue that the figure of Alexia in Titane, portrayed by actress and model Agathe Rousselle, is a celebration of dehumanisation that follows an anti-humanist path – sexually-combative femininity purged to become a hyper-masculine recruit, emerging as a biomechanical self – I claim that, while the modernism of Lewis and the creative intentions of Ducournau may have stemmed from different motivations, their utmost horizon for the subject and society is the same one, the swapping out of the tension of masculine and feminine for a machinic-self defined by ferocity, abjection, and trauma. I will also refer to the text Filibusters in Barbary from 1932 which is a reflective account of travels in North Africa including revealing attitudes of Lewis’s regarding machines which are, in common with the themes of Titane, anthropomorphised and presented as magical, violent, more frightening than monsters, and as having replaced gods. Ducournau and Lewis are reactive to the same social forces and rebarbative to so-called bourgeois conceptions of femininity in favour of a subjectivity that exists in a highly stratified social organisation.
Featured Image
Photo by Molly Blackbird on Unsplash
Why is it important?
This paper bridges a significant temporal and conceptual gap by connecting early 20th-century Vorticist modernism with contemporary cinema. By drawing parallels between Wyndham Lewis's aesthetic and thematic concerns and Julia Ducournau's Titane, the paper highlights the persistence of anti-humanist themes and the mechanization of subjectivity across different cultural and historical moments. This is intended to foster a deeper understanding of the continuity and evolution of these ideas in art and society. The paper intersects modernist studies, film studies, and feminist theory, creating a interdisciplinary dialogue. By doing so, it situates Titane not just as a standalone contemporary film but as part of a broader cultural history that critiques humanism, gender roles, and industrial modernity. In a time when discussions of gender fluidity, posthumanism, and technological integration into human identity are at the forefront of cultural discourse, this paper provides a critical framework for understanding these issues through the lens of both historical and contemporary art forms. The study delves into how both Lewis and Ducournau destabilize traditional notions of masculinity and femininity. By tracing Alexia's transformation in Titane and connecting it to Lewis’s anti-bourgeois and anti-feminine critiques, the paper contributes to ongoing discussions about the construction of gender and the possibilities of post-gender subjectivities. Wyndham Lewis’s work, while recognized in modernist circles, often exists at the margins of mainstream modernist studies. By connecting Lewis to a highly relevant contemporary text, the paper revitalizes interest in his work and positions him as a precursor to modern posthumanist and anti-humanist discourses. The paper examines the socio-political implications of both Lewis and Ducournau’s works, presenting them as critiques of capitalist, industrialized society. It raises questions about the psychological and social effects of dehumanization and mechanization, which remain crucial in our increasingly digital and automated world. By framing the machinic-self as a response to trauma, abjection, and ferocity, the paper offers a novel interpretation of posthumanism that foregrounds emotional and psychological transformation rather than technological augmentation alone. This challenges reductive interpretations of posthumanism as merely a technological phenomenon.
Perspectives
In my recent research I have become interested in what appears to me to be a triumphalist and celebratory, anti-humanist, attack on the idea of complex interiority, coming increasingly from popular culture. This 'complex' form of subjectivity is often associated with what has been considered traditionally feminine and is described critically as bourgeois, weak, or false. The aesthetic alternatives celebrate instead aggression, zoomorphism and power derived from a monstrously machinic body. This trend is concerning as it attempts to normalize and vindicate dehumanization as a mytho-heroic narrative that aligns with a broader cultural shift towards valuing domination, efficiency, and the erasure of vulnerability. By framing complexity, nuance, and emotional depth as weaknesses to be purged, this ideology risks reducing the human experience to a narrow, combative vision of existence where power is the ultimate virtue. In my research, I see echoes of this trend in both historical and contemporary works, such as Wyndham Lewis's Vorticism and Julia Ducournau's Titane. Both artists, in their respective contexts, present a kind of anti-humanist reimagining of subjectivity that privileges ferocity and transformation over interiority. While their works are deeply compelling and often critical of the systems they engage with, they also contribute to a mythology that can obscure the value of empathy, interconnectedness, and the rich complexity of human life. This normalization of dehumanization concerns me as an artist and thinker, as it reflects and reinforces societal pressures to conform to reductive, performative identities. It challenges us to consider whether we are moving toward a culture that celebrates power and efficiency at the expense of humanity itself. By interrogating these trends, I aim to advocate for a more nuanced and compassionate understanding of what it means to be human—one that resists the allure of dehumanizing ideologies and embraces the messy, multifaceted realities of our shared existence.
Dr Michael Eden
University of the Arts London
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Armoured Self, Un-becoming the Subject: Reading Julia Ducournau’s Titane (2021) Via Wyndham Lewis and Vorticism, Modernist Cultures, August 2024, Edinburgh University Press,
DOI: 10.3366/mod.2024.0428.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
