"Technology is us. There is no separation. It's a pure expression of human creative will. It doesn't exist anywhere else in the universe. I'm rather sure of that"
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Cronenberg doesn’t let you take the usual moral shortcut of blaming “technology” like it’s a weather system that just rolled in. “Technology is us” collapses the comforting distance between human intention and its machines. That’s classic Cronenberg: the horror isn’t the gadget, it’s the fact that the gadget is a bodily extension of appetite, fear, vanity, control. His films keep insisting that the line between flesh and instrument is a PR fiction we tell ourselves so we can enjoy the benefits without owning the consequences.
“There is no separation” is doing double duty. It reads like a philosophical claim, but it’s also a provocation aimed at a culture that treats tech as neutral infrastructure. Cronenberg’s subtext is that every tool is a confession. We don’t invent devices in a vacuum; we externalize desires we already have, then act surprised when those desires come back with sharper edges. That’s why “pure expression of human creative will” sounds admiring and ominous at once. Creativity, in his world, isn’t automatically enlightened; it’s often compulsive, erotic, invasive.
The cosmic flex at the end - “It doesn’t exist anywhere else in the universe. I’m rather sure of that” - is less astrophysics than human exceptionalism with a smirk. He’s not praising our destiny; he’s highlighting our peculiar burden: we’re the species that manufactures its own mutations on purpose. The context is late-20th/early-21st century anxiety about media, biotech, and surveillance, filtered through a director who’s spent a career showing that progress is just another kind of body horror when you remember whose body it is.
“There is no separation” is doing double duty. It reads like a philosophical claim, but it’s also a provocation aimed at a culture that treats tech as neutral infrastructure. Cronenberg’s subtext is that every tool is a confession. We don’t invent devices in a vacuum; we externalize desires we already have, then act surprised when those desires come back with sharper edges. That’s why “pure expression of human creative will” sounds admiring and ominous at once. Creativity, in his world, isn’t automatically enlightened; it’s often compulsive, erotic, invasive.
The cosmic flex at the end - “It doesn’t exist anywhere else in the universe. I’m rather sure of that” - is less astrophysics than human exceptionalism with a smirk. He’s not praising our destiny; he’s highlighting our peculiar burden: we’re the species that manufactures its own mutations on purpose. The context is late-20th/early-21st century anxiety about media, biotech, and surveillance, filtered through a director who’s spent a career showing that progress is just another kind of body horror when you remember whose body it is.
Quote Details
| Topic | Technology |
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