Coping With Disaster Through Technology: 'Goodbye me!' - Itô Keikaku's Future Harmony (Faire face à la catastrophe par la technologie : 'Adieu moi !' - La future hamonie d'Itô Keikaku)
Résumé
Post-war Japanese science fiction's fascination with the imagination of disaster relates to historical reality in a complex fashion. Focusing on a work of the acclaimed representative of zero nendai (2000's) Japanese science fiction, Itô Keikaku's Harmony, this paper explores another possible view on historical reality: a future world where human experience has been made self-evident through (nano-) technological means. Harmony offers a bleak vision of a transhumanist future triggered by a nuclear disaster that compelled world leaders to replace governments with medical administrations. These 'admedistrations' monitor and keep humans in perfect health within a frighteningly benevolent society to which they cannot fully adapt. Harmony questions the nature and functionality of consciousness itself, which is made superfluous by the advent of a post-nanotech society. It provides therefore a valuable insight into the ethical issues raised by nanotechnology as well as a sarcastic critique of a sterilized and commodified global society.