Pleated Time and Posthuman Temporalities in OtherLife

The Australian science fiction movie OtherLife presents an interesting argument for the modulation of temporal experience. Working from the premise that a drug (or “biological software”) can produce new memories in people, as well as revise old memories, the movie makes a posthuman argument about how human being experience time. This argument is also evident in the audiovisual form of the movie itself. Speed ramping, screen mirroring, dolly zooms, and other devices dislodge a straightforward presentation of time. Similarly, the narrative form loops and revises itself, restating events and even showing different versions of past events. Taken together, this movie shows how we do not have an experience of time but instead participate in an experience of time. This experience includes the temporal articulations of technologies—the biological software OtherLife in the movie, and the aesthetics of the film itself.