The Cell

Work Title: The Cell
Medium: Film
Episode Title:
Year: 2000
Writer(s): Mark Protosevich
"Original" Writer: Yes Own work?: No
Summary:

A woman paid to enter the minds of troubled or disabled individuals through a mind-entering technology enters the mind of the a psychotic man and barely escapes with her life

  • Self-Written?: 1
  • Source Name:
  • Source URL:
Era/Year of Portrayal: present_day
Distinctive characteristics of the world in portrayal:

The mind-entering technology exists

Technology

  • Name of portrayed presence-evoking technology: Mind-entering technology
  • Description of the technology: Cables attached to person's body suit and suspended from ceiling; cloth over person's face and panel extended above face, all controlled from a control room
  • Nature of task or activity: Technology allows character to enter someone's mind
  • Performance of the Technology: The technology functions as intended at first, but then interaction with a psychotic character in the presence experience becomes life-threatening and the female lead character finds it difficult to escape the presence experience
  • Description of creator(s): The creators/operators of the technology are a black woman and white men in their 40s-50s
  • Major goal(s) of creator(s): The major goal of the creators/operators is scientific, e.g. assisting mentally troubled or disabled individuals
  • Description of users of technology: A woman in her 30s; a boy about 10; a man in his 30s-40s
  • Type(s) of presence experience in the portrayal: social_presence
  • Description of presence experience: Immersion and Medium as Social Actor; to varying degrees, the users feel physically, psychologically and emotionally immersed in another world and feel able to interact directly and indirectly with other beings
  • User awareness of technology during experience: One of the three users makes the choice to use the technology but is at times lost in the immersive effects of it; the other two users are unconscious when the technology is used on them
  • Valence of experience: The users experience both positive and negative reactions to the experience, feeling fear and anxiety at times in response to monstrous forms and violence, and feeling satisfaction and kinship in response to playful behavior by a child or the beauty of nature
  • Specific responses: The users show fear, sadness and happiness in their facial expressions, sweat, bleed, and change voice level while in the presence experience; the user who is conscious when she uses the technology is fearful and apprehensive of it before and after
Long-term consequences:

Good wins over evil, and the user of the technology is saved from the demonic mind of the psychotic technology user

Other:

The three users of the presence-evoking technology have particularly different experiences because only one is conscious of the technological mediation prior to the mediation

Coder name: Melissa Selverian
Coder email: melissa.selverian@temple.edu
Coder affiliation: Temple University