[Subjects at risk in a transhuman and post-clinical world: Reflections on Saramago's All the Names and the Wachowski Sisters' The Matrix].
Naomar de Almeida-FilhoPublished in: Salud colectiva (2020)
The main premise of this paper is that common social discourse, manifested in the Arts & Humanities, has played a crucial role in the construction of technoscientific languages and cosmologies. I explore this argument in relation to recently established scientific disciplines, such as Epidemiology, through the lens of two works of cultural production: Saramago's novel All the Names, and cult movie trilogy The Matrix, written and directed by the Wachowski Sisters. Both are allegories that exemplify a virtual world made possible by technoscience. A parallel is suggested between the first social observatories that encapsulated whole populations for systematic observation (allowing improvement of epidemiological methodology) and the "epidemiological dream" - nearly realized through the introduction of electronic data processing, enhanced by the advancement of modeling and simulation strategies and the organization of immense databases on health, disease, life, and death.