I realized something while driving home. The camera was made specifically for the robots and nothing else.
It can only be used by robots, and not as a tool to benefit humans in any way. Only a robot can use the camera, as someone said in the comic, it has no viewfinder. And only a robot can view or 'experience' the snapshots taken.
Also we've seen 2 of these cameras that looked and functioned exactly the same. So they seem ot have been mass produced in at least a small quantity.
Despite the fact that the self directing robots we've seen so far only seem to have become so relatively recently, someone mass produced these cameras previously with the obvious intent that at some point the robots existing would desire to have nostalgia of their own.
Drives me further towards the direction that these 'people' were created for more than just slaves, and that their time in captivity was just a 'training' period or tutalage.
- DragonFax
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Howdy,
A couple small corrections. First, a human can take pictures with the camera, although we have to assume that they cannot view them directly (Perhaps the cord could be hooked to a monitor?).
http://ykk.misago.org/Volume5/63
Second, the two cameras shown so far are not perfectly identical. Alpha's seems to be special, although we do not know what the difference is. If there is a signficant differance, it may argue against mass production - maybe a more limited production. We still do not know how common robots actually are, after all.
http://ykk.misago.org/Volume8/62
In any case, the cameras do seem to record an instant as an "event" rather than just a image. As Alpha has said, it's almost a time machine for her.
Best,
Dave
- dDave
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Kokone does know how to use this kind of camera [v2, p21]. There must be at least another one.
And also I wonder if a thing shown in [v6, p15] is a camera.
- kGo
Thursday, December 23, 2004
Anyone else note that when the image events captured by Alpha's camera are displayed in the OAV, the images are color-shifted and seem a bit less detailed?
I think it's only natural that the robot persons should visualize things a bit differently that humans.
- seaweb
Friday, December 24, 2004
On the cameras recording "events" (which I take to mean: holistic experiences including sensory data that isn't visual, and possibly also emotional import) rather than just pictures, I have to say that I believe this is a special feature of Alpha's interaction with her camera.
Not only are we told that her camera is a special camera, we also know that Alpha has a superior capacity for interaction with this sort of machinery.
Alpha and her camera are a special circumstance. Notice that Maruko's viewing of the pictures she gets sent (including the one of Alpha) is less "deep".
- abunai
Saturday, December 25, 2004
"On the cameras recording "events" (which I take to mean: holistic experiences including sensory data that isn't visual, and possibly also emotional import) rather than just pictures, I have to say that I believe this is a special feature of Alpha's interaction with her camera. "
Perhaps there really isn't anything "special" about Alpha's interaction with her camera. Perhaps going through her own pictures helps her remember the moment she took the picture, the sounds, the smells, the feelings. The picture won't necessarily mean the same thing to another being.
The camera is like an external memory device (term used for objects with special meaning in Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex). It captures an image that the taker can't possibly store completely, and serves as an index for accessing the data that can't be stored by the camera.
Humans are the same way too, aren't they? Take a look through pictures you've taken. Don't they have some sort of special meaning to you? Now, go next door and ask your neighbor what he or she thinks. Chances are, the reaction will be "that's nice" or something to that effect. See where this is going? ;)
Now go out and take some pictures.
- kawaiiguy
Sunday, December 26, 2004
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