Inner Screens and Cybernetic Battlefields: Paul Virilio and RoboCop

José Padilha’s new RoboCop (2014) film can be read in the light of Paul Virilio’s theoretical work, notably Desert Screen. RoboCop serves as the city’s warrior but also as a munition in the hands of global media forces. Still, even if the film presents the fallibility of robotic technology, its true failure is in sustaining the progressivist myth of technology perfectly under human control.