Incompatible Versions of Digital Humanity in Mike Lancaster's "0.4" and "1.4"

Abstract

This study examines the topic of the human being stuck in a transitional period between being human, transhuman, and posthuman. The focus of this article revolves around the analysis of Mike Lancaster's sequel novels "0.4" and "1.4" which depict events in a fictitious world, with the former focusing on the transformation of a conventional community into a digitally enhanced one and the latter depicting the presence of several versions of the upgraded humanity. This research employs transhuman and posthuman perspectives on selected novel excerpts that indicate the author's preoccupation with ambiguity and disobedience. Digital memory record of a diary is viewed as an instance of self-awareness that provides documentation for memory and archive which would be the only sign of the existence of a human version in this real world in contrast to the digital world.