Borne by Jeff VanderMeer (2017)

2 - Visual ‘Look’ (themes)

“The biologist explains that ‘we think in terms of machines, not animals. The enemy doesn’t acknowledge machines.’ It is as if all of our
human technology has failed, and there’s no science that can help us to understand why. Our most powerful force of expression as human
beings is our technology, and yet this ‘enemy’ (it is never clear at any stage whether Area X is actually threatening, even though it’s pretty
scary) doesn’t even acknowledge technology. These are cross-dimensional misalignments, forces from entirely different planes of reality.”
My interpretation saw the scavenger once living somewhere between central to southern America. Particularly around areas like
Panama (a country laying on the isthmus between north and south America), whose known to harbour separate islands (as
mentioned in the novel), surrounded either side by sea, and allows the protagonist to travel sensible lengths when she later appears
in the city (presumably in northern America).

“Panama is a country on the isthmus linking

Central and South America. The Panama Canal,
a famous feat of human engineering, cuts
through its center, linking the Atlantic and
Pacific oceans to create an essential shipping
route. In the capital, Panama City, modern
skyscrapers, casinos and nightclubs contrast
with colonial buildings in the Casco Viejo
district and the rainforest of Natural
Metropolitan Park.”
Pollution and Contamination

As part of the research, I’ve looked into the current situation now in areas of central-south America (with the
books events happening in the near-future, 50 years on), particularly the environmental retrospective real world
influences of the book (the predicted global warming, pollution and flooding).
“There’s no escape from its contamination. The polluted river glows pink and orange; yet the “memory beetles” people
stick into their ears and the “diagnostic worms” they use to heal wounds do make life tolerable in nontrivial ways. Wick,
for one, wouldn’t be able to survive without his nautilus pills.”
Depending on which area I plan to base the story, I
researched existing examples of superimposed
architecture and culture from one place, onto
another, often with negative results:
Note the village of Fordlândia built as a plantation,
and later as a more ambition project of “recreating
an American city in the jungle and to impose the
American way of life to local workers”. This clash
and range is something I wish to consider for the
environmental designs.

“The village of Fordlândia is now home to

about 2,000 people, many of whom live in
the original American-built structures.”
Environmental Issues across South/Central America
1. Deforestation in the Amazon

2. Palm oil production

3. Hydroelectric dams

4. Illegal mining

“The issue of water pollution is of particular concern in Latin America, as around 80 per cent of the population live in urban areas which are often close to
contaminated rivers. For example, the centre of the Argentine capital city Buenos Aires runs close to the polluted Rio Plata River.”

“In Latin America, advocating for environmental rights is more critical than ever. Resource-rich lands and waters across the region are increasingly exploited in the
form of logging, ranching, agricultural and mining operations to meet the soaring demand for raw exports like oil and timber in the north. Sometimes, these
activities drive industrialization onto land without the consent of local communities, who are forced to become advocates for the preservation of their land and their
own welfare.
Unfortunately, Latin America is also one of the most dangerous regions in the world for environmental activists. According to Global Witness, 60 percent of killings
of the world’s environmental activists last year occurred in Latin America. In Brazil, 50 environmental defenders were killed – the world’s highest death toll.”
Brutalist Architecture (Latin American)
3 - Characters
Borne
‘Past participle of bear [i.e. to carry or support the
weight of, or endure an unlikeable ordeal or difficulty]’

Borne ‘samples’ other life forms (animals, humans etc.) and – much
like the body responds to micro-organisms why destroying and
learning from it- adopts and imitates other life forms he’s absorbed
(or “killed”).

‘He’ mimics life around him, and is often compared by VanderMeer

as a child in this regard.
His form is determined by the person he first comes into contact
with (i.e. the protagonist Rachel), to evoke endearment as a survival
technique to avoid aggression and encourage protective behaviour,
much like babies who use ‘cuteness’ to their advantage.

He see’s and questions himself as a ‘person’, though not ‘human’.

Borne mirrors Mord, in that both are the state wherein animals and
humanity overlink together… but unlike Mord, Borne recognises
this and fights against his animalistic tendencies.
Mimicry in animals:
Central America- ‘Costa Rica’
 Uncanny and Creepy
Mord A terror of the city.
Arguably the worst threat and pinnacle of ‘biotech’ made by ‘The Company’, Mord is a giant flying bear that terrorises the city, and all those still stuck there. He
once was human, but through animal augmentation he became a purely animalistic threat of the city. He’s seen as ‘god-like’, and is worshipped by ‘Mord-
proxies’ and survivors of The Company (still holed up in the work building years after the disaster), who fear his reign. He’s the point where human crosses
over with animal, and this effect is unsettling.
Northern America
Rachel
Scavenger and survivalist. Works with Wick, whose able
Wick
“to engineer working biotech from the fragments” she
brings back.
A refugee

“There are different kinds of strangeness that permeate the three books. There is
very little excitement in any of the protagonists, more resignation; these are all
people doing their jobs, getting on with their lives, but without any real meaning. All
of the characters have lost something…”
There is a sense too that Area X has a personality, though to anthropomorphise
Area X would be completely the wrong thing to suggest; it is quite the reverse. Early
in the final book, one of the characters says ‘Would that not be the final
humbling of the human condition? That the trees and birds, the fox and the
rabbit, the wolf and the deer…reach a point at which they do not even notice
us, as we are transformed?’ Towards the end, one character walks by ‘…a fox,
pausing to stare at him, unafraid.’”
Sonoran Desert

Most of the environments within

the book have dried up or been
bleached with pollution and
global warming. For those
animals that manage to survive
the harsh conditions, I intend to
draw inspiration from in my
concept designs.

“The Sonoran Desert is a North American desert

which covers large parts of the Southwestern
United States in Arizona and California and of
Northwestern Mexico in Sonora, Baja California,
and Baja California Sur.”