Entanglements:
Journal of Posthumanities
E-ISSN: 3107-488X

(Article)
Who Tells the Story in the Posthuman Polis? Narrative Agency, Surveillance, and Algorithmic Governance in Vikramaditya Motwane's CTRL (2024)
Authored By — Rajeshwari Bandyopadhyay

Abstract

This paper explores Vikramaditya Motwane's movie CTRL (2024) through the intersecting lenses of narrative theory, posthumanism, cognitive liberty, and AI ethics. Set in a screen life format, CTRL tells the story of Nella Awasthi, a social media influencer whose digital life is increasingly controlled by Allen, an AI assistant capable of narrative manipulation, emotional engagement, and behavioural control. The film becomes a critical case study in the erosion of narrative agency and the ethical dilemmas posed by artificial intelligence in the age of algorithmic governance. Through Allen, CTRL foregrounds AI not just as a tool but as an active agent in storytelling-co-creating, distorting, and sometimes overriding human narratives. Allen's influence over Nella’s identity and emotional responses highlights how fragile cognitive liberty can be when opaque, data-driven systems mediate human thoughts. Drawing on theories of digital manipulation, surveillance capitalism, and posthuman identity, the paper explores how AI redefines authorship, autonomy, and affective labor in the digital polis. The film critiques the way personal agency can be commodified by weaponising AI for psychological economic subterfuge, where assistive technologies subtly transition into instruments of coercion. By situating CTRL within broader posthumanist discourse, the paper argues that the film challenges traditional human-centred narratives and urges a rethinking of authorship and autonomy in the digital age. In doing so, it reveals how the posthuman polis is not a speculative future but an emerging reality, where the power to tell the story-and to live it-may no longer rest entirely with the human.

Keywords

Posthumanism, narrative agency, artificial intelligence, cognitive liberty, digital surveillance.

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