My Husband the Cyborg

Director: Susanna Cappellaro

Marriage is not for everyone, something the increasingly beleaguered Susanna Cappellaro discovers when her husband decides to attach small hooks and an electrode to himself in order to magnetically feel the north wherever he is. As much as Scott Cohen is the subject of this film, My Husband the Cyborg now available for digital download, it is Susanna who holds the camera, increasingly capturing more of her own perspective and the physical, emotional and practical effects on her marriage over more than two years following the implant.

“I want to become technology, not just wear it” Scott Cohen explains at the start of his 90-minute film and much of what unfolds is focused on the physical pain that he experiences when two titanium rods or “anchors” are first inserted into his chest and are then rejected, only to be moved to another location. Onto them he hangs a small buzzing device which gives him “the north sense,” a magnetic perception of where north is based on the magnetic field, which Cohen feels as an additional sense.

Cappellaro’s documentary is curious about all aspects of this procedure and its aftermath, filming both Cohen’s desire to experiment with what he believes is the next stage of humanity and the insertion of the rods themselves, done as a piercing by a tattooist. And despite agreeing to be the subject of his wife’s film, over the 32 months of shooting between 2017 and 2019, Cohen is increasingly unhappy in this spotlight claiming a “personal experience” that only he will understand and doesn’t want to share.

While the film aims to understand some of the desire to incorporate metal into the body and the process of becoming a “cyborg” with Cappellaro having a magnet temporarily embedded in her finger, the story perhaps unwittingly becomes a much more intimate film about this marriage and the impact of Cohen’s decision on the couple over time. Cappellaro repeatedly records herself saddened by the lack of physical contact between them where even a proper hug is no longer possible because of the pain the device is causing Cohen. Likewise, when she tries to understand his experience with the finger magnet his reaction is annoyance with her.

The physical distance between them becomes increasingly apparent through Cohen’s testy attitude as the months unfold. Where at first he is happy to talk about the device, over time he becomes angrier about being film, frequently argumentative with Cappellaro and unwilling to listen to her point of view. As he describes being bored of explaining it to people, he becomes a contrarian with his wife too, disagreeing with everything she says and disregarding the impact of his choices on their relationship and her feelings.

This may not be the direct purpose of Cappellaro’s approach but it makes My Husband the Cyborg increasingly uncomfortable to watch and almost too personal a record of what began as a scientific experiment. The film concludes in 2019 without answering any of its original questions and without a screen card explaining why this is being released in 2025 and what has happened in the intervening years – is this really the future of humanity, what does ‘feeling north’ add to the other bodily senses and how would this technology develop?

My Husband the Cyborg is available on Digital Download from 14th February.