Return to: Home | Arts & Culture
New films by David Cronenberg and Chris Marker share a fascination with computer games and their metaphors. Ziauddin Sardar plugs in to eXistenZ
This world, the old sufi mystics used to teach, is a mirage. There is a higher reality that exists by its own essence and which should be the object of all love. The purpose of existence is to love the higher reality much more than this mundane world of illusions. Like the selfless and unerring moth immolating itself in the candle flame, the sufis directed their passion towards a higher existence through fana, or the annihilation of the self in the higher reality of the one.
Sufi theology, it seems to me, has now been appropriated as the central tenet of contemporary cyberspatial day-dreaming. It has been stripped of its essence, its monotheism, but the metaphysical skeleton remains intact. For higher reality read virtual reality. Love of God is replaced by the worship of the computer, the postmodern equivalent of the deity. The cybergeeks seek total dissolution of their selves in the object of their love - their goal is to become one with their machine. A spate of new films proves that this is now the spirit of our age.
Set in the near future, David Cronenberg's eXistenZ depicts a society where simulation games are everything and game designers are worshipped like superstars. But one does not simply play the game: one annihilates one's self and identity to become one with the game. Once assimilated, your existence ends and eXistenZ begins. Cronenberg borrows freely from games such as Myst and Dungeons and Dragons to develop an elaborate gynaecological theology for his simulated world of higher reality. The experience of eXistenZ is intimate and beyond anything that mundane reality can offer because it is an organic system. But not simply organic: it's meta-organic, beyond the experience of mere biology and in the realms of perpetual ecstasy. The game's driver is made of "metaflesh" and is a living organism that plugs directly to the player's nervous system via a "bioport". An "umbycord" connects the bioport, which is also made of metaflesh, to the game module, "metaflesh game-pod".
As the game begins, reality intervenes. Anti-eXistenZialist fanatics, determined to carry out a fatwa, attempt to assassinate Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh), the designer of the game. She escapes. But to where? Initially, the film differentiates playfully between reality and simulation. Allegra and her novice security guard accomplice (Jude Law) enter eXistenZ to establish the identity of the assassins. At each level of the game they find a new game-pod, plug in and jack up to a higher level. But how many levels are there in eXistenZ? Where is the exit? Is there a boundary between existence and eXistenZ? The purpose of existence, the film suggests in its concluding frames, is to perpetually play eXistenZ. Or maybe all is eXistenZ: the world is one great big simulation.
Cronenberg leaves the question hanging. But the notion that the world is a computer simulation was suggested in last year's cult science fiction movie, Dark City. The idea of jacking in, of entering virtual reality and becoming one with the machine was a central notion in another cult film, Strange Days (1995). The Wachowski brothers' The Matrix, which fittingly opened in the US on Easter weekend, takes these ideas to their logical conclusion by turning them into eschatology.
Somewhere in the future, cyber-rebels discover that the world - you've guessed it - doesn't exist. We are the products of a computer dream: a pulpy cloned baby attended by intelligent machines, actually. All reality is virtual reality; all material things are nothing more than computer codes. We think that a book is a book, that the year is 1999, because we are fed a diet of electronic impulses that stimulate us into thinking this. Morpheus, a charismatic rebel, has managed to liberate a small band of hackers who toggle between the real world of the future and the virtual world of the present. Their goal is to free humanity by cracking the framework that holds the malevolent cyberintelligence - the Matrix - together. The Matrix extracts "life essence" from the present to fuel its domination of the "real" world of the future. To defeat the agents of the Matrix, the rebels need the help of Neo, whom Morpheus believes is "The One".
The Matrix is an extraordinary piece of crypto-religion. "The One" not only gets to save humanity; hallelujah, he even gets to be raised from the dead. We also have the complete techno equivalents of John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene and Judas. But there is a surprise. Whereas eXistenZ is ambivalent about the nature of cyberspace, The Matrix represents it as hell. So humanity has to be rescued from cyberspace and brought into the heaven of reality. Like a techno Moses, Neo leads the enslaved humanity to a new Zion. The problem is that the real world we are being saved for turns out to be more hellish then the virtual hell. One can't help sympathising with the Judas character, who wants to be put back into the Matrix. The real world of salvation is hardly worth fighting for, so let's settle for the lesser of the two hells.
The Matrix and eXistenZ, both entertaining in their own way, are only the beginning of the flood. The Thirteenth Floor, another film with exactly the same premise, is about to open in the US. Expect more of the same in the near future.
Considering the metaphysical and eschatological content of these reality-check movies, one would expect some kind of revelation at the end - perhaps an attempt to raise our consciousness, or to open our minds to other, mystical realities. Alas, these films have little to say apart from the daft notion that subjective experience has no meaning and that the only reality that can be greater than ourselves is the one produced by our machines. This is not just a pessimistic view of human nature; it is fundamentally anti-human. We are being sold a new variety of self-glorification, one that juxtaposes gnostic notions, manichaean creed and techno-fetishism. Clearly, this is the arse end of postmodernism gone pathological. The grand sufi masters of yesteryear must be turning in their graves.
"eXistenZ" opens nationwide on 30 April. "The Matrix" will be released in July. No release date has yet been set for "The Thirteenth Floor"
Post this article to
We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.
