confusion that extends to the rest of our existence, altering our personalities.
In this respect, Stephen Frosh observes that:
The reality of modernity is one of fragmentation and the
dissolution of the self, then belief in the integrity of the
personal self is ideological, imaginary, fantastic. Whatever
illusions we may choose to employ to make ourselves feel
better remain illusory, deceptive and false (Frosh, 1991: 57-
58).
Such deception is something that we can see in Total Recall, a film set in the
future, in which technology facilitates the implantation of memories, a
satisfactory ‘virtual past experience’, in the brain of the consumer. However,
in Quaid, the implantation of memories produces, instead of satisfaction and
entertainment, confusion and loss of identity. Quaid chooses to be someone
different, to be who he wants to be, but by doing this he faces an identity
crisis: he confronts himself with his ideal self and the result is a crisis and a
total disorientation about who he is and the reality in which he is immersed.
The character of Quaid is a perfect example of how the most powerful tool to
fight against the deconstruction/destruction of the self is to maintain a
‘historical’ consciousness, an anchor, a constant knowledge of who we think
we are in spite of who we are ‘playing’ at being. The alternative is
schizophrenia, as Jameson indicates: in present society we live our lives
submerged in multiple personalities that sometimes can get closer to a
schizophrenic feeling (Jameson, 1996: 33-34). These multiple personalities
coincide at a given time, functioning, in many cases, in opposition to each
other. Our identities are thus constantly being challenged by continuous
fragmentation, and exposure to fiction and technology, primarily virtuality, is
actively contributing to this phenomenon.
New technologies such as the virtual world of Second Life (2003),
which is a reproduction of our world in an immaterial universe, enable us to
adopt identities far from what we really are: class, ethnicity and gender are
no longer a problem in social relationships conducted in Cyberspace. Although
it is in the hands of consumers to manipulate social categories in such
fictitious spaces, a potential consequence of these spaces can be a deep
confusion about who anyone really is; in other words, a disorientation of our
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