Hyperreal productions?’ is moved from the characters to the spectators. In
this way, the characters (Neo in The Matrix, Quaid in Total Recall, Allegra
Geller in eXistenZ and César (Eduardo Noriega) in Abre los Ojos) question the
reality that they live/experience and this doubt is assumed by us as we
(un)consciously share the same feeling. Indeed, the unrealities or alternative
realities discovered by the protagonists of these films are simultaneously, and
in parallel, being revealed to us, the spectators, as something we did not
consciously imagine before. In particular, alternative reality films reflect the
inability to separate the positioning of humans in relation to the virtual world
produced by machines and simultaneously the increasing fusion of human and
machines. This paradox is illustrated in eXistenZ, in which the cyborg
achieves a new conception. Here, the human/machine goes further from The
Terminator and closer to a fusion with the virtual world: a human being that
is half way between reality and virtuality.
Virtual/alternative realities will be bridged to reality through us, the
spectators, transforming, in this way, the distance between both. Developing
the already alluded to famous metaphor of Baudrillard about a map that is a
perfect reproduction of a referent, we can predict the future independence
of the map. As a result, Virtual Realities will be stranger to reality, the sign
and referent will break their relationship and the reproduction of reality will
begin to change reality. The notion of ‘reality’ will be completely modified
when we will be able to generate a total and convincing reality using only
information resources. This constitutes the next stage of the Hyperreality
described by Baudrillard: when life happens in the simulation and not in the
terrain known today as real, thereby creating a chaotic map.
2.1 (Old) Media
We are in the situation of an actual image and its own virtual
image, to the extent that there is no longer any linkage of
the real with the imaginary, but indiscernibility of the two, a
perpetual exchange (Deleuze, 2005: 273).
Visual media are intended to be an (artificial) extension of the human
eye. We live in a visual culture in which there is a tendency to visualize our
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