The name is absent

Abstract

This thesis examines the confusion of reality and unreality in
contemporary media discourses, and focuses specifically upon the medium of
cinema. The art of our time, cinema reflects the postmodern fusion between
machine and culture. As such, a crucial concern of this work, which addresses
the impact of digital and visual technological developments in western
societies and examines how such advances have come to supersede the
historical and cultural imperatives, is precisely this resultant
confusion/fragmentation. The thesis analyzes how audiences interpret the
current cinematic evolution, based on computer generated imagery, and how
their subjectivity influences and impacts upon knowledge, ideology, culture
and society as a whole.

The creation of (un)realities in fictional spaces is most apparent in
such concurrent places as the Internet, videogames and Virtual Reality,
spaces which are certainly of interest to this thesis. However, it is also
crucial to note that recent years have seen a proliferation of films based on
the confusion between reality and unreality; and, further, that these have
enforced a fear of being deceived by technology. Indeed, such post-classical
films as Total Recall (Verhoeven, 1990), The Lawnmower Man (Leonard,
1992), The Matrix (Wachowski and Wachowski, 1999) and eXistenZ
(Cronenberg, 1999) materialize this fear cinematographically; a fear which is
arguably then assimilated by the spectators because this fear is projected
onto their lives. In this respect, it is essential to be aware of the creation of
new spaces, identify related boundaries and understand our own creations in
order to have control over our destiny. Concepts such as (un)reality, a hybrid
of reality and fiction, are essential to refer to the inventions, contexts and
information that appears in a world where atoms and a binary of 0s and 1s
constitute a dual code to which our lives conform.

The production of an original film, Luna (Diaz Gandasegui, 2007),
works in synergy with the written text to illuminate the complexities of
(un)reality and the vital influence of technology on its confusion.

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