one who can explain to society, to the audience, the effects and meaning of
new technology upon traditional conceptions. In this respect, Cronenberg
uses many of his films to express an anxiety about the current state of the
human condition provoked by technology. His vision of technology is dual and
contradictory: enthusiastic and pessimistic about the future of human society
in relation to the development of technology. Thus, Cronenberg’s films
Videodrome and eXistenZ develop the notion of technology as the main
impulse in the transformation of the human body, mind and social relations.
He believes that technology has become an extension (sometimes literally) of
the human body and that it also has an extraordinary effect on human
interaction. In Videodrome and eXistenZ television and videogames
respectively create a constant fluctuation between objective and subjective
reality in the main protagonist, blurring the boundaries between the psychic
world and the physical one. These two films supersede the classical
metaphysical dichotomy mind/body which is dissolved and deconstructed by
the ‘trichotomy’ consistent in mind/body/machine.
The characters of Videodrome and eXistenZ feel confused
distinguishing between reality and hallucination, and, on a parallel level, the
disorientation of the audience comes from the identification of the objective
and subjective, diegetic, filmic representation. Cronenberg suggests the fear
of technological media is based on the lack of understanding of their danger
and potential. eXistenz, in this sense, evidences a potential future where the
Virtual Reality distorts the possibility of discerning what is reality and what
belongs to virtuality, to the game. The film suggests that if we go a step
further in the evolution of such technology, this can render return to reality
an impossibility. The formation of a variety of ‘layers’ of virtuality can
produce the ‘disappearance’ of reality, which can be indistinguishable in the
chaos of the stratos of (un)reality. So, if reality remains there but cannot be
differentiated from the artificial version of it, we can finally feel indifferent
defining the status of the real.
The Matrix trilogy (1999-2004) is another filmic SF illustration of the
impossibility of differentiating between reality and unreality, a fear that is
directly linked to the evolution of technology and its effect in our society.
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