The Matrix of Visual Culture
As Patricia Pisters ( 2003 ) asserts in her survey of Deleuze and movie theoryThe Matrix of Visual Culture, the Wachowski brothers’ movie can be read from figure of different theoretical positions. It invites readings via Lacanian depth psychology, Platonic impressions of the cave and the disparity between the two strata of perceptual experience and besides as a “New Age” ( Pisters, 2003: 11 ) quasi-religious evocation of the 2nd coming. However, here I would wish to put the film’s ocular sense and diegesis into a context of postmodern doctrine ; pulling illations and theoretical connexions between the movie and the work of Jean Baudrillard, Walter Benjamin and the neo-Marxists of the Frankfurt School, most notably Adorno and Horkheimer inDialectic of Enlightenment( 1979 ) .
The importance of postmodern doctrine and cyber civilization to the ocular sense ofThe Matrixis declared from its really opening rubrics. Random strings of green Ne informations are scrolled against a black background permeating the spectator with a sense of the practical and the cybernetic and this is concretised and given definite focal point subsequently on as Neo ( Keanu Reeves ) hides the two thousand dollars given to him by Anthony in a transcript ofSimulacra and Simulationby Baudrillard. This mention nevertheless is more than a mere ocular gag it is a form for a figure of the film’s sub-textual figure of speechs and motives.
For Baudrillard, the impression of the simulacra was cardinal to an apprehension of the modern capitalist society. In his essay “The Precession of the Simulacra” ( 2004 ) he offers up four critical constructs, all of which appear, in one signifier or another inThe Matrix: the simulation, the simulacra, the Real and the hyper-real. The simulation covers the spreads in the Real, the existent ; as Baudrillard says “To simulate is to sham to hold what one doesn’t have” ( Baudrillard, 2004: 3 ) . The simulation takes on the image of the Real in order to cover the fact that it is fractured and disparate, nevertheless, we are cognizant of a simulation, we imbue it with no religion or belief. For Baudrillard, Disney World is a simulation par excellence, the visitants are to the full cognizant that they are witnessing a pretension, an unreality but disavow themselves for the interest of an experience:
“It ( Disneyland ) is first of all a drama of semblances and apparitions: the Pirates, the Frontier, the Future Wolrd, etc. This fanciful universe is supposed to guarantee the success of the operation. But what attracts crowds is without a uncertainty the societal microcosm, the spiritual, minitarised pleasance of existent America.” ( Baudrillard, 2004: 12 )
This sense can be seen to be reflected inThe Matrix’s usage of computer-generated preparation pictures. Neo and Morpheus ( Lawrence Fishburn ) are to the full cognizant that what they are partaking in is simulated, even though it has the expression of a universe “in microcosm” . Their fake dojo is constructed of unnaturally generated images that are themselves made up merely of binary Numberss ( likeThe Matrix’s rubrics ) and pels and it is, certainly, no stretch of the imaginativeness to associate this with modern cyber and media oriented civilization.
The simulacrum nevertheless represents a simulation that is imbued with every bit much religion and belief as the Real and therefore presents a really different place in human ontology. Modern engineering has enabled us to make transcripts without masters, what Baudrillard footings “a hypereality” ( Baudrillard, 2004: 1 ) , or possibly what is seen in the movie as The Matrix. In a treatment of Baudrillard that comes surprisingly close to subjects and figure of speechs we have looked at already inThe Matrix,Mike Gane ( 1991 ) asserts that:
“ ( In ) the order of hyperreality itself: efficaciously the existent universe, its distinctness, has been left behind as an thought appropriate to a different manner of thought. The invasion of the binary scheme, the 0/1, the yes/no, question/response, begins, efficaciously and dramatically, to render, instantly, every discourse inarticulate. It crushes the universe of meaningful duologue, of representation, of the preparation of inquiries which may be hard, even impossible to answer.” ( Gane, 1991 )
Here we see many of subjects and images of the movie: the computing machine generated double stars, the amusing book constructs of good and evil and the changeless yes/no oppugning that permeates the duologue ( Are you the One? Etc ) all of which emanates from the simulacrum and reflects the simple concepts of the hyper-real.
In Baurdrillard, the hyper-reality of the modern consumer society covers what he calls the “desert of the Real” ( Baudrillard, 2004: 1 ) , it disguises the fact that the Real no longer exists or, at least, does non be in any recognizable, consistent signifier. The hyper-real does non merely originate from the media and civilization ( although these are of import elements ) , as Marc Auge ( 1992 ) suggests inNon Topographic points: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, it can besides be constructed though architecture, town planning and the many other adherents that go to doing modern-day society.
This point is extremely pertinent toThe Matrixwhose ocular sense andmise en scene, as Bell, Loader and Pleace ( 2004 ) suggest reflects non merely future dystopic universes like those ofBlade Runner( 1982 ) and Kathryn Bigelow’sStrange Dayss( 1995 ) but besides the computing machine generated architecture of games likeTomb Raider. The evocation of the Baudrillardian impression of hyper-reality that is at the bosom ofThe Matrix’s diegesis, so, besides underlines its ocular sense. For case, while Neo is awoken to the true nature of his ain simulacrum, the audience bit by bit becomes more and more aware of the CGI used and as the movie moves on, the ocular differentiation between the existent and the false begins to interrupt down ; we begin to see the effects for what they are, unreal.
This, of class, reflects Walter Benjamin’s averments on the topographic point of movie itself in modern-day civilization. Like the hyper-real, Benjamin in “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” ( 1999 ) , sees movie itself as being a transcript without an original:
“To an of all time greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for duplicability. From a photographic negative, for illustration, one can do any figure of prints ; to inquire for the reliable print makes no sense.” ( Benjamin, 1999: 218 )
The movie here is seen as the ultimate hyper-reality, it exists as pure simulacra that we invest with significance and world, it consists simply of representational images and, through continuity redaction and the Hollywood manner of image use, contains an built-in political orientation.
In theirDialectic of Enlightenment( 1979 ) Adorno and Horkheimer extend this to mass civilization per Se. For them, mass consumer civilization represents a hegemonic system of political orientation proliferation that is designed chiefly to extenuate and command:
“Films, wireless and magazines make up a system which is unvarying as a whole and in of all time portion. Even the aesthetic activities of political antonyms are on in their enthusiastic obeisance to the beat of the Fe system.” ( Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979: 120 )
Viewed in this manner,The Matrixbecomes a meta-discursive movie about the very nature of film and its audience. The hyper-reality of Neo is easy just to the hyper-reality of the audience member sing Neo, except of class that the character becomes cognizant of his state of affairs.
For both Baudrillard and the neo-Marxists of the Frankfurt school there is really small ambiguity in the impression of the hyper-real. When we read eitherSimulacra and SimulationsorDialectic of Enlightenmentwe are left in really small uncertainty as to the comparative worth of the Real and that which disguises its deficiency. Both doctrines are imbued, as Julian Pefanis ( 1991 ) asserts with nostalgia for the Real and “a melancholy for its lost systems.” ( Pefanis, 1991: 71 ) . In Adorno and Horkheimer, for case, modern civilization obscures the reliable, it disguises existent emotion we are kept from the truth by what they term “the civilization industry” ( Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979 ) that manipulates and indoctrinates ( Strinarti, 1995: 58 ) .
Popular civilization is seen as perpetuating the dominant capitalist political orientation through hegemony, it upholds the constructions and models of development and palliates its audiences, by offering them amusement alternatively of exposing their state of affairs. Unlike, say the dialectical collage of Eisenstein ( 1977, 1973 ) , the continuity based constructions and techniques of major Hollywood productions, say Adorno and Horkheimer among others, denies the audience the opportunity to prosecute with the stuff and inquiry it, as they themselves say:
“In the civilization industry this imitation eventually becomes absolute. Having ceased to be anything but manner, it reveals the latter’s secret: obeisance to the societal hierarchy.” ( Adormo and Horkheimer, 1979: 131 )
The Wachowski fusss, nevertheless, manage to make a mutualism of diegesis, ocular sense and philosophical subtext in their movie. In their usage of CGI and computing machine game aesthetics, they do non so much effort to make a simulacrum as expose movie for the simulation that it is, this countering some of the Marxist reviews of the Hollywood movie industry. In many of the scenes, the CGI acts as what Lacan called a point of “anamorphosis” ( Lacan, 1977: 79 ) its really unreal-ness helping to deconstruct the world we take for granted ; there is no effort to mask the fact, for case, that the celebrated “bullet time” sequence is unreal and one time we recognise this the whole system of meaning, the whole matrix, begins to unknot.
Mentions
Adorno, Theodor and Horkheimer, Max ( 1979 ) ,Dialectic of Enlightenment, ( London: Verso )
Auge, Marc ( 1999 ) ,Non Topographic points: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, ( London: Verso )
Baudrillard, Jean ( 2004 ) ,Simulacra and Simulation, ( Michigan: Ann Arbour University )
Bell, David, Loader, Brian and Pleace, Nicholas ( 2004 ) ,Cyberculture: The Key Concepts, ( London: Routledge )
Benjamin, Walter ( 1999 ) ,Lights, ( London: Pimlico )
Eisenstein, Serge ( 1977 ) ,Film Form, ( London: Harvest )
Eisenstein, Serge ( 1973 ) ,Film Sense, ( London: Faber )
Gane, Mike ( 1991 ) ,Baudrillard’s Bestiary: Baudrillard and Culture, ( London: Routledge )
Jameson, Frederic ( 1991 ) ,Postmodernism Or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, ( London: Duke UNiversity )
Hutcheon, Linda ( 2002 ) ,The Politics of Postmodernism, ( London: Routledge )
Lacan, Jacques ( 1977 ) ,The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis, ( London: Peregrine )
Perfanis, Julian ( 1991 ) ,Heterology and the Postmodern: Bataille, Baudrillard and Lyotard, ( London: Duke University Press )
Pisters, Patricia ( 2003 ) ,The Matrix of Visual Culture, ( Stanford: Stanford University )
Strinarti, Dominic ( 1995 ) ,An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, ( Lonodn: Routledge )
Williams, G. Christopher ( 2003 ) , ‘Mastering the Real’ , published inFilm Criticism, Vol 27, 34-37
Bibliography
Baudrillard, Jean ( 2001 ) ,Selected Hagiographas, Poster, Mark ( erectile dysfunction ) , ( London: Civil order )
Gane, Mike ( 1993 ) ,Baudrillard Live: Selected Interviews, ( London: Routledge )
Gensoko, Gary ( 1994 ) ,Baudrillard and Signs, ( London: Routledge )
Huyssen, Andreas ( 1986 ) ,After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture and Postmodernism, ( Indiana: Indiana University )
Lyotard, Jean Francois ( 2000 ) ,The Postmodern Condition, ( Manchester: Manchester University Press )
Rojek, Chris and Turner, Bryan ( 1993 ) ,Forget Baudrillard?( London: Routledge )
Filmography
Blade Runner( 1982 ) , dir. Ridley Scott
Strange Dayss( 1995 ) , dir. Kathryn Bigelow
The Matrix, ( 1999 ) dir Andy and Larry Wachowski
