Virtually Real? - The Body, the Soul and the Cyberspace
Sylvie Magerstadt
W026
About the event
Event type: Seminar
This talk aims to review the significant changes that have taken place within Science Fiction narratives between the seminal blockbusters The Matrix (1999) and Avatar (2009). I will argue that by comparing the engagement of human beings with their virtual environments as presented in these films, we can gain a significant insight into how our relationship with virtual realities has changed. Apart from this, I claim that these films also portray a shift in the representation of religious and spiritual themes from a more transcendental approach to a materialistic spirituality that is related to our attitudes to technology. In addition, looking at a range of other Science Fiction films from this decade, such as the The Thirteenth Floor and eXistenZ (both 1999) as well as more recent productions, such as Inception (2010), I aim to demonstrate that virtual worlds become less of an external threat but are internalised or actualised. Using Deleuze’s notion of the Actual and the Virtual, which he also links to a notion of belief, I will discuss how our engagement with virtual worlds raises a range of difficult questions about what defines us as human beings.