Deus ex Machina
eXistenZ is advertised as a statement about how humans and the surrounding technologies interact with each other and the most common interaction pattern seems to be that of constant blurring and penetration, including ‘surgical penetration’ in the form of a ‘bio-port’.
These bio-ports are quite interesting in a sense that they are linked to the spine via a sort of a umbilical cord, which is a metaphor in itself referring to the relationship between a mother and the foetus (physical interdependence, nourishment) and then a child throughout his/her life (more emotional). The relationships between the mother and the child, especially a grown-up one are complex, from unconditional love to control , jealousy, hatred. In this intimate relationship between the gamer and the tech, who assumes the position of the mother (nurturer but maybe a controller) and who that of the child (the nurtured, the controlled, possibly the rebel)? Allegra being the game designer could be perceived as a mother at first but quickly the roles seem to revert as the natural and machinic spheres start to blur to an extent that the characters cannot distinguish between the actual and virtual reality, and their agency gets affected (this is a big question for me this week, the influence of the tech on humans’ free will). So, the blurring is also visible in how the game characters surface more strongly in the main characters and persist in taking over their actual selfs (interesting links to Gee’s theory of self in gaming – it seems to me that the projected self being the bridge between the virtual and actual selves undergoes rapid shrinking in eXistenZ and is thrown into non-existence?) So for example, Pikul starts abusing and killing people. Interestingly enough, he resists the temptation of killing Allegra but it is made clear that the relationship has been built around trust. Is it the old human trust that prevents Pikul from pulling the trigger of the organic gun when for fun he pointed it at the Demoness of Armageddon?
The sequence in the restaurant is interesting from the point of view of nature vs tech. The organic bones (mind you the ‘two-headed friend’ cannot be 100% natural, it’s another example of cross-contamination between nature and tech) are assembled very naturally into an organic gun. Is that dystopic, in a sense that tech corrupts nature? Or rather utopian – after all the tech, physically at least, assumes the organic, natural form. Does it become sacred? Does it become god as the previous film (and the title of the film, Isten meaning ‘god’ in Hungarian) would indicate?
Deus ex Machina
Pic by ekud on www.deviantart.com