Existing outside of eXistenZ

Released in 1999, the same year as The Matrix, eXistenZ is a movie which depicts a game as an experience so realistic that it blurs the line between real life and cyber-life. Allegra Gellar is the game’s designer, playing with twelve volunteers to demo the new module, a fleshy, amphibious controller that taps into the spinal cord in order to project the virtual reality experience. Not long into playing Allegra is shot by a bizarre, organic gun and is whisked away by Ted Pickul, a marketing intern. On the run from “realists,” people believing her game is evil, Allegra Gellar escapes into her game in an attempt to repair damage done when she was unexpectedly disconnected. However, the bioport that Pickul receives from a gas station attendant is yet another attempt to foil Allegra. At a safe place Ted is fitted with a new bioport and begins playing with Allegra. In the game Ted and Allegra utilize different modules provided in the first scene, at a game store. With these new modules they are transported to the assembly line for gaming systems. A man from the assembly line directs Pickul to a Chinese restaurant where Ted consumes a grotesque assortment of amphibians that form the gun used on Allegra; Ted compulsively kills the Chinese waiter. Ted and Allegra then discover a diseased pod that Allegra attempts to repair by jacking-into. However, the pod is too far gone, and it latches into Allegra, and Ted must cut her free. A man from the assembly line, who directed Ted to the restaurant, burns the pod as Allegra looks on in horror. The safe place Allegra had chosen turns out to be a subversive plot by Cortical Systematics to copy her game and infect her game pod. Ted then reveals he is also a spy sent to kill Allegra, but she kills him first. It is then revealed that they have been playing tranCendenz, and the man from the assembly line is the creator. Allegra and Ted kill the game designer and his assistant.
A main theme of this film is the tension between people desiring innovations in technology and those terrified that it may run amok. In some ways the issues are already upon us, because there are some people so involved in alternate realities that they neglect their real lives. A good friend of mine had to sell his high powered computer to force himself to quit World of Warcraft. He felt powerless to resist the game because it had become such a significant part of his life. Allegra is similarly attached to her game, so emotionally invested that she would sacrifice her life to remedy an illness in her gaming module. For now, movies with virtual reality seem absurd because technology has not yet caught up with the imagination of David Cronenberg. The addiction some people have to gaming consoles, technology in general, mirrors those of drug dependency, but the problem is not pervasive enough to have a program teaching our youth to resist technology and form true identities first. In eXistenZ, Pikul is mocked for being unfamiliar with Allegra’s game. In our society it is similarly unacceptable to resist technology. I am grateful that I grew up alongside the inception of the Internet, and my family did not purchase a computer until 2000. I learned the necessary developmental skill of entertaining myself and played sports with kids in my neighborhood instead of logging on and instant messaging my afternoons away. At this point it is still a choice to become consumed with the Internet and alternate realities, although it does not feel that way with Facebook (I must have logged on 15-20 times while writing this paper). However, with advancements in technology it will only become harder to resist the allure of a world where you are in control and could be a hero.