„Do you know what it’s like when I die? I sit there and wait to start again, it’s killing, the tension, the fear of starting again, no desire, just staggering between life and death, it’s like death in your world, they get a big blow and then they watch life slip away, they get lazy, you know, like tied up, then they lose the will to start again. It’s gone. And so as pretty slowly life stops and their thoughts turn elsewhere they find no reason to stay here, bored to tears, so they have to get new strength, resolve and start a new life, that’s what you should do, find the strength to free Lisa, let her go.“ (Movie: Nirvana (1997) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119794/)
When I read Joshua Clover’s The Matrix, I came across a strange title right at the beginning, which I borrowed for the title of the next (originally second) installment in my relentless search for a religious and spiritual message, a myth deeply hidden in the filmmaking of our time. This term, The Limits of Construct, encompasses films in which the hero or heroes encounter an Artificial Virtual or Construct Reality and are trapped in strange worlds. Writing about these films and their message is a familiar path for me, a path I have walked with the heroes in the solitude of my personal quest. I know them, and they know me, and I know them and they inspire me even now. They have become my friends, regardless of their [artificial] existence. With each film we visit [an alternate world] that exists in itself. My first journey into virtual reality was taken in the 1990s with the film The Lawnmower Man, with which I first stepped into the world behind the mirror, a world where anything was possible, I liked the main character, a hated gardener with less intelligence, despised by his surroundings. I understood his enthusiasm and saw myself in his place as I merged with virtual reality. I discovered a new world, a world to come, a world of virtual reality. This virtual world was something I had anticipated as a scifi fan, I looked forward to the virtual reality that would soon permeate our [real world].
source: Joshua Clover – The Matrix (An attempt to decode the Wachowski sisters‘ famous film, which plays with the biology of its characters and audience, creating a difficult-to-penetrate complex of images and practices borrowed from other media. Joshua Clover, however, explores the film not only as an interesting cinematic experiment but also as a philosophical statement that points to the consequences of the direction of modern civilization).