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This text has been submitted as an original contribution to
cinetext on August 5, 2003. It is also available as PDF-document for high quality printing.
Simulation Reloaded
by Seyda Ozturk |
In a recent interview
Jean Baudrillard states that the Wachowski Brothers had misapplied his theory
of simulacra and simulation in The Matrix, as they embody the idea of the
virtual as a concrete reality and carry it over to “visible phantasms”. What
Baudrillard opposes to in the application of the distinction between real and
virtual in the Matrix series is that “the brand-new problem of the simulation
is mistaken with the very classic problem of the illusion, already mentioned by
Plato”.
The infamous ‘desert of the real’
quote and the hollowed out book “Simulation and Simulacra” used by Neo as a box
for keeping his illegal software (the simulation Bible becoming simulacrum
itself) were apparent references to Baudrillard alongside other musings on the
nature of simulation functioning as the main plot of the narrative. The
structural similarity to Plato’s allegory of the cave also supported the
simulation theme, in that Neo’s awakening from virtuality was unequivocally the
moment of stepping out of the cave to meet the reality outside. However,
reality Neo sees after being awakened from his evil dream was not the ultimate
truth or the Real where truths are lit and perceived via the Sun, the source of
the Good and the Just, but he was welcome in the Desert of the Real. Before
moving on to the Desert of the Real and the notion of simulation by
Baudrillard, it would be worthwhile to mention the Platonic connection with
simulation in the history of the theory of representation, the problem of illusion
and the status of the simulacra in contemporary reality. The main point of
reference for such a theorization would not be Baudrillard, but Deleuze, whose
writings on simulacra and representation open, according to Brian Massumi
a new way for dealing with our simulacral world while destroying the copy model
distinction still dominant in Western thinking.
The Matrix (Village Roadshow/Warner, 1999).
When Deleuze, via Nietzsche, defines
the task of philosophy as overturning Platonism, he proposes an eradication of
the Platonic theory of essences and Ideas and its replacement by a theory of
difference and becoming. Deleuze does this by extracting the category of the
false from Plato’s theory of the Same and the Similar and by making this
marginalized category, the simulacrum, rise and affirm its rights among icons
and copies.
In Plato and the Simulacrum
of representation and the status of copies and images therein from Plato
onwards. Plato distinguishes between copy and simulacrum in his texts dealing
with the method of division (the Phaedrus, the Statesman, and the
Sophist) which is applied in the theory of Ideas in order to distinguish
the thing from its images. Plato sets up a hierarchy of images, starting with
the original represented by the good copy, which is good as of its intrinsic
relation to the Idea of the model. At the bottom line of the hierarchy is the
phantasm, the simulacra, which should be exiled as it possesses an extrinsic
resemblance to the model but a very different dynamic of its own.
A simulacrum is an image that does
not resemble; the image is maintained whereas the resemblance is lost. It does
not have an internal relationship to a model but only an external relationship
built on the “model of the Other (l’Autre) from which there flows an
internalized dissemblance.” (Deleuze 1990:258) The illusory simulacrum escapes
the authority of the idea and intimidates both models and copies; it is based
on difference and is thus distinguished as a bad copy.
The Platonic model of philosophy is
the Same and the Platonic copy is the Similar, in which simulacra with their
differential points of view are to be turned into the Similar. Deleuze sums up
the aim of Platonism as “to impose a limit on this becoming, to order it
according to the same, to render it similar — and, for that part which remains
rebellious, to repress it as deeply as possible, to shut it up in a cavern at
the bottom of the Ocean” (Deleuze 1990:258). Overturning of Platonism can then
be achieved by affirming the rights of simulacra among icons and copies.
Deleuze assigns simulacra an affirmative and productive status: By denying the
primacy of an original over the copy, one can explore the dimensions of an
unreasonable and limitless becoming.
In his praiseworthy essay “Did You
Ever Eat Tasty Wheat: Baudrillard and The Matrix”, William Merrin
states that The Matrix, while playing with simulacrum, “domesticates it again beneath a
higher and true reality: not once does Neo consider whether this "real
world" he is shown might not be just another level of virtual reality --
perhaps this "reality" is one created for the machines by another
intelligence to keep the machines themselves in happy slavery?” (Merrin, 2003)
Preventing the overflow into madness that the resonance of the simulacrum
generates, the narrative of the film depends ultimately upon a real that must
exist. The ultimate dependence upon a real is the weak point of both The Matrix
and Baudrillard’s theory of simulation and simulacra. In his 2001 essay “To
Play with Phantoms: Jean Baudrillard and the Evil Demon of the Simulacrum”
Merrin traces the development of the theory of simulation in Baudrillard’s
writings and sketches the shift from a definition of the simulacrum as a
semiotic conception that includes a “process of transforming the lived symbolic
into its semiotic image whose reality-effect eclipses the former” (Merrin 2001:91)
to a re-conceptualization that includes an establishment of a symbolic
functioning as a critical foundation against the simulacrum. This attempt,
Merrin states, is doomed to fail as the simulacrum rises and affirms itself
against all efforts to domesticate it.
The power of the simulacrum that
proves to be greater than that of the real is also central to Deleuze’s
meditations on the simulacrum, where he links
it with the Nietzschean notion of the Eternal Return. The simulacrum involves
the power of the false, the power of producing an effect by way of reversing
the icons and subverting the world of representation. This is achieved in the
simulation of the Same and the Similar by way of which the Same happens again
and again but each time with the exclusion of that which assumes the Same and
the Similar. It is not a mechanical or habitual repetition, but one which
extracts the manifest content “in order to reach the latent content situated a
thousand feet below (the cave behind every cave...)” (Deleuze 1990:264)
The Real/The Virtual
When the makers of the Matrix movies
signify the possibility of other simulations behind the VR in the sequel film,
they overturn the very dichotomies of real/virtual, essence/appearance they
represented in the first movie. They can be said to be replacing the Platonism
of The Matrix with its very questioning and the brand mark motto of the first
film “What is the Matrix?” with a new brand question “What is Real?”
The “What is Real?” question was,
although only slightly implied, also a valid one for the first film both on a
trivial level (Where shall the cyber rebels live once they defeat the AI, now
that the surface of the Earth is destroyed?) and on a more sophisticated
level (How can one define reality without simulacrum?). As Neo, the alienated
and depressive hacker who uses Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation as a box
for keeping his illegal software, was awakened from his evil dream and
introduced to the Desert of The Real by Morpheus, many applauded and celebrated
the introduction of the ancient idea that reality as we take it to be may in
fact be a simulation to the masses via the delicacies and supremacies of the
seventh art. What made The Matrix stand apart from other movies that deal
with simulation,( e.g. Blade Runner, 13th Floor, etc.) was its
encompassing the idea of all human kind enslaved in a simulation with great
mastery on both a technical level (without doubt with the aid of its
impossible-to-imitate techniques and special effects) and a philosophical
level. (After all, it is the movie on the website of which is a section named
Philosophy and The Matrix
, and on which there have been
published (until now) three books dealing with the now hip term “The Matrix and
Philosophy”.)
The Matrix (Village Roadshow/Warner, 1999).
The sequel film seems to introduce a
turn precisely at this point of reference to the real. Starting with Plato and
carrying on with Baudrillard’s Desert of the Real, the narrative’s journey in
the world of simulation has ended in The Matrix where Neo, after realizing his
powers in the virtual as the chosen one, had “arrived at a totality of
subjectivity – a whole – a hyperreal entity, more real than real.” (Gargett
2001 )[3]
This hyper-reality is forced to question his new identity and whether what he
was told is the truth in the sequel. One of the main devices for revelation in
The Matrix narrative is the power of the spoken word. Neo learns about the
virtuality of his reality from Morpheus, who in turn has believed in the One
prophesized by the Oracle. The only way of escape from the Matrix is via an
analogue phone, via the human voice. The power of the word is used to make one
believe what she is expected to believe, language and signs become mechanisms
of control. Whereas the first film has a linear narrative for setting up a dichotomy
of real and virtual, the sequel introduces the theme of free will and control
related to the war against the simulacrum. It becomes clear that the
omnipresent simulacrum sustains and makes use of the long lost model to
generate new simulations and to control the subjects within it.
The clear-cut distinction between
real and virtual also becomes undermined by the detonation of establishing
features of the narrative: one prophecy, one saviour, one reality become all
dispersed into possible becomings in reality where only affirmation endures.
The Architect at the core of the Matrix reveals that the Matrix is the sixth in
a series and that Neo, accordingly, is the sixth One; a device for upgrading
the virtual program into a more stable version where chances of deterioration
are to be lessened in a new start.
Taking the remnants of human memory
as its model, the Matrix exercises the practice of simulation by repeating this
model in a positive movement of becoming. There is no more the opposition of
copy and model, but a copy that has developed an inner dynamic of its own, a
cyclical movement of repeating itself by manipulating its energy sources with
the use of language. When the Matrix repeats itself, it does so by returning
eternally a la Nietzsche. It does not repeat itself literally; instead, a
different singularity emerges each time. As the ‘pseudo-Freud’, the Architect,
explains towards the end of the sequel “The matrix is older than you know. I
prefer counting from the emergence of one integral anomaly to the emergence of
the next, in which case this is the sixth version.” The Matrix reproduces
reality with each recreation, but not with the aim of affirming the power of
Becoming over Being. It is in the quest for its own static Being which will
finally erase the possibility of the emergence of anomalies. This production of
reality is achieved via the powers of the false: a false prophet, a false
underground city, a false one all joining for the recreation of the false. The
power of the false knows, according to Deleuze, “how to transform itself,
to metamorphose itself according to the forces it encounters, and
which forms a constantly larger force with them, always increasing the power to
live, always opening new "possibilities." ...There is will to power
on both sides, but the latter is nothing more than will-to-dominate in the
exhausted becoming of life, while the former is artistic will, or "virtue
which gives," the creation of new possibilities, in the outpouring
becoming....” (Deleuze quoted in Rodowick, 1997:140)
The Matrix Reloaded (Village Roadshow/Warner, 2003).
The Matrix opens new possibilities
with each recreation, but not with an artistic will to power but rather with a
will-to-domination.
The Movie Matrix as the Simulacrum of Simulation
Following Merrin, The Matrix is a Hollywood blockbuster that needs truths to
deliver and the conclusion of the narrative with a loop of simulation in the
third movie would be an over expectation. The film will probably be concluded
with the establishment of this or that reality coherent enough to be
comprehended by fans. Such readings will endure in the area of pop-philosophy
and entertainment, but a precise application of the notion of simulacra in
relation to The Matrix is not to be sought in its all-encompassing plot but in
the status the movie has come to claim in our daily reality.
The notion of simulation has a
twofold function in the Matrix series. It is not only the plot that introduces
the notion of simulation, it is also the structuring and bringing to life
processes of the Matrix phenomenon that function as a big, postmodern
simulation. Dan Friedman aptly observes that the filmmakers are well aware of
the fact that they are in fact only critiquing a real world which now comes to
rely on a massive amount of simulacra and that their “simulation of simulacra”
is part of the whole movie-making business. As a simulation questioning the new
reality that consists of a multitude of simulacra, The Matrix continuously
quotes from, besides a wide range of science fiction films, epistemological and
metaphysical ideas, Christian imagery, Buddhism, etc. But the filmmakers cannot
be blamed for cinematic plagiarism. The Matrix series repeat other science
fiction films dealing with the notion of virtuality and simulation, they
recreate Manga and anime films, transform Kung-Fu to Wire-Fu, they mix all the
genres of film spiced with lines of thought to produce the perfect effect of
simulation the seventh art is to achieve.
It is not only the
moviemakers’ reflecting upon the film’s own production process in the movie but
also the The Matrix mania that has come to express itself in new and productive ways
which can lead to a discussion of a Deleuzian performance of simulation. The
Matrix series surely touch the unknown centers of the spectators by playing
with the fantasy that our dire reality may indeed be a simulation; but the
reality we yearn for is not to be fought for as the possibility of its ever
having existed cannot be questioned. What can be done is putting an end to the
elegy for a lost reality by affirming and recreating our subject selves and
will-to-artistic-creation.
It does not come as a surprise when
we see the videos of hundreds of Japanese fans enacting a Matrix performance by
dressing up like Neo, Trinity and Agent Smith and expressing their love for the
movie. What they indeed express is the appraisal of the representation of our
fantasies on the screen, as Tobias C. van Veen asserts:
“[B]astard offspring of
The Matrix would be a crowd of queer Agent Smiths staging massive blow-ins on
opening night . . . Of their own: of their own lives, not of someone else's
Matrix fantasies . . . In other words: bring the thematic of The Matrix to the
limit—escape The Matrix: fuck with it, make it something else—abuse the
tele-networks—& shift from the reproduction of capital to the positive
production of desire.”
As a pop entertainment creating the
effect of the simulacrum perfectly with both its narrative and its marketing,
The Matrix and the Matrix mania represent the power of the simulacrum; reality
becomes simulacra. Just like Baudrillard's name will be forgotten whereas the
notion of simulacra persists, so too will The Matrix be soon eclipsed by,
besides other movies quoting from it and expanding its theme, enactments of
subjects making The Matrix something else.
In “To Play with Phantoms”, Merrin writes that Baudrillard “recalls
asking a Japanese interviewer why he no longer heard about his work in Japan:
and he told me, ‘But it is very simple, very simple you know. Simulation
and the simulacrum have been realised. You were quite right: the world has
become yours . . . and so we no longer have any need of you. You have
disappeared’. (Baudrillard 1996c: 7)” (Merrin 2001: 104)
As Baudrillard states in the interview: “The system, the virtual, The Matrix, everything may go back to the scrap heap of History. Reversibility,
challenge, seduction are indestructible.”
References
Deleuze, Gilles (1990) ‘Plato and the Simulacrum’
The Logic of Sense, The Athlone Press
Friedman, Dan (2003) ‘Simulacra, Simulation and Science Fiction’:
Gargett Adrian (2001) ‘What is Bullet Time?’
Massumi, Brian (1997) ‘Realer Than Real: The Simulacrum According to
Deleuze and Guattari’ at
Merrin
William (2001) To play with phantoms:
Jean Baudrillard and the evil demon of the simulacrum, Economy and Society,
Vol. 30 -1 February 2001: 85-111
Merrin
William (2003) Did You Ever Eat Tasty Wheat?: Baudrillard and The Matrix
Rodowick,
D.N. Gilles Deleuze’s Time Machine, Duke University Press, 1997
Van Veen, Tobias ‘Matrix Multitudes in Japan: Reality-Bleed or Corporate
Performance?’
Footnotes
[1]
Baudrillard's
interview with La Nouvel Observateur is his first public statement on his
thoughts about The Matrix, a movie the plot of which is explicitly based on his
theories of simulation and simulacra. In the same interview Baudrillard states
that the filmmakers had contacted him to ask whether they could involve him in
the following episodes. An English translation of the interview is available at
[2]
See Brian Massumi's essay 'Realer than Real: The Simulacrum According to Deleuze
and Guattari' that has become a main point of reference for the theory of
simulacra extracted from the writings of Deleuze and Guattari. Massumi classifies
the Baudrillardian notion of simulacra as a long lament for our lost reality
while celebrating the Deleuzian status of becoming and difference assigned to
simulacra. http://www.anu.edu.au/HRC/first_and_last/works/realer.htm
name="_edn3" title="">[3] Gargett provides an excellent Deleuzian reading of The Matrix.
However, he does not deal directly with the question of simulation and
simulacra, but applies the questions of multiplicity, the Body without Organs
and the possibility of an artistic encounter with The Matrix.
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