Related Theory

Through Somna , I aim to address the notion of fragmented identity in the digital era, and its manifestations in various parts of our lives; dreaming, waking, and playing. The film will focus its attention on the three realms of dream, reality, and virtual-reality, and will portray how the blurred boundary between these realms in the modern age. I aim to establish a level of necessary ambiguity regarding the importance of these realms, to allow the audience to decide for themselves which realm is truly most appealing, more real. For this reason, the protagonist's identity will be split into three personae, each a manifestation within one of the three planes of reality that he (she) experiences. By the time this film is finished, I'll be fully ready to address the theoretical applications as well as the creative process that drove the film's production. For the purposes of relating this film to theory, I'll draw largely from the fields of philosophy, film production & theory, fiction writing, and media & game theory.

Media Theory & Game Studies

Games have been avenues of diversion throughout our cultural history. Through gameplay, people can engage in conflict and adventure, and establish an entirely independent diegetic universe for themselves and their playmates. However, while play has existed as long as we have, the (fairly recent) creation of the microchip and the advent of computer games have thrown game play on a whole new trajectory. Video games allow users to bend their perception of reality and memory, as well as their own identities. Academic investigation of video games suggests that a combination of user imagination and game design allows the player to become nearly fully immersed into the game world. Richard Bartle (year) writes that “sometimes full immersion is likened to an altered state of consciousness” (p. 156). Alison McMahan concurs, as she cites Janet Murray's definition of immersion, when a game environment “takes over all of our attention, our whole perceptual apparatus” (McMahan 68). Nick Yee scrutinizes virtual communities under J.B. Walther's requirements for hyper-personal interactions, “interactions that are more intimate, more intense, more salient because of the communication channel,” positing that all of these elements exist within the virtual worlds of MMO's (Yee, 2004).

Just as Moore's law states that our technological capacity is increasing by orders of magnitude, so is the ability for developers to create much more fertile and realistic worlds for their players. As development continues, the interfaces through which we experience the virtual world (as well as film) are becoming less buffered and less disconnected from the user. In The Interface ¸ Lev Manovich discusses the inseparable roles of interface and content, in very much the same way that Marshall Mcluhan ( The Medium is the Massage ) and Scott McCloud address the issue . These three authors focus on different aspects of the interconnectedness of viewer, medium, and message in media as cultural texts. Manovich writes that “with a VRML interface, nature is firmly subsumed under culture.” (p)

It is the continually advancing and immersive nature of the interfaces through which we ingest hypertextual information and experience virtual life that is one of the growth points of radical identity experimentation and formation. In the novella True Names , Vernor Vinge writes a story about players who live the majority of their lives in the virtual world, and are so immersed that they come to identify much more so with their avatar, virtual environment and friends than with those in real life. Sherry Turkle, building upon McLuhan's global village idea, suggests that computer is playing a central role in our ‘retribalization.' Our identities, which are constantly in flux depending on our environments and social interactions, have the opportunity in the virtual experience to travel in various previously unavailable tangents.

So it has become that our media connect us to the world, and consolidate our communities and ideas into highly accessible nodes. Marshall Mcluhan spoke of the global village, how the world is actually getting smaller again, as we're all becoming hypertextually linked to each other. He writes that “media, by altering the environment, evoke in us unique ratios of sense perceptions. The extension of any one sense alters the way we think and act- the way we perceive the world. When these ratios change, men change” (Mcluhan p.41). Players are allowed to be perceptually and psychologically immersed in the game world, and they begin identifying with the avatar, their representative manifestation in the game world. This most definitely has the potential to change a person, as it has changed me.

The Process, & Film-Related Theory

When working out the plotline and tone of the film, as well as the various aesthetic elements, I'll be drawing largely from my personal creative motives, as well as inspiration from artists whose work I really enjoy. It's difficult to pin down exactly where each decision comes from, but there is a synergy of style that I take great interest in. Philip K. Dick writes about the duality of the persona in A Scanner Darkly . I am inspired byTerry Gilliam's chaotic and frenzied film style and narrative content, as well as Michel Gondry's ingenious disruption of narrative structure and mise en scene . Donato Totaro works out an analysis of Fight Club , my favorite David Fincher film based on a book by one of my favorite authors, Chuck Palahniuk. Based on Gilles Deleuze's concept of the Rhizome , the arboreal symbol of research (and design) that involves the branching off in various laterals and exiting and re-entering at points along the narrative structure (or research) (Totaro). Deleuze's postmodern approach to epistemology resonates approximately with Descartes' implementation of methodological skepticism. The contorting and skewing of the narrative structure and visual content of the film will by default follow a branching, arboreal rhizome structure, as well as embracing a level of skepticism toward the idea of objective or ‘true' perception of reality, identity, and experience.

Manovich (year) writes that “the designer of a virtual world is…a cinematographer as well as an architect”(p. ?). Film has occupied a dominant role in the dissemination of cultural texts and instruction since the early 20 th century. Directors and writers have, through film-making, been able to express ideas and emotions in a more visceral way. Manovich writes that “cinema is now becoming the cultural interface, a toolbox for all cultural communication”(p.?). This particular film will take advantage of three visual motifs, and the production methods I follow will stem both from previous experience, as well as supplements, both personal and academic. Herbert Zettl's Title of Book (year) explores the aesthetic qualities of film including framing, space & motion, and should serve as a good reference for cinematographical decisions. A large portion of the film will be machinima format. Paul Marino (year) and Matt Kelland (year) have also addressed some of the implications of using a video game as a filmic medium. The virtual director is given freedoms as well as hindrances that are not experienced in traditional film-making.

Dream & Philosophy

Stanford professor and research Stephen LaBerge's (year) Exploring Lucid Dreams , covers the topic quite thoroughly. It combines techniques for attaining lucidity, as well as documented instances of lucid-dreaming, and the psychological implications therein. On a more far-out, fictional level, Alan Lightman's Einstein's Dreams proposes a series of short stories in which time and space act idiosyncratically, and the implications therein. Much like the dream-world, a series of non-sensical outcomes arrive out of these scenarios, but are rationalized by the application of some of Einstein's core theories. I aim to address the implications of perceptual experimentation within the dream-world. The dream portions of the film will touch on ideas discussed both within pop culture regarding lucid dreaming as well as these literary works. The protagonist's dream self will be female, for instance, exposing the radical opportunity for identity revamping in the sandbox of the mind.

The schools of philosophy that seem to correspond well to the themes in this film (although the film was not a derivative of these schools) are phenomenology, skepticism, and branches of existentialism. McCloud, McLuhan, and Manovich describe the depth of experience that can be wrought from mediated engagement. The phenomenological approach was delved into largely by existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. In his debut work, La Nausee , Sartre recants a heavy mescaline trip, wherein he faces, among other dark voids, the nature of the ‘naked existence.' He realizes (or convinces himself of the realization) of the existence of objects and environments independent of our selves. In the park scene, he writes, in reference to the people around him “I used to say like them: 'The sea is green; that white speck up there is a seagull', but I didn't feel that it existed, that the seagull was an 'existing seagull'; usually existence hides itself” (Sartre). This, according to him, was the first time that he was able to indulge in the idea of independently existing objects. When the ‘doors of perception' (Huxley) are shut, even our interaction with people and our environment is in our own perception merely an interaction with symbols and representations. In this traditional, unenlightened point of view, then, he retrofits the phenomenological approach to include not only direct experience, but actual representations of those experiences as well. These include cultural texts, such as theatre, literature, film, etc.

Renee Descartes takes the idea of the existence of objects a step further, and through an eight-step method, attempts to prove the existence of the mind independent of the corporeal body. Alison McMahan cites the humanities definition of presence in the virtual environment as “the feeling of being there.” Many players' virtual experiences are enough on par with those of tangible reality that even the traditional phenomenological approach applies well enough. Along that train of thought, the user is investing his mind thoroughly into the virtual experience, and any actual physical interaction required merely due to a current lack of an advanced interface. The film in large part will also fantasize the current interface technology, more along the lines of an advanced interface apparatus (i.e. not just a keyboard and monitor) that is more akin to total sensory immersion. In this way, I hope to equate the realms of dream, game, and life and integrate them successfully into each other.

Sources

Bartle, Richard. Designing Virtual Worlds . New York, 2004: New Riders Publishing.

Descartes, Renee. Meditations on First Philosophy

Kelland, Matt et. Al. Machinima . 2005, Boston, MA. Thomson/Course Technology

Lightman, Alan. Einstein's Dreams . 1994: Warner Books

Macmahan, Alison. Immersion, Engagement, and Presence: A method for analyzing 3-D videogames . Chp. 3 in The video Game Theory Reader , 2003, pp. 67-86

McCloud, Scott. Reinventing Comics: How imagination and technology are revolutionizing an art form . 2000. New York. Harper Paperbacks.

McLuhan, M. (1967). The Medium Is The Massage . Madera: Gingko Press

Marino, Paul. 3D Game-Based Filmmaking : The Art of Machinima . 2004, Scottsdale, Ariz. Paraglyph Press.

Laberge, Steven. Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming . 1990, New York. Random House

Manovich, L. (2001) “The language of cultural interfaces” excerpt from The Language of New Media

Philip K. Dick. Scanner Darkly . 1977, New York. Double Day & Co.

Sartre, Jean Paul. La Nausee . Paris, 2002. Gallimard Jeunesse Publishing

Sherry Turkle, “Aspects of the Self” Excerpt from Life on the Screen . 1995, New York. Simon & Schuster.

Totaro, Donato. Gilles Deleuze's Bergsonian Film Project . 1999, off-screen essays. http://www.horschamp.qc.ca/9903/offscreen_essays/deleuze1.html

Vinge, Vernor. True Names . 2001, New York. Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

Yee, N. (2004). The Psychology of MMORPGs: Emotional Investment, Motivations,

Relationship Formation, and Problematic Usage . In R. Schroeder & A. Axelsson (Eds.), Social Life of Avatars II London: Springer-Vertag.

Herbert. Sight Sound Motion : Applied Media Aesthetics . 2004. Wadsworth Publishing