Existenz Proj Notes

Here's the list of talking points/stuffs I have on my notepad from tonight:

-concept of "grotesqueness"

-color--blue/red

-softness/femininity/Allegra/"the demoness"

-mediation-the waiter- "hallucinatory imagination" Flusser 65

-Free will/lack of within the game

-Port lick scene "I wouldn't do that, not here"

Sections

1. Introduction

2. Discussion of scenes in particular

3. accents

4. "Perky Pats"

5. WoW

sex + machines (analyze pods deeper, why they're fleshy, what that means, how does it compare w/our consoles)

sex vs machines

existenz and supermale

Flusser p 48 + p 123

The rest is just a bunch of quick stuff I jotted down the first time we watched the movie, mostly quotes. This just where I keepz them.

"It's not just a game."

The console is grooooss. fleshy. But it's strange flesh--awkward sexual flesh, birth flesh, light colored and slightly transparent; it's simulacraunreal flesh. It isn't disturbing because it's real; it's disturbing because it's at that uncanny cut off point, where it's still just not quite real enough. Which makes it CREEPY AS SHIT.

You start playing by pushing, prodding, agitating the console in your lap.

oh shit the threat of old technology; very cronenburg, weird lookin' gun.

"Death to Allegra Gellar."

"Hey how did you know my name?" Her: "You're labeled."

That's how they can find us; anybody.

TOOTH GUN. Human tooth. All flesh and bone, to get past any sort of metal detector. The organic trump card. What does it mean to turn the body into..that sort of weapon?

"Where were you just now?"

"Wandering through existenze," she says with a lazy smile as she strokes the console.

What she says afterward is important but I miss it.

Lots of...blue. Blue school bus, blue night through the window.

He's never played...any game. Dying to play, but a phobia of being penetrated (surgically).

"Too freaky."

Stares at a blue...rollarblades? Hm?

"Once you're ported, there's no end to the games you can play."

"slave pods." the ones attached to Allegra.

"I have to play existenz with somebody friendly. Are you friendly, or are you not?" To prevent corruption.

"This is a cage of your own making....break out now."

BLUE BLUE BLUE MOTHERFUCKIN BLUE. But the tools for the operation are in a red tool box.

She is almost childlike--almost like Juiliana.

The mechanic's life is changed by Allegra--by her games.

Why don't bioports get infected? Allegra sticks out her tongue--it's as natural as a mouth.

You neural surged and blew my pod. PREMATURE EJACULATION HUR HUR HUR.

"In this pod is the only, the original version of existenz. And I'm locked inside my own game. I can't get me in or it out."

Gas--blue blue blue sick eyed blue

"That's two people in one day that have actually wanted to kill you."
"I've never been more popular."

"Come on Pike, nobody actually skis anymore."

So what is the significance of using the boot? Kind of like cutting out the center of a book and using it like a box? Marked obsolescence.

"Ports into you--you're the power source."

"It's not infected. It's just excited."

But by the next time he ports in, it's dark out again. Blue.

In existenz, her hair is entirely krimped; out, it's only partially.

"You have to play the game to find yout why you play the game. You'll see how natural it feels." AS OPPOSED TO HARDWARE WURR EVERRTHIN RAPES YUH.

In the room with the dude, everything is vaguely blue again, but outside it is FOCKIN RED.

"I didn't mean to say that."
"It's your character...don't fight it. THere are things that must be said to advance the plot."

The ski shop is green, some blue, but largely neutral green.

They have bioports in the game as well--two levels of wtf?

Also this is all insanely relevant to .hack//infection.

"That wasn't me--it was my game character. I wouldn't have done that--not here, anyway." So how much of the character are we?

Sexy sex scene is sexy. But all done to advance the plot? So awkward.

"I'm very worried about my body. "Where are our bodies? Are they alright? What if they're hungry what if there's danger?...I feel really vulnerable. Disembodied." She's the dominant one in this relationship and blue is the dominant color this is the antithesis to Hardware what does it mean to be dominated by blue

what does it mean to wake up holdin' a frog in a factory?

"You might be new but you seem to know what you're doing." Repeated moment. Nature nature. "I've been trained by the very best."

This is it--this is how you train the metal; this is how we learn the shape; nature nature math in nature, math in art.

Why the anal sex tilt instead of vaginal? That's an interesting shift, Cronenburg.

"Everything here's so dirty, grotesque. absurd." In the frog factory.

Greeen in the chinese food place, another strange place of half neutrality.

"I MEAN ALL GAMES CAN BE PAUSED, RIGHT?"

"I'm feeling a little disconnected...losing touch, losing texture, having a bit of psychosis."

Allegra ays "yes, this is excellent..yur meldin' with the game proper, or somethin.'

wakin' on a red bed.

"There;s nothing happening here. You're safe. It's boring." Isn't that ironic? Thought we were safe in games. But games are getting more dangerous--the realer it gets, the more dangerous it gets.

The special is grooooss. "New and previously unimagined taste sensations." from mutated amphibians. Grotesque grotesque like the movie itself--is all cronenburg saying... "at least try it?"--Bill

THERE'S A GUN IN YO FOOD WTF. ohshit HOW YOU GET A GUN OUTTA DUH GAME.

So..so wtf is happening to time here?

And then he loaded the gun with teeth he never had.

"Death to the demoness Allegra geller."

"But you know, I do need to kill someone. I need to kill our waiter." That's right, kill who serves you. Not the thing you're plugged into. Not you.

"Free will is not really a big deal in this game."

He shoots--and the gun bleeeeeeds. Is it still his flesh? smoking gun=bleeding gun.

And the dog takes the bone gun and off he goes, clever beast.

A waiter has many opportunities for betrayal.

The server, the creator, the maker--those who make photoshop, run youtube, vs those who use it.

"I don't like it here." Just stumbling around, no rules, always on the verge of being killed. Well...yeah, that's kinda life too.

And then they found a diseased pod.

Points of Pointness

multiple levels of games, of plugging in--

"I'm going to cut you free." At the umbelical cord.

"DEATH TO REALISM." But shit, you can't kill it--yuh just spread the bugs.

And in the end, him too-- "DEATH TO THE DEMONESS."

Ohshit. What did you bring back home? Your pod is diseased. Yur gonna lose your game, betch. What does this mean?

"A very weird bleed through reality effect goin on here."

"I think it's ok to let this one, this pod go, it's not real." So...but...wut?

"You can see everything from up here." "What is it that we're seeing?"

"No---I murdered your pod, your game is happy and healthy."

"You copied existenz?"

"He's only a game character," she laughed as she killed him. "What if we're not in teh game anymore?" He was in the way of the plot. Just...the literal plot.

"Why would I understand what I'd have to kill?" What does...nonunderstanding mean? What does it signify then?

"You guys were great--like, game divas." Celebrity is like a game, hm?

"Death to the demon Tedd pikon" she laughes, throws her hands up wild. blue on her hands head. "have I won?" blue blue blue. OH SHITS. IT RLY WAS ALL JUST A GAME.

It tried to tell them by introducing the theme of disease in the game...foreshadowing little thing..

"It's a butt plug." --Sarah

WHAT DOES IT IT MEAN that she was just a tester? Not a master? The demoness unhinged? What does it mean that we don't find out much about them even at the end?

"I was very disturbed by the game we just played; it had a strong anti-game theme." Huh.

"I mean I actually feel like there's an element of psychosis involved"--in the restaurant, why he wants to pause the game.

Flusser 65
"They may come to constitute an imaginary world that no longer mediates between man and the world, but, on the contrary, imprisons man."
"There is in images, as in all mediations, a curious inherent dialectic. The purpose of images is to mean the world, but they may became opaque to the world and cover it, even substitute for it. "
"HALLUCINATORY IMAGINATION"

The Loss of Mediation

hiding the grotesque

The game stops with Allegra the demoness, yelling she won, she won--the demoness won.

"I found this in my soup and I'm very upset."

"We can finally agree you're the world's greatest game artist." THE CHURCH IS SO GODDAMN BLUE.

Allegra's hair is entirely straight.

"Tell me the truth--are we still in the game?" No shot fired, even. Just godfrakkin credits.