Simitation theory claims that reality may not be real, but instead may be an illusion about which we are unaware and from which we can awaken, and this is an idea shared by all of Plato (with “The Cave”) and Descartes (with Reflections on the first philosophy) to, more recently, Philip K. Dick and The Matrix. It is a fantasy of escape and addiction, liberation and manipulation, and one that utilizes our own experiences moving between conscious and unconscious states, as well as losing ourselves in the fictional world of cinema. As such, it is about the ideal subject for the documentary Rodney Ascher, which is on the heels of Room 237 (over The shine-as-multifaceted-puzzle-box) and The nightmare (about sleep paralysis) risking an unreal terrain again with A Glitch in the Matrix, a compelling outside look at the possibility that we are all avatars in a game we cannot comprehend.
Dick’s 1977 speech in Metz, France, entitled “If You Find This World Bad, You Must See Some of the Others” forms the backbone of A Glitch in the Matrix (premieres in the Midnight section of the Sundance Film Festival on January 31, followed by a VOD debut on February 4). In it, the famous author of A dark scanner, The man in the high castle, Minority Report, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (the basis for Blade Runner), and We can remember it for your wholesale (the basis for Total revocation) confesses that a 1974 dose of Sodium Pentothal for affected wisdom teeth enabled him to have an ‘acute flash’ of a restored memory ‘about a world and life that was not his. Dick wrote extensively about this experience (known as “2-3-74”) in the posthumously released The exegesis of Philip K. Dick, and it also informed his fictitious output, many of which wrestled with the unreliable and fleeting nature of reality while representing future societies in a prophetic and poignant way.
Dick was the modern godfather of simulation theory, and A Glitch in the Matrix spends a lot of time with people who wrote his core work – as well as Lana and Lilly Wachowski The Matrix, himself intensely owed to Dick – to heart. In Skype interviews with Ascher, these individuals appear disguised as strange digital avatars, including a red-colored armored lion, a Mechagodzilla dragon in a tuxedo, a vaping alien in an inflated spacecraft and a helmet fighter with digital eyes and mouth. Their appearance expresses their own belief in dichotomy with realities (and identities), which was also born out of Elon Musk’s publicly convinced belief that we may be living in an artificial simulation led by advanced beings, as well as an 2003 academic paper by Oxford University Professor Nick Bostrom (“Do you live in a computer simulation?”) who promotes the hypothesis that we can be pawns in a hyper-progression program that recreates either a past that has already taken place (called an ‘ancestral simulation’), or a whole new alternative timeline.
The ideas put forward by these speakers depend on everything, from anecdotal stories about their own break with reality, to arguments about chance, probability and synchronicities, to outrageous – and very specific – speculations about the details of our simulation. Suffice it to say that it is not all convincing. However, it is entertainingly informative about mankind’s constant desire to explain great mysteries through spiritually-by-the-way scientific concepts about foreign kingdoms, puppet master-higher powers, and technological exploitation.
To his credit, one interviewee (Paul Gude AKA, the ‘lion’) admits that simulation theory is perhaps just the easiest way his brain chooses to deal with the complexity of human existence. And in an earlier scene, he admits that his VR-based theory may be the by-product of the fact that people are always trying to explain reality through the most advanced technology currently available. Boasts movie clips from among others The Wizard of Oz, The Truman Show, A nightmare on Elm Street, Vertigo, The Thirteenth Floor, The Adaptation Bureau, They live, Defend your life and of course The Matrix, A Glitch in the Matrix suggests that the films are an excellent means of creating and channeling these ideas, which are often rooted in feelings of loneliness, alienation and despair, and thus can have particularly frightening consequences.
‘As Cooke’s story makes clear, the danger of simulation theory is that, if nothing and no one is authentic, ethical concerns about society and your fellow man are hopelessly undermined, leading to a potential chaos.”
It is most disturbingly conveyed by an extensive series in which Joshua Cooke (via audio interview, supplemented by CGI recreations) explains how his infatuation with The Matrix, coupled with his abusive domestic life and undiagnosed mental illness, drove him to kill his adoptive parents in an attempt to determine if he actually lived in the Matrix (his conclusion: ‘It really hurt me, because it was not nothing like I saw The Matrix. How really life was so much more horrible. It shook me quite a bit ”).
Cooke was 19 when he killed his adoptive parents with a 12-gun in Virginia, then pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. It became known as ‘The Matrix Case’, and as Cooke’s story makes clear, the danger of simulation theory is that, if nothing and no one is authentic, ethical concerns about society and your fellow man are hopelessly undermined, leading to potential chaos. It’s not surprising that the links between video games and simulation theory are numerous – Jesse Orion (ie the strange astronaut) says that for years he did nothing more than play games – and A Glitch in the Matrix uses all kinds of computer-animated graphics (including Google Earth and Minecraft) to visualize the assumptions of the topics. The playful digital form of the film is enlightening and amusing and reflects and reveals truths about its content.
Compose Jonathan Snipes’ threatening electronic score, and also discuss the way in which déjà vu and “The Mandela Effect” relate to its most important topic, A Glitch in the Matrix continues Ascher’s non-fiction study of common stories, scientific hypotheses, and art analysis. The film offers a chorus of voices that seek to decipher the mysteries of the universe and the atom through fantastic views of the mind, body and reality itself, and its film is a striking and insightful exploration of our evolving perception of who we are . , our deep personal connection to dreams on the big screen, and our constant search for knowledge about the things we (yet) do not understand. It is a treatise on religious and scientific desire, and on human impulses and aspirations, which also serves as a portrait of conspiracy theories and mass error.