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The Matrix

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The web game based on the Matrix series of movies

Complex assemblage (sculpture Nimis by Lars Vilks, Sweden)

After seeing the first Matrix film . . . and aside from the obvious comments about virtual reality . . .

The myth of the hero discovering his powers. At the end he manipulate the laws of the virtual world. In his phone call to the Matrix at the end of the first movie, is the hero saying he will destroy it, or that he will make it into a paradise? We too are ambivalent about our relation to such technology. Unfortunately, as often with technologies, the later movies don't carry through the promise of the first.

The fight scenes were slowed down, distanced even in their violence, done with little gore. During the loud music during the titles at the end, I thought, "this isn't my culture," but the movie's rhythm and noise are many people's preferred environment today, that perpetual being on the edge.

"Is your talk about complex identities and places a way of avoiding today's edgy world? Would it be better to have a new unrefined roughness and let it be and evolve, if it will?"

It is worth fighting against commercialized simplicity. Encouraging complexity, making living more intense -- but with different kinds of intensity. That edgy world is too simple in its tensions and releases.