Schneider Writing Contest Third Place
The ’90s is an era of nostalgia in modern pop culture. It is often characterized by bold fashion choices that gave name to styles like modern preppy, grunge, and punk while also seeing the technologies of the ‘80s become more mainstream. However, the ‘90s is also responsible for some of the most famous Virtual Reality City films: Dark City, The Matrix, and The Thirteenth Floor. The films born in this era of emerging technologies gave filmmakers an opportunity to explore the pros and cons of VR city life. The VR cities are villainized in these films, which contrasts against the value in these environments the characters often overlook. Characters in these movies have painful confrontations with the realities of their simulations, often immediately dismissing their value, even leading to the devaluation of their own personhood. In this paper, I will use French philosopher Michel de Certeau’s chapter “Walking in the City” from The Practice of Everyday Life, as well as the discussion of reality from Simulacra and Simulation, as a framework for understanding the VR cityscape. I argue that even though these simulations in Dark City, The Matrix, and The Thirteenth Floor are portrayed as entrapping, enslaving, or evil, the simulations provide a different way of life that is more valuable in some aspects than the physical reality.
Framework
By using de Certeau as a framework, it is clear some of his points apply to simulated cities in the same way they apply to physical cities. From De Certeau’s work a city[1] can be defined as a structure that entraps the people walking through it and programs them to fit the mold of “citizen.” By this definition, the simulated city emulates its physical counterpart and provides an alternative to physical city life.
In “Walking in the City,” De Certeau is writing about the experience of walking through a city versus looking down at the city from a higher vantage point. De Certeau describes this experience from the top of the World Trade Center as being “lifted out of the city’s grasp,” which points to the city having some kind of hold on its citizens, that they can only escape from by getting outside of the city (92). This relationship of city and captive is one that I will use to examine the nature of the VR cities in my selection of films.
De Certeau goes on to analogize the escape from the city as an escape from “an anonymous law” in which the citizen has also escaped being “player or played” (92). De Certeau uses an almost digital metaphor to show how citizens in the city can be manipulated. The language of a ‘player’ is once again confronting an aspect of city life that traps citizens who walk through it. However, this language is also applicable to the VR films because these citizens are explicitly manipulated by their realities and the creators of those realities.
This programmable aspect of the citizen is reiterated later in his paper when De Certeau calls attention to citizens’ movements through the city. He says the citizens or “Wandersmanner” write the “urban ‘text’ […] without being able to read it” (93). This phrase creates an image of the citizen which is very much robotic. De Certeau’s language of “writing” a text echoes computer programing where these citizens are programmed to execute commands they do not understand.
This programmable aspect of the citizen, combined with the capturing nature of the city, allows de Certeau’s urban reality to easily translate to the VR cityscape. However, de Certeau’s philosophy falls short in differentiating reality from simulation. For this, I will turn to Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard. This book, referenced briefly in The Matrix, is a question of what a simulation really is.
Baudrillard’s argument works to convince people of the simulation they are living in, blurring the line between reality and simulation. Living in a world where the technology we use creates the expectation for the realities we experience starts to change the physical world into the simulation itself.
The territory no longer precedes the map, nor does it survive it. It is nevertheless the map that precedes the territory – precession of simulacra – but engenders the territory, and if one must return to the fable, today it is the territory whose shreds slowly rot across the extent of the map. It is the real, and not the map, whose vestiges persist here and there in the deserts that are no longer those of the Empire but ours. The desert of the real itself. (Baudrillard 1)
Baudrillard explains how the map that is supposed to emulate the territory it is describing now becomes the precedent for the territory. The argument starts like this to expose the simulation we have now started to understand as reality.
Using Los Angeles’ Disneyland as a metaphor for the real versus the imaginary, Baudrillard calls the everyday reality of the city goer a simulation masked by theme parks and other fancies that distract from seeing the false reality they are living in (12). Baudrillard claims “it is no longer a question of a false representation of reality (ideology) but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer real, and thus of saving the reality principle” (12-13). This concealing factor is one that is very obvious in Dark City, The Matrix, and The Thirteenth Floor and one that will guide in the role that reality plays in shaping the VR cityscape. Based on Baudrillard’s work, I will be looking for when reality is being concealed in these films and when normalcy starts to create the imaginary.
Using “Walking in the City” and Simulacra and Simulation, I have created a definition of the city and opened an investigation into what are simulations, and what is reality, that can apply to these films. De Certeau calls the city a trap in which citizens are programmed and cannot escape, while Baudrillard calls attention to the simulation we have created of our reality. This will provide the scaffolding of my paper which will allow me to see how these films fall in line with de Certeauvian philosophy and Baudrillard’s simulation theory, what unique values these VR City films portray, and how this value creates a different way of life.
De Certeau’s City Turned Digital
The characters in these VR films struggle with the realities of their simulations. In Dark City, Murdoch finds out his world is an experiment run by beings known as “the Strangers” when his imprinting[2] goes awry. For the rest of the movie, he struggles with his role in the designed environment, fighting against the Strangers’ programming. This programming mirrors what de Certeau notes to be part of the city experience. Charles Tyron’s article “Virtual Cities and Stolen Memories,” points to how “because these characters are implanted with fabricated memories, the inhabitants of the isolated city can be seen as ‘programmed’” (Tyron 52). While in a real city, aliens would not be physically programming memories into the citizens, the memories that Murdoch finds through clues around him, both highlight how much of life is entangled in the physical environment and how that physical environment traps us. Dr. Schreber, a character who is caught up in the Strangers’ plot, tells Emma, Murdoch’s wife, “wherever your husband is, he is searching for himself” (Proyas 00:09:52). Murdoch’s identity is tied to place, echoing de Certeau’s claim that the city, a physical space, is what programs its citizens. Murdoch’s programming was interrupted and because of that, he felt lost. Murdoch’s experience in the Dark City showcases its similarities to what a real city acts like.
Throughout the film, Murdoch is obsessed with finding Shell Beach, a place that he pieces together over the course of the film from his remembered childhood. As Murdoch realizes no one can tell him how to get to the place that was so pivotal to his childhood, the reality of the simulation starts to break down. Murdoch feels he can trust nothing about the simulation and as such Murdoch’s “real is no longer what it was” and his “nostalgia assumes its full meaning” (Baudrillard 6). Baudrillard references this elevation of nostalgia, the “lived experience,” as something that once manipulated can cause the production of a simulation (7). Thus, Murdoch’s manipulated childhood is what makes this VR city both follow the de Certeau model of a city and emulate Baudrillard’s simulations.
The Matrix, which was released only a few months after Dark City, grapples with many of the same concepts, but in entirely different ways. While “Dark City sustains an opposition between immersion and spectacle […] in which viewers are positioned outside the box while the inhabitants of the virtual world are trapped within it,” The Matrix forces viewers to confront the simulation as Neo, the protagonist, frees himself from its grasp (Tyron 44). Morpheus famously says, “you’ve been living in a dream world” by which Neo’s reality is absolutely shattered (Wachowski 00:40:20). The Matrix simulation is villainized in the film, much like how de Certeau almost villainizes the city. The Matrix is a trap humans need to escape, and while I will address how this view of this designed environment is problematic, for the film’s plot, and the definition of de Certeau’s city, this entrapping nature, works to fit The Matrix into my framework.
How The Thirteenth Floor differs from The Matrix and Dark City, is that it is supposedly staged in a real city. That is until the residences of that reality come to find that they too are living in a simulation. Douglas Hall, and other characters in the movie start to question the value of things like life and love when reality is merely a simulation. Early in the film, Jerry Ashton, a bartender in the 1937 simulation, is left a note meant for Hall but reads it only to find that the 1937 world Ashton is living in is a simulation. He drives to the edge of the simulation and sees that his world ends. While this is not necessarily the limits of the city itself, but rather the limits of the simulated world, it reflects the entrapping nature of the city from the de Certeau definition while also echoing Simulacra and Simulation. The Disneyland metaphor relates strongly to The Thirteenth Floor because Baudrillard calls the boundary the “effect of the imaginary concealing that reality no more exists outside than inside the limits of the artificial perimeter.” (14) Limited in its scope inside of the boundary of the simulation and then, limited by reality outside of the simulation, neither in nor outside of the 1937 Los Angeles is real. The implications of this confirms The Thirteenth Floor’s realities are not grounded in anything real and yet, because of their limited scope, they mirror the way in which the de Certeauvian city operates.
Value in the Simulated Environment
These three films all portray different versions of a simulated environment just as real as de Certeau’s city and yet, some of the characters choose to discard these environments as meaningless trickery that devalues their lives. However, these environments provide an alternative to the physical city that for some of the characters is more desirable than the physical reality. Dark City offers a simulation in which the creators of the simulation are villainized but the simulation itself is worth saving. The Matrix both villainizes the creators and the simulation, seeing them as manipulative and restraining, but offers a character who values the Matrix despite its flaws. Finally, The Thirteenth Floor shows a simulation that feels restraining at first, but the characters come to realize it offers an opportunity that is different from the physical reality which provides a sense of freedom.
Dark City’s simulation is meant to be a scary place; there is no daylight and the city looks grimy and industrial. However, Murdoch has the opportunity to restore the city and he does so according to his own memories. This directly counteracts the work done by the Strangers that claimed the Dark City as their own, “fashioned [from] stolen memories, different eras, different pasts, all rolled into one” for their own experimentation (Proyas 59:10:00). When Murdoch rebuilds the city after he destroys the Strangers,he is finding value in his simulation rather than discarding it. The life lived in the simulation was the only thing he knew and while he did struggle with the abusive programming from the Strangers, once they were gone, Murdoch felt that the simulation was still valuable.
The Matrix has a much more complicated relationship with the simulation. While there are clear villains like the agents, AI machines who run the program and are trying to destroy the resistance Neo is a part of, the status of the Matrix itself (villain or tool) is something under investigation throughout the film.
This struggle is exemplified by Cypher who makes a deal to be reprogrammed back into the Matrix to escape the reality he has been awakened to. Cypher argues that he does not care if the food he is eating is not actually real (and to that extent the environment he would living in) because in the moment he cannot tell the difference. This is pivotal to showing how the VR city is a legitimate alternative to reality and, depending on a person’s values, may even be preferable to reality. Despite its digital confines, the Matrix has aspects that are better and seemingly more real than anything Cypher was aware of outside of it. Throughout the film there is talk of the real human city that exists independent of the Matrix, but Morpheus and his team do not live there. They live in their vessel, leaving their reality dank and terrifying compared to the blissful life that can be lived inside of the Matrix. When someone dies in the Matrix they actually die: there is no coming back. Cypher argues the Matrix reality is just as real and valuable as anything else because the same dangers exist inside of the Matrix while also offering a more comfortable lifestyle (Wachowski 01:26:00).
Morpheus addresses this problem in his first encounter with Neo when he poses the question, “What is real? How do you define real?” (Wachowski 00:40:10). This question highlights how hard it is to escape the Matrix mentally. Cypher’s struggle with this versus Neo’s quick adaptation to life outside of the Matrix are two ways of coping with this split in reality. While Neo was able to let go of his past life, dismissing it as irrelevant from his escape onward, Cypher regretted waking up from the Matrix and missed it ever since. While Cypher is portrayed as an antagonist in the film and murders several of his friends, his struggle is a legitimate question of what makes life outside of the simulation more valuable than in it.
The simulations in The Thirteenth Floor hold a value that is tangible, unlike Dark City and The Matrix. The creators of the simulations see their programmed citizens as people who have value and possibly have souls. This diverges from Dark City and The Matrix where the creators saw the simulated environments as tools, and the people inside as experiments and even at times lower in value than that. Jane, and those outside of the simulations sees the simulated environments as holding a real value rather than just an experiment. This is something the other VR movies would not allow.
For Ashton, the realization that his reality is simulated drives him to insanity. He begins to see his life as a game, not really concerned with life or death. While this response is understandable, what Ashton fails to see is that his simulated life is just as valuable as those in the level above his or the level above that one. When Hall also finds that his life is a simulation, he is horrified and wonders “how can you love me? I’m not even real” to his love interest Jane (Rusnak 01:16:00). Jane argues that it does not matter if he is simulated or not, because to her, Hall is real. This moment breaks away from the programmable aspects of the simulated citizens because Jane sees them as their own entities with souls, directly agreeing with my argument that the simulations are as valuable as physical reality.
The Thirteenth Floor provides insight into the value of simulations. Jane’s belief goes beyond the definition of what defines a city and what reality tends to conceal. She believes the simulation holds as much value as her own world, even preferring it to her own. While those inside of the simulation suffer through the entrapping and programmable aspects of city and VR city life, those outside, do not see that as suffering but rather as an escape from their own reality.
The VR Way of Life
These movies highlight tensions between technology and reality. What these movies really are getting at is that one person’s reality can be another’s simulated reality, but both are valuable ways of life. If one found out their own reality was simulated, would it actually matter? These films seem to suggest it does not. In Dark City, Murdoch finds that his reality is simulated, but by the end of the movie he saves it. In The Matrix, Neo and company are working to free the humans trapped inside the Matrix; and yet, Cypher argues that the Matrix might not be something that needs to be destroyed, and it might be a better alternative to what the physical world is. Finally, The Thirteenth Floor offers a simulation that is not villainized but rather a tool to free oneself from the physical world and find meaning in an alternative life. Through these films, VR cities have been elevated to an escape from the harsh realities of the physical world. In the end, these VR cities are not the prisons that they are described to be, but rather a path to freedom from the entrapment of our own realities.
[1] De Certeau’s explicit definition of the city is not the one I will use in this paper, but I will more so rely on his descriptions of what city life is like and how that creates the city.
[2] The imprinting process is how the Strangers manipulate the citizens of the Dark City. They give them false memories and identities to find out what it means to be human.
Works Cited
Baudrillard, Jean, and Sheila Faria. Glaser. Simulacra and Simulation. University of Michigan Press, 1994.
De Certeau, Michel. “Walking in the City.” The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven F. Rendall, University of California Press, 1984.
Gerlach, Neil, and Sheryl N Hamilton. “Preserving Self in the City of the Imagination: George Simmel and Dark City.” Canadian Review of American Studies, vol. 34, no. 2, 2004, pp. 115–134., doi:10.1353/crv.2004.0009.
Proyas, Alex, director. Dark City. Mystery Clock Cinema, 1998.
Rusnak, Josef, director. The Thirteenth Floor. Columbia Tristar Home Video, 1999.
Tryon, Charles. “Virtual Cities and Stolen Memories: Temporality and the Digital in Dark City.” Film Criticism, vol. 28, no. 2, Winter2003/2004 2003, pp. 42–62. EBSCOhost.
Wachowski, Lilly, et al. The Matrix. Warner Home Video, 2007.