Johnny Mnemonic - Uploading Memory to the Brainhttp://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ ... d.mp4/viewOrganic and technological memory
by Critical Commons Manager
Organic memory merges with technological memory in an uploading procedure that threatens to overload Keanu's brain. The visualization of data transfers through 3D motion graphics imagery is among the most common tropes of the cinematic imaginary. Data transfers and computer processor functions in the real world are notoriously uncinematic. How did this iconography evolve? Is the form of their depiction primarily tied to the capabilities of the current generation of computer generated imagery?
Johnny Mnemonic and Virtual Realityhttp://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ ... ality/viewSimulations of City and Race
by Evan Pondel
Many of the ideas that surface in Julian Bleecker’s article, “Getting the Reality You Deserve,” are portrayed in Robert Longo’s film, “Johnny Mnemonic.” Bleecker’s observations about the interplay between videogames and the city take shape in the film as Johnny Mnemonic, a videogame player of sorts, seeks out truth (and relief for his overloaded head) in a rather dystopian urban setting.
In this particular clip, Johnny uses a simulator to sift through fax charges at the Hotel Beijing. Even though Johnny’s simulator is quite different than Bleecker’s description of SimCity2000, both have a similar utility in that players are seeking truth in virtual realities.
Bleecker’s description of the tension surrounding questions of race and ethnicity in SimCity is also portrayed throughout the film. The underdogs, whose leader is black, ends up helping Johnny save himself, as well as the world from corporate greed. At the same time, the film portrays Asians as assassins. Similar to SimCity, there are never any overt racial slurs. However, the film does “yield to implications of the racial and ethnic predicament of urban space,” as Bleecker notes in SimCity.
Bleecker says “that few twentieth century artifacts are able to cloak turmoil around race as well as technology.” Indeed, technology has a way of camouflaging racial stereotypes, particularly in this film. But if we do not engage racial tensions overtly in videogames or film, is it possible to, in Bleecker’s words, “fruitfully determine the ideological stakes”? Ultimately, I suppose it depends on the reality the player or film watcher is seeking.
Johnny Mnemonic ATT pay phonehttp://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ ... -pay-phoneVirtual false Reality
by Julz
This clip from the movie Johnny Mnemonic is just one example of interactive that was featured in the movie. It uses visual social interaction. This uses human computer interaction between Johnny and the receiver on the other end. Later on in the film, it is discovered that the man who Johnny was talking to was not a man at all, but a puppet. Takahashi has his hands in a way that mimics an actual man.
So therefore, we can say that Johnny Mnemonic was talking to a false being though virtual reality. This begs the question is virtual reality real or fake in this particular world. Johnny was manipulated or ‘tricked’ into thinking that he was talking/seeing someone that could help him.
What makes this clip so interesting is the fact that in today’s time, there are virtually no payphones in existence. Cellular phones have replaced payphones and are able to do similar face-to-face calling. Additionally, face to face chat is also used in a variety of computers and computer applications such as skype, google chat and aol.
This is a classic example of photo or computer deception as found in the excerpt, ”Remediation” By Bolter and Grusin. When I look at this clip, I think of the photo that showed “real” fairies flying around little children. While the photograph and children are real, the fairies are not. The fairies were just an image on top of the real photograph.
Johnny Mnemonic personal crisishttp://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ ... ologue.mp4Commodity Fetishism, Virology and the Biopolitic
by Sarah Brin
If we consider Galloway's contention that, "While the disciplinary societies of high modernity were chracterized by more physical semiotic constructs such as the signature and the document, today's socities of control are characterized by immaterial ones such as the password and the computer," we can find kernels of relevance within the almost unforgivable silliness of Johnny Mnemonic. For example, it helps us identify the heroic quality associated with Johnny's blankness, and his subsequent fluency with the navigation of networks, which translates to capital (both social and monetary).
Johnny's breakdown indicates an anxiety catalyzed by the urbanization of public space. As he is now directly confronted by the other (The Low-Techs, the impoverished and sick urban populace), he laments the loss of his perceived individuality, which is directly tied to commodity fetishism (e.g. the club sandwich, the cold Mexican beer, etc.). Without the privileges that had previously been afforded to him, Johnny must reconcile his blankness with the needs of the biopolitic.
In "Allegories of Control," Alexander Galloway writes,"It is part of a larger shift in social life, characterized by a movement away from central bureaucracies and vertical hierarchies toward a broad network of autonomous social actors." Governmental authority or police do not have much of a presence within Johnny Mnemonic, and control is dispersed through a series of networks. Most obviously, there's the internet and telephones, but more interestingly, there's a virus. As Galloway and his colleague Eugene Thacker note in a separate publication (The Exploit: A Theory of Networks), epidemics are closely tied to globalization "because they are highly dependent on one or more networks." The authors give the example of SARS, a virus that affected the (1) the physical network of people who became ill, (2) the subsequent monitoring, tracking, and regulation of channels for travel (virus carriers on intercontinental flights) and (3) channels for news (covering SARS outbreaks, prevention, etc).
NAS, an affliction affecting half of the film-world's population, is drastically more pervasive than SARS, extending its spooky future tentacles to media coverage (guerilla and otherwise), local economies (Spider's practice, Jane can't get work because of her illness), and global economies (Pharmacom's withholding of data to maximize profit).