Synthetic Pleasure
with AlexEnglish, Scott Bakatman, John Perry Barlow
Produced by George Gund
Directed by Iara Lee
(Caprinha Productions)
by William Ham
Isn’t reality such a drag? So bland, so pale, so uncontrollable. Apparently, a lot of folks feel just the same these days, if the current worldwide craze for hyperreality is any indication. There’s nothing wrong with life that a few megabytes, a carafe of smart drinks, and a sortee with E’s and Wizz can’t fix. The encroachment of artificial stimuli and the new directions they point toward are the subjects of Iara Lee’s fascinating new documentary, Synthetic Pleasures (opening locally at the Kendall Square Theatre on September 20).
Filmed on location everywhere from Tokyo to Detroit to the uncharted reaches of cyberspace, Pleasures samples from a staggeringly ambitious menu of cutting-edge technologies. The tour of the New Reality begins with a trip through controlled environments (proto-microcosmic shopping malls, space stations, even a dome-encased indoor beach), where nature is frozen, shrink-wrapped, and kept fresh indefinitely. The much-ballyhooed world of virtual reality is but prologue to the full range of alterations we can impose to elude the banality and inconvenience of our surroundings, summed up by computer animator Scott Frazier in no uncertain terms: “I have become the god of my own universe.”
The focus then shifts from the global to the personal. Tired of your body? Pierce it, redecorate it, redesign it. Body-piercers and transsexuals, both represented here, aren’t quite as shocking as they were in years gone by – their respective forms of deviance are practically commonplace nowadays. Ah, but then we meet Orlan, the French performance artist whose performance consists of continual cosmetic surgery to alter her features to her own specifications. (We may not be far from the day when boob jobs are paid for by NEA grants.) Speaking of which, yes, there’s a sadly brief section on the possibilities of virtual sex. (I’m sure there’s a ton of jokes to be made here – come up with one yourself and call this an “interactive” review.)
And if body maintenance by modem isn’t far out enough for you, Synthetic Pleasures then heads even farther within, into the realm of “cosmetic psychopharmacology,” i.e. the newfound ability to alter the brain’s chemistry though mood-altering drugs, new forms of intercommunication inspired by the Internet, and ultimately, the complete re-wiring of the mind through downloading its components onto computer. (Gee, wonder why Tim Leary’s in this segment?) Finally, the film begins to hypothesize on our artificial future; with new territories come new laws, and the ethical and governmental aspects of cyberdelia are brought into question. And big questions they are.
In fact, therein lies the only real fault with Synthetic Pleasures – at 83 minutes, it only skims the surface of all these subjects, each of which deserves it’s own full-length feature. Until that day comes, this picture will serve as the Model T for all future cinematic expeditions into the brave new world of self-transformation.
