“If you find this world bad you should see some of the others.” Philip K. Dick
Have you ever wondered whether you are living in reality, watching reality or simply imagining reality? These philosophical questions of identity are perhaps most pertinent in the digital age where alternate reality could be augmented reality, actual reality or any reality. A Glitch in the Matrix is a documentary that explores these issues, mixing philosophical and social discussions presented alongside speculative fiction from video and film clips of the past. Combined with narration and discussion with some of the interviewees presented as digital avatars, sometimes in (apparently) actual environments but also intercut with worlds and realities that are entirely digital, it questions whether these worlds are any more or less real and whether the creatures/characters/avatars/etc have any definition of existence. As the film’s title implies the modern(ish) cultural relationship to these questions about reality and existence in the real and digital world, and to what is or is not reality and, if it is, how many representations of these realities are also real or not – with many references to the Wachowski siblings’ The Matrix (1999).
Importantly the hypothetical philosophical questions of the digital humanity (the wider philosophical questions through culture and religion are discussed going back thousands of years via Descartes [and his Evil Demon], Plato, Hinduism etc.) are focussed around a 1977 lecture given by Philip K. Dick and the subsequent plethora of non-fiction writings that were published posthumously as The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick (2011). “Philip K. Dick’s belief that we were living in a digitally created, artificial world sounded like madness in 1977.” So amidst the plethora of clips, shots and film references that imbue A Glitch in the Matrix (2021) there are, naturally, a number of cinematic implementations of Dick’s fiction and those definitions of reality and perceptions of time, space, life and consciousness in films such as Blade Runner and Total Recall.
Rodney Ascher’s documentary is a hotchpotch of interviews, references and ideas that is at once compelling and invigorating as it is occasionally broad in concept and over-egged. It’s indicative of an age where games are often indistinguishable from real life as communities and communications offer an alternative form of reality to the player/observer. In this manner Minecraft is used as an example to show us the creation of worlds and communities with its Lego-esque environments. This is also seen here as linking to early gaming in Pong and goes on to show the photorealism of improved hardware rendering more realistic environments. It questions the identity of virtual communities and how NPG’s are developed as indistinguishable from other online players in a world that differs from our perceived interpretation of actuality but is still inherently otherworldly. The Wizard of Oz (1939) is also referred to and juxtaposed in the links of Dorothy’s realities and world existence as much as (spoiler warning) the Wizard’s own fake environmental creation revealed in the denouement. Other films have approached the clearer philosophical confrontations these concepts install, most notably perhaps the unmentioned Fassbinder oddity World On A Wire (Welt am Draht). From the same year as The Matrix, we also had the similar but different eXistenZ from David Cronenberg and the link to all these in Steven Spielberg’s recent Ready Player One.
As with the worlds, arguments and philosophies it discusses and debates – addressing one’s own realities, the film’s realities or perception/deceptions thereof – A Glitch in the Matrix is very much a product of its subject, at times engaging and stimulating, at times infuriating. As in the opening Philip K. Dick’s quote that “I am free to say everything or nothing,” it could perhaps be suggested that A Glitch in the Matrix (2021) reveals both everything and nothing.