Uncanny Valley Analysis

I have to admit that this short video had really caught my attention. It was fun to watch and at the same time, it teaches us while showing us on how technology can manipulate our minds and blind us with their games. One of the main themes this video represents is the meaning of post-human consciousness. What does post-human mean, you ask? Well, from what I’ve learned, I believe that post-human means that a person or entity  exists in a state beyond being human. “Uncanny Valley” is a video where some humans were being driven to entertain themselves by entering inside a virtual reality where they believe to be a place where they can be themselves. But unfortunately, this VR had drastically changed their life style and mental state. The people had become anti-social, they barely leave their home over time, and they lose their humanity. The cause of their state is not the virtual reality’s approximation of the real, but its masking of and substitution for the real. Later on, we’ve realized that one of the humans escaped for a moment from his world and into the real world where he discovers a horrible truth: the humans unknowingly were piloting bipedal androids, like the one in the shot above, in desert combat zones where they kill not aliens or monsters, but human beings. So in a way, everything they’ve seen was a lie and they were actually murdering innocent lives without even knowing it. This shows that are minds can be inside in any shell or armor, but the reality is far from what we’ve believe.

The Matrix (1999)

 

This film not only was fun to watch, but it reveals a universe where  technology reign supreme and rules over all human society. Humans grew so dependent of the machines that they are blinded to see what their creations were becoming in the future. However, it also explains that even the darkest of times, there is always hope, which can be found in the most unexpected places or forms.

In the shot above we see that Neo is given the choice to either take the blue or red pill. It is in that moment I discovered that the real choice is whether Neo chooses his fate (the blue pill) or his destiny (the red pill). From Morpheus’s sunglasses, we could see the visual shot of Neo and the pills as a way of seeing the fate of Mankind rests on his shoulders.By choosing the blue pill, Neo had accepted his destiny to become the One and, for the first time in his life, experiences the taste of true freedom. Once in the real world, Neo experienced shock and fear in the view of many humans being dormant in pods while the machines drain their bioelectricity for their own power.

Truth is that the dream world is a mere shadow of what truly exists in real world in which humans have never experienced it. As the Matrix is a computer program that the humans are plugged into, the world they view as “real” is not truly what it appears to be. In reality, those living within the Matrix have never seen the real world that exists beyond their perception. Only those who have been removed from the Matrix have ever truly seen the real world or, in other words, have never truly lived.