Bodies and Machines

The film blurs the lines between the physical body, mental perception and mechanical machines. In the world the body is not only flesh and bone but also incorporates a machine. Or in the case of the gun, flesh and bone can be transformed into a machine. But the body also house emotions and opinions, but by incorporating a machine into the body these are altered, as to what extent we cannot know. No longer is the body pure. The film shows that it is hard to distinguish what is reality when involved with something virtual. It is only through machines that this virtual reality is accessible. The film also shows how there is a compulsive relationship between body and machine, and mind and machine. The machine needs to the body to function, it runs of energy. The mind needs the machine to access the virtual world, like a drug. The body and pods are connected by umbilical like connectors, symbolic of the nourishment a mother gives an unborn child. Furthermore the mind also contributes to the virtual reality by introducing it's own thoughts into the already constructed system to bring about small alterations. In this way the machine, mind and body become connected.

The film also questions the idea of being "alive". The pods are grown from mutated animals and require mutated organs if they need repair yet they are not "alive" in the same sense as a human being is "alive". There is some reference to these pods wanting to communicate to the connect humans through the theme of disease whilst in the game as a cry for help. Does this mean the pod is "alive"? It clearly wants to live.  However it is a manufactured object, a games console, it does not require the essentials that a human being needs to survive. The film is ambiguous in that it questions what it means to be living. Those people addicted to living in these virtual worlds, are they living? Or is it the people who fight against these virtual worlds that are living?