No Longer Real

(SYM) Cyberspacial Negation – Reality is substituted for fantasy (and vice versa) as the audience is submerged in constant simulation. The Matrix shields the fragile semantic affirmations of sentimentality and 20th century familiarity from the harsh realities of the fantastic. Indeed, the hyperrealities of the year 2199 have come to not only merge with those of 1999 but also to negate and substitute the conventions of a neural-interactive simulation with the dizzying prospects of post-apocalyptic dystopia. This “very different city” is the antithesis of the original seme. Exposing the disparities of an imperfect utopia and a nightmarish dystopia, the television polarizes Neo’s understandings of reality.