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" W U N IV ER SITY OF I I M J TORONTO PRESS THE CYBER SUBLIME AND THE VIRTUAL M

" W U N IV ER SITY OF I I M J TORONTO PRESS THE CYBER SUBLIME AND THE VIRTUAL MIRROR: INFORMATION AND MEDIA IN THE WORKS OF OSHII MAMORU AND KON SATOSHI Author(s): WILLIAM O. GARDNER Source: Revue Canadienne d'Études cinématographiques / Canadian Journal o f Film Studies, spring ■ printem ps 2009, Vol. 18, No. 1, A SPECIAL ISSUE ON CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE CINEMA IN TRANSITION (spring ■ printem ps 2009), pp. 44-70 Published by: U niversity of Toronto Press Stable URL: https://w w w .jstor.org/stable/24411782 REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR fo r this article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24411782?seq=1& cid=pdf- reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a n o t-fo r -p r o fit service th a t helps scholars, researchers, and stu d en ts discover, use, and build upon a w ide range o f con ten t in a tru sted digital archive. We use in fo rm a tio n tech n o lo g y and tools to increase p ro d u ctiv ity and fa cilíta te new fo rm s o f scholarship. For m ore in fo rm a tio n about JSTOR, please contact support@ jstor.org. Your use o f th e JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance o f th e T erm s & C onditions o f Use, available at h ttp s://a b o u t.jsto r .o r g /te r m s U n iv e rs ity o f T oronto P ress is collaborating w ith JSTOR to digitize, preserve and exten d access to R evue Canadienne d'Etudes ciném atograph iqu es / Canadian J o u rn a l o f Film Stu dies JSTOR This content downloaded from 34.192.2.131 on Sun, 13 Jun 2021 02:00:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms WILLIAM O. GARDNER THE CYBER SUBLIME AND THE VIRTUAL MIRROR: INFORMATION AND MEDIA IN THE WORKS OF OSHII MAMORU AND KON SATOSHI Résumé: L'influence des médias et de l'informatique sur les sociétés humaines con- stitue un des principaux thémes faconnant les stratégies visuelles et les orientations philosophiques des animes de Oshii Mamoru et Kon Satoshi. L'analyse des Ghost in the Shell et Innocence d'Oshii révéle ainsi que le développement d'une esthétique du sublime cybernétique se trouve simultanément fondé sur un univers hiérarchique et animé par un reve de transcendance. L'étude des films de Kon, tels Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress et Paprika, dévoile quant á elle une approche tres différente des questions de représentation : celle du « miroir virtuel ». Dans ces oeuvres, la réalité quotidienne est saturée de portails ressemblant á des miroirs, et menant á des lieux identitaires alternatifs oü l'on se préte á des jeux intersubjectifs ; des espaces non- hiérarchiques qui, contrairement á la visión d'Oshii, suggérent une vue immanente de l'univers. T he question of how new technologies of information conveyance, storage, retrieval, and manipulation are affecting our Uves and our futures is a central concern for contemporary culture. In the world of Creative expression, artists, writers, and filmmakers have been exploring the impact of information and com- munication technology in numerous media, including video, Computer, and web- based art; the Science fiction, cyberpunk and techno-thriller genres of prose narrative; and related genres of filmmaking. Amid this diverse artistic exploration, Japanese animation (anime) has emerged as one of the most prominent sites for exploring the impact of information technology and new media on human life. Nevertheless, attempts at a visual or narrative representation of “informa tion” and its manipulation encounter some fundamental obstacles. As modeled in early information theory and implemented in digital technology, “information” can be reduced to a system of meaningful differences (1/0) that are amassed and manipulated in huge quantities through Computer technology.1 As the vast accu- mulation of minute differences, modern digital information is essentially an abstract commodity, and in an important sense is beyond visual representation. In this essay, I am interested in exploring the representational strategies employed by certain anime with respect to this abstract commodity of “information,” together CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FILM STUDIES • REVUE CANADIENNE D'ÉTUDES CINÉMATOGRAPHIQUES VOLUME 18 NO. 1 • SPRING • PRINTEMPS 2009 • pp 44-70 This content downloaded from 34.192.2.131 on Sun, 13 Jun 2021 02:00:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms with the ways in which this information is uploaded, accessed, and shared through various interfaces. In particular, I will examine how director Oshii Mamoru’s Ghost in the Shell (1995) presents a visión of a huge interconnected database transcending the human world—a visión that can be modulated in paranoid or euphoric terms. I will refer to Oshii’s visión of a vast “data-realm,” which can be indexed through such rhetorical devices as metaphor and synecdoche but is ultimately beyond repre sentaron, as the Cyber Sublime. Oshii’s sequel to Ghost in the Shell, Innocence (2004), further suggests the permeation of information in the human world through its digitally rendered interiors and landscapes, but, as I will discuss below, this work still preserves the fundamental scheme of the Cyber Sublime established with Ghost in the Shell In the second parí of my essay, I will argüe that infor mation, technology, and media are figured in a quite different fashion in the works of another prominent anime director, Kon Satoshi. In examining several works by Kon in both the feature film and televisión series formats, including the recent film Paprika (2006), I will offer the paradigm of the Virtual Mirror to describe Kon’s distinctive approach, which runs contrary to many of the prevail- ing ideas and representative strategies regarding information technology as exem- plified in Oshii’s work.2 THE CYBER SUBLIME AND THE PROBLEM OF REPRESENTATION Oshii’s feature film Ghost in the Shell (Kokaku kidotai, referred to hereafter as Ghost), with its impressive mix of hard-edged action, philosophical exploration, and lyrical, meditative set pieces, has become a touchstone for Science fiction and anime fans worldwide. Based on a manga by Shirow Masamune, the film tells the story of Major Kusanagi Motoko, a cyborg intelligence officer from the State security agency Section 9, who is investigating a series of cyber crimes car- ried out by an infamous hacker known as the Puppet Master. Following some preliminary sleuthing by the section 9 agents, the Puppet Master is found to have descended from the Net—the vast, interconnected data-realm that transcends the visible world in Ghost—and into the body of a cyborg. While the investigating officers imagine that the Puppet Master originated in a human body before being provisionally lured into the cyborg’s body, the Puppet Master claims that “he” is actually a Computer program that gained self-awareness as it traversed the net gathering and manipulating information, and that he entered the cyborg’s body of his own free will.3 Finally, he astounds them all by seeking political asylum with Section 9 as a sentient being. After the cyborg body containing the Puppet Master is snatched away by a rival intelligence organization, Major Kusanagi tracks the body down and attempts to establish communication by hacking or “diving” into it. At the film’s climax, it is revealed that the Puppet Master has deliberately attracted the attention of Section 9 in order to propose a mating or “marriage” with Kusanagi, claiming that no life form is complete without the THE WORKS OF OSHII MAMORU AND KON SATOSHI 45 This content downloaded from 34.192.2.131 on Sun, 13 Jun 2021 02:00:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Fig. 1 . Cybernetic fingere type on a keyboard ¡n Chost ¡n the Shell (Oshü Mamoru, 1995). ability to reproduce and die. Significantly, the merging with Kusanagi will not result in the Puppet Master obtaining material form, but rather entails Kusanagi giving up anything but provisional material embodiment, and, like the Puppet Master, existing as a life form in the fluid realm of puré information. In Ghost, I would argüe, there is a fundamental rift between the world of humans (and cyborgs), which can be depicted on the screen, and the realm of puré information, sometimes referred to as the Net, which is beyond depiction. Any attempt to bridge this fundamental gap entails a certain awkwardness or even violence in the film’s visual representation. For one example, we can recall the cyborg data assistants that are used for Section 9, whose hands burst open to reveal more fingers that are capable of typing on a Computer keyboard more rapidly (fig. 1). On the one hand, it stretches credulity to imagine that a society as tech- nologically advanced as that of Ghost would reinvent the hand to better intégrate with the interface of the typewriter or Computer keyboard, rather than develop a new interface altogether (in fact, other characters in the film jack straight in to the Net through wires in their neck). However, in its very awkwardness, the visión of the hands popping open to reveal more fingers effectively illustrates the extremity of the gap between human and informational—and the imperative to stretch or break the limits uploads/Litterature/ gardner-the-cyber-sublime-and-the-virtual-mirror-information-and-media-in-the-works-of-oshii-mamoru-and-satoshi-kon.pdf