CYBER SUBLIME AND THE VIRTUAL MIRROR: INFORMATION AND MEDIA IN THE WORKS OF OSHII MAMORU AND KON SATOSHI, THE

Canadian Journal of Film Studies, Spring 2009 by Gardner, William O

R�sum�: L'influence des m�dias et de l'informatique sur les soci�t�s humaines constitue un des principaux th�mes fa�onnant les strat�gies visuelles et les orientations philosophiques des animes de Oshii Mamoru et Kon Satoshi. L'analyse des Ghost in the Shell et Innocence d'Oshii r�v�le ainsi que le d�veloppement d'une esth�tique du sublime cybern�tique se trouve simultan�ment fond� sur un univers hi�rarchique et anim� par un r�ve de transcendance. L'�tude des films de Kon, tels Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress et Paprika, d�voile quant � elle une approche tr�s diff�rente des questions de repr�sentation : celle du � miroir virtuel �. Dans ces oeuvres, la r�alit� quotithenne est satur�e de portails ressemblant � des miroirs, et menant � des lieux identitaires alternatifs o� l'on se pr�te � des jeux intersubjectifs ; des espaces nonhi�rarchiques qui, contrairement � la vision d'Oshii, sugg�rent une vue immanente de l'univers.

The question of how new technologies of information conveyance, storage, retrieval, and manipulation are affecting our lives 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 communication technology in numerous media, including video, computer, and webbased 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 "information" 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 accumulation 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 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 Shett (1995) presents a vision of a huge interconnected database transcending the human world - a vision that can be modulated in paranoid or euphoric terms. I will refer to Oshii's vision of a vast "data-realm," which can be indexed through such rhetorical devices as metaphor and synecdoche but is ultimately beyond representation, 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 part of my essay, I will argue that information, 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 television 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 prevailing ideas and representative strategies regarding information technology as exemplified 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 carried 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 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 pure information.