USA / Japan,
1995, 83 min
Shown in 1996
CREDITS
- dir
-
Iara Lee
- prod
-
George Gund III
- cam
-
Toshifumi Furusawa, Marius Hahn, Kramner Morgenthau
- editor
-
Andreas Troeger, Stacia Thompson
- source
-
Jane Balfour Films
-
COMMENTS
Iara Lee in person.
OTHER
Equal parts of wariness and glee enliven this ode to the buzzing cyber subculture, a scene that spans a spectrum ranging from Timothy Leary’s advocacy of “self-prescription” drugs, to French performance artist Orlan’s redefinition of her body through plastic surgery and implants, to Japan’s Ocean Dome, an interior beach with a manmade storm that would put the Tonga Room to shame. We visit all the hot spots of the new reality promised by the explosion of new technologies. A steady stream of narration by hipsters, writers, body-piercing gurus and pontificating computer scientists accompanies a mammoth surge of computer imagery and film clips, heightened by the hypnotic beat of Belgian disco and trance music. Fueled by the central idea that we humans haven’t adapted to our environments, but rather adapt our environments to serve our needs and whims, Synthetic Pleasures probes the vogue for virtual reality, the kind of “tourism” that feels compelled to create optimized and sanitized versions of nature. Marriage by fax, extropy (the human potential movement) and cryogenics appear as symptoms of a technovirus that afflicts both computers and humans. If the film’s channel-surfing style is merely an extension of the purely temporal nature of these fads and movements, it certainly helps to explain the quick and easy allure of the technocratic elite. A panel discussion will examine how the exponential growth of computer technology has created a new universe of culture, illusion, commerce and community.
—Nick Tangborn
FACTOID #343
Director Sally Potter was the first person to be honored with the Festival’s Satyajit Ray Award. In 1993 she was interviewed onstage and her new film Orlando was screened. In 2005, she turned the tables by interviewing Peter J. Owens Award recipient Joan Allen.
