The following poetics is the result of my study of fictional representations of virtuality. Parts of, as well as additions to, this poetics have been published elsewhere, see appendix 03.
We will start this exploration of fictional virtualities with a general observation. A quite surprising result from this study was the quantity and complexity of the observed signs. There are almost a thousand signs that I have identified in the more than 50 narratives I have analyzed. Out of these signs about 350 have been
classified as super-signs. The movie with the highest number of observed signs of virtuality is Tron with about 250 sign types used almost a thousand times, some
used once, others over and over again during the movie; each usage is a token.41 The
Matrix franchise – three feature films and ten short films – count in at a total of
over 300 sign types used 1 400 times.42 The movies with the least number of signs,
such as Escape from New York, exhibited about ten sign types.
Another way to quantitatively describe the usage of signs in each movie is the ratio between number of signs (number of types) and how often they have been used (number of tokens). That is, which movie has repeated a limited number of signs over and over again? This would be the TV series Life on Mars with its ratio of almost 1:5, followed by Tron and eXistenZ (ratios close to 1:4). These narratives are
quite different in their fictional representations of virtuality.43 The signs used in Life
on Mars are highly related to dialogue, character behavior and events, and they often form a complex and efficient weave of intratextual references and signs where a simple representamen has several interpretants. The depiction of virtuality in Tron is highly visual, but it is also highly dialogue and event driven. In comparison,
eXistenZ takes a minimalistic approach, using a comparatively limited number of signs (about 30) repetitively.
Even though I start with these quantitative measurements, this poetics of virtuality is not a quantitative study. The point is not how many signs there are, but
that they are many.44 It shows that the representation of one condition, virtuality,
employs a numerous and complex set of signs. It might be that any representamen can be made to signify virtuality; however, such a claim is difficult to support empirically. Even if a thousand observed signs is a large number, it is still a fraction of all potential signs that can be used in a movie. If we investigate the paradigmatic
41 For movie franchises such as The Matrix and Star Wars I count each individual movie, but when
it comes to TV series such as Life on Mars I count the series as one singular media artifact.
42 There are also computer games and comic books situated in The Matrix saga, but these have
not been included.
43 Life on Mars does not represent technical virtuality per se. The plot remains mysterious
concerning the nature of the protagonists where-abouts, but the most common suggestions (quite clearly spelled out in, for example, diegetic dialogue and director’s commentary) are that he is in coma.
44 Also, the quantification of how many times a sign has been used is highly approximate.
structure of a sign, exploring the range of possible variations of a sign, then we can get a hint at how well these variations are covered. The representamen [color] is easy to investigate with a paradigmatic analysis. A color-based representamen is limited to a constrained set of available hues, for example red, orange, yellow,
green, blue, black, grey and white.45 When looking at how the movie makers have
utilized this repertoire, it is clear that the colors blue and green have been used most frequently (in about 70 different sign types in 26 of the movies, and 50 sign types in 13 movies, respectively), but movie makers have also used yellow, red, orange, pink, purple, violet, grey, black and white. That is, the movie makers have more or less drawn from the whole paradigmatic repertoire. Thus, any color can signify virtuality.
Using a syntagmatic analysis to investigate how signs of virtuality are combined with each other and other signs, we see an obvious reason for why so many signs can be used to represent virtuality. Virtuality is something other than the actual; therefore, the signs must differentiate the virtual from the actual. Therefore, a natural color grading is not very suitable, since it is not in contrast with the actual. But any other tint – green, blue, red, orange – works fine since it contrasts with the natural.
There is actually an interesting exception, or rather an example where the relationships between natural and unnatural color grading has been cleverly
switched around. This occurs in Avalon, where the plot moves between a computer game environment and what is supposed to be the actual. Both environments are heavily color graded with deep desaturation, strong yellowish tint and blooming highlights. Since the computer game environment has a more extreme visual style and color grading, and the mise-en-scène of that environment also exhibits other signs of virtuality, it seems obvious that the game world is the insert virtual world of the narrative. If so, then the other world, into which heroine Ash wakes up when leaving the game world, is her actual world, even though the latter also has a
quite distinct color grading and seems strangely vacant. But, late in the movie,46
Ash comes to a new level of the computer game, and surprisingly enters a world that seems to be our own actuality, with natural color grading, busy city streets and familiar soft-drink ads. So, this illustrates how, surrounded by the proper context, even a mise-scene and visual style that usually signifies actuality can be switched around into signifying virtuality.
But if anything can signify virtuality, why does not the text of the movie break down completely? How can we make sense of a text if any representamen can connect with any interpretant, if any sign can mean anything? The explanation is that even if any representamen has the potential to mean anything, the signs mean
45 The number of actual hues is of course virtually unlimited, but the number of hue categories is
limited. The green in one movie is not exactly the same as in another movie, for example one being bright and the other being murky, but the precise hue of the representamen is not relevant. Compare with how the color [red] often signifies danger. It is not the precise hue of red that makes it a sign, as long as it is quite distinct, but instead it is the context that make red signify danger.
something specific in each text, and it is the context of the text that determines the interpretant. As in the example of Avalon – the natural color grading represented virtuality since it was in contrast to the previous un-natural color grading, and also because events in the plot (additional signs) suggest that the storyline takes place inside a computer game.
A vagueness we have to accept is when to consider the usage of a sign as being new or not, and how to discern between a unique type and repeated tokens. Consider, for example, the green color employed in The Matrix and several other movies. When we see the operator’s screen-based views into the virtual world, we see scrolling computer code in a green color. This is one sign, a type. We see this on several occasions in the movie, and each occasion is a new token (instance) of the sign, but it is the same sign type. Then, all scenes taking place inside the virtual world have a characteristic green-tinted color grading. This is another sign type,
once again occurring in numerous tokens. At the end of the movie,47 the
protagonist Neo takes conscious control over the virtual world and in his point-of- view shot the virtual world is revealed as curtains of green glowing computer code. Are these curtains of computer code a third sign type, or can it be regarded as yet another token of the first screen-based computer code? We could regard green as a representamen, and then regard both [green tint] and [green code] as complete signs, the latter also being a sub-sign in the Matrix super-sign [curtains of green glowing code]. Thus, every substantially different way in which [green] is used should be regarded as a separate sign type. When [green] is used in a highly similar manner as seen before, then that occurrence is a new token and not a new sign type.