Coversheet

#11 Thesis Statement

From the previous posts that I mentioned, I would like to link the two movies together and make a thesis. I wanted to choose Ender's Game and Tron Legacy as first since both of them are related to game. For some reason, ended up the two movies that I picked will be The Matrix and Tron Legacy. The similarities of the two movies are they immerse their physical body, also known as real identity into the computer program (virtual world).

The Matrix - Matrix (Real world that people thought) = Computer Program
                     - Zion = Real World
                     - People are more desire to be in virtual world. 

In the movie, Cypher, the Judas-like character who betrays the team, makes a statement saying that if he had to choose between the Matrix and the real world, his choice was the Matrix. He chose it because illusion of a better life that Matrix can offer, although he would never truly live.

Tron Legacy -Grid = Computer Program
                       - People from virtual world wanted to enter the real world.

In the movie, Clu was trying so hard to leave 'grid' and enter the real world. Clu simply felt that doing the same to the real world was the natural next step to his original directive from Flynn, as Flynn wanted to create a perfect system in the virtual world as well.

Both of the movies have the human connection between REAL IDENTITY and VIRTUAL WORLD. From the movies, we can see that the real identities are having challenges in the virtual world. At this point, I would like to link the movies to human connection instead of modelling real identity in the virtual world.

#10 Tron Legacy

Tron Legacy is a story that the father (Kevin Flynn) is being stucked inside the virtual world that he designed and created, called the "grid". The "grid" are actually created with the help of Tron and also an avatar Clu. Clu is a second incarnation of Kevin’s avatar. Clu and Kevin's appearance are exactly the same, at the same time Clu has the ability to think like Kevin. This led to Clu to took control of the 'grid' world and also prohibited Kevin from returning home by the only portal.

Sam Flynn, son of the Kevin went to his father office by a chance and ends up getting sucked too into the 'grid' and only has eight hours to make it out before the portal closes again. So Sam has to escape from the 'grid' and also wanted to destroy the world. Ends up, Kevin loses his disc and set a trap to end the battle and help Sam & Quorra to escape from the 'grid'.

The basic ideas is that people (real identity) being transported to a virtual world where programs were personified by human representations and how do Sam & Quorra escape from the grid.

References:
Goldbery, M (2011) Tron Legacy Review [Online] Available at: http://collider.com/tron-legacy-movie-review-jeff-bridges-garrett-hedlund/

#9 The Matrix

The Matrix 1999

"What is the Matrix?It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth."

I think this movie is quite relevant to my topic "real" & "identity", so i re-watched it few days ago. In this movie, the main character, Thomas A Anderson which also known as Neo has different personalities depends on his identity. He has multiple identities that living two lives, which is software programmer and computer hacker.

Basically, the basic notion of the movie is the real world around us is an illusion or is not real. The real world around us is actually a computer evolved world.

Morpheus awakened Neo in the real world and started guide him to discover the truth.

Here's some of the conversation from the movie that I found interesting.

1. Morpheus: Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?

2. Morpheus: What is real? How do you define 'real'? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.

3. Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Spoon boy: Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

As Morpheus points out in the movie, you couldn't tell which one is the real. (At this time, I also get confused with his words that is this world real? )  How do you define real? Can the game's virtual identity of mine be real? Why not? 

It is you that changes how do you see and how do you believe in your own perception.

From this movie, the reality doesn't look better than the computer evolved world. It's similar to our society today, as people are more rely on technology that humans are now discovering themselves and exploring new identity on the internet. The concept of this flexible self consists two selves which are self deception and self awareness. The capability of combining these two selves through lines of communication gives one the capability to explore all the different identities within oneself.
In this movie, Neo is struggling between his identity and the real (The One). Whether he is the one who can save humanity freeing them from the Matrix and end the Machine War or he is just an ordinary people.

References: 
Hein, M. (2013) 'Reality, Identity and The Matrix' [Online] Available at: http://philfilmrhodes.blogspot.com/2013/01/reality-identityand-matrix.html 

Further Reading:
http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/society-and-culture/The-Matrix-reality-check-truth/883.aspx

#8 Reality

From yesterday's lecture, we have been taught about that reality is also sort of related to memes. Sometimes, your expectation may not be the same to reality. In the following video, it shows a man does an experiment with hidden camera to see whether the food look exactly like it does in the advertisement picture. So, here you go!

Advertisement vs Actual Burger

From the video, we can see that most of the fast food restaurants do not offer the exactly same burgers in the advertisement picture. This technique that uses in most of the advertisement that attract their consumer, known as exaggeration or idealization that changes how human see in reality that had already mediated to a screen representation.

#7 Privacy on social media

No doubt, social media has become an important part in our life. Now the question is, what are you scarifying for social media? Time and ... privacy? In the 21st century, people spend most of the time on social media and of course they reveal their privacy as well, especially teens.

What is privacy?

According to Michale McFarland, MJ from Santa Clara University, privacy is something that each person has a sphere of existence and activity that properly belongs to that individual alone, where he or she should be free of constraint, coercion, and even uninvited observation. To date, it known as people needs their own 'space'. It is the matter of human right.

Are we sacrificing privacy on Internet? (Social Media)
According to Pew Research Internet Project, teens today increasingly posted or shared certain type of information on social media than the older teens did in the past.

Cases that your privacy are being threatened on social media are everywhere in the world. Let me tell you why social medias are not safe that how you thought!

I've do some research regarding privacy issues on social media. We know Snapchat is a phone application and it's famous with its function; snap photos and text with your friends. Snapchat's whole point is that your friends will have a certain amount of time to view each image sent.

Sounds interesting? You think that it's safe if you send a very personal/private message to your friends since it will gone forever without keeping any history? 

Nothing is impossible in the world.

I know teenagers nowadays are obsessing with taking picture. Taking photos/ selfie/ wefie/ groupfie are fun!

What if there are the hackers that theft your personal information by hacking your Snapchat's account? 
It makes me think of Jennifer Lawrence's nude photos leaked on iCloud. If you wondered, read article here.

According to The Eagle, hackers leaked an archive containing over 200,000 images around 13GB on October in 2014. The images that hacked are all nude photos from users. This is crazy! Do you think that social media is still safe?

Or you wanted to tell me that photos leaked by hacking social media's account doesn't really a matter or it doesn't count as sacrificing privacy? Come on, what if that's your nude photos?!

Similar thing that happen and happen again in different social medias, privacy leaked on the internet also known as privacy violation. You can control how much do you want to reveal yourself but is that worth?

Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the non-profit Center for Digital Democracy, said that Facebook was sacrificing the safety and privacy of teenage users in order to further its business.

According to Chester, Facebook is much more extensive than other social media that allow teens to share information, according to Chester.

"Teens don't necessarily have good judgment and to the extent that they make themselves visible to the wider public, there's all kind of people – from predators to junk food marketers – who are surveilling Facebook for new kinds of targets," Chester said.

It's basically an idea that teens have the least ability to judge which is right and which is wrong, what can be revealed on the internet, what can not. At the same time, they thought sharing information and interact with people on social media is just too fun.

Besides photos leaked can be an privacy issue that need to be concerned, your basic detail, information, daily life status that you posted on Facebook also regarding to privacy.

From the video below, it shows a man, Davil Guillaume will know people's personal life information just by checking/ viewing their social media account. 

References:
Jordan, S (2014) 'Don’t sacrifice your privacy for social media' [Online] Available at: http://csceagle.com/2014/10/22/dont-sacrifice-your-privacy-for-social-media/
  
Curtis, S (2013) 'Facebook allows teenagers to share status updates with the world' [Online] Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/10386401/Facebook-allows-teenagers-to-share-status-updates-with-the-world.html


Further Reading:
http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/05/21/teens-social-media-and-privacy/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/29008876

# 6 Self-expression in Virtual World

Virtual reality technology could be used in ways beyond gaming, ranging from art to self-expression and empowerment.

It's a quote that said by D. Fox Harrell, an associate professor of Digital Media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Virtual reality technology could be a tool that help human to improve themselves in their real world.

From 'Living Virtually: Researching New Worlds' journal by Peter Lang that I have read, he said that the virtual world and development of avatars originated from self-expression, a creative redesigning of the self for the virtual world. It offers user diverse spaces and multiple avenue for self-expression and self reflecting that they're able to design new virtual identities that allow greater freedom than real-world identities.

But that doesn't mean their virtual identities are not exactly the same as their real world identities. Virtual identities may be one's authentic representation of self that they are actually creating and aims to achieve in the real world. Users can express their feelings and the aspects of their personality in the virtual world such as Second Life.

In my classmate (Kelsey) blogpost, her research mention that Robbie Cooper explores the modern convergence of personal and social identities in a portrait series that pairs gamers with their virtual avatars and wrote a book named, ‘Alter Ego: Avatars and their creators’.

I found that was interesting and useful that her research related to the movie that I've watched, Ender's Game.

References
Lang, P. (2009) 'Living Virtually: Researching New Worlds' [Online] Available at: http://books.google.com.my/books/about/Living_Virtually.html?id=lhW83dkFT7sC&redir_esc=y

#5 Artificial Intelligence (Sharing)

I watched other science fiction films which the topics are about artificial intelligence (A.I).

Bicentennial Man (1999)

Artificial Intelligence (2001) 

1. According to Wikipedia, 
   

   Artificial intelligence (AI) is the intelligence exhibited by machines or software. It is an academic field of study which studies the goal of creating intelligence.

For me, they are all sad stories. So basically, two of them are about advanced robot that can develop their love to someone. Their wishes is to transform into a real identity (human) since they are all androids.

In the Bicentennial Man, Andrew's (Robbin William) wish is to be treated as a human being as he realised the people who he loved slowly ages and dies. However, in Artificial Intelligence movie David's wish to be treated as a mankind because the mother (Monica) and the family do not agree that android can think like humans and feel like human, so the mother abandoned him. Mostly it is because the family thought that android will threaten the family. We can see that two of the main characters from the movies have the different purpose of transforming to human. 

Look clearly, two of the movies released in 1999 and 2001, which were quite early in the technological era. Do there have any predictable factors that an A.I can think like a human, feel like a human or it would surpass human?

I look up for some research and cases.

There have been four major schools about A.I, read article here.

“Medicine has not been able to cure me, so I rely on technology to help me communicate and live.” 

“The development of this system has the potential to improve the lives of disabled people around the world and is leading the way in terms of human interaction and the ability to overcome communication boundaries that once stood in the way.”

An English theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking said the quotes above and he was the motor neurone disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patient and he is using a new system developed by Intel to speak.

He go on said that however artificial intelligence could end mankind because A.I has been developed so fast than biological evolution and been very useful to human today. He added that the technology would eventually become self-aware and “supersede” humanity.

"We cannot quite know what will happen if a machine exceeds our own intelligence, so we can't know if we'll be infinitely helped by it, or ignored by it and sidelined, or conceivably destroyed by it."

This was said by Rollo Carpenter, creator of Cleverbot. As we can see the scientist are giving out their opinions on A.I (Robot) will take over the world one day and surpass human.

In Artificial Intelligence movie, there are the scene that the A.I have been destroyed by the human being by torturing them until they die. In my opinion, human are fear of A.I will be controlling/ take over the world one day as A.I's vitality is stronger than mankind or they might smarter than human.
Same thing that what scientists had predicted about A.I and human in the future. Are there still any possibilities that A.I will be still under control by human in the future? No one knows the answer.

References: 
Williams, R (2014) 'Stephen Hawking says artificial intelligence could end the human race' [Online] Available at: http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/12/02/stephen-hawking-says-artificial-intelligence-could-spell-the-end-of-the-human-race-as-he-unveils-new-communications-system/

#4 Identify

Identify and discuss how the issues of real identity and virtual identity are a feature in science fiction films. In addition discuss the following: Are we sacrificing privacy, self-expression, human connection, or other important values when we engage more and more with virtual worlds?"

Before started writing essay, I would have to analyze/ identify the essay question with the following points as a guide that given by my lecturer in the past few weeks lecture class.

Task Words - Identify, explore, compare and discuss
Main Topic - Identity
Subtopic + Related Topic- Virtual identity, virtual world, real identity.
Artefact/  Platform- Science Fiction Film
Parameters/ Limits - Minimum 2 films/ movies
Keywords- Identity & virtual 
Initial Thesis/ Working Title/ Contested Positions - Modelling reality with virtual world (self expression in virtual world)

After analyzing to several point forms, I feel that is very helpful for me on working the essay and  it's easy for me to do research on that regarding those emphasis.

#3 Identities

"Identify and discuss how the issues of real identity and virtual identity are a feature in science fiction films."

This topic strongly remind me of a movie, Ender's Game. Here's a trailer of Ender's Game.

Ender's Game is about the nature of perception and reality. In the future, years after an alien race called the Formics who had attacked Earth and killed millions, and the world is focused on preparing commanders for the next great battle. Children are trained as the militaristic saviors to save the earth from Formics.

From the movie, there are some scenes that shows Ender playing a mind game on a tablet in which he navigates as a mouse through an area. It seems like a video game but it's actually a way for the colonel to further study and analyze Ender's frame of mind and leadership abilities while playing.

The second time he played, there's a game scene that appeared a bunch of leaves forms a formic (Ender doesn't know that it's a Formic Queen creature that time). Then, the creature floats for a while until it transforms into Ender's sister, Valentine. Ender is surprised, he continue following her to a Formic tower that had already ruined by the fallen bomb.

You couldn't tell anything from the game scene if you never finish watching the movie, in the last 10 minutes of the movie I guess, Ender's started regretted and realized (after attacking the Formic's planet) that the Formic Queen is actually trying to communicate/ contact with Ender using the Mind Game program as a medium which it uses his sister identity in the game. As they were making their final stand in an effort to save their species from the humans.

References:
Otis, A. (2013) "The Updated Moral Agenda of Gavin Hood's Ender's Game" [Online] Available at: http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2013/11/05/movie-review-enders-game/

Tallarita, A. (2013) "A Post-Apocalyptic Present: 'Ender’s Game' and the New Sci-Fi of Violation" [Online] Available at: http://www.popmatters.com/feature/176241-a-post-apocalyptic-present-enders-game-and-the-new-sci-fi-of-violati/

Further Reading:
http://www.screeningnotes.com/2013/11/enders-game-review.html
http://godawa.com/movieblog/enders-game-ludicrous-movie-spouts-identity-politics-child-supremacy-insect-rights