The Threshold Concept

As paryt of our new term's work for context one we are now looking in Threshold Concepts and how they relate to such things as media and our day to day lives. My first task was to look at how the following three threshold concepts relate to the film ExistenZ.

And they were:

Interactive
Narrative
Convergence

Heres how I explained them coming together with the film.

Discuss the Threshold concept and Existenz film

The film existenz focuses on entering virtual worlds and mind control which can see dramatic results regarding how people interact with the aspect of surrealism.

Aside from being surreal there are also strong horror themes as in one scene the character has injecting herself with a poisonous control device which she has inserted into her back and is now dyeing as a result. I felt the film was confusing but also thought provoking, it was heavily based on mind control and to what extent can be too much for a human being to comprehend. There were also elements of humour and deception.

As the film has a number of parallels this sometimes made difficult to keep up with the story and by the end I did feel I hadn’t fully understood the point of the film. However in terms of how it relates to the threshold concepts and the three points which are as follows:

1. Interactive

In terms how Existenz relates interactive throughout the entire film the two main characters have entered a visual world through the power of a games device which is plugged into the base of your spine to enable it to work. This in my opinion made the film more intriguing but also quite scary as neither character had any control over their bodies.

2. Narrative

Regarding the narrative of the film it is formatted in a way that it switches between reality and entering the world of video games.The main focus I felt was to see how far someone’s imagination and ideas could develop.

3. Convergence

Finally in regards to the convergence of Existenz towards the end of the film it appears that all the characters still remained in their virtual state and as a result it seemed that the story was never-ending and finished on a cliff hanger leading a thought embedded in the audience minds.

Written by

Stephanie Janine

Multimedia context one