Introduction to Part 2

• Main Author: Ndalianis, Angela
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de (1547-1616); Culture; Fiction; Motion pictures; Philosophy; Plot (Narrative); Spanish literature
• ISSN: 0923-0483
• DOI: 10.1163/9789004324350_009

The cultural system and production (of art, theatre, architecture, technologies, scientific thought, philosophy) witnessed during the historical baroque is one often associated with what Thomas Kuhn famously called a "paradigm shift" in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. While Kuhn referred specifically to the Scientific Revolution, the rough confines of the 17th century were accompanied by major cultural shifts: the Counter Reformation and Catholicism's emphasis on the creation of works of art that reflected and encouraged the passionate expression of Faith; the invention of optical technologies that made visible objects on micro and macro levels and thus altered perceptions of Earth and the universe; and the colonization of New Worlds in the Americas and Asia that created new hybrid cultures and religious belief systems. Through an analysis of The Matrix and eXistenZ Moser proposes that during the 1990s a new cycle of science fiction films emerged, which he characterises as evolving thematically around the question 'what is real?' Repeating iconographic and plot elements that include character types, cutting edge special effects, action, violence, and a refusal to answer the central question regarding the nature of reality that the films pose, the films narratives inevitably become entangled in a series of "labyrinthine uncertainties about what is real".