Serial Experiments Lain
Definition
Serial Experiments Lain is a Japanese animation about analog identity and virtual identity.
This concept is related directly to the Japanese in Takeo Doi’s book, The Anatomy of Self. Doi writes of the difference between the Japanese omote and ura. Loosely translated they can mean ‘façade’ and ‘inner truth’ respectively. As to the Japaneseness of these concepts Doi writes, “I think omote and ura correspond to the distinction between soto (outside) and uchi (inside) that is often prominent in the Japanese consciousness of human relations” (24).
But as we will see, the hierarchical structure dissolves when faced with the world within the wired. The wired then exists as a world in which identity is relative – where the need for ‘masks’ is nonexistent. (Social Media).
Discussion
Serial Experiments Lain: A vision of digital realities In Screen Culture Database, anime, cyberspace on November 7, 2008 at 8:57 am
Serial Experiments Lain is an animated television show that tells the story of a junior high school-girl named Lain who gets an email from a dead student saying that she has left her physical body and now exists on the Wired (the show’s version of the Internet), claiming that God lives there as well. Lain begins experiencing strange phenomena including dislocations of space and time, visions of other people’s experiences, and as she becomes more familiar with the Wired discovers another version of herself existing independently in the real and virtual worlds. Eventually, Lain and her doppelganger turn out to be an omniscient being generated by the Wired, which government agents are attempting to control – her cold, uncaring family is a set of actors and the “reality” that she knows is entirely fake". More: http://intermedias.wordpress.com/2008/11/07/serial-experiments-lain-a-vision-of-digital-realities/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/caseorganic/3580457952/
Significance of red splotchy shadows in Serial Experiments Lain
Q: I have a question about the colors swirling in the shadows. was there any significance to that, or were they just stylistic
M(A): which shadows? I mean, there's a lot of them. there's a lot of weird shadows
Q: red splotches that appear frequently
M(A): actually, that wasn't Abe-san's idea, but the director's, to signify that the Wired is in the shadow, even in the real world, it's still there beneath the surface.
Full interview here: <a href="http://www.cjas.org/~leng/o2klain.htm">www.cjas.org/~leng/o2klain.htm</a> Picture from Wikimedia: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Experiments_Lain">en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Experiments_Lain</a>
Multiplicity of Selves
Each edit and profile that is made online creates a copy of the self. Online, identity can act for the actor when the actor is not physically present or building upon that currently identity. Older versions of that identity can retain themselves, acting as a geological history of identity.
Online, identity can act for the actor when the actor is not physically present or building upon that currently identity. Older versions of that identity can retain themselves, acting as a geological history of identity.
