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).
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.
