The trailer for the much-anticipated Matrix 4 or The Matrix Resurrections is out. There’s even an official site where you can pick the red pill or blue pill and see different realities. And as the title suggests Keanu/Neo is resurrected (he had died Matrix 3) – think John Wick in the Matrix.
Yet despite the new Matrix coming out eighteen years after the last film, the real question is whether the Matrix ever ended. After all, the original Matrix released in 1999 first introduced the theme of ‘the brain in the vat’ paradox – that is, we are all living in an illusion. So, if you have been red pilled you would know you are still in the Matrix.
But outside of metaphysics, the film was also about the threshold that was crossed in 1999 and which we have been in ever since. Remember, in the original Matrix, there is a scene where Agent Smith specifically says that the Matrix is the imperfect world of 1999. He said that they had created a perfect world for humans, but it was a disaster. No one accepted the program’.
And how is 1999 represented? Well, with lots of plain faced workers (Keanu included) stuck in their cubicles staring at screens. This was the transition point, where we moved from the ‘light on’ world, where we look at things upon which light is shone (art, newspapers), to a ‘light through’ world, where we look at things through which light shines (screens)*.
So, the surroundings can be dull and plain, but everyone is living more colourfully in the digital world. At the same time, as people come closer to this fully immersed virtual reality, they yearn for the past and become nostalgic. 1999 is the period they hold on to.
The Matrix signalled this transition from the ‘light on’ world to the ‘light through’ world. We’ve been steadily living ever more deeply in the digital world and away from the physical world. The Matrix never ended.
Bilal
*Joshua Clover first discusses in his excellent book The Matrix