IJ study archive

Hal on Himself's audience films

quote

In the cartridge it’s pretty clear from their milky-pixeled translucence and insubstantiality that they’re holograms, but it’s not clear what they’re supposed to be on the level of the playlet, whether the audience is supposed to see/(not)see them as ghosts or wraiths or ‘real’ mythic entities or what.

Context

The combatants are JOI's own holography (the fusion-optics trade again), and their ontological blur — ghosts or wraiths or 'real' mythic entities — is left deliberately unresolved on the playlet's level. Film-optics texture that doubles as ghosts-wraiths crossover; the "see/(not)see" coinage is the scene's whole spectation problem in one typographic gesture.

In anthology