Another Alternative Reality? Exploring the Backrooms with Žižek
Abstract
The ontological incompleteness revealed by quantum physics and the ontological stability imposed by the “augmented reality” of games such as Pokémon Go have become increasingly important references in Žižek’s materialist assessment of the contemporary Other. This paper analyzes a current online phenomenon, known as “the Backrooms,” that converges with these recent concerns in ways that are perhaps more interesting and provocative than films such as The Matrix and The Truman Show that, Žižek contends, lead one to a conceptual dead-end. That is, we might conclude that there is an authentic reality beyond the simulation or that there is no ‘real’ reality, just a variety of semblances – either way, we foreclose the real that, according to Žižek, inheres as incompleteness and inconsistency. “The Backrooms,” which began life as a cryptic and disquieting post on the forum 4chan before inspiring subreddits, video games and YouTube videos – content that is predominantly created and shared by the ‘gen x’ demographic – ex-sists in a reality that is unstable and, so goes its lore, can be accessed through glitches and ‘quantum tunnelling.’ With this one example, we shall see how culture is responding to the same political and scientific developments that Žižek’s materialism is also working through.
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