Illusory Persona is a short 16mm film that I made in 1988-89. It is set in a university residence in a strange alternate future (the year "05" is mentioned, if you pay close attention). It hypothesizes a society that functions almost exclusively online (as we would say today).

Hmmm...

It's about this student named Stewart who basically knows people only through the "Global Matrix" (as I called it back then). In fact, Stewart is entirely more comfortable with machines than people - the opening half of the film is a series of flashbacks shown while he narrates a diary entry into a voice-recording machine. He only physically lives at his university because of his parent's urging (for the social aspect) - he would have been just as comfortable earning his entire education online, isolated from the "strangeness" of people (as he describes it). He is so emotionally and physically disconnected that he only slowly becomes aware of the disappearance of Peter, who occupies the residence room next to him.

He notices that a different, murkier character seems to be using Peter's room. One day, Peter's door is left unlocked, and Stewart investigates. Unfortunately, he is discovered. It is then that he learns the awful implications of a society that, in its search for technological efficiency, divests itself of real human contact.

- credits -

- the making of -