Synthetic Pleasures

Running time: N/A

You don't like the color of today's sunset? We can fix that! You don't like the shape of your nose? We can fix that! How about the way your mind works? We can fix that too! Come one! Come all! Come into the world of Synthetic Pleasures! "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Today, however, it seems that the "beholder" is no longer just observing the beauty of the world. Today, society modifies its world into its own idea of beauty. Hence, the topic of Iara Lee's Synthetic Pleasures; a film that is "the ultimate how-to book for Futureworld, consumer style." Divided into three sections ("Synthetic Environments", Synthetic Bodies" and "Synthetic Identities"), Lee's film explores our world through our impulse to change the Biosphere into our image; to live in computer-generated universes; to change our bodies through plastic surgery, genetic engineering, cryonics and cybernetics; and to alter our minds with drugs, the Internet and more. Synthetic Pleasures' "voices of the future" include: former Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow, alternative theorist Timothy Leary and an absurd performance artist, Orlan, a woman who "adjusts" her body ever few months using plastic surgery. Using sound bites from experts and a hypnotic techno score, Synthetic Pleasures grounds itself firmly in its observation of what the future holds. Ranging from kookiness to terrifying reality, Iara Lee injects her own mind-altering drug into its audience using a symphonic barrage of information and images which will resonate into the year 2000A.D. and beyond. -- Mike Rabehl