‘Reality is reality’ or the middle way
the reflective task, mediation, post-cinema and a film by Quentin Dupieux
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33871/19805071.2026.34.1.11722Keywords:
Digital technologies, Post-cinema, SpeculationAbstract
This paper explores The Second Act (2024), by Quentin Dupieux, as an example of a “post-cinema,” in which the reflective task collapses, reality and fiction intertwine and digital mediation shifts human perception to a secondary role. Drawing on concepts like “decorrelation” (Shane Denson), “radical mediation” (Richard Grusin) and “feed-forward” (Mark B. N. Hansen), it is argued that new digital technologies reshape experience, establishing extraperceptive processes and metalogics that challenge us. Inspired by the notion of speculation (Whitehead), the text suggests that “post-cinema” is a transitory state in which the boundaries between fiction/reality, actor/character and human/machine are dissolved. The Second Act highlights these clashes by displaying a self-reflective universe, in which the search for a “reality” is always in dispute, stimulating new speculations about perception, agency and mediation in the 21st century.
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