Hacking and Knowing - Some Thoughts on Masking Threshold

by Peter Blok

Our friend, HOPE enfant terrible and fellow hacker-instigator Johannes Grenzfurthner, has released a new film, and although I know that 2600 is not a medium for film reviews, I ask you to hear me out.

Technically, this is not even a film review, but it is a way to channel some of the thoughts I had for quite some time.

Johannes calls his film Masking Threshold, a term from audiology.

It refers to a process where one sound is rendered inaudible because of the presence of another sound.  If someone listens to a soft and loud sound at the same time, the subject may not hear the soft sound.  The soft sound is masked by the loud sound.

Choosing this title makes a lot of sense for the film because it is about a very nerdy character who suffers from a strange form of tinnitus.  But the title also makes sense as a metaphor for our confused times.  Whose voice is louder?  Who has the better ways to spread messages?  Who is the better influencer?  In the marketplace of ideas, what does it really mean to speak the truth?  And is it too soft to be heard?

Johannes tells the story of a person who has an uncommon hearing impairment.  Doctors and other medical authorities don't believe him, so he decides to use his education as someone who studied physics to start a series of experiments in a little, shabby room in his house in Florida.

First, you could even believe that the protagonist is somewhat likable (apart from him using Windows 10).  He makes interesting, witty, and true statements about the world, and you understand his frustration with the people around him and his environment.  As hackers, we know the phenomenon of being clever but also often misunderstood.

Yet, as the film progresses, there comes the point when you cannot condone his activities anymore.  That wasn't unexpected for me, because the film is clearly labeled as horror, but it surprised to me how excellent the story is in portraying the descent of a super-rational being into madness.  As he encounters more and more obstacles to resolving his condition, he suffers an emerging positivist crisis and begins shedding the constraints of rationality - and it is pretty nasty to look at.

An especially lovely review by user "aviddd" on Letterboxd reads: "We had plans to have sex after watching a movie and that did not happen.  It is too disturbing!  But five stars anyway because it uses sound in such an innovative way, and how effective it is at making you relate with a person going insane.  Just not for date night."  Yes, it seems Johannes has that kind of impact sometimes!

Fun aside: Masking Threshold is a very important cautionary tale for all hackers, geeks, and intellectual types.

It shows how easily one can slip down the rabbit hole of obsessiveness - and how easily the distrust in authority can turn from something positively subversive into bleakness and violence.  The protagonist is a scientifically educated person, but his dark, regressive fears and utter hubris overwhelm him.  He's a know-it-all, ranting and raving in his improvised laboratory, a strange womb of sorts, and yet he knows nothing.

Personally, I think it is a tale about epistemology, the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge.

Epistemologists study the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge, epistemic justification, the rationality of belief, and various related issues.

I urge you to read up on this because it is hardly possible for me to summarize the entire philosophical debate here, but it strikes me important that a lot of the problems we are facing in pandemic times deal with the simple question: Why are we so keen to hold a certain position?  Why do we believe something?  What does it even mean to believe?  How far would we be willing to go to prove or disprove something?  Are we really interested in learning and sharing, or are we just in the business of being right?

Johannes's character feels like someone we all know in our community.  We need to reach out to them, because otherwise they will disappear in a new kind of twilight, and there might not be a way back out for them.

Masking Threshold premiered at Fantastic Fest in 2021, and I hope it will be shown at A New HOPE this July!