picnic at hanging rock (peter weir, 1975)
"A surprising number of human beings are without purpose, though it is probable that they are performing some function unknown to themselves."
I don't know about you, but I keep seeing videos online which take the following thesis: people don't like cgi because they say it looks fake, but I'm going to show you how it's everywhere and how you don't notice it at all. Which is ironic, because that's exactly my problem with it.
Even the most asinine of content contains manipulation these days, and not just cgi - I'm also referring to digital compositing, colourisation, the whole shebang. We've reached a point where every image we come across has passed through the hands of image manipulation, and we no longer even realise it. The other day I watched a live stream of a play which was colourised by Electric Theatre Collective. A live stream of a play? Colourised? Of course. Heaven forfend I should have to sit and watch something as it actually is.
It's got to the point now where we take photos of ourselves and then look at the photograph and wince with disapproval. We retake it, crop it, drop a filter onto it, and then we're happy. We're happy once the image of ourselves no longer looks the way it does in reality.
There are even some people who are unable to take an extended journey (such as the journey to work) or go for a run without having everything accompanied by music or voices or story. The idea of going without is anathema. Can you imagine what it must be like to live with that? Exhausting.
Some of this might be because we've lost the ability to feel mystery and wonder in the world that is around us, a difficulty with dealing with the world on its own terms. With an insistence on remaining behind glass. Untouchable. We like to bring ourselves to a conversation, ourselves to the experience of life. But more and more that 'bringing ourselves' is about changing who we are and how we see things. Some of us don't know who we are any more.
To make matters worse, there are people out there who have nothing to bring to the conversation. They have interests, for sure, and they have goals, absolutely, but many of these are indistinguishable from anyone else's goals and/or interests. They want a house, a family, a marriage, possessions. Many of these people don't really know why, they just do. There are no distinguishing features to this pattern, no identifying markers that we can grab hold of and use to say 'yes, that is me' with any certainty.
Perhaps it's time we dealt with the world on its own terms. With its heat, wind, grit, and the endless expanses of time. Perhaps its time we lay down and felt the ground beneath us. Ploughed our fingers through the grass and soil until we reach the stone below. The stone that bears the faces of everyone who has been here before. And perhaps we should consider that being who you are in spite of the world will often not play out the way you'd like it to. Time we realised that the clock that ticks in the hall stops when we least expect it. And that everything begins and ends at exactly the right time and place.
I don't know about you, but I keep seeing videos online which take the following thesis: people don't like cgi because they say it looks fake, but I'm going to show you how it's everywhere and how you don't notice it at all. Which is ironic, because that's exactly my problem with it.
Even the most asinine of content contains manipulation these days, and not just cgi - I'm also referring to digital compositing, colourisation, the whole shebang. We've reached a point where every image we come across has passed through the hands of image manipulation, and we no longer even realise it. The other day I watched a live stream of a play which was colourised by Electric Theatre Collective. A live stream of a play? Colourised? Of course. Heaven forfend I should have to sit and watch something as it actually is.
It's got to the point now where we take photos of ourselves and then look at the photograph and wince with disapproval. We retake it, crop it, drop a filter onto it, and then we're happy. We're happy once the image of ourselves no longer looks the way it does in reality.
There are even some people who are unable to take an extended journey (such as the journey to work) or go for a run without having everything accompanied by music or voices or story. The idea of going without is anathema. Can you imagine what it must be like to live with that? Exhausting.
Some of this might be because we've lost the ability to feel mystery and wonder in the world that is around us, a difficulty with dealing with the world on its own terms. With an insistence on remaining behind glass. Untouchable. We like to bring ourselves to a conversation, ourselves to the experience of life. But more and more that 'bringing ourselves' is about changing who we are and how we see things. Some of us don't know who we are any more.
To make matters worse, there are people out there who have nothing to bring to the conversation. They have interests, for sure, and they have goals, absolutely, but many of these are indistinguishable from anyone else's goals and/or interests. They want a house, a family, a marriage, possessions. Many of these people don't really know why, they just do. There are no distinguishing features to this pattern, no identifying markers that we can grab hold of and use to say 'yes, that is me' with any certainty.
Perhaps it's time we dealt with the world on its own terms. With its heat, wind, grit, and the endless expanses of time. Perhaps its time we lay down and felt the ground beneath us. Ploughed our fingers through the grass and soil until we reach the stone below. The stone that bears the faces of everyone who has been here before. And perhaps we should consider that being who you are in spite of the world will often not play out the way you'd like it to. Time we realised that the clock that ticks in the hall stops when we least expect it. And that everything begins and ends at exactly the right time and place.