I like the world a lot better when nighttime rolls around. It's like the darkness covers the earth in a specific silence, a particular emptiness that is both isolating and inviting. I was sitting on the ledge of the brownstone's rooftop, dangling my feet over the edge. It's been so long since I felt like a kid, it was time I revisited it.
"Do you ever think about time?" I asked my friend laying next to me. I meant time in the sense of the infinite; that time continued regardless of what we had to say about it. It never ceased to trouble me that my mere existence didn't even register on the grand scale of time, the universe, and everything. I get what, 70 years before I wave goodbye to a life led living alone? Is it even worth it? Should I even see it out to the end? 6 billion people on earth.... its an easy thing to feel like a face in a crowd, especially when the crowd is tiny, on the edge of the universe, where our existence wouldn't even trouble our immediate surroundings.
"It's 1:45." She replied, clearly not understanding my sentiment.
"I meant time on a vaster scale, more like, how we try to pin it down through clocks and calendars, but only ever wind up with a brief delusion of control. Whether we like it or not, time goes on, we age, but time doesn't."
She sighed, shook her head. She didn't like it when I got this way, thinking about "depressing stuff". She wanted to maintain her façade of simple happiness and pleasure as long as she could. Nothing existential there, she wanted to live exclusively in the concrete. Time is negotiable through clocks and calendars, and in New Zealand, it's tomorrow. I wonder how many other people are experiencing this same feeling, in a similar conversation, on another rooftop? Too many to comfort my thoughts of unoriginality.
"Things get a lot easier when you just accept them as fact." She told me, reassuring. She sat up and moved closer to me, leaned into my shoulder. Her touch was electric, set my nerve endings on fire, gave me goosebumps. I wanted her to know I loved her, but I couldn't do that to her. She continued. "Of course time goes on, forever, vast and infinite. But there's no real reason to trouble yourself over the time you get to experience it all. You live, you die- it's always been that way. What more do you want? Your life is more important than you think.... you get to make it your own, regardless of what happens to you."
I took her words in carefully, her voice like honey, her reassurance guiding. I suppose that somewhere I felt better about what she said; it just didn't register right now. I guess I wouldn't truly believe it until I found that out for myself. I can't just be told things and accept them right off the bat, I need to get there myself. I put on a smile and turned to look her in the eye, and she met my glance. She smiled warmly back, some pleading in her eyes; she wanted me to feel better, to feel that I mattered. I suppose I'm getting there.
My smile turned apologetic as I took out my pack of cigarettes, picked one out, put it to my lips. I put the pak away and reached for my lighter on the floor (roof?) behind me. I panicked when i didn't immediately find it. I turned back around to her to ask if she'd seen it. She was holding it in her hand, a serious look on her face. "You know what I think of these" she said.
"I can't help it, and I just want to release a little." I retorted. She frowned, her forehead crinkling. "Don't do that," I whispered.
"What?" "Frown that way, it ruins your face." "My face?" "Yeah, your face, your beautiful face." She let the frown drop, and I took the lighter from her fingers, lit up. She lay back down, closed her eyes. I lay down and rested my head on top of her stomach, pulling on my cigarette. I blew up, exhaling the smoke, watched it drift and swirl away, fleeting and beautiful, fluid and graceful, expiring too soon for anyone to realize it. I imagined my life as a stream of smoke, and I was calm. I closed my eyes and drifted.
She interrupted the silence. "So you think my face is beautiful?....."
I smiled, my eyes still closed. Maybe it was worth it after all.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
I am a Guitar Hero
Red, Green, Yellow, Blue, Orange - quick repetitive movements, more like muscle memory than anything else, really.
I don't know why I still do this.
Everyday, grinding out precious hours, burning my eyes out until my visions swims and wearing thin the cartilage that once kept my fingers so nimble, but now barely allows me to round out "Through the Fire and Flames."
Imagine how detrimental that must feel, deep down.
To be a great metal band, recognized by millions - but only because you were lucky enough to have found your way onto a videogame playlist.
Sometimes suicide is forgivable, I suppose. Hey there, Kurt.
I am a slave to the new age. All we've done is upgrade our shackles. Instead of a ball and chain, these new ones come compact and wireless. Hammering away at color-coordinated buttons and triggers to trump my peers in points.
These things, our Gamerscore, our games, are they essential to our survival, in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word?
No.
Oh you filthy whore, at least use your own words! Can you not choke out a meaningful piece of work without resorting to cheap lines taken from film sources?
Genocide: –noun. the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.
2. The eradication of the culture of a group of individuals by means of destroying the populace or removal of cultural representations.
We are the teenage SS, Hutus? You've got nothing on us. We have no time for art or music, save for the moving pictures we interact with and the audio that accompanies them.
We blindly trample over the works of men and women who create beauty from nothing, and applaud those who keep us sheltered from the outside world, inside, alone, our only friend a glowing little rectangle that feeds on our wallets and quite frankly, our souls.
Oh yessir, our souls. Or lack thereof.
----
I see this art as a mirror, demonstrating the worthless time and effort we pour into playing videogames, the mindless hours driven away by isolation and the glow of LED screens. Even time we don't spend playing games, our conversations work to fit them in. It's a bad system to constantly revolve around.
I guess with this piece in particular, I feel a little empty, that I am as much a part of this infinite machine, and I whittle away hours meaninglessly.
I don't know why I still do this.
Everyday, grinding out precious hours, burning my eyes out until my visions swims and wearing thin the cartilage that once kept my fingers so nimble, but now barely allows me to round out "Through the Fire and Flames."
Imagine how detrimental that must feel, deep down.
To be a great metal band, recognized by millions - but only because you were lucky enough to have found your way onto a videogame playlist.
Sometimes suicide is forgivable, I suppose. Hey there, Kurt.
I am a slave to the new age. All we've done is upgrade our shackles. Instead of a ball and chain, these new ones come compact and wireless. Hammering away at color-coordinated buttons and triggers to trump my peers in points.
These things, our Gamerscore, our games, are they essential to our survival, in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word?
No.
Oh you filthy whore, at least use your own words! Can you not choke out a meaningful piece of work without resorting to cheap lines taken from film sources?
Genocide: –noun. the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.
2. The eradication of the culture of a group of individuals by means of destroying the populace or removal of cultural representations.
We are the teenage SS, Hutus? You've got nothing on us. We have no time for art or music, save for the moving pictures we interact with and the audio that accompanies them.
We blindly trample over the works of men and women who create beauty from nothing, and applaud those who keep us sheltered from the outside world, inside, alone, our only friend a glowing little rectangle that feeds on our wallets and quite frankly, our souls.
Oh yessir, our souls. Or lack thereof.
----
I see this art as a mirror, demonstrating the worthless time and effort we pour into playing videogames, the mindless hours driven away by isolation and the glow of LED screens. Even time we don't spend playing games, our conversations work to fit them in. It's a bad system to constantly revolve around.
I guess with this piece in particular, I feel a little empty, that I am as much a part of this infinite machine, and I whittle away hours meaninglessly.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Roughly Drafted Rough Draft
As we live and grow as human beings, as a species on Earth, we continually develop tools, systems to advance our convenience of living. We infinitely pursue increased ease of living, and absorb more into the fold of electronic connection. With our absorption, we continually maintain separate identities; our very physical existence in real, breathing life, and our mostly mental injection into the void of “interactive media”. As we grow more and more connected to digitalization, we find ourselves with less interpersonal communication. With the influx of online social settings, we reinvent our personalities to account for the growing faceless factor; our masks in real life get removed and replaced with shiner, different ones online.
Many people are instantly connected to one another via the chat system AIM, for AoL instant Messager. Being able to take the software with you on your phone means the ability to avoid needless cell phone charges from texting and calling, instead being able to communicate over AIM. From personal experience, I can understand that AIM conversations can vary greatly between shallow and deep, mostly based on the persons involved. AIM connects people whenever, wherever. We subscribe ourselves to it, creating quirky new selves in the form of screen names, internet handles that often mean more to us than others. Few people will keep their own name; the risk of releasing personal information is too great. Therefore we have creative little monikers to refer ourselves by. For example, mine is sonofatreides34. Ideally, I was trying for it to be merely “atreides”, but that clearly didn’t prove original enough, so I added the largely unnecessary “son of” so that the idea still got across. I tried other subtle variations but eventually had to settle for my favorite over-20 number, 34. All my emails have 34 in the name, so the trend is familiar, easy to use. It almost saddens me that no one has ever gotten the meaning of my account name. Effort invested for no one but myself. I wonder whether it is indicative of my peers or myself that this name goes unrecognized. One of the greatest books ever written receives no recognition among my personal flock of friends.
As we communicate through AIM, our shorthand suffers the consequence. We have a fresh influx of acronyms to stand for real phrases, and for phrases that didn’t exist, that weren’t necessary before virtual chatting.
Many people are instantly connected to one another via the chat system AIM, for AoL instant Messager. Being able to take the software with you on your phone means the ability to avoid needless cell phone charges from texting and calling, instead being able to communicate over AIM. From personal experience, I can understand that AIM conversations can vary greatly between shallow and deep, mostly based on the persons involved. AIM connects people whenever, wherever. We subscribe ourselves to it, creating quirky new selves in the form of screen names, internet handles that often mean more to us than others. Few people will keep their own name; the risk of releasing personal information is too great. Therefore we have creative little monikers to refer ourselves by. For example, mine is sonofatreides34. Ideally, I was trying for it to be merely “atreides”, but that clearly didn’t prove original enough, so I added the largely unnecessary “son of” so that the idea still got across. I tried other subtle variations but eventually had to settle for my favorite over-20 number, 34. All my emails have 34 in the name, so the trend is familiar, easy to use. It almost saddens me that no one has ever gotten the meaning of my account name. Effort invested for no one but myself. I wonder whether it is indicative of my peers or myself that this name goes unrecognized. One of the greatest books ever written receives no recognition among my personal flock of friends.
As we communicate through AIM, our shorthand suffers the consequence. We have a fresh influx of acronyms to stand for real phrases, and for phrases that didn’t exist, that weren’t necessary before virtual chatting.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Big Paper Outline
Digitalization of the Body and Mind
Working Thesis: As we grow more and more connected to digitalization, we find ourselves with less interpersonal communication. With the influx of online social settings, we reinvent our personalities to account for the growing faceless factor; our masks in real life get removed and replaced with shiner, different ones online.
Umbrella Argument 1: AIM
- Screennames: What we pick as a handle online can demonstrate who we aspire to be, or ground us in reality
- Manipulating: Language is changed, rewritten everyday for the sake of shorthand communication, changing the role of language in talking with one another.
- Veiled bubbles: Without the intimidating aura of actual face-to-face talking, we drop some defenses, feeling safe in our exclusive aim bubbles.
Umbrella Argument 2: Depersonalization through Re-personalization
- Video Project: after examining so many people as they use DMDs, it can be gathered that we inject all of our normal emotions into typeface, losing our expressionable humanity.
- Wall - e argument: With so many Ads able to hit us in the same place, we begin to look, dress oh so similar as groups (Branding)
- While so easy to reinvent online, how does that transfer over to real life?
Umbrella Argument 3: Bright Side
-EBIGFY arguments: Pros and cons to digital media; where does the scale really tip?
- On-hand medical data, less paper product, simpler interfacing, does it help make us less human, and more neo-sapien?
Working Thesis: As we grow more and more connected to digitalization, we find ourselves with less interpersonal communication. With the influx of online social settings, we reinvent our personalities to account for the growing faceless factor; our masks in real life get removed and replaced with shiner, different ones online.
Umbrella Argument 1: AIM
- Screennames: What we pick as a handle online can demonstrate who we aspire to be, or ground us in reality
- Manipulating: Language is changed, rewritten everyday for the sake of shorthand communication, changing the role of language in talking with one another.
- Veiled bubbles: Without the intimidating aura of actual face-to-face talking, we drop some defenses, feeling safe in our exclusive aim bubbles.
Umbrella Argument 2: Depersonalization through Re-personalization
- Video Project: after examining so many people as they use DMDs, it can be gathered that we inject all of our normal emotions into typeface, losing our expressionable humanity.
- Wall - e argument: With so many Ads able to hit us in the same place, we begin to look, dress oh so similar as groups (Branding)
- While so easy to reinvent online, how does that transfer over to real life?
Umbrella Argument 3: Bright Side
-EBIGFY arguments: Pros and cons to digital media; where does the scale really tip?
- On-hand medical data, less paper product, simpler interfacing, does it help make us less human, and more neo-sapien?
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