Via Kottke. This is about New York and the Village, but I feel like it’s about more than that. It’s about the homogenization, pacification, and gentrification of the places that were previously the havens of the freaks and weirdos who struggled to fit in anywhere else. It’s about society (and how we interact with it) becoming performative, and anything that deviates from the norm becoming a spectacle for others. You can sense some anger and frustration in this video, and I definitely get why. People who have been outcast, or are considered weird or a freak are people, and shouldn’t be treated as a spectacle or a tourist destination.
Tag: Video
Link: Nerdwriter
Via Kottke.org, I’ve been diving into another film analysis Youtube channel that I’ve been really enjoying, called Nerdwriter. Some of the videos I’ve enjoyed, as a sampler:
Video: Radiohead’s I Promise
For some context: this was apparently an unreleased B-Side from OK Computer. Since the album is now 20 years old (!), they’re re-releasing it and including 3 unreleased tracks as part of it. Fun track.
Rick and Morty and the Search for Meaning
Thunderclouds
This video is part of stormlapse.com, which is exactly what the name suggests: stunning footage of timelapsed storms. Found via Kottke.org, which after all these years continues to be a treasure.
Hi Stranger
There’s something about this video. The character is completely disarmed and open, and it’s intimate. And a little unsettling.
How to Be Alone
It's Raining
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1ZYhVpdXbQ
Saddest Episode of Futurama EVER.
Sorry, there must be something in my eye.
Emotional Communication
There is no language I know of that exists today that is able to truly convey our emotions, our inner needs. The scope just isn’t there — the best we can do is approximate it. We have words that are supposed to convey meaning, but even then, exactly what meaning is so fluid and amorphous, the true intent and meaning is lost in translation. Think about some of the biggest emotions in our lives. Think about love for a moment. “I love you.” “I love this television show.” “I love this song.” “I love my family.” There are so many valid contexts for the verb “to love.” As far as language is concerned, they are all valid, and we treat them as such socially. But the emotions underneath vary wildly. As human beings, we try to pick up on this additional nuance and emotional intent through body language, through situational awareness, the timbre of the voice, the tension of the moment. All of which rests on the hope that those around us are observant enough to notice, and aware enough to interpret these signals correctly. This is frightening, that so much of our emotional communication and well-being is reliant on others’ ability to perceive our comments in the way we intend. Given that, it is unsurprising that so many people feel isolated and alone.
Which brings us to another tool we have to try and communicate: if language does not have the tools to describe an emotion directly (not in a meaningful way, anyway), then it can at least describe them indirectly. Think about music, or books, or film, or photographs, or paintings, or any number of forms of art. The classic question of “What is art?” is easily defined to me: work intended to convey an emotional or personal response to someone. It’s an imperfect tool — there will inevitably be a lot of people who don’t “get” it. It’s not a fault of the artist, or of the viewer — they simply lack the shared context to invoke a response. A photograph of a weathered fence post in a field may not speak to some, but for others it can invoke a personal memory of visiting their grandparents on the farm, or strike a chord more metaphorically, describing for a moment the feeling of isolation that the viewer may be feeling or have felt. Put simply: art describes emotions.
Personally, I tend to draw from media sources to describe a range of emotions and personal thoughts pretty often. I’ve been doing so all week with video clips and songs and quotes, and this is hardly the first time, and I’m not remotely the only one — for every random silly link blog of goofy stuff out on the web, there is also a curated blog of someone trying to point at something in the hopes of getting their message across, and communicate something they feel is important to those around them. I post videos and quotes and songs and images to create a pastiche of who I am and how I’m feeling. (I’d be interested to see what interpretations people draw from the entries posted this past week.) Of course, I’m always afraid that I’m a bit of a Hector the Collector character when I do so, but if even one person gets and appreciates what’s shared, it’s worth it.