Where I Began...

Poetry and Science Fiction

The only wireless thing I knew growing up was a transistor radio. Does anyone not imagine that there are tiny little people living their lives inside? Yet, I have always had electricity in every home where I lived. Our family purchased a color TV when I was twelve... roughly the same year Star Trek made it to the air... The only thing I made time to watch... besides Dark Shadows. Watching a show in prime time was a big switch for a child of that age. The alternative was reading. Since my parents did not 'approve' Science Fiction, I read romance and poetry. Fine reading... I increased my vocabulary, I stayed out of trouble (mostly) and made it to the movies on occasion.

The first to make a serious impact was THX 1138, which lead me to the title on the shelf... then Westworld made me afraid of the possible robot world. 

Both these distopic films contrasted with the possible future in Star Trek. On TV, we'd gotten past the racism, the sexism, though ageism may have been alive and well... certainly most TV stars were young and good looking. What is the choice between 'actualized' people contributing to a world... or the perpetual oversight of THX 1138? If we develop machines to do for us, and 'free' us of the mundane, how well do we know the programming... and its long term effect on the 'AI'? Can we 'teach' the machine well enough to understand 'play'? 

Which leads me to the short Bendito Machine III ,
an animated film that treats the televison like a god. Or, at least the messenger from god. The message is consumption... get more, get bigger; and pay no attention to the pile of waste turning into a mountain. Yet our hero goes back for yet another screen...
Is it screen, or is it a window? 
I've discussed the question for decades... we can make the screen a window into the highest realms of imagination, the deepest depths of our world... and share what is real. Or, what we've made is a series of tiny plays to make the viewer feel small and in need of what ever it is the distant puppeteer is selling squeezed between moments of delicious drama.

We have, on occasion, created some magnificent theater for the small screen. And... with the development of PBS, there is the development of the screen as an educational tool. Sesame Street came out in November of 1969, and as I did babysitting, I fell in love with the color, the quick pace, and the sheer joy of tiny people learning what they didn't understand in a new way. At the advent of cable, the expanse of available bandwidth, Nick Jr. took the new animation tools and the educational mandate and ran to places I could not have imagined. 

On the other hand... we're currently in the middle of a spate of 'reality' TV that isn't reality at all... but timed train-wrecks that pilfer our time, but don't provide the catharsis of well written drama. We're conceding the time to these producers and advertisers, and what do we gain? 

It may be no different that other forms of 'worship'.

As the spread of the web into more and more cultures and settings, we're using a different screen for a totally different set of human pursuit.
Porn was the big money maker. As all teachers dread, Porn promoters were hacking ''safe" sites so our students were exposed, even as we supervised them so carefully, set up 'filters' that limited access... and the use of adult porn  may be the most isolating feature of the interwebs. When one of the most intimate of all human interactions is replaced by the virtual... how do we return to an era of prizing human touch?  


We see the boom in 'dating sites' that utilize the web to then connect disparate folk for the goal of long-term relationship that will be 'person-to-person'... but as has been said before... "Nobody knows you're a dog on the internet."

Neither is honesty a confirm-able point... yet, we still try to connect.

Inbox

This reminded me of the book, Cyrano de Bergerac play, Little Shop Around the Corner... the movie, You've Got Mail, all deal with the idea of a false identity... and a bit of star crossed love. Inbox brings two people that have actually seen each other, but don't have the confidence to initiate the introduction they crave... 
Someone mentioned that even face-to-face, they present the last 'post-it's' that they wrote, rather than speak their hearts. We use 'cards' to do much the same with people we do have 'relationship' ongoing. Rather than speak... we write a card... or select a card... or buy an object that we hope will represent how we feel.
The core at the center of all of these four pieces... and any other 'star-crossed lovers'... lack of confidence. Whether the lack has merit- or is all in the mind- doesn't matter. 
That one doesn't 'choose' well, that doesn't matter, either. The object of our desire is believed to be beyond what we are capable of capturing on our own.
Using the 'screen' of the internet... or avoiding other people except in sharing the separate experience of viewing the same programming... or stream within the 'social media'... the isolation of the individual remains.

Is that all that the social media is capable of doing in our age? Now, the internet screen is as mobile as a phone/ is the phone. The change beginning is a more interactive interface, rather than merely liking or giving a meme the 'thumbs up' of Facebook... G+ streams are evolving... and people link their blog 'long essays' to conversations with disparate folk willing to engage the question; they link YouTube or Vimeo pieces for fun... or demonstration; RSS audio feeds include political rant, and science-based sharing of research.  We are not slaves to the screen... it has become a tool... how will we opt to use it?

Are we ignoring the natural world for the screens? We are certainly ignoring each other... Rather than have a conversation in a room, we gather about the screen for shared experience, and face the screen, rather than one another. Some of these experiences are very deep and enriching... many of them are not. We do not walk, or visit neighbors, we isolate ourselves further to gaze at the screen. Thursday, an animated short, uses a single mother bird and her three fledgling chicks to represent the natural world's interface with our 'technical' construction. Our street sweepers clean so fast, the bird misses a meal for her chicks... but she does find a bright red, shiny wire... and pulls it for her nest- Shutting down an entire building's power grid. 

This reminded me of our inability to cope, or complete dependency on our electronic tools and gadgets to communicate. After a tornado, an earthquake, or hurricane-- we lose power grids, but many devices continue to function on their battery life. Unless the transmission towers are compromised. We grow more and more dependent upon electrical power. Yet the production of this power grows more and more centralized. Some buildings go so far as to install back-up generators, which are expensive to purchase and to operate. Therefor, the potential to use them widely is moot. We have forgotten many of the simple machines used in the past, mostly because their presence is 'unsightly'... or their parts present unpleasant odor and noise. The only unpleasantness permitted in the suburbs must be visible only for the day it must be discarded... 

I've often been one that used the term 'third-world' to describe any nation not a part of the 'Western' alliance- but as I've been schooled in this course, Not being a part of the grid is a survival tool we 'Westerners' would do well to duplicate. In the Phillippines, rural folk generate their own methane for running refrigerators, ovens and stoves by keeping a few pigs and chickens... By breaking up the generation of energy by household or community, they are not dependent upon a centralized system. The 'first world' considers the 'third world' deprived... less than civilized... missing vital parts of modernity. Yet, the distance from the organized, pasteurized, homogenized community, the rural are more independent in both solutions and thought. Have we, by becoming a part of the Core... sold ourselves to which ever future the Powers That Be... [PTB's] to resolve our solutions, rather than turn from the screen... get dirty and work out solutions, we are turning to the 'Core'... the screen... the machine for the answer, rather than utilizing simple solutions and becoming 'creators' again.

New Media suggests the end of humankind... the end of our civilization, and the return to our cities and tows of the forest we kept at bay. The plants grow in the cracks and crevices, and the machines we built suck our minds dry, leaving the husks to blow in the wind.
Yet, the machines saw the need to sew caltrops. To grow into new machines, or to crush a rebellion? The film is short... and I thought far too ambiguous.

The part of us that is passive, that only watches... that is a powerful part of our character. We watch to learn, to understand, to categorize... but the other part of us is not passive. It applies, it experiments, it tries and fails... and tries again. We utilize our understanding of distopia to avoid pitfalls. Utopia is illusive, because we- we are not the same. Nor, do we stay the same.