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Warning: Adult Content
12 years ago
https://vimeo.com/75402303
The internet is weird.
The question remains: Is it the first truly human creation, or the first truly inhuman creation? By attaining the former, does it then become possible to attain the latter? Is that transition an inevitability? Discuss below. Assignments will be collected at the end of class.
EDIT:
Lapseph adds this to the conversation: http://i.imgur.com/FJBCPbi.jpg
The internet is weird.
The question remains: Is it the first truly human creation, or the first truly inhuman creation? By attaining the former, does it then become possible to attain the latter? Is that transition an inevitability? Discuss below. Assignments will be collected at the end of class.
EDIT:
Lapseph adds this to the conversation: http://i.imgur.com/FJBCPbi.jpg
Is that a hamburger?
So it's nothing like an Apple computer.
Perhaps the internet isn't a large cultural milestone. I mean, in terms of philosophy. But I do think there will be a point where you stray far enough from reality and your physical form to question whether or not you can still define yourself as human. And if that is a state of mind, well, the internet surely facilitates that. And as a human creation, the internet (when observed as a whole) is the only one I can really point at and say has had no guiding direction whatsoever. It's not as much a creation as it is a garbage dump, but it's one we feed and romanticize and even worship. At which point can we look at it and say it's no longer just a human creation, but instead something more than human? The first thing we've made that's greater than the sum of our parts? Not a living thing, but something greater than our understanding in such a way it defies any such description? Is it just a mirror to our society, or has that reflection become something different?
But after the first minute the film stalls and doesn't really go anywhere. The message was ham-fisted and vapid, with no deep insight into or even proper condemnation of the 'you' being addressed by the voice-over. Just a sampling of hentai, furries and other gross (interchangeable) fetish images swilling around with spooky music. I suppose this film could have merit for someone who considers "pathetic basement dwellers who live in filth and wank to perverted shit all day because they're empty inside" to be worthy of scorn, as it neatly reinforces this moralizing archetype. But beyond that, I don't think the artist achieved much here. Which is disappointing. I wish they'd kept going with the tone of the opening and made it a general critique of the spiritual danger of the computer, instead of just taking a potshot at some fetishes.
That all said, I still don't see this as targeted attacks or artful insults to internet fetishists. I agree entirely with your summary of the beginning, but I think the rest is a bit more complicated then that. I think it's meant to take the inhuman nature of fantasy and explore how it relates and compensates to the depressing emotional state that leads to its immersion and dependence. By pursuing a better other life/form the human life suffers, and that corruption infiltrates the fantasy and turns pain and confusion into passion and euphoria. The fantasy itself becomes a world where suffering is glamorized and romanticized. That hazardous dependence encourages further immersion and isolation, but in the fantasy salvation. We try to become something different, and even though we are still tethered to reality, that doesn't mean that some don't have powerful enough imaginations or wills to succeed... not to their physical betterment, but they nevertheless succeed.
The narration is cool. The problem is that the narration is the only part of the video that presents anything novel, if you happen to be already aware that fetishes exist. It needs the mere idea of 'fursuiters doing things' to be alien and disturbing for the pairing of these words with these images to convey any additional layer of meaning, and that just makes this feel incredibly sloppy and lazy on the part of the film's creator.
You suggest in some of your earlier comment-replies that the combination of words and imagery is meant to place the imagery into a new context, to cast it in a sort of transhuman light. I can perceive the potential in making a video like this and taking it in that direction, but I do not perceive that to be what has been done here; were that the case, I would have expected different clips and footage to be used, and there is certainly no lack of footage to be chosen from. Given the choice between being poignant/thought-provoking and being merely weird or shocking in its choice of found-imagery, it feels like this opts for the latter at every opportunity. Is there any specific clip they used that you would point at as being especially germane to the attempted message? Every clip they used of furries doing things, it seemed to me that any other clip of furries doing things would have been equally effective, which suggests to me that there are not subtle points being conveyed; the only commonality I can find in the content the creator chose is that it would be shocking to people not familiar with it, and that leaves me at the final conclusion that this sort of shock and discomfort is itself the major component of the artist's intent, which puts it on roughly the same artistic footing as the Pain Series.
I like the artistic message that you suggest. I find it poignant, thought-provoking, and valuable. But I can't bring myself to a place where that is the message that I get from this video. Much of the video, I think, can legitimately be read in either direction. Even the quick-cutting montage of graphic, exotic pornographic imagery late in the video can be read as a representation of the intense inner turmoil brought on by the tension of identity hinted at by the narration. But in that reading, what is the artistic purpose behind taking a slow-panning shot of a detailed furry porn image, building up a few seconds of suspense before revealing the subject's presented anus just before penetration? I can only see it being selected to showcase what would strike most viewers as shocking depravity, especially given that it occurs at a point in the video where such sexualized imagery has not yet become commonplace. The video is well-polished and skilled in its composition and I would like to be able to consider it to have a meaningful message, but right now I can't find one that seems consistent with the whole of the content other than it being largely a vehicle for what's intended as shock-imagery.
But I will say that your commentary has made watching this video worthwhile, in that engaging with your ideas is really thought-provoking; you offer a compelling and very different vision of what you saw, and just the act of trying to reconcile it with the video that I saw has made it more meaningful. (...It feels presumptuous even posting this as a reply, knowing that you have a much more discerning eye for artistic intent than I do; you're welcome to rip my sophomoric analysis apart, I won't be offended!)