1/13/03: Conceptual notes

Roemer van Toorn writes about radical immanent criticism which tries to unmask representation of institutions, but without disqualifying the representation of the predominant visual culture in its own right. Here, unmasking not an authentic ideal, but an atempt to break the representation open. (Yes, that’s what we were trying to do) Unmasking for the sake of unmasking (not in search of a real truth). We wanted to find those hidden ideological values implicit in the spectacle (in our case, the technological spectacle). Ol' Roemer van Toorn said that Hope lies in the permanent unmasking of alienation. Yes. The more I read the entries, the more I saw this project as an “unmasking of alienation.” Both literally and theoretically.

Q: Where do you feel most comfortable?
A: That's a rather easy one: alone… its really easy to waste most of a weekend just hanging about in my apartment. In fact, that's what I'm doing right now. Half past six on a Saturday evening sitting in front of the terminals in my room with no plans, no distractions, and no worries, this is about the most comfortable part of my week. Now if I weren't having to be so introspective with this thing, I could really relax! (Finegan, Epithelium)
A: anywhere that i can go unnoticed. (Vladi, Epithelium)
A: It's amazing how you can be wrapped up in the urban, surrounded by all these people and traffic and dodging cars and motorbikes and go into a church and it's just silent. (thallasa, Epithelium)

On the camera ::

I thought the camera could become a metaphor for our senses. It might offers a unique perspective on how they work. I thought maybe the visuals could explore senses in different ways, upsetting experienced time and space, renegotiating fantasies about the limits of human sensory experience. I wanted the recorded video and live video to create this kind of “virtual sythethesia." Yeah right.

After all, I thought, there is no sound, taste, touch on the web. The text is synesthethesic, replacing or displacing “real” senses for hyper-senses. Not “hyper-” in the sense of hypertext. Hyper-touch: the sensuousness of words. Hyper-sound: the vibrations of words. Hyper-taste? Hyper-smell? Maybe virtuality challenges conventional bodily senses through the synethesia of writing… Well. That's all good and well on the page, but don't ask me how to perform it...