I Ate the Blue Apple.

What have I become?

"He saw a world of robots, marching rigidly in the paths laid down for them from above, and each robot partly alive, partly human, waiting its chance to drop its own monkey wrench into the machinery."

--Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, i.e. The Illuminatus! Trilogy.



[Relevant Link: http://tinwiki.org/wiki/Blue_Apples]

Just so you know...

I hated my last post. It was one of those ideas that sounded good as an idea, but that entered the world horribly disfigured. I'd delete it, but I'm not a fan of censorship or polishing. However, I still like the word (re)expressionism, but ultimately it seems absurd (and pretentious and kind of douche-baggy) to talk about it like I did. My bad. I wish I could blame it on smoking pot (or something, anything really), but I can't. It just sucked and I own the blame. All of it. Ream me like the bad boy I am--just kidding. Don't do that. That would suck more. This isn't Guantanamo. Just a blog with a shitty post. Sorry world.

To make amends, please enjoy this:



[Relevant Link: http://hagelin.org/]

(Re)expressionism

I've become fascinated with user-generated movie trailers—the kind that assemble snippets of a film in a manner that drastically changes the emotions of the actual movie. However, the trick only works if you've actually seen the movie that it's rehashing.

These trailers are called recuts, but I don't like that name. It's too shallow. A recut is really nothing more than an alternate version of the original thing. For example, when a studio runs a new and improved trailer for a movie, the one that came second is a recut. Why—because they just shuffled the footage a bit, but they did not put the film itself through any sort of transformative experience, i.e. the signifier changes, but not the signified.

However, with the fan-generated recuts we're really talking about the manipulation of reality—taking an established thing and reordering it in such a way that it transcends simple rearrangement. This is a reshuffling that actually reorients the very nature of the thing itself, but via annexation. So, the substance remains the same, but not the essence, i.e. it's new, but not entirely new.

It made me think that maybe we need a new word for this hypernew art form, but it couldn't be a completely original word; it would also have to be hypernew.

After all, we are the culture of RE—remediated, recycled, recut, rebooted, and reimagined. So why not just refit another word to do the job? So, from now on, I am going to refer to this form of media art as Reexpressionism. Why?

Expressionism refers to a "any art that raises subjective feelings above objective observations. The paintings aim to reflect the artists's state of mind rather than the reality of the external world."

With these trailers, there is clearly an objective thing, i.e. a film. However, these reality-bending video editors are able to manipulate the subjective emotions by distorting and warping the original, objective thing. They are able to superimpose their vision upon that film and redefine its feeling—its essence.

The greatest example that I have seen so far is an amazing reexpression of Dirty Dancing that casts it in a Lynchian mold. Unfortunately, the embed function has been disabled, but you can find this amazing trailer rehash here: If David Lynch Directed Dirty Dancing.

[Relevant Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-cut_trailer]

The Anatomy of a Shadow

Last night, while wandering through a mad, beautiful playground of strobe lights, leather-clad club-goers, bondage and fetish play, and a haze of alcohol, I looked into myself.

I looked into myself with every drink. I looked into myself with every mentally-appraised judgment of a passing stranger. I looked into myself when shyness overwhelmed me and spoiled a possible connection. I looked into myself with every moment of reticence. I looked into myself as eyes refused to meet. And then I looked into myself quite literally—in the mirror behind the bar.

Between the smoke, the dimmed lights, and my gently blurred vision, I appeared to myself much like an apparition. That's when I noticed the name on the front of my shirt: TOOL.

Instantly, my mind drifted away to the rhythm of Forty-Six & 2.

This was the place to free the repression within. This was the place to let one's shadow play. This was the place of self-fulfillment, but my fear—my constant need for control—would not allow me.

That's when I realized that the freak inside that so desperately wanted to come out and play was not the shadow. It was the pale face emerging from the dark, truth-bearing t-shirt that was the shadow. It was (and is) the obsessive need to control, to direct, and to structure that lead(s) me astray.

Appropriately, pale is the color of death—for death seeks to control all; life is that which transcends control. Perhaps, I need a tan...

"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him."

--Revelation 6:8



[Relevant Link: http://changingminds.org/explanations/identity/jung_archetypes.htm]