the masquerade

Tokimonsta, “Cupidity”

A Coat
I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world’s eye
As though they’d wrought it.
Song, let them take it
For there’s more enterprise
In walking naked.

-W.B. Yeats 1914







in my last post i went into detail about my views of technology,
my insistence that in using technology to assist with every detail of our lives, we are becoming more distanced from
direct experience,
or what i equate with "nature" and "authenticity". in my mind the definitions of these two words are up for interrogation as our contemporary culture moves further into an age of completely mediated experience, regulation and impersonalization: computers instead of notebooks.
(This being said, I am aware that I use technology to post my blog. The blog is an extension of my creative self but it is not quite the inner creative self. It is too public especially considering the art I post is not my own. Even while my writing here is true to experience, the root of my creative self exists in notebooks where there are also pictures of sheep and other doodles which describe my thought processes)


my friend pointed out to me that maybe social technology in particular is helping fix a problem- perhaps an ideological problem we all share- that is our fear of being vulnerable. of sharing ourselves completely with each other.
elaborating on my comments about facebook, he explains,
"I think that what is ‘easier’ about technology is that it does not require us to be vulnerable. By culling photos, sharing selectively and editing my comments and statuses before I post them, I can create a character, pseudo-me, that is free of my self-doubts. I suppose the place where we part ways is that I don't think it is the constraints of Facebook that limit my self-expression, but instead my desire to detach my self from my expression...
Even when I do share secrets through technology, it's not the same as doing so in person. Writing always feels less ‘real’ to me than speaking, regardless of the medium. I would be much more reluctant to send very private messages through Facebook if I were required to dictate them out loud instead of typing. Speaking a word breathes life into it in a way that writing never will. "

the point my friend brings up which i'm Really concerned with is congruent to marshall mccluhan's idea that "the medium is the message"...


the internet being the medium,
what is the message
if an entire society is creating pseudo-selves?
if an entire society can open up to each other over instant messaging or texting, where one is less vulnerable, but cannot talk to each other in person?

is it convenience, or a masquerade?
a false sense of freedom?

in specific, are we as connected to others as we think we are in this day and age, if what we’re always receiving from others inherently (because of the public nature of the media) has to be some sort of self-construction of complete invulnerability?
as usual I’m discussing the nature of truth. the nature of meaning. and, as usual, I find myself searching for it through looking at media.
what I observe is that new media is a particularly difficult topic since people perceive technology to be completely objective. new media, as opposed to traditional forms of poetry and art, seem as representational of direct experience as one can get. people take new media to be unmediated reality since it is so instantaneous: seen more like a form of documentation than meaningful creation. I find this view to be problematic. what I’m trying to suggest here is that creating social media has replaced art and written expression in the establishment of identity, yet the identity expressed is far less intimate as posts are faced toward the public and not toward oneself. the serious part of the problem lies in the fact that  we are now immersed in this world of virtual constructions like never before. it has replaced personal means of expression and relationality. “Virtual reality is a paradox, since what is virtual has become real” (myself, in the post “Merry-go-where-round?”). I’m concerned that in our constant surfing we have lost touch with the real. with each other.



What I really mean is,
are you cool with wearing a mask? ‘cause it kind of suffocates me sometimes and I can’t really see into your eyes.
Yo,
we’re at this masquerade but I can’t find any of my friends.
Where did Clark Kent go? Bruce Wayne? I want them back.
What is authenticity if not vulnerability?
Let us play with shock.
Let us dance without masks on.

Exhibit A.
an aesthetically pleasing mouse
and two crystals dangle
the liquid of truth i see
to untangle
a battery almost dead
transparent its uses
it cruises, abuses
loses
strength
life, a series of drafts
laughs and white giraffes
perceiving halfs
twisting tongues
playing on tents in fields of puns
boxes of red, yellow
spun
and switched with some other
in a dance










What follows is a temporary stay against confusion,
behold, the beautiful:

^{Amy Shackleton}

Gordon Terry

Loci

Hyper-real oil on canvas by Ben Weiner

“What does it mean to craft mirror images that are not fugitive but fixed and stabilized, or flowers that are forever preserved in paint?
Are these pictures produced primarily to offer moral edification and reminders of mortality?
Do they not also nurture the cherished fiction that that which is most ephemeral can be possessed and preserved—at least in art—from the ravages of time?”
-Celeste Brusati, “Stilled Lives: Self-Portraiture and Self-Reflection”