Lecture Eight, Crossing Over

"Waking Life" blew my mind. Completely.

Individual vs the Group

Human vs Cyborg

Postmodernism vs Existentialism (maybe the best contemporary duel we got going)

Free Will vs Determined Lives

I thought at first I would perhaps be a little visually annoyed with the rotoscoping, but instead quickly saw the brilliance of why the creators chose to construct the film in this way. The effect is metaphorical for the script, that's no big shock once you start to listen to the ideas and themes being presented. Extremely poignant is when the one man is talking about free-will and how we are just a composite of 'mechanisms,' and mostly are made of water. The obvious question we narrative students are shepherded to is "well, what else is decided for us," and the image on the screen brings about harrowing moans of the combination of man & machine; cyborgs running free and giving us our philosophy lesson.

It calls into question Foucalt's biopower again. Who is controlling us? How far has computer and digital technology integrated into our beings and our social structures? Is it to the point that even our limited choices are now invisibly guided by the swift hand of the gigabyte? Has it invaded our dream world?

Mark Langer describes rotoscoping as a "hybrid product" that combines technology and the human body to create a simultaneous presence of the drawn and the photoindexical, in which the rotoscoped body is not so much fused with the human body as it is mapped over it."

When the man is manically driving through the street with the loudspeakers attached to his car I think Biopower and rotoscoping partake in a head on collision. "We should not submit to dehumanization. I don't know about you, but I'm concerned about what's happening in this world. I'm concerned with the structure. I'm concerned with the systems of control..." This character appears in digital form. Not only that, but the guy the scene is based on HAD to be in this movie to extend his message out. The biopower previals.

Oh I get so stuck on that. Anyway,

The dreaming bit was cool. Descartes asks, how do I know some evil genius mastermind is not controlling me?

Waking Life says, Well, maybe you don't. Maybe you'll never know till you're dead.

Descartes says, No no, I think therefor I am you postmodern assholes, my time can't dig it when you say "maybe you never do" cause we got too many morals.

Lastly, I must confess I spend a whole bunch of time reading The Society of the Spectacle. In fact, I got a copy of it in book format for Christmas this year, under my shiny glittery contrived Christmas tree. I think these days, Debords words are more relevant than ever.

"To rupture the spell of the ideology of the commodified consumer society so that our repressed desires of a more authentic nature can come forward.

To demonstrate the contrast between what life presently is and what it could be"

Just something to think about, a gas lamp in a sea of fluorescent lights.