Lecture Six, Screening

Oh hey there, Mark Amerika. It was truly nice to meet you.

I had to spend some time with "Filmtext" to come to appreciate it. At first I dismissed it and felt a whole lot like I was taking some sort of academic baby steps to becoming a "gamer." But by the end of it I really enjoyed the experience.

I appreciated the progress that digital art and literature had made since Joyce's Twelve Blue. Joyce was (at least as I understand it to be) somewhat of a pioneer for this sort of creation and thus had freedom to lay out the groundwork for a genre as well as limited resources to create it. His work was limited in terms of the literature presented as well as the layout.

Mark Amerika on the other hand has the benefit of entering into this sort of art work knowing what is possible and utilizing it. I really dug the layout of the piece; it had the ability to create something that was entirely atmospheric and engaging. I thought the "space" like setting was a perfect fit. We are accustomed to "space," sci-fi and virtuality. If he has posited us in a jungle, well we'd all be screwed and it would feel much like a joke.

The atmosphere also bodes well with the themes he throws at us. We are aliens in his world, forced to acknowledge that we are faced with something which is controlling us, as much as we are explorers. "Cut to open desert landscape," the opening tells us. We are made to be aware that we're entering into this created land and that it is or should be unfamiliar territory.

Before the lecture when I was poking about the thing on my lonesome, I was struck by the script that addresses viruses and bacteria. It's a topic I found I'm not often approached with-it seems like the sort of thing which would be found in some sort of abstract academic realm and not so much everyday media- but the relationship between bacteria and digitality. It's interesting that sickness or virus' and the digital world are barely talked about, although there has to be a discussion somewhere about it.

"I am a corrupt body corrupting others."

Lo and behold our man Foucalt steps in to tell us all about "biopower." "The practise of modern states and their regulation on their subjects through 'an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugation of bodies and the control of populations.'"

Amerika means to say that computer is a corrupt soul, stripping us of our imaginations while guiding us through this constructed land. He is taunting us with the hyperlinked possibilities yet sarcastically snarling at us that we our "perception has been terrorized."

I dig it, Amerika. If I had more time, I would explore the other themes which run through here. I'm curious when he tells us "there are more ways of seeing" if he is alluding to John Bergers Marxist Humanist text "Ways of Seeing." I've been wondering what Berger would say about our friend the internet.

Anyway, I'm going to go ride my bike outside now. See you later, Mark!