Monday, August 22, 2011

Call for Submissions for New Online Journal


About

The Orris is a digital space for the critical and creative engagement of culture. We seek a sustained study of culture in its many manifestations. From the arts to sciences, humanities to technology, our studies are linked together by the common pursuit of knowledge.  This journal features critical and engaging pieces, which uphold the research standards of academia, yet seek to extend intellectual conversation beyond the university.  Interdisciplinary in the most radical sense, this journal allows the disciplines to intermingle, and as the traditional distinctions between disciplines fall away, we seek to find new avenues of critical and creative engagement across knowledge areas. We believe that the pursuit of knowledge should be accessible to all, and hope this journal, in content and form, serves that principle.

Submissions:

We are seeking submissions for critical essays and creative works.  We believe that the ‘long form’ essay has a place online.  Well researched and argued, the long form recognizes the historical scope, the contemporary significance, and the future potential of ideas.  We are open to a range of subjects and approaches, but wish to emphasize we are not looking for the typical academic essay, but rather a hybrid of 'high' and popular culture, a mix of journalism and analysis, a blend of critique and entertainment. We are also seeking original creative works in any medium and style (photography, prose, poetry, comics, video, music, etc).
To submit: Send us a 100-250 word pitch of your article idea, or an excerpt or sample from your creative work.  Send to theorrisjournal@gmail.com.

Monday, June 27, 2011

The Enchanting Tree of Life

tree-of-life-movie-trailer.blogspot.com
I saw Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life this weekend at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. Since its release, this film has gained both its admirers and its critics.  At Cannes, it both won the prestigious Palme d’Or and was booed by some audience members.  I’ll state right off the bat, this is not a movie for everyone. It is a non-linear, messy, quiet, and slow film. Do not expect a classic Hollywood plot where everything is tightly scripted and easily resolved.  Malick’s film is less of a story, and more of an experience.  It can be difficult. But it can also reenchant you with the world.

The film is composed of multiple stories, bound together by the subject of life.  To tell these stories, Malick’s camera brings you into different stages and forms of life. One part of the film looks at the lives of a Texas family in the 1950s. You watch as the three boys in the family grow up, living under both the care and abuse of their father, played by Brad Pitt, and the adoration of their mother, Jessica Chastain.  You follow them through summertime adventures through the woods, through fights with parents, through the tender moments of familial love.


http://tree-of-life-movie-trailer.blogspot.com/
This family’s story is paired with an epic journey through the universe.  Malick gives us a glimpse of the enormous and the microscopic.  Malick’s directorial eye is lyrical as he leads the audience through constellations, nebulous clouds, dividing cells, and growing underwater organisms. He shows us the core of the earth and the edges of the sky.  In this tour of the universe, Malick places the human experience in perspective. Our lives become infinitesimal in comparison of the scope of this grander order. As Malick places the O’Brien family’s loss and grief within this universe, you begin to appreciate the wonder of human existence, especially because of its marginal place in the larger scheme of things.  Malick’s film mediates on the order of life, and it asks you to consider these mysteries yourself since Malick will give audiences no easy answer to his film’s logic or message.


There are moments when this grand tour invokes a state of awe.  It is an affective experience, as you feel your way through the memories of a childhood and the life of a world. 136 minutes long, after a while your eyes do begin to tire after such visual concentration. Like his previous work, Tree of Life is a richly visual film, and is best seen on the big screen.  After leaving the theatre, the film stays with you, making you see the world anew, each color more saturated, each sensation fresh. You are left with a new sense about your life, and I think this is Malick’s ultimate aim. 



Saturday, June 4, 2011

Flash Forward Boston: Contemporary Photography


Blind in a Red Dress- Jinyoung Kim


Yesterday I scoped out the Flash Forward Festival down on the waterfront in Boston. Flash Forward is an contemporary photography festival showcasing emerging artists from the US, Canada and the United Kingdom. Sponsored by the Magenta Foundation, a Canadian publishing house for the arts, and juried by respected editors in the photography community, Flash Forward showcases "the work created by the very best emerging photographers." Housed in the Fairmont Battery Wharf Hotel, the event considers the state of contemporary photography through its various exhibits and panels. I attended a panel on marketing strategies for photographers hosted by seasoned pros and editors in the field. This talk, like many on their schedule, considers how photographers can network together to create a vibrant community of artists who actually make some money.  The practical approach to these talks is refreshing as it recognizes the financial necessities of artists today, and empowers artists to more actively manage their own careers.  

Though the exhibit is somewhat strangely housed in a unfinished restaurant retail space, the artwork is worth checking out.  Wander outside the main exhibit space and you'll find a collection of self-published hand-made photobooks and outdoor installations on the side of the Fairmont Hotel.  While you're there, pick up the free Flash Forward catalog, a 250+ page glossy photobook of all the Flash Forward photographers. The festival and all its events are free and open to the public, and are in town until Sunday night.  Walk through the North End down to the wharf and check out this interesting event!

Check out their full schedule of events.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Transparency and Anonymity: What's your digital persona?

I've been learning how to use the Internet lately. Or, to be more specific, I'm learning how to use the Internet professionally.  How does one craft a professional persona online? And what is the value of doing so?  In part, these questions have much to do with the transparency vs. anonymity debate that is becoming increasing pressing in our digital age. To what extent do we want to claim our online activities?

As a college instructor who teaches a course in professional writing, I often tell my students to be aware of their digital presence. What shows up when I google your name?  What does your public Facebook profile look like?  To what extent do our digital profiles shape our perceived professional identity?  It seems to depend largely on the availability and access of your personal information. Raising the question, what do you choose to share in the digital realm, and in what name?

Personally, my Facebook profile is very limited publicly.  Only friends can see my personal information, photos, status updates, and shared content.  I have chosen this social media platform as a personal identity, one that allows me connect with friends and family.  But, as I work on developing myself as a writer, I must consider how I use my Facebook for professional ends.  For example, this blog post will be shared online and published in the newsfeeds of my friends. Increasingly, I must recognize my emerging dual persona, as Lana, friend, and Lana Cook, academic and writer. I am accountable for what I say because my name is attached to it.   Facebook requires individuals to validate their real identity by providing their personal information.  According to their policy, FB "requires a real date of birth to encourage authenticity." Facebook requires a certain transparency on their site, so even if you change your display name to a pseudonym, the content is still linked with your real name. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg believes
 "History tells us that systems are most fairly governed when there is an open and transparent dialogue between the people who make decisions and those who are affected by them. We believe history will one day show that this principle holds true for companies as well, and we're looking to moving in this direction with you" (Facebook Blog)

Facebook's own transparency issues aside, I believe in this statement. There is a real value in holding individuals accountable for their statements and actions. We become more responsible citizens, more careful friends, and more critical scholars when we know our statements are being known and judged by the public.
I've chosen the path of transparency on Twitter and Reddit as well, using my full name when communicating and sharing information. But in this choice, I am very aware of how I must manage the use of these accounts.  I must consider how what I say on Twitter and Reddit shapes my professional identity, one that is very much tied to my real name and my emering professional persona.
 
The debate about transparency and our use of real names online arises out of the predominance of anonymous discourse on the Internet.  On forums, discussion boards, wikis, chats, we are often anonymous, using pseudonyms for our log in names (if we log in at all).  This anonymity allows us to view, comment, and share information without personal association. If transparency is on the side of democracy and a free and open community, where does anonymity fall?  Anonymity does not require us to be held accountable for our statements and actions online, which seems to have a dual effect. Anonymity gives freedom to both Internet trolls and whistle blowing activists. When I can post anonymously, I feel free to say whatever I want, no matter how potentially offensive, racist, bigoted, inaccurate or misleading.  But anonymity also means, I am free to protest and criticize without personal consequences. This freedom is especially important in repressive states where citizens are unable to criticize the government (or corporations in the global capitalist state) because of fear of persecution. Anonymity can be as crucial to the functioning of democracy as transparency. Consider collectives like WikiLeaks and Anonymous, they would be unable to promote state and corporate transparency without a necessary amount of anonymity. In the debate of transparency vs. anonymity, we need to consider these less as an either/or, but see the necessity of both.  Returning to the case of my professional identity, I'm beginning to increasingly see the ways I can use anonymity to share content and information that I may not necessarily want linked to my professional digital imprint, like my health, sexuality, religious or even political beliefs.  Whether posted in the name of Lana Cook or anonymous, I hold myself personally accountable for what I say (I don't want to be a troll).  As we increasingly share content online, we will need to address how our identities are marked online and the role transparency and anonymity has in shaping our knowledge and governing our communities.
 
For a quick (but too simple) breakdown on the transparency / anonymity debate, check out this graph by Namesake:
Namesake.com/blog
Transparency? Anonymity?  What's your digital presence like? Share your thoughts!

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Coming out as a Digital Academic

The object of the book is changing. This has happened before.  Bounded manuscripts replaced the papyrus scroll. From stacks of bounded paper, we turn to the e-book. In this digital age, we are experiencing the written word in new mediums: online, on phones, via Kindles and IPads.  As the technological medium changes, we should consider, how might this shift affect the content of books and our human relationship with these forms?
I come at this question from an academic’s perspective. My job over the next couple years is to write and publish a scholarly book. As I prepare for this task, I must pause to consider what it means to write and publish a book in an age when many of my generation read and engage predominantly online.  When I imagine my dream book, it is a multimedia project that includes images and streaming video in addition to text. This is not possible in the print form. Yet, the emerging forms of e-books suggest that this multimedia form is not only plausible, but welcomed by a large reading community online.  But, would my imagined e-book receive credit in the academic community?  Would it help or hinder my academic career?  The answers to these questions will inevitably change and it is my hope that by the time my book is ready for the press, the academic atmosphere has warmed to digital mediums of publication.

Friday, May 6, 2011

On Design

As some of you may know, I am working on a new online journal.  Myself, and the members of this project, have been sharing our favorite online journals and blogs.  Sharing these sites, we’ve been considering their content, style, and design, and trying to get a sense of what rhetorical and design strategies work in the online sphere.  It’s been an interesting process as I try to apply the critical eye to my favorite online spaces.  What do I value in a website?  What do I like to read online? How do I feel about a site’s design?
 
Design is perhaps the most unfamiliar terrain for me. I have always enjoyed the visual arts, have taken my fair share of art courses, and like to dabble in the world o’ crafts.  Yet, I find my ability to critically assess design is not quite up to speed with my ability to tear apart a student’s paper or a scholar’s book. The sticky part about assessing design, for me, is the way good design can seem both highly present and nearly invisible.  Consider the many objects around you, how often do you notice the design?  Typically, it seems we notice design when either:  1) it goes wrong and the design is flawed enough to disturb your use of the object, or 2) when the design is visually impressive or presents something ‘new.’   There seems a duality here. Design should be visually present and invisible at the same time. How is this possible, and how do we use this understanding to assess and create design in our own world?

Yesterday, I watched the documentary Helvetica on Netflix Instant, which considers the history of the font Helvetica and its impact on our contemporary sense of design. 
http://www.helveticafilm.com/images/sm.frankfurt.jpg
The film features interviews with several typographers and designers who each talk about the ways they perceive the design of Helvetica and its effect on our collective imagination.  The film features a range of responses, from designers praising the font’s “neutral,” “modern,” “efficient,” “streamlined and fresh” appearance, to others who criticize that same “slickness” and suggest that its ubiquity in the corporate world creates a conformist atmosphere in our design culture.  But, despite these contending views on Helvetica, the documentary illustrates how design “invites open interpretation,” “allowing us to attach meaning to it.”  This point shows both the possibilities and challenges of design.  How do we design for a vast range of human subjects?  How will we tailor our design to suit the meaning and purpose of our journal?  These are challenging, but exciting, questions for me as I begin to enter this new realm of digital design.

Share your thoughts on visual design. What websites do you admire for their design? Share the links! 

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Review: Cindy Sherman: A Retrospective

Sherman, Cindy. Cindy Sherman: A Retrospective. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1997. Print.

Amazon.com
Looking through a retrospective of Cindy Sherman’s work is a strange journey through the photographic history of American identity and perception.  Cindy Sherman:  A Retrospective (1997) begins with Sherman’s series of Untitled Film Stills, images she produced throughout the late 1970s.  In this series, Sherman dresses up in different outfits, makeup and wigs, and photographs herself in a variety of locales and situations.  Nearly all the photographs depict only Sherman, but seem to imply a human presence just outside the frame of the photograph.  In this unseen, but palpable, presence, there is an implied narrative action to the images.  In each image, Sherman performs the role of a film heroine, and we, as spectators, are invited to fill in the film’s narrative around the image. 

Untitled Film Still #3
moma.org
As many scholars have noted, her performances recall a cinematic history of black and white early Hollywood, film noir and B horror movies.  If a film still serves as an advertisement for the full length film, what does Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills advertise?  As art critic Arthur Danto points out, “the still must tease with the promise of a story the viewer of it itches to be told” (4).  In Untitled Film Still #3 and #50 seen here, Sherman’s gaze toward a presence out of frame suggests such a story, but leaves the viewer to construct that narrative.  Sherman plays with the viewer’s relationship to the represented female identity in each image. We are implicated by how we construct narratives around represented images of the female subject. 

Untitled Film Still #50
moma.org
In the 1980’s, Sherman continues her performance work, but along with her turn to color photography, Sherman’s images become increasingly grotesque and disquieting. 

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Review: Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

I recently reread Ray Bradbury's dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451  and was immediately struck by the parallels to our contemporary moment.  Bradbury's novel, first published in 1953, follows the personal  transformation of Guy Montag, a fireman whose job is to set fire to houses that contain books. Set in the not-so-distant American future, the novel depicts a society that "dreads the unfamiliar" and so bans books and makes "the word 'intellectual'" into "the swear word it deserved to be" (58).  Books were not initially banned because of state censorship, but by the effects of advancements in media technology and a waning public interest in critical thinking.  As the Fire Captain Beatty explains, the decline of a book reading public coincided with mass population booms, an accelerated sense of time, and the popularization of television and film.
"Picture it. Nineteenth century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your cameras. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests. Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending.

Friday, April 8, 2011

Film Review: Birth of a Party

Birth of a Party (2010) is an experiential look at the contemporary American political system from the vantage point of three aspiring political activists working to create a third party, Conservative Party USA.  Inspired by the Tea Party's emergence in American politics, these three white, middle class men attend a three day convention in New Orleans. The documentary follows their travels and attendance at the convention.  Time spent consuming a surprising amount of booze, weed, and cigarettes to a comedic effect.  Surprising and comedic perhaps because of our mainstream preconceptions of the White Conservative American Male. We expect perhaps a more straight laced type, but Birth of a Party considers its subjects, Jesse, John and Brad, not merely as 'Types,' but as human figures prone to vices, losses of faith, small triumphs and illusionary hope.   Experiences we can all relate to, our politics aside.




It is the experiential quality of Birth of a Party that delivers the real delight. You are brought into the haze of the party- in smoky hotel rooms stocked with coolers of 'Heinies,' at the formal inaugural convention that verges on the absurd, and the delirious carnival swirl of Bourbon Street. It is a film about their collective political dreams and individual realities. The film watches as their ideals and expectations meet the stark reality of how the political system operates in America.  As the director, Emile Doucette, explains,
Let’s face it, the world of politics is an insider’s club. And since most of us don’t have a clue about how to get in, or even find the door, we either fall in along strict party lines, or chalk it up as a broken political system and walk away. Some of us pull our hair out in frustration; some of us simply don’t care. But our differences aside, I think most Americans agree that our country is in serious disrepair.
Birth of a Party shows both the roadblocks and possibilities of establishing alternate political parties in the United States.  It is about individuals coming together as a group, talking about their views and hoping to find some collective sense. In that way, no matter your politics, Birth of a Party, with all its comedy and despair, sneaks up and surprises you. In a modest way, it restores my faith in the power of a small collective to enact change.  Doucette's film makes you believe that, "despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, there are those among us that believe our democracy works, especially when they take it into their own hands."

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Criticism Online

I'm an English PhD student and I'll admit that from a financial standpoint I've chosen the wrong career path. But I did not choose it for the promise of riches, but rather for the love of ideas and art.  I do it because I love it. But, the material realities of my life demand a certain level of financial stability (gotta pay those bills). Talk of career prospects in humanities  graduate departments tends to be highly pessimistic.  Our professors encourage us further in advanced degrees, yet warn of the hard road ahead.  Few tenured teaching positions at universities, few publishers interested in converting your dissertation on medieval literature into a book, few editorial positions at scholarly print journals.  We dread the coming day of graduation with anxious thoughts about the Death of the University, the Death of the Scholar.  "No one is reading anymore!," we lament and complain, blaming the problem on a disinterested public.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Reading "Howl"

Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" :



This weekend I read The Poem that Changed America: "Howl" Fifty Years Later, a collection of essays from poets, academics, and friends of Ginsberg's who recount their initial encouter with Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl."  A common thread throughout these accounts is the immense disruption that the poem caused to readers' understanding of themselves, of America, and of poetry. Edited by Jason Shinder, the volume includes essays from Frank Bidart, Sven Birkerts, Amiri Baraka, among others, which testify to the influence of "Howl" in shaping our contemporary sense of human experience.  "Howl"  speaks to a collective experience of both American dreams of "supernatural ecstasy" and capitalist nightmares of "sexless hydrogen" "Moloch."  But, "Howl" testifies to a collective experience that is on the fringe, the edges and extremes in the barely understood realms of human experience, of "Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies!"  "dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!"  "Howl" validates that "sensitive bullshit" of our bodily, affective experience, resanctifying it as "Holy! Holy! Holy!" "Howl" speaks to those "who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out if I had a vision or you had a vision or he had a vision to find out Eternity."  Yet, while Ginsberg speaks to those dwelling on the misunderstood edges of 'polite' and 'normal' middle-of-the-road American society, "Howl" also assembles a new community that understands humanity via its connectivity, one bridged in the recognition of experiences and ways of being that are conventionally partitioned off in those "buildings" of "judgment,"the "invincible madhouses" and "incomprehensible prison!"

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Would you call yourself a writer?

It's strange transitioning from a student into a writer.  To call myself a writer feels pompous, cocky and strange, yet I can now acknowledge that this is what I want to do. I love to think about ideas and I want to share that love with others. The problem is the doing. The actual act of putting hands to the keys.  I've recently filled yet another journal of hand written material, notes and reflections. This is all too familiar ground for me. I have stacks of these journals resting in the back of closets under beach towels and sweaters. But little good they do me until I type the words out and hit submit. Submit to who?  This is the second trickiest part of this transition.  How do you actually get published?  I've been looking around at different online magazines and academic journals, and seeing the detailed submission requirements continuously makes me cower away. Yet the daydream remains, and over these years has been building momentum, the dreams are becoming insistent, compelling me forth to write. And here I am, expressing it here to get in the practice, establish a routine, to push myself past the uncomfortable fear of the unknown.

Anyone else going through this process? Advice for navigating this terrain?

Monday, February 28, 2011

Modernizing Dreams

I've been reading a literary history of American modernism, weaving  my way through the key figures and broad strokes of a past time and the culture those generations amassed in response. A response to the  horrors of the First World War, that battleground of 'experience' and romantic adventure. And a nation churning its way into a new age, its vast land opened up and symbolically condensed in its network of urban centers, traveled with mechanical speed. A people wrenching in this turn, resistance in the nostalgia and convention of the past, the known and recognized codes and orders. Jubilation in the treasured fleeting Now, and wistful dreams of a new America.  An art that wants to turn with a new lens, to show our dreams and fears to us.

The puzzle is getting harder to master, to piece these glimpses of orders and piles of details together into an understanding of the span.  That world constructed and reconstructed in words. Those worlds. These novels seeking to recognize the splinters left after the War. wars. Those conflicts abroad and at home, en masse and individual. Henry Adam's multiverse. Freud's unconscious. Zelda's schizophrenia. They are moments of recognition in art of the variety of human experience, of consciousness, of feeling. They seek in their symbolic form to multiple the possibilities, adding new complexities to humanity's record.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Hidden Reality: Brian Greene's Parallel Universes

Last night on The Colbert Report, Stephen interviewed string theorist Brian Greene about his new book, Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos. Working through advanced physics, Greene suggests that existence is not limited to a single universe, but is composed of multiple parallel universes.  His parallel universe theory comes from his work in math.  Citing examples from Pythagoras to Einstein, Greene claims that math is "a sure footed guide to revealing the nature of reality."  Greene's mathematical theories suggest that the "scope of reality is so much bigger than we once thought."

Watch the interview:

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Brian Greene
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full EpisodesPolitical Humor & Satire BlogVideo Archive


If Greene's theory is correct, what are these parallel universes like?   Beneath his satire performance, Colbert asks a really crucial question, "how do you look outside of what is to you everything?"  How do we examine alternative and outside universes when we, the observers, are positioned within a set and unquestioned sense of reality?  How do we glimpse to the parallel, multiple, alternative universes potentially amongst us?

Friday, January 21, 2011

Refinished Cabinet: Before and After

Une Armoire Avant et Apres!

I found this cabinet outside of my apartment building in Brookline during the summer of 2009, right before my move to Blaine Street, and with my rapid accumulation of things that marks life after college, l I really needed extra storage.

Its past owner tried to paint the cabinet over with a blue acrylic wall paint, but since this has the infamous IKEA finish (veneer or lacquer) and they didn't sand it, the paint just peeled off in gooey strips. So, they tossed it.



Mine!

I went to work peeling off the blue paint and was left with a mostly white cabinet with some stubborn blue streaks and packing tape residue.  And then, I admit, it sat for awhile. . . and awhile longer.  After enough of Nate's gentle reminders, and a source of inspiration I set to work.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Sherry Turkle: The Effects of Technology

I saw this Colbert Report interview last night with Sherry Turkle promoting her new book, Alone Together.  She raises great questions about our relationship to objects, especially the ways we interact with digital technology and how it affects our relationships with others.  Watch the interview:

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Sherry Turkle
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full EpisodesPolitical Humor & Satire BlogVideo Archive


Side note: As a graduate student, I love what she says about "long form arguments."

Yesterday Tabitha and I talked about digital worlds and how humans interface with the artificial worlds of video and computer games. Tabitha raised the point that the digitalization of these game technology, such as Kinect which registers the body's movement and no longer requires a controller, creates a more open interface between the human user and the game. We are quickly seeing gaming systems, like Kinect and Wii Fit, adopt a more direct and 'natural' interface with the user, more seamlessly connecting to the user's natural body movements.  There is something interesting about the bodily experience of playing these games, especially games through Kinect and Wii where you can watch your avatar self move along with you. What would it take for users to confuse this virtual self with their real selves? There are already reports of this reality confusion among gamers who play World of Warcraft, Second Life, or Sims to obsessive and addictive levels. Are there people would rather choose to immerse completely in their digital reality, what does this behavior look like, and what are the social effects of this human relationship to technology?  This question is one in a series of many about our human relationship to objects, the emotional and bodily experience in these object interactions, and how it shapes our sense of ourselves and of reality.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Let's craft!

I’m getting really into crafts these days.  Making something new out of something old, used, out of materials found about my apartment. Maybe I’m just a hoarder, but I love to have interesting things around me. Nate and I want a pack rat home, a place where our friends can just idly gaze around and see lots of different objects that interest or inspire them.  When I’m crafting I feel my creative imagination turn back on; its a bit rusty in these graduate school years of critical rigor.





These crafts sometimes feel silly in the face of the graduate work I do, but sometimes a girl just needs to make a pink paper flower for her stubborn hibiscus plant.  



3D TV: A Perfect World?

Though I have yet to experience it myself, it seems 3D Televisions are gaining ground in the market.  Coming from my research in reader and audience relationship to the arts, I wonder, how does 3D Television affect viewers?  How does the experience of watching TV shape our senses of the world, of ourselves, of our very realities?  Since the content on 3D Television is largely the same as the 2D models- viewers are still watching football, Animal Planet, and sitcoms- it is the viewing experience of these seemingly 3-Dimensional images that differs.  Will the new visual effect change the way viewers experience the representations on TV?  Will it become more real for the viewers as Sony and Panasonic claim? And what would it mean to call the 3D television experience more real?


This commercial "Sony 3D: A Perfect World" from Sony Australia claims, like most 3D marketing, to deliver a world on TV not only as realistic as your actual life, but actually more real and even perfect.  These are not unfamiliar claims; its almost cliche to note that advertisements are well known for over-the-top promises.  But what happens when 3D TV delivers such realistic 3D representations of the world that viewers actually believe the representation is realer than the material world?  In its artistic manipulation of reality, 3D Television can come closer to a perfect world; it can eradicate poverty, war, disease, environmental devastation simply by not showing it on TV.  And if viewers buy this 3D TV reality, and immerse themselves into these fantasy worlds, what becomes of the rest of the material 'real' world?   This is the futurist in me, projecting far ahead, imagining how the dystopian tendency could play out with this technology.  I don't wish to make the reductive claim that  3D TV is an evil technology; as a TV and movie watcher,  I embrace the progress in visual technology and love the immersive fun of 3D IMAX movies. But I do want to open up a conversation about 3D TV and film technology and how it affects us as viewers.


On a sidenote, this post on Reddit is another instance in a greater trend on how our consumer culture understands the real. How do we gauge what is real? This is the bigger question that drives my research right now. 


Shout out to The Morning Benders, the song in the commercial is "Excuses" from their album Big Echo. This is a great album.