Its darker isn’t it? I remember you shielding your eyes and squinting as you went out side. The sun’s approach is as brutal as its with-drawl. I suppose that was what Icarus was trying to tell us.
I’ve been marinading my head in politics the last few weeks. The geekery of the US elections which Im accessing through a triad of podcasts – FiveThirtyEight , Pod Save America and the various spinoffs and Talking Politics. I likely know more about the electoral college system, the timing of states’ reporting and Mitch McConnell’s long game than things I should know about, like design.
I digest an enormous amount of podcasts which is a proclivity of white men my age. At any point I’m not on a call or having to concentrate I’m listening to a history, politics or science podcast while working. Right now I’m listtening to the latest FiveThirtyEight on the polling measures put in place for in-person voting on Tuesday. I walk around the house with my phone in my pocket playing them when I have to leave my desk. It’s been years – History of Rome was my first, it kept me company during a long sojourn to Helsinki in 2014. I’ve been addicted since. I really want to do a podcast, I enjoy hearing other people talking informally about their interests and like to imagine that I could talk to people more, a sort of Adam Buxton style thing but for design and technology people. There’s already a million of these so I’m not sure what else I could add. . Natalie and I did some Scrycasts a few years ago in the run up to Impakt 2017. Do you think I should bring them back?
They’re Too Close!
I’m sure you’ve had this feeling; you’re watching a television show or film and the characters are all within in two metres of each other not wearing masks and a momentary shiver seizes you – the micro-enforcer of social contracts in your mind going all Karen – ‘they’re too close!’ There’s an interesting tradeoff I imagine being discussed in writing and production Zoom calls on everything from cheap soap operas to Hollywood films about how to respond to the fact that the very fabric of social reality has shifted under our feet and that the base-level of any story – how people actually physically interact is vastly different to what it was a year ago.
Unlike in fashion (which I mostly get through Instagram advertising), nothing I’ve seen on screen in the last six months has changed to conform to our new social reality. Characters huddle together, hug, don’t wear masks etc. I’ve heard various television actors on podcasts talking about the health and safety hurdles they go through to replicate pre-Covid social behaviour on sets to sort of travel back to the ‘old world.’ But I wonder how far off normalised masks and distancing are to the point where it’s just a part of the diegetics of screen worlds. I don’t think Coronation Street or Neighbours or any other long-running soaps have started having their characters in masks and distancing yet – I may be wrong. Will they? It would make the health and safety hurdles easier if your cast and characters are socially distancing, wearing masks and only interacting outside. And as with any good story it will ground it in the lived experience of its audience. However, it also places what are notably a-political pieces of entertainment in the politics of pandemic response. Would they start criticising Boris Johnson, talking about the latest lockdown measures? The veil separating their word from ours might be broken.
I remember watching an early Homeland episode where suddenly the fictional characters mention Barack Obama and it jolted me out of suspension of disbelief: The show up to that point had featured real things (eg countries and the CIA) but the people (I assume) were fictionalised. The introduction of a real character temporarily threw me for a loop. Eddie Izzard’s line about parents calling each other Mum and Dad springs to mind; ‘Wait, he’s your dad too? Does that make you my sister?!’ Things like that shatter the hierarchy of worlds. So I imagine a flipped mirror effect if for instance we saw a Bourne film or other blockbuster where the characters are socially distancing and wearing masks because it’s too real, too grounded and places it too firmly in a particular context. The price paid is that shocking jolt that awakes you from your suspension of disbelief like being woken while in a half-dream just as you’re on the cusp of falling into the world.
Another theory. I remember an article (which I’ll never be able to find, I won’t even bother searching) attributing the deluge of movie remakes and sequels in the early 2010s to the 2007 writer’s strike. There’s an offset between change and it finding its way to the screen as the entertainment industry grinds away. We’re six months into this thing and for a lot of the TV and film studios were shut up. It could be that next year, the year after, we start to see the reality of our social relations now reflected on screen.
Recents
Natalie and I ran an event with Impakt at the weekend. We invited Pinar Yoldas and Monika Bielskyte to hang out in a spreadsheet with us talking about power and worlds. It was nice to see the Impakt folks again as usual. It’s my favourite festival. We had some technical issues but I think it worked out ok. There’s a recorded version that I’ll share once it’s up.
Short Stuff
- Speaking of podcasts, I finally got round to listening to quite an old Adam Buxton one with Shoshanna Zuboff. She was brilliant and keen to make the point that tech companies hate regulation which is why they belittle democracy and the speed of lawmaking. You have to remember that society is an inconvenience to capital. Especially when society is the things capital is trying to exploit.
- Two brilliant articles on rendering and visualisation I’ve been sending to anyone who’ll listen: Nicole Sansone Ruiz’s Arguing Against Graphic Ambivalence explores virtual Earth modelling communities and how they balance aesthetics, accuracy and expedience in making worlds. Lara Chapman’s Springtime Everywhere is a brilliant exploration of the aesthetics of Google Earth.
- I started playing, and quickly lost interest in Star Wars Squadrons largely because of the arena style of it – I’m not a competitive gamer, I like stories, compelling and creativity in my games. Although the squelch of the blasters is thrilling it’s pretty repetitive. But chiefly because the controls are so intricate, which all the reviews basically say. I then saw this remake of classic Super Mario which looks like another dizzyingly complex version of a pretty timeless and replayable game and wondered if the collective dexterity of gamers has just sort of increased in the last few years? To the point where games that would normally have alienated most players are normal. Think about the impressive intricacy of a 360-no-scope or the super-human speed of professional StarCraft players where they’re making up to ten moves a second. I don’t know. Mrs Revell can’t play games because the control is so alien but now it’s ‘concretised’ perhaps beyond my comprehension.
Is that it? I think so. I’m sure there were other things, I always am but I will catch up with you again next week. I hope you’re enjoying the new Monday bulletins. Love you.