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interface, truman, etc.
1999.07.29 13:01
I've been busy the last week or so trying to come up with an 'interface' for Ichnographia Ottopia (the longest series within s+a) and it has been interesting to see the coinciding posts at design-l. I have finally come up with the design I like the most and that will (hopefully) offer me a large 'canvas' to play with. The first Ichnographia Ottopia page (of 446) is at xxx.
I just saw The Truman Show for the first time on Monday night, and I saw the movie Pi the night before. (Two close friends of mine just rented Pi and it reminded them of my Timepiece work, so when I went to rent Pi I also got The Truman Show as a second movie for free.) My reaction may not represent the most popular opinion, but I think it will be much more insightful than Smith's observations. Here's a brief outline.
Like Truman, I have lived in the same place my entire life.
I am not a prisoner here (although hearing alarms often going off is now a way of life), but something almost indescribable is making me stay here (--I think the best answer is classic inertia, i.e., a body both at rest and in a (relatively) constant straight line (actually orbital) motion).
My neighborhood 50 years ago was very much like Truman's town (Seaside) today (but nothing, like a place of value, lasts forever).
My neighborhood today is exactly what the average white American seeks to escape (or, more precisely, what the average white American has fled, and it seems the act of escaping continues even further).
Seaside today is the manifestation of middle class America's escape dreams--a clever and ironic twist I see in the movie itself. I assume that others have already noted how the programmed life of Truman's town is conceptually similar to what New Urbanism proports.
Unlike Truman, I have been able to gleam a very wide perspective--among other things, I have gone as far away from my home as possible--I actually have been to Fiji! (I landed twice on Fiji during my 1987 round trip to Australia. BTW, the two most obscure things to strike me about Australia are: 1) although not played or broadcast, I nonetheless heard music constantly, 2) Australia's firmament is ever so slightly softer to the foot than the firmament of what I'm used to in Philadelphia, USA. These were realizations made once I returned home, not immediate sensations upon arriving there.)
Is Quondam and schizophrenia + architectures and my letters to d-l my own sort of Truman Show? Or, in light of scanning through the PBS-Johnson interview, is Quondam my virtual "Glass House"?
Should Quondam (and others) begin to think hard about clever 'product placement'? $$$
As for my reaction to Pi...patterns, god, computers, schizophrenia, isolation, lobotomy....create and destroy, create and destroy...
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