Up In The Air with Avatar

"Being in the air is the last refuge for those that wish to be alone." Jason Reitman) There are profound connections between Avatar and Up in the Air. Both movies come at a time that can best be described as dystopic. From Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries mired in war to the deepest and most serious recession since the 1930's, to the ongoing crisis of climate change, the first decade of the 21st Century has been characterized by waves of loss, violence and instability.

What then allows any individual to compose their identity and to maintain their sense of self as the air around the planet gets thinner and thinner? How does the imagination work within a dystopia?

Up in the Air explores the tropes of loneliness and travel -- the in-between of airports and hotels, those places that are not places but nevertheless retain many of the trappings of home without the same responsibilities and challenges. There are consequences to being on the road 300 days of the year and among them is the construction of an artificial universe to live in like the metal tubes we describe as airplanes. One of the other consequences is that frequent travelers have to build imaginary lives that are fundamentally disconnected from intimacy and genuine conversation.

Ironically, Avatar imagines a world that is for a time dragged into the dystopia of 21st century life and where at the end of the day, a new vision is constructed. Avatar's use of 3D will be the subject of another article soon, but suffice to say that the worlds James Cameron constructs through motion capture and animation are among the most beautiful that the cinema has ever seen.

Hidden behind both films is a plaintiff plea for love and genuine relationships. Avatar explores this through tales of transmigrating spirits and animistic notions that transform animals and nature itself into a vast Gaia-like system of communications and interaction. The N'avi are a synthesis of Cameron's rather superficial understanding of Aboriginal peoples, although their language is a fascinating blend created by Paul Frommer from the University of Southern California.

The flesh of avatars in the film are not virtual but as the main character, Jake Sully discovers, the N'avi are the true inheritors of the planet they live on, a exotic version of early Earth called Pandora. In Greek mythology Pandora is actually derived from 'nav' and was the first woman. The Pandora myth asks the question why there is evil in the world which is a central thematic of Avatar.

Up in the Air asks the same question but from the perspective of a rapacious corporation which sends its employees out to fire people for other companies or as the main character, Ryan Bingham says to save weak managers from the tasks for which they were hired. The film also asks why there is evil in the world and suggests that any escape, even the one that sees you flying all year doesn't lead to salvation.

Both films explore the loss of meaning, morality and principles in worlds both real and unreal. Avatar provides the simplest solution, migrate from a humanoid body and spirit to a N'avi to discover not only who you are but how to live in the world. **Up in the Air** suggests that love will solve the dystopic only to discover that casual relationships never lead to truth and friendship.

These are 21st century morality tales. Avatar is a semi-religious film of conversion not so much to truth but to the true God, who is now a mother. Up in the Air teaches Ryan that life is never complete when it is entirely an imaginary construction.

It is however, the reanimation of the human body in Avatar that is the most interesting reflection of the challenges of overcoming the impact of this first decade of the 21st century. Jake Sully is able to transcend his wheelchair and become another being, now connected to a tribe. He is able to return to a period of life when innocence and naivete enable and empower — when the wonders of living can be experienced without the mediations of history and loss. This of course is also the promise of 3D technology, to reanimate images such that they reach into the spectator's body, so we can share those moments as if we have transcended the limitations of our corporeal selves.

James Cameron's digital utopia, full of exotic colours, people, plants and animals suggests that escape is possible in much the same way as Ryan Bingham imagines a world without the constraints that are its very essence. 3D technology promises to allow us to transcend our conventional notions of space and time but it cannot bring the earth back to its pristine form nor reverse engineer evolution or history. At the same time, Avatar represent a shift in the way in which images are created, in the ways in which we watch them and also in the potential to think differently about our imaginations and about our future. (Imagine a 3D film about the destruction of the Amazon!)

Huffington on New(s) Journalism

A superb piece by Arianna Huffington on journalism on the Web with many references to the rather superficial claims of traditional newspapers that their content is being stolen through sites that aggregate the news. The paradox is that aggregation is exactly what newspapers and journalists have always been practicing, out of necessity. No one and certainly no organization can be everywhere at once. Associated Press is an aggregator and radio journalists have always borrowed from their cousins in other media. Information in the 21st century is not information as it was in the 20th century. Multiple sources may not be great journalism, may not even be accurate journalism, but inevitably through the cloud, through aggregation, truth and insight become integral to the process. Traditional news sources want to charge for their content. They have to survive. But, the very foundations for how to make money on the Web have not been built. New models will appear over time and during this interim period, the model developed by Huffington, aggregating revenue through targeted advertising will have to suffice. Read her post

Can Images Think?

It is perfectly legitimate to ask the following question: How can an image think?

And the answer, which should come as no surprise to the reader, is that images cannot think.

However, the power of images is such that we need to think very carefully about the many different ways in which we relate to them. For example, when we say, “that is not a picture of me,” are we claiming that the picture is not a likeness or that the image cannot contain or express the subjective sense that we have of ourselves? Do we expect the image to contain, hold or embrace who we are?

The most famous portrait of Winston Churchill.

Let's explore the following example. A photographer snaps an image of Jane and when Jane sees it, the photographer says, “I took that photo of you!” It appears as if the image can not only stand in for Jane, but will be used by the photographer to illustrate Jane’s appearance to a variety of different spectators, including her family.

This is an image found on the Internet. What does it mean to say that?

In a sense, the image separates itself from Jane and becomes an autonomous expression, a container with a label and a particular purpose. For better, or for worse, the photo speaks of Jane and often, for her.

The photograph of Jane is scanned into a computer and then placed onto a web site. It is also e-mailed to friends and family. Some of Jane’s relatives print off the image and others place it in a folder of similar photos, a virtual photographic album.

In all of these instances, Jane travels from one location to another and is viewed and reviewed in a number of different contexts. At no point does anyone say, “this is not a picture of Jane.” So, one can assume that a variety of viewers are accepting the likeness and find that the photo reinforces their subjective experience of Jane as a person, friend and relative.

The photograph of Jane becomes part of the memory that people have of her and when they look at the photo a variety of feelings are stirred up that have more to do with the viewer than Jane. Nevertheless, Jane appears to be present through the photo and for those who live far away from her, the photograph soon becomes the only way that she can be seen and remembered.

Picture this scene. The photograph is on a mantel and when Jane’s mother walks by, she stares at it and kisses it. Often, when Jane’s mother is lonely, she speaks to the image and in a variety of ways thinks that the image speaks back to her. Jane’s mother knows that the photograph cannot speak and yet, there is something about Jane’s expression that encourages the mother to transform the image from a static representation to something far more complex.

It is as if the language of description that usually accompanies a photograph cannot fully account for its mystery. It is as if the photograph exceeds the boundaries of its frame and brings forth a dialogue that encourages a break in the silence that usually surrounds it.

Where does this power come from? It cannot simply be a product of our investment in the image. To draw that conclusion would be to somehow mute the very personal manner in which the image is internalized and the many ways in which we make it relevant to ourselves.

Could it be that we see from the position of the image? Do we not have to place ourselves inside the photograph in order to transform it into something that we can believe in? Aren’t we simultaneously witnesses and participants? Don’t we gain pleasure from knowing that Jane is absent and yet so powerfully present? Isn’t this the root of a deeply nostalgic feeling that overwhelms the image and brings forth a set of emotions that cannot be located simply in memory?

What would happen if I or someone else were to tear up the photograph? The thought is a difficult one. It somehow violates a sacred trust. It also violates Jane. Yet, if the photo were simply a piece of paper with some chemicals fixed upon its surface, the violence would appear to be nothing. How does the image exceed its material base?

This question cannot be answered without reflecting upon the history of images and the growth and use of images in every facet of human life. Long before we understood why, images formed the basis upon which human beings defined their relationship to experience and to space and time. Long before there was any effort to translate information into written language, humans used images to communicate with each other and with a variety of imaginary creatures, worlds and gods. The need to externalize an internal world, to project the self and one’s thoughts into images was and is as fundamental as the act of breathing. Life would not and could not have continued without some way of creating images to bear witness to the complexities of the human experience. This wondrous ability, the magic of which surrounds us from the moment that we are born, is a universal characteristic of every culture and every social and economic formation. We know that this is the case with language. We need to fully understand and accept the degree to which it is the same with images.

Images are one of the crucial ways in which the world becomes real and it should come as no surprise to discover that words on a page are also images, although of a sort that is different from photos.

It is therefore the case that images are one of the most fundamental grounds upon which we build our notions of [embodiment](http://www.thegreenfuse.org/embodiment/). It is for that reason that images are never simply enframed by their content. The excess is a direct result of what we do with images as we incorporate them into our identities and our emotions. Images speak to us because to see is at one and same time to be within and outside of the body. We use images as a prop to construct and maintain the legitimacy of sight. It is as if sight could not exist without the images that we surround ourselves with and as if the activities of seeing are co-dependent with the translations and representations that we produce of the world around us.

We need perhaps to consider changing the ways in which we relate to objects in general. Bruno Latour the great French writer has commented on this issue at length and will be the subject of my next blog entry.

Video Presentation: Is New Media New?

Is New Media New? The disciplines that constitute Art and Design have developed into rapidly evolving research domains that include sound, image, video, digital media, mixed media (including print media), new forms of visual expression, interactive games, multimedia art, multimodal environments and many other areas. In addition, the more traditional disciplines have been profoundly affected by these new technologies to the extent that areas such as painting, film, photography, drawing, sculpture and printmaking now all intersect with and often depend on digital tools to create works of art. Yet, is all of this really new?

This video was recorded at REFRESH! THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE HISTORIES OF ART, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - September 28 - 0ct 1, 2005 and placed onto the Web in 2008 as a peer-reviewed scholarly work chosen for inclusion.

TED Talk 2009 Music, Computers and Play