[NetBehaviour] Marc Garrett's 1st Valentines Day experience...

[marc garrett]

Hi Edward,


Well...

 > This is so wierd! I seriously like the soundtrack, and I include your
 > narrative in that. To me, the strangest aspect is the insistence that
 > the Valentine picture represents you "as a robot" pulling your own heart
 > out. Assuming that the picture at valentines_day.htm is meant to be the
 > same one described in the mp3 - which seems a reasonable inference -
 > then it's a very odd representation of a robot. The only thing that
 > looks robotic about it is the elbow, which seems to have a hinge in it -
 > and, I suppose, the fact that the figure is smiling as he contemplates
 > his own pulled-out heart, although this suggests a freakish reversal of
 > normal human feeling rather than robotic detachment. And why would a
 > robot, if it really was a robot, pull its own heart out? Why would a
 > robot even have a heart? What comes to mind is something like the tin
 > man in the Wizard of Oz, who hides a sentimental soul inside a
 > mechanical exterior - so, "robot" as in "metallic outer shell" rather
 > than "mechanical all the way through".

As you say "it's a very odd representation of a robot." This robot is 
human, but produced and assembled by others...

The feelings in this piece relates to myself as a young kid feeling part 
of a mass-production line, a non-stop mechanised plan. Everything felt 
wrong, and distant; hence the (mona lisa type) grin, not certain of how 
one was supposed act or be. Caught in a world of brutal hegemony and 
processed conformity - a factory creating dysfunctional beings lost in a 
conveyor belt of pretend comforts and constant simulation.

Pulling my own heart out was a neurotic self-inspection, asking what was 
real in an environment so alienating. I thought that the girl I was 
handing the valentine's card might of understood the message. I presumed 
that others may of also felt like I did, at the time. But, of course it 
things turned out different.

 > Where the piece really works is that this is really explained, or
 > illuminated, by the contrast between your reading voice - wry,
 > self-deprecating, but obviously human - and that hammering, pinging,
 > rather frenetic music. There's a real sense of human consciousness being
 > captured inside some kind of unstoppable machinery - and maybe what this
 > machinery really equates to is not your hard, robotic exterior, but your
 > uncontrollable emotions; because what really drives the story is the
 > fact that you "thought you were in love".  The real machinery here is
 > the irresistible driving force of infatuation, the delusions it drives
 > us into, the things it makes us do, the risks it forces us to take
 > against our better judgement - risks which are both appalling and
 > liberating. As you say yourself, "What can you do?" and "Sometimes you
 > have to fuck things up".

Yes, you've got this :-)

Thanks for listening Edward...
> Marc -
>
> This is so wierd! I seriously like the soundtrack, and I include your
> narrative in that. To me, the strangest aspect is the insistence that
> the Valentine picture represents you "as a robot" pulling your own heart
> out. Assuming that the picture at valentines_day.htm is meant to be the
> same one described in the mp3 - which seems a reasonable inference -
> then it's a very odd representation of a robot. The only thing that
> looks robotic about it is the elbow, which seems to have a hinge in it -
> and, I suppose, the fact that the figure is smiling as he contemplates
> his own pulled-out heart, although this suggests a freakish reversal of
> normal human feeling rather than robotic detachment. And why would a
> robot, if it really was a robot, pull its own heart out? Why would a
> robot even have a heart? What comes to mind is something like the tin
> man in the Wizard of Oz, who hides a sentimental soul inside a
> mechanical exterior - so, "robot" as in "metallic outer shell" rather
> than "mechanical all the way through".
>
> Where the piece really works is that this is really explained, or
> illuminated, by the contrast between your reading voice - wry,
> self-deprecating, but obviously human - and that hammering, pinging,
> rather frenetic music. There's a real sense of human consciousness being
> captured inside some kind of unstoppable machinery - and maybe what this
> machinery really equates to is not your hard, robotic exterior, but your
> uncontrollable emotions; because what really drives the story is the
> fact that you "thought you were in love".  The real machinery here is
> the irresistible driving force of infatuation, the delusions it drives
> us into, the things it makes us do, the risks it forces us to take
> against our better judgement - risks which are both appalling and
> liberating. As you say yourself, "What can you do?" and "Sometimes you
> have to fuck things up".
>
> - Edward
> _______________________________________________
> NetBehaviour mailing list
> NetBehaviour at netbehaviour.org
> http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
>


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