Thursday, October 20, 2016
Moby's new video
Here's a new music video called "Are You Lost In The World Like Me?" by Moby & The Void Pacific Choir with animation by Steve Cutts in a 30's retro style. The subject is a little depressing—how people are all hooked on their devices—but it's incisive satire, an apt commentary on our times.
(Link to see the video on YouTube)
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6 comments:
Ironically, some people may be reading your blog on mobiles!. It gives food for thought. JH.
I have mixed feelings and thoughts. I've felt most of the things that little animated guy feels. The world is big, dirty, mean, and shallow, and I feel really small and powerless. It's also small, sweet, kind, and deep, and I feel pretty connected and joyful sometimes. I've made friends with people on the other side of the world, come to understand pain to which I was indifferent, come to share secrets that were just like everyone else's. And I've had a chance to stand up to people with whom I disagree. I've dealt with a few trolls, and made a few people uncomfortable, and learned to think very carefully before I prod a dragon.
When people learned to read and write and correspond, I'm sure that some folks shook their heads and said, "What, another letter? What about the people right here in the room with you?" And I'm sure that when the printing press became widespread and books went into the hands of the masses, people clutched at their little wooden beads and sighed.
"Get your nose out of that book. You're living in a dream world. You don't even talk to people anymore." And with movies, "You don't even have to imagine it for yourself anymore." and with talkies and musicals, the same thing. And then came the computer, and the smartphone, and in a few years or decades we'll all be jacked in to a stream of info, managing it with eye movements or some little clicker installed inside our bodies.
There's definitely a time to shut off the screens and open our eyes to the world right in front of us. And there's a time to use the screen as just another lens to the universe.
It's a bit cynical, but... I can't disagree with it.
Alana: I agree that the interconnectivity of the mobile world can be a good thing, a useful tool; but it looks like the point of the video is that people are forgetting there's a time to shut off the screens, that it's becoming the only lens into the universe for some people. Whether it's right or wrong, agreeable or disagreeable, it's something to think about. And I think it could be said that with letters, books, talkies and musicals etc., lots of folk weren't noticeably glued to them while going about their daily lives! :)
Oh, and I wonder why the choice to animate in 30's style, other than the retro aesthetic. Maybe it does have something to do with talkies... ;)
Alana and Warren, I agree with so much of what you both said. It's perfectly OK for people to escape into the worlds of their devices while in public, just as we have always done with books, magazine and newspapers. As Warren suggested, though, perhaps print doesn't induce such complete and constant immersion as our electronic devices do. They have the power to pull us into their worlds while walking or driving, for example. If Nintendo's new switchable platform is a sign of things to come, people will be able to pause and transfer their virtual experiences from device to device. I don't know whether that's good or not, but it's a symptom of our times.
The other thing that's different about what we do with electronic devices compared to what we do in print is that we often have the perception of a virtual social space when we're online. We're conscious of sharing our thoughts and images with our friends and followers, something that didn't exactly happen in the print era.
How often have I thought what native peoples said about the camera
"little box steal soul"
Loretta Sharpe
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