[SOUNDS] [SIGHTS] [PLACES] [THOUGHTS] [PEOPLE] [PRINT] [PRODUCTS]
[A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [X] [Y] [Z]
Prioritizes disembodiment and sanctions alienation. Presence becomes a luxury and telepresence a necessity, and my head is filled with numbers affixed to names affixed to people, when we all know that voices cannot be enumerated. I don't like calling people I don't know on the phone, and my tendency is to talk endlessly to those I am familiar with. Telephony allows me to justify my shyness and anti-social tendencies, and the dial tone always reminds me that even though I can call forth the voices and spirit of those I love, their essence will never be fully transmittable across co-ax and fiber. Space and time have less meaning with every month's new phone bill, yet I always pay promptly well before the due-date. A ringing telephone is an excuse to revoke autonomy, to open up and receive, perhaps even to transmit, yet never fully connect with myself or others. I pride myself on my lack of communicative and emotional barriers, yet when the handset hits the cradle, what have I really gained? The reproduction of presence is an unsatisfactory replacement for presence, yet no one seems to be complaining anymore. No one pays any attention to my absence unless I page them, or leave a message.
Non-participatory telepresence, the celebration of the virtual above the actual. Cathode Ray Tubes cause cancer of the mind's eye, and although I will never live in a world without the electrically enhanced extension of sight, my television remains unplugged - 7 months and counting. I learned how to read from Sesame Street, shook away my parent's fights with afterschool specials, sitcoms and the nightly news, and learned how unnatural we pride ourselves in being from TV Guide. Television is not vision, it is a consensual, consumerist hallucination that celebrates death and decay. It doesn't matter if you kill your TV or not, because it's already exterminated our spirit. Remote controls shoot infrared satiatory bullets - aim them at your face instead, and note how you're stuck on a 24-hour channel of ignorance and alienation. It's a shrine of metal, glass and plastic, and it's staring at you, too. Look away while you still can.
[INSIDE] [SEE STUFF] [SEE THINGS] [SEE JUNK] [OUTSIDE]