850 word response from the reading “Expanded Cinema"

I must say this was definitely a hard chapter to read. I found myself trying to understand multiple ideas at once. Not only does Fuller speaks in parables about eighty percent of the time, he is somewhat indulged in his own inner thought about thought, perception and the world around us and how it’s perceived from the “self.” The moment I started reading, I was overwhelm with a mouth full as the author stated “As a child of the New Age, for whom "nature" is the solar system and "reality" is an invisible environment of messages, I am naturally hypersensitive to the phenomenon of vision. I have come to under- stand that all language is but substitute vision and, as Teilhard de Chardin has observed, "The history of the living world can be summarized as the elaboration of ever more perfect eyes within a cosmos in which there is always something more to be seen.”

I found myself pondering about this statement for a good hour, as I went around to my apartment asking my roommates how they felt about that thought. Furthermore, they were all confused. Long after, I sat down and really pondered what he was trying to say. Was Fuller trying to express that as vessels living in this new generated society, our reality has transformed from what used to be less mentally capacitated with the technology, advertisements and media to becoming one big universal replication of VH1.

According to (http://www.fluiddrivemedia.com/advertising/marketing-messages/) “we see 247 images per day and probably don’t notice half of them even though we’ve been exposed. The fact that you and the message are in reasonable proximity for you to see it doesn’t mean you saw it. Our brains can’t truly process that many messages. We can’t notice, absorb, or even judge the personal merit of 3,000 visual attacks a day.”

Te author went on to talk about reality, consciousness and science.  He made a very loud statement expressing that “An increasing number of humans are beginning to understand that man probably never has perceived reality at all, because he has not been able to perceive himself.” What exactly does that mean? I felt during this time that he was coming from an intensive philosophic standpoint. I felt like he was no longer giving an opinion but was trying to state that his opposition on the notion of reality and non-reality and the idea of life and what exist or the lack-there-of is factual. When in actuality, it can be debated, both sides of the equation.

I then read on, and I started to really get into what he was saying. Mr. Buckminster is really expressing the quantitative aspect of vision and sight itself. As a double major in psychology, we learn a lot about perception and how every person lives by the laws of their own universal understanding, or perception of how the world around them function. This made perfect sense when he had written that “ We have come to see that we don't really see, that "reality" is more within than without. The objective and the subjective are one. At the same time, science has taught that there is no purely physical reason for the disparity between apprehending and comprehending. We know, for example, that thirty-eight percent of fibers entering or leaving the central nervous system are in the optic nerve. It is estimated that as much as seventy-five percent of information entering the brain is from the eyes.

He then went started to construct the contingency between our vision and this newly defined “cinema.” Apparently, this “Expanded Cinema” will change not only change our well being from a moral, spiritual and physical vantage point but will most definitely change life as we know it.  I honestly thought his entire out look about how this new evolved media impact on life during the next couple of paragraph was a bit far-fetched and over estimated but I honestly couldn’t agree more with the route idea that art can change lives and the world around us is absolutely correct.

As this chapter began to conclude it’s main focus, I really think the author was making the connection between art and technology. When you really think about both has been derive from the creativity of our own mind. Moreover he eventually went on to say  “Paradoxically this phenomenon carries with it the potential of finally liberating cinema from its umbilical to theatre and literature, since it forces the movies to expand into ever more complex areas of language and experience. Evidence of television's effect on the cinema is already apparent, as we shall see in our discussion of synaesthetic cinema. From another more immediate perspective, however, it is quite unfortunate. We live in an age of hyperawareness, our senses extended around the globe, but it's a case of aesthetic overload: our technological zeal has outstripped our psychic capacity to cope with the influx of information. We are adrift on the surface of radical evolution unable to plumb the depths of its swift and turbulent current.”

I honestly really enjoy this chapter. I actually think pass beyond this assignment, I will continue to read the other chapters just for my own personally enjoyment. I think the main purpose of the chapter was to really introduce digital media as the new “art.” That became more apparent when It was said that “eyesight is insight."42 If we realize that insight means to see intuitively, we acknowledge that Arnheim's assertion is true only when ordinary vision— conditioned and enculturated(the process by which an individual learns the traditional content of a culture and assimilates its practices and values) by the most vulgar of environments— is liberated through aesthetic conceptual design information. Film is a way of seeing. We see through the filmmaker's eyes. If he's an artist we become artists along with him. If he's not, information tends toward misinformation.”

As an artist, my mind is intrigued for all the new contributions to this field. I also sometimes ask the question “how can I make a difference?” or “how can I create an impact on society?” When one think about digital media and the already effect and immediate impression is has on people, I wonder why the two was never closely knitted along time ago.