Internet killed the video star…
Did I mention that there’s a TV in my apartment? There it is, right where I like it, at the foot of my bed. Same spot as back at home. When I got here, all the electrical devices were unplugged (except for one clock radio that was oddly set to go off in the middle of the afternoon) and while a bunch of other things got plugged back in, I’ve had no desire to do the same with the TV. I haven’t even given it much thought.
A little strange, since I’m a hardcore TV user. Many hours daily, mostly cycling between cartoons, reality shows and any horror/sci-fi movie I can find. Occasionally things on TCM. On weekends, if I turn on SciFi after 9am when it stops being infomercials, it’s on for the rest of the day, even though I’ve seen just about every single thing they have on there, and ninety percent of it is beyond crap. I’m not even actively watching, just massacring the minutes. Most nights, my last conscious act is to hit the power button on the remote.
So why not here? I wish I could say that it was pure moral fortitude, uninterrupted zeal about working and making the best use of the precious days that have been granted to me here. Only in part. Mostly I’m experiencing the way that online access has taken over from the TV as the tether to home. The rest of my environment may be different, but this little screen on my laptop opens on to exactly the same world here that it does anywhere else I take it.
The lesson is – that I have to work to make it different, despite the language issues, despite the upset routine, despite everything.
Last night’s dream parade included: Renny Pritikin, a suggestion from me that we didn’t need the big room we had built for video editing because the software made all the decks redundant, photographing buildings on fire at night, traveling from Sweden to Finland, a zombie dream so frightening that I woke from it and refused to go back to sleep except that it part of another dream, some fight with people during an urban breakdown like a riot, David Deitcher, helping him locate a display case for an exhibition he was the curator of, becoming interested in working with etching plates, attempting a few monoprints regretting that I hadn’t looked through all the books I saw for sale next door because of the ideas they would have given me for drawings, trying to get my burning building pictures into the Chronicle, because its offices were nearby.
A recurring theme in my dreams is that I am leaving a place with regret because I didn’t do everything I wanted to there.
Three drawings so far today, so the rhythm that I talked about losing yesterday? Just temporarily misplaced.
Tags: daily photo, distractions, dreams, making things, travel, tv
Can’t help but think of David Lynch when looking at this photo….
AoH
20 Jul 09 at 10:46 am