Jordan Wolfson’s Violence VR
wow, that’s hardcore
the focus on passivity was an interesting choice. i wonder what it would be like if participants had the option to move their avatar closer/farther away, it seems especially cruel to make the user cemented in place as if paralyzed. though, would it be crueler to make them seemingly have the option to stop the violence by moving between the aggressor and victim, but in reality there’s nothing they can do to stop it, no matter how hard they try?
hmm the metal bars are a curious touch, seems strange to focus on that when the bars aren’t a part of the scene
the instagram video of the person’s face as the scene unfolds is so unsettling
yeah, I wonder how this piece would be perceived if it had a pop-up show at a trump rally…. so scary.
i don’t know if i agree with the conclusion — i don’t think it’s possible to have violence without context. I don’t think it’s possible to have anything without context.
Nietzsche Brain Pickings — Embracing Difficulty
reminds me of Brene Brown’s stuff on vulnerability, which I love
A professor I had at a poetry workshop in Paris told me the best thing once: the best gift you can give a writer is a broken heart
totally agree that hardship and joy operate in an osmotic relationship. I once wrote an essay referencing a part of Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet, where the core concept was that our sorrow carves the cup of our soul deeper, for it to hold that much more joy. A teacher of mine in high school once compared it to a ruler in a mirror, the more you try and diminish the amount of one, the more the other diminishes. I think you see that a lot in people with depression, they’re either someone you think of publicly as the happiest person in the room (and then they kill themselves), or their depression is more of a total numbing to emotion.
I actually have a lot of feelings on this concept haha, which is why I was so interested in taking this class in the first place. A tattoo I want to give myself one day is a quote from Pema Chodron that fits nicely with all this — It is only by exposing ourselves over and over to annihilation that that which is indestructible can be found within us.