Red Pill
Symposium:
Session Title:
- Catalogue Papers (edited by musica falsa)
Presentation Title:
- Red Pill
Presenter(s):
Abstract:
Is it still possible to experience a revelation in the age of Technology? One might be tempted to answer no. No, because Technology seems to be the incarnation of lies and appearance, concealment and glitter, seduction and death. No, because Technology projects a host of inconsistent, virtual shadows on the walls of our cave and we are immersed in a flow of contradictory language and images, lulled by false, elusive promises, tricked by the all too perfect computer — enhanced pictures of models, betrayed by visions of a better future cooked up by marketing and propaganda departments. No, because unlike a bright revelation that tears through the Night and shows that the Night is Night, Technology is Night. No, because Technology — and this may well be its worst feature — manages to make us believe that Night is Day. Marx’s camera obscura is like an echo to Plato’s cave.
Technology does not reveal that it is Technology. On the contrary, it invites us to participate still more in its own deployment by convincing us that it will make us ever more prosperous. Technology eliminates the distance that we could maintain between us and it by submerging us with its own imperatives of profitability, competition, forced labor and compulsory leisure. In fact, Technology can be defined precisely as the factor that abolishes the distance between humans and things. It is what abolishes the necessary distance implied in the very definition of the word revelation. There can be no revelation unless there is a veil to lift (re-velum). And veils, like theater curtains, imply a stage and an audience. These in turn imply a certain depth, a certain perspective that allows what needs to reveal itself to do so with majesty.
Acknowledgements:
ISEA2000 Catalogue Papers. Produced by musica falsa, magazine on music, art & philosophy. Texts collected by Bastian Gallet. Translations by ALTO.
