21 february 2022
Rewatching Serial Experiments Lain. Almost a cliché at this point. But the first time I saw it, I feel like I didn't properly watch it -- I mostly soaked in the episodes like audio-visual ambience. I didn't think vabout the plot, the characters, or the ideas, and their implications. This is the same way I way too often read books, and this is what I want to change.
Slow, strange series like Serial Experiment Lain are always appealing to me. I'm guessing the core of this appeal is just the aesthetic. Shallow, yes, but I want to explore this aesthetic further and hopefully learn more about why I enjoy this type of content (starting to loathe the word "content", will try to eradicate it from my vocabulary). And I know it's not just aesthetics. I feel this semi-destructive excitement for the prosepcts of new technology. Things will change in unexpected ways and we'll have to be active, politically and culturally to steer these changes away from dystopia. Maybe thinking about this gives me the same thrill as climbing does (or skydiving might, when I actually try it): the exhilarating rush amplified by the prospect of everything going awry. This is probably not how one should think about the future, but sometimes I can't help to.
Also reading Neuromancer at the moment, and although the world Gibson describes is in many ways horrifying, I can't help but find sordid appeal in the neon, the organic and vivid city life, and the matrix.
I recognize these feelings somewhat childish, maybe irresponsible. I'm not letting them turn me into some destructive accelerationist or self-described futurist. I'm mostly scared. But, at least when it's fairly distant, there's alure in the dystopia.
As always, might not be that distant though.
Not going anywhere with this.