Re: [ox-en] Re: cloverfield as expression of p2p metaphysics
- From: Michael Bauwens <michelsub2003 yahoo.com>
- Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:40:39 -0800 (PST)
Hi,
I often argue that p2p dynamics are already presupposing deep changes in human consciousness, see http://www.lifesized.net/images/p2pmemeMap.jpg
(http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Relational for full coverage)
Here (http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Spirituality) I summarize that:
"We are not going back to the premodern wholistic era and feelings,
but just as modernity was about rigorously individualising everything,
eventually reaching the current dead-end of hyper-individualism, we are
now just as rigorously 'relationising' everything. If in premodernity
we thought, we are parts of a whole that is one and above us, and in
modernity we thought we are separate and unified individuals, a world
onto ourselves, and in postmodernity saw ourselves fragmenting, and
pretty much lamented this, then this is the mash-up era. We now know
that all this fragments can be reconstructed with the zillions of
fragment of the others, into zillions of commonalities, into temporary
wholes that are so many new creative projects, but all united in a
ever-moving Commons that is open to all of us.."
I have now seen the movie Cloverfield, which I think is a good illustration of how the new worldview looks like subjectively, and what kind of art it produces.
It's a movie that you either love or hate it seems, and I am positively 'possessed' by it, I saw it 3 days ago, and it is still there working itself through ... I would compare it to Blade Runner or the first Aliens and Matrix movies as a epoch-defining genre movie after which nothing will never the same.
I'm a really poor art critic, so what follows is just basic impressionism,but I really wish I could flesh it out ... but anyway, my feeling is that cloverfield is really exemplary of the shift in human awareness ...
Here are a few extra thoughts, http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/cloverfield-as-a-peer-centric-movie/2008/01/21
"
Just went to see Cloverfield,
and it was a gripping experience, quite a surprise given a number of
negative reviews I had read, such as the one in the New York Times.
Luckily,some smart people I admire, such as Jon Lebowski, liked the movie too.
Now of course I’m a little obsessed by the p2p meme, so I’m bound to
see it everywhere, but really, I see this movie as exemplifying an
important shift in worldview.( Perhaps not surprising since the
movie is the idea of the creator of Lost, which innovated television by
creating a plotline from a multifold of characters, and has an episode
showing the superiority of a commons to a market approach)
For example, this movie is totally friends-centric or peer-centric.
Yes, there have been buddy movies before, but in my view, that such
movies consisted of buddies that are individuals coming together. But
in Cloverfield, it is really the group and the relations of the group
that are primary. But not in a collectivist or wholistic sense either:
there is no unified group, just relations. (perhaps the blair witch
movie was like that, but I haven’t seen it?) . The relations are
primary to the individuals.
You could say that the point of view of the movie is a-centric,
a-perspectival. It is neither the problematic character of the boy who
holds the camera, nor even the camera itself (though it ostensibly is)
that is really the center, but rather, what it randomly sees. What it
sees is entirely driven by the relational dynamics of a group reacting
to outside events. The movie has no real hero, because even the heroic
things that are done, one of the main characters is for example
obsessed by saving is girlfriend, are not done out of any heroism, but
rather matter of factly, because it’s the only choice available. That
the others decide to follow him is entirely done on the basis of their
relationship to the character. I see a lot of equipotentiality depicted
in the movie, everybody contributing to his/her own potential, a mix of
qualities and weaknesses, just doing what they can.
The other peer aspect I see is the role of institutions. They are
there, there are some attempts by the authorities to evacuate the
population, the army has a big role, but there is no sense of unified
command, no priority given in attention. It is really filmed from the
point of view of ‘citizens’, present to their own life, for whom these
institutions are just a given, not a primary factor that drives their
reality.
So in any case, I found this movie very innovative in its approach,
it really defies all the conventions of the monster movie genre, and it
is for me so much better than Godzilla for example.
Okay now, if you still hesitate, read this review from Marc Savlov
“Cloverfield is the most intense and original creature feature I’ve seen in my adult moviegoing life.”
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