Losing interest in reality
”Images in our culture by their sheer number and ease of replication, become less magical and less shocking” -Christine Rosen
I honestly can’t remember the last time I was impressed by something real. Our world is flooded with still and moving images of an exaggerated reality that makes the world seem mediocre in comparison. We love to watch reality shows because they are niches of our culture which do not represent the average household - because honestly reality can be boring. No one wants to watch a movie featuring average people doing average things - I mean why would they?
Media and Art serve as an escape from our average world. They allow our mind to descend beyond what exists and what we would love to exist. Films are a form of visual drug that allows us to enter a alternative reality for a couple hours, yet once we’re back our perception is skewed. Take for example Harry Potter, the wildly successful book/film series featuring the life of a fictitious wizard world. People drool over the thoughts of even stepping into their world and the possibilities of how magic could make their lives so much more…magical. The same could be said about images in advertisement. Effective publicity shows an eventless, imagined future that tells viewers “This could be you”. Fashion advertisement portrays an imagined lifestyle as if saying “buy me and your life will become this” ….which sadly almost always works. We are manipulated and fantasized by constructed images and the longer we are exposed to them, the more mediocre our world becomes.
Thoughts?
