Some Metal I Wrote...

Artrant 2: From the mouth of the unlearned

“In Péguy’s time, the time of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers, the visual arts had a kind of social importance they can no longer claim today, and they seem to be in a state of utter convulsion. Did cultural turmoil predict social tumult? Many people thought so then; today we are not so sure, but that is because we live at the end of modernism, whereas they were alive at the beginning.” (p. 9)

The Shock of the New: Art and the century of change (Robert Hughes)

Space art (space environments, its ships and its people) is a form of projected realism that harks back to classicism – a time when form and the portrayal of classic themes (more often than not, representing reality) were paramount.

When art, or culture, is done and dusted with realism within the natural or man-made environment, it absolutely has to project forward and beyond in order to cover new ground of some sort, if only to avoid regurgitating the past. Abstract art and surrealism was the result of this need during the early 1900s, but now art is done and dusted with those forays as well and is asking itself “where do we go from here?”

What I see, especially on deviantART and the artwork of video games, is art projecting into the fantasy realms, not in the abstract, but through realism. Abstract art and surrealism were born from the known reality as a way of twisting it and trying to uncover the unknown; but there is little known in outerspace to begin with so most space art is a manifestation of the known – you could almost refer to it as practicalism, as many tried to understand space as environments that humans can fit themselves into and survive within, therefore realistic of our current environments. I see the work of Jim Burns as a great conveyor of this sense of realism in space, and much space art has followed on from his work. Ian Miller and John Harris are good examples of the abstract needing to express the unknown - Ian Miller’s work is where fantasy fornicates with reality; the work of John Harris is a dream state that provides little trinkets of knowledge about a far greater unknown.

What’s weird is that what I see is most space art moving away from any sense of surrealism like in the 1960s and 1970s (exaggerated spaceships of Chris Foss), beyond the abstract impressionism of Harris, and back to projected realistic environments in an attempt to grasp some kind of concrete acceptance of the unknown.

“Many people think the modernist laboratory is now vacant. It has become less an arena for significant experiment and more like a period room in a museum, a historical space that we can enter, look at, but no longer be a part of. In art, we are at the end of the modernist era…” (Hughes)

 It’s actually funny that someone can (potentially, if they haven’t already) have an art exhibition called ‘the history of space’ because of their chronicled paintings of a projected space age.

The future is a museum.

-         26/06/13, Gisborne

Any Father

There’s this man who exists and he has done nothing to get to know his own son on the son’s terms, instead of just how he sees that son through his own eyes. It does not occur to him that this son is so different from the eldest that he simply can not approach him in the same manner. Eyes to see this son’s activities will only reveal a cursory glimpse of a human being trying to stay alive - somewhat unsuccessfully you can imagine his interpretation being - whereas observation of the eldest reveals immediate stimuli that can be engaged with.

The youngest son’s world is not open like that, but that is not to say it is closed. Far from it. The youngest son’s world exists behind layers you must traverse and become acquainted with not through observation or action, but through listening.

That is all it takes. Listening. Simple. Any father can do it.

A Scene: I See Her in a Wetsuit Now

I see her in a wetsuit now. Day in and day out, sometimes with a t-shirt covering her top half like she was a surfer donning some modesty over her beautifully crafted body, most days like she had just stepped off the beach, but with dry curly blonde hair framing her smiling and lightly freckled face. A dream that walks the sand, the halls and doorways, the bed... and deposits itself in the only real-world memory I have of her: sitting next to me at the car warrant of fitness testing station, a knuckle scratching her forehead, sand lightly sprinkling the floor beneath her worn out, loose-laced brown boat shoes.

“Hi. My name’s Cale,” I say turning to the wetsuited woman next to me.

She turns he head slightly, eyes casting their gaze at me with some humorous suspicion.

“Let me guess,” I say. “A surfer.”

Her voice gently sails back at me, “No”.

“A wetsuit designer then.”

She smiles, cheeks creasing underneath her eyes. “No.”

“Well, you must be a wetsuit model then.”

She laughs quietly and shakes her head.

It seemed pretty obvious to me at this point, but I didn’t want to give up the game.

“Umm, how about a scientist designing the best clothing for all weather purpose.”

Her teeth were beginning to shine through her curved lips. “It gets pretty hot inside these wetsuits.”

“So the design’s not working out?”

Her eyes rolled towards the man walking into the waiting room who stretched the Warrant of Fitness sheet out to her. “Car’s all ready to go. Bit of rust around the edges, but you’ll be okay ‘till next time.”

She stood up accepting the Warrant. “Oh cool. I work near the marine reserve so I’ll definitely keep an eye on it. Thanks.”

“No problem.”

She gestured a thumb to the seat behind her. “Sorry about the sand.”

He put up a hand. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll grab the dust-buster later. Just enjoy the rest of your day.”

And she was out the door before I had a chance to even raise a hand to ask for a name... a number... a date... something.

How Many Enterprises Can We Destroy?

Star Trek: Into Darkness has everything that both an action fan and a Star Trek fan could want: space battles, fist fights, Klingons, canon characters, aliens, a baddy who is truly threatening and Kirk giving every woman who walks past ‘the eye’.

What more could you want?

Well, for a starters, a storyline that doesn’t end just as it gets going.

One of the great failings of Hollywood producers and writers is their inability to trust an audience with more than just one thread of story – one single thread. Into Darkness was written as though the producers saw the secondary storyline they had presented us with – that of an Admiral wanting to start a war with the Klingons – as too much of a hassle to try to flesh out and incorporate further into the film so decided that it was far easier just to kill it. What we get left with is a bad guy story so standard that you could take out all SF trappings and it would be, at the most, just a second-rate action film.

Warstub, you’re being too harsh. Didn’t you enjoy it?

I certainly did enjoy it. It was action-packed with a story that kept pushing forward, that is, until I realised that it wasn’t pushing forward any more and had settled for the action sequences to wrap everything up with. ‘But, but, what about the Klingons? What about all the death that the bad guy caused while Kirk was on the Klingon home-world? Shouldn’t they be blaming humans for this and deciding to retaliate?’ Heck, with that scenario, the Admiral barely even needed to show up to try to ‘fix’ things and start the war he was after; the Klingons would have been so pissed off that they should have been gathering all Birds of Prey together and initiating a battle in space regardless of what the humans were or weren’t doing. There was this feeling throughout that the writers felt like they needed to fall back on using a canon character to draw in our attention and interest. ‘What else you got writers?’ Well, they said straight back at me, wanna see us destroy another Enterprise? ‘Gee, I don’t know. There seems to an abundance of Enterprises going down in feature length films that it almost seems old hat’ I say back at them. Oh, in that case, we’ll save it then. But just in case, here’s a really, really, big Federation ship crashing into the sea causing a massive wave of destruction and then skidding onto land and ploughing through tall buildings and killing lots of good innocent people!

And it’s not even the fall-back technique in the end – Christopher Pike, Kirk dying for dramatic effect and motivational drive, the attempt at learning human emotion through Spock and Lt. Uhura having a relationship; it’s the fact that none of these things moved together in a fleshed out storyline. Into Darkness did little more than present characters and a bad guy fighting against each other as if to do nothing more than justify itself as back-story. And don’t even get me started on the inconsistencies to canon that seemed to get thrown right out the window for the sake of dramatic effect!*

For the first half, if not even three quarters, this film was really enjoyable and actually quite strong, one I recommend but with serious reservations; and the critique that I’ve bombarded it with is really aimed at the writers and studios who never seem to balance good story with original characters and original plot. On reflection,¹ I’m actually disappointed in how much the film falls back on old characters, because if anything, that’s just a sign of not being able to come up with their own wonderful and original script. I find the story parallels to previous Star Trek films and canon actually souring my original enjoyment of Into Darkness.

“I guess less Trekkie, more action might be the short story,” Anthony Marcoly told TheWrap.² And when you look back on the story, it actually does feel short – even at a full two hours!

What is ultimately disappointing is that the writers had an action-packed bear-bones script that could have still remained faithful to canon instead of sacrificing characters that appear later on in The Original Series just for the sake of drama. That’s just poor writing as far as I’m concerned.

Is it too much to expect more in Science Fiction?

Is it too much to ask for better consistencies in extrapolated universes?

I don’t think so.

1This paragraph was written the following day.

2http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/05/12/star-trek-into-darkness-enjoys-strong-international-debut...
*Yeah, yeah, I know... "It's a different timeline" I say flippantly "whatever!" The use of TOS canon characters is what is so souring - they are only being used for dramatic effect, not as potential storylines. Pike being killed off is proof of this. NO ORIGINALITY! 

You can point your finger all you like at one person's bad habits, but it won't change the problems that already exist within the system.

Hello Morning

Hello morning once again,

I’ve come to wrap you in my arms again.

I brought you flowers for your windowsill,

So you could gaze

Upon them now,

And bring your light

Into their world.

Hello my darling once again,

Do you still dream or do you just pretend?

That all your troubles are so far away,

But you don’t have to

Worry now,

Love will never

Let you down.

Hello my cobblestone path,

I’ve come to hold your hands in mine again

I thought you’d like this company I give.

So you don’t have to

Walk alone,

Love will never

Let you go

Hello starlight once again,

I’ve come to look upon you as my friend.

I brought telescopes and observant eyes,

So I could gaze

Upon you now,

And let your light

Into my world.

- 09/04/13, Gisborne