Okay, so I was not exactly expecting this to be a straightforward video and I was more than correct. The first time I watched it, I sat on my couch, straining my brain to understand what the video was trying to tell me.

Watching it a second time actually gave me way more insight into what she was even talking about but there are still clips that I do not understand. The video animations of city landscapes and human silhouettes, as well as the people with boxes on their heads made me feel like I was in a weird dream. The clips of the cityscape is bizarre because it looks like a construction blueprint of a condominium but in motion.

Although the graphics don’t make sense at some points, I think I understand the gist of what she’s touching on.  How does one disappear from this world, but still exist? In media, online, in photographs or video games is where you can still exist in a plethora of ways. It seems to be a reference to surveillance and media and the idea of privacy being intervened by these platforms.

So, with this video she shows us how to disappear even though we’re so heavily connected to the internet and media. In realizing this might be what she’s intending, it made me understand how hard it really is to disappear, going a day without being surveilled anywhere, knowing I can even be surveilled at school.

So how do I disappear from this constant reach into my privacy and my identity?

Watch Hito Steryl’s video.

 

Annlee is an interesting art project because I believe it relates to the idea of an objective versus subjective reality. Pierre and Philippe, along with many other artists, took something 2D, a combination of colors and shapes, and created a sort of subjective reality for it. And what’s interesting is this subjective reality changed and reflected artists through their unique voices.

Something that had really no meaning to it except to be bought and used, suddenly has a plethora of stories and settings and memories. I enjoy this art conceptually because it shows how artists create realities drawn from their own realities and realities around them. It makes me consider what artists would create if we saw everything objectively.

We would not have names or tropes for things that happen in our lives. And I don’t think we would have art either because art is a way in which we physically manifest how we see the world. Humans are the only ones that make art, I believe, because we are the only ones living in this dual reality of subjective and objective.

This project is fascinating when looking at it in the context of the human ability to essentially create a fantastical imaginary “world.” For example, money, religion and whether or not I think SNL is funny anymore, (I don’t), add up to create a perception of real institutions and whether or not someone has more power because they fill the role of “government official.” In other words, nothing is really real. Sometimes, I have a cynical view of this, but then again that’s my subjective perception of what humans are capable of.

However, with the Annlee collaboration, I get excited and intrigued because humans are coming together, communicating with others they may not know very well and actually get something productive done, without it being really harmful in any way–something that no other organism on this planet can do. In this way, art is a branch of subjective reality that I can appreciate and involve myself in because I believe in it, the same way others may believe in a higher power.

 

If you’re interested in subjective vs. objective reality, here’s a really good talk by Yuval Harari, a gay Israeli historian. He talks about why humans are so powerful…:

IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME COMIN.