Dreams of being blind
I watched Holy Motors for the first time, and one piece of dialogue stood out. It took me a while to work out why...
It's because it resonates with an observation from Virilio I've carried around for years, about the terminal strangeness of a world where nothing is hidden from the machinic gaze, and the dramatic measures one might take to counter that.
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Leos Carax, Holy Motors (2012):
"I miss the cameras. They used to weigh a ton, then they were the size of our heads. Now we can’t even see them."
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Paul Virilio (1994):
Virilio: "There is a great science-fiction short story... Cameras are inseminated into artificial snow which is dropped by planes, and when the snow falls, there are eyes everywhere. There is no blind spot left."
CTHEORY: "But what shall we dream of when everything becomes visible?"
Virilio: "We'll dream of being blind."
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Roger Corman (1964):
"In Corman's X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes, Dr James Xavier experiments on his own eyes with a super-powerful X-ray serum... and begins to see through more and more layers of reality: right through his eyelids and beyond, through walls and buildings.
...now he has begun to see through the final layers of reality and into the heart of the universe. Recoiling in horror, Xavier addresses the preacher: ‘I’ve come to tell you what I see. There are great darknesses, and beyond the darkness, a light that glows. And in the centre of the universe: the eye that sees us all.’
The preacher exhorts: ‘You see sin and the devil! But the bible tells us what to do: if thine eye offends thee, pluck it out!’ Xavier, unable to bear the burden of seeing what no one has seen before, takes the advice and gouges out his own eyeballs."