Um, if I'm remembering correctly, this series (series VI) of the 'orginal' strips that make up the collage of the Latent Narratives comic (existing, as they do, in a parallel universe), came up because I unthinkingly created that embarrassingly sloppy Squid Man, and then I trusted I would be able to whip out three convincing comics to complete the set. The Pharm Life of the previous week presented a problem when it came to finding a panel that would work in the collage (what would become 'Reservation Notation') because I went with an idea I liked for that week, but there was no consideration of how it should play in the collage as a whole.
This is what the actual vertical comic process is like: usually there's an outlier that I have to crowbar in; actually, more often than not, there's nothing worth crowbarring and the attempt is scrapped. The idea is that you're uncovering hidden truths and messages, and the presence of those messages aren't a guarantee.
Of course, what does this mean when the hidden truths are all a fiction, and I'm orchestrating the entire thing? The fact that I have only so much time to get this out week-by-week adds an element of pressure: planning can only go so far. And, the randomness of what pops up in my mind, or what flashes across my vision (such as the Oblique Strategy) is a random element in the same way that reading tarot might be a random element (and the reader might be an intermediary.)
'A Line Has Two Sides' was an Oblique Strategy that I've been sitting on for some time, unsure what to make of it. But there was something in my considering work that week that made it seem timely.
I'm daily frustrated by what I would perhaps inaccurately cite as a post-modern 'multiple perspective' problem in which everyone sees a situation differently. The sense of urgency in my alarm is not shared by everyone, and it reminded me of Rashoman and the trope of the unreliable narrator and/or the lack of a static reality that is shared. And so, through the urgency of my alarm, I question my own ability to accurately perceive, and, therefore, my worth as a perceptive being.
As I note this in the first frame here, Art demonstrates the multiplicity of perspective and then, in the third frame, instantly snaps to that concept's seeming opposite: a binary world of black and white. This switch raises anxiety for me, because I have to allow this harsh return-to-binary to exist as a truth (in the same way that I tell myself I have to allow seeming paradoxical concepts to be concurrently true).
This snap-to-binary, a shutting-down of the multiple reality state, is an expression of the frustration I feel in an organization in which I see chief decision makers following a narcissistically prescribed route that precludes outside perspectives. Hence the anxiety.
Of course, it's also about me, and how my own mind does this routinely.
The resolution frame, a the Oblique Strategy that started this line of thought, is - as far as I can tell - an invocation that I question *that* understanding of the process. Essentially, it asks "What is the line, actually?", which is to say, 'is my understanding of my situation an accurate understanding'.
I mean, this takes me back to frame one, except that rather than reference the people in my organization as the story tellers of multiplicity, I, myself, am now the all the story tellers of multiplicity.
This is of course an exhaustively unproductive mindset, and goes far to explain why I find myself living alone at my age.
Um, if I'm remembering correctly, this series (series VI) of the 'orginal' strips that make up the collage of the Latent Narratives comic (existing, as they do, in a parallel universe), came up because I unthinkingly created that embarrassingly sloppy Squid Man, and then I trusted I would be able to whip out three convincing comics to complete the set. The Pharm Life of the previous week presented a problem when it came to finding a panel that would work in the collage (what would become 'Reservation Notation') because I went with an idea I liked for that week, but there was no consideration of how it should play in the collage as a whole.
ReplyDeleteThis is what the actual vertical comic process is like: usually there's an outlier that I have to crowbar in; actually, more often than not, there's nothing worth crowbarring and the attempt is scrapped. The idea is that you're uncovering hidden truths and messages, and the presence of those messages aren't a guarantee.
Of course, what does this mean when the hidden truths are all a fiction, and I'm orchestrating the entire thing? The fact that I have only so much time to get this out week-by-week adds an element of pressure: planning can only go so far. And, the randomness of what pops up in my mind, or what flashes across my vision (such as the Oblique Strategy) is a random element in the same way that reading tarot might be a random element (and the reader might be an intermediary.)
'A Line Has Two Sides' was an Oblique Strategy that I've been sitting on for some time, unsure what to make of it. But there was something in my considering work that week that made it seem timely.
I'm daily frustrated by what I would perhaps inaccurately cite as a post-modern 'multiple perspective' problem in which everyone sees a situation differently. The sense of urgency in my alarm is not shared by everyone, and it reminded me of Rashoman and the trope of the unreliable narrator and/or the lack of a static reality that is shared. And so, through the urgency of my alarm, I question my own ability to accurately perceive, and, therefore, my worth as a perceptive being.
As I note this in the first frame here, Art demonstrates the multiplicity of perspective and then, in the third frame, instantly snaps to that concept's seeming opposite: a binary world of black and white. This switch raises anxiety for me, because I have to allow this harsh return-to-binary to exist as a truth (in the same way that I tell myself I have to allow seeming paradoxical concepts to be concurrently true).
This snap-to-binary, a shutting-down of the multiple reality state, is an expression of the frustration I feel in an organization in which I see chief decision makers following a narcissistically prescribed route that precludes outside perspectives. Hence the anxiety.
Of course, it's also about me, and how my own mind does this routinely.
The resolution frame, a the Oblique Strategy that started this line of thought, is - as far as I can tell - an invocation that I question *that* understanding of the process. Essentially, it asks "What is the line, actually?", which is to say, 'is my understanding of my situation an accurate understanding'.
I mean, this takes me back to frame one, except that rather than reference the people in my organization as the story tellers of multiplicity, I, myself, am now the all the story tellers of multiplicity.
This is of course an exhaustively unproductive mindset, and goes far to explain why I find myself living alone at my age.