Homo Machinus: Anxiety, Perception, and Enlightenment

This piece is a bit convoluted.  It has several loosely related themes layered one on top of the other.

On the surface, it’s an aesthetic study of light sources.  Beyond that, it represents my state of mind whenever I have problems with anxiety.  Beyond that are some statements about cameras and perception written by Russian filmmaker Dziga Vertov.

My purpose in juxtaposing these themes is to explore the tension in our modern, technological society between humanity and mechanization.  People are gradually relying more on machines to work for them and computers to store information for them.  Why remember a phone number when it’s programmed in your phone?  Why remember a date if your computer will remind you?  In essence, we are creating a post-human, cybernetic society: homo machinus (forgive me if my pretentious Latin translation is a little off…).

Once again, all music was composed by me.  The selection from Vertov was read by Fred, my Macbook’s voice simulator.