The Convergence and Decentralization of TV and Film

I knew that broadcast TV was doomed, to be replaced by TV on the internet that can be viewed at any time (TiVo/DVR is a transition technology, like combination VCR/DVD players, that will be phased out). I didn't realize until recently the extent to which movies are going to be forever changed as well. The cost of shooting and editing high quality movies has radically decreased so that anyone with talent can make one, not just giant studios. And of course distribution is no problem on the internet. The term 'independent' may drop out from in front of music and movies, not due to a lack of independent art but due to the absence of anything against which to contrast it.

This realization came when watching short films that are better than almost anything that a production studio has ever put out. Projects like Future Shorts and films like these on Vimeo are creating shorts that have more beauty and power in each minute than the average Hollywood film has in the full two hours. Soon full length films of this kind will become common as well, or better yet, the idea of 'full length' will be lost altogether and stories will just be told in the length it takes to tell them, be that five minutes or fifty hours. Long form TV is becoming less episodic to the point where shows are only indistinguishable from absurdly long movies by the presence of theme song intros and the frequency of the credits rolling. The Wire, Rome, Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire, Band of Brothers, and the like may not simply be the future of television, but the future of audio-visual art.

I'm currently reading The Singularity is Near, by Ray Kurtz, which (appropriately) may be the last physical book I ever buy now that I have a Kindle. The central point of the book is that technology is advancing and growing exponentially, and we are just starting to enter the knee-bend of the parabola where it really begins to shoot upward. This will revolutionize every aspect of our lives, and we should remember that art is a part of that, which is all the more important since that new technology should also provide us with lots of time to pursue what we love.

Chuseok vacation day 4 part 4: Hahoe Folk Village mask dance

After lunch we went around to other parts of the village, including across the small river that forms a horseshoe around most of Hahoe. We went across in a flat bottomed ferry propelled by a man with a stick, who must have been very strong to move the boat full of about twelve people. Back in the village proper we saw an ancient tree believed to hold the spirit of a goddess. People still tie prayers written on small pieces of paper onto it's branches. Nearby we went into a lovely teahouse where people in traditional clothes offered to perform a full tea ceremony, which we had to decline because we didn't want to be late to the mask dance.

We originally planned to be at Andong/Hahoe that weekend because it was supposed to be the mask dance festival, which was canceled due to swine flu. However, it seems that the festival would just have meant more people and a lot more stands/stalls selling things, so we were glad to go anyway. Andong has a long tradition of their mask dance/theatrical performance. It was originally used to entertain a god that was called upon in times of plague. It was also used to satirize the upper classes and other tropes. There are a set of traditional masks that have been used over the years, as well as particular plays/dances performed. One survives in nearly its entirety and that is the one that is performed every weekend in Hahoe.

The dance is performed by all male actors, even the female parts. The only woman was the one going around with a collection plate. There was also a band, mostly consisting of drummers and someone playing one of those Korean instruments that sounds like a dying duck.

The play began with a man hunting two (creatively designed) mythical beasts. In the next scene a different man (a woodcutter if I recall correctly) hunts a bull. The show is a bit raunchy: the bull is made of two actors, the rear of which often lifted a let and sprayed a water bottle on the audience. The death of the ox was well done with red cloth used as blood. Next an old woman does some weaving and other household chores. One of the more interesting scenes was one where a sinister looking rich man follows a beautiful young woman (even going so far as to smell her urine after watching her squat down) and then seducing her. The details are hazy in my mind (which is why it is unwise to fall five months behind on my blogging) but I think the young woman ends up with the beast hunter from the first scene. In the end a humorously played drunk peasant dances around and eventually invites foreign members of the audience, including Alanna, to come out and dance with all the characters.

When the dance was finished we returned to Andong and walked out to the largest brick pagoda in Korea. Then Alanna had to catch a bus back to Daejeon since she had work the next day and I went to stay in a sauna for the night. I also went to a movie theater and saw an amazing Korean epic movie, The Sword with No Name (Bool-kkott-cheo-reom na-bi-cheo-reom). It was so Korean it hurt, from the burial mounds to the Japanese being pure evil to the film itself being a not quite as good imitation of something made by the Chinese and Japanese (sorry, but it's true). I especially found it odd and fascinating that they choose the nation's moment of greatest shame as the focus for their nationalistic epic movie. It takes place as Korea is forced at gunpoint to annex itself to Japan. The real villains are the pro-Japanese Koreans rather than the Japanese themselves. It is a tragedy about a peasant and skilled swordsman (and a persecuted Christian, sort of) who becomes a bodyguard to the empress. They fall in love but of course cannot act on their feelings because of their duties. It is also tragic because his superior martial skill is defeated by guns. The Koreans seem to be taking control of their history by portraying the conflict this way, changing a shameful defeat to a valiant and tragic one.

Pictures start here.

Pilgrimage

As many of you know, I love the movie Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring, a film about two monks in Korea. It gave me unrealistically high expectations for Korean Buddhism and gave me an appreciation of ritualized space (see the movie, it's gorgeous and powerful). The movie was shot at Juson pond, an artificial lake created about two hundred years ago that still has several hundred year old trees growing from its depths:Naturally, I decided to visit the location of this story that has had such a large impact on my impressions of Korea (not to mention my decision to come here in the first place) and my search for serenity and mindfulness.

Alanna and I spent an afternoon in the bus getting to Cheongsong, a small city in central Southeastern Korea. The bus stations was absolutely crawling with spiders, which often shared the same webs:

[note: Alanna took about three quarters of the pictures in this post,
not including the ones from the movie]

The town itself isn't particularly noteworthy except as a gateway to Juwangsan National Park, though it did have this great this great 'Tangible Cultural Artifact' number something or other. (Korea has numbered their national treasures, and I've seen some of the highest ranked ones, like a pagoda in Seoul that is national treasure number three. There are also Precious National Monuments, which include things like the Jindo breed of dog. Everything important to the country is categorized and ranked. National Treasure number one was destroyed by an arsonist about six months before I came to Korea.)
Early the next day we entered the actual park.At the entrance was Deajeonsa temple (both it and the city in which I live have names meaning 'great field').
This shrine was for a mountain god:Outside of it were many dragonflies. I've seen tens of thousands of dragonflies this month. I am surprised that the dragonfly isn't a greater symbol in Korean culture and art.
Inside another building at the temple complex were these statues:Past the temple we followed a stream through a valley between craggy peaks.Along the way we detoured to see a couple temples and small caves, one of which held another shrine to a mountain god (you can tell because he has a tiger):More mountains, waterfalls, etc:
We walked along a ridge for a while, and at the highest peak (a modest one, under 900m) we had a nice view over a misty valley.
From that point on we followed a stream along a path that kept crossing the stream without bridges, so that we spent a lot of time trying to find the best stepping stones across. Finally, we reached a far end of the park, where we had to leave and reenter about a kilometer away to get to Jusan Pond. In the movie, the pond had unearthly beauty:In real life it was beautiful, but in a very earthly way:
I wasn't disappointed; I knew that it wouldn't live up to the view of it enhanced with skillful cinematography. Also, the floating temple and the gateway were only placed in the pond for the duration of the filming and had to be removed afterwards (it's ok to have an observation deck for some reason but not the awesome temple...). Actually, the very real earthly beauty of the place helped me to realize how many places in Korea are incredibly beautiful. I had idealized this pond in my mind, and the reality, instead of decreasing my awe of the pond, elevated my awe of everywhere else. I may not have had as great a sense of enlightenment and spiritual journey as the story's protagonist, but I have in my own way become much more appreciative of my life and experiences.

Logic and morality, or why I hate Vulcans

I saw the new Star Trek movie a few weeks ago, and there is one scene that has been scarred into my brain because it struck so close to home. As a child Spock answers various questions of logic, mathematics, and physics. He also answers an ethics question with "it is morally praiseworthy but not morally obligatory." The fact that this answer is given is a series of questions that are all treated the same way and answered with the same conviction perfectly capture the Vulcan idea that morality and the best action in any given situation can be derived from logic. My dad is a serious trekkie (well, about the original series, but none of the spin offs), and I grew up with Star Trek as a constant background. My dad clearly admired the Vulcan mindset and instilled in me the value of logic to the exclusion of emotion, which made me insufferably moralizing for a while, and then completely broke me when the drive to learn the truth undermined my very reason for doing so. By the end of my Sophomore year and the beginning of my Junior year I had completely devoted myself to trying to live in (what I took to be) accordance with pure logic and reason. When I saw that this position was itself illogical it all fell apart.

Basically, what I'm saying is that I blame Star Trek for why my head was so fucked for years. Well, I think it was worth it to get where I am now. It is a little discussed phenomenon that if you are lucky there is existential joy on the far side of existential angst.