In episode one of The Pod, a pilot TV series, the character representing the show's creator, Tim Hope, declares, "Techno is the most powerful invention in the history of humankind."
In episode two, Hope's character is one of the Technos, a sort of poet caste portrayed as living in Lando Calrissian cloud cities, wearing togas and "peacefully trancing" the contemplative life. But their idyll is destroyed by the Retros, a set of grimy urban electric guitar idolaters who also happen to control the state. The Retros destroy the Technos' cloud city, so the Technos go underground to manufacture an armory of immaculate and gleaming white machine guns, tanks and jet fighters. They use these to slaughter every last one of the Retros. The footage is extensive and often graphic, including several bullet to the back of the head executions.
PHOTO COURTESY OF ONEDOTZERO
The humor is dark, black, to me not very funny. In fact, it's the first attempt I've seen to use genocide as a basis for comedy.
PHOTO COURTESY OF ONEDOTZERO
But The Pod is also a vision of the future, or maybe even the present. And -- this is somewhat redeeming -- in the context it is being shown it is only one of many such visions, only one of the multiple universes of possibility.
That context is the fifth Onedotzero digital film festival, a London-based festival that currently provides the world's largest and most respected showcase for digital films. With more than 60 films divided up into a dozen programs, it includes a Spike Jonze documentary, the best in Japanese CGI and commercial applications, like music videos for Radiohead and other top names. The festival enters its second and final week today.
PHOTO COURTESY OF ONEDOTZERO
As The Pod shows, Onedotzero is more than just pop digitalia. Anyone with even a passing interest in the future of humankind (and it doesn't matter whether or not they think that future involves techno) should see this festival. It does more than just let you see what's going on with "the digital" as a medium that now pervades nearly every creative field -- which would probably be enough in itself -- it also asks a lot of big and timely questions.
How are we being changed by the technologies that already dominate us (eg, drugs, machines and communications)? How can we, as individuals, come to deal with a world that is increasingly statistical and impersonal? And why are cultural politics so important to the world today?
Lynnfox, which contributed a music video for FC Kahuna to the current Onedotzero festival, is interesting both for its creations and as a creative unit. Formed nine months ago, it is composed of three architecture school products who went into graphics, then video after completing their graduate degrees.
"We chose the name Lynnfox because we felt it was warmer, more personal. We didn't want to be like a lot of people that choose real techy names, like the Pixel Monkeys or even Onedotzero," said Patrick Chen
In what and who they are, Lynnfox shows something of Onedotzero's (unwritten) manifesto for the digital arts. Lynnfox is a collective using an individual's name; its members have crossed the boundaries of traditional disciplines; they are also multi-cultural.
In the festival catalogue, Onedotzero provides some interesting statistical information about its make-up. This doubles as a reflection of creative enterprises in the world today and what they are like. Notably, it admits deficiencies as well as strengths, with one major theme consisting of diversity and the lack of diversity in the way digital media are being applied. To note: Onedotzero's digital filmmakers, or artists, come primarily from Europe, North America and Japan, not poor countries; they were educated in more than a dozen different disciplines, including theater, illustration, writing, music and architecture; half are groups, half individuals; three quarters of production is commercial, one third personal; only 1 percent was produced by women.
With this recognition of the here and now, there is a certain optimism to the festival. Chen noted this, mentioning that at Lynnfox, "our education made us all cynical," to an extent that "we are always basically dissatisfied with whatever we do." But the possibility of positive effort, of creating something, has dispelled some of the cynicism. Because he can also say, "we're really doing something, and I really like what we're doing."
Perhaps even more interesting, this kernel of optimism comes in spite of and in full awareness of a de-emphasis of the individual and a lower appreciation for individual ideas. To point, appropriation was a theme of the pop art of the 1960s and 70s; in Onedotzero it ubiquitous. But this is just a reflection of contemporary society. The originality of single ideas is held in low esteem; what people recognize is how you put a number of ideas together. In his London architecture school, Chen said he and his schoolmates copied each other's ideas all the time. "Our only rule was that you can copy whatever you want, as long as you make it better."
Chen's process, the one currently espoused by the collective Lynnfox, is basically Darwinian. For any idea, multiple permutations are created, and the one that solves the problem best wins. Human brains make decisions the same way.
So three heads are better than one, in the case of Lynnfox. And in the case of Onedotzero, hundreds of heads are better than one. The festival, which merely claims to promote digital film, ends up providing enormous possibilities through its many voices. They range from fully computerized worlds to documentaries that use handicams for some of the most intimate filmmaking yet seen. And if those voices include Hope and The Pod, I think it's fine. Some people find it funny.
The Onedotzero festival will show daily at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum from 10am to 5pm through next Sunday. Recommended viewing includes the Spike and Mike Documentary Double, a pair of documentaries by Spike Jonze and Mike Mills playing at 3:30pm Tuesday and Saturday.
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