How does Chris Marker teach you to reinvent yourself?
It was 12 at night. I was sitting on my bed with the computer on my lap preparing the material for the next day: at that time I was teaching Documentary-Script at a film school. The class was going to be about the work of filmmaker Chris Marker.
I was falling asleep, because my day had started very early and throughout the day I had not stopped to rest as I had been busy fulfilling all the points on my to-do list.
I heard a meow that brought me out of my torpor. I do not have cats, nor did I at that time. It must have come from outside, so I leaned out the window. He kept meowing . The sound seemed very close like coming from the apartment door which opens onto a balcony and the stairs, but I could not find him.
I opened the door: there was a black and white cat sitting in the frame waiting for me, then he entered as if he were at home. When I recovered from my amazement, I followed him. When I got to the living room I saw him sitting in one of the dining room chairs, he was staring at me.
I don’t practice telepathy, but I knew immediately what he wanted. I went to the refrigerator, took out the milk, and served him some in a bowl.
I heard a computerized sound coming from my room. On the bed I found my old macbook with the screen full of huge pixels, green, yellow and red … as if it were an old Atari game. I hope it hasn’t broken down, I thought. It was the only tool I had left to be able to give classes supported by something other than my voice, projecting the images on the wall of the room.
I had been downloading illegal torrents so that I could show some excerpts of the filmmaker’s work in question to my students. When checking the computer I realized that it was not responding to any command, but I did not want to turn it off for fear of losing the presentation I had been preparing.
I gave a wild groan and hit the mattress hard to get even. The computer made another low fi digital sound. I thought a virus had gotten into the machine from all those things I had downloaded from the deep web.
The program that had been activated without my consent had white pixelated letters with blue outlines accompanied by very simple synthesizer music. It said: «Travel to 2084 without vertigo.» I pressed the cursor and the following window appeared containing instructions for skydiving illustrated with old military photos.
«In the future imagination could be a labor abandoned by human beings» began a reflective female voice. “Falsely viewed as a job requiring unnecessary and unscientific efforts. Creating one’s own future would be a task left to the omnipresent robotic screens. Invention and desire would have been exchanged for instant stimulus. People will not be able to communicate with their own thoughts without resorting to the mini screens installed on the edge of their left eyes”.
An effective means of moving forward for those who wake up to this technological nightmare is the application of the exercises comprised in a booklet called Artemutación which is distributed clandestinely from hand to hand, and whose origin comes from organized resistance. In this booklet are valuable techniques for self-discovery and transformation through creativity.
The only way to escape would be by joining a resistance group called Maquis. With whom one can learn the arts of skydiving to finally jump away from the flying cities, that have lost contact with the Earth.
I have to accept it: however rudimentary the old aesthetics of that software seemed, its narrative had seduced me. I could no longer think about the class I would give the next day.
I glimpsed out the window because there was a somewhat vanishing shape that contrasted with the black of the night. It seemed to be falling gently through the air. It is a balloon that someone may have lost; I thought.
I clicked the mouse again. The next screen gave a choice between two options
Which one would be best? Neither option seemed to give me any clues that had something to do with the previous information.
Suddenly the cat that had come into my room, jumped to the windowsill and stared down with eyes wide open, like crazy. I stood up and looked out. In the street there was a white cloth falling down, suspended gently by the ramines of air between it and the ground. Something like arms moved under, trying to fold it.
A head and it’s a body with a tight backpack, emerged from the cloth. I soon realized that it was a paratrooper. The first thing that came into my mind is that he was a military man who had landed here as part of a bigger attack against the drug cartel. I looked to the sides expecting to see the enemy ready to shoot him down.
This is going to turn a big mess; I thought.
The military man turned to see me. «He discovered me!» I thought. My first reaction was to go hide, but then he yelled: «Amadeo!»
How does he know my name?
-Amadeo don’t you recognize me? I shook my head.
-The program you have on your computer was what triggered my trip from Ulan Bator to here.
-I do not remember you. I don’t know you, «I answered.» Who are you?
-I’m Hipólito. Come help me fold my parachute before people see me.
I went down and helped him pick up his parachute.
«Quick, let’s go inside,» Hipolito ordered.
He entered the apartment as if he already knew it.
Hi, Milou.
-Do you know the cat? I have no idea where it came from.
–Inmemory, he said.
I winced.
-Inmemory -he said again firmly: everything we remember we do in order to tell ourselves what is convenient either for our growth or for the growth of the ego.
But … What is the ego if it is not me? I thought. Which made me remember something that one of my spiritual teachers, Facundo Cabral, said:
“Good feeds itself, evil destroys itself”
He gently took me by the shoulder and led me into the room. He pointed at the screen and said:
-Option 2 is to meet the programmer. It will open a terminal window, to write instructions: with it you can reconfigure the future, so that it is not written by machines, but by the power of the imagination of Los Maquis, who resist the technocratic occupation. Something similar to the NeoZapatistas in Chiapas, but in the future. And instead of wearing ski masks, they speak out against face masks and in favor of true human contact.
-Option 1 is to meet the Biologist. It takes you to the beginning of the game, beyond the virtual. An organic world where each track is found among nature while you follow a character who recounts his experiences through short reports. With a style that combines the aesthetics of the 50s magazine and the technology of the 90s.
I feel Milou’s purr as it brings it’s head to my nose trying to wake me up. His purr becomes a tremor, an earthquake! I jerk it off until I realize that the earthquake is actually the vibrator on the cell phone that I use as an alarm clock.
I dreamed of Christian Hippolyte-Francois George Bouche Villeneuve, also known as Chris Marker, through his films that functioned as both passive and interactive devices.
I bathed, had breakfast. I washed the dishes including the bowl and left.
I would teach a class that day in the hope of inspiring my students to trust their own voices and dare to be like no one else, just like Marker did.
Recently there is an exhibition to Markers photos in Peter Blooms Galery, if you are interested.
«In the future imagination could be a labor abandoned by human beings» began a reflective female voice. “Falsely viewed as a job requiring unnecessary and unscientific efforts. Creating one’s own future would be a task left to the omnipresent robotic screens. Invention and desire would have been exchanged for instant stimulus. People will not be able to communicate with their own thoughts without resorting to the mini screens installed on the edge of their left eyes”.
Which one would be best? Neither option seemed to give me any clues that had something to do with the previous information.
Thanks for sharring this