Moon and Institutionalization

Last night I decided to watch Moon. I'm posting about this because in the course of doing so, the film began to seem oddly similar to a contemporary computer game, Portal. When I played Portal, I never understood why so many thought it was something of a revolutionary game. Moon changed this because even though I noted the similarities, somehow the film portrayed the notion that there was symbolism to be had more clearly.

Seeing the symbols in Moon revealed those in Portal, and through processing the possible meanings brought to light perhaps why I had missed the ideas in the first place. Four essential ideas exist in each:

• Humans are born into a world where protocol has defined the environment.
  
• Centralized control exists, which imposes upon inhabitants duties or tests.
  
• Nonhuman entities exist to facilitate duties and are given empathetic qualities.
  
• Escape from this world is only possible due to an oversight in the protocol.

The first idea, that protocol has defined the environment, is evident from the aesthetics and location of both works. Stark white in definition, paneled, and buffed, both worlds give the impression that nothing beyond what one can see exists. The location also plays into this idea, by either being located on the moon during a communication blackout, or in a compound artificially lit that begins a plastic cell, from which travel is controlled by an external computer. The second idea, of centralized control through duties or tests, is easily recognizable, but significant in that it reinforces the impression of the highly controlled world. The existence of nonhuman entities in each bearing empathetic qualities is one of the most striking similarities. In Moon, this is represented by GERTY, who exists to keep the station's occupant on their task. In Portal, I believe this is represented by the Companion Cube, with which the player completes tests. The empathetic quality in each is from their similar aesthetic qualities: GERTY has a face reflecting its current emotion, and the Companion Cube has a pink heart printed on each of its sides. The third idea, concerning escape, occurs in Moon only because the clone resuscitation process is tied to when the system thinks the previous clone has died. Somehow the system in error believes this, and so the new clone ends up retrieving the first, who is not dead, eventually allowing for the clones to realize that they are clones thereby cause a break in the system. In Portal, this more or less exists due to the software in the centralized computer allowing the player to leave their cell even though the world the player is released into needs maintenance.

After seeing these ideas in both works, it isn't hard to see the reasons why Portal was popular and perceived to be innovative. I'm willing to make the wager that people enjoyed the game because it aligned with experience in secondary education. From people trying to understand Generation Y, there has been much talk about how Y's life has been defined more than previous generations by institutionalized practices. This impression comes from the increased prominence of standardized testing, over-medication, over-scheduled lives, and growing up digital. If correct, my own lack of understanding makes sense. My life up to college was rural; I went to a school having on average less than 80 people per class; an anomaly compared to my peers in college. From understanding Moon more, I'd say that the film is important culturally, and hopefully further excursions into art which discusses these ideas will round my understanding of why segments of Generation Y hold these ideas.

Interpreting "Modernism"

Although this realization is rather elementary, recently the answer to a question often asked: "what is modernism, doesn't that just mean, current?", become obvious. This realization came mostly from some readings which eloquently defined the idea. "Modern," meaning "now" or "current" isn't a reference to our time or to a period; doing so is the primarily incorrect way of approaching the term. Rather, since this is a philosophic term, one needs to interpret just the word in how it defines a philosophical outlook. Thereby, the idea becomes more obvious: modernism is the philosophy of the present, the ideal of living in a timeless current or "now" of non-linear experience.

Given this method of interpretation, the term postmodern becomes more clear in its definition and, given more understanding of the philosophy, a humorous label. The term meaning that, first, postmodernism is a reaction to modernism, but that it is historic, or backwards looking. Where modernism defined itself by its timeless objectification of reality, postmodernism defines itself from a more linear experiential stance, where less in life can be quantified, universalized, and objectified.

Last Night's Insomnia

I'm a postmodernist working through a modernist lifestyle. No contradictions seem apparent while doing modernist work and I'm pragmatically superior to my peers for my modernistic disciplines and focus while I work. The answer to this lies in truly understanding postmodernism as seeing life full of a multitude of philosophies that can be all embraced effectively, choosing one or the other merely based on the context appropriate. Extension, and perhaps less trustworthy, is the idea that according to the postmodernist, these philosophic systems generated not out of universalized natural law which is a modernist idea, but from a context. For example, information systems are an inherently modernistic practice and thereby cause modernistic philosophic systems to by used by those who engage in said practice.