Loie Vaughn

This week I had two shoots: one on Monday night and one on Wednesday night. Monday I shot the next five seconds of my hand-drawn scene, and Wednesday I shot the first part of my first cut-out scene, moving my cut-out fragments of paper millimeters at a time across the eight and a half by eleven rectangle of white. Tuesday, I had a conference with Jason and Laurie. I laid out my storyboard, and gave a synopsis of my piece. We discussed some of the transitions between my scenes, and I decided to create a swirling cut-out of the hand-drawn color in the last scene which will move from my cut-out head to the box that is my consciousness. Jason spoke about his difficulties with his interview subjects. Two of the men he interviewed spoke genuinely and without hubris about their philosophy on peace consciousness, while the two women mostly worked to promote their organization. Jason was worried about the balance of gender in his piece. I told him I didn’t think it was something to worry about, as it would be best not to make gender an issue and focal point and focus on the point of his piece instead. I also told Jason and Laurie about my interest in the Long Now project.

The Long Now Foundation is an organization set on expanding our society’s concept of time by building a monumental clock.  Because we are obsessed with counting down the hours, minutes, and seconds, we seem to have lost our sense of long time. This clock will last ten thousand years, and will be so accurate it will only lose a day every twenty thousand years. The Long Now has bought land in the Sierra Nevadas and is possibly going to build a labyrinth around the clock to encourage myth and reverence about the monument. On the Long Now website, there are several links to essays written by Daniel Hillis on the philosophy behind the Foundation. This concept of enlarging people’s concept of time from years to centuries seems to conflict with my reading of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. Zen Mind encourages one to realize this very moment- that’s all. However, because the Long Now intends to give people a better sense of responsibility for the future and therefore encourages attention to the moment, along with awareness of the future, there is not complete conflict… I am still trying to work out the meeting point between deep time and the moment. “Long Now proposes both a mechanism and a myth. It began with an observation and idea by computer scientist Daniel Hillis:

I found this concept of time and responsibility, and the speed in which we live our daily lives very applicable to my readings on awareness and consciousness. It is yet another philosophy I like and will try to incorporate into my developing personal philosophy.

Reading about the Long Now makes me wonder how long my own media art will last. Will my film projects last longer than my digital projects? Or vise versa? Thursday and Saturday I edited previous drawings, adding many many frames to smooth out and slow down the motion of the birds and the clouds moving past the mountains. In making these edits, I realized I hadn’t been focusing on my drawing as much as I should have the week before. Making the tiniest of adjustments takes the utmost concentration and attention to detail, which is trying when I am feeling a little behind in my work. Maybe if I think of this project as something more permanent and more important than just an independent project for Mediaworks I will take my time and make it the best it can be. Maybe my project will be kept for centuries and used as an example of student work in the years shortly after the millennium.