Gargle, don’t swallow
Author: Simon Sellars • Nov 29th, 2007 •Category: Ballardosphere, CCTV, surrealism, surveillance, technology
I’m slowly coming up for air after being buried alive by work and study. To everyone whose links, articles, essays and features I’ve promised to post, I’ll begin to work through the backlog over the next few days. By the way, what does it mean when you dream about trying to enter a church, but are gently repelled by an unseen force and deposited on the pathway like a leaf on a downward-spiralling draft? Or when you are presented with three umbilical cords attached to nothing in particular, and you know you have to make a decision and cut the *right* one? These dreams and seemingly endless variants of them happen to me in times of significant mental exertion stress.
In the meantime, here’s my last word on CCTV. This is rather fitting, actually. When I first wrote about the SurveillanceSaver software, I imagined people watching for me watching for them watching for me etc etc in an endless feedback loop. Then in the comments section, a reader said that the byproduct of surveillance tech is more M John Harrison in Nova Swing (”one mother of an interzone”) than it is Ballard. Now I discover through my site stats that M John Harrison is watching me watching him, from his blog Uncle Zip’s Window, where he tries out SurveillanceSaver only to abandon the experiment due to boredom…which is precisely what’s happened to me (plus the work and mad dreams got in the way).
But MJH is naturally more eloquent:
Surveillance Saver: after a bit, the narrative possibilities collapse, the intensity of your gaze subsides & these are just empty corners of the world again. It’s a bit like hitch-hiking & not getting a ride. I can understand the Ballardian imperative to usurp & undermine the ideology & aesthetics of surveillance by turning it into a game. But this [the Surveillance Camera Players] looks like a more entertaining way to do it, a lot more hands-on.
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Dreaming of possibilities, imaging a cut-up world, a place where rules is only a word, another concept speaking to another concept speaking to another concept and so on…
Sincerely,
7di9
You dream means that someone long ago tried to make you go to church when you didn’t want to.
The 3 umbilical cords represent 3 possible paths through life. Cut the one on the left side. (Death always approaches from over your left shoulder, as Don Juan & Carlos Castaneda knew).
I’m not quite altogether over Surveillence cam. Still an image or two will surprise. Most recently, the image of a new car dealership. Empty. Night. This was wonderful. For the most part, however, not the thing I’d hoped it would be.
I don’t think the dream has anything to do with church, actually. Probably more to do with wanting to escape reality, I’d imagine, but being denied the chance by quotidian responsibility. The umbilical cords are something much much more mysterious. And carried with it very sinister vibes. A lot at stake. So much pressure.
Regarding Surveillance Saver: my favourite feed is still the dolphins in a marine zoo, which suddenly cut to an overweight woman swimming in a public pool. It seemed deliberate. Or did I dream that? Actually, now I want to to check it out again…