Remembering a dream
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Nov 27, 2024
A sky bright with blue digital light, in between the Citadel’s metal ceiling and its denizens; those who have never seen the sun…
Briefly, I will explain where this insane idea came from, why it hits hard, and its implications… (NO SPOILERS)
…If that sounds interesting to you, please feel free to join me on this deep dive!
-1- Nature / Artifice -- a linguistic preface
The word NATURE is from the Latin Natura, meaning: «that which will be born» OR «that which shall birth itself» ⟨Note for any linguists reading: the second definition due to mediopassive or intransitive-reflexive voice⟩
The word NATURE is from the Latin Natura, meaning: «that which will be born» OR «that which shall birth itself» ⟨Note for any linguists reading: the second definition due to mediopassive or intransitive-reflexive voice⟩
A future participle, this type of word encodes a process without an active agent or subject -- nobody needs to interact; Nature is a spontaneous, self-perpetuating cycle of creation, death and new life.
In contrast, ARTIFICE and MANUFACTURE require a deliberate make -- an external hand to bring objects into being -- the very word MANUFACTURE derives from MANUS ⟨hand⟩ and FACERE ⟨to make⟩ and therefore means «that which is made by hand», the product of deliberate, conscious agents.
In the Citadel, the very idea of nature as the original creative force has been erased, replaced entirely by artifice and manufacture. The denizens who live there cannot conceive of spontaneous emergence from the ground beneath their feet.
xxx
-2- The Citadel's Condition
Unlike the fortified citadels of the 1600s, robustly built with lofty walls to keep invaders out, the Citadel of ‹PLASTIC SPIRES› serves the opposite purpose. Its populace remains contained. Encircled within a steel wall, all the doors long since welded shut, it is encased beneath a looming ceiling; the Citadel blocks out the sun, casting its denizens into a shadowed world where the light of day is an absurdity they’ve never known. Instead of stars, endless personalised advertisements drift about the Citadel. Alternatively, perhaps the ceiling itself is a giant screen upon which an endless news feed is delivered -- no doubt having been carefully and craftily created by the powers that be.
It is a prison cell for living well,
a living hell, and a wishing well.
The Citadel is a human zoo,
A mouse utopia -- meta-dystopia;
part shopping mall -- part factory,
It is a schizoid city, driven to madness
by abundant information under
surveillance + satiation = domination.
xxx
-3- Intertext·Huxley
In Huxley’s ‹Brave New World› the people were conditioned to feel intense discomfort from any contact with the natural world. Grass, sand, vast meadows, and even the open air were alien and repulsive to them -- antithetical to the manufactured existence to which they were accustomed and adapted.
In Huxley’s ‹Brave New World› the people were conditioned to feel intense discomfort from any contact with the natural world. Grass, sand, vast meadows, and even the open air were alien and repulsive to them -- antithetical to the manufactured existence to which they were accustomed and adapted.
The Citadel takes this even further -- it does not condition its denizens to fear nature. Instead, it ensures they cannot even think about it.
Speech control = thought control.
·Orwell
In ‹1984› there were similar such controls to restrict speech and thought, removing the words ⟨or linguistic tokens which represent ideas⟩ targeting those words which could lead to heretical, revolutionary or creative thoughts.
In ‹1984› there were similar such controls to restrict speech and thought, removing the words ⟨or linguistic tokens which represent ideas⟩ targeting those words which could lead to heretical, revolutionary or creative thoughts.
In this vein, the Citadel achieves a similar end by erasing nature from language and culture entirely, over several generations. To remove the words is to remove the thoughts, and without the ability to conceive of nature, the denizens are imprisoned in a world where even the idea of «outside» is literally unthinkable. This erasure not only confines the denizens physically but adapts their minds entirely to the Citadel's closed system, tethering their thoughts and desires to its artificial world.
-4- DreamBefore this project began, I had a peculiarly vivid dream -- part of a pattern, as many of the most vivid dreams I’ve had in my life have come in the last nine months, all tied to this project. I dreamed of a night sky impetuously and imperiously spoiled. The moon wore a giant Apple logo, and giant projections, like Coca-Cola billboards, were plastered across the clouds by unseen projectors, obscuring any hope to see the stars at night. This vision encapsulated a certain essence: a world where the natural had been completely co-opted by the artificial. Carelessly erasing that eternal scene which hangs above us every night -- for the stars are indeed the archaic and eternal muse of all humankind.
xxx
★ «The CHTHONIAN» ⟨a definition⟩
"Earthy and subterranean forces; magical, mysterious; enchanting, enrapturing; violent and vortical or silently swaying and shimmering the rocky mountain-face like sea-foam frenetically slow: The Chthonian is femininity -- underlying unseen primal energy; primordial brutality, waves of Darwinian waste. A dream within a dream, the cycle watching the watchers, and the unknown unknown.”
-5- Commodification
Imagine a dystopian capitalistic scenario where the system is exaggerated to s counterproductive degree. It has been stretched to its limit, exposing its inherent flaws.
In such a world, even the sky becomes a resource -- prime advertising space with a lot of footfall and a high rate of return on ad spend, or whatever other metrics make it attractive for corporations to exploit in their quasi-robotic manner.
It is Radical Materialism writ large.
They create measurable monetary value for customers and shareholders but give no thought to the non-procurable value that was already there, erased without discussion or recourse. A consumerist conquest of the clouds.
-6- Duality
Between lines of bucolic verse, there is an equal and opposite reflection -- yes, nature herself casts a wicked shadow…
Each of us is the inheritor of an unbroken genetic line, which extends back into eternity. A line toughened through millennia of brutal Darwinian survival -- shaped by the elements, the toxic Flora and predatory threats which scoured the savage and hungry planes of prehistory. Safety is a natural desire but we are the descendants of survivors and this should give us courage and promote faith in the instincts deeply embedded.
Further, we should always be suspicious when governing bodies and institutions offer their self-proclaimed «benevolent» hand of protection. For that hand can fit just as well inside an iron fist as a velvet glove. Remember also, those who earn their mandate to power by promising safety have an incentive to permit, or even perpetuate, the dangers they preside to safeguard against.
-7- Worldbuilding
In the Citadel, the natural world is not simply suppressed but forgotten entirely, leaving a vacuum in the category of «origin» of any item which is filled with artifice. This erasure is not merely physical but conceptual, severing the denizens from the cycles of life and death that shaped their ancestors. What remains is a sterile world of control, where even the sky has been kept away by the steel walls which have no door, and the ceiling which covers the Citadel. Long ago, this aggressive architecture was installed to create a place like a giant tin can or walled bird-cage… Sealed into neon darkness and a culture of confusion. The sun and the stars have been erased from memory along with any possibility to imagine a different society.
The perfect dystopia.
Yet, in the heart of every denizen, something is missing…
——By Ø
@plasticspires
«Apollo gives form and shape; all artifacts are Apollonian. Melting and union are ★Chthonian; separation and individuation are Apollonian.»