A Pentagram for Conjuring the Narrative


I'm even going to pretend to understand how the five segments of this piece conjure a narrative, or even the relationship between them. So instead, here are some moments I found thought-provoking.

I.
Frampton relates his friend's disturbing, recurring two-part nightmare: he lives two entire lifetimes. But each one feels like half of a whole rather two experiences lived fully. In the first, he is an heiress who must spend every moment of her life being surveilled. In the next, he is the heir to that heiress's fortune, but he must spend his life watching the footage. All of his life experiences are derived through watching those films. This made me consider the two extreme, camera-based lives of the imagined individuals. One, with whom the camera's gaze has been present since birth, and the other, whose entire worldview was informed solely by the camera.

II.
Mount Fujiyama is apparently visible from any place in Japan. Thus, any perception includes this. Not exactly the same concept, but this idea of an omnipresent object accumulating power through visibility reminded me of a work at the Warehouse recently. Dahn Vo bought a chair that was in the Oval Office during the Kennedy administration, took it apart, and reassembled it. The work was intended to question what kind of power or knowledge objects can acquire through their proximity to historic moments.

III.
So, the two existing conditions of film, according to Frampton, are the frame, and the plausibility of photographic illusion. Narrative has to be the third, like Frampton said--no matter what effort is made to subvert narrative, it will always persist in some way.

V.
I'm glad Frampton began to question the reader's judgment because I started to question his.

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