Tunnel Vision: Balenciaga and my Digital Mind
Image Courtesy: Sophie Li
That glowing, beaming, and beeping thing in the palm of my hand. Waking me daily and reminding me of the ever-so pressing data-enriched tasks begging for a form of physical relevancy. I'm sure my energy, although a bit discriminating to state, is most like yours - scattered. A gal always on the go, switching tasks like tabs in the smallest of mundane moments to the largest of my most time-consuming.. I have to say the inner-workings of my scattered, ill-focused, indecisive, and yet impressionable mind tends to cling to any given opportunity in which Kodak's beat can be reasonably aided. Yes, I'm listening to Tunnel Vision as I type this. Although, I can’t help but deny that the lines of mumble rap, inconspicuously serve a generation and the technological age more than you’d initially imagine.
That glowing, beaming, and beeping screen in the palm of my hand functions with an alignment more akin to my inner-world then I'd like to imagine.
I’ll explain: I know where meaning lies in the ability to form a separation in my mind between a preoccupation with the constant flow of data and with the natural world around me. It's become an imperative and even, a still-forming artistic ideal. For me, the feeling of navigating seamlessly in the digital sphere is a tunnel in itself where the rest of the world and sometimes arguably, humanity blurs itself out.
Quite a journey of discernment it has been. My steps away from the digital sphere and it’s tunnel-lens formed critically during my freshman year of college. During that time, I knew one thing definitely: Peace is to be found only from immediate interactions. The year following I knew yet another definitive: The natural world provokes an image quality that is poetic, of a wide-lens, and tunnel-less. I'll note, that time spent without technology may serve to be the most sublime contrast for our generation. (You can decide this for yourself.)
As I grew further, my digital-less perspective revealed to me the crux of our generation: Life today is technology. (& I will add, that this is something I've knowingly struggled with.) Personally, I find that the true meaning of tunnel vision lies within one's connection to him or herself, through disconnection from the processed facades of the digital world.) Although this may be more of an ill-fitting mental terrain for culture today.
Nonetheless, it is something to think about. I ask the questions: What exactly are we digitally consumed by? Why are we allowing it to consume us? And what is exactly, is the feeling of this digital consumption? Is it… Tunnel Vision?
I'll leave you with the words:
"Presence is the key, now is the answer."
… How ever you wish to define: digital or not …
Like most art, fashion is yet an expression and simultaneously a reflection of culture. Our art codes 1’s an 0’s, creating a plethora of definitions that are all up for interpretation. Although most notably announced is the influence of the technological ideal. Tunnel-like in structure, Balenciaga's Spring 2019 collection redefines the experience of a captivating, fully-consuming runway show. “I always had this idea of a video tunnel, like being inside someone’s digital mind,” said Demna Gvasalia, Balenciaga’s Creative Director.
As they walk, the surrounding change is communicated in a sensory-based dialogue with the audience. The runway show set is an LED tunnel that reflection of the inner-workings of the digital world itself. What is most interesting is Balenciaga’s imaginative quality that is carried into the minds of its seated audience. The variety of moods and distinctive focuses led me to conclude this: The tunnel we find ourselves in, digitally speaking, is of a variety and of a certain transcendence itself. It’s meaning, of course, is up to interpretation but yet still decidedly undiscovered. According to Balenciaga, our vague focus is painted as so.
This “Tunnel Vision” life is digital: Bright, dark, and mutable.
Strike Out,
Writer: Jen Hopkins
Editor: Hali Azpeitia
Tallahassee