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November 02, 2004
Control and Failure
I used to have an old Kingswood which was quite a heavy car but it was also really fast . . . and the faster you went the lighter it got, until you'd reach a point where it would actually begin to feel like it was floating. It was at that point that you'd realise you had very little control over the thing. It was scary. It was also exciting.
Cameron said something about how it's almost impossible to scare yourself. So I've been thinking about ways you can actually scare yourself. Cameron was refering to the fright, the 'boo', the completely unexpected moment . . . that a "monster always comes from the dark", so how can we scare ourselves because we always know what's coming ñ what to expect. I guess the car story here is about risk and fear . . . creating a dangerous situation, one you are not in control of . . . well less control of than usual. To varying degrees luck/chance come into play here. You know roughly what to expect, and you go faster and faster and faster, until chance begins to outweigh the expected.
A monster that is beyond it's master's control.
I've been looking at images of crashed hot rods lately. There's something quite beautiful about a mangled wreck (corpse) that has had so much effort, attention, and care put into it. The failure to control what you have made.
The benefit of failure is of course that you might make discoveries because of it. You might discover that a 74 Kingswood cannot take a particular corner at a particular speed . . . you might learn from this . . . and replace the suspension system so that it can. Similarly Dr Frankenstein probably learnt a lot by the failures or flaws in his monster. In this respect failure is generative, in that it invites you to explore it in order to either fix it, or possibly, use it. By 'use' I mean to actually lead you somewhere you didn't expect to go . . . that failure might set you on a new and unfamiliar path.
Posted by Luke Wood at November 2, 2004 11:40 AM