A Conversation in Quotes…

…

A : You’re later than I had expected.

MK : Look who’s talking. You didn’t even send over an invitation.

A: “If you stay put, people will come to you”

MK : were those Doisneau’s words?

A: Yes

…

A : Upon sharing and synchronization all information loses its singularity, and insinuates itself into the subconscious of those who do not have an ulterior motive, or is internalized by the consciousness of those who do have an ulterior motive.

MK : Are those your own words, based on experience?

A : Yes. After all, even you were acting like the Laughing Man in the end.

MK : The phenomenon was indeed interesting. That aside what was your initial motive, the one that triggered all these incidents?

A : “To you everything that occurs in the world must appear false”

MK : J.D.Salinger

A : Yes

…

A : It all started when I chanced upon an email on the net. It was most probably a threat…

MK : And the one who wrote it was the “original” Laughing Man?

A : When it comes down to it, yes. “I am a machine that exists in order to show my world to everyone”

MK : Dziga Vertov. A film director, was it?

A : Yes. I imagined that my mission was to confirm and transmit the “information” that I chanced upon, and exerted myself alone.

MK : And you suffered a spectacular defeat. The innocent mediator became dejected at the sheer odiousness of the societal system and became mute.

A : Yes. And I became a mediator fated to disappear. As if I was a writer whose existence was made all the more conspicuous because he did not publish new works. In other words, “It is the medium that determines the societal system’s dynamics via self extermination; when the medium disappears; it leaves its trace neither within nor without the system”

MK : Frederick Jameson.

A : Yes and no; the latter portion is Oosawa Masachi. Although I understood his writings, I did not believe them till I saw it with my own eyes. To think that the absence of an original could spawn copies without an original… If it were up to you what would you call that phenomenon.

MK : Stand-alone complex.

A : Contrary to what one might think, the current societal system possesses an inherent mechanism for triggering such phenomena. That only feels like the beginnings of despair to me… What do you think?

MK : Who knows? I can’t quite say. However I’ve found something that creates the possibility of retaining one’s individuality at the end of the synchronization of information.

A : And that is?

MK : Curiosity, probably.

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A tribute, of sorts, to the most intellectual anime (excuse the antithesis – in this case it’s justified) ever. (the conversation consists of extracts from the last episode of Ghost in the Shell : Stand Alone Complex – it suffers from a few of the disgusting cliches of the genre – but dialogues such as these more than compensate for the same…)

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