Art that isn't looking away #1: Upstream Color

So if I don't want art to look the other way, what could it be looking at? I'm not advocating didactic or propagandist art - just art that's made in awareness of place we find ourselves in now. Shane Carruth's film Upstream Color, which coincidentally I saw very recently, may be a good example.

So much has been written about it (see below), I don't need to start over, except to mention the way the film references materiality as part of a wider shift in consciousness. We see all sorts of analogue technology: printed books, hand written notes, cassette decks, vinyl records, gold coins. Meanwhile, the characters are constantly - almost obsessively - touching things. The narrative and ideas are conveyed more through sound, music and imagery than words. This sensuous world seems to feature as a counterpoint to or defence against the increasingly blurred boundaries between our 'true' selves and the digitised, biomedical extensions we're engineering.

Upstream Color trailer


Short essay on Upstream Color by Dr Matt Hayler of Exeter University


Reviews of Upstream Color 
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/jonathan-romney-on-upstream-colour-come-on-in-the-water-is-dazzling-8792730.html

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2013/04/the-cautionary-rhapsody-of-upstream-color.html

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/aug/29/upstream-color-review