Sated Days Proposal

Shannon Li

Normandy Sherwood

APSS-UT 2

1 May 2022

Sated Days

As I explained in an earlier article, modern men are dead. But how did they die? I have done a lot of theoretical analysis in the article, but I think the theory is not enough for people’s material life. As Karl Marx mentioned in his article Theses On Feuerbach, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.” I think my artistic creation is a practice of philosophical theory that changes the world. What I want to show is the process of a person dying. Not biological death, but internal, active, loss of the ability to live.

The artwork I want to make is a short film, and I’ll be the writer, director, and multiple handymen that don’t need to be subdivided. It focuses on the life of a delivery man. It tells the story of the protagonist from having a dream of changing the world, and then falling into a forbidden love. Then to sexual inversion, and disciplined cynics. Until the protagonist completely gave up all dreams and died. This may seem a bit abstract. If we describe it in a familiar way, it should be: an unemployed vagabond who dreams of a better life becomes a deliveryman and falls in love with a prostitute. Of course, as a lot of directors I love, they kill prostitutes, and of course I wanted to learn how by imitating. Following the story will continue: He brings food to her everyday, with his own coins. But in one day’s delivery, he finds abnormal screams and fighting noises comes out of her room. He dreams about being a hero and saves her, beats the bad guy, and free her from sex work. But he does nothing. He stands in front of the door, untill there is no sound inside. Then he leaves, while the murderer holds a knife looks at him from the peephole. Next day, the police calls him. Inform him that she is dead.

The idea for this story took shape a long time ago. I’m a huge fan of the Ghost in the Shell series, and I first got my hands on it about seven years ago. In its second TV series, S.A.C. 2nd GIG, there is an episode titled Night Cruise. In a cyberpunk world depicted by Ghost in the Shell, portray the image of a driver. The refugee problem caused by the global local war, as well as the ethical problem in the context of prosthetic transformation - it happened that the driver had participated in the war at the same time and experienced full-body mechanization. He gradually felt that he was being cut out of society. He was dissatisfied with the work environment that was not respected by his boss, and fantasized about killing his boss by deliberately causing a car accident while driving (10:00-12:00). But he didn’t do anything, he just fantasized. I think I was deeply influenced by the work’s bold assumptions about world politics and the description of the existence of a highly developed capitalist society. Every small change in the world can be huge when projected on one of its people. I have to appreciate the influence Ghost in the Shell had on my art style when I was younger.

The shattering of dreams, just like the trauma of falling into the Real Register after the shattering of Object a, is one of the processes in which modern people die. We constantly fantasize and then fall into but in such a postmodern society, all semiotic language has an overwhelming gravity. It forces us to face a world where desire is lost, and symbols are fragmented. How powerless we are in the face of it that we have to die. Until we get used to the feeling of surviving in chaos and can no longer be reborn. Poor sinking.

Regarding the thinking behind this story, I think I myself am as sad as the protagonist. I am a Marxist artist, all my practice is an extension of the theory, and all my theories are for the people. Because practice is the only criterion for testing truth. But if there are people here who care as much as I do about the well-being of the people, the sad truth is that we have actually failed. The Left Revolution, like the delivery man, is alive but dead. Even so, should I do nothing? In fact, I did nothing. But I hate myself more for not being able to do anything. So I wanted to at least do something with this movie instead of sitting in a studio on top of an ivory tower and doing so-called art. I want to dedicate this film to all those who are fighting for the world, all who were, are, and will be fighting for a better tomorrow. All those who fight for freedom, equality. And the most important, for the people.

How should we live? This is the only topic we can question now as dying people. What are we living for? Who do we work for? Does all the value we create belong to us? Modernity has killed us, and how? How should we live in this breathless world? I need to throw these questions through my artistic practice. I need to make people realize that we have to live!

But why, why is it necessary to express my arts to the people, and what is the importance of this work? It is truly a harsh question to answer: why we need to wake people up? I have not yet present a solution for the death of the leftist revolution yet, or to say, what shall we do to the modern society? I am in a cynics posture not pushing down the building, but it may not be a good choice to push it. There are people believing that they need a space in the building instead of pushing down the building. And my approach, is simply let us realize there are something we need to work on. There are people suffering. If we can see the truth of suffer, we can then practice the next step of pushing the building. Present them a life without the building is important. Reimagine a life outdoor is important. Democracy has to be built over the transparency of truth.

But how should it be done? Theories have limitations, especially in the face of what is happening. All I do is to express the information I think can be conveyed through artwork. Then the question will be starkly in front of us: how to push the building, and how do we survive after the building collapses? I would like to quote Slavoj Žižek, who once wrote in The Parallax View, his most famous motto: “I would prefer not to”. I have always argued that we have to do something. But is my film, the artistic creation of all of us reduced to a force for strengthening what we are against? I think, I’m dead too, and I’m writing this in desperation. But at least, the dead deliveryman has to live, cynically.

I wish to publish this film onto the Internet. As how the Internet killed us, its influence of information will be part of my project’s ideal. But I do not expect any wave to be initiated. Not any fire to be started. I wish my starting point will motivate those who are practicing, and those who are realizing. I wish to show those fighters they are not alone, and meanwhile I will let more and more people to join our road toward a better future. The stage this will lead to, is a fire burning in the woods. Everything old will be destructed and a world born anew.

Thank you, remember to drink more water. As a process of existing, and an action that is actively perceiving exists. As a resistance to the potential death.

Work Cited

Marx, Karl, and Frederick Engels. Marx Engels - Selected Works Volume 1. First Edition, vol. 1, Foreign Languages Press, 2022.

Production I.G. “Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG Epi. 2.” Dailymotion, uploaded by jenniferlinda9370, 2 Jan. 2019, www.dailymotion.com/video/x6zvnr8.

ŽIžek, Slavoj. The Parallax View (Short Circuits). Reprint, The MIT Press, 2009.