Where does absurdity lie in the search for the sublime? Where is the line between simulating and becoming? Simulation is absurd. Replicating things in an inauthentic form parodies it because it will always be without the true essence of the thing. Thus we miss the mark between us and our connection with the thing and instead relate to its relation to the thing. It abstracts away our connection. But can the parody itself be sublime without relationship to the thing. No, it will always be a parody and so a relation so we aren’t connected to the parody but rather the relationship between the parody and the real thing and (as always) ourselves.
This was inspired by Ge’s look at his Sonic Lighter. The lighter becomes, in a way, sublime yet useless. Or perhaps sublime because it is useless. The interplay between its failed purpose and its realistic representation creates a new space of wonderment. I can actually remember when I saw the iPhone lighter (not sure if it was Ge’s). In my 6 year old mind I contemplated what purpose this screen lighter served and I stayed in contemplation trying to figure it out. I would see people use it and think there must be something there whether it actually lights stuff or not it must be useful. In the end, I figured out that there was nothing there. But now I realize there was. The state of wonderment itself, in figuring out and puzzling together some purpose and connection between the user and the app, in that curiosity there was something. Something sublime? Maybe or perhaps just confusing. Either way, it affected and hooked me.
The “I am T-Pain” app also hooked me now. Usually, I think that mediums like film or painting are just that - mediums that can be a bridge to connect us to art. But I also think that the sublime can be described as an unmediated experience with art. Thus the medium both connects us with and separates us from the sublime. As described in the book, the T-Pain app however allows the medium to act as a proxy for ourselves. In favor of production, the self is abstracted away by the medium. Thus the connection between ourselves and the art is hijacked by the medium, the auto-tuner. I don’t mean to discount other mediums that are authentically used such as the playing of a flute. So there is a caveat, that is, the connection to the sublime is hijacked unless we are at one with the auto-tuner and we allow the auto-tuner to become us so that it becomes an extension of ourselves. Where does that extension lie? To what extent does it become us? Perhaps it is in its hidden presence to us, in its immersion where one could not separate the action from the action doer because their swift movement is one and the same. But anyways we can reach the sublime in novelty and absurdity, but perhaps you cannot authentically reach it through the medium of the parody.