Truth based fictions. Part 2.

 Jumpsuits and shoulder flags..

The 2nd poster that hung on my childhood bedroom wall was of the Apollo 11 Command Module floating in the Pacific ocean after returning to Earth from the Moon (below left). The 3 astronauts standing outside awaiting rescue in their jumpsuits and shoulder flags looking out at me in permanent out of focus bewilderment. (The Earthrise hung in our bathroom). This poster was pinned up high on the wall at the end of my bed and it was one of the first things I saw in the morning when I was waking up. Writing about this now has just sent me on a Google search looking for it, being curious to compare it to my recollections before I continue. In doing so I realize my memory of this image has been spliced with the memory of another image from that time. Namely the splashdown of the starship Icarus at the beginning of the 1968 movie Planet of the Apes, when the 3 surviving astronauts paddle for shore in an inflatable dinghy (below right). I suppose it does not take a giant leap of the imagination to connect these two and the movie does use imagery reminiscent of those earlier space missions. I was an avid fan of Planet of the Apes as a kid and it was hard to avoid with 5 movies followed by a TV show and an excellent comic book all released in as many years (and equal to my entire life then). With all this mixed in with NASA's ongoing real life space program, my imagination was on a fertile ground to launch me on my own fantastic internal voyages. It was a place where science fiction and science fact fused and I understand why my memory did the same thing by splicing them together this way. Both this movie and the moon landing occurred within a year of my birth and were imprinted upon my awakening consciousness as recent cultural events in what was then, a pre Star Wars universe.

Truth based fictions. Part 1.

It is only the lean of time upon it..

In 1976 when I was 6 years old I had 3 posters on my bedroom wall that my mother had put up to keep me company and I suppose to also make me ponder. One was a painting of a cocktail party where all the guests had guns for heads. Every guest had a different gun identity and each hand held a different drink. When I was laying on my bed this poster was pinned on the wall directly to my right and I could touch it when I reached out. At my tender age I didn’t know anything about guns or drinks, but its message was clear to me. By associating a thing with a person and a person with a thing everyone is a potential killer no matter what drink they happen to be holding, or thereabouts anyways. I’ve searched for this image online several times over the years, but strangely I am still yet to find it. The screenshot above is the result of my latest search. Sometimes I think I might have simply imagined it and it is possible that I have somehow. Gaslighted by my own psyche. It is one of the first memories I have of looking at an image, but I also know that remembering doesn’t necessarily make it true or real and it is only the lean of time upon it that has made it so.

Like an alien artifact that time has turned up..

 

When we look at a photograph in front of us it is already fully formed and ready for connection. This initial comprehension of an image happens in approximately the same fraction of a second that it takes to make the original exposure. A photograph always stands in stark contrast to our own present world where it is being viewed, like an alien artifact that time has turned up before us. We have no control over an images impact upon us because images bypass all conscious firewalls and find their place inside us, connecting to what is already waiting to receive them. The image's innate ability to make us believe them is powerful because we want to believe them and when we do believe them we declare them as a personal truth, even if that truth is noticing its deception.. 

Altered States of Agoraphobia is available to order here