I’ve struggled to define the tone I want in my projects for quite some time. It’s a feeling that I want to capture, and I don’t entirely think I will ever sway from it in my pursuit, instead going at it from different angles. When I describe it to people, I have tended to define it as “a feeling of ‘off’”, but I am not sure this is quite right. I know films like “The Shining” or some of David Lynch’s works get close to what I am looking for. I believe, however, that when I say “feeling of off”, what I actually mean is a true spiritual stirring. With this illuminated, I’d argue the aforementioned works are, indeed, in the realm of the spiritual, but perhaps not pointing towards God but instead other spiritual entities.
I don’t know… This is hard to talk about, of course.
In the same way that math and logic are abstracted languages to communicate the physical world between humans, we are lacking in any sort of language to communicate such spiritual matters.
Regardless, I feel like I’ve honed in a bit more on my particular “goal of tone” through more earthly language.
If you’ve ever seen a Facebook meme along the lines of a Minion kneeling at a Cross, intended to be inspirational in tone, and thought “how silly old people are”, you’re not alone. Oh, it is so cringy and weird. And yet… Now bear with me, but I have such a craving to feel what they are feeling when they see this. I’ve been so inundated with pop culture, causing me to perceive these memes as “cringy” and perhaps even sacrilegious, that I struggle to get the high that these elders are feeling. This weird combination of true beauty and weird-out cuteness standing on the shoulders of tradition based on truth. Something about this is so compelling and yet I surely can never understand it through these images.
Too conditioned socially to find it anything but cringy, and yet the emotion is still in me and you and we can unlock it. If one were able to unlock it in generalized culture, I suspect that, through all that it encompasses, it would thus be far the highest of humanity’s art.
Ok, I’ll stop here on this after one more note: if you’re skeptical still, think about the Minion as disassociated from pop culture. A truly abstracted creation (cartoon) contrasted with the distillation of beauty.* A whole experience.
I… Well, I think I shouldn’t go any further for now maybe…
*I must state that the image I am imagining may not match yours. I could not find the particular meme that I am thinking of, as it is probably more of a conglomeration of many memes that my own memory has developed rather than a particular meme. I am, however, seeing a Renaissance-style cross and landscape in which a Minion, kneeling, has been superimposed. Text hovers above with a quaint statement.