THE LIVES OF OTHERS
The evenings are drawing in now, looking across the valley in the near darkness, houses become lanterns. Each one is lit with a yellow glow against the dimming sky. In the nearer houses the lanterns flicker, tv screens animate the light, people come and go. It is all distant, silent. A utopian dream world, quotidian yet extraordinary. It’s impossible not to be transfixed. With these images, domestic scenes, others’ lives. A car heads off down the valley, lights beam a tree into life for a flickering incandescent moment, then it implodes into a black hole.
Rene Magritte (1954) Empire of Light
Others’ lives glow, flicker, on the screen. Blogs, websites, youtubes, facebooks, relate the sometimes intimate details of lives. Recollections; fabrications. Transports of delight; flights of fancy. Windows. Screens.
Edward Hopper (1928) Night Windows
