literal exploration

a parallel world is so open to interpretation that only hypothetical parameters can be constructed. btw i think i did this wrong.

a parallel world is:

a secondary (at least +1) dimension or world or perspective. given that there is a primary to have some type of relationship to.

An exact day for day, atom for atom, thought for thought repeat of some kind of timeline, except PERHAPS quadrillions of years ago/away and bazillions of light years this way/ or that way. as an example: a solar system with the same exact mutations in the evolutionary process, same exact events with the same exact people named, raised, and killed in the same exact manner, with the same exact number of hairs on their head, whilst they are thinking of the same exact thoughts at the same exact time, as it was done in the primary world. of course this might be a laughable poke at the idea of the infinite and endless expanse of time and space, yet those words by definition lend itself to that. someone named Jason Lee in a different time and place, is a bfa4 graphic designer in Norman and Tom's class. ironically, writing a paper about parallel worlds, thinking that he himself is the first and primary Jason Lee, but he will never know this and he probably is not.

A video game (technology and computers to be more general) can be argued to be a parallel world. The movements and actions commanded by an interactee are simultaneously being executed by this secondary world's environment and inhabitants. this idea conveniently puts the parallel world on the level of the television, xbox and internet. a world within another world, yet still being parallel. this relationship can only be represented by concentric circles or the layers of a jawbreaker. this interpretation may not mean anything to the class, but this different stance on the idea of parallelism juxtaposed with the idea of the parallel world is interesting to me.

Thought and reality, or imagination and actuality, or the conscious and the unconscious, or organic actions and inorganic actions. from the first person perspective of a sentient being. interacting and moving through time and space, while at the same time having unconscious brain, heart, kidney, stomach, nerve, skeletal, mutagen, microbiological, subatomic activity. perhaps lending itself to the idea that, all secondary parallel worlds line up their own respective and distinctive traits to create the primary as a whole. like some kind of epic heavenly glow of a planetary eclipse. or a human body. all are different in some way but share one thing.

Are parallel worlds still considered parallel, if they are only parallel for a fraction of a second? Time is a factor that must be considered when dealing with anything in the first to 27th dimension. Like a pack high speed chameleons running through an endless wallpaper store. dynamically evolving and devolving relationships between worlds and dimensions, through the stretch of time. Do worlds manifest its parallelism once it comes in contact with another world and copy one anothers actions events and entities? perhaps this can be the third answer to the war between fate and choice.

Since, in geometry, parallel lines never intersect; is it safe to say that, by definition, there is no type of direct or indirect interaction between two worlds? simply a sharing of an x or y axis (definitely not both, that would be a congruent world [and with that what does a congruent world constitute? {and just to be cynically curious, what are the parameters of a perpendicular world?}]) Thinking about parallel worlds from a mathematical perspective, leave them to be interpreted in the 3rd dimension (x,y,z) given that two parallel entities cannot be points which only leave lines, planes, and full objects. entities parallel in the 3rd dimension must share 2 out of the 3 axis's. this opens another dimension of interpretation.


Parallel worlds cannot be simply put.

Jason Lee
BFA4 graphic design

Worlds of Difference

In my previous response, A Parallel World is a Dialectic, I established that in fiction, parallel worlds work to create a discourse between two systems (two "worlds.") The truth is that whether fictional or not, the parallel world is about relational difference. Each world that is established is defined by and understood through its relation to the system or systems it is set in opposition against. These systems may only differ in one way, but that is enough for massive discrepancies between them.

The lead characters in H.G. Wells' The New Accelerator establish and explore a parallel world, even though that world exists in the same physical space as the world they've left behind. By creating and imbibing an elixir that pushes them into an existence "many thousand times" faster than the norm, the two see the world in a new light. In the set up and conclusion of the story, the Wells describes some ways in which the world would be changed by this invention: students, politicians, doctors, lawyers, writers; they'd all be able to retreat to this place where time is less meaningful, where they'd be able to work in leisure instead of in haste.

Wells makes no serious inquiries into how this world would change, though. Surely the economy would be uprooted. Would new classes be established between those who had access to this elixir and those who had to go about their lives with only 24 hours in a day? Would "insider" trading be the act of existing in fast-time so that you could react to changes more quickly? What would this mean for war, for crime, for assassination?

Why doesn't Wells discuss these heavy handed issues? Because, like many good writers, he finds a simply metaphor that works more effectively than any proselytizing could. When under the effect of the New Accelerator, the lead characters go about a routine amounting to written slapstick - they move around objects stuck in slow speed, laugh at those stuck in awkward poses, and listen to odd, distorted music. (I wonder what Wells would think of Justin Bieber slowed down by 800%.)

But one gag has serious weight: the clothes that these men wear begin to burn as they move around at high speeds. Their linen trousers, perfectly acceptable for daily living, are a risk and a limitation the world of Acceleration. What works, in fact, what is fashionable in one world is fatal in another. Neither the narrator nor the inventor of the New Accelerator had seen it coming, and how could they?

Wells notes that there would need to be a counter-potion to the New Accelerator. One that slows us back down after speeding up - or even just allows us to breeze through agitating events (presumably long flights and boring phone calls) with ease. What would this new economy of speed bring? What would the dangers there be? How could we ever know?

The rule of the parallel world, fictional or not, is that there will be unforeseen complications when we cross from one to the other - or when we exist in both simultaneously. The same technology that lets us kill time at work by talking to people thousands of miles away also allows a sudden move towards civilian reporting in 140 characters. The same tool that let me locate all of the links in this piece may also be a post-legislation panopticon.

And in what other world could I deliver these messages? Here I have autosave, and backspace, and tabbed browsing. I can be tangential without seeming unfocused, distracted, spacey. Even after all that, I can't help myself but to think: This world seems safe.

On Parallel Worlds and Global Travel - Jayson Lantz

In considering the statement that “parallel worlds […] are a journey into the ‘misremembering of the future’,” I could not help but think of the works of Chris Marker –which often deal explicitly with journeys, memory, and the future. Furthermore, the concept of parallel worlds and its relation to travel and the exotic led me to think particularly of Marker’s “travel films”.

How does the parallel world of the foreign land –misremembered in advance by the traveler –change in a globalized world, when she/he is always already linked to this parallel world through rapid transit and mass communication?

To investigate this change, it seems worthwhile to consider Marker’s travel films (and the parallel worlds which they present) alongside the panoramas of the 19^th century. These panoramas (according to Norman Klein), which appear initially as obvious Artifice, result eventually in an immersive parallel world, merging the machine and nature to (often imperialistically) improve up the latter. The travel films by Chris Marker, however, while presented initially under the guise of documentary, persistently subjugate this form to the digressive nature and compositional whim of a singular subjectivity, i.e. that of the traveler –a merging not of the machine and nature (as is the case for panoramas), but of the machine and the subject.

So, in a world where the traveler is always already connected to the destination, it seems that the “misremembering” of the foreign land must take on different characteristics. Marker’s travel films seem to suggest that globalism, by revealing the infinite connections of the traveler, has led the exotic and imperialist totality of panoramic artifice to dissipate from the parallel world of the foreign land, only to be replaced by the inescapable mediation through both the subject and the image. In the wake of this transformation, is the foreign land still a parallel world?

Bill Viola, Time, and the Accelerated Internet

            With the Internet, we now live in the age of the instant. New media technologies and their effects on globalization continue to accelerate our ability to send and receive information and as these technologies advance our sense of time only continues to compress. Bill Viola, the contemporary video artist, explores what happens when slowing down videos reverses this paradigm.

            Viola’s Quintet Series from 2000 is a set of four videos that feature five actors who are each expressing their own reactions to various emotions (e.g. astonishment, remembrance, etc.). However, the videos are extremely slowed down to the point where every detail of the actors’ changing expressions can be detected. The audience is placed into a position of feeling accelerated in a sense; a very particular affect that forces one to reconsider how we think about time and emotion.

            The irony surrounding Viola’s slow motion videos is that it is a challenge for the audience to watch the entire video, as the Quintet Series videos are all fifteen-minute loops. In a period of instantaneous gratification it is difficult to experience the whole thing. However, this irony only makes the feeling of acceleration stronger. Perhaps we don’t need H.G. Wells’ New Accelerator, just the Internet.