Towards a New Potential in Medium Dynamics

August 2010

Speaking in as general and broad a set of terms as possible, the potentials of the medium far outstrip the current standards and practices of the industry.

It's simple to facilitate genre-specific work in a relatively new medium, building off of previously existing structures.  Innovation is dangerous in an environment where the tried-and-true has proven so profitable for the Unimaginative Elite.  I for one believe that moving into new areas where content supersedes limited technical dynamics is the hallmark of a healthy and mature industry.  The novel and  more recently the graphic novel have proven this time and again, as forms defying easy definition have emerged alongside genre-intensive material, works that challenge convention and thwart superficial expectations.  I believe that such works trigger a sort of imaginative expansion in the consumer of said works, facilitating more such materials, new and exciting.

The human capacity for game-play distinguishes our species in its variety and complexity.  I believe it is in our interest as such a creative species to cultivate an environment where our minds can run free, to heighten our discourse, bring a stronger inquisitive collective to bear on conventional wisdom, erring on the side of caution and too often pandering to the lowest common denomenator.  It has been proven time and again that innovative technology and thought in general demands room for expansion and punishes trite stagnation.

We are at the cusp of an age inconceivable even fifty years ago, let along five hundred.  Our mythologies stream live into personal devices of intrusion, designed at once to entertain and inform us as to the potential of the world.  The world wants desperately to be interacted with, not feared.

I've said it before and will say it again.  The future is now.  Today is tomorrow.


-Lane Williams
acknowledgeandproceed@gmail.com

Sir Epicure Mammon, Jonson's Alchemist

I have a piece of Jason's fleece too,

Which was no other than a book of alchemy,

Writ in large sheepskin, a good fat ram vellum.

Such was Pythagoras' thigh, Pandora's tub,

And all that fable of Medea's charms

The manner of our work: the bulls, our furnace,

Still breathing fire; our argent-vive, the dragon;

The dragon's teeth, mercury sublimate,

That keeps the whiteness, hardness, and the biting;

And they are gathered into Jason's helm,

Th'alembic, and then sowed in Mars his field,

And thence sublimed so often, till they are fixed

Both this th' Hesperian garden, Cadmus' story,

Jove's shower, the boon of Midas, Argus' eyes,

Boccace his Demogorgon, thousands more,

All abstract riddles of our stone --How Now!