"Anthropological Intro to YouTube" and "Into Great Silence"

Dear Sam,

Yes, that video about YouTube is a fantastic presentation. I was particularly struck by the notion of "context collapse."

The whole issue of what people feel like staring into the cam when they make their first "vblog" reminded me strongly of a film released in the last year called "Into Great Silence". It's a documentary about the way of life of Carthusian monks of the ancient Grand Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps. There is a moment when the filmmaker has each of the monks stand still for a minute before the camera, and stare right into it, in silence, before a blank white wall.

And I thought then, watching their different responses, that the filmmaker had brilliantly transformed his camera into something like the inscrutable face of God, and then placed the monks before it. All their monastic "formation" is supposed to prepare them for this moment. Interestingly, the younger monks appeared to be the most uncomfortable, while the prior and the older monks, and especially the abbot's face, rather quickly settled into a posture of quiet confidence, and even joy.

Which leads me to say that the last segment of the Anthro video might be viewed as a metaphorical instance of our own faces reflecting the face of God.


la tua MAMA


Looking into the eye of God