gospel of a new century

alvinzhongcofa1001:

ASSESSMENT 3: FAILURE STATES
Further Investigation into Curated Experiment 3: the failure of reality 

Misato: If you take that into consideration, then perhaps this world isn’t that bad.

Shinji: Still, the reality itself might not be bad, but I could still hate myself.

Hyuga:: But it’s your mind which takes reality and separates it into what’s bad and hateful.

Aoba: It’s only the mind which separates reality from truth.

Maya: Any new position from which you view your reality will change your perception of its nature. It’s all literally a matter of perspective.

- 1.26 Take Care Of Yourself, Neon Genesis Evangelion, 1995, Directed by Hideoki Anno, produced by Studio Gainax 

I started to re-watch the original run NGE as a 10 year celebration of its release. Critically lauded and incredibly controversial, this anime series is a post-modern masterpiece and pushed the boundaries of the cartoon medium in the 90s, largely redefining pop culture and paving the way for deeply provocative works like Satoshi Kon’s Paranoia Agent & Paprika , which led to American productions to the likes of The Matrix and Inception ; all of which are cinematic masterpieces that deal with the same themes of truths and untruths in relation to psychological/physical perception. 

The essence of NGE can be seen within the name - modern retelling of the book of Genesis with a large emphasis on the psychological ramifications of being aware and conscious of reality. While the series begins as what appears to be a typical giant robot style story, it quickly descends into probing inquiry and surrealistic narrative. The series consistently uses symbolism, obscure animation techniques and abstract dialogue to question the nature of reality, imagination and its variation depending on individuality, perception and psychology. 

These screen-caps are taken from the pivotal last episodes which focus purely on the psychosis of the characters within the show, and the nature of humanity and reality. The episodes deal with an abstract premise - The characters undergo intensive psychological interrogation with one another as a collective hive mind of awareness (imagine the primordial soup of being). The personality of the characters are defined as what they perceive and present themselves to be, and brings forth the concept that reality is merely a rippling illusion of your own personal thoughts , and wants, both “created by yourself, and the ones that you create with.”

Whilst highly abstract, and difficult to comprehend, the scenes draw forth and reinforce my concept towards the failure of reality - that what we perceive is purely dependant on ourselves, and a truth exists, only if you will it to.

understanding how their is an epic failure in understanding one anothers realities, or the existance of a truthful reality, we begin to understand how language is such a poor indicator for expression, thus looping this investigation for my third curated experiment back to my first. If our realities are equally intangible, incomprehensible, and fundamentally different, how is it possible to communicate and have others understand them? 

“There are as many realities as there are people, but there’s only one reality, and that is yours”

(via )

(via officialevangelion)