Ocean of Darkness
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Ocean of Darkness
(abstract of the voice-over text from the 3D movie Ocean of Darkness, 2009)
“It is said that our unconscious claims sixty percent of our mind. Home to our inner thoughts, yet largely unknown. We all need to explore this drowned museum, this graveyard of representations. Journey to the depths of our inner universe, an alien world never reveiled before… Thoughts live in the darkness, like savage animals, and new insights are discovered almost every dive. Let’s embark on a journey into the abyss…
We submerge just below the surface. God’s chosen forms float between illusory rags at the mercy of planetary currents. With a natural elegance often found in those unaware of their beauty, these fish celebrate their colours in this secret garden. Does this façade disguise a deeper truth? A metaphysical interior that hides behind a richly decorated appearance?
We continue our journey. Leaving these treasurekeepers of our inner depths, we head for the twilight zone. We enter a strange, gloomy world. These jellyfish continuously expand and contract. In doing so, they shape the space around them – just as the sea uses their forms to experience its universality. But touched by their sheer beauty we risk being distracted from the budding idea that they are merely shapes and forms..
An idea that slowly grabs us. With its long tentacles it reaches our inner beliefs, finding a place to nest. Like squids that are among the most advanced invertebrates. This one will never encounter a hard surface in its life, and its body is not as robust as those of its shallow water cousins. This makes it easier to sneak up unnoticed…
The experience of this world is determined by shape and form. So in this darkness, survival depends on sight. The appearance of this ‘dweller of the deep’ is primarily determined by its head. It is dominated by two huge eyes, capable of detecting minute quantities of light. With its spirited eyes, it rules its kingdom, always on the lookout for visual stimuli.
(…) As our depth exceeds a thousands metres, total blackness surrounds us. (…) Life becomes ever more sparse. It’s a dark, dangerous world. Our thoughts assume monstrous forms. Invisible in the dark, they grope blindly for their prey. Us.
Desperate inhabitants of this metaphorical palace, these life forms twist in eternally restless shapes. Did anything other than shape and form ever exist?
(…) In the world of outward show, only those who play the part survive.
We will now reach the bottom of this watery cathedral, filled with memorabilia of our imagination. Here lives the most fascinating and horrifying creature of them all: the ego. While its servants prepare for a new round of destiny, it slowly descends to the very bottom of our minds, in the full realisation of what is yet to come….
Physicality, shape, form, matter – it’s all we have. And maybe appearance is nothing but an illusion, (…) a hopeless imitation of a world we cannot know….
The ego is going to perform it’s secret ritual, in which it will indulge in a phenomenological cycle. Destined to celebrate the world of an unlimited variety of shapes and form. Destined to suffer because physicality will never meet the wholeness which it longs for.
It is our destiny to suffer
It is our destiny to celebrate.”
(abstract of the voice-over text from the 3D movie Ocean of Darkness, 2009)
“It is said that our unconscious claims sixty percent of our mind. Home to our inner thoughts, yet largely unknown. We all need to explore this drowned museum, this graveyard of representations. Journey to the depths of our inner universe, an alien world never reveiled before… Thoughts live in the darkness, like savage animals, and new insights are discovered almost every dive. Let’s embark on a journey into the abyss…
We submerge just below the surface. God’s chosen forms float between illusory rags at the mercy of planetary currents. With a natural elegance often found in those unaware of their beauty, these fish celebrate their colours in this secret garden. Does this façade disguise a deeper truth? A metaphysical interior that hides behind a richly decorated appearance?
We continue our journey. Leaving these treasurekeepers of our inner depths, we head for the twilight zone. We enter a strange, gloomy world. These jellyfish continuously expand and contract. In doing so, they shape the space around them – just as the sea uses their forms to experience its universality. But touched by their sheer beauty we risk being distracted from the budding idea that they are merely shapes and forms..
An idea that slowly grabs us. With its long tentacles it reaches our inner beliefs, finding a place to nest. Like squids that are among the most advanced invertebrates. This one will never encounter a hard surface in its life, and its body is not as robust as those of its shallow water cousins. This makes it easier to sneak up unnoticed…
The experience of this world is determined by shape and form. So in this darkness, survival depends on sight. The appearance of this ‘dweller of the deep’ is primarily determined by its head. It is dominated by two huge eyes, capable of detecting minute quantities of light. With its spirited eyes, it rules its kingdom, always on the lookout for visual stimuli.
(…) As our depth exceeds a thousands metres, total blackness surrounds us. (…) Life becomes ever more sparse. It’s a dark, dangerous world. Our thoughts assume monstrous forms. Invisible in the dark, they grope blindly for their prey. Us.
Desperate inhabitants of this metaphorical palace, these life forms twist in eternally restless shapes. Did anything other than shape and form ever exist?
(…) In the world of outward show, only those who play the part survive.
We will now reach the bottom of this watery cathedral, filled with memorabilia of our imagination. Here lives the most fascinating and horrifying creature of them all: the ego. While its servants prepare for a new round of destiny, it slowly descends to the very bottom of our minds, in the full realisation of what is yet to come….
Physicality, shape, form, matter – it’s all we have. And maybe appearance is nothing but an illusion, (…) a hopeless imitation of a world we cannot know….
The ego is going to perform it’s secret ritual, in which it will indulge in a phenomenological cycle. Destined to celebrate the world of an unlimited variety of shapes and form. Destined to suffer because physicality will never meet the wholeness which it longs for.
It is our destiny to suffer
It is our destiny to celebrate.”