Os - Journal

I've thought a lot about our field trip to the airport. I had never seen the inside of that industry like that before. It seemed to me like a small secret city we had been allowed into.

Everyone we met were real characters too. It was all very surreal. Maybe akin to Alice traveling to wonderland in a way. Why not? Gigantic “metal birds” and looming watch towers seem just as fantastic.

And although there was this sense of wonderment to our visit, I couldn’t help but feel afraid. At first I wasn’t really sure of what I was feeling, but when I looked out over the balcony of the control tower for the first time, over the vastness of this place, I knew.

I was afraid of what I saw – Empire. Being able to see it physically with my own eyes, I was able to understand the feeling that had chased me since we had arrived. I saw imperialism personified.

Maybe I’m being a bit dramatic, but I found something seriously disturbing about the airport, disturbing in the way that I find most corporations to be. I see them as soulless entities. Great evils that no one person can stop, that no one person created, that no one person directs, yet something we all contribute to and are responsible for. I think of Legion, the group of demons who possessed the man from Gadarenes, referred to in the Christian Bible. Like Legion, these soulless entities are comprised of many and are contributing to a great deal of suffering.

You read and hear about the effects of Imperialism but to see it physically and not just talked about as a concept is wild. Like staring at a great Dragon.

I saw imperialism that day for a couple of reasons. Mainly because of what the airport and airplanes o for us as a species. Imperialism could not function on the scale that it does today without this entity, this combination of space, time, people, and technology.

Before the airport and airplanes, ships and other sea faring vessels did the job, but not as well and so the spread of imperialism was limited to that technology.

Now things are much different and the airport is just one of the many tentacles of something I struggle to fully understand.

I think this is why I made my video piece. I felt compelled in its making. I’ve felt this way a few times since I started making work seriously. It’s definitely becoming more of a trend I feel.

I brought my camera with me out of habit and because I figured why not, never really intending to make anything out of the footage I captured but when I sat down to review my footage, and after feeling what I felt by being there as well, I began working.

My first attempt was a complete mess. I don’t think I really understood what it was that I was attempting to do at the time but after a few weeks of thinking and working I believe I got a good result. I feel like I’m communicating what I felt that day pretty well.