In-der-Blog-sein

Over the Horizon watches The Ister in San Rafael.

As with any credible philosophy there is a long series of seemingly deep, thought provoking observations, in which some pattern is alleged, often as part of a larger one, and the viewer (or reader, of text on a black screen) can acknowledge, "yes, that looks deep." Yet, after all these years (I ask), how much (positive) influence has it really had? Techne, the power of technology and economics, which the ancient Greeks dismissed as unrelated to truth or science, is in the saddle now and drives everything else, the Internet being only the most dramatic example so far.

The philosophers in the flick also serve up some ambiguity. Is technology helping us to remember, or is it now going by to fast? Is it better to remember (Scenes of excavating a Greek town, Trajan's bridge, and Stiegler) or forget, and forgive (Scenes from Bosnia, and Nancy)?

It's a real pity the DVD isn't affordable domestically. You have to jump through all sorts of hoops to get it from Oz. The DVD is in PAL format and dual-layered, which will work on some PCs, but not on a typical NTSC setup--the USA domestic TV default. An NTSC version has shown up on Ebay, so maybe availability will improve.  ¶ 8:38 AM