“I’m afraid. I’m afraid, Dave.”

-HAL

The first couple of minutes are in complete darkness, and all you can hear is the mystifying orchestral music, making you feel both eager and irritated at the same time. Then we see the MGM logo followed by the famous opening sequence with the musical backdrop of “Thus Spake Zarathustra” and then we perceive that the movie has finally commenced. However, the movie already started before we saw anything, it started in absolute darkness and enigmatic sound: chilling, terrifying, mysterious, exciting.

“2001: A Space Odyssey”, is to me, a movie that is both boring and riveting. There is less than 40 minutes of dialogue in a movie that spans roughly two hours and 20 minutes and each scene seems long and elongated. But this is a story that needs to be told, not by dialogue, but by images and music. How can I forget, the sublime scenes themselves, perfect pairings of image and music, as if they danced together to the “Blue Danube”. You become invested in each scene, somehow magically, and as if all the wonder had culminated in the last sequence, the feeling of confusion and painful awareness of the sublime leaves you dumbfounded and holding your breath in the closing moments as the journey ends. When the credits rolled upon my first viewing, I let out a sigh of both relief and undefinable content. Your feelings for the movie may very well be as confusing as the movie itself.

However, I must stop myself from going on about the film, for singing its praises may lead to disappointment for a first-time viewer, and frankly, there is far too much to say about the film, most likely leading to an inconclusive end. So I beg you, watch this film. Watch a film that is not so much about the individual, but rather the journey. “2001: A Space Odyssey” is…

Last Friday night, the Rackham Auditorium was packed with Chinese students. What was going on was actually a dating show called If You are the One, which was co-organized by Dream Corps, CSSA and CUSA. The Chinese name of this show literally means: do not disturb if you are not sincere, and the American counterpart of this show is Take Me Out.

The basic format of this show is that there would be sixteen girls sitting on the stage, each holding a heart-shaped cardboard in her hands. A guy would walk up to the stage and introduce himself by showing several video clips and presenting his basic personal information, dating history, ideal type of girl he wants to date, and friends’ comments. The girls can flip their cardboard, which has a black cross on the back, at any time during the process, indicating that she has no interests on this guy. After the guy is done presenting himself, he could have an opportunity to choose a girl among the girls who keep the fronts of their cardboards faced toward him, by which meaning they still consider him as “worth dating.” Then he would walk toward her, hold her hand, and they would walk down the stage together in the good wishes from everyone at presence. If he does not like any of the remaining girls, or all girls have flipped their cardboards, the guy would have to leave the stage alone.

This event is definitely one of the top three events among Chinese students that it has attracted as much attention as, if not more than, the Chinese New Year Gala. Not to mention the Chinese TV show of the same name, which receives a nationwide popularity in China. Yet I’m always suspicious about the credibility of such a fast match making process. How can I know someone well enough through four three-minute-long video clips that I could decide to be his girlfriend right away? Go on a date, probably, but in the conventional Chinese context one of the presumptions of this show is that holding hands means more than merely a date.

The outcome of the show turned out to be quite cheerful—although only one out of the five guys who went on stage found the matched girl, there were four guys who walked up to the stage after the actual show ended and openly expressed their love to the girls they have been secretly loved for a long time. All of the four girls accepted their love. This result was surprising, because nobody expected these many courageous guys who went on the stage; however, it is also predictable, because most girls rejected previous guys who they did not know until they met on the stage, but accepted those guys who they had known for months. Im not saying that only time matters, but rather the process of getting along with someone that is the most important. It would not make much difference if the guy were given hours long instead of twenty minutes to thoroughly narrate his life experience, because for me, there is no shortcut to get to know somebody other than personal interactions—unless you are a human resource manager, who can decide whether to recruit a candidate by browsing his resume in two minutes.

 

It is common knowledge, that a working person in possession of a meager fortune must be in want of new clothes. What you bought last season is undoubtedly out of fashion this season, so you peruse the stores, perhaps bag up some of your “old” things (things from 2 years ago) and donate them to charity, and then you are off to the local or virtual shopping mall in search of something novel.

Let’s say you even find something that does not abhor you so much that you decide to buy it. You wear a few times, your coworkers compliment you and its mere placement on your body signifies that you are a culturally astute individual with a flair for prints and patterns.

But then, several months go by and your article of clothing starts to lose its luster. You see it on someone else at a CVS or Walmart and think “They can’t possibly be wearing that! That is MY identity!”

You go home and re-evaluate your life’s goals, wondering where you went wrong. You pull out your article of clothing and finger its contents. Running your thumb over its buttons, your pointer finger down its front. You start to wonder what could have possessed you to buy such a ragged, ill-shapen thing that is now on the bodies of the common person.

You are not common. You are an individual with goals and aspirations that are higher than this quickly fading fashion gem that now appears quite tawdry.

Time to shop.

This common occurance, of what art historians and fashion mavens call ‘fast fashion’ is part and parcel in the digital age. It is so easy to use analytics to find the perfect white, long sleeve, v-neck tee or navy blue, velvet blazer with a silk lining.

This fast fashion was not always the fashion. Once upon a time, there were clothes created to last a lifetime or even two, in the case of wedding dresses and mourning clothes. The antithesis of ‘fast fashion’ is deep wearing.

If you have ever seen or read Shakespeare’s Henry IV:Part II, you may remember that after his father’s death, Prince Hal takes his mourning clothing very seriously and assumes a long-term emotional state from its investiture. He says that he will “deeply put the fashion on/ and wear it in [his] heart” (Henry IV: Part II, 5.2.52-53).

What does this fast fashion mean? Are we too busy to confront our inner selves and all the changes we go through? Do we manifest these changes outwardly, without acknowledging them inwardly.

When did Art with a capital ‘A’ become something so profane? Something that we fight tooth and nail over at the Bloomingdale’s Friends & Family sale, but then toss out several months later?

My case in point lies in the ever-growing, fastest fashion of them all, Inditex (whose most popular brand is Zara).  If you have not heard of Inditex (or ‘fast fashion’ for that matter), this NY Times article illuminates the six-week turn-around of the Zara brand.

Zara prides itself on using in-house designers (who don’t paste their names on anything) and local manufacturers that copy costly designer brands and have them on the racks within six weeks of appearing on the runway.

They have ‘New this Week’ clothing that is there for a few days and then gone. They operate under the assumption that consumers will buy now or forever hold their cash.

Many fashionistas are passionate about being on top of trends. But a few weeks after being on top, they are back to the bottom, spiraling down from a loving relationship with their clothes to a restraining order.

I do not condemn the fashion set (in my own way, I know I am a part of it, just maybe not as invested as most).

And for every person who is addicted to new clothes, there is someone addicted to new heroine or cocaine or Nutella. But heroine and cocaine were not once stately ornaments that bore the identity of their wearer (in fact, if you are wearing cocaine in any form right now, I suggest you take it off before you go outside).

But why this devaluation of clothing and constantly change of our visual identity? Is it just part of being in an instant generation of online identities? Or is it something deeper?

I open my eyes to a courtyard of tan brick walls and a tan brick floor, and there are Spanish words being tossed around and to my surprise I catch a few of them – mostly names – “Gala” … “el Mar Mediterráneo” … “veinte metros” … “Abraham Lincoln?” There are three arches at the far end of the brickfield and the center one frames a face I recognize and it really is Honest Abe – a gaunt silhouette up from broad shoulders, straight unmistakable nose and hard cheekbone confirm this feeling but something is off and what’s Abe doing in Spain and this is over my head. I approach him and he begins to shift, his features flatten out, there are divisions all over and his face is made of pixels. Larger square versions of the yard bricks, ochre bricks, warm and cool, clouded fleshy greys and umber, shadowy blues and it’s a painting. A very large one at that, about six by eight feet with a strip of red around the edges and he’s calling to me in a deep, rumbling and perfect Spanish.

I am within twenty meters now and it is apparent that Abe’s face is really a hundred and twenty-ish cubic paintings in one frame, a hundred Rothko color fields talking politics and they are each in perspective. The blocks stack and build and turn and seem to move but don’t, and there is anticipation in their stillness. Even closer and the curves of a woman’s body replace Abe’s nose and she’s naked. She faces away from me and looks longingly out a window that is the shape of a stout cross and it’s filled with light and frames her dramatically. It becomes apparent that the window is the source of this dynamic tension in the blocks and the atmosphere and Abe’s head is full of dancing billowing flames and a white-yellow sun and a sliver of the sea; the water is absolutely calm and it is the stillest part of the painting and the center of the composition. Little dashes of sky blue pepper the fiery flowing sky all twisting and blowing in spirals, little moments of quiet, and there is a particular blue patch right next to the bursting sun and it, too frames something like a limb.

Closer still, close enough to where the woman is about life size but floating in the perspective of Abe’s shoulders which have become the ground. There is definitely a body in the sun and the crucifix is on my mind already from the window shape and it almost looks like Christ but not how I am used to seeing him. I look down at the top of his head as he does the same to Gala who is about twenty times his size and he’s obviously quite far away and looking through the depths of space and time. And all I know is that Abe is gone and there is a whole metaphysical scene taking place before my eyes.

One of the luxuries of living in an Internet-driven era, where information can be transferred from one home to the next within seconds, is the fact that we have front-row seats to some of the greatest art in the world.

I happened upon Golish’s work through an art website. Lots of artists on the rise have allowed their work to circulate the web in hopes of getting it seen and critiqued by the general public. Golish is a visual artist from Toronto, Canada who specializes in figurative and portrait drawing and painting. I was drawn to her work because of its mystique and its subjects: ethnic people with interesting facial features, jewelry, clothing, hair, and overall aspects of untraditional beauty.

“Oyin” drawing by Sarah Golish

“Oyin,” with its deep browns swirling together, and its detail to shading and fading, appealed to me. Charcoal and conte was used for this image on toned paper, and it has already been sold.

“Celestial Rhythms” Moondust series by Sarah Golish

This piece is a part of Golish’s recent Moondust series, a series that captures “an ode to Afrofuturism.” The images entail a lot of simulated symmetry with a mix of tradition and new-age styles. “Celestial Rhythms” has an almost perfect symmetrical placement, and the woman in the image could be an archetype for any woman with features that are striking and relatable at the same time.

“Mandela” by Sarah Golish

“Mandela” is a rendition of a widely known image of Nelson Mandela. Her utilization of acrylic, oil, and gold leaf on the canvas, enhances the great detail put into the image, every part of Mandela’s figure appearing home-made but in the good way.

“With a song in my heart” painting by Sarah Golish

This image outlines the toned body of a woman cloaked with a white sheet across her back. The strength, the tiny detailing of the gold bangles and gold-feather earrings, the way the sun shines intricately upon the white sheet and through the back of the woman, all make this image extraordinary.

If you are interested in any more of Sarah Golish’s work, check out her website www.sarahgolish.com