ordering

by Jacquelyn Mahendra ‘05

how did man become capable
of ordering nature
with two point perspective

we know photography was invented
by seventy some odd people
but where did this desire spring from
to capture the train steaming by
at the top of the frame
of the fleeting moment

and now the magical lantern show
in the break between photography and cinema

for now
in the meantime
these mechanizations
soaring illusions
a yellow bird reverse a wire cage
now free now caught
but always escaping

and then cinema lets a horse gallop across a screen
lets cowboys chase after indians
in one unfaltering narrative after the next

until montage rearranges the ordered world for the proletariat
a man with his movie camera exposing his process for all to see

and is it true that cinema has always been a software
capable of randomly integrating or disintegrating
notions of time and space

was it made like science to be transcendent

despite the realization that now
we may be back to animation
this digital manipulation of live action scenes
but is it obvious to all or does the product
maintain some sort of authority
by way of its alleged objectivity
i wonder if we can say for sure

but for sure is only that
if each avante-guard movement
teems with its own ideology
if adobe creates our notions
of artistic possibilities
then so much for experiment

and is science so different
when the textbook is the context that we operate within
or the lab or the university or the royal society as it may or may not be
but what about photography and taxonomy and discovering new worlds

the vanishing point may be the apex of subjectivity
but then how do we claim to see within this logic
or without this logic
when behind this logic
lies the basic need to order our dreams