I have spent the last week reading people's interpretations of Plato's Cave and its relation to mass media. In particular, a few quotes have sprung out at me;
"Photography implies that we know about the world if we accept it as the camera records it. But... strictly speaking, one never understands anything from a photograph" Sontag, (1979) On Photography, 23
"A reading of the cave myth in terms of postmodern mass media could begin with the recognition that the informationn age floods our senses with endless imagery that we cannot avoid... we remain in front of a wall of imagery, which is now the ever shifting face of the billboard, computer screen, television set, mobile phone, bus stop, building hoardings, and so on" Berry, G (2010) 'The Mythical Element of Mass Media and it's relation to Plato's Cave', PLATFORM: Journal of Media and Communication.
These quotes, in particular the one from Berry have led me to devise a concept for my animation.
It will start in a peaceful, picturesque suburban town, following a young man. Everyone in this world wears a visor-like mask over their eyes which distorts their perception of the outside world (in relation to Plato, the visor-mask represents the wall and the images they see through it are the shadow-images). However, for some reason, this man's glasses get damaged and disattatched from his head, enabling him to see the world for how it really is.
He then sees suffering, and reads about the true horrors of the world in the paper etc and becomes depressed. He tries to reach out to the other members of this society, however they shun him, and eventually he becomes a hermit and lives in a cave on his own/finds a tribe of people who have also broken free
This concept is also reminicent of books such as 1984 and Farenheit 451 where there is a single man seeing the world for how it really is and going against the common perception.
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