If we could touch like the sun
so as not to forget
to be transfixed, mesmerized by the daily glow
of our existence
to consider staring at the horizon
as long as a screen —
I’m curious,
when did we stop craning our necks
to see it?
(A History of Staring at Fires, 2015)
The Sky navigates through the visual language of sublime archetypes as curated by Google images: The Sky, The Clouds, Space, The Horizon, The Sunset, Paradise. Using the Google search as a metaphor for the search for meaning in the infinite, the cosmic, and the intangible, I examine how the history of this pursuit has been absorbed through images in a contemporary realm. The narration that accompanies the video recites the Dictionary.com definitions of these tropes, while occasional, personal appendages disrupt the mediated immersion and consider the shared sentiment of contemplating the unknown. – ERW