WEBVTT - The Artifact: Claude Glass

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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<v Speaker 2>Hi, my name is Robert Lamb, and this is the artifact,

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<v Speaker 2>a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,

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<v Speaker 2>focusing on particular objects, ideas, and moments in time. It's

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<v Speaker 2>all too common these days to encounter people who choose

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<v Speaker 2>to experience something of the world through the filter of technology.

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<v Speaker 2>Instead of experiencing a rock concert as a pure spectator,

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<v Speaker 2>one might focus on an audio and or visual recording

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<v Speaker 2>of the event that one is making. Various sites and

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<v Speaker 2>destinations become mere background for a selfie or a short

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<v Speaker 2>form online video. And we have probably all caught ourselves

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<v Speaker 2>focusing not on the in the moment experience of a thing,

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<v Speaker 2>but either the media we hope to get out of

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<v Speaker 2>it or and this is key to what we're discussing today,

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<v Speaker 2>a media based understanding of the experience. Now, I want

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<v Speaker 2>to stress that I'm as guilty as anyone in my

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<v Speaker 2>own ways when it comes to this. When I really

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<v Speaker 2>like a piece of art at a museum, I inevitably

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<v Speaker 2>take notes and, if permitted, photograph the work and the

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<v Speaker 2>little information plate so I can refer back to it.

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<v Speaker 2>But I sometimes then have to remind myself to actually

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<v Speaker 2>pause and take in the work, to experience it and

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<v Speaker 2>put aside everything else for a moment, and inevitably sometimes

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<v Speaker 2>I forget to do that. I've also walked ruins and

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<v Speaker 2>imagined myself within a gothic horror film, that sort of thing.

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<v Speaker 2>It's easy to think that all of this is a

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<v Speaker 2>product of media technology and to assume that, prior to smartphones,

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<v Speaker 2>cinema and photography, travelers and concert goers simply absorb the

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<v Speaker 2>experience on a more honest, open level. I mean, there's

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<v Speaker 2>probably still a case to be made for that to

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<v Speaker 2>some degree, but claud Glass gives us a little added

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<v Speaker 2>perspective to consider here. I was turned onto this topic

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<v Speaker 2>by Yes, a short form online that my wife sent

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<v Speaker 2>me via the National Gallery London, hosted by Joanna. She

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<v Speaker 2>describes Claude Glass as a nineteen hundred's Instagram filter, and

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<v Speaker 2>that's pretty accurate. Instagram filters, of course, are a popular

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<v Speaker 2>and sometimes controversial innovation of the smartphone age, allowing any

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<v Speaker 2>user to at least roughly apply some semblance of higher

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<v Speaker 2>photographic style and or technique. It's no replacement for actual

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<v Speaker 2>photographic talent and skill, but it generates the semblance and

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<v Speaker 2>experience of the thing. In this the comparison to Claude

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<v Speaker 2>glass is solid. We're talking about a small, folding compact

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<v Speaker 2>that contains not a traditional reflective mirror but a black mirror. Yes,

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<v Speaker 2>much like the ritual obsidian mirrors of the Aztec god

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<v Speaker 2>Tees Catholic PoCA, the horror anthology series on Netflix, and,

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<v Speaker 2>as Joanna points out, the reflective surface of a sleeping

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<v Speaker 2>or de powered iPhone screen. British tourists of the nineteenth

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<v Speaker 2>century would bring claud glass with them on travels, and

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<v Speaker 2>when faced with a particularly evocative landscape, they turned their

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<v Speaker 2>backs on the natural vista and instead gaze at it

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<v Speaker 2>literally through a glass, darkly in the reflection provided by

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<v Speaker 2>their claud glass. The idea here, as Ameliasoff explains in

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<v Speaker 2>a twenty twenty one j Store Daily post titled the

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<v Speaker 2>claud Glass Revolutionized the way people saw landscapes, was that

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<v Speaker 2>reflection in the glass would transform the natural world into quote,

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<v Speaker 2>a vision of painterly charm framed and set apart from

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<v Speaker 2>the rest of the landscape color palette, simplified, bathed in gentle,

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<v Speaker 2>hazy light. Soft points out that some tourists even had

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<v Speaker 2>multiple claud glasses of different shades that, much like Instagram filters,

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<v Speaker 2>allowed the user to play around with the various ways

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<v Speaker 2>that their reality might match up with a more interesting

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<v Speaker 2>bit of media. As the title of Soft's article indicates,

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<v Speaker 2>the idea here is that the craze occurred in the

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<v Speaker 2>wake of a quote sea change in how the British

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<v Speaker 2>thought about landscapes. For hundreds of years, many had long

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<v Speaker 2>derided various British landscapes as being chaotic and uninteresting. Why

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<v Speaker 2>would you want to travel and look at these places?

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<v Speaker 2>But suddenly the popularity of landscape portraits such as those

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<v Speaker 2>by French painter Claude Lorraine, for whom the glass is named,

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<v Speaker 2>changed expectations of the natural world. Note, however, he did

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<v Speaker 2>not invent it, nor even necessarily know of it. Soft

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<v Speaker 2>stresses that the key to all of this is the

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<v Speaker 2>picturesque quality of the ideal landscape painting, and in this

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<v Speaker 2>we mean a perfect balance of the sublime and the beautiful,

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<v Speaker 2>the awesome and even dangerous, with the comforting and the suite.

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<v Speaker 2>In appreciating this in landscape paintings, people began to look

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<v Speaker 2>at landscapes themselves as if they were landscape paintings, and

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<v Speaker 2>when the reality inevitably struggled in comparison to deliberate skilled

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<v Speaker 2>artistic rendition. The claud glass allowed the user to augment

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<v Speaker 2>their perfe, framing it, simplifying its color palette, and casting

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<v Speaker 2>it all in a hazy artistic light that resembles the

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<v Speaker 2>artistic style they craved. Even then, Plenty found the craze

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<v Speaker 2>kind of ridiculous, and poet Thomas Gray wrote in seventeen

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<v Speaker 2>seventy five about falling backwards into a ditch while trying

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<v Speaker 2>to view a landscape through the glass. We cast similar

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<v Speaker 2>judgments about modern technology today, don't we? But what about

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<v Speaker 2>the future? Ai generated images, writings, video music, and now

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<v Speaker 2>even podcasts. AI generated conversations between two non real entities

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<v Speaker 2>are in many ways distorted inhuman reflections via scrape and

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<v Speaker 2>pilfered data. In many cases, that gives us the alternative

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<v Speaker 2>to the real and the genuine, a dark mirror of

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<v Speaker 2>personalized longing. As we back closer and closer towards the ditch,

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<v Speaker 2>tune in for additional episodes of The Artifact, the Monster

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<v Speaker 2>Fact or Animalia Stupendium each week. As always, you can

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<v Speaker 2>email us at contact as Stuffdwlow your Mind dot com.

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<v Speaker 1>Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio.

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