They're Made Out Of Meat

The creator of the this image put-together this photo-story for The Eurythmic's Here Comes The Rain Again. Creative experiments like this were limited before digital technology was made so freely available and there were limited opportunities to distribute them. It wasn't so long ago that the programming sophistication to produce the mouse-over comments (available if you follow the link back) where she gives her interpretation of the lyrics would have made a venture like this prohibitively expensive. This photo-story wouldn't have been possible if the creator hadn't been able to search through images that others had made available on the internet from many different countries and sources (see Diversity IS A Beautiful Thing for another striking photo-mosaic that wouldn't have been possible without the contributions of artists from many different places).

I'm endlessly fascinated by the world of creative opportunities that the web and the everyday technology has made available to us. You Tube allows us to watch videos made all around the world: some, like They're Made Out Of Meat, are made by people with reputations - others are improvised by people who are building up a portfolio of shorts and animations, and still more are offered by people who see this as a creative outlet that allows them to keep on doing their day job.

They're Made Out of Meat is a short-film adaptation of science fiction author Terry Bisson's short story by the same name. Directed by Stephen O'Reagan, and starring Tom Noonan (The X-Files, Robocop 2) and New York standup Ben Bailey, it won grand prize at the Science Fiction Museum's First Annual Short Film Festival.

A: "They're made out of meat."

B: "Meat?"

A: "Meat. They're made out of meat."

B: "Meat?"

A: "There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."

B: "That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"

A: "They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."

B: "So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."

A: "They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."

My elderly next door neighbour has been an avid member of several cross-stitch groups on the internet for years: she regularly scans and converts images into patterns. I know several artists who paint in traditional media and they have no interest in creating digital art: however, they like the easy distribution that the internet offers with its virtual galleries. Yesterday, I came across a website on an obscure part of the history of WWI. Several local history societies have made some of their holdings available on the web. Music making and distribution are a major part of the traffic on the web.

We're very fortunate to have access to these technologies. Creativity can add to the richness of our lives: for some people, it can add to our happiness and resilience. Sometimes, technologies can challenge us to make the best use of our creative interests and abilities (some of those lyrical descriptions on Ebay are works of art). Some people see the meat: others see the zest, creativity and joie de vivre that animates it.

Copyright 2006, Tony Plant Happystance Project