Exam Project Intention - Evil: Myth & Reality

It can be said that we live in a society that is very susceptible to fear and paranoia. Creating fear always been a tactic used for centuries to keep control over people, but in the past century it’s become easier to do so world wide, and on a mass scale due to communication technologies available to us. It’s embedded and broadcasted into advertising through T.V, radio, larger than life billboards, and the internet. We are constantly warned of terrorism, rapists, pedophiles, safety of our children, ect. We are told of procedures to follow, to avoid such happenings, such as alerting someone if you suspect them to be a terrorist at an airport. Rather obvious things, but its creating a shared mind set of fear amongst people. But also the means of technology are creating fear of surveillance.

An article in the Guardian last week showed an increase of television viewing surrounding terrorism, and street crime. Viewing figures from between the time 9 until 10 showed that shows such as ‘The age of terror(1.1 million viewers), Waking the dead(revolving around a European terrorist cell. 6.8 million), Cops with cameras (3.5 million)and CSI: Crime scene investigation (2.8 million)took up 60% of audience share. It just shows how nowadays we are aware of these threats but T.V stations choose to use them as entertainment or insight.

Nowadays it is argued that there is an endless and ever growing list of things to fear or to be aware that COULD HAPPEN!! But what should we be actually afraid of, or not be a tall? The word ‘evil’ is commonly used to describe something to be feared of. For example Bush describes terrorists as evil. Evil is a broad term used to indicate a negative moral or ethical judgment, often used to describe intentional acts that are cruel, unjust, or selfish. But what is actually evil, and what is the evilness in our world? Is it what we humans have created ourselves, for instance the ‘Internet’, or in a fiction sense, ‘Frankenstein’?

I recently discovered H.P Lovecraft’s tale ‘The Call of Cthulhu.’ It’s about a creature that is a huge, octopoid sea monster, sleeping for centuries at the bottom of the ocean (either "dreaming" or "dreamless"), and destined to emerge from his slumber in an apocalyptic age. So this creature is seen as evil, as it intends to destroy humanity and end the world. This is obviously a mythical and science fiction sense of evil, but it got me thinking about it parallels in the real world. What in reality shares Cthulhu’s story?

I watched the documentary film ‘The Corporation.’ The film examines and critiques corporate practices, and draws parallels between examples of corporate malfeasance and the DSM-IV's symptoms of psychopathy. Unconcern for the feelings of others, incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, reckless disregard for the safety of others, deceitfulness (repeated lying to and deceiving of others for profit), incapacity to experience guilt and failure to conform to the social norms with respect to lawful behaviors. I found the comparison between a corporation and a psychopath really interesting yet awfully true. A pyscopath would be considered evil surely? The documentary shows how capitalists greed and disregard to humans and nature is destroying the world as well as the people. Theres not much difference to Cthulhu’s rampage of the earth, and that of which capitalism is doing to the world. The only one being that Cthulhu’s way is a lot quicker, visible and one clear direction to point our hate at.
If you asked people what are they more scared of out of; an attack on the world from a Godzilla type creature, capitalism, or the Internet? Most people would say Godzilla, but the fact is the damage from corporate businesses is a lot more real and is happening. Also the internet is a large and unknown entity, like the sea, which often creates fear or distrust.
In this project I want to explore what evil is and draw comparisons and parallels in a mythical sense, and in reality. What should would we be afraid of , or of anything at all? Is the internet a reference to Cthulhu? The internet could be seen as a large monster. Hungry and greedy for information and power. Some People have pessimistic views of the net, some don't. It offers communication and access to information in the safety and comfort of your own home. But at the same time your not sure who your actually talking to and how truthful this information is, or who’s listening in. It’s a doubled edged sword. Although it offers these great services, it can create paranoia of surveillance. Just because something is considered a monster (e.g.Frankenstein), is it actually harmful, or is it to do with how we use and provoke it. The same could be said about the internet. This is my main aim to demonstrate.
I am undecided what it is I’ll actually create, but it will be working around animation and video. Maybe some kind of interactive piece.