Chapter 42 How to prove that you have been to Huangshan

My friend Jiafei Mao recently went to Huangshan, but after returning home, he found that he could not prove that he had been to Huangshan.Because, he went to Shanghai again later. On the streets of Shanghai, he lost the camera with photos of Mount Huangshan. His son thought: "You didn't lose the camera at all. You sold the camera and ran to the city with the money." I went to another place to play. Anyway, you didn’t go to Huangshan, anyway, you have no evidence to prove that you have been to Huangshan.” Moreover, because there are no photos, no photos to strengthen the memory, even he himself has a sense of uncertainty, I don't know if I have really been to Huangshan.

This is probably a result of the development of video technology today. It is convenient and popular, but it also brings us a kind of panic. What if the video data is lost?What if it is destroyed?What do we use to prove that our experience actually happened?A friend of mine often falls into this kind of anxiety. He loves photography. Every time he sees beautiful scenery, he falls into the anxiety of how to master the scenery. Amidst the anxiety of video loss.Once, we asked him about his experience after going to Red Beach, and he said angrily: "It's a pity that the mobile hard drive broke." He would never continue to tell the story of the trip. Obviously, for him, images are completely equivalent to memories , The loss of video data is equivalent to the loss of memory, and even the experience does not exist, so there is no way to talk about it.

This situation is probably the psychological basis for the birth of "Smart: Ghost Story", a horror film that dominates the box office in North America. It tells the story of a young couple after they moved. , filming the scene after they fell asleep every day, and finally discovered the vision.Judging from the logic of real life, this kind of behavior of actively being under the surveillance of the camera is somewhat strange, but the whole film is composed of the video data shot by this DV. If the context of this DV shooting is not valid, The movie just couldn't stand.In hindsight, people questioned the plot of the film and its ending, but never questioned the existence of this DV.That is to say, people think that it is not impossible to have a camera in the house all day long. It is a normal life. The camera can shoot landscapes or daily life, help record memories, and provide a source of self-existence. evidence.

This is also the psychological basis for the existence of "The Blair Witch", the Spanish and American versions of "Death Video", "Cloverfield Files", "Death Diary" and other films that use DV as the narrator. People in the film, in any situation Even if the person holding the camera in front dies, the people behind will continue to shoot. Although this is the need of the narrative, it doesn’t make us feel wrong at all, because we are used to letting the image take over as our existence. evidence, perhaps even the only evidence. There is also a little bit of false arrogance hidden in it.I have a friend who owns a recording studio. Every time someone goes to his place to record a song, he enthusiastically says, "If you put it on the Internet, you will be immortal", and further explains, "Light and information, as long as they exist However, it will continue to exist forever.” I don’t care whether there is any basis for his statement, but I have to admit that this kind of statement is very easy to confuse people.

However, the science fiction documentary "The World After the Disappearance of Man" dealt a merciless blow to this arrogance. It pointed out that after the disappearance of human beings, within a hundred years, due to the destruction of all image storage media, these things will not exist .But at present, we still feel self-sufficient for the existence of video evidence, and emptiness is a matter of the future. At least for now, our sense of existence is supported by irrefutable evidence.