Peter Campion at the LARB:
READING DAVID THOMSON’S new book about television, Remotely: Travels in the Binge of TV, I remembered a beguiling moment in his 2016 history of the medium, Television: A Biography. At the end of that book, Thomson includes a photograph of a young man at a trade show with his eyes—the entire top of his head, in fact—covered by black virtual-reality glasses. The image exudes a dopey cheerlessness, as if his high-tech leisure-seeking has annulled the poor guy himself. Or is the feeling even worse—blunt menace, as if this man were some futuristic Cyclops? Under the photo is a short passage:
It is Oculus now; it will have rivals and other names. Perhaps it is just the latest big thing, soon to be surpassed. But it may be a radical reappraisal of movie and TV so far. So big a thing, it makes us forget the past.
Meanwhile, just look at it. Isn’t it the best evidence that we are becoming screens—plastic, masked, anonymous, isolated?
more here.