In Till Nowak’s
“The Centrifuge Brain Project,” a fictional documentary, Dr. Laslowicz explains
his mad science experiments involving hilariously dangerous amusement park
rides. The dead pan humor in the
film functions very well to underscore the inherent absurdity of amusement
parks. This allusion calls to mind
Jean Baudrillard’s thoughts on simulations and simulacrum, specifically the
discussion of Disney Land as fantastical construct that exists only to
perpetuate the illusion that the rest of the world is in fact “the real,” when
really no such thing truly exists.
This scenario operates off the logic that meaning is imbued through a
system of difference, that things are understood through contrasts. Till Nowak’s work becomes particularly
interesting in this light, as it both alludes the bizarre phenomenon of
amusement parks and also further plays with notions of “the real” in that it is
a fictional documentary. This paradoxical
hybrid simultaneously embraces both the fiction and the reality, underscoring
the unsettling tension in Baudrillard’s argument. The film is also interesting in that it simultaneous
embraces and rejects the conventions of genre—it is not really fiction, not
really a documentary, and the short length of it places it in an odd
uncategorized position. The film’s
real brilliance however lies in its inventive use of humor to comment on the
human condition and the strange beauty of the fantastical rides.
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