Salman Khalid

    In all respects, the globe continues to hurtle towards uncertainty. Our economies continue to attack our way of life, our politics allude to the disintegration of society, and the climate seems to predict the collapse of our planet. In light of the oncoming apocalypse, we retreat. We hope to pacify ourselves. We are increasingly stretched thin, and the world asks ever more of us. In response, we reduce the ever-escalating complexity of the world into bite-sized clips. The 24-hour news cycle created a culture of constant onslaught. Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok accelerated the speed of dissemination. Benign selfies, acts of terrorism, and celebrity gossip were packaged into the same swipeable, shareable format. Life has become intense and fragmented; we are flooded with passive stimulus. In response, we disengage and let ourselves be pacified.

     Is it any wonder then that Hollywood soon followed? Slowly, through each installment, our films become a series of disconnected clips vying for our attention. Film, once bursting with potentiality, has become inert; art has been reduced to products and numbers. Creative expression has fallen away to market demands. Videos and images that once held meaning are now mere tools for profit. Good storytelling, however, rarely fits within the constraints of a YouTube video. Sit with the Discomfort responds to the commodification of art by reinvigorating the inert, disposable product. The work borrows the methods and methodologies of 1970s structuralist film—such as Michael Snow’s Wavelength or Tony Conrad’s The Flicker—to reinstate cinema as an art and an experience. The once disconnected clip is given new context and subtle association that emerges only through close attention and repeated watching, contesting its role as mere commodity. However, this is not enough. If we are to truly break away from film as product, we must also break away from ourselves as passive consumers.

     Our movies are products of us as much as they are products of men in flat suits looking at pointless charts. We are the swipers, the buyers, the doom scrollers and the Rotten Tomato reviewers. When Netflix asks “Are you still watching?” it’s ultimately you who has to get up and hit yes. So, I ask, are you still watching? Is this what you want to be doing with your time? Are you really deciding or are you doing what’s comfortable? Are you even really watching? If we are to return to films as art, film as storytelling, film that transports us and ignites us, we must first turn to ourselves. We must break away from the typical transacting of giving our time in hopes of pacifying our discomfort. So that’s where I’d like to begin. Sit down, sit with the discomfort. Notice the irritation, the boredom, and the repetition. Pay attention to the time passing by and the urge to escape, and when you next open Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok, when you next watch a film, continue to notice.