Gene Youngblood, Expanded Cinema

pg. 236

GENE: Do you think of the future in connection with computers? JOHN: Well let's divorce the future from technology and talk about human values. I see the nature of things today in the world and there seems to be a strong force of discontent and evil. And I wonder how can there not be some counterbalancing force, something that can apply itself to the spirit of man? And I begin to think about what is the meaning of the film work I'm doing? I believe it's possible that an inadvertent spin-off from technology will transform man into a transcendental being. There isn't much we can conceive now that can give us a clue to how it will come about. But I suspect that vision will play an important role. The eye will have a lot to do with it. It could conceivably be some external thing, which metaphysically will affect the mind and cause some transcendental experience. So with that in mind I've been thinking of ways to integrate the realist image into the nonobjective image so that a synthesis will evolve, a cinematic experience which might contribute to an evolutionary transformation of man's thought processes.