interiorization

a claustrophobic display of hallways, stairs, rooms, and walls within 1950’s noir films. on the first degree, a visual metaphor for the existential horror of modernism. modernism as a labyrinth or maze representing the futility of man’s self-created choices; a system in which all choices are ultimately identical; a false freedom; fatalism. the concept that human-created systems–modernism (industrialization)–cannot civilize man; and offer him unsustainable (inauthentic) progress. the concept that man cannot save himself. on the second degree, a metaphor for the idea that modernism is more indicative of man than man is of modernism; that man’s authentic essence is that of a heart of darkness. presaged the onset of postmodernism.
interiorization is a deep visual metaphor that indicates man cannot willfully create unique existential choices, material progress is a false dichotomy from man’s ‘true’ essence, modernism deludes human beings into the perception of false progress; the essence of man is a heart of darkness (joseph p. conrad); and modernism is more an indictment of man than man is a representative of the progress of modernism.