Our eyes are our cameras.
The windows via which our souls are thus informed.
Mostly they do not lie but can be lied to.
We are beguiled by, and are, willing victims of what we witness.
A wish to be mesmerised, to be abducted on a journey.
Nowadays nothing can be taken for granted.
Our stimulus of desire may be tricked and yet we respond as though it all were real.
What we see is what we feel.
The perfectly edited lies of the flat screen.
In the digital age, unless you're connected properly, no-one will hear you scream.
You expect an arrival of reward in the hope to dream.
What has connected us has thus infected us.
Does it matter any longer if what we want to believe is patently untrue?
It can be a form of consolation.
A sense of inner devastation.
Truth dressed as something so perfectly fake.
There is a question of self, a desire to be seen as we wish to be percieved.
The shop window and facade that hides imperfect emptiness.
We are bombarded and thus we bombard.
Images of adulation as aspects of ideals that hide a fear of rejection.
To be seen as we believe ourselves as we should have arrived, although deep down we have gilded a lie.
The perfect lips, the faultless nose and brightly coloured eyes.
We have corrected the wishes that had failed us.
Everyone is ready, ready for their close-up on the small screen.
Steven Wilson's presentation of his song "Self" is a visual confection of deceit, disingenuosly delivered.
Crafted like a symphony of greys favoured in fashion shoots, it is a casual creepy nightmare.
What you see will make you respond though you know it isn't real.
The revolution has not only been televised it had been perfectly digitised.
It is also scarily appropriate for our time of masks and the perfect entree for his latest album 'The Future Bites'.
Miles Skarin is Wilson's collaborator in this skin-deep lie.
A magician without a rabbit, dove, or hat.
He presents us with Wilson in a suit and glasses like a promo shot for an advert selling classy facial furniture.
The show begins underscored by stacccato lyrics that emerge in deep red text.
A visual jarring of celebrity faces you recognise but are thrown by.
Hard to place initially they haunt.
They are transposed on Wilson's body.
A Frankenstein a go go pandrogyny.
Theirs is a subtle smack that jars the casual gaze.
Stops you in thoughts of suspended speculation.
It is a stroke of subtle genius.
Graceful takes that also are a litany of false impressions.
Nothing is of the sort of what it seems.
All flickers by in classy black and white.
Perfect proof that something catchy can be relevant, rewarding and simply divine.
"Self" skips along like Talking Heads in tandem with Scritti Politti.
A casually infectious piece of aural tease.
The final frame is a heart chiller.
An icicle across the soul.
The ghost in your machine.
- Robert Cochrane