Our Shining Beast

Living with technology or living technology, modesty or immoderateness, philosophical or utterly American – Koyaanisatsi can be read in a variety of ways. In his complex essay the author follows numerous hints on his way in the direction of the core of this ageless work. The openness of this abstract work almost seems to invite to loosen the strict scientific in favor of a more subjective approach. For this purpose the author consults a multitude of texts, reaching from the influences mentioned by director Godfrey Reggio himself and contemporary novels to the point of popsong lyrics. Thereby the film is not only regarded as being imbedded in the texture of his time but also examined in terms of his deeply enrooted origin which proves to be on the one hand philosophically founded and on the other hand downright indigenously American.