Creative Self-isolation
In 1815, the earth’s biggest
volcanic eruption in 10,000 years,
tore apart Mount Tambora in Indonesia. By the following year , its ash
had spread across Europe and America causing crop failure, famine and cold
stormy weather, known as “the year without summer” . In a rented villa on Lake
Geneva Mary Shelley, confined to the house with the poets Shelley and Lord
Byron, responded to the mayhem with the creation of her famous story,
Frankenstein. 500 kilometers away, Baron
Karl Drais, invented the first bicycle, the Laufmaschine, or “running-machine”
since most of the horses had perished. Imitations rapidly appeared in Britain
and America. One has to pay homage to
the indomitable creative spirit in the face of disaster.
Tinkering alone in home workshops created many novel ideas
– Graham Bell’s first long distance call
in 1876, the Quadricyle, the first Ford car in 1896, the first weekly radiobroadcast by Frank
Conrad in 1920, and Walt Disney’s first
short film in 1923, to name a few garage inventors.
Home entertainment
was an important part of life in the 19th century, especially for
women and children of genteel society who were expected to stay indoors.
Musical evenings or soirees, group activities such as needlework, playing cards
and board games dispelled the boredom or ennui of living in remote country
homes. The Bronte sisters became prolific writers. Home theatre productions became
an important genre - plays written by women and performed by family members and
domestic staff. Suppliers developed rolls of scenery for sets. Candid drawing room discussions by men and
women provided the content – social issues, politics, war, current events, not
dissimilar to every home in Pakistan. Victorian
manufacturers even produced tiny cardboard stages with cardboard actors and
audience, complete with scripts. My aunt used to make us paper dolls with a
variety of dresses one attached with paper tabs.
Home theatre was also common in the time of my grandmother. One
imagines they morphed into the current television dramas in Pakistan, often
written by women, which like home theatre, are viewed by the family, although the content is usually
a suffocating self-reflective domesticity rather than glorious battles of Rustam and Sohrab.
A consequence of the post WWII economic prosperity, was the
focus on home improvements so humourously
expressed in the films of Jacques Tati. Home entertainment has become
big business, starting with the introduction of combination TV, record player,
and radio consoles. Today’s ideal homes have swimming pools and basement home
cinema, 292 inch flat screen wall televisions,
smart phones, and virtual reality video games, a far cry from the first
video game “tennis for two” in
1958. Even when people leave their homes, they take their entertainment
devices with them.
Worldwide statistics for March 2020 show that between March
16 and 22, 4.3 million video games were sold worldwide – a 63% increase from
the previous week. People in self isolation are reading more books, watching
more news, listening to music and using
social media Video hangout app ‘Houseparty’ has gone viral
since the spread of the Covid 19 virus.
The 1918 pandemic with only three days from infection to
death, gave little opportunity for art to assimilate the impact. Egon
Schiele’s last painting “the Family”
shows a harrowed Schiele with his wife, Edith, and imagined child. Within weeks
his pregnant wife died, followed by his own death three days later - the day of her funeral.
Economic anxieties and a depressing rise in domestic
violence notwithstanding, this pandemic has awoken everyone’s creative
side -sharing recipes, memes and music
compositions. I expect art and poetry are quietly taking shape. Akram Dost
Baloch has already shared a series of beautiful drawings in response to Covid
19.
Durriya Kazi
April 18, 2020
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