Shine On You Crazy Diamond
I've been thinking a lot about a guy I knew at Swinburne.
I guess what I'm feeling is a pretty distant echo of what his family and those closest to him have felt since the start of this year. His name was Richard and he was one of the games and interactivity students. I remember when I first met him I thought he was very strange and, not to be mean but his classmates had set that bar pretty high. He had the same awkward mannerisms and patterns of speech as someone with mild aspergers syndrome but instead of being loud and overbearing he seemed very quiet and restrained.
He'd rarely look at you when you spoke but he'd listen intently, staring at his feet, standing like he was bracing himself for a loud noise. He didn’t seem to mind being on his own but he didn’t seem uncomfortable talking to you either. He didn't really get jokes, mine anyway, and he either didn't care or couldn't tell that I wasn't taking him seriously when he told me about his personal philosophy.
It wasn't that I was totally insensitive it's just that I thought, initially, that he was taking the piss. He had some weird ideas about how the world worked- inspired by a theory called ‘timecube’. The website (timecube.com) looked to me like nothing more than a joke that someone had taken way too far. I remember thinking that it looked like the digital equivalent of a schizophrenic’s apartment; wallpapered with newspaper clippings and red permanent marker. I refused to believe that it could be just what it appeared to be and I refused to believe that Richard- socially awkward but seemingly bright - could believe in it. I just figured he was eccentric and that timecube was the upshot of some sort of weird sense of humour.
That was until someone showed me the website that he’d made - cubic awareness online. CubicAO was weird on a whole other level. It had dozens of videos of Richard explaining the principles of timecube- complete with 3D motion graphics and visual effects and elaborate computer generated diagrams designed to somehow shed light on the irrational. On the videos Richard is a different person- he’s extroverted and fired up, falling over himself trying to explain concepts that are essentially meaningless. But doing so with a level of energy that makes you sit up and take notice.
In December last year he took a trip to the US to interview the creator of timecube.com- a man called Gene Ray. Richard bought his digital video camera but only the first day of his visit is recorded. Even that has been edited down to more than two hours of edited footage uploaded to youtube. When he arrives Richard tells Gene that he’ll be 21 in a few weeks and Gene tells him that he's almost 80 years old and despite the awkwardness it seems like it might go well. But after the introductions are out of the way Richard starts asking questions about the finer points of timecube ‘theory’. For his part Gene mostly misinterprets or ignores the questions, instead he launches into rambling and almost incoherent tirades against ‘the government’ and ‘the corporations’, against homosexuals, jews and wikipedia.
As the interview wears on Gene’s answers become more disjointed and you get a sense from the muffled responses from Richard behind the camera that he was expecting enlightenment and instead received nothing but paranoid delusions. Gene doesn’t seem to remember his own opinions and he becomes more and more agitated at the questions asked of him and the intrusion of the camera.
“if you were a true cubic you wouldn’t ask questions.” He says at one point “You’d think them!”. Later on he tells Richard that all those who don’t believe in timecube should be killed; “words wont change the ignorant” he says “you have to shoot at them, or starve them”
Despite the vitriol it’s hard not to feel sorry for the old man. In one of the few cutaways you see Gene hobble over to help his dog to its feet. In his shed he has boxes piled to the ceiling filled with 'priceless' emails that he has printed out and squirreled away over the decades. Later Richard asks why Gene’s daughter isn’t helping him spread the truth of timecube. “She doesn’t have much time” he says, flustered, “she’s too tied up with her ‘oneism’ so I can’t get much help from her”.
One of the comments on youtube sums it up
“This is like Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now.”
Except in Apocalypse Now Willard kills Kurtz when he learns the extent of his madness.
It’s not clear exactly what happened between Richard and Gene in the days after the initial interviews were shot. An update to the timecube website specifically denounces Richard as a thief and it seems that the rejection hit Richard harder than anyone around him could have anticipated. After renouncing timecube he withdrew from the online community that he had built and kept to himself for a few weeks.
On Tuesday February the 12th he spent the day at uni. Late in the afternoon instead of going home he threw himself in front of an express train at Glenferrie station.
I’m really not sure why I’ve written this all out. It just seems like suicides get swept under the carpet and society pretends they don’t happen. But willful ignorance doesn’t really serve the memory of those that die. There should be ripples when something like this happens.
But in this case there are ripples I guess; hours of video and pages of text and diagrams and legions of fans. I just wish he could have realised how many people appreciated him on that website. It's turned into a bit of a digital memorial now. One of the comments that has been left says “To be honest, I always thought Richard's obsessive commitment to Time Cube was a form of performance art. But apparently it was quite sincere.”
Final word goes to one of Richard's friends, as posted on the CubicAO message board:
Richard played the violin and benefited a great deal from music. He was a shy student and found it difficult to fit in. He was a gifted computer programmer.
I'm sure he brought lively debate and hopefully contributed to 'stretching' peoples thinking even if different from their own ideas.
Please give him a thought.
I guess what I'm feeling is a pretty distant echo of what his family and those closest to him have felt since the start of this year. His name was Richard and he was one of the games and interactivity students. I remember when I first met him I thought he was very strange and, not to be mean but his classmates had set that bar pretty high. He had the same awkward mannerisms and patterns of speech as someone with mild aspergers syndrome but instead of being loud and overbearing he seemed very quiet and restrained.
He'd rarely look at you when you spoke but he'd listen intently, staring at his feet, standing like he was bracing himself for a loud noise. He didn’t seem to mind being on his own but he didn’t seem uncomfortable talking to you either. He didn't really get jokes, mine anyway, and he either didn't care or couldn't tell that I wasn't taking him seriously when he told me about his personal philosophy.
It wasn't that I was totally insensitive it's just that I thought, initially, that he was taking the piss. He had some weird ideas about how the world worked- inspired by a theory called ‘timecube’. The website (timecube.com) looked to me like nothing more than a joke that someone had taken way too far. I remember thinking that it looked like the digital equivalent of a schizophrenic’s apartment; wallpapered with newspaper clippings and red permanent marker. I refused to believe that it could be just what it appeared to be and I refused to believe that Richard- socially awkward but seemingly bright - could believe in it. I just figured he was eccentric and that timecube was the upshot of some sort of weird sense of humour.
That was until someone showed me the website that he’d made - cubic awareness online. CubicAO was weird on a whole other level. It had dozens of videos of Richard explaining the principles of timecube- complete with 3D motion graphics and visual effects and elaborate computer generated diagrams designed to somehow shed light on the irrational. On the videos Richard is a different person- he’s extroverted and fired up, falling over himself trying to explain concepts that are essentially meaningless. But doing so with a level of energy that makes you sit up and take notice.
In December last year he took a trip to the US to interview the creator of timecube.com- a man called Gene Ray. Richard bought his digital video camera but only the first day of his visit is recorded. Even that has been edited down to more than two hours of edited footage uploaded to youtube. When he arrives Richard tells Gene that he’ll be 21 in a few weeks and Gene tells him that he's almost 80 years old and despite the awkwardness it seems like it might go well. But after the introductions are out of the way Richard starts asking questions about the finer points of timecube ‘theory’. For his part Gene mostly misinterprets or ignores the questions, instead he launches into rambling and almost incoherent tirades against ‘the government’ and ‘the corporations’, against homosexuals, jews and wikipedia.
As the interview wears on Gene’s answers become more disjointed and you get a sense from the muffled responses from Richard behind the camera that he was expecting enlightenment and instead received nothing but paranoid delusions. Gene doesn’t seem to remember his own opinions and he becomes more and more agitated at the questions asked of him and the intrusion of the camera.
“if you were a true cubic you wouldn’t ask questions.” He says at one point “You’d think them!”. Later on he tells Richard that all those who don’t believe in timecube should be killed; “words wont change the ignorant” he says “you have to shoot at them, or starve them”
Despite the vitriol it’s hard not to feel sorry for the old man. In one of the few cutaways you see Gene hobble over to help his dog to its feet. In his shed he has boxes piled to the ceiling filled with 'priceless' emails that he has printed out and squirreled away over the decades. Later Richard asks why Gene’s daughter isn’t helping him spread the truth of timecube. “She doesn’t have much time” he says, flustered, “she’s too tied up with her ‘oneism’ so I can’t get much help from her”.
One of the comments on youtube sums it up
“This is like Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now.”
Except in Apocalypse Now Willard kills Kurtz when he learns the extent of his madness.
It’s not clear exactly what happened between Richard and Gene in the days after the initial interviews were shot. An update to the timecube website specifically denounces Richard as a thief and it seems that the rejection hit Richard harder than anyone around him could have anticipated. After renouncing timecube he withdrew from the online community that he had built and kept to himself for a few weeks.
On Tuesday February the 12th he spent the day at uni. Late in the afternoon instead of going home he threw himself in front of an express train at Glenferrie station.
I’m really not sure why I’ve written this all out. It just seems like suicides get swept under the carpet and society pretends they don’t happen. But willful ignorance doesn’t really serve the memory of those that die. There should be ripples when something like this happens.
But in this case there are ripples I guess; hours of video and pages of text and diagrams and legions of fans. I just wish he could have realised how many people appreciated him on that website. It's turned into a bit of a digital memorial now. One of the comments that has been left says “To be honest, I always thought Richard's obsessive commitment to Time Cube was a form of performance art. But apparently it was quite sincere.”
Final word goes to one of Richard's friends, as posted on the CubicAO message board:
Richard played the violin and benefited a great deal from music. He was a shy student and found it difficult to fit in. He was a gifted computer programmer.
I'm sure he brought lively debate and hopefully contributed to 'stretching' peoples thinking even if different from their own ideas.
Please give him a thought.