An artist, J.R., working with something called Snap Inc., has covered the Pont-Neuf bridge in Paris with a gigantic tarpaulin shaped like a cave, through which the public is invited to walk. It is supposed to represent the underground cave where Plato (d. 348 BC) thought most of mankind metaphorically lived. Of course it bears no likeness whatsoever, being empty of everything with which Plato filled his cave. But then he is an artist, beyond such banausic considerations.
Plato’s cave is seen as an allegory of the human situation. Plato sees mankind chained into position from birth like prisoners, able to see only the wall directly in front of them. Behind them is a parapet, on top of which a puppet-show of humans and animal models, some talking, some silent, are being carried back and forth. Behind this puppet-show is a fire, whose light casts the shadows of those puppets onto the wall in front of the prisoners. The sum total of human experience is seeing the shadow of puppets on the wall in front, and hearing the words spoken by those working the puppets – a remarkable anticipation of our mobile-maddened world.
Now suppose, Plato says, that one of those prisoners was released. He would look round and be dazzled by the fire and then baffled by the puppets. Could this be ‘reality’? Then suppose he were to be led out into the real world above, he would be blinded by the sun and take a long time to accustom himself to the light of that reality.
But the result would be that he would long to bring the cave-dwellers into the real world. But when he told them they were watching shadows of puppets, what would they do? ‘They would laugh at him and say he had gone up only to come back with his sight ruined: if only they could get hold of him, they would kill him.’
J.R.’s cave, being empty, bears no relation to Plato’s world of shadowy puppets but still he has invited Snap Inc. to help the visitors reflect on an experience of vacuous existence as they walk through it. After, no doubt, deep reflection, Snap has decided the best way to do that is for them to consult material made available on their … mobiles! Durrrrrr.
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