In 1936, Salvador Dali, accusing filmmaker Joseph Cornell of stealing the film, "Rose Hobart" from his (Dali's) subconscious, knocked over the projector and stormed out of its premiere.
The surrealists held that the purpose of art and cinema was to stimulate and manipulate the subconscious via an altered, misplaced and "improper" association of the elements of reality.
By 2000, the surreal and transcendental experience of modern TV viewing has produced a million hallucinogenic experiences for everyone within its reach. The average adult will have seen over two million commercials by age 65. The "best" and most effective of these are surreal soundings of a product's potential within the viewer's subconscious mind. No contract is required - just tuning-in grants the license to probe.
The Citizen is a piece about media manipulation, its effects and a possible strategy of self-defense.
