Pandemic landscapes through alien eyes

Seemingly “strange” scenes and experiences push us to approach our surroundings with new perspectives and insight. We do a double-take on certain aspects of life that once seemed so simple and concrete when faced with new forms of knowledge. I was introduced to a YouTube video titled, “When the World Became A De Chirico Painting”, which I encourage each individual reading this article to go watch. This video compares the emptiness of public spaces throughout the pandemic to paintings by Giorgio de Chirico, one of the main developers of the metaphysical art movement. De Chirico used his art, specifically his “Metaphysical Town Squares” series, to support his perspective that “the world must be made new to the viewer. And to make the world new, it must be made strange.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has made the world seem new and strange. Constantly needing to remember a mask when venturing into public spaces is strange, and viewing pictures of empty town squares, when they were so recently bustling with busy citizens and travelers is odd. The relative stillness this pandemic has created has allowed people to realize the immensity of perspectives there are to be found, discovered and used. Spaces and architecture previously overlooked and underappreciated have been intensely highlighted and “it was possible to see what we built through alien eyes,” says De Chirico. The conditions of life today have put the world that now exists absent of human busyness on display and has transformed cities and towns into what De Chirico says are “immense museums of strangeness.”

I remember driving down the main street of my hometown after restaurants and public spaces had just started to open back up and realizing how different the man-made world seemed when it was absent of those who constructed it. I remember noticing the slightest movements, which previously went unnoticed, just because of how still the past few months had seemed. It could be said that the streets, sidewalks and buildings of small towns, big cities and everything in between were changed into locations comparable to national parks, in which humans are completely out of the sphere of focus.

As vaccines are administered and cities and states continuously change COVID-19 guidelines, the spaces that were so full before the pandemic, but so majestically empty during the time of intense lockdown, “will fade again into the background of our lives” according to De Chirico. The focus will shift away from the eerie stillness back toward the sounds of honking horns and rushed individuals racing from one meeting to the next. I urge you to hold on to those images and experiences of when “our world became profoundly strange,” as De Chirico would put it.  Even with the increase of civilians in public spaces, look at the structures around you with an outside perspective, as if you truly are looking through alien eyes. What all does the “immense museum of strangeness” that humans have created truly entail and embody? What can we learn about the human race, society and ourselves from the structures that constantly serve us? What have we made, why have we made it and what can it mean?

Watch the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkPmiUFZyu8&t=1s.