Buck Rogers has a lot to answer for...

The late seventies TV series, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century provides me with clues to my love of 'cinematic space'.  Watching it as a 9 year old child, I used to completely engage with it's plot and dazzling visual spectacle.  I was Buck Rogers every week and enjoyed all the spoils that he was entitled to as star of the show (read into that what you will).  Being my own personal, personality 'terra-former' - I learned my ethical standards from him, my moral code was informed by his (often dubious) actions - It's no wonder I had strange ideas as a teenager as to the role of men in society. I had a kind of 'Surrogate Oedipal' relationship with the stars of the show - maybe I wasn't the protagonist, maybe I saw Buck Rogers and Wilma Dearing as parents, maybe that explains my childhood crush on Erin Gray or should I say, Queen Jocasta?

The poor quality screen grab below is taken form the Star Fighter launch sequence.  It's a beautiful neon lit scene and the virtual movement was undoubtedly created inside a scale model set, (Special effects were a childhood obsession too).  Whilst watching Buck Rogers I would construct my own space ship models from LEGO (not even looking at my hands whilst I did it) - not only were my visual and aural senses sated, but my haptic abilities were honed and informed by the illusion of real space and the shape and position of things within that environment.  To my 'mind' I physically occupied the world beyond the barrier of the television set - I had a 'presence' there and that space now has a presence in me.
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Buck Rogers in the 25th Century