Morning Ritual

I've been so busy since I started back to grad school. Today I needed to give a quick demo to one of my introductory multimedia classes I teach at Spokane Falls Community College. At the last minute I decided to photograph my son who has taken it upon himself to set is alarm and join me each morning at 6am while I study. Here is the short and and quick little movie I made during an hour long class. I think all of us parents can relate!

Book Review: Lure of the Local by Lucy Lippard

Abstract submitted for:
NMDS.5004: Understanding Media Studies Fall 08
Professor Shannon Mattern, PHD

Lippard, Lucy. Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society (The New Press, New York 1997)

Lucy Lippard presents a personal journal to find one’s identity within a fragmented society. Her book, Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society is a vast attempt to describe the connections we make to the landscape in a transformation of space into the establishment of place, and how we have become multicentered through a process of dislocation and immigration.

The person who has lived in a single place all their life is unique in modern culture, just as someone who is of pure ethnic heritage. A distinctive accent or “local” knowledge is easily spotted in stark contrast to the transient nature of the modern American Landscape. Most people move every four years and most adults live in houses that are younger than they are. These are the conditions that have created a stress upon society that has compelled us to form micro communities in an effort to reclaim a sense of identity. Lure of the Local illustrates the need and the means for forming connections to place.

Lippard draws upon the voices of many. Rather than present specific research she unfolds a logic model based upon first defining the difference between space and place, and then further describing the formation of place through history and memory. The text builds on the ideas of community, geography, and representation and presents a challenge to artist to “recover the geographical imagination and to introduce moral discourse” into the places we live and work.

The beginning of the book offers readers some clues at reading the landscape from a historical perspective. “Every Landscape is a hermetic narrative.” An archeological approach is necessary to sift through the layers of fragments that we encounter in any “place” we have lived in or traveled through. We are invited to look at the origins of names, histories, and maps, and encouraged to stay awhile to go beyond the reading of landscape as a survivor mode utilized by the woodsmen or any urban traveler. The reader is asked to linger and consider the significance of memory within place, the unwritten histories that are not visible on a map, but can be found in the stories of the locals who remember. “Perhaps the only lay people who are really able to interpret social landscapes are locals – those who can recognize subtleties of change in a place over time, who know what the lumps and bumps once were and what has replaced them.”

From an art history perspective, Lippard is challenging contemporary artists go beyond mirroring beauty in objects intended for home décor. She looks to photography and site based art as having the greatest potential for connecting the diverse narratives of a place and challenges artist to insert a “moral discourse” into local land use issues.

Lippard focuses primarily on photography and site specific art. Photography has the ability to simultaneously be “high art” and scientific record and has the power of reproduction that enables it transcend art. Photography has been used to support the ideology of the American West myth and has been utilized by organizations like the Sierra Club to foster support for preservation. All too often however, the beauty in the landscape photography is nothing more than “Eco Porn” used to hide the abuses of land use and development. “The role of aestheticization is the most difficult issue within the issue of communicating not only how the landscape looks, or seems, but how it is.” The landscape cannot be seen as purely phenomenological and therefore neutral. It is symbolic representation of cultural values. The modern landscape photographer spends as much time in the library as they do in the field making photographs. The image is inextricably linked to the text narrative of place. One cannot look at the landscape photographs of Drex Brooks without being further impacted by the knowledge that what they are looking at is a place where a massacre occurred.

Lippard points to the structuralist approaches of photographers like Ed Ruscha and Lewis Baltz and hints at the work of the other New Topographic photographers as a means of suggesting a need for the narrative details that lie between each image. She goes to the snapshot as an example of photographs that hold fragments of history and suggest that artist can do more to support discourse through focusing on content over form. The landscape photographer is encouraged to look at signs, and fragments, to illustrate the palimpsest in banal social spaces. Time and again Lippard is telling us that the landscape is a reflection of the qualities of culture and the photograph can serve as a journalistic endeavor to confront us about ourselves.

She further cites the works of Robert Smithson and the ideal of land reclamation artwork as a means to “reclaim damaged nature as culture…” Lippard is not neutral in her presentation of arguments for the role of artist in such issues. She is essentially utilizing the text as a way to further highlight the injustices she sees within land use practices.

From an academic perspective, Lure of the Local introduces the concepts of community, history, preservation, and ‘neogeography’ or ‘social mapping’. She is developing the idea of multicentered society based upon the perpetual state of human dislocation and immigration and the impact this has on the landscape. T.S. Eliot wrote “home is where we start from” and thus we are compelled to bring our cultural viewpoints to any new location. The potential of any landscape is cultivated through diverse cultural perspectives. She charts a progression from indigenous, native, local, and outsider that offers us a way of looking at the discourse within a region. “All places exist somewhere between the inside and outside views of them.”

We are asked to look at the names of places and to see the difference between indigenous naming conventions that ”tend to identify resources for the common good” and European names that are more about “what it looks like” and “who was there” and utilize names as “proof of ownership.”

These place names are cataloged on maps which Lippard points out are not neutral and support the ideology of the person who made them. Maps are inherently powerful because they, like photographs, are perceived as truth, as a factual representation of what is there. Lippard shares many map-making efforts that are endeavoring to represent the culture of the local that is missing from the dominant hegemony maps. It is the establishment of boundaries that asserts power over space.

A large section of the book is dedicated to land use and is an indictment of the political processes that determine where hazardous waste is dumped, zoning codes, and environmental battles between ranchers and conservationist. Lippard also points out the landscape as a gendered space, particularly when viewed in terms of home and safety and the conditions that led to the development of the suburbs.

It seems as though Lippard is challenging us to engage in our own history and draw out the history of others through the reproduction of narratives. Individual histories as told through our own voices are less subjugated to hegemony than when it is left to others. Those who write history control it. Without specifically articulating it, Lippard is presenting the concept of discursive formation of meaning and is presenting these concepts within a discursive manner filled with examples and narratives from artist such as Houston Conwill, Agness Denes, and Carrie Mae Weems. The reader is encouraged to take part in this discourse on a local or regional level.

There are many critics of this book. Lippard seems prepared for the criticism and ends her text with a response to those who would criticize her. “Some of the ideas conveyed here will be (and have been) attacked as retrograde. So be it I am tired of the prevailing disrespect for emotive retrospection, which is a valuable component of communication if balanced by local knowledge and critical curiosity. One way society disempowers people is to give them no credit for their thoughts and accomplishments.”

As an academic text, I have to say it is a difficult text for a new student as it doesn’t speak directly to a single line of reason but is rather more like a patchwork quilt of ideas drawn from many disciplines of study and from the personal travels and connections of the author. It doesn’t speak too much about specifics of landscape, structures, systems, climates, etc. but deals with the impressions and concepts, and the role artist can play in protesting the injustices the author has noted and others we might find when observing the context of place. It is a text that is absorbed indirectly over time, fragments slowly pulled together to form an impression. One doesn’t leave this book, but rather comes and goes from it making a web of connections to personal practice.

In the end, Lure of the Local is not so much about rooting one’s self but instead, being responsive and responsible in how we interact within the places we travel and to find a wholeness through our relationship with ‘place’.

The New Imagined Community

Abstract submitted for:
NMDS.5004: Understanding Media Studies Fall 08
Professor Shannon Mattern, PHD

Fox, Steve. The New Imagined Community: Identifying and Exploring a Bidirectional Continuum Integrating Virtual and Physical Communities through the Community Embodiment Model (Journal of Communication Inquiry 2004) pg. 47 – 62

The internet has become a routine cultural practice that is no longer limited to the realm of specialization. “We are moving away from a world of Internet wizards to a world of ordinary people routinely using the Internet as an embedded part of their lives” (Wellman and Haythornwaite 2003).

The result of widespread adoption of the Internet has been the development of virtual communities that behave in a manner very similar to physical communities. In this article Fox proposes that we should utilize a Community Embodiment Model (CEM) framework that is similar to the frameworks used to analyze physical communities and that there is a physical/virtual continuum that exists that is based upon a common perception of the ‘imagined’ community. This continuum represents a further extension of man and is bidirectional in nature.

The article establishes a basis for comparing virtual and physical communities by first looking at early social research beginning with Durkheim’s (1933) ideas about a ‘collective consciousness’ which was further developed by Tonnies’ (1957) organization of ‘community’ and ‘society’ as two overlapping social spheres ‘Gemeinschaft’ and ‘Gesellschaft’. ‘Gemeinschaft’ was the term used to describe a tight- knit community and ‘Gesellschaft’ described the individualistic aspects of society based upon social status, power, and wealth. Turkle (1995) further argued that the technology of modern society was creating a more fragmented culture through the use of computer mediated communication technology. However as the Internet gained a cultural critical mass online communities began to ‘retribalize’ society by “forming even smaller communities of interest.”

Finally, Fox points to the seminal work of Anderson (1991) that introduced the concept of the imagined community. Anderson pointed out that the number of people we have fact to face encounters with in a community is so small, yet we imagine members of the community to exist in a similar manner as ourselves. Virtual communities are just an expansion of ‘imagined’ physical communities. This ‘imagined’ community is the basis for support of the Community Embodiment Model (CEM). Therefore, utilizing this CEM model is seen as an important tool to analyze the way in which virtual communities overlap with physical communities.

The latter part of the article points to a pilot study that involved surveying participants within and online community and measuring their level of participation within a physical and virtual environment, and their level of satisfaction with each mode of communication. Two important themes emerged from the data. First, virtual communities utilize cues such as emoticons and topics of thread discussions to help a participant to define the space between themselves and the people they are communicating with, which is a process that mirrors the physical world. The data confirmed that virtual communities are embodied by the imagination through a set of features and characteristics.

Secondly, the variety of preferences expressed between communication in a face to face manner or an online manner supports the idea that there is a bidirectional relationship between the physical and virtual community.

Finally, the research showed that when online members of a community have not met in person they create an image of the ‘other’ in their own likeness, just as Anderson described the imagined physical community.

The theoretical connections between the physical and virtual community are interesting. However the research done so far is very limited based upon the CEM model. Only ten participants were surveyed within a single corporate community that the author is a member of. Further research is necessary.

However, should the CEM model become widely accepted as a means of establishing the link between virtual and physical communities, it may very well alter how we structure the physical community through our recognition of its virtual extensions and we may see an equal expansion of government in cyberspace.

Community Informatics

Abstract Submitted for:
NMDS 5004: Understanding Media Studies Fall 08
Professor Shannon Mattern, PHD

Goodwin, Ian. Community Informatics, Local Community and Conflict: Investigating Under-Researched Elements of a Developing Field of Study (Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Studies 2008) pg. 419 – 437

Community Informatics (CI) is a relatively new field of study that is approached from multiple disciplines including sociology, computer science, education, management, and development studies. Community Informatics is the practice of combining information and communication technology (ICT) with the intent to support local communities that have been marginalized by globalization through the empowerment of individuals by providing universal access to ICT. The development of Community Informatics is a direct response to the corporate led development of ICT systems that have centralized and concentrated economic capital within a select group of communities.

In his article Community Informatics, Local Community and Conflict, Ian Goodwin presents arguments around a central thesis that conflict is an overlooked area of CI research and more importantly, conflict plays a vital role in shaping the outcomes of any CI initiative by shaping the appropriation and implementation of internet technology which is at the heart of any CI community development initiative.

The article is presented in three parts. First Goodwin defines the function of CI initiatives and defines the socio-political and economic forces that have given CI’s there political agenda. Herein the concept of social capital is introduced, as are the inherent external pressures on local communities as a result of the restructuring of business and government agencies based upon the development of the ‘global knowledge network’.

The second section of the article presents a historical perspective on the definition of community. Goodwin presents a historic account of the dominant social theories around community, particularly the initial ideas that focused on of the Urban-Rural continuum that was prevalent prior to the seventies. In this theory the primary assertion was ‘where we live affects how we live.’ In the 70’s these causal-relationship theories were disputed based upon the research of Young and Wilmont published in the 1957 book Family and Kinship in East London which was further articulated by the seminal article by A. Cohen The Symbolic Construction of Community (1985). Cohen’s work didn’t remove locality but rather sought to view community as not being limited by structural or physical boundaries. “Thus, local communities, despite their physical and territorial nature are understood as social constructions created through the maintenance of symbolic boundaries.”

“The quintessential referent of community is that its members make or believe they make, a similar sense of things either generally or with respect to specific and significant interests, and further, that that sense may differ from one made elsewhere.” (Cohen 1985;16)

Contemporary theory further disputes the homogenous nature of communities and has looked at conflict as an important element to be acknowledged within any locality and community. Internal conflict can be seen as necessary for vitality within a community or in extreme cases conflict can result in the subordination of members of a community through segregation and discrimination.

This leads to Goodwin’s primary thesis that Community Informatics has thus far overlooked internal conflict within online communities and the impact it has on the ability of a CI to attain it’s political goals. Goodwin uses a combination of discourse analysis, face-to-face interviews, and document analysis to explore a case study of a CI initiative in Moseley England that was dramatically affected by conflict.

The analysis of community theory and this case study reveal that communities are built on shared community symbols but are inherently filled with internal conflict based upon individual members agenda and differing social capital. Community Informatics’ purpose and functionality is based upon the development of community, which is in turn shaped by these internal conflicts. These conflicts ultimately morph the original objectives of the CI and shape its outcome, often to the detriment of the original stated goal. In the Moseley case study the original intent of increase diversity within the community was not accomplished. The internal conflict resulted in a break-off online community that utilized the internet technology in a different manner than the original e-group and ultimately did not develop the diversity within the community as was the CI’s original intent. This makes Goodwin’s point that there is a need for further research into internal community conflict and it’s impact on community development and regeneration efforts.

A look at Roland Barthes' "Mythologies"

Barthes, Roland Mythologies (New York: Hill and Wang 1987)
Roland Barthes (1915-1980) was a French social and literary critic whose landmark book Mythologies expanded upon the theories of semiotics first popularized by Ferdinand de Saussure. While initially intended for a literary audience Barthes work is relevant to artists of all mediums who desire to take responsibility for the meanings signified through their artistic expressions.

Mythologies is a collection of essays that take a critical look at various aspects of post-world war II French popular culture during the period of de-colonization. The topics of his essays are varied and innocuous at first glance. Barthes looks at media attention towards society’s artists, the cultural value placed on Wine and Steak Tar Tar, the theatrical elements of professional wrestling, and the photographs of political candidates to name a few. The initial banality of these topics is soon replaced by an intense scrutiny of the significance of the messages created and consumed by the public. The intent of his writings is to reveal the political ideology embedded into mass media and its influences on popular culture through a series of arguments that expose the Myths that compel society to confuse cultural ideology with a truth.
Barthes rationales are based upon the idea that the eternal quality of Nature is the only truth and rhetoric, which is not truth, is the key ingredient of Mass Media. Rhetoric in Mass Media persuades a culture to adopt certain political-social ideals and to perceive as natural (and therefore justified) the affectations or ephemeral elements of a consumer culture. Much of Barthes’ Mythologies takes a Marxists view of a society divided between the proletariat masses and the petit bourgeois.

In his final essay Myth Today, Barthes reveals the structural elements of semiotics, which are the bases for his inquiry and cultural criticisms. Barthes introduces deSaussure’s system of signification that has three elements: signifier, signified, and sign. Signs are the meaning created by the combination of a signifier (form) and the signified (content). Barthes work extends beyond deSaussures by suggesting not only a denotative level of meaning, but a second level of connotative meaning that treats the denotative sign as the signifier for the connotative “Myth”. Barthes illustrates that signification is a function within culture that is dangerous because it is consumed as a “national” truth and is often not analyzed for the ideology it possesses.

Even though Mythologies is an analysis of 1950’s France and is based on the ideals of structuralism which have been subtended by contemporary social-constructionism theories, it remains relevant today as we bear witness to an America political climate that portrays the myth of patriotism and consumerism at the

Book Review: Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes

Barthes, Roland Camera Lucida (New York: Hill and Wang 1981)

Camera Lucida is Roland Barthes final book before his death in 1980. In it, he explores the medium of photography and attempts to analyze and define its essence or “noeme”.
Barthes first describes the difficulty in finding the uniqueness of photography as a signifier because it is so difficult to distinguish the photograph from its subject. Other than the paper surface, we tend to overlook the photograph and speak directly of its referent. In order to see the photographic signifier photographers have to use shallow depth of field or extreme wide angle in order to more easily distinguish the photo as being separate from the subject. These techniques allow us to experience the subject photographically. However Barthes isn’t interested so much in seeing the photographic signifier as he is in losing himself in the referent. He states that a photograph is co-natural because the subject has to have existed. Photography’s power of authentication exceeds its power of representation. Language is fictional and rhetorical by nature, whereas he proposes that photography is analogical to the subject itself.

While Camera Lucida describes photography in terms of a system of practices (consisting of operator, target, and spectator), and the consumption of imagery in terms of Studium (general cultural interest and classifications) and Punctum (details that connect to our personal experiences), and acknowledges the codes that may exists within a photograph, Barthes seeks to go beyond semantics and to trace his interest to the ineffable emotional attraction he experiences with certain photographs. Photography, he says, is more closely related to theatre whose roots are the portrayal of death, than it is to painting.

In Barthe’s case he is seeking to locate a photograph of his deceased mother that captures her essence. He is not looking for a photograph that interprets his mother’s identity, but rather he is looking for the photograph that contains her spirit. It is very difficult to find a photograph that captures a person at their “zero point” where all there emotions are contained within. A photograph tends to exaggerate or over emphasize facets of personality because it is fixed within the single exposure. However, a photograph is unmatched in its ability to convey the subject “naturally”. Unlike any other medium, the photograph offers irrefutable evidence that the subject existed in front of the lens. Ultimately it is a photograph of his mother as a small child that he feels best illustrates the woman he knew. It is the innocence of the child who is willing to lend itself to the photograph without attempting to portray a particular self-image that allows for Barthes to experience the mother he remembered.

Unlike other art forms, Barthes argues that photography cannot transcend the event it depicts, and therefore is very limited as a form of language or social critique. A pipe depicted in a photograph will always remain a pipe; therefore what you can say about the pipe linguistically is very limited. Photography is anchored by time, as it is a “clock that sees”. Every photograph represents a subject-space-time event that has already occurred, which limits our discussion to that of historic reference. In looking at memory, Barthes proposes that a photograph is almost the antithesis of memory because of its complete documentation of history within the image. We can only think about what is there in the photograph because it is the undeniable truth of what has existed.

Seemingly full of contradictions, Camera Lucida gives examples where a photograph’s limitations in language are also sources for power within culture. Richard Avedon’s portrait of William Casby is incontrovertible evidence that slavery existed which is a reality that is difficult for Americans to face. A photograph is a testimony to what the photographer has served witness to. Part of the madness of a photograph is that it compels us to face the truth our own mortality. Barthe describes a photograph as a catastrophe that contains two deaths. The first is the death that occurs at the moment the shutter is triggered and the living subject is converted optically and chemically into an object. Our private selves are transformed into a public spectacle. The second death is in the recognition that the person photograph has died or will die in the future. Alexander Gardner’s portrait of Lewis Payne is a powerful example of this. Lewis Payne is frozen in time within the frame of a photograph. He is a specter that cannot emerge from the frame. His face is motionless and we are confronted with the knowledge that he was once alive, and a short time later was hanged. As if to add to this experience of death, the photographic print itself is organic and subject to deterioration and ultimately a death of its own. The noeme of photography, it turns out, is time and death.

World Record for Texting!

I was working on a design problem for my concepts class and was searching for a world record to illustrate. I found a world record for text messaging. Seventeen-year-old Andrew Acklin sent or received 19,678 text messages in a single billing cycle! The sheer number of text messages led me to look at what impact this behavior is having on other modes of communication, particularly verbalization.

As it turns out there were many headlines to be found linking teenage text messaging to poor interpersonal skills in the work place. As a result of looking at these headlines I put together this visual illustration entitled "TXT".

Book Summary: Art Since 1900 - Modernism to Post-Modernism

Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, and Benjamin Buchloh, Art Since 1900 (New York: Thames and Hudson 2004)
Art Since 1900 is a comprehensive account of the artwork, artists, and ideas that embody 20th century modernism, antimodernism, and contemporary postmodernism. Its authors represent a collaboration of Columbia and Princeton University art historians whose views are widely accepted within the United States art community. The contains four introductions to the major theories and critical models used to analyze art and cultural production, and then proceeds to a collection of over 100 essays describing key moments, people, and ideas arranged by decade. For the purposes of this annotation I will concentrate on the transition from modernism and post-modernism by picking out three years (1971, 1984, and 2003) as a means of describing a progression from modernism to contemporary post-modernism.

1971 was marked by two significant acts of censorship at the Guggenheim Museum whose controversy helps differentiate modernism from postmodernism. The first incident involved the cancellation of a major retrospective exhibition of Hans Haacke. The two pieces consisted of text and photographs that presented documentary information about the ownership status of large number New York slum apartments (which turned out to be owned by two or three families). While the photographs depicted the condition of the neighborhood where the buildings resided and the text presented public information available from the New York Public Library in a non-accusatory manner, the presentation of the sum total revealed a petit-bourgeois empire of tenement holdings. The Museum Direct Thomas Messer wanted the pieces removed from the show calling Haacke’s pieces “work that violates the supreme neutrality of the work of art and therefore no longer merits the protection of the museum.” By connecting social and economic information together Haacke created a confrontation between New York’s underclass and Manhattans elite, which included institutions like the museum. The combination of these fragments of “text” resulted in artwork that was no longer removed from the economic and political spheres. Modernist ideas surrounding art’s cultural autonomy from socio-economic systems were punctured. A few months later a second scandal occurred with the removal of Daniel Buren’s “Peinture-Sculpture” from the Sixth Guggenheim International Exhibition. The Huge banner Buren installed within the museums central atrium created a conflict surrounding the assumption that the space within which a viewer interacts with art is also neutral and serves as an appropriate illustration of Foucaults theories on power and discourse. The Banner became a confrontation between the artwork and the building, between Buren and Frank Lloyd Wright, and ultimately between art and political ideology. Art it seemed could not be extracted from political ideology no matter how abstract it had become.
The essay 1984a chronicles the shift from conceptual art to a socio-economic discourse. The early photographic works of Ed Ruscha and Dan Graham followed the pop-art tendency towards “de-skilling” by assuming a banal style while taking a systematic approach to concepts like vernacular architecture and other artifacts of “modern” cultural practice. Their work reintroduced the question of public urban space, which had not been revisited since before WWII in modernist art, but did so in a manner that was not as romanticizing as the earlier works of Walker Evans and Dorthea Lange nor did it make a strong critique of American culture. Major essays by Victor Burgin, Allen Sekula, and Martha Rosler explored the idea that photography could once again insert political, social, and historical context and function as an instrument of cultural discourse. Burgin states, “The optimum function of art is to modify institutionalized patterns of orientation towards the world and thus serve as an agency of socialization. No art activity therefore is to be understood apart from the codes and practices of the society, which contains it; art in use is bracketed ineluctably within ideology… We must accept the responsibility of producing art which is more than just art as its content.”
Unlike early modernist photography, Sekula and Rosler demonstrated the post-modern idea that an individual photograph is not a complete “political” expression, but rather serves as fragments of an ongoing discourse. Sekula’s work went beyond the traditional limitations of documentary photography by presenting multiple frames in series. Martha Rosler’s early photomontage work juxtaposed harsh imagery from the Vietnam War into an image of eloquence found in scenes of fashion, advertising, and home décor. She later followed Sekula’s multi-frame approach and explored “the inadequacy of the photographic image” in her seminal work “The Bowery in Two Inadequate descriptive Systems, 1974-5. Roslers work revealed the incomplete nature of any individual artwork and the need for participation in a larger discourse.

The essay 1984b presents the defining characteristics of a post-modernism ideology that had began to form as early as 1968 in the work of Robert Rauschenberg. We are introduced to Francis Lyotard and Frederic Jameson who attempt to describe the significant differences between post-modern and modernity. Lyotard defines postmodernism as occurring at the moment change no longer produced progress (a modernist ideal) but became the status quo as a means of driving the capitalist economy. This in turn, introduced skepticism towards the meta-narratives of captialism. Jameson views Postmodernism from a Marxist perspective as the inevitable response to the beginning of Late Capitalism, which is characterized by globalization, and mobile workforces and capital.

Postmodernism is marked by the dispute of authenticity and originality, rejection of foundational ideology, and through the cacophony of opposing ideas that are joined together in discourse. It views modernist art as not a representation of meaning but a construction of meaning and seeks to deconstruct these metanarratives through image appropriation and the blending of disparate ideas and phenomena.

Postmodernism’s evolution has seen the removal of artist as author and the appropriation and combining of cultural fragments into dialogical discourse. The final essay 2003 advances two current ideas of post modernism: the utopian ideal and the Archival approach to the creation of discourse.

Ready-made art that fosters community collaboration such as group project of Gonzalez, Foerster, Gillick, Tiravanija, and others distribute new ideas on how to respond to consumerism. In the utopian model we see collaboration and interaction as a means of creating meaningful discourse and socialization. The critic Nicolas Bourriard sees modern large-scale “artist-as-curator” exhibitions as art events that are not so much about the “what” of art but the “whom”. “Art is an ensemble of units to be reactivated by the beholder-manipulator”. Whereas the alternative Archival approach services to give voice to sub cultural histories through the uncovering of hidden or repressed dialog. Recent installation work by Thomas Hirschberg and Sam Durant are examples of history recovered from obscurity.
The transition from modernism to post-modern is one from a singular viewpoint to a multifaceted expansion of our understanding of the events and history that form our current cultural practices. Art Since 1900 has certainly provided much of the art-history discourse necessary to elevate one’s own art practice.

The Story Teller - Walter Benjamin

Benjamin, Walter. “The Storyteller“ in Illuminations trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schoken Books 1969)

Walter Benjamin’s essay The Storyteller offers an interesting assessment of modern media and literature prior to the start of World War II that offers indictments of the effects of technology and mass communication on culture that resonates equally well with contemporary American culture.

Benjamin suggests that the tradition of storytelling has been lost due to the rise of the novel. He laments this loss because he sees storytelling as containing key ingredients for the formation of wisdom. Good storytelling is the retelling of events in a way that creates an experience for the audience. It is the most effective means of handing down wisdom through the ages. Whereas the novel is tethered to the printed page, the story is portable and expansive as it may migrate from the page to the voice and be augmented with gesture. Another significant difference is the way the novel terminates itself from our memory through the its complete closure at the end of each book. Stories on the other hand, in the great tradition of the Greek epic, are really just accounts of activities that have taken place that hold some sort of significance that is to be contemplated. A story never really end, they just connect, to the next event. When we die, our life is distilled into the significant actions and events that are recounted through story, which keeps the truth and lessons of our life alive. It is the connectivity to the traditions of the past that lead to the contemplation of our own future. A novel is not effective in this way because it is layered with too many characters, too many explanations, and too much information. Explanations and narrative are the antithesis of contemplation and therefore render the novel impotent concerning the formation of experience and wisdom. This can be said for newspapers and contemporary journalism. Information is only valuable at the time it is new. Too much information and explanation enables the audience to segregate the story from their own lives. Too much specificity enables us to treat the story as about “the other” and which is why we have become consumers of news and a culture that is experiencing a shortage of wisdom. The founder of the magazine LeFigaro, Villemessant, once wrote “To my readers, an attic fire in the Latin Quarter is more important than a revolution in Madrid.” Contemporary storytelling prevents the audience from committing the story to memory or from getting the since of continuity to the past and future. This amnesia of our own mortality dooms us to make unwise life choices that have little regard for the consequences of our actions.

Benjamin uses the example of the Greek storyteller Herodotus as an ideal to be pursued by artist. In a story about the Egyptian King Psammentus Benjamin illustrates how the simple recounting of events without explanation offers the audience the opportunity to connect and reflect on the significance and meaning of the story in contemporary terms. Herodotus’ story would be helpful in coming up with ideas about what kind of traits our government leaders should possess.

Stories should be stripped of explanations of our interpretations. This by itself will allow a compactness that enables the story to embed itself in memory, which is where it must reside if we are to convey wisdom. A story must be repeatable. The absence of information illustrates how the myth or parable can exaggerate or even fabricate, and yet still communicate a larger truth more effectively than information alone.

Bejamin argues that the most effective storytellers are the chroniclers. The repetition of actions gives the audience the opportunity to connect with the story and reflect on their own interpretation of the deeds. Modern news stories tell us the meaning of events and eliminate the need to even think about it. The Chronicler simply recounts the events. Where a single photograph might provide information, a series of photographs that document activities, such as the FSA photographs, builds a much stronger case than a typed report filled with statistical explanations.

How do we know if we are able to be good storytellers? There are two types of storytellers, those who travel the world and have life experiences, and those who stay within the historical fabric of their hometown. Artisans were traditionally the best storytellers because they had traveled during their apprenticeships and returned to lay down roots in their communities. To be good storytellers we must have life experience or be good listeners of those whose life experiences provide powerful narratives. The narrative is the most poignant story that can be told. . Pascal wrote, “No one dies so poor that he does not leave something behind.” It is the natural history of life and death that gives a story its authority and validity.

Finally, Benjamin complains of modern economies and technology as creating a culture that seeks abbreviation and lacks the quiet mind necessary for contemplation. We are all too busy to hear or recognize the wisdom found in experiences. If we were to rest before the Grand Canyon and consider the sublime wonder of its perfection, we would have to recognize that its perfection is the result of sustained forces of effort, that are occurring all the time. The human pursuit of this level of perfection is craftsmanship. Machinery and manufacturing have replaced craftsmanship and citizens are in a constant state of flux as is made evident in Sebastio Salgado’s book Migration. One questions whether or not the artist who heeds Walter Benjamins advice for storytelling will have an audience left to see, hear, and ultimately contemplate the wisdom of our experiences.

The Task of the Translator

Benjamin, Walter. “The Task of the Translator“ in Illuminations trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schoken Books 1969)

The Task of the Translator addresses the foundational question of what the role of artist is and is not. It could be discerned as the definition of the difference between a commercial artist and a fine artist, for at the beginning of the essay Benjamin asserts, “no poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no symphony for the listener.” The original experience does not exist for our audience but is instead a moment of “hidden significance” that is revealed through our efforts to translate it. Whereas the commercial artist is trying to communicate a particular explanation or interpretation to a specific target audience, the fine artist must realize the temporal state of ideologies and focus instead on conveying experiences that may be considered within the framework of whatever contemporary ideology exists. “Art’s essential work is not to make statements, or impart information, because this necessitates audience understanding which is inherently redundant.”

While the essay focuses on the means necessary to communicate an original text from one language to another, the visual artist may extrapolate ideas from these theories about how best to approach the representation of the physical and spiritual experiences that are significant. All meaningful communication then is the translation of experience into the language of our medium whether it is visual, oral, or literary.

The objective of the translator is to communicate the original experience as transparently as possible. We must recognize the contextual and historical essence of every experience. Each moment experiences a death. From this river of death we are trying to express the significance of a moment that has occurred in the past. Recognizing the time, space, constraints, we must recognize that we can never recreate the original and therefore any attempts to do so will fail as translations. Instead Benjamin looks at linguistic theories and sees the common purpose of representation found n all languages. While multiple languages may have word elements that identify the same referent object, or denotative meaning, the intentionality of how the words are used, their connotative meanings, cannot be translated accurately depending on the translatability of the subject matter. Benjamin suggest that we should form a “pure language” through the supplementing of the new language with the uniqueness of the original. He points out the systematic nature of languages and how new elements may be introduced to increase output. Languages follow structural rules, but are expansive in the possible outcomes.
Contrary to the idea that more information is beneficial for accurate communication, Benjamin suggests that the transmission of information is not beneficial for conveying meaning. “The inferior translator id defined as one who provides inaccurate transmissions of inessential content.” In speaking of art Benjamin writes, “The essential substance of art is not information, but is in the unfathomable, mysterious, or poetic.” The literary work tells very little to those who understand it. Shared meaning is based upon shared experience, which means we are not conveying anything new to our audience.

Translation is a mode of representation. Translatability must be an essential feature of the experience we wish to convey. If we apply our interpretations or explanations of the event or experience, we are changing the meaning to that of our own perceptions and we are limiting our audience’s ability to relate to the work in their own way.
Benjamin introduces the concept of our artwork-translation as having an afterlife. First we are creating an afterlife for the moment or experience we are translating, and secondly, our artwork will potentially have an afterlife, “whose appreciation goes beyond the limitations of contemporary meaning or posits”, if it is re-actualized through successive retranslations in. Fame is not something that occurs during the life of our work and therefore is something that artist shouldn’t be concerned with.

In order to expand the potential of the afterlife of our work we should avoid putting too much specificity to it because, as Benjamin writes, “The context of the now will never exactly mirror that of the original.” Instead the artist must commit the destructive act of removing their voice and too much information and remain like the fingerprints of the potter left on the clay vessel.
History cannot be written as it is happening. Significance comes through trans-generational translation. Renewal comes from the updating of a translation into contemporary language. The act of translation has the unique characteristic of both elevating the original and yet it can never equal it, thereby creating distance between the original and the audience which creates an aura around the expression of our translation (i.e. art object).

A look at Walter Benjamin

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction“ in Illuminations trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schoken Books 1969)

Written in 1936, Walter Benjamin’s essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction provides interesting insight into contemporary issues surrounding the function of art, mass media, and the evolution of capitalism. The preface to the essay briefly summarizes the Marxists views on what we now call “Late Capitalism”. Benjamin writes of Marx’s prognostications on what could be expected of Capitalism in the future, “The result was that one could expect it not only to exploit the proletariat with increasing intensity, but ultimately to create conditions which would make it possible to abolish capitalism itself.”

Modern Art seems, to be on a parallel course with the development of technology. The traditional “ritualistic” art object has been rendered obsolete. Technology and its means of reproducing art and nature has exceeded the power of cult, and like capitalism, will eventually lead to the abolishment of art that is based upon ritualistic function. Mass media has replaced the ritual of contemplation with the social practice of consumption.

Benjamin examines the value of artwork based upon two opposite extremes – its traditional cult value, and its contemporary exhibition value. The essay first defines what traditional art is in terms of its function and aura. Historically art has served a ritualistic function. It’s earliest manifestations dealt with magic, which evolved into religion, and ultimately the affirmation of political power. Cave drawings and stone formations are considered works of art whose value is based upon the aura that connects us to a particular place and time and yet maintains its distance no matter how close you are. Latter artworks, based upon the portraits of the aristocracy, possess an aura of authority that is enhanced by its separation from the working class.

These traditional art objects possessed an aura that was based upon the inseparable attributes of uniqueness and originality. The aura of a work of art is what established its authenticity. Traditional art’s permanence and authority was based upon its non-reproducibility. However, art has always been reproducible. Whether fabricated by students, the artist themselves, or third parties, replicas have always existed. These handcrafted replicas never threatened the authenticity of the original artwork however as the existence of original was still necessary in order to label the replica as a copy or forgery. Mechanical or Technical reproduction is quite a different story. Technical reproduction does two things that replicas do not. First of all meaning that was once attached to an art object is now separated and transmitted through means of mechanical reproduction. The process of reproduction is more independent of the original, it’s meaning dislocated from the art object. Secondly, technical reproduction such as photography and film can actually enhance the original beyond “natural vision” by increasing its time and space through magnification and slow motion shutter techniques. Also, technical reproductions or art designed for technical reproduction can put a copy of the original into situations, which would be out of reach of the original. . While the authority of an art object is lost when it’s authenticity (due to technical reproduction) is compromised, its cult value is exceeded by its new found exhibition value that has the ability to stimulate social formation.
My own child responded to my inquiry about what he wanted for Christmas by giving me a stack of advertisements he had circled stating, “Tomorrow there will be more catalogs. This is all I saw that I wanted from today’s catalogs”

Modern technologies of reproduction detach the art object from the “domain of tradition.” However, by the reproduction meeting the audience in their own situation, the object is reactivated. Technology obverts the ritual function of art by destroying its aura and, “will empower the proletariat to shatter tradition and transcend their traditional existence.” Benjamin sees film as being the most powerful medium for change in cultural values because of its ability to simultaneously construct and deconstruct traditional values. “The painter is like a magician who never penetrates the patient while the camera operator is like the surgeon cutting into the patient.” A film about a legendary person will eventually remove the myth of that person. This argument can be linked to Maslow’s theory of human need that states we cannot see a miracle multiple times. Reproduction ultimately demystifies or deconstructs the miracles of creativity and authenticity. Reproduction of natural “truths” at first depreciates the aura of that which is reproduced. Technology drives the deconstruction of history while at the same time creates historical indexes or signifiers, which create social formations.

Photography and film are considered the two most powerful tools for ideological change. “That which is easiest to consume is least criticized and therefore more powerful and dangerous”. The presentation of a photographic viewpoint can distort or displace reality more subtlety, inviting less criticism of its ideology than a painting or sculpture, which is farther removed. Photography and film offer conventional forms of representation, which are consumed with enjoyment while the more abstract representations are criticized with aversion. More potent is film and photography’s role in no longer allowing the spectator to think what they want to think. They are forced to consume what is project in the image via a cinematic process of “suspension of disbelief.” The spectator who concentrates on a work of art is absorbed by it. The masses that are distracted by the spectacle of art are absorbed by the art. It is our absorption into cultural products that enables art to exceed its original ritualistic ability to create culture. This creates an environment write for Fascism, where you are given the means of expressing your rights without really giving you that right.

We're gonna be OK!

I just finished watching the vice presidential debate and I have to say I think America is in trouble. Sarah Palin was absolutely masterful in controlling the debate through her rhetoric and using the television cameras to speak directly to the people, while Joe Biden simply spoke to the moderator, answered the questions asked, and tried to provide substantive information about his party's plans for governing.

How could the democrats be so stupid as to present information in response to rhetoric! Sarah Palin told Americans that "we have got to..." and "we're gonna" and made promises to give every household $5000 to pay for medical care. McCain isn't going to fly the white flag in Iraq, and on and on...

Joe Biden seemed taken by Sarah Palin's charm and school girl patriotic civic lessons to the point of being brought to smiles and laughter when confronted with her simplistic responses. It’s like he thought she was too cute to be dangerous. At one point Palin even uttered the same words as a Lee Greenwood song. The big bright eyes of the republican stared directly at the masses while the narrow eyes of experience just looked beadier as he flashed is big toothy grin. It reminded me of the classic image of the puppy and the old hunting dog. When the new pup arrived he didn’t pay attention until it was too late and he was left in the yard as the new pup rode in the front seat on his first hunt. Sarah Palin’s the new dog in Washington politics with the same big eyes and enthusiasm that believes in the lies she’s propagating.

Joe Biden and the democrats are such intellectual elitist that they think Americans can see through the smoke cloud when Palin stated over and over how McCain and the republicans were going to reclaim oversight over Wall Street. The party of corporate welfare is somehow going to play schoolyard monitor over big business? This is America! The land of $1 menu items, big gulps, hummers, and reality television that isn't real! The people that are going to elect the next president are just as likely to watch WWF Raw as they are Bill Moyer’s NOW. After a hard day's work people are not watching television to be informed, they're watching to be entertained. Jerry Springer could have moderated this debate.

This made for television debate is the best example of how our elections are mediated through corporate news organizations. Did you notice how the camera's locked in on Sarah Palin (are her glasses even prescription?) and how often the camera moved around during Biden's answers? What purpose did the behind the podium shots serve other than to highlight the tight skirt Palin was wearing. I saw little difference between watching this debate and watching Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality.

The moderator didn’t restrict the candidate’s responses to the questions and so we were bombarded with republican rhetoric and Joe Biden’s winey responses. Joe Biden didn’t speak to the audience. Joe Biden was in an auditorium at Washington University while Sarah Palin was in millions of households talking to us like we were having a cup of coffee and shooting the breeze over the economy. I don’t think my neighbor can run the country either, but after a beer or two I’m pretty sure the two of us could. I wish Will Rogers were around to see this.

I hope I’m wrong. I know we were all wrong about Sarah Palin in terms of her intelligence and coach-ability. Have we forgotten that Diane Sawyer started as a beauty queen? You don’t need a passport to get to the Whitehouse, nor do you have to be a Rhodes scholar. The majority of people electing the next president aren’t either.

It’s time the Democrats reached the right audience. It’s time for democrats to reclaim patriotism, independence, American ingenuity, and all other facets of the Great American West mythology. It’s time East Coast democrats summon images of Mel Gibson in The Patriot rather than well-coifed parliamentary elitists. If Hollywood is donating so much to the Democrats, why can’t they get the script right? Why is it we get Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger instead of Steven Spielberg? These days I think we’re getting mostly muppets.

Of course all of this is just rhetoric.