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.

Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses

An Annotation of “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses“ by Louis Althusser as published in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (New York: Monthly Review Press 2001)

Louis Althusser was a French-Marxist Philosopher whose essay Ideology and the Ideological State Apparatuses expanded upon Marxist theory by considering the role of ideology as the means of explaining why citizens of the State are obedient and why there hasn’t been a revolution against Capitalism.

In terms of structural and post-structualism, Althusser explains why ideology is a structure while ideologies are socially and historically specific and can co-exist under a dominant Capitalist ideology. There are religious ideologies, political ideologies and social ideologies such as Christianity, conservatism, and feminism.

Althussers essay sets up the foundation for his descriptive theories by first defining Marxist theories of infrastructure and superstructure and then concentrates on the superstructure, which consist of the political-legal structures of government that he labels Repressive State Apparatuses, and ideology, which he describes in terms of Ideological State Apparatuses. The RSA’s enforce compliance directly through violence. RSA agents include the police and criminal justice system. The ISA’s on the other hand are institutions that generate ideologies and produce culture and the formation of cultural practices designed to preserve the state. Examples include Schools, churches, families, arts, sports, and political parties. Of these examples, Althusser sees schools as exerting the greatest cultural influence towards the maintenance of the existing bourgeoisie power structure because it is the system most responsible for the reproduction of labor and the ideology of career fulfillment.

“Ideology is a representation of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real condition of existence.” Our inability to accept the unacceptable, which is the reality of our existence, leads us to fabricate our reality. It is like the captive falling in love with our captive. Ideology doesn’t reflect the truth of our situation, but instead reflects our relationship to our existence as an exploited proletariat. Another way of describing ideology is to say it doesn’t describe the relationship of production to us, but rather it describes our relation to production. It helps us invent a feeling of self-importance when we are really expendable commodities with the global labor market.

Althusser describes the system of ideology and how we have come to become subjects within it. First we are born into it. Secondly, we always inhabit an ideology by distinguishing our beliefs from the beliefs of others. It functions similarly to the linguistic theory of the conceptual image map. We have to organize ourselves with a belief system that is defined by distinguishing “the others” illusions from ouir “truths” which is our own place within an ideological structure. The third concept of ideology is that it interpellates. It identifies you and calls out to you. It is the call to action within an advertisement. It is the initial response to a greeting by a friend or the sense of guilt when confronted by a police officer. Interpellation is the action of asking you to join the belief system. Ideology is like the poster of Uncle Sam that simply says “I want you!”

Althusser further diagrams ideology as comprising of the subject with a small s and Subject with a capital S. the small s subject is a member of the capital S Subject. Christians are the small s subjects to the capital S Subject of God. The Subject God provides the justification and rules for the ideology and it interpellates subjects to recognizing the validity of its ideology.

Althusser goes on to describe the evolution of Marxism and class struggle as being:

1. The State is a Repressive State Apparatus
2. State power and state apparatuses are distinct
3. Class struggle is over state power and the control of state apparatuses
4. The proletariat must seize state power and create a proletariat state
5. The proletariat must dismantle the State to liberate it from the commoditization of resources.

Ideological State Apparatuses play a very important role within the class struggle. Unlike Repressive State Apparatus, which are uniform and centralized, ISA’s have a plurality that includes didactic discourse. While ISA’s function within the hegemony of Capitalism, debate can occur here, and can ultimately lead to change. It is critical to recognize the plurality of ideology and the room for debate.

Theories of ideology are relevant to artist and media producers because the process of signification through the translation of experience into any medium is in itself an act of interpellation to our audience. Content producers, art or any mass media cannot consider themselves separate from ideology. All communication participates within the an ISA. Artist that produce and exhibit work are participating within an Art ISA. Even if we remove our own voice from our work, ideology will remain because what we express as being significant is defined by our personal beliefs.