Foucault and the Struggle Against Power

"In this sense theory does not express, translate, or serve to apply practice: it is practice. But it is local and regional, as you said, and not totalising. This is a struggle against power, a struggle aimed at revealing and undermining power where it is most invisible and insidious. It is not to "awaken consciousness" that we struggle (the masses have been aware for some time that consciousness is a form of knowledge; and consciousness as the basis of subjectivity is a prerogative of the bourgeoisie), but to sap power, to take power; it is an activity conducted alongside those who struggle for power, and not their illumination from a safe distance. A "theory " is the regional system of this struggle."

"The intellectual's role is no longer to place himself "somewhat ahead and to the side" in order to express the stifled truth of the collectivity; rather, it is to struggle against the forms of power that transform him into its object and instrument in the sphere of "knowledge," "truth," "consciousness," and "discourse. ""

"Each struggle develops around a particular source of power (any of the countless, tiny sources- a small-time boss, the manager of "H.L.M.,"' a prison warden, a judge, a union representative, the editor-in-chief of a newspaper). And if pointing out these sources-denouncing and speaking out-is to be a part of the struggle, it is not because they were previously unknown. Rather, it is because to speak on this subject, to force the institutionalised networks of information to listen, to produce names, to point the finger of accusation, to find targets, is the first step in the reversal of power and the initiation of new struggles against existing forms of power. if the discourse of inmates or prison doctors constitutes a form of struggle, it is because they confiscate, at least temporarily, the power to speak on prison conditions-at present, the exclusive property of prison administrators and their cronies in reform groups"

- Intellectuals & Power: A conversation between Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze

"This art of living counter to all forms of fascism, whether already present or impending, carries with it a certain number of essential principles which I would summarize as follows if I were to make this great book into a manual or guide to everyday life:

- Free political action from all unitary and totalizing paranoia.
- Develop action, thought, and desires by proliferation, juxtaposition, and disjunction, and not by subdivision and pyramidal hierarchization.
- Withdraw allegiance from the old categories of the Negative (law, limit, castration, lack, lacuna), which Western thought has so long held sacred as a form of power and an access to reality. Prefer what is positive and multiple, difference over uniformity, flows over unities, mobile arrangements over systems. Believe that what is productive is not sedentary but nomadic.
- Do not think that one has to be sad in order to be militant, even though the thing one is fighting is abominable. It is the connection of desire to reality (and not its retreat into the forms of representation) that possesses revolutionary force.
- Do not use thought to ground a political practice in Truth; nor political action to discredit, as mere speculation, a line of thought. Use political practice as an intensifier of thought, and analysis as a multiplier of the forms and domains for the intervention of political action.
- Do not demand of politics that it restore the "rights" of the individual, as philosophy has defined them. The individual is the product of power. What is needed is to "de-individualize" by means of multiplication and displacement, diverse combinations. The group must not be the organic bond uniting hierarchized individuals, but a constant generator of de-individualization.
- Do not become enamored of power.
Introduction to Deleuze and Guattari's Capitalism and Schizophrenia, by Michel Foucault*

Foucault

In response to what some people have posted about Foucault, I just want to say that I think his general point argues against the idea that the technology of power and its techniques are dehumanizing forces that subjugate humans through a kind of sovereign, institutional, top to bottom control. He is rather arguing that the technology of power since the 19th century is deeply human, it is neither good nor bad, it is more of a generative matrix that exists in every kind of social relation, and which thereby is deeply implicated in the production of knowledge and practice (discourses) that position our subjective understanding of ourselves. (through, for example, the techniques of power deployed at the locus of sexuality). For Foucault, the technology of power is pervasive and historically contingent, which means that we can resist it, we can struggle against its techniques and continually change the relationships of power that define and generate us as desiring human subjects. In other words, we do not escape power (or the modality of it that we think of as repression) by doing whatever we want but rather are only able to do what we want (and desire what we do) because the social context is produced by a general matrix of power that is far from being the symbolic enactment of the authority of the sovereign over life that it was in old times. Struggle changes the configurations of power, and is therefore socially meaningful, so to wish for or think about an egalitarian utopia where we can escape the confines of power relationships is completely useless. 

Wish that I were jesse's girl

I like Jesse's instinct to superimpose the Foucaultian biocontrol/death onto the Heideggarian techne: mere means/poesis. or techne: instrumental vs. essential

I guess that you could talk about both of their arguments as talking about humanity becoming further abstracted from nature (If we're to accept that in nature/history, death dealers held). The two make the seemingly reactionary claim that there is darkness in the enlightenments of technology and love from the past century. At first I said how boring, now I say how childish, gimmicky and offensive. These are smart men, if they want to develop grand and compelling narratives around sensational claims ("everything that's good for you is bad") like "sexual liberation is in fact a dangerously effective form of social control" or "technology robs man of his humanity." Pointing out the interesting ways that this is true does not to me disguise or make up for the fact that they're basically writing tabloid headlines for their overprivlidged audiences to yammer about with hollow approximations of real outrage, enjoyment, and community for the next several decades. I hope that's all they're granted, because the topics discussed in either essay barely merit contemporary discussion outside of their historical importance. Rabble rousers are important to the vivacity of a given community, but are often not the best/wisest voices, but rather the loudest, most siren which grab and hold the public's attention.
Theoreticians putting the salvation of the world on art makes sense in this light. If even the most brilliant of the world's thinkers can't wake us up and tell us that the house is on fire, then get those still louder, more obnoxious and stupid iterations of petite bourgeois self-indulgence, artists! I'm sorry theorists, but stop using us as a deux ex machina. The very best of the best of us can barely ellicit a 1o minute conversation adults wholly invested in the art industry, they're now expected to change the world? We obviously can't do it, duh. I thought they were supposed to be smart. Television is teaching the coming generation that torture is all right, and capitalism's defenders, having had a decade and a half of "victory," can hole up and excuse the upcoming financial apocalypse as an "adjustment" to market fluctuations that is inevitable and must be endured from time to time, and don't see that the real danger of lack of adequate health care for millions of people should trump the invisible hand (which happens to slap us pretty often). These are not problems for artists. Art is for a romanticly viewed, stable, ancient greece, where foucault could get his pederasty on, and gorgeous statues lined the streets and resonated with truth energy, and allowed everyone being in the world. Anyway, enough cynicism, but more than artists, I want workers of the world getting together on some of these power reconfigurations we're being asked to enact.

some other notes I don't have time to finish:

I'm not sure, but it seems like the techne H is talking about, as a way of trying to know/"enframe" the world, can be more directly mapped on communication technology than anything that he lived to see. Maybe the poetic distance 'twixt internet-as-techne/poeisis is too small for it to be profound/an arguement, or maybe I'm missing the point.

greek silversmith vs. "modern" tech, as heidegger defines it, seems to be an antiquated, or at least tired argument, that seems more relevent to his eco-warrior ideals than a real distinction between the greek silversmith and modern technology users. There should certainly be drawn distinctions. but I'm curious why they have to do with science/industry and environment as opposed to entertainment/access to information, which even back then was vital to "enframing." I thought we were invited to explore human aspects of techne, not factories and labs that point to, wow, humanity's will to categorize and build upon knowledge.

Heidegger as poet

My only previous experience of Heidegger before the current readings was in snippets of his essay "Poetically Man Dwells," in which he says "It is the way of poets to shut their eyes to actuality. Instead of acting, they dream. What they make is merely imagined. The things of imagination are merely made. Making is, in Greek, poiesis." This makes much of the essay on technology seem like familiar territory. In deciding that technology is "a way of revealing," that it is engaged in the four modes of causality, he is saying that it is a way of "bringing-forth," or poiesis. As he says, "Techne belongs to bringing forth, to poieses; it is something poietic. In saying that "what is decisive in techne does not lie at all in the making and manipulating nor in the using of means, but rather in the aforementioned revealing," it would seem that Heidegger is saying that techne is a form of imagining, a form of thinking like a poet. The title of that essay comes from a poem by Holderlin, which is quoted frequently in this weeks essay as well. To be quite honest, I don't totally understand the point at which "Enframing" or "modern technology" seems to become the bad guy, or maybe I'm not even sure if it does truly become the bad guy of the essay, but if this were the case, it calls up William Blake's epic poetry in which Urizen (the demiurge) attempts to oppress Orc, or creativity, with all of his dogma.

In fact, a good friend of mine has been writing essays on this same correlation (which is to say, I'm ripping him off a bit): "Urizen, who is essentially blind like Samael to what is really going on, thinks that he has made a good creation: he has written down the "secrets" of wisdom, and he has "unfolded" (disclosed) Laws of peace, love, and unity, culminating in one King, one God, and one Law. But Blake, our gnostic poet, believed that the only sin we could commit was allowing our natures to be perverted by law and custom. Urizen's creation then was not only sinful: it was hell. And his writing of the Bible—the Book of eternal brass—would not free people, it would bind them by law and custom." (If you're curious you can see some of his essays here.)

or something like that.

No one knows their blood type these days

Recently, I've realized that knowing your blood type is more rare than not. I thought everybody knew but maybe I had overzealous parents, afraid I would end up in an accident and need a transfusion suddenly. At any rate, the Foucault reminded me of the de-emphasis we place on blood-as-signifer we have today versus days past.

Finding connections between the readings was difficult for me (probably because I still don’t think I quite “get” the Heidegger). I did find a spark in this quote from Foucault:

“Unlike discipline, which is addressed to bodies, the new nondisciplinary power is applied not to man as-body but to the living man, to man-as-living-being: ultimately, if you like, to man-as-species”. (p. 242, Foucault, Society Must Be Defended)

This got me thinking about Heidegger’s ideas of technology being divided into camps of utility (means to an end) and a human activity. It’s all a bit fuzzy but I can try to superimpose Foucault’s own separation:

“The disciplines of the body and the regulations of the population constituted the two poles around which the organization of power over life was deployed”. (p. 139, Foucault, Right of Death and Power over Life)

I’m trying to fit Heidegger’s idea of destining into the creepiness of biopower described by Foucault. It seems the lack of determination in one’s own life can lead to a loss of power and perhaps an over-determination by those in power (for example, Foucault mentions how we are able to keep people alive who should be long dead or how the control of population has provided the necessary means for capitalism to flourish).

Lady GaGa

So I was preparing a post on Heidegger's vocabulary to try to substantiate my claim that "The Question Concerning Technology" is secretly a really straightforward essay. However, I appear to be getting sick, and it's more important that you have me well-rested tomorrow than you have a blog post about "presencing" and "essencing." Don't worry, we'll cover it in class.

For the time being though, speaking of a society that won't shut the fuck up about sex, here's the video for "Poker Face" by Lady GaGa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d27Hj8Gg9o (YouTube won't let me embed it, so click on through).

The question for you all, which has been raging for some time among my gay friends: Is she trasy and fabulous? Or trashy and boring? (Surely, she's trashy.) What's the difference? And how can we tell?

And if she's trashy and boring, that might just be something to talk about. Even if she is trashy and boring, I still see that damn video everywhere. And by everywhere, I mean... well, you get the picture.

I've been a bit surprised at how a number of these writings bring religion into the discussion. In fact, it ends up confusing me because I find it difficult to relate. When Heidegger discusses the 'loss of the gods' I am trying to see the relevance, particularly to today. I don't understand the 'situation of indecision' which he describes as the nature of this loss. I can only imagine that he is suggesting man is reluctant to abandon spiritual explanations in exchange for scientific ideas as the foundation of his understanding and sense of the world; he is struggling to adapt and to accept scientific thought and processes into his life without diminishing the role or status of religion.

In general though, I am finding many of these texts to be awfully far-removed from what it seems we should be talking about. They feel very distant and not relevant, or not relevant enough. Things like Sontag, Kracauer, and Adorno have been more accessible and less obtuse, and I can find value in them in terms of my art practice and related writing. But things like the Kant and Ponty and, yes, Heidegger, are difficult to even begin digesting in the time allotted, and I am struggling to find pertinent meaning within them.

posting

this is a weird video--and the american life league is more interested in furthering their pro-life agenda than fighting racism. but in the 60s the mistrust of birth control in the black community had more to do with a real fear of genocide and was a response to white institutions that have historically tried to control black sexuality.

Foucault

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kawGakdNoT0

The Venus Hottentot
(1825)

1. CUVIER
Science, science, science!
Everything is beautiful

blown up beneath my glass.
Colors dazzle insect wings.

A drop of water swirls
like marble. Ordinary

crumbs become stalactites
set in perfect angles

of geometry I’d thought
impossible. Few will

ever see what I see
through this microscope.

Cranial measurements
crowd my notebook pages,

and I am moving closer,
close to how these numbers

signify aspects of
national character.

Her genitalia
will float inside a labeled

pickling jar in the Musée
de l’Homme on a shelf

Above Broca’s brain:
“The Venus Hottentot.”

Elegant facts await me.
Small things in this world are mine.




2.

There is unexpected sun today
in London, and the clouds that
most days sift into this cage
where I am working have dispersed.
I am a black cutout against
a captive blue sky, pivoting
nude so the paying audience
can view my naked buttocks.

I am called “Venus Hottentot.”
I left Capetown with a promise
of revenue: half the profits
and my passage home: A boon!
Master’s brother proposed the trip;
the magistrate granted me leave.
I would return to my family
a duchess, with watered-silk

dresses and money to grow food,
rouge and powders in glass pots,
silver scissors, a lorgnette,
voile and tulle instead of flax,
cerulean blue instead
of indigo. My brother would
devour sugar-studded non-
pareils, pale taffy, damask plums.

That was years ago. London’s
circuses are florid and filthy,
swarming with cabbage-smelling
citizens who stare and query,
“Is it muscle? bone? or fat?”
My neighbor to the left is
The Sapient Pig, “The Only
Scholar of His Race.” He plays

at cards, tells time and fortunes
by scraping his hooves. Behind
me is Prince Kar-mi, who arches
like a rubber tree and stares back
at the crowd from under the crook
of his knee. A professional
animal trainer shouts my cues.
There are singing mice here.

“The Ball of Duchess DuBarry”:
In the engraving I lurch
toward the belles dames, mad-eyed, and
they swoon. Men in capes and pince-nez
shield them. Tassels dance at my hips.
In this newspaper lithograph
my buttocks are shown swollen
and luminous as a planet.

Monsieur Cuvier investigates
between my legs, poking, prodding,
sure of his hypothesis.
I half expect him to pull silk
scarves from inside me, paper poppies,
then a rabbit! He complains
at my scent and does not think
I comprehend, but I speak

English. I speak Dutch. I speak
a little French as well, and
languages Monsieur Cuvier
will never know have names.
Now I am bitter and now
I am sick. I eat brown bread,
drink rancid broth. I miss good sun,
miss Mother’s sadza. My stomach

is frequently queasy from mutton
chops, pale potatoes, blood sausage.
I was certain that this would be
better than farm life. I am
the family entrepreneur!
But there are hours in every day
To conjur my imaginary
daughters, in banana skirts

and ostrich-feather fans.
Since my own genitals are public
I have made other parts private.
In my silence I possess
mouth, larynx, brain in a single
gesture. I rub my hair
with lanolin, and pose in profile
like a painted Nubian

archer, imagining gold leaf
woven through my hair, and diamonds.
Observe the wordless Odalisque.
I have not forgotten my Xhosa
clicks. My flexible tongue
and healthy mouth bewilder
this man with his rotting teeth.
If he were to let me rise up

from this table, I’d spirit
his knives and cut out his black heart,
seal it with science fluid inside
a bell jar, place it on a low
shelf in a white man’s museum
so the whole world could see
it was shriveled and hard,
geometric, deformed, unnatural.

Elisabeth Alexander



With Foucault I thought of the use of the historic perspective and sociological studies in the analysis of power structures and sexuality has informed the medical practice and how it has informed the justice system. That Foucault even though he criticize the societies picking apart of sexuality, dividing up and naming differences have given the marginalized a language with which to defend themselves in society, a language that was used first to marginalize and repress.


Edward Tufte "Graphs that changed the world"















Silly video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsB2q12UOYM

Sex: religion.
'We must not think that by saying yes to sex we say no to power; on the contrary, one tracks along course laid out by the general deployment of sexuality.'













I take this image and make a connection to the work of Andrea Fraser.
She is the queen of institutional critique, influenced by Nicolas Bourriaud (curator and critic) she looks to combine relational aesthetics with the tradition of performance in feminist art.







Museum Highlights 1989

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/13/magazine/13ENCOUNTER.html?ex=1402459200&en=aa724398866c64a5&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND












'...And people will ask themselves why we were so bent on ending the rule of silence regarding what was the noisiest of our preoccupations.'


Andres Serranos blasphemous images, images of dead, blod and sperm chocked in the 90's.
(Although one of my first very powerful art experiences I don't know how interesting this is anymore, and I'm thinking I don't wanna see.)








http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_n10_v35/ai_19677880



















Although for different reasons, I am not alone.

This image was destoyed by Swedish nazis in the exhibition History of sex (played out in the photograph by the person having this fantasy ) in Lund Sweden 2007.

Chaps and cargo pants? !

I'm about nowhere through Heidegger...well a bit, and the words have become abstract forms of highlighted areas and non-highlighted areas. I think the problem might be more about distraction than my ability. (also very funny is that I'm distracted by my studio practice.) I assume the highlighted areas are the ones of misunderstanding. I have added a picture that I found on the Internet, while looking with hope for an answer. It too is highlighted in the color yellow and used as a distraction.
WHAT IS THIS?! Chaps and cargo pants? !

help me out/lets start a conversation about essences

I'm about half way thorough the Heidegger and was hoping some others further along or more knowledgeable could help me out! I am struggling with this "essence" that is being "revealed." When he speaks of the stored coal that possesses "the sun's warmth that is stored in it," (pg 18) I can reason that the essence of the coal comes from the sun. But what then what is the essence of the sun?

Further, I feel like what he is saying is that in technology we are "revealing" some kind of essence that already exists." We "unlock, store, transform" etc... (pg 16). Is the essence of the raw materials predetermined to be revealed in the way that they are? Do objects not need to exist before they can be transformed?

And in thinking of the human psyche, would Heidegger argue that we have predetermined essences? Are we revealing what has always been?

Dancing Prisoners

Here is an article about the dancing prisoners that we discussed in class

Dancing Prisoners: Why it isn’t funny anymore

---

By Carlo Osi | 09/22/2008 10:44 AM

PHILADELPHIA – The Dancing Prisoners, if you will recall, was the Internet sensation in 2007 when prisoners from Cebu danced their way to international stardom by moving to the groove of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”. Convicted rapists, drug pushers, murderers and what-have-you banded together to create a funny work of art. Ingenious and novel, the Dancing Prisoners caught the world’s attention.

After Thriller, they moved to other easily identifiable tunes such as that of Soul Ja Boy and Bonnie Tyler’s 80s hit “I Need a Hero”. In the months that followed, more songs were danced to, flooding its home base YouTube with innumerable shots of orange-clad criminals dancing almost in sync. The very latest one was Macarena by the band Los Del Rio, a song celebrating its 15th year (with Los Del Rio endorsing in Spanish the use by the prisoners of their newly-remixed version).

For whatever reason, it seems like the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center where these prisoners are dancing have made it an institutional policy to come up with a video every month. Someone has got to tell them the idea is already stale, the videos are not funny anymore, and the erstwhile phenomenon has turned into a bad joke instead of an entertaining one.

Embarrassing, really

A few months ago, Anderson Cooper of CNN broadcast a Dancing Prisoners episode as found on YouTube. The entire CNN segment took perhaps 4 to 5 minutes of the show. Now let’s get to the point: the first video featuring “Thriller” was funny and exhilarating. The next few may still have its magic touch. But the more recent videos looked very scripted, forced, and embarrassing.

Admittedly, the Dancing Prisoners’ “Thriller” YouTube video last year was extremely unique and successful – notching up 14 million hits – a large number especially for a video-inspired, reality TV-based world. Where on earth but the Philippines can you see prisoners dancing to the 1983 monster hit of Michael Jackson. Easy to embrace happiness, Filipinos had fun the world over.

But like a boxer who doesn’t know when to properly hang his gloves or an 80-year old company CEO who doesn’t want to retire, the Cebu detention center and its officers don’t seem to know when enough of the dancing videos is enough.

Maybe it hasn’t crossed their minds what other nations and other peoples think of these Dancing Prisoners or of the Philippines in particular. Not that the prisoners and these videos are re-writing our history, but it’s not in our best interest to be known as the Land of the Dancing Prisoners. If there are also too many videos of the same prisoners dancing, the novelty is lost, boredom sets in, and any message is expunged.

Prisoner’s dilemma

In the context of the Dancing Prisoners, they themselves have their own Prisoner’s Dilemma.

When you look at the 20 or so main dancers, you will see a lot of happy faces who are just so willing to dance to the current vibe. But from the outlying areas, it appears that there are hundreds more who are just merely swaying and doing very simple dance moves and which the cameras very seldom train on. What’s on their minds?

An interview by the Associated Press in August 2007 reveals that for some prisoners, the dancing exercise is a relief from the daily rigors of the imprisoned life. It gives them something to do, compels them to exercise, allows them to freely socialize, and minimizes violence among fellow inmates.

Some say it serves as a good rehabilitation for them peculiarly because they are in a detention and rehabilitation facility. For others, being famous is a good thing. Certainly they realize that they are still in prison, either serving a few years or awaiting trial for murder charges, drug offenses and similar crimes. As criminal trials in the Philippines take a very long time to conclude (e.g. change of lawyers mid-way, delay in prosecution, or serial postponements of trial dates by judges), some say it’s a relief.

But the uniqueness of the phenomenon is waning and fast wearing out. It may be overextending the innovative nature of the first few videos. Other nations may be confused as to what we do to our prisoners. Is dancing a reward, a punishment, a coerced act, or a treat? The issue of human rights can also be called into play.

Moreover, isn’t the Cebu detention center profiting from all of these dance routines? Sure, the prisoners may be getting a small part of the business income from these dances, but the detention center allegedly gets the bigger share. It may in the long run discourage the national government from increasing the budget allocated for improvement of prison conditions because they can just get their prisoners to dance and solicit fees in the process.

The prisoners can’t complain: they would likely fear reprisals particularly because the venture has morphed from a simple exercise routine into an income-generating scheme. The prison officials would want them to dance as frequently as possible allegedly because the sympathetic “returns” are great. It might not be far-fetched that there would be nighttime performances for eager Cebu tourists who will pay to see former street gladiators and thugs strut their stuff.

National image

It’s common knowledge that 10% of Filipinos lives outside the archipelago. It’s good to know that those who live in or have migrated to the United States are highly educated individuals such as nurses, doctors, engineers, and accountants. Hence, if office workers, colleagues, church friends or classmates joke about this, Filipinos in the U.S. can laugh it off and dismiss it as orchestrated by a bored prison consultant and choreographed by a very creative prisoner.

Come to think of it, I deeply wonder what my colleagues at the Philadelphia law firm I work for think about this whole Dancing Prisoners phenomenon. Internet-savvy as they are, I’m pretty quite sure they have encountered this. I haven’t been formally asked about it, but I would certainly use the excuse stated above if grilled on it.

But explaining away the Dancing Prisoners is harder than many people may think. It might be hard to explain it to inquisitive bosses. If a person in the U.S. is applying for a job, the human resources department typically searches Internet sources such as blogs, Facebook, MySpace and others for information and compromising pictures or ideas that may adversely affect chances of employment. If a Filipino OFW is applying for work, the Dancing Prisoners videos may be a topic of conversation during the interview.

This is not to say that a nurse or a doctor wanting to work in the U.S. will be quizzed by the interviewers about these videos. Neither will it necessarily lead to a rejection letter and thus lose potential employment. To think that way is overstretching this argument. But the fact that the Dancing Prisoners videos are there on YouTube and that it’s alleged to already be a monthly commercial venture is something to think about.

In fact, it’s hard to explain it even among professionals and graduate students whether in the Philippines or outside. Fil-American school kids might be teased about it. Other nationalities may think jail officials are abusing Filipino prisoners simply because they have “lesser rights” or can effortlessly be compelled to do things they will not do on their own. It’s hard to imagine something like this occurring in the U.S. with its strong advocacy for prisoners’ rights.

Famous for the wrong reason

One of the more recent videos was the 80s hit song “I Need a Hero” with the inmates holding portraits of heroic icons such as the Gandhi, Dalai Lama, and Pope John Paul II. It was meant to be a tribute to all of the individuals who have served as heroes for various peoples. Don’t get me wrong but I think there’s just something cheesy and awkward about this.

Certainly it made them famous, but there’s no reason making the Philippines famous for Dancing Prisoners. Given the country’s intellectual, human and physical resources, it can do better than that. It’s humorous for a time but the country also risks misinterpretation.

While other Southeast Asian nations such as Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand are consistently promoting themselves as superior tourist attractions and great investment opportunities, and with China and Japan remaining to be the leaders in the Asian region, the Philippines is again, reputation-wise, being left behind.

The fact that it’s embarrassing can be phrased this way: Will the Cebu provincial government organize its capitol staff members to dance in a coordinated way and show it through YouTube? Or will Cebu mayors and other politicians take the time to dance like the prisoners and similarly use YouTube as a broadcast platform? The answer is simply No. They won’t do it because it’s humiliating and likely to create a negative image.

Sooner or later, the world might conveniently forget that the Philippines was the originator of the bloodless and peaceful people-powered revolution in 1986 which overthrew an overstaying dictator and just remember our economically struggling country as the Home of the Dancing Prisoners. What a real shame if and when that happens.

The author is a US/Japan-trained and educated Filipino lawyer. Send comments to carlo.osi@gmail.com or through http://eastofturtleisland.blogspot.com/.

as of 09/22/2008 11:16 AM

Can we possess an artwork by apprehending it?

I found really interesting the relation of Marx’s and Kracauer’s texts, as they talked about the same situation but their analysis follow pretty different processes. I enjoyed Kracauer's "top-down" scrutiny of the mass ornament as the surface-level expressions of that time as "their structure reflect that of the entire contemporary situation". He establishes very clear parallelisms between the Tiller Girls and the capitalist production like when he says "The hands in the factory correspond to the legs of the Tiller Girls", or "Although the mass gives rise to the ornament, they are not involved in thinking it though". While Marx depicts the alienation of the worker from the product of his/her work, to end describing the consequences it has over the whole social structure, Kracauer studies the “tip of the iceberg”, this is, the mass ornaments, to end up going to the ground causes that produce it.

Watching the video Faheem posted from the Beijing's opening ceremony and the huge crisis capitalism is living nowadays, I think both texts regain huge relevance but as many of you have already posted comments about related topics, I would like to throw another different thought/question related to a Marx quote: "Private property has made us so stupid and one-sided that an object is only ours when we have it, when it exists for as capital, or when it is directly possessed, eaten, drunk, work, inhabited, etc., in short, when it is used by us." Of course, the strict meaning of this sentence is true, but one could consider (Marx is actually pointing this), that obviously you don't need to posses an object to make it yours. In an art context, when we apprehend a piece in a gallery or exhibition space, are we making it ours?

Julio

Future Readings site...

Library of Readings - maintained by a UCLA couple

http://aaaarg.org/library

disclaimer-the music is terrible

Part of the Great Machine

How to become an actor in the spectacle of post 9/11 fear, courtesy of the NYC transit system:

Living in a traumatized New York back in 2001, I remember thinking how ridiculous these city transit advertisements were. The spectacle of fear became an everyday circus that called for the active participation of every single paranoid citizen (or rather triggered the latent paranoia of every citizen). This is social control masquerading as national security at its best. 

H&A Culture:

1.

Signification, which is the only function of a word admitted by semantics, reaches perfection in the sign. Whether folk-songs were rightly or wrongly called upper-class culture in decay, their elements have only acquired their popular form through a long process of repeated transmission. The spread of popular songs, on the other hand, takes place at lightning speed. The American expression “fad,” used for fashions which appear like epidemics – that is, inflamed by highly-concentrated economic forces – designated this phenomenon long before totalitarian advertising bosses enforced the general lines of culture. When the German Fascists decide one day to launch a word – say, “intolerable” – over the loudspeakers the next day the whole nation is saying “intolerable.” By the same pattern, the nations against whom the weight of the German blitzkrieg was thrown took the word into their own jargon. The general repetition of names for measures to be taken by the authorities makes them, so to speak, familiar, just as the brand name on everybody’s lips increased sales in the era of the free market. The blind and rapidly spreading repetition of words with special designations links advertising with the totalitarian watchword. The layer of experience which created the words for their speakers has been removed; in this swift appropriation language acquires the coldness which until now it had only on billboards and in the advertisement columns of newspapers. Innumerable people use words and expressions which they have either ceased to understand or employ only because they trigger off conditioned reflexes; in this sense, words are trade-marks which are finally all the more firmly linked to the things they denote, the less their linguistic sense is grasped. The minister for mass education talks incomprehendingly of “dynamic forces,” and the hit songs unceasingly celebrate “reverie” and “rhapsody,” yet base their popularity precisely on the magic of the unintelligible as creating the thrill of a more exalted life. Other stereotypes, such as memory, are still partly comprehended, but escape from the experience which might allow them content. They appear like enclaves in the spoken language. On the radio of Flesch and Hitler they may be recognised from the affected pronunciation of the announcer when he says to the nation, “Good night, everybody!” or “This is the Hitler Youth,” and even intones “the Fuehrer” in a way imitated by millions. In such cliches the last bond between sedimentary experience and language is severed which still had a reconciling effect in dialect in the nineteenth century. But in the prose of the journalist whose adaptable attitude led to his appointment as an all-German editor, the German words become petrified, alien terms. Every word shows how far it has been debased by the Fascist pseudo-folk community.

By now, of course, this kind of language is already universal, totalitarian. All the violence done to words is so vile that one can hardly bear to hear them any longer. The announcer does not need to speak pompously; he would indeed be impossible if his inflection were different from that of his particular audience. But, as against that, the language and gestures of the audience and spectators are coloured more strongly than ever before by the culture industry, even in fine nuances which cannot yet be explained experimentally.

President Obama yesterday eliminated the most controversial tools employed by his predecessor against terrorism suspects. With the stroke of his pen, he effectively declared an end to the "war on terror," as President George W. Bush had defined it, signaling to the world that the reach of the U.S. government in battling its enemies will not be limitless.

-http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/23/politics/washingtonpost/main4749431.shtml

2.

Whereas today in material production the mechanism of supply and demand is disintegrating, in the superstructure it still operates as a check in the rulers’ favour. The consumers are the workers and employees, the farmers and lower middle class. Capitalist production so confines them, body and soul, that they fall helpless victims to what is offered them. As naturally as the ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more seriously than did the rulers themselves, the deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them. The misplaced love of the common people for the wrong which is done them is a greater force than the cunning of the authorities. It is stronger even than the rigorism of the Hays Office, just as in certain great times in history it has inflamed greater forces that were turned against it, namely, the terror of the tribunals. It calls for Mickey Rooney in preference to the tragic Garbo, for Donald Duck instead of Betty Boop. The industry submits to the vote which it has itself inspired. What is a loss for the firm which cannot fully exploit a contract with a declining star is a legitimate expense for the system as a whole. By craftily sanctioning the demand for rubbish it inaugurates total harmony. The connoisseur and the expert are despised for their pretentious claim to know better than the others, even though culture is democratic and distributes its privileges to all. In view of the ideological truce, the conformism of the buyers and the effrontery of the producers who supply them prevail. The result is a constant reproduction of the same thing.

Amusement under late capitalism is the prolongation of work. It is sought after as an escape from the mechanised work process, and to recruit strength in order to be able to cope with it again. But at the same time mechanisation has such power over a man’s leisure and happiness, and so profoundly determines the manufacture of amusement goods, that his experiences are inevitably after-images of the work process itself. The ostensible content is merely a faded foreground; what sinks in is the automatic succession of standardised operations. What happens at work, in the factory, or in the office can only be escaped from by approximation to it in one’s leisure time.

http://incubate-chicago.org/?p=230

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=51500131212&ref=ts

Marx: Man Needing/Dominating Man

Social activity and social enjoyment exist by no means only in the form of some directly communal activity and directly communal enjoyment, although communal activity and communal enjoyment – i.e., activity and enjoyment which are manifested and affirmed in actual direct association with other men – will occur wherever such a direct expression of sociability stems from the true character of the activity’s content and is appropriate to the nature of the enjoyment.

But also when I am active scientifically, etc. – an activity which I can seldom perform in direct community with others – then my activity is social, because I perform it as a man. Not only is the material of my activity given to me as a social product (as is even the language in which the thinker is active): my own existence is social activity, and therefore that which I make of myself, I make of myself for society and with the consciousness of myself as a social being.

My general consciousness is only the theoretical shape of that of which the living shape is the real community, the social fabric, although at the present day general consciousness is an abstraction from real life and as such confronts it with hostility. The activity of my general consciousness, as an activity, is therefore also my theoretical existence as a social being.

Above all we must avoid postulating “society” again as an abstraction vis-à-vis the individual. The individual is the social being. His manifestations of life – even if they may not appear in the direct form of communal manifestations of life carried out in association with others – are therefore an expression and confirmation of social life. Man’s individual and species-life are not different, however much – and this is inevitable – the mode of existence of the individual is a more particular or more general mode of the life of the species, or the life of the species is a more particular or more general individual life.

Quotable quotes

Not only do hit songs, stars and soap operas conform to types recurring cyclically as rigid invariants, but the specific content of productions, the seemingly variable element, is itself derived from those types. The details become interchangeable. (p. 98, Horkheimer and Adorno)

The whole world is passed through the filter of the culture industry. The familiar experience of the moviegoer, who perceives the street outside as a continuation of the film he has just left, because the films seeks strictly to reproduce the world of everyday perceptions, has become the guide line of production. (p. 99)

The only escape from the work process in factory and office is through adaptation to it in leisure time. This is the incurable sickness of all entertainment. (p. 109)

Entertainment fosters the resignation which seeks to forget itself in entertainment. (p.113)

Okay, I’ll admit that I worked in the movie/commerical industry for three years. I helped make garbage! But, I’ve also seen (and secretly enjoyed) “Rock of Love: Tour Bus”. If only Horkheimer and Adorno had known how much worse it was going to get…

Once, the antithesis between individual and society made up its substance. Tragedy glorified “courage and freedom of feeling in face of a might foe, sublime adversity, a problem which awakened dread”. Today tragedy has been dissipated in the void of the false identity of society and subject, the horror of which is still just fleetingly visible in the vacuous semblance of the tragic. (p. 124)

What about the new Rambo? But seriously, I think mainstream Hollywood is just as obsessed as ever with the loner. There are still many films depicting a hero that is off the grid, kicked out of the CIA, former cop, etc. I think it’s strange that so many films depict this type of character. It’s like there is still a glimmer of interest in individuality or at least the packaged presentation of a supposed rebel who remains free to dip into society when needed. Or it’s a profitable and familiar story vehicle. That might be what Horheimer and Adorno say as the essay lays most of the blame on the producers of this material and not the consumers. I’m not so sure I’d agree that viewers are a blameless mass (see “Rock of Love: Tour Bus).

The ornament resembles aerial photographs of landscapes and cities in that it does not emerge out of the interior of the given conditions, but rather appears above them. (p. 77, Kracauer)

A system oblivious to differences in form leads on its own to the blurring of national characteristics and to the production of worker masses that can be employed equally well at any point on the globe. (p. 78)

I was in an AT&T commercial as a child. I sat in a stadium with hundreds of other people holding a piece of colored cardboard above my head for hours. It was very hot. Finally, a voice came on the loudspeaker said that on the count of three we were to turn the boards over in unison. Then we sat like that for another hour. It was a lot like the Beijing Olympic opening ceremonies except that it totally sucked and no one saw it.

When significant components of reality become invisible in our world, art must make do with what is left, for an aesthetic presentation is all the more real the less it dispenses with the reality outside the aesthetic sphere. (p. 79)

I wonder if Horkheimer and Adorno would agree with this? Remember, “the films seeks strictly to reproduce the world of everyday perceptions…” I hope we can break down this thought more in class, I’m intrigued by what Kracauer is saying but not sure I understand.

Estranged Labour and object relating to art?

While reading the Marx I found myself thinking about this idea of estranged labour and how it is both interesting and scary that the worker no longer ends up with the object as the end result. The object is then foreign to the worker - but then what is the object? In thinking about objects in this manner, I find myself wanting to relate this article to some kind of art theory or practice but am having a hard time. Any thoughts?