Virtual Scholars
An imagined form of scholarship…Archive for Theory
lo Squaderno
- lo Squaderno, #13, September 2009 “Connected & People”
a cura di / dossier coordonné par / edited by // Andreas Fernandez, Andrea Mubi Brighenti Guest image editor // Miya Yoshida
The most recent edition of lo Squaderno came out this month. It is an online magazine produced in Italy. The title apparently translates as meaning to flick through a magazine to find a particular page (what a great word!). The by-line of the magazine is ‘explorations in space and society’, which the editors explain as follows:
Research is a movement of thought which does not depend on codes or specialized savoirs. It is neither disciplinary nor bound to produce certified, true knowledge. In other words, research is open and endless.
Predicated upon these premises, lo Squaderno is a web magazine devoted to explore and advance research movements.
Launched in Autumn 2006, lo Squaderno collects original short features by people committed to research in various fields. Each issue is structured around a thematic focus around the topics of of space, power, and society.
Based on an article I wrote for Theory, Culture & Society, ‘Love Messaging: Mobile Phone Txting Seen Through the Lens of Tanka Poetry’ (Volume 26, Issues 2-3, 2009, pp.209-232), the editors invited me to submit something for this month’s issue, on the theme ‘Connected & People’. The result is a short piece, ’Love Media: The Joy of Txt’ (lo Squaderno, #13, September 2009, pp.27-30), based on what I had written before, but more playful and with the sole focus of txting and love messaging.
Thinking the unthinkable
Frank Furedi was the guest speaker at an event at York St John University today, ‘Thinking the Unthinkable: the Loneliness of the Critical Thinker in Higher Education (Exploring the importance of Critical Thinking in Higher Education).
As is often the case with such events, there was something of preaching to the converted. Nonetheless it was a worthy talk. Without wishing to undermine the need for skills (Furedi was quite clear we need skills), the main argument was that critical thinking should not be allowed to be hijacked by the current vogue for teaching skills. Indeed, the point is that critical thinking is not a skill as such. Furedi tended to consider it a broader engagement with a subject or field. And one member of the audience suggested we consider it a disposition. There is something vague in these formulations, but the underlying point is to regard critical thinking as a culture of engagement, different to a toolkit of skills to be applied to specific situations. Two of Furedi’s remarks illustrate this point, and raise concerns about the current climate, which has seen an undermining of intellectual life in general (see his books, Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone?: Confronting 21st Century Philistinism; and Wasted: Why Education Needs To Be Saved From Itself). He noted that the current propensity in schools to push hard on literacy is having the desired effect of raising standards, but does little or nothing to raise children’s appreciation of literature and books general. In effect, literacy becomes more about handling information, than anything about reading and writing.
He also remarked upon the certification of ’soft’ skills. Learning how to fix a car engine, do plumbing, or attend to a patient, are vital ‘hard’ skills we all need, or need access to. But there is a culture of offering training on pointless or overly obvious skills such as using a telephone or other so-called ‘people’ skills (as if somehow we weren’t quite a full person until trained up). As Furedi put it, what do you do on a telephone skills course, you learn how to dial and say hello? To make matters worse, at the end of these ‘courses’ you get a certificate, which he rightly pointed out is a perfect example of alienation. We are given back what we already possessed, but as if we have acquired a new skill or attribute. Should we feel grateful for this recognition? The certificate is an underhand way of disempowering us, because it gives authority to something we should have had authority over for ourselves.
Of course the problem is not simply about being controlled from on high, as if there is some group who exercise this power. The situation is far worse. We are all partaking in this system. In a seminar session following Furedi’s talk, one participant described a sign she had seen at a supermarket check-out. It asked the customer a series of questions to check up on the level of service (including asking if you have been greeted, offered bags, given a receipt and told to have a nice day etc). If anything on the ’script’ is found wanting the customer is encouraged to make a complaint, with a free batch eggs offered as compensation. So, not only is the customer encouraged to catch the member of staff out, the whole ’bad faith’ of a script being delivered is foregrounded as if a virtue. It is too simplistic to see this as the supermarket controlling its members of staff, since it is unlikely that the giving away of a batch of eggs is of any specific concern to managers. It is all just part of a vacuous process of customer service, in which we all dance however badly. The whole thing reminds me of that wonderful line Woody Allen delivers in Annie Hall about ‘needing the eggs’:
It was great seeing Annie again and I realized what a terrific person she was and how much fun it was just knowing her and I thought of that old joke, you know … this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, ‘Doc, uh, my brother’s crazy, he thinks he’s a chicken,’ and uh, the doctor says, ‘well why don’t you turn him in?’ And the guy says, ‘I would, but I need the eggs.’ Well, I guess that’s pretty much now how I feel about relationships. You know, they’re totally irrational and crazy and absurd and, but uh, I guess we keep going through it…because…most of us need the eggs.
No matter how much we think about things, it is unthinkable not to want those eggs! So, how can things change? One participant asked Furedi how he felt critical thinking related to the rise in importance of the broader ’student experience’. It just so happened he has written a piece for the Times Higher Education Supplement on this question, published this week. The case is very clear:
…the ethos of consumerism directly contradicts the fundamental premise of an academic education. From the standpoint of service providers, the customer is always right. It is not the service providers’ job to question or challenge the tastes and values of potential customers. By contrast, academics are often in the business of educating their students’ tastes and encouraging them to question their values. Indeed, one of the most distinct and significant dimensions of academic and intellectual activity is that it does not often give customers what they want. Academic dialogue and instruction does not provide the customer with a clearly defined product. It does not seek to offer what the customer wants, but attempts to provide what the student needs. That is why forcing universities to prove themselves to their customers fundamentally contradicts the ethos of academic education. (Furedi, THES, Now is the age of the discontented)
A significant facet of critical thinking is that it is rarely comfortable or stabilising, as such it is never really going to become institutionalised – indeed that would generally be a contradiction in terms. Put another way, critical thinking only exists because of the difficulties and inequalities that surround us. Critical thinking’s raison d’être is to stand up to the unacceptable and the unthought-through. It is that action of ’standing up’ that is most particular to critical thinking, rather than offering up specific solutions – since solutions are only likely to need further critical attention someway along the line. Rather than asserting change (which will only ever likely be change for some and not all), it is more important we remain ever vigilant to what goes on around us.
One significant ‘goings on’ as we sat in the lecture theatre was the country voting in the European Election. A ritual vigil, at least a media vigil over the next few days will ensue, not least as the Prime Minister’s standing is as much implicated as are the seats in the European parliament. In light of the Election Day, the event organised a ballot of its own, to nominate the most significant Critical Thinker (in up to 30 words). A grand prize was awarded by Frank Furedi for the best nomination at the end of the day. Whilst it was a secret ballot, this was my entry:
Why her? (…and not him?)
Non-theoretical / theoretical
Palpable / inteligible
Pathos / Logos
‘Once upon a time…’
Non-theoreticaltheoretical
Palpableintelligible
PathosLogos
She speaks to me without opposition
Makes ‘me’ thinkable
Hélène
———
Cixous
Needless to say I didn’t win.
(In case you are interested, the winning entry was for Hillaire Belloc with:
He inspired the critical use of honey.
‘I eat my peas with honey
I’ve done it all my life
It makes my peas taste funny
But it keeps them on my knife’
…so, there you have it.)
Along it came…
I bundled everything into my bag and soon it was heavy again. As ever it was a race against the clock. I checked to see I had picked up everything (the usual feeling, in such a hurry, of having forgotten something crucial lingered). But, I had all the bits and pieces I needed to read in preparation for teaching and of course Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude (the title set by R. in preparation for my trip to Bogota, the page quotas by our reading group of two!)… There was just enough time, I thought, to get to the library to get that book about blogging (again for teaching), which I’d not been able to get last week because of such early closing times.
I hurried up to the first floor and headed straight to the shelf location 301.231. I spotted it finally down on the bottom shelf and swiftly plucked it from its position. I was all but away again when I noticed a title along the thin tall spine of a neighbouring book: The Digital Film Event. Interesting, I thought and shifted the weight of my bag slightly to be on my way again. Yet, no I couldn’t quite leave it there for a ‘next time’ (and so allow it to be lost to those spaces of lost volumes that ever haunt me). I let my bag down to the floor to free myself to collect up this second book. The pages are glossy I thought. Pictures, some in colour. And what is this, a filmscript in the middle? Could not compute. I was definitely intrigued. Could be a red herring, maybe a little self indulgent (though who am I to talk!). But the back cover did it, ever aware of the ticking clock, my eyes skated over the top few lines:
FILM / VISUAL STUDIES / POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES
Endless travel in cyberspace, virtual reality, and the dream of limitless speed: technology changes our sense of self. In her new book, Trinh Minh-ha explores the way technology transforms our perception of reality.
Yes the word travel appeared I thought, a good omen and cyberspace, which would seem to help knit together our wandering plans and the insistence with which I write this blog. Suddenly the book became such precious cargo. Still with little sense of what it actually contained (and what does it really matter when set against the inspiration it offered), I hurried down to the library desk as if someone might reach out of the shadows and take it from me before I had the chance to have it issued to my name… As I ran the book’s barcode through the machine I became aware of a whole host of new possibilities (if only I could write them down here as quickly as I thought of them). Only yesterday as I half described the plans (or at least their moods/modes) R. and I have dreamt up for my visit, you said to me (as you sat perfectly, cross-legged upon that massive bed) ‘…and you could do more films’. The suggestion startled me for a moment (but that is hardly new) and I think I gave a non-commital reply, but it went quick and direct to my other mind (the one that can’t function in real-time).
R. … I think we have been thinking too small. Let’s not just look to the films and books of Robinsonesque adventures (and other associated Species of Spaces), let’s make our own. In our ever best attempts to refashion Bovard and Pecuchet for the 21st Century, I think we ought to turn our hand to being media artists. We’ll go the whole hog and invent a globalised installation.
I have been writing this, trying to archive my thoughts, as I travel back on the train. As I step off at the station and enter the usual commotion of commuters, I sense all the connections in my head dissipate (a desparate feeling under the circumstances). Still, I hang on to these words saved. It could be a real turning point. I really sense it could be a turning point (something we must discuss during our next skype call). Of course in previous literatures, this remark, which issues as if literally ensconced in the hurlyburly of modern life, might seem to reveal a contrived attempt, or re-presentation, of the transient. Yet, since I am able to type and transmit these words upon my mobile phone, we can’t so easily judge one’s verisimilitude.
…and this simply all feeds into the ideas of the author of The Digital Film Event, Trinh T. Minh-ha. As the backpage blurb continues:
“We are all engaged in social rituals in our daily activities,” she writes, ” and by remaining unaware of their artistic ritutal propensity, we remain ‘in conformity.’” Her goal, as a thinker and an artist, is to transform our understanding of technology and speed so that we are able to “turn an instrument into a creative tool and to step out of the one dimensional, technologically servile mind.”
The paradoz that “stillness contains speed within it” is central to Trinh’s concept of the digital apparatus. With her signature amalgam of feminism, postcolonial theory, Eastern philosophy, and practical understanding of filmmaking, Trinh Minh-ha presents a much-needed advance in our understanding of the real in a technological age.
R. … welcome to The Letters in Red 2.0…
Beyond Belief (Cubed)
(1) Make-believe (and its paper trail): As I made my way into Tokyo’s Museum of Contemporary Arts I couldn’t miss the huge foil-like structure lurking outside, playing tricks with the surrounding architecure. A shimmering leaflet (which I thought far more beautiful and alluring than the sculpture itself) explained how the artist, Kimihiko Okada, ‘experiments to change the ways people perceive space with the materials he uses in his art works aside from his work as an architect’.
The structure we are told is made with a ‘complex and ambiguous geometry, and the object employs a thin, integrated metal membrane’. The purpose is ‘to reflect rain, wind, and other atmospheric conditions, as well as the movement of the sun, color of the sky, and other quiet changes in the environment’. Laudable aims no doubt, but the harsh light that bounced off the work didn’t really seem to capture necessarily ‘quiet changes’, if anything the crumpled surface seemed only to pull its surroundings into the body of the piece, whilst emitting only white light in exchange. I wouldn’t want to be facetious and ask where the baking tray had got to, but of course the remark hangs there…
I pressed on to the exhibition I’d come to see: Studio Ghibli Layout Designs: Understanding the Secrets of Takahata/Miyazaki Animation. The layout or ‘blueprint’ design was something Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki introduced to the production process of animation films in 1974, when working at the time on the TV animated series Heidi a Girl of the Alps. Unlike actual animation cells, the layout or blueprint is more a schematic of a series of shots and how they will be achieved. Each individual piece of paper gives the relevant informtion of a scene. Against backdrop sketches the key animated elements, particularly characters, tend to be drawn faintly in red. Also written onto the sheets are details of relative positions of elements, direction on actions, indictations on whether or not there will be camera movement and effects etc. Thus, the purpose of the blueprint is to provide an overview of a sequence and crucially is used to ensure a greater sense of unity for a given production. Indeed, the introduction of the blueprint was a direct response to the ever more specialised and divided process of production.
The exhibition presented some 1,300 blueprints for Studio Ghibli films ranging from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind to their latest release Pnyo on the Cliff by the Sea (which had opened just at the time I attended the museum). I was half-expecting the sheer overload of images from the films – indeed that was what I got. Room after room with rows and rows of thin pieces of paper on display. Whilst a mixed audience, many were true fans - their faces lighting up as they recognised the films from the drawings on display. There were also a number of young couples. Seemingly it was a place for a date! I can’t say I am a ‘fan’ of anime as such, though I have certainly enjoyed watching the films I have seen. I would be keen to follow up a few lines of interest to do with hybridity as a form of representation and also a link I can’t quite yet articulate but would like to pursue between pictures of ‘floating world’ woodblock prints and the visual array and movement of anime, particularly in Miyazaki’s work. My problem, of course, is that I can’t face having to wade through the existing body of literature; for me it is a ’body’ and not a ’field’ of study, the latter would be too open and fluid a description. I left the exhibition feeling a little empty-handed. Nonetheless, from such close scrutiny I marvelled at the ability to conjure up faces, expressions and the flow of clothing from only very simple and few lines. A wonderful art. I also couldn’t help thinking it staggering, not only the sheer number of sheets of drawings (as mere pre-cusors to the films), but also the amount of beautiful detail of the drawings, which were after all only ‘blueprints’. All this paperwork that goes into making an unbelievable world believable!
(2) ‘the price we pay’: I made my way on to Ginza. In particular I wanted to visit Maison Hermès, a building that is clad entirely of glass blocks . R. had taken me there when we had been together in Tokyo, part of the informal – and at times accidental – architectural trail he took me along. Across the street, a number of floors up R. had spotted the scene of a plush, red cafe. We went up there and he took a photograph. This time, however, it was not there, it had been refurbished and made into something far less inviting and certainly not engulfing.
On the top floor of Hermès is their gallery, Le Forum (a tangible manifestation of corporate social responsibility). As I made my way up I saw a lovely wallet on sale. It took me a little while to convert from Japanese yen (I couldn’t quite believe it for a while). The simple, thin wallet was on sale for around £1000, which took my breath away (there would be nothing left to put in it I thought!). I then reached the gallery – doubly out of breath – to encounter an installation ironically titled Leftovers.
The piece was made up of a long line of bamboo leaves, upon which a repeated sequence of food had been laid out. And next to each of the leaves was a sheet of paper with the print of someone’s feet. Whilst all very similar, each ‘place-setting’ was unique, both the footprints and the state of the food. In some cases the food had been spilled and mixed up, but mostly it remained barely touched. A leaflet showed a diagram of each of the food stuffs as representing different things: beauty, culture, hunger, choice, history, future, identity, taste, ‘…..’ and space. Presumably the manner in which the foods had been touched related to thoughts about these different elements. I didn’t read the leaflet until I had left the building, but even if I had, for me the leaves conjured up a sense of rural living, with connotations of limited food supply, yet all counterbalanced by an uncomfortable sense of food having been wasted, as it lay discarded, half-eaten. We are brought to believe/see what we don’t necessarily want to believe/see.
(3) Religious belief: I love subways. I love the mix of life forms (and the way the advertisements are really large, yet seem to just jostle with the to and fro of everything around).
As I waited on a platform for my train – listening to ‘Heart’s Filthy Lesson‘ by David Bowie (aptly a line rings out ‘I think I’ve lost my way’) – I was accosted by a band of merry Christians from the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, who told me they were here on a ‘short mission‘ to convert the already converted 1% of Christians in Japan (well that can’t be right, but that was how it sounded). Ironically, it seemed to be the fact that I was not from Japan that prompted them to say hello. “From England, wow!” …on having to admit I was not a Christian (at least not that I know of, and despite its ideology underpinning much of the culture I know), I was asked: ”Are you Jewish?” – accompanied with a light pat on my shoulder as if it might be equally difficult to admit; or perhaps, had I been, an acknowledgement of some kind of respect. It was difficult to tell. As we all climbed aboard the incoming train, I felt the best course of action was to say (truthfully, though lacking in all knowledge) that I was ‘interested’ in Buddhism and Shintoism. “…oh okay… I know they have a concept of Nothingness. It makes me think of flat-lining on a heartrate monitor!’. I did my best to explain (but where my ideas come from I do not know) that the concept really refers to an all inclusive interconnectedness (which is not easily translated across to the Ego-based religious concepts typical of the West). The person who had been the one to initiate the ‘hello’ then told me about a wonderful film she had been watching prior to her departure to Tokyo: “…it was about the tea ceremony, you know they have a tea ceremony thing here? …well it turns out it might be related to the fact that a long time ago Christians had to hide – they were not allowed here”. There was some mention of the sign of the cross in relation to the typical tea house design and of grass left to grow through to hide the said sign. All fascinating I thought. Just as the train was arriving at my stop, I asked after the film title so I could see it for myself, but she couldn’t quite remember. She quickly tried to get her husband’s attention, who was further up the train carriage. He shouted out some director’s name, but I couldn’t quite catch it and then it was time for me to step out. As the automatic doors were about to close the woman grasped the air and said she’d pray for me. I believe(d) her. I am grateful to meet those who exhibit ‘true’ belief, if only because I wonder what it must feel like.
Slavoj Žižek, in his book On Belief, writes of a debate on the Larry King Show between a rabbi, a Catholic priest and a Southern Baptist. Both the rabbi and the priest, he explains, ‘expressed their hope that the unification of religions is feasible since, irrespective of his or her official creed, a thoroughly good person can count on divine grace and redemption’. The Baptist, however, ‘insisted that, according to the letter of the Gospel, only those who “live in Christ” by explicitly recognizing themselves in his address will be redeemed, which is why, as he concluded with a barely discernible contemptuous smile, “a lot of good and honest people will burn in hell”‘. The basic premise of his book ‘is that, cruel as this position may sound, if one is to break the liberal-democratic hegemony and resuscitate an authentic radical position, one has to endorse its materialist version’. It is a refreshing commentary, for surely the need to return to issues of faith and belief vis-a-vis ideological critique is vital. However, it leaves me wondering, is Žižek’s pursuit of a ‘materialist version’ of belief (and his ‘mission’ to overturn today’s Empire) going to have to come down to only one ‘authentic radical position’? The near-missed exchange of a director’s name, which momentarily did genuinely interest me, suggests to me something much more ambiguous.
Umi-hotaru (Postmodern Classic #26)
Umi-hotaru (海ほたる), or ’sea firefly’, is a bizzare artificial island at the mindpoint of the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line (東京湾アクアライン), a bridge-tunnel connecting the city of Kawasaki in Kanagawa Prefecture with the city of Kisarazu in Chiba Prefecture (with an overall length of 14 km, a 4.4 km bridge and 9.6 km tunnel underneath the bay - the longest underwater tunnel for cars in the world).
Air is supplied to the tunnel by a distinctive tower in the middle of the tunnel, called the Kaze no tō (風の塔), which uses the bay’s almost-constant winds as a power source.
The Aqualine was built to reduce traffic through the center of Tokyo, and to link the two important industrial regions of Chiba and Kanagawa. The road opened on December 18, 1997 after 31 years of construction at a cost of 1.44 trillion yen (11.2 billion USD at the time of opening). It is a very ‘modern’ project – all about mighty engineering, progress and efficiency. Where previously it had been necessary to drive 100km or so along the shores of Tokyo Bay and pass through the center of Tokyo, the bridge-tunnel takes just 15 minutes. Yet, arriving at its mid-way point, I felt as if I had reached one of the last decaying remnants of a postmodern age. It was like arriving at the disused theme park that is the opening for Miyazaki’s much lauded anime feature Spirited Away. Except, where the tunnel led Chihiro to a mysterious town, which comes to life in a very surreal fashion, the island of Umi-hotaru is listless and fascinatingly tacky and banal.
The island is essentially a car-park and rest area consistng of restaurants, shops and amusement facilities. It bleeps and sells fast-food and ice-creams like any other motorway services stopover. Looking out over the water there was nothing to see – just the mist of what I guess was the smog of Tokyo and its surrounds on a summer’s day. It was an eerie, quiet artificial space, with no sense of where you were or where you had come from (since the tunnel obviously keeps you from seeing anything at all until one arrives).
It is, to use Marc Augé’s term, a ’non-place’; one of those interstitial places between the ’significant and meaningful’ spaces he calls ‘place’. One can immediately get a sense of these ‘non-places’ from the descriptive prologue of his book, Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity (1995): A man is traveling from Paris by airplane. He draws money from the ATM, waits on the highway, enters the airport, then the airplane itself. His reality is made up entirely of advertising, the bright lights, digital displays, glass and polished walkways. All are places that are not quite places, but which acquire their identity from their being on the way to other places, near or far. Augé’s thesis is of three kinds of accelerated transformations: (1) of time, an ‘acceleration of history’ (p. 26) leading to an overabundance of events; (2) of space: ‘the excess of space is correlative with the shrinking of the planet’ (p. 31) leading to spatial overabundance; and (3) of the individual, ’the figure of the ego’ (p. 36). All three would seem to exist at Umi-Hotaru. The accelerated journey time between Kawasaki and Kisarazu, cutting out all that you might see on route otherwise and turning the whole ‘crossing’ itself into an event. The creation of a whole new place (in the middle of a bay) and in the process shrinking a little corner of the planet and all that goes with re-engineering the environment. And the individual – the many individuals who arrive here with nothing but themselves to satisfy. Some even take the trip solely to visit the island, turning back into the tunnel instead of continuing on across the bridge as you would expect. The whole improbability of the place brought to mind The Restaurant at the End of the Universe: ‘…run by an incredible arrangement of life forms from everywhere, and is the one place anywhere that serves a talking food. One of the restaurant’s major attractions is that diners can watch the entire universe end around them as they eat. The terminal moment is followed by dessert.’
Fredric Jameson, in his well-known essay, ‘Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism’, writes of the Westin Bonadventure Hotel (Los Angeles, California), describing it as a complete world, a mini city with no obvious entry. Its ‘glass skin’, he notes, ‘achieves a peculiar and placeless dissociation of the Bonaventure from its neighborhood: it is not even an exterior, inasmuch as when you seek to look at the hotel’s outer walls you cannot see the hotel itself but only the distorted images of everything that surrounds it.’ The building has become the ‘classic’ example of postmodern architecture (and largely because of Jameson’s essay), of which he writes: ‘…this latest mutation in space – postmodern hyperspace – has finally succeeded in transcending the capacities of the individual human body to locate itself, to organize its immediate surroundings perceptually, and cognitively to map its position in a mappable external world’.
After dessert, which happened to be a rather lavish ice-cream, it was time for me to leave Umi-Hotaru, to complete the crossing over the bridge and leave behind its strangely absent horizon. However, as the car left on its prescribed route I wondered if perhaps the human body has finally caught up with these so-called non-place or hyperspaces. As the paint begins to peel and the glamour of the entertainments rapidly fade, the capacities of the human body to map these spaces does not seem so difficult (we are too well versed in a network culture now), yet this fact still does not make them any less postmodern, for where else is there to go? (..even turning back into the tunnel, only takes you out into more of the same).
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