from caroline:

I found the hypocritical promise of style, for which H&A argue, very interesting: placing art as a mirror of the dominant ideological system, reflecting and perpetuating its inherent values. This induces an obedience of art to the social hierarchy, which places the regulations of that system even more deeply in the viewing subject. I found this connected in some sense to Habermas’ notion of the public sphere, where norms form the subject, subjecting it by inducing in him a sense of freedom. The deceived masses are unknowingly inserted into the ceaseless rotary system of capitalism, in which they are as much consumers as producers of it. Not only does art prescribe dominant ideological claims, but also the appropriate forms of behavior, of reaction from the spectating masses. Cultural progress is thus an ever-growing form of regulation. The culture industry does not hide its doings though, openly addressing the needs of individuals, which were however formed by the domi!
nant power formation in the first place.
Their treatment of the individual seemed to connect to Heidegger’s concept of the Weltbild. Individuality is only allowed as long as it stands in relation to the whole, representing not an other or unique aspect but rather an integrated part of that whole. Heidegger argues that the self is formed as one places oneself within the picture of reality, surrounding oneself. Thus, subjectivity is formed in regards to what that picture encompasses, in other words, a certain social unity. The notion of conformity arises in both, but is more stressed in H&A. The individual is engaged with an all encompassing system of regularity and, more importantly, caught in that role, caught in the iron cage. The typification of products according to different parts of the social spectrum just adds to the homogenizing effect of culture, as it does not allow for true individualism but rather a passive non-thinking state on the part of the consumer. Because all regularities are subsumed into!
the system, everyone is mapped unto the field of capitalist reality.
In Davis’, what struck me the most was how she argued for the power of visual representation to manipulate public opinion and divert the public gaze rather from the “true” statement of the picture, to a commodified aspect of it. A picture can be emptied of its content to serve as, in its new hollow shell, a commodity. Davis terms the camera as invasive and transformative. One can surveille the past, trying to get a hold on it and control it through representations of past moments in the media. However, the whole current mode of seeing is wrong because (as she argues, photographs of herself distorted her motivations, cause and entire history) history is drained of its specificity and lost already, although it is halted, paused, caught on the photograph. This leads to her point about the atrophy of memory.
posted by whkc at 9:37 PM

I wanted to take a moment to comment on the Keenan article, because I found many of his arguments particularly relevant. First of all, I have been involved in Amnesty International at the most basic, letter-writing level, off and on since high school, so I was intrigued by his point about humanitarian action but had some initial objections. First, the main medium of Amnesty Int. seems not to be the televisual, as he claims, but rather written word- recently email. The premise is similar, however- if you give people information that they would not otherwise have access to, they will act across borders on behalf of others’ suffering. What I am not sure about, however, is whether this is unmediated information, as Keenan describes with the unmediated images of suffering in Bosnia (which caused people to actively not take action because they weren’t presented as genocide, etc). In fact, a typical “Urgent Action Update” from Amnesty would not only tell you “what occurred” in a specific place, but also how to position it within the place’s/government’s history of human rights abuse, how to take action, and even what exactly to say in a letter to the person in power/government of the country involved. These letters are supposed to show that the international “public” is aware of what is going on- and this awareness is supposed to alert the abusive government that it cannot hide- that, as Keenan says of the horrors in Bosnia, “there are no secrets.” I wonder if Amnesty and other such humanitarian organizations are truly providing no interpretation of the image, as Keenan seems to be implying, or if they are simply too limited in their scope of action.

I am also interested in Keenan’s formulation that politics itself has been annihilated within this modern world of images. What does he mean by politics here? What other sorts of governances emerge?

More Soon...

posted by Jackie at 9:06 PM

from Adrian:

In "The Situationists and the New Forms of Action Against Politics and Art," Debord examines the role of art in advancing revolutionary politics. Throughout most of his argument, his reasoning seemed quite clear, as his argumeents were based primarily on a traditional Marxist intellectual framework. However, he made a major assertion which he then failed to define.
"In the short term, however, a critical art can be carried out within the existing means of cultural expression, from cinema to painting — even though we ultimately wish to destroy this entire artistic framework."
Clearly, given the rest of the essay, his motivation for doing such is presumably political. In other words, for Marxists, capitalist societies are unjust at their core, and thus the products of these societies are also undesirable (reflecting narrow class interests/asthetics, endeared to the mentality of production/consumption). Yet after making this important assertion, he simply moves on with the rest of his thoughts. Yet, how is the existing artistic framework connected to the processes of production/consumption? Why does the existence of class inequalities necessarily also produce dominant ideologies in artistic movements, given that most art is not a profitable enterprise but is performed by critically thinking individuals in a profession which is one of the least connected to the capitalist system. I made the presumptions of what he might have meant, because the logic of many Marxists is often predictable. It seems to me that this is an important claim on which he fai!
ls to elaborate, and assumes the reader's knowledge on a matter which is too ambigious to pass on, particularly for those who do not wish to strictly adhere to Marxist orthodoxy.

posted by whkc at 9:05 PM

From Nazli:

I think that Angela Y. Davis makes an intriguing point in her essay "Afro Images: Politics, Fashion, and Nostalgia"; by stating how photography may effect one's image and in turn the way he/she is viewed by the public. Her photographs were seen as instruments that were; "reducing a politics of liberation to a politics of fashion"; in the sense of exposing her as a criminal. When she changes the way she looked she was no longer a threat to the public, she discovered that "glamour was the only look that might annual the likelihood of being perceived as a revolutionary". The article shows us how powerful can a camera can be in reforming one's personality, past, and status in society. It has the power of re-defining one's actions and reflecting them the way it wants working collaboratively with the picture taker. What I was not sure about was in her case did the camera really play a trick a on her and reflected wrong things or!
did it jut reveal the truth which now she does not want to accept?
"The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception" was in a way related to Davis' article since it also talked about stereotyping and basing values in things according to their stereotypical images. "for culture now impresses the same stamp on everything. Films, radio and magazines make up a system which is uniform as a whole and in every part". Does everything colliding with each other, as mechanical production and technology grow bigger? Are they destroying the authenticity and uniqueness of things? Is mass media really becoming only business rather than being a form of art that carries a truth within it? It seems like company director have the control and their own rules to direct consumers. They even though they appear to be producing mechanically differentiated products are they all the same in the end? The same goes for the films since it has become very likely to guess how they will end once they begin. So even if they also !
seem to be different maybe they are actually very similar, produced by people with similar rules and value standards. People used to see films as extensions of the world but now they are in a way becoming indistinguishable with reality and becoming a part of real life. "Anyone who resists can only survive by fitting"; is a very strong statement that describes the nature of the culture industry that wants to constantly reproduce the same thing, sameness.
posted by whkc at 7:40 PM