Friday, February 13, 2004
What?!
Okay I'll admit it, I've not yet the Briony Fer Introduction but I have read the two handout sheets by Clement Greenberg. I have to to say that at this point I'm quite caught up in the idea that this is rather a lot of talk. The talk is coming from the symbolic (male), making the attempt to explain the imaginary (female) in action. It seems to me that, with a few notable exceptions, like perhaps Da Vinci, artists almost are never doing anything but art. They are not trying to explain why they do what they do until perhaps after the critics have gushingly come along to say, "how wonderful - what were saying here in this blob of red? Why, can I see all your brush strokes in this other one, and it looks as if this other piece is trying break out of the boundries of the canvas itself. Are you saying in this exhibition that representational paintings can never truly move past the confinment of the two dimemsional?" To which the artist replies, "Sure... that's exactly what I was saying."
Can anyone imagine the likes of Van Gogh intellectualizing his work? I don't think so. He was driven to do the work. The work itself was his expression of its meaniing. No amount of description that came later will ever touch on the reality and truth of what he was about. A picture is still worth a thousand etc., etc., . . .
In Lacanian terms if art can be first accepted as a translation of the "imaginary" into "reality" - I would like to put forth the idea that artists who do approach art as an intellectualization of placing lines and color on whatever material, are doing somethiing that is certainly interesting, but that it is not art. If art needs explaination then there is some idea that the viewer is not sophisticated enough to understand the impact of the art. If impact needs explaination how is it impactful?
So, now that I've shot off at the mouth I think I'll go read that Intro;-]
Can anyone imagine the likes of Van Gogh intellectualizing his work? I don't think so. He was driven to do the work. The work itself was his expression of its meaniing. No amount of description that came later will ever touch on the reality and truth of what he was about. A picture is still worth a thousand etc., etc., . . .
In Lacanian terms if art can be first accepted as a translation of the "imaginary" into "reality" - I would like to put forth the idea that artists who do approach art as an intellectualization of placing lines and color on whatever material, are doing somethiing that is certainly interesting, but that it is not art. If art needs explaination then there is some idea that the viewer is not sophisticated enough to understand the impact of the art. If impact needs explaination how is it impactful?
So, now that I've shot off at the mouth I think I'll go read that Intro;-]
Thursday, February 12, 2004
The Morning After
Last night our focus was on clarifying the basic concepts introduced thus far and applying those concepts to bring into focus things that might otherwise be overlooked. When you have time, try applying these concepts to some of the other images on the website. In particular, think about the concepts of rules, statements, subjects, and practices and how they relate to the images in question.
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Just in time
After reading the handouts this week and the class blogs, I have been filled with many ideas. Actually my mind has started to have the same sickening buzz that my computer’s overworked hard drive gets when I ask too much of it. What is most interesting to me about VCS is that it is an attempt to take one giant step backward, shedding all assumptions in order to regain some sort of tabula rasa . We have to try to be as the blind man gaining sight, not knowing the small round green thing is an apple until he feels, tastes or smells it. Not even knowing that the color he sees is green. Trying to think myself into this state is what has been contributing to my brains buzzing.
I had an interesting thought between the VCS intro and the article on modernism. It seems that while art moved from trying to hide all of the indicators of the medium and structure to then acknowledging and later highlighting it, the computer and its interface has gone the other direction, trying to make the interface and computer as transprant as possible. Is this crisscross interesting to anyone else?
In response to Adrianne’s inquiries in to the tree in the forest and the dancer; I don’t have an answer but I thought this Zen Koan was relevant (sort of).
Two monks are looking at a flag that is waving in the wind. The first one says, “The flag is waving.” The second one says, “No, the wind is moving.” Their teacher comes over and they pose him their question. “Who is right?” The teacher says “You are both wrong. Only consciousness is moving.”
JCDIII
I had an interesting thought between the VCS intro and the article on modernism. It seems that while art moved from trying to hide all of the indicators of the medium and structure to then acknowledging and later highlighting it, the computer and its interface has gone the other direction, trying to make the interface and computer as transprant as possible. Is this crisscross interesting to anyone else?
In response to Adrianne’s inquiries in to the tree in the forest and the dancer; I don’t have an answer but I thought this Zen Koan was relevant (sort of).
Two monks are looking at a flag that is waving in the wind. The first one says, “The flag is waving.” The second one says, “No, the wind is moving.” Their teacher comes over and they pose him their question. “Who is right?” The teacher says “You are both wrong. Only consciousness is moving.”
JCDIII
Image
I've been involved with images as a means of communication from childhood through making a living.
Margaret Miles excerpt is dense.
Margaret Miles excerpt is dense.
Response #1- Media Persuasion
In resonse to "Intro to Visual Anaylsis," I have some thoughts about discourse and knowledge.
"Finally, since discourse and knowledge play an instrumantal role in the regulation, discipline, and control of various social practices within which some individuals excercise control over others, they are intimately linked to power relations, assume authority, and have real (material) effects."
This argument correlates with persuasion in the media, something I think of often. Tony gave an example about about what he thinks are ridiculous story lines on FOX news. (The same company that owns the NY POST also owns FOX 5, something to think about). But I do agree that the media has significant power over what happens in our lives. The media can influence important decisions that we make - that may influnence our culture. I believe the media has ruined all chances for Howard Dean to ever be considered as a Presidential candidate. The speeech he gave where he started yelling was all over the media, on the front pages of newspapers, in magazines, Letterman and Leno made jokes about it, it was even on MTV news. We didn't always have this kind of media coverage. My point is someone who didn't know much about Howard Dean, or even about politics in general, now only knows one thing - he is a raging lunatic. Because that is how the media has perceived him. When it comes time to vote, many will vote for the "popular candidate," or the one who has received the best press. Many people do not take the time to investigate for themselves who will make the best President, they just read the headlines.
"Finally, since discourse and knowledge play an instrumantal role in the regulation, discipline, and control of various social practices within which some individuals excercise control over others, they are intimately linked to power relations, assume authority, and have real (material) effects."
This argument correlates with persuasion in the media, something I think of often. Tony gave an example about about what he thinks are ridiculous story lines on FOX news. (The same company that owns the NY POST also owns FOX 5, something to think about). But I do agree that the media has significant power over what happens in our lives. The media can influence important decisions that we make - that may influnence our culture. I believe the media has ruined all chances for Howard Dean to ever be considered as a Presidential candidate. The speeech he gave where he started yelling was all over the media, on the front pages of newspapers, in magazines, Letterman and Leno made jokes about it, it was even on MTV news. We didn't always have this kind of media coverage. My point is someone who didn't know much about Howard Dean, or even about politics in general, now only knows one thing - he is a raging lunatic. Because that is how the media has perceived him. When it comes time to vote, many will vote for the "popular candidate," or the one who has received the best press. Many people do not take the time to investigate for themselves who will make the best President, they just read the headlines.
More reading = More blog
Moreover, the brain of an adult no longer
has the plasticity of a child's brain -- that
is why learning new languages or new skills
becomes more difficult with age. But in the
case of a man previously blind, learning to
see is not like learning another language; it
is, as Diderot puts it, like learning language
for the first time.)
As a somewhat older student I take great exception to this idea. My own experience tells me that as a teenaged high school student I had great difficulty with learning a new language whereas I am currently absorbing a language with an ease that frankly surprises me. I first learned to sculpt in bronze, make complex art molds, and skateboard at the age of thirty. As far as skills go, it's only quite recently in life that I've learned such things as; some 30+ computer programs, graphic art and design, photography, film making, film editing, and videography. I'm in this class to learn things that I would have cringed from as a younger person. (More power to those of you with younger brains;-]) Consider this: since some people grow at different rates - I would suggest that the plasticity of a brain has to do with one's willingness to exercise that organ not with the age of it.
Could Virgil have surmounted these difficulties
and adapted to seeing where so many others
had foundered on the way? - He found himself
between two worlds, at home in neither -- a
torment from which no escape seemed possible.
But then, paradoxically, a release was
given, in the form of a second and now
final blindness -- a blindness he received
as a gift. Now, at last, Virgil is allowed
to not see, allowed to escape from the
glaring, confusing world of sight and
space, and to return to his own true
being, the intimate, concentrated world
of the other senses that had been his
home for almost fifty years.
This is at the end of the Oliver Sacks item and it seems to equate the patient's solace of blindness with death. Perhaps it was taking some poetic license, but come on...
RE: Image as Insight, "Medieval Optics and the Evil Eye"
All in all I found the Margaret Miles piece fascinating. I'd never given thought to the idea of the power that images might have had on the medieval population. Naturally I've gone to the museum's. I've seen the work, and yes, I saw it a person of this age and it was interesting and sometimes beautiful. Never for a moment did I consider it to have power though now it's clear to me that at one time it had considerable power who's remnants continue to be observable today. It puts things in perspective doesn't it? I have a Turkish friend who has given me a small gift for my home - it is a sort of medallion with a dark blue kind of eye-symbol on it. She told my wife and I that it would keep away the evil eye. She said it with a simile, but there was an underlying bit of belief there as well. She insisted that we put it on the fireplace mantel. I see it every day. Now that I notice such things I see that this symbol is very often incorporated into Turkish things in general. I see people on the train almost every day who cross themselves when we pass the Greek Orthodox church. Icons in today's world with observable cultural power.
has the plasticity of a child's brain -- that
is why learning new languages or new skills
becomes more difficult with age. But in the
case of a man previously blind, learning to
see is not like learning another language; it
is, as Diderot puts it, like learning language
for the first time.)
As a somewhat older student I take great exception to this idea. My own experience tells me that as a teenaged high school student I had great difficulty with learning a new language whereas I am currently absorbing a language with an ease that frankly surprises me. I first learned to sculpt in bronze, make complex art molds, and skateboard at the age of thirty. As far as skills go, it's only quite recently in life that I've learned such things as; some 30+ computer programs, graphic art and design, photography, film making, film editing, and videography. I'm in this class to learn things that I would have cringed from as a younger person. (More power to those of you with younger brains;-]) Consider this: since some people grow at different rates - I would suggest that the plasticity of a brain has to do with one's willingness to exercise that organ not with the age of it.
Could Virgil have surmounted these difficulties
and adapted to seeing where so many others
had foundered on the way? - He found himself
between two worlds, at home in neither -- a
torment from which no escape seemed possible.
But then, paradoxically, a release was
given, in the form of a second and now
final blindness -- a blindness he received
as a gift. Now, at last, Virgil is allowed
to not see, allowed to escape from the
glaring, confusing world of sight and
space, and to return to his own true
being, the intimate, concentrated world
of the other senses that had been his
home for almost fifty years.
This is at the end of the Oliver Sacks item and it seems to equate the patient's solace of blindness with death. Perhaps it was taking some poetic license, but come on...
RE: Image as Insight, "Medieval Optics and the Evil Eye"
All in all I found the Margaret Miles piece fascinating. I'd never given thought to the idea of the power that images might have had on the medieval population. Naturally I've gone to the museum's. I've seen the work, and yes, I saw it a person of this age and it was interesting and sometimes beautiful. Never for a moment did I consider it to have power though now it's clear to me that at one time it had considerable power who's remnants continue to be observable today. It puts things in perspective doesn't it? I have a Turkish friend who has given me a small gift for my home - it is a sort of medallion with a dark blue kind of eye-symbol on it. She told my wife and I that it would keep away the evil eye. She said it with a simile, but there was an underlying bit of belief there as well. She insisted that we put it on the fireplace mantel. I see it every day. Now that I notice such things I see that this symbol is very often incorporated into Turkish things in general. I see people on the train almost every day who cross themselves when we pass the Greek Orthodox church. Icons in today's world with observable cultural power.
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Language as we know it.
What struck me the most about these three pieces (in sort of a general overview in which I mash them all together and let them wash around in my brain as if they are one large article), was the idea of language. By language I mean visual or verbal (or I suppose even tactile) and how we take it for granted. If I am indeed a "self-defining" and "self-generating" being, as Tim suggests, and my discourses are compiled of my knowledge up to this point, the world I've lived in, my ability to fuse the visual with the...cerebral? then I know that I definitely take for granted that I will understand everything around me. Words are easy, images easier. However, the Sacks excerpt made me step back for a moment and think about why I understand what I see. Of course I have twenty plus years of cultural history with which to view the world around me, but perhaps I need to forget some of that comfort for this class. How do I forget what I know? Something that popped to mind was a scene from Lost In Translation. It is a short scene in which Scarlett Johansson is on the Tokyo subway. There is no dialogue, perhaps music playing in the background. The train is full of Japanese people and Japanese writing. Of course SJ can’t understand any of it and when I watched the film I was struck by how terrifying that world would be. To be immersed in a culture, even for just a few minutes where the characters of the language mean nothing to you would be similar, I suppose, to Virgil’s experience. Sacks likens Virgil’s new sight to a child learning language. The challenge that Virgil was up against was the slew of images that exist and mean something to an entire culture, but meant nothing to him. Such would be my experience in a Japanese subway where I didn’t understand the characters meant to depict things like “Exit” and “Go”. Even my rudimentary understanding of spoken Japanese could not help me in that very visual situation.
Lacan speaks of the symbolic, the imaginary, and the real. I took symbolic to mean language. Real is the actual object, person, event, that exists, and the symbolic is the language we put to it. This language is what really brings it into existence. It is incredibly difficult for me to wrap my brain around this thought. Again though, it goes back to learning language and in this case, creating language. My grandfather was one of the linguists who created the written language for Ghana. He’s told me about the experience many times. When he arrived, there was already a spoken language that was very limited. My grandfather and his partner spent a lot of time pointing out objects and people and asking what they were called. More complex things didn’t have words that symbolized them yet, so the linguists would create the world. To take Lacan at his word, this naming of items essentially brought the items into existence. In Tim’s Intro Lacan is quoted by Fink that “existence is a product of language”. I can sort of understand it, but it’s a slightly murky idea for me. Then again, as I mentioned above, I take my language for granted.
Lacan speaks of the symbolic, the imaginary, and the real. I took symbolic to mean language. Real is the actual object, person, event, that exists, and the symbolic is the language we put to it. This language is what really brings it into existence. It is incredibly difficult for me to wrap my brain around this thought. Again though, it goes back to learning language and in this case, creating language. My grandfather was one of the linguists who created the written language for Ghana. He’s told me about the experience many times. When he arrived, there was already a spoken language that was very limited. My grandfather and his partner spent a lot of time pointing out objects and people and asking what they were called. More complex things didn’t have words that symbolized them yet, so the linguists would create the world. To take Lacan at his word, this naming of items essentially brought the items into existence. In Tim’s Intro Lacan is quoted by Fink that “existence is a product of language”. I can sort of understand it, but it’s a slightly murky idea for me. Then again, as I mentioned above, I take my language for granted.
I am not sure I like Lacan
If I correctly understood the argument presented in the introduction to Visual Analysis, we must develop concepts or categories of the visual in order to further explore visual experiences. One of these concepts is productive ambiguity. An engaging visual image has to own some ambiguities to which I may attach or subconsciously develop my own personal meaning. The search for the true meaning that the visuals’ “ambiguity” trigger cannot result in finding a “correct” answer. Truth is not important; the thought process that resulted from the image’s itch is the focus. This imagination of mine does not exist in a void but is informed by contemporary culture. According to Jacques Lacan the exact meaning of culture is a complex notion. From culture I borrowed all kind of images through the years and reconstructed them as myself, (let’s hope that this reconstruction resulted in more than its sum), “the imaginary as the realm of misrepresentation.” Next Lacan tells me that the symbolic = the order of language supersedes my instincts and desires in such a way that I don’t even remember having them. My reality as a whole is limited by what I can express with words or symbols. In order for all of the above knowledge to make any sense and be produced it has to be located within the ever changing but appropriate discourse. And if all this wasn’t complicated enough Oliver Sacks tells through Virgil’s experience that we need a lifetime to learn to see and than maybe another lifetime to own what we see.
see you in class,
Yael
see you in class,
Yael
yay it worked
The Oliver Sacks excerpt really moved me. I have heard of this story before in a movie made in 1999 called At First Sight. Though the movie is not the greatest I have ever seen the story struck me. A man who has been blind most of his life and has been blessed with eyesight again looks at an apple and is unable to understand what it is that he is looking at is something to be discussed. If the apple is then placed in the hand of this man he will understand that what he is holding, and his way, seeing is an apple. His way of vision was his hands and ears and to change that means a rebirth of the person he has learned to become. For me when I think of an apple I immediately think of a round, shiny bright red or green color and the icon of an apple comes to my head. This is so because of the experiences I have had with apples. The memories I have had with apples, apple picking with my father, buying big green apples with my mother. The experiences I have had has constructed my idea of an apple. The idea that a man would look at this same image and be unable to understand what it is he is looking at saddens me. But at the same time of course he has his own experiences of an apple. He knows and understands the touch of it and the sensation of holding an apple. We all learn what an apple is, we learn what a dog is and what our mother and father looked like, but to each and everyone it is different. We are not born with the innate sense of the visual world; it is something learned with time. And who is to say that the visual sight is anything better than the touch, it is all different and excited to each individual person.
" These things acquire whatever meaning they have only thought interpretation within a discourse. if this is true, then nothing has meaning of values 'in itself' outside of a discourse. Thus, to have knowledge of a thing is to recognize the role it plays within the set of relations that constitute a discourse. It’s always within a discourse that knowledge is produced."
When reading this section of T.R. Quigley’s Introduction to Visual Analysis, what came to mind was the question, if a tree fell down and there was no one there to see or hear it did it make any noise? I understand that both statements are to produce thought, but at the same time it is a bothersome comment. With the tree falling, atoms are moving, but whether it means anything to the tree can be disputed. But with a dancer moving that dancer is feeling their moves and if they are alone does the dance mean nothing. If two people are there to watch this dancer and the dance is talked about does it now mean something more than it did when it was not talked about? I believe that the dance meant something to the dancer; he/she was feeling something and wanted to move with that feeling. The dancer herself had knowledge of her dance. Or, with another example, how about a mark on the wall done by a child. It has meaning immediately without a discourse, without a statement and so on. The meaning of the mark on the wall is that the mother or father of that child will have to clean that wall that the child marked.
" These things acquire whatever meaning they have only thought interpretation within a discourse. if this is true, then nothing has meaning of values 'in itself' outside of a discourse. Thus, to have knowledge of a thing is to recognize the role it plays within the set of relations that constitute a discourse. It’s always within a discourse that knowledge is produced."
When reading this section of T.R. Quigley’s Introduction to Visual Analysis, what came to mind was the question, if a tree fell down and there was no one there to see or hear it did it make any noise? I understand that both statements are to produce thought, but at the same time it is a bothersome comment. With the tree falling, atoms are moving, but whether it means anything to the tree can be disputed. But with a dancer moving that dancer is feeling their moves and if they are alone does the dance mean nothing. If two people are there to watch this dancer and the dance is talked about does it now mean something more than it did when it was not talked about? I believe that the dance meant something to the dancer; he/she was feeling something and wanted to move with that feeling. The dancer herself had knowledge of her dance. Or, with another example, how about a mark on the wall done by a child. It has meaning immediately without a discourse, without a statement and so on. The meaning of the mark on the wall is that the mother or father of that child will have to clean that wall that the child marked.
Introduction to Visual Analysis
Hello All, I'm happy to be making my first post to the blog. I am in my final semester at the New School. After taking "Intro to New Media Art" last semester, I found this course quite appealing. I have heard some of the terms in the course description such "Modernism" & "Postmodernism" but quite honestly have no clue as to what they are. I don't have a strong background in Art and I am looking forward to learning a lot in this course.
I was quite shocked and very pleased during our first class meeting to find that this course will be much more cerebral than I had anticipated. I had no idea how philosophical in nature certain aspects of the class would be and I am now even more excited to see what the semester has in store for us.
Regarding the intro, I found the analysis of the MAC very interesting (though I would have prefered it to be a PC, just kidding). Working with computers is my job and I never realized how much I was taking for granted. I've always been happy ever since windows came out to use such a great GUI but in my day to day actions I don't think about it. The fact that it is so transparent proves that using these symbols and icons really do convey meaning to us. The images allow us to make a few click and accomplish what would previously require a great deal of typing.
I have yet to see all of Mulholland Drive, but I do remember the scene discussed in the paper. I enjoyed reading the questions regarding the ambiguity created by Lynch -- "does the ambiguity itself server another function?" When I watched the scene from the movie previously, I didn't really think that much about the scene. I just assumed she needed a name and "Rita" was in front of her so she used it. I didn't even stop to ask one question, where the intro asks several.
I think this class will help 'open my eyes' to look at the world in a different manner. Helping me investigate how all the different images in my life have an effect on me and the world. I look forward to this and formulating a set of language and concepts regarding these visuals.
I was quite shocked and very pleased during our first class meeting to find that this course will be much more cerebral than I had anticipated. I had no idea how philosophical in nature certain aspects of the class would be and I am now even more excited to see what the semester has in store for us.
Regarding the intro, I found the analysis of the MAC very interesting (though I would have prefered it to be a PC, just kidding). Working with computers is my job and I never realized how much I was taking for granted. I've always been happy ever since windows came out to use such a great GUI but in my day to day actions I don't think about it. The fact that it is so transparent proves that using these symbols and icons really do convey meaning to us. The images allow us to make a few click and accomplish what would previously require a great deal of typing.
I have yet to see all of Mulholland Drive, but I do remember the scene discussed in the paper. I enjoyed reading the questions regarding the ambiguity created by Lynch -- "does the ambiguity itself server another function?" When I watched the scene from the movie previously, I didn't really think that much about the scene. I just assumed she needed a name and "Rita" was in front of her so she used it. I didn't even stop to ask one question, where the intro asks several.
I think this class will help 'open my eyes' to look at the world in a different manner. Helping me investigate how all the different images in my life have an effect on me and the world. I look forward to this and formulating a set of language and concepts regarding these visuals.
Response to Introduction to Visual Analysis
In order to keep things clear I'm using this method of first reprinting (in italics and restricted margins) the information contained in the text of the assignment and then blogging along, at will after each statement, in my own free-wheeling style. I hope this works for the rest of you because it certainly work for me. - If you should see a question mark where there should be a quotation mark it seems to be a function of copying and pasting from Word. I think I got rid of them, but. . .
"Notice that by introducing the concept of a productive
ambiguity I have not really explained anything. The
concept does not make clear why we take pleasure in
some ambiguities and not others, or why the
engagement of the imagination by an ambiguity is
stimulating. But with it we're in a better position to
think about many of our own experiences and the
experiences of those around us. In that sense, the
concept has been productive and has given a
movement and direction to our thoughts."
Okay I get it - we need the concept of this "productive ambiguity" so that we might discuss it as an idea, and so that we may have jumping off point from which to discuss the concept of culture itself. This works for me as does Lacan's attempt to explain human subjectivity, development, and experience. As a script writer I can easily relate to the idea of using the imagination to take on the experience of another person and further: to identify with them. That he calls it a "misrecognition" I believe to be erroneous. It does not give credence to the possibility that this may well be a basic process of simple growth. It is a creative duplication of what we see and experience in others. Every child has the experience of "trying on" the behavior of another person to discover if it "fits." The things that work are incorporated into the personality, and the things that do not work are discarded. I would suggest that those things which are retained become the “who we are,” as we would identify ourselves.
"What cannot be said in...[a given] language is not
part of its reality; it does not exist, strictly speaking.
In Lacan's terminology, existence is a product of
language; language brings things into existence
(makes them part of human reality), things which had
no existence prior to being ciphered, symbolized, or
put into words....[Thus] the real is perhaps best
understood as that which has not yet been
symbolized, remains to be symbolized, or even resists
symbolization; and it may perfectly well exist
'alongside' and in spite of a speaker's considerable
linguistic capabilities."
This confuses me a bit. But perhaps if I write it down I might reach some kind of understanding: Air was real before it became a reality right? It became a reality when it became a part of what could be talked about. The idea being, that it was there all along and people went on breathing it but because no one said, ? hey what the hell are we doing here? Is something going into my 'lungs'"? - [Uh-oh what about the concept of lungs?] - those things had not yet entered into reality, right? And what came first, the concept of lungs or the concept of air? Which was the first to come into reality? Was one dependant upon the other or did each enter reality independent of the other?
This idea of creating reality out of the real by identifying that real object/concept as something that can be described smacks of defining a word by referring the word itself, as what describes it.
Nope, I'm pretty much as confused now as when I started.
"The central assumption of psychoanalysis, of course, is
that the symbolic has the capacity to transform the real
by bringing it into language and, to that extent,
"erasing" it."
And yet I find that I agree with this idea, but perhaps not for the reasons given. When one confronts those (perceived ) dark secrets that hold a person down and thus frees them of the burden I think that it is because when we keep something hidden it becomes, for us, a source of irritation; it becomes bigger than it is and therefore can exert power over us. To identify something is to (forgive me if I quote my own first blog) give it a name, and to name something is to have power over it. I seem to remember that Joseph Campbell mentioned this idea in relationship to the biblical concept that man gave names to all the animals and was thus given the power to rule over them. So when we name our fears/secrets we are thus empowered.
"Thus, to have knowledge of a thing is to recognize
the role it plays within the set of
relations that constitute a discourse. It's always within
a discourse that knowledge is produced."
Now this I really like. If we don't have knowledge I don?t see how we could possibly have a discourse on it. Well there are those talk-show guys on the radio; - not knowing what they're talking about doesn't stop them for a minute. But for us, it gives us something to talk about doesn't it?
"Human beings are self-defining
and self-generating organisms. We constitute
and reconstitute
ourselves as subjects through discourse. "
It continues to look to me as though there are other ways to do this. We observe without discussion and continue to make adjustments, don't we?
"As human beings distinct from other animals, we "come into-
being" as human in language and the symbolic
order. This is where we create a world or reality to
inhabit; where we "cultivate" what it means to be
human. In that sense, the symbolic order -- the realm
in which concepts and thoughts are formed -- is culture."
Yes if we're speaking of that realm in which those concepts and thoughts are formed as opposed to the actual necessity of speaking those thoughts and concepts. I don't think that it's the discourse as much as through the demonstration of those things that creates the culture.
Small added thought: I notice that the word realm has as it's root "real" which is of course what it's all about.
"Notice that by introducing the concept of a productive
ambiguity I have not really explained anything. The
concept does not make clear why we take pleasure in
some ambiguities and not others, or why the
engagement of the imagination by an ambiguity is
stimulating. But with it we're in a better position to
think about many of our own experiences and the
experiences of those around us. In that sense, the
concept has been productive and has given a
movement and direction to our thoughts."
Okay I get it - we need the concept of this "productive ambiguity" so that we might discuss it as an idea, and so that we may have jumping off point from which to discuss the concept of culture itself. This works for me as does Lacan's attempt to explain human subjectivity, development, and experience. As a script writer I can easily relate to the idea of using the imagination to take on the experience of another person and further: to identify with them. That he calls it a "misrecognition" I believe to be erroneous. It does not give credence to the possibility that this may well be a basic process of simple growth. It is a creative duplication of what we see and experience in others. Every child has the experience of "trying on" the behavior of another person to discover if it "fits." The things that work are incorporated into the personality, and the things that do not work are discarded. I would suggest that those things which are retained become the “who we are,” as we would identify ourselves.
"What cannot be said in...[a given] language is not
part of its reality; it does not exist, strictly speaking.
In Lacan's terminology, existence is a product of
language; language brings things into existence
(makes them part of human reality), things which had
no existence prior to being ciphered, symbolized, or
put into words....[Thus] the real is perhaps best
understood as that which has not yet been
symbolized, remains to be symbolized, or even resists
symbolization; and it may perfectly well exist
'alongside' and in spite of a speaker's considerable
linguistic capabilities."
This confuses me a bit. But perhaps if I write it down I might reach some kind of understanding: Air was real before it became a reality right? It became a reality when it became a part of what could be talked about. The idea being, that it was there all along and people went on breathing it but because no one said, ? hey what the hell are we doing here? Is something going into my 'lungs'"? - [Uh-oh what about the concept of lungs?] - those things had not yet entered into reality, right? And what came first, the concept of lungs or the concept of air? Which was the first to come into reality? Was one dependant upon the other or did each enter reality independent of the other?
This idea of creating reality out of the real by identifying that real object/concept as something that can be described smacks of defining a word by referring the word itself, as what describes it.
Nope, I'm pretty much as confused now as when I started.
"The central assumption of psychoanalysis, of course, is
that the symbolic has the capacity to transform the real
by bringing it into language and, to that extent,
"erasing" it."
And yet I find that I agree with this idea, but perhaps not for the reasons given. When one confronts those (perceived ) dark secrets that hold a person down and thus frees them of the burden I think that it is because when we keep something hidden it becomes, for us, a source of irritation; it becomes bigger than it is and therefore can exert power over us. To identify something is to (forgive me if I quote my own first blog) give it a name, and to name something is to have power over it. I seem to remember that Joseph Campbell mentioned this idea in relationship to the biblical concept that man gave names to all the animals and was thus given the power to rule over them. So when we name our fears/secrets we are thus empowered.
"Thus, to have knowledge of a thing is to recognize
the role it plays within the set of
relations that constitute a discourse. It's always within
a discourse that knowledge is produced."
Now this I really like. If we don't have knowledge I don?t see how we could possibly have a discourse on it. Well there are those talk-show guys on the radio; - not knowing what they're talking about doesn't stop them for a minute. But for us, it gives us something to talk about doesn't it?
"Human beings are self-defining
and self-generating organisms. We constitute
and reconstitute
ourselves as subjects through discourse. "
It continues to look to me as though there are other ways to do this. We observe without discussion and continue to make adjustments, don't we?
"As human beings distinct from other animals, we "come into-
being" as human in language and the symbolic
order. This is where we create a world or reality to
inhabit; where we "cultivate" what it means to be
human. In that sense, the symbolic order -- the realm
in which concepts and thoughts are formed -- is culture."
Yes if we're speaking of that realm in which those concepts and thoughts are formed as opposed to the actual necessity of speaking those thoughts and concepts. I don't think that it's the discourse as much as through the demonstration of those things that creates the culture.
Small added thought: I notice that the word realm has as it's root "real" which is of course what it's all about.
Monday, February 09, 2004
Seeing
The three articles made an interesting combination. Margaret Miles suggests a quite simple, yet very important view early in the excerpt: "Medieval men and women's experience of religious images is far closer to modern experience of media images than to a modern person's visit to a museum." To a great extent I agree with her, but it's not all unproblematic. She takes a comparative glance at the two groups (medieval and modern) but (at least in this excerpt) doesn't say how the groups relate to the images of their own time. She talks about icons and their religious meaning, as both with healing powers and as symbolic juncture in the religious group. Do the media images that surround us have an impact closely related to this at all?
Margaret grabs me in the neck later in her piece. She speaks of modern people preferring to think of themselves as "disengaged voyeurs." Admittedly, you can see traces of this attitude in my first post called Isms. Why should I be influenced by fashion propaganda? She says this attitude is a form of self-deception. I wonder how Virgil in the Oliver Sacks excerpt would feel about that.
I haven't heard anything like Virgil's story before. In many ways it's more sad than anything else. As a psychology major I of course wonder whether better psychological follow-through would have prevented flashes of Anton's syndrome.
It was interesting going back to tq's "introduction to visual analysis" after reading about Virgil. Seems to me like the process that has to do with the imaginary; the process of self-construction entailing the borrowing of images, was one suddenly impacted upon him once he gained his sigh, and that this process (his handling the process more or less successfully) at first took him to euphoria and later to depression.
Margaret grabs me in the neck later in her piece. She speaks of modern people preferring to think of themselves as "disengaged voyeurs." Admittedly, you can see traces of this attitude in my first post called Isms. Why should I be influenced by fashion propaganda? She says this attitude is a form of self-deception. I wonder how Virgil in the Oliver Sacks excerpt would feel about that.
I haven't heard anything like Virgil's story before. In many ways it's more sad than anything else. As a psychology major I of course wonder whether better psychological follow-through would have prevented flashes of Anton's syndrome.
It was interesting going back to tq's "introduction to visual analysis" after reading about Virgil. Seems to me like the process that has to do with the imaginary; the process of self-construction entailing the borrowing of images, was one suddenly impacted upon him once he gained his sigh, and that this process (his handling the process more or less successfully) at first took him to euphoria and later to depression.
Sunday, February 08, 2004
Continuing the MAC discussion...sort of
hi everyone. i am so excited to have finally figured out how to post to the blog! hello! my name's shoni, this is my first semester at the new school, i'm a theatre director, looking forward to this class for many reasons. i have recently begun pulling more of my inspiration from visual arts and other performing arts besides theatre and more than anything i've found that i need a vocabulary for what i see. right now everything i experience gets filed into my head into categories that sport such helpful headings as "good", "bad", and "i don't get it". i'm looking for a way to better describe what i see, to put it into a cultural context, so that more than just being able to define what i see, i am also able to understand bits of the why and the how.
to briefly continue the discussion of tim's desktop, i am very excited that we began by dissecting the mundane. i will now have to revert to speaking about theatre, since that is easiest for me. within the pieces i create, i am constantly working on making the ordinary spectacular, and if not spectacular, at least a little tilted. viewing the same old thing with new eyes begins the exploration of a world of possibilities. Looking closely at something that we take for granted every day, in this case the MAC desktop, is helpful in that it completely changes our reality. now i can no longer depend on this thing, this image or tool to simply exist, because i am hyperaware of it. when i look at my desktop now, though it is not a mac, i am busy examining every icon. and then, as i click on them, i actually find that i have a new appreciation for them.
this transfers into the theater i make in a very direct way. how boring is theater a lot of the time! how often do we see the same old gestures, the same stock characters, saying the same recyced lines. due to our cultural history, there are some phrases, both verbal and physical that we simply take for granted. the words "i love you" have practically no meaning anymore, on stage i mean. we barely even hear them. however if we step back from the words and look at them again, the meaning, the cultural and historical framework of them, if we are that aware of everything around that phrase and every way we experience that phrase from the thrilling to the banal, then we are able to shed new light on it. as we have shed new light on the desktop and my experience of the desktop is actually different now, so can we shed new light on cultural comfortability. other such examples, in my work, have been the handshake, drinking a glass of water, and the word "good-bye", all taken for granted until they are studied and reimagined.
to briefly continue the discussion of tim's desktop, i am very excited that we began by dissecting the mundane. i will now have to revert to speaking about theatre, since that is easiest for me. within the pieces i create, i am constantly working on making the ordinary spectacular, and if not spectacular, at least a little tilted. viewing the same old thing with new eyes begins the exploration of a world of possibilities. Looking closely at something that we take for granted every day, in this case the MAC desktop, is helpful in that it completely changes our reality. now i can no longer depend on this thing, this image or tool to simply exist, because i am hyperaware of it. when i look at my desktop now, though it is not a mac, i am busy examining every icon. and then, as i click on them, i actually find that i have a new appreciation for them.
this transfers into the theater i make in a very direct way. how boring is theater a lot of the time! how often do we see the same old gestures, the same stock characters, saying the same recyced lines. due to our cultural history, there are some phrases, both verbal and physical that we simply take for granted. the words "i love you" have practically no meaning anymore, on stage i mean. we barely even hear them. however if we step back from the words and look at them again, the meaning, the cultural and historical framework of them, if we are that aware of everything around that phrase and every way we experience that phrase from the thrilling to the banal, then we are able to shed new light on it. as we have shed new light on the desktop and my experience of the desktop is actually different now, so can we shed new light on cultural comfortability. other such examples, in my work, have been the handshake, drinking a glass of water, and the word "good-bye", all taken for granted until they are studied and reimagined.
"Intro to Analysis"
Upon reading “Intro to Analysis” one of the first concepts that struck me was that of productive ambiguity mainly because I’ve realized that it’s one of the most effective ways of advertising. The reason for this I feel is because in life every idea, thought, plan, or fantasy seems better in our head. Weather your writing a term paper or fantasizing about the person of your dreams, it never comes out as well as you would’ve liked or she’s not as pretty up close as she is in your head. Which leads us to believe that if we can some how put our product into someone’s head we can then stimulate their imagination and they are forced to set the standard of this object to their own terms. Another benefit to this tactic is that by making an object ambiguous enough fit into someone’s head not only will it stimulate the imagination, but the ego as well. Now because it’s about them they automatically care and are more invested than before.
Another thing that I’ve actually been thinking about a lot lately is persuasion in the media, which I feel has a lot to do with the realm of culture as opposed to the imaginary order. It really gets absurd sometimes, I don’t know if any of you watch fox news but with every broadcast there’s some absolutely terrifying hook-line. Recently there was something about what’s in our cheese that can give us cancer along with many other things that are equally ridiculous. The sad part about this is that our culture is living in fear not because of anything to necessarily be fearful of but of this unnecessary gossip that starts from some miniscule study and blows up into being a known “fact” to the people who buy into it. These symbols of panic are translated into a very important langue that so many people in our society rely so greatly on and they trust these horrific images for the livelihood of themselves and there families.
Along with thinking about ideas of reality and convention in families and society I began thinking about why are so many children in America diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. Is it because so many of us grew upon Sesame Street and we don’t know how to sit still because of it, or is it because it really isn’t normal to have seven year olds sit still for eight hours a day. I’m beginning to feel like we’re too cornered with diagnosing our selves into some category explanation of why we aren’t the way we’re supposed to be. I feel that even in the first week these readings have made me think about some important new found questions that can defiantly be applied to not only this coarse but my daily life as well.
Another thing that I’ve actually been thinking about a lot lately is persuasion in the media, which I feel has a lot to do with the realm of culture as opposed to the imaginary order. It really gets absurd sometimes, I don’t know if any of you watch fox news but with every broadcast there’s some absolutely terrifying hook-line. Recently there was something about what’s in our cheese that can give us cancer along with many other things that are equally ridiculous. The sad part about this is that our culture is living in fear not because of anything to necessarily be fearful of but of this unnecessary gossip that starts from some miniscule study and blows up into being a known “fact” to the people who buy into it. These symbols of panic are translated into a very important langue that so many people in our society rely so greatly on and they trust these horrific images for the livelihood of themselves and there families.
Along with thinking about ideas of reality and convention in families and society I began thinking about why are so many children in America diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. Is it because so many of us grew upon Sesame Street and we don’t know how to sit still because of it, or is it because it really isn’t normal to have seven year olds sit still for eight hours a day. I’m beginning to feel like we’re too cornered with diagnosing our selves into some category explanation of why we aren’t the way we’re supposed to be. I feel that even in the first week these readings have made me think about some important new found questions that can defiantly be applied to not only this coarse but my daily life as well.
