“Museum of Me”: Architecting Identity and Walter Benjamin’s Historical Materialism

A museum is defined as a building in which objects of historical, scientific, artistic, or cultural interest are stored and displayed. Already known for being the architects of what is inside your computer, Intel is now branching out to what is inside of you. Specifically, this is being achieved through an application that filters your Facebook activity and regurgitates it into a virtual “Museum of Me” (or you, depending). On the cool side of the spectrum, it is pretty fascinating to see the lineage of relationships, portraits, and taste. Aesthetically, the “Museum of Me” paints a pretty picture of who you are, or who you would like to think you are.

The Intel App creates a video tour of your Museum. Featuring your name, photos, friends, likes, and networks, the video is a visual summary of everything you have ever clicked on while logged into Facebook. If the information were to be presented outside of a “museum” context, such as for corporation research or consumer profiling, the shear amount of information available would be overwhelming. Not to mention the horror if the “Museum of Me” were being used as a visual introduction to potential employers. In short, the “Museum of Me” project articulates just how impossible it now is to filter which parts of your identity your friends, family, businesses, and employers have the ability to access.

But does this breaking down of filters mean that we are able to more consistently be who we are? For some it is enough, but for others the “Museum of Me” fails to fit. And here are the reasons why:

If history is a narrative constructed from selected cultural artifacts, the question is who, or what, is to decide what is significant? In “On the Concept of History” Walter Benjamin asserts the importance of blasting historic structures and reveling in the pieces, separate from an architected structure. In this regard, he states the following:

The historical materialist cannot do without the concept of a present which is not transition, in which time originates and has come to a standstill. For this concept defines precisely the present in which he writes history for his person. Historicism depicts the ‘eternal’ picture of the past; the historical materialist, an experience with it, which stands alone. He leaves it to others to give themselves to the whore called ‘Once upon a time’ in the bordello of historicism. He remains master of his powers: man enough, to explode the continuum of history.”

Central to the concept of historical materialism is the paradox of the transition of time, where time is simultaneously beginning and ending. If time is constantly narrowing and expanding, then the experience of the present cannot be roped into a single narrative (there must be at least two for the beginning and end of time, if not an infinite amount of other possible twists and turns!). In contrast, Historicism argues for the limitation of historical perspective and an authoritarianism to interpretation. More crassly, Benjamin likens the historian who writes an objective history from a set perspective to a whore who gives up the goods for capitalist interests. In contrast, the historical materialist blasts the narrative of history and through this action ascends his power.

Now, how does this relate to Intel’s “Museum of Me”? Intel has created an App to reflect the activities, faces, friends, and likes that are logged into the Facebook world. This is a historical narrative of your life, and on a literal level is accurate. Intel is not lying and the narrative has been built on tangible evidence. However, when a blast of historical materialism is applied, there is no more Museum, simply refuse from the explosion. A discarded photo, or shard of familiarity no longer represents the set narrative. However, the potential for meaning has been exponentially expanded. Because authentic significance is simultaneously a beginning and an end of time, the encounter with historic artifacts is unlimited once the form of Historicism has been dissolved.

In terms of identity, one of the joys of Facebook is that it allows the individual to create a public face. To make photo portraits, post relevant articles, network, search, and comment to our hearts delight. However, is this the entire picture? One narrative says yes, but for some this is not enough. The narrative deconstructs, the spiral toward Self shifts, and suddenly we are once again left with the Other—unknown possibilities abound.

Emotional Intelligence: A Psychopath’s Resource

There are two primary types of Emotional Intelligence (EI). The first is the “Innate Potential Model” and is defined as the “innate potential to feel, use, communicate, recognize, remember, describe, identify, learn from, manage, understand and explain emotions” (Jack Mayer and Peter Salovey, 2007).  Each individual is born with an emotional potential, how that potential is developed or stunted may be related to traumatic experiences, culture, family dynamics, etc.

The second type of EI may be learned or developed throughout the lifespan. Developed EI was also defined by Mayer (1990) and states that “EI is a subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.”

In both, the innate and learned forms of EI there are four different branches that may be explored.

1. Perception, Appraisal and Expression of Emotion
2. Emotional Facilitation of Thinking
3. Understanding and Analyzing Emotions; Employing Emotional Knowledge
4. Reflecting Regulation of Emotion to Promote Emotional and Intellectual Growth

While many people unconsciously have the ability to navigate these categories effortlessly, other people find themselves unbalanced or disconnected from emotional content. This may be evident in the ability to read an audience, develop intimate relationships, inability to regulate emotions in relationship to goals, and the lack of feeling differentiation, amongst others.

Interestingly, a critical diagnostic symptoms of a psychopathy is a lack of empathy. In 2011 article by NPR, “ A Psychopath Walks Into A Room. Can You Tell?” it was postulated by “Robert Hare, the eminent Canadian psychologist who invented the psychopath checklist, ….that you’re four times more likely to find a psychopath at the top of the corporate ladder than you are walking around in the janitor’s office.”  Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist is divided into two main factors.

    Factor 1: Personality “Aggressive narcissim”

• Glibness/superficial charm
• Grandiose sense of self-worth
• Pathological lying
• Cunning/ manipulative
• Lack of remorse or guilt
• Shallow effect (genuine emotion is short-lived and egocentric)
• Callous/lack of empathy
• Failure to accept responsibility for own actions

Factor 2: Case history “Socially deviant lifestyle”

• Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
• Parasitic lifestyle
• Poor behavioral control
• Lack of realistic long-term goals
• Impulsivity
• Irresponsibility
• Juvenile delinquency
• Early behavior problems

As we review the list, it is easy to identify behavior characteristics that may be found in many of our acquaintances (family non-exempt). However, this does not mean that they may be immediately categorized as psychopaths. Rather, it is the evaluation of all of these factors that may lead to a diagnosis.

By looking at the extreme absence of EI, we may better understand our own areas of emotional lack, and also better understand our interactions with others. One of the reasons that more psychopaths are found at the higher end of the corporate ladder is that they have learned to manipulate and engage emotional responses of other people. However, this engagement is not reciprocal and allows the psychopath to maneuver without scruples. A contemporary example of this is explored through the TV series Dexter (Look for future posts on this series and EI).

So, if you are a psychopath looking for guidelines to fit into society better, or if you are just an average ranking empathizer, here is a list of suggestions for how to increase your EI sensibility:

1.   Become emotionally literate. Label your feelings, rather than labeling people or situations.

2.   Distinguish between thoughts and feelings.

3.   Take more responsibility for your feelings.

4.   Use your feelings to help make decisions.

5.   Use feelings to set and achieve goals.

6.   Feel energized, not angry.

7.   Validate other people’s feelings.

8.   Use feelings to help show respect for others.

9.   Don’t advise, command, control, criticize, judge or lecture to others.

10.  Avoid people who invalidate you

Below you will find links to the referenced NPR article and an online source where EI is explored in greater depth. Remember that these terms are most often fluid and diagnostic definitions and criteria do change (Check out the DSM-V for more information). In this article these criteria are being used to establish definitions to explore cultural content and behavior depicted in the media, it is not intended for clinical determination.

http://eqi.org/eitoc.htm

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/21/136462824/a-psychopath-walks-into-a-room-can-you-tell 

The Rigors of Anna Akhmatova

Born into pre-revolutionary Russia, Anna Akhmatova lived through nearly every epoch of life within the Soviet Union. A poetess first published in her early teens, Akhmatova was well-known as a thinker and muse amongst the intelligentsia. However, while her ability was clear prior to the revolution, it was her role as witness that has made her legacy. Executions, imprisonment, abandonment, suicide, and slow death defined day-to-day living. Oppression of thought through spies and bugs were typical. And memory became the greatest tool of rebellion.

At one point in this history, for seventeen months Akhmatova waited outside a prison each day to bring food to her son, or to advocate for his release. Published in the St. Petersburg Journal in the New York Times is an account of the day she was recognized:

“One day somebody in the crowd identified me. Standing behind me was a woman, with lips blue from cold, who had, of course, never heard me called by name before. Now she started out of the torpor common to us all and asked me in a whisper (everyone whispered there):

‘Can you describe this?’

And I said: ‘I can.’

“Then something like a smile passed fleetingly over what had once been her face.”

Central to this retelling is the ability of the poet to stand as a witness to the misuse of power and the horrors of reality.

 

Which leads to the question of how can poets be witnesses? The poetry throughout the ages has served different services. Whether to convey liturgical material, regional news, or to instruct, poetry has been a mode of communication steeped in tradition. In classical times, the poetic emphasis lay in form and craft—as seen in both epic works and smaller sonnets (Homer or Sapho). However, the closer one moves toward Modernism, the more the emphasis moves from transcendental romantic themes, toward symbolism—which argued that art should represent absolute truths which could only be described indirectly. Metaphor and the liberation of technique from tradition were both central to the Symbolism Manifesto.

Maturing into the beginning of the 20^th century, Akhmatova came into the poetic world just as Symbolism was becoming popular in the western world. Even prior to the revolution, the divide between east and west was strong, and the poets of Russia headed in a different philosophical direction. Developed in 1910, Acmeism was a school of poetry, which focused on the Greek root for acme, “the best age of man.”

Acmeist poetry celebrated craft and rigorous form over the mysticism of imagery—permanence over transience. Choosing not to emigrate, Akhmatova was harshly censored and closely watched throughout the majority of her life. However, her classical diction and direct details revealed not only the factual authenticity, but represented the stark emotional grounds the country was traversing internally.

Here are two examples of her poetry:

Song of the Last Meeting

My heart was chilled and numb,

but my feet were light.

I fumbled the glove for my left hand

onto my right.

It seemed there were many steps,

I knew—there were only three.

Autumn, whispering in the maples,

kept urging: ‘Die with me!

I’m  cheated by joylessness,

changed by a destiny untrue.’

I answered: ‘My dear, my dear!

I too: I’ll die with you.’

The song of the last meeting.

I see that dark house again.

Only bedroom candles burning,

The yellow, indifferent, flame.

Shade

‘ What does a certain woman know

                               of the hour of her death?’  Mandelshtam

Tallest, most suave of us, why Memory,

forcing you to appear from the past, pass

down a train, swaying, to find me

clear profiled through the window-glass?

Angel or bird? How we debated!

The poet thought you translucent straw.

Through dark lashes, your eyes, Georgian,

looked out, with gentleness, on it all.

Shade, forgive. Blue skies, Flaubert,

insomnia, late-blooming lilac flower,

bring you, and the magnificence of the year,

nineteen-thirteen, to mind, and your

unclouded temperate afternoon, memory

difficult for me now—Oh, shade!

In these poems, we can clearly see how the emphasis in Acmeism of traditional form provides a container for the chaos that ensues within the lived world. Rhyme scheme, meter and verse counter the stress and harsh reality of the themes explored there in. Likewise, the use of realistic imagery creates a simple relationship with a reader. The identification of the audience with the author finds common ground in windows, homes, and flowers—possibly the only commonalities available between 21^st century America and revolutionary Russia, they allow for some type of identification throughout time and cultural boundaries.

The rigors of Anna Akhmatova are confined to the strict structure of her poetry. The discipline that the Stalinist Soviet Union instituted on its people is paralleled in her craft. However, the themes and hidden memories bear witness to the tears that have fallen, vanished love, and loneliness of lost time.

Postcultural Identity and the Fashion Photography of Lillian Bassman

Born in 1917, Lillian Bassman is most celebrated for her grainy, black and white photographic work. Featured in Harper’s Bazaar Magazine between 1950-1965, her work with models focused on high contrasts and form. Her creative objective focused on pure form. However, when popular tastes in fashion photography changed, Bassman discarded 40 years of negatives and prints. One misplaced bag of 100 images survived. Today, Bassman is recognized as one of the great women fashion photographers and is still working.

Throughout the 20^th century, the world of fashion has had a contentious evolution. Both celebrated for it’s aesthetics and criticized for its bourgeoisie decadence, fashion remains one of the most popular and common forms of cultural representation. In this instance, culture is defined as the attitude and behavior characteristics of a particular social group. While it is easy to comment that the attitude reflected in fashion is the starvation of culture, this reduction is a bit too easy.

Existentialism rose from the ruins of two world wars and set the stage for surrealism, deconstruction, and post-modernism. Through the knowledge of mass destruction and global culpability, the question of meaning was desperately explored within the realms of art, religion, philosophy, and other representations of cultural identity. Deconstruction destabilized meaning, but also provided an almost religious assuredness that the center is never stable. As if this instability assured a conceptualization of existence beyond the ability of humans—the religious function of the psyche found an outlet through the labors of theory.

However, while existentialism, or the quest for meaning, has been simultaneously nihilistic and the origin of great creativity, there is another factor that has shaped the last 100 years—globalization. The great American experiment has now passed the two hundred year mark and cultures have now been, not only blended, but forgotten. The fusion of races, traditions, and languages have created a clean palate to adopt and discard the trappings of culture. Americans can be everything or nothing in a simple change of the wardrobe.

In this example, we are going to be looking at Postculturalism as a theory directly related to globalization. In a community set in a densely cultural environment the traditions, expectations, and socio-economic positions have been established over hundreds (if not thousands of years). An individual is not introduced as someone who has existed within one lifetime, rather they are recognized as the son, or daughter, of thus and thus person, who is in turn related to another individual. Everyone is family, the community dictates behavior, and history is remembered.

In Postculturalism, the socio-economic boundaries are broken enabling more opportunity. The lack of a genealogical introduction enables quick movement between economic classes. However, it also means the deterioration of expectations and lifestyle. The concept of the lifespan as shared within a community follows set rituals. Whether that knowing the time to eat during the day, the season to eat ice cream, or the rites of passage into different epochs, the expectations are clearly available. This availability serves a psychological objective in providing a known framework, a system of initiation, and a guide for interactions. In contrast, a Postcultural society must either cull customs from a variety of backgrounds, or, more like, is left to find a framework from a system unrelated to culture—which is usually nestled closely to capitalism.

Leading us back into the phenomenon of fashion photography. Photography has served many functions since it’s invention. Ranging from a bureaucratic tool to high art, photography is both a method and a form of expressionism. In the case of fashion photography, the line between commercialism and art is often blended. The goal of fashion is to sell clothes. To sell clothes, there must be a reason to buy clothes. Fashion is not utilitarian and is fueled by desire. Clothes are a traditional expression of culture and personal identity. Our industry within a community is recognized by what we wear (butcher, baker, candlestick maker), and likewise an individual with the finest clothes is more important than an individual with poorer accessories. We all desire quality in life, and clothes are symbolic of our goals and achievements.

However, in a Postcultural society identity is not established through a cultural history. Which makes fashion an extremely necessary outlet for defining individual identity. A person who is in fashion, has more economic resources, and is therefore identified as being more significant within the social hierarchy. However, fashion is not just branding, it is the artistic development of “looks.” Here is where photography becomes more than a tool for communicating merchandise. The creative aspects of fashion photography create a scene that the viewer desires to identify with. The reenactment, or interaction, with changing fashions is one method to create a persona where prior content does not limit possibilities.

In looking at the photography of Lillian Bassman, we must question the appeal, but also the challenges of her images. Her photography is intensely interested in form, geometry, and high-grainy contrast. When we look at her images, we are looking through a window into another world. The world is attractive, but deeply psychological. The narrative is complex and not always neat. The extreme black and white contrast does not compromise in communicating emotion, tension, and intrIgue. The content that Bassman conveys works within the forum of fashion photography, but the physical identities that she designs convey more about our interior landscapes. Her emphasis on form took her into creative realms that the fashion content was unable to follow. Leading her to find other forums of expression outside of the industry, but also establishing her legacy as a fashion photographer who had much to say to an audience unprepared to listen.

This is a link to Lillian Bassman’s photography as featured in the New York Times.

My Half Orange is Kind of Blue

What can’t be said about this album? Iconic and brilliant it has single handedly made generations of musicians and listeners fall in love—to fall in love with music, with Miles, Jazz, each other, it is all unavoidable. While the musicology of the album, the history of the musicians, and the it’s evolution within the genre are fascinating topics, what this article is going to focus on is the question: why the love?

This review is not going to have anything to do with chords, improvisation, technique or rifts. Rather, it is just a look and a listen of one song “So What,” simply as if it were a person. It is THE person; the half orange; the blue heart; the love and the life.

All music exists in and out of time. We’re either together, or a part. Wanting more or wanting less. Longing, holding, leaving, and silence. So much of love takes place in the silent, lonely moments apart. Even when things are close, intimate, and continuous, the silence works it’s clever way into conversations, mornings, and late nights.

And that is just it, the silence and space that defines “So What” mirrors the rhythms of love. The times when you need to listen, when themes over lap and octaves rise in response. They are all there: the breath that comes from listening, the synchronization that comes from nearness, the familiarity of the notes is shared.

But it isn’t just the sharing, it is the perfection that comes from listening. The rewards of looking at a person, not as a reflection of yourself, but as a being who is sharing a grand experience simply because that is what they want. The being-ness of life, not the spontaneity, but the depths and long moments all packed together.

How incredible it is to wake up in the morning and know that the person there has made that choice. Not for how you look. Not for how you feel or what you do. But because of all of it, and nothing. Because there is space and time to listen. That is the choice that Kind of Blue makes. There is pain, sadness, and longing. But there is love and there is choice. Kind of Blue wants you, and only you. It calls to you for love, and love knows how to listen.

The Symbolic Function of Color in the Art of Joan Miró

The symbolic vocabulary of color has many different languages. These languages allow the voyeur to understand their experience of art and the world within a variety of contexts. Color is a vocabulary of communication as well as a process of creating. It can be understood through techniques of degree, but also articulated as modes of emotion in the lexicon of psychology. The relationship between color and symbol is particularly strong in the work of Joan Miró.

The question of how to interpret art, literature, music, politics, and basically everything is one that has been postulated, revised, and argued for millennia. Strategies focusing on form, content, source, and context are all relevant and successful methods for extrapolating meaning from experience and creation. There is interpretation that happens on a personal level and works within the context of an individual’s unique world of perspective, and then there is interpretation that is formulated in an aesthetic vocabulary that interacts with critical conversations taking place within a larger community. Though different in their origin, both personal and critical processes begin from a point of engaged response. The piece of art must create a unique experience. How this experience is interpreted within a given context becomes the grand debate.

The discussion of art on a personal level is directly connected to the therapeutic arts and may often be a guided strategy. The inner world of the individual is projected onto an external object to reveal metaphors that are challenging the development or health of the psyche. Once externalized the collective symbology of the art may be researched, concretizing internal abstract concepts into a visual vocabulary. While this description is brief and reductionary, the process is intended to be organic and address both personal experiences and archetypal dynamics. Symbols contain both personal and collective meaning, or relevance.

In contrast, a critical or aesthetic discussion of art focuses on an understanding of that those participating in the conversation have an understanding of what has been said in the past, how it has been said, and why it was or is no longer relevant. Critical interpretation accesses jargon specific to the medium, within the realms of both technique and content. Symbolism that is found in archetypes, geometry, color, and numerology all play a role within formal interpretations. In his book, Criticizing Art: Understanding the Contemporary, Terry Bennett summarizes the principles of interpretation. These principles our listed below, however central to the action of interpretation is that the piece of art demands an interpretation and that feelings are the guide. Whether the feelings are understood as a collective or personal analytical process depends on the forum.

This relationship between feeling, interpretation, and symbolism is particularly visible in the art of Catalan artist Joan Miró. Born in 1893 Barcelona, Miró was a part of the surrealist and Spanish Civil War Parisian ex-patriot communities. However, while his work has often been interpreted as Surrealism, he resisted being defined as a Surrealist artist. His objective was to “assassinate art” or to break from the historical interpretation of what art is, or should be. Being labeled as a Surrealist would work would limit his ability to explore new territory, methods, and forms of expression.

While Miró resists categorical interpretation, throughout his work he asks questions. These questions take the form of color and technique and meditate on what the symbol has to say within a set amount of space. Specifically, Miró worked with strategies such as automatic drawing (where the hand is allowed to move freely as an extension of the unconscious), Surrealism (which philosophically strove to reveal authentic thought through juxtaposing unexpected symbols and forms), Expressionism (which applies emotional subjectivity to evoke moods or ideas), and Color Field Painting (that meditated on combinations, and or fields of color symbology). While each of these methods is accompanied and motivated by methods of critical thought, Miró’s resistance to one mode of exposition is consistent.

Which leads us to ask, just how does Miró want his body of art to be understood?

If we take away interpretation, what is left? Experience. What is the experience of viewing Miró’s art? Does this experience change? How can this experience remain active? How does one assassinate this historical concept of art? By striving to avoid classification, and by engaging the imagination.

For example, what is the experience of viewing his 1978 painting “Personnage Etoile”? In English the title is translated as Star Person, or Star Character. On an abstract textured field of bright sky blue, minimalistic symbols work together and disjointedly to engage the imagination. Circle, star, curve, red, yellow, what is the message? Is the blue the color of the Madonna? Does it relate to Haitian Santeria, or is it inspired by the expansive Mediterranean beyond the walls of Miró’s studio? In his theory of Deconstruction, Derrida argues that the experience of deconstruction is as if, while following the inward curve of a fixed point toward a center, we suddenly find that the center has moved elsewhere. The spiral is destabilized and the interpretation is disoriented. Likewise, the experience of Miró’s “Personnage Etoile” provides just enough information to stimulate the process of interpretation, but the same stimulation resists conclusions and continues to evoke questions.

Through the interpretive resistance of Miró’s artwork we are better able to witness our own processes of interpretation for what they are, reflections and projections of who we are—internally and as a community. And what we find is that who we are is just as unresolved as the image that we meditate upon.

———————

Barrett’s Principles of Interpretation:

• Artworks have “aboutness” and demand interpretation.
• Interpretations are persuasive arguments.
• Some interpretations are better than others.
• Good interpretations of art tell about the critic.
• Feelings are guides to interpretations.
• There can be different, competing, and contradictory interpretations of the same work.
• Interpretations are often based on a worldview.
• Interpretations are not so much absolutely right, but more or less reasonable, convincing, enlightening, and informative.
• Interpretations can be judged by coherence, correspondence, and inclusiveness.
• An artwork is not necessarily about what the artist wanted it to be about.
• A critic ought not to be the spokesperson for the artist.
• Interpretations ought to present the work in its best rather than its weakest light.
• The objects of interpretation are artworks, not artists.
• All art is in part about the world in which it emerged.
• All art is in part about other art.
• No single interpretation is exhaustive of the meaning of an artwork.
• The meanings of an artwork may be different from its significance to the viewer.
• Interpretation is ultimately a communal endeavor, and the community is ultimately self-corrective.
• Good interpretations invite us to see for ourselves and to continue on our own.

Barrett, T. (1994). Criticizing Art: Understanding the Contemporary. Mountain View, California: Mayfield Publishing Company

La Luz y El Campanero: Symbolism in 1925 Burgos, Spain

 “ In the fields with which we are concerned,

knowledge comes only in lightning flashes.

The text is the long roll of thunder that follows.”

[On the Theory of Knowledge, Theory of Progress]

Walter Benjamin, Arcades Project

The above photograph was taken from the bell tower in Burgos, Spain in 1925. This photo was included in a photo retrospective on Castilla Leon, published in the Spanish periodical El Pais, June 7, 2011 . In Spanish the bell tower is called el campenar and the bell-ringer is el campanero. Throughout Spain, bell towers are found in the central part of each town and city. While graphically striking, this photo also has strong symbolic meaning.

In the picture you see the inside of the bell tower. A man is actively ringing one of the bells and gazing into what is being illuminated beyond the interior walls of the tower. An additional bell makes up part of the window frame directly facing the photographer. Through this window the outline of the grand gothic cathedral of Burgos is clearly visible.

Traditionally, a tower is a symbol of hope and freedom. Throughout history, the tallest building within a community is also the most important. Originally, the church, or spiritual house, held this position. Then the government, or political power, strategically moved higher. Now, the economic skyscrapers reign from on high. One can easily imagine how hope and freedom has been executed and disillusioned by each institution. Ranging from existentialism, to corruption, and the sustainability challenges of consumerism that now define capitalism.

However, in this photograph, we find that the church is still the central tower within the community. Symbolically a tower represents high hopes and aspiration. It strives to connect the earthly with the heavens. The individual who is looking out from the tower prevails over the environment below with a sense of superiority. However, in this image, the environment within the tower is dirty and broken, the face of El Campanero is not turned downward, rather outward, suggesting an alternative reading. To hear a bell, which is certainly a signified by the picture, represents a warning, or a call to order. It can also be the beginning of something new, both literally and figuratively as a method of the unconscious to prepare for the future. Finally, the symbolism of seeing the outside of a church denotes sacredness and spiritual nourishment. The church is equated with the things you revere and your value system.

While the initial instinctual response to viewing this photograph is positive, understanding the symbolic relationships reinforces this impression. Inside the tower of hope and freedom and man rings the bells as a call of attention to the future. El Campanero does not look downward in superiority, rather his face is fully illuminated and looks outward, slightly smiling into the intensity of the light. The church in the background reinforces the overwhelming feeling of optimism. However, the hope that is being discovered in the sound, light, and squalor of the bell tower is directly juxtaposition with the distanced splendor of the church. In this image, the light that captivates the ringer of the bells asserts a greater authority.

Man Ray: Nude Dialectics

The Dada movement was founded on anti-war politics and was a direct response to the established standards and manifested these ideas by responding to accepted concepts of art with the creation of anti-art cultural works. The goal was to reveal meaning it what was being discarded as meaningless in the modern world.

Continuing after WWI, Surrealism evolved from original Dada manifestation. Defined by Andre Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto in 1924, Surrealism is:

Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation.

The concept of Surrealism was explored in photography, art, film, literature, music, and continually addressed the question of what is conscious and unconscious, often with strong socio-political themes. Deconstruction and Post-Modernism are descendents from Dada and Surrealist thought.

Writing in the 19^th century, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a philosopher whose approach has been critical to the course of 20^th century thought. Hegel asserted that there is an original argument, a Thesis. This Thesis automatically generates an opposing argument, the |Antithesis. The interaction between Thesis and Antithesis bring forth a third, and new idea called the Synthesis. Furthermore, the foundation for Hegelian Dialectics is developed from four concepts:

1. Everything is transient and finite, existing in the medium of time.
2. Everything is composed of contradictions (opposing forces).
3. Gradual changes lead to crises, turning points when one overcomes its opponent force (quantitative change leads to qualitative change).
4. Change is helical (spiral), not circular (negation of the negation).

Dialectical reasoning has been a central strategy for communicating philosophical challenges since it’s conception. As a written strategy, thesis, antithesis, and synthesis are a familiar framework for essays. Likewise, there are reverberations in art, literature, music, etc.

However, just as the structure of Dialectics argues for an antithesis, so is there a counter-response to this approach. Though acutely articulated in Derrida’s theory of Deconstruction and in the Post-Modern exploration of film and literature, there is a unique space in the early twentieth century where the conception of an antithesis to Dialectics is being visualized adjacent to it’s origin.

Photographer Man Ray was born in Philadelphia in 1890. Arriving in Paris between WWI and WWII, Man Ray was a central figure in the practice and philosophy of Surrealism. Central to the socio-political experience of Europe during this period is the question of how to live in a world after the devastation of war. Not only the destruction of infrastructures, but the knowledge that that destruction was generated and enabled by the continental communities. The horrors of war could not withstand cultural boundaries. All types of hell were made possible by the hands of man.

First Dada and then Surrealism emerged as expressionist responses to this new psychological realization. Dada is a Dialectical response to being the anti-war to war, and the anti-art to traditional art. The emphasis on automatism in Surrealism opens the discussion to both cultural and personal exploration. Automatism is defined as the performance of actions without conscious thought or intention. If war is the strategic plan to conquer, divide, and/or destroy, than surrealism is the unconscious response. But, unlike Dada, this response is not obviously anti-war (or peace). Though consciousness and unconsciousness are practically a dialectic opposition, their content does not necessarily follow the same rules. What is found in the unconscious may be better explored through the process of Dialectics, but it resists definition, categorization, or compartmentalization.

A visual example of this is seen in Man Ray’s photographs “Le nu en photographie,” or “Two Nudes” composed in 19 37. In this image we see two nudes, one facing the viewer the other with her back to the audience looking into the distance. The portraits are not mirror images, but the juxtaposition of a light and dark background establish that the images are linked, representing united, but contrasting concepts. Black is the antithesis to white and vice versa. Put them together and the visual contrast creates an experience that is not achieved when viewed separately.

Likewise, one nude faces forward, the other showing her back. This is another example inviting a Dialectic comparison. Though, here is where it becomes clear that this strategy is being intentionally broken. While the black-white backgrounds and poses lead the interpreter toward their familiar Thesis, there are several factors that disorient this process. Almost mirror images of each other, the differences in poses convey different messages. The lighted nude faces forward, intimately meeting the eyes of her audience; Her arm is raised to reveal her breasts and the curve of her figure. She is fully conscious of her physicality and allurement. The second nude shows her back to the viewer and looks into the darkness. Her figure is highlighted, but it is not being displayed for an audience. Both arms are lowered and her focus is unknown.

A simple interpretation would read this as the lighted nude represents what is conscious and the darkened nude is the unconscious. However, Man Ray’s technique of inducing photographic polarities deconstructs the obvious. The light nude is highlighted in black; the black nude is highlighted in white. Each nude displays characteristics of the unconscious and conscious. The direct sexuality of the first is generated in the primal ID, clearly nestled in the unconscious. The reflective gaze into darkness implies active cognition. Though the initial invitation is to define each woman as being black or white, conscious and unconscious, this Dialectic interpretation is destabilized the more one participates in the portraits as a conversation between opposites. The more one tries to define the images—both technically and symbolically, the more impossible it becomes to reduce the images to a single narrative.

Man Ray’s photograph, “Le nu en photographie” (“Two Nudes”), is an example of how Dada and Surrealism struggled with the strictures of Dialectic thought in the 20th century. It is an exemplification of an experience that is both defined by opposites and irreconcilable to being pruned into familiar and rational forms.

Joan Didion: Exercising Narrative Rights

In a 1996 C-SPAN Book TV interview, Joan Didion speaks about her body of written work. Incredibly the interview lasts for three hours and includes a huge space for viewers to call in and ask her questions. (As a side note, it is incredible to see such a large amount of time, audience participation, and interest in writing being dedicated by a network. What does this say about the change in audience participation and attention spans?) In this clip, Didion speaks specifically about her first experience of being published and her first encounter with the American political process.

Publishing her first novel at the age of 28, Didion is asked about her first experiences with writing, publishing and rejection. Considering the continuity of her writing career, the interviewer is surprised that Didion had ever been rejected at all. Didion’s response is to articulate that the experience of being rejected is inseparable from the experience of writing, and that somehow the writer gets through it. At the end of the clip, Didion is asked if she likes speaking about her writing. She responds that she does not mind speaking about what she has already written, however she does not talk about what she is currently working on, or thinking about.

Though this is only a brief clip, two points about Didion’s writing process are made clear. Firstly, that the experience of rejection (whether literally or psychologically) is apart of writing. Rejection is an active part of presenting creative work to an audience. Secondly, the process of actively writing is private and that there is a clear boundary between what will be shared and what be kept private. Clearly, a boundary is being established to protect her writing process from being overwhelmed by the projected expectations of others. The line between the individual and the group enables the potential for new perspective.

The second theme of the discussion focuses on the American political process. Having not encountered this process until being assigned a reporting job, Didion reminisces that the experience was jarring. Why? Because “the narrative is already in place.” The dialogue that takes place within conventions, tours, debates, and candidate speeches has a known goal, effect, and script. There are no surprises, which in itself, is the surprise.

Who is the author of the American political process? Is it a narrative defined by the needs of the people? An institution?  In an additional interview taken earlier in Didion’s career, she states that one of the reasons she likes to write is that she is “in control of this tiny, tiny world.” Does the predictability of the American political narrative provide a sense of control through its consistency? The issues vary little, and the polarity between the Democrats and Republicans is only becoming more streamlined. The narrative is less and less a debate and more and more a binary divide, yes or no.

The challenge of the writer is to establish engagement with his or her audience. Engagement may come from new content, different forms, or extraordinary craft. The goal is to create an experience that the reader can interact with, feel, or find new perspective from. Conversely, the narrative structure of American politics does not change either form or content. Which leads us to question if engagement is part of the plan. And if not, then what purpose is being met?

Le Livre de Visage: Philistine, Bohemian, and Eligere

Le Livre de Visage, or Le Facebook, is a unique cultural phenomenon. Not only does it remind us of the ancient social hierarchy of the Philistine, Bohemian, and Eligere, but so does it articulate the hierarchy of social needs closeted within. Undeniably attractive, the rough beast of cyber globalization slouches toward the Bethlehem of our intellectual heritage.

Philistinism:

While the term Philistine has historical roots straight back to the Bronze Age and the Canaanites, the use of Philistine has become a social moniker. According to the Urban Dictionary a Philistine is:

A conformist in everything they do. A person who is obsessed with sports, sex, and Motor vehicles. They listen to whatever everyone else is listening to, wear whatever everyone else is wearing, and avoid anything that is in the least bit unusual, unique, or eccentric (06/04/2011, http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=philistine&defid=2046655).

While Philistine might be equated with a modern concept of social conservativism, it may be adder that the Philistine favors materialism and the unthinking conventional forms of life, art that has a cheap and easy appeal.

Bohemianism:

In contrast to the Philistine, Bohemianism is the practice of the unconventional life. Intentionally, or unintentionally, the Bohemian lacks permanent ties and is often described as being wanderers, or adventurers. Bohemia is a counter-culture group that has inspired the evolution of art, literature, and music by existing outside of what is predictable, or the established norm.

Originating in the Gypsy culture stemming from Bohemia, the romanticized life of the Gitano vagabond has been applied to the avant-garde thinkers throughout western society. Bohemianism exists as both an organic and constructed reaction to the values of Philistinism.

Eligere:

Directly related to the commonly used elite, the Latin eligere is translated as “to elect.” The Eligere exist in a status above the proletariat classes (including both Philistine and Bohemian). An exceptional, privileged group that wields considerable power within a community. Power being defined as including physical, spiritual, intellectual, and financial factors.

The views, opinions, and desires of the Eligere should be taken more seriously than that of the under classes. Conventional life is directly influenced by their behavior. However, the lifestyle of the Eligere remains allusive and unattainable by the majority. A good example of this phenomenon is fashion—unaffordable and inaccessible fashion trends reach the masses when they are passé to the Eligere. In commerce, the Eligere are the most successful bourgeoisie. Intellectually, popular culture is vulgar.

Le Facebook:

Originating from the exclusivism of the Harvard Eligere, Facebook is founded on the concept of being either in or out. Evolving to include all that have obtained a .edu email address it was not long before the distinction of education was eliminated and the Facebook world was opened to the world. Now, it carries the reputation of being a tool to organize revolutions in third world countries and is developing online commute technology for the everyday worker.

Clearly used for the boorish pursuit and dissemination of sex, drugs, gossip, popular culture, and the like, Facebook indulges the user in the simplicity of primal purpose. No longer the epic, a post is founded on the verb “to be” which is not much more complicated than the grunt of a Neanderthal. The obvious use of Facebook as a channel for managing, communicating, and reinforcing philistine desires has clearly been accepted by both individuals and corporations.

However, the news bite synthesis of information linked to larger expository writing, the mixed media capabilities, and the instantaneous exposure to the perspectives of a global community allow for creativity and the breaking down of what is known or expected behavior. As a new tool and forum of exploration, the creative potentials for Facebook are incredible. Whether one is dealing with digital media or merely looking for rare, likeminded collaborators, there is great potential for a person to travel far beyond the ordinary. While it is unclear what the path of bohemia looks on Facebook, it is also clear that there is still a space for unconventionality.

Amongst the Eligere, the original purpose of Facebook was for networking and defining social circles. The limited access of Facebook is over, and so is the private, elected party. The concept of “friend” has been deconstructed into the ambiguity of shared popular culture fetishes. Instead of developing more intimacy through written conversation, approval is asserted by the eloquent “like” or “poke.” The Eligere now exist outside of Facebook. To participate is to reveal your true philistine roots. The Eligere have others to manage their online identity, if they choose to participate at all.

Dislocating Identity and Mad Narcissus:

Just as Narcissus became enchanted and doomed by the reflection of his own image, so has Facebook raised questions of how one’s identity is comprehended when observed separate from the Self. The postmodern concerns of authorship have returned: who (or what) is the author, text, and audience? On Facebook, intertextuality, or the boundaries between what is Other and Self are broken. Imagine a mirror. The mirror is broken into a hundred pieces. When one is able to meet the eyes of your reflection in one fragment of mirror, a hundred eyes of the other you look on from the sideline. They are all you, but the filter of choice in how you represent yourself is not stable. Unconsciously, consciously, or compulsively, Facebook reveals your identity from angles that are quickly becoming more and more difficult to self regulate.

While the triumvirate of  social classes (Philistine, Bohemian, and Eligere) exist as the sign posts of cultural identity, they also reflect the internal struggle of identity that is being carried out by the individual: when to conform, how to create, and what to keep exclusive.