playing pretend

real life: plays & the pretend

2011-12-16T18:25:00.021Z

hullo world, hello blogger. it's been a while. i'm going to compare and contrast (as per a-level english) two different but relatively popular cultural events (a cultural flash?) that i've attended in the past year. and then throw in some art i encountered a little more recently.

first! flash:

natinal theatre's frankenstein

directed by danny boyle

starring benedict cumberbatch & jonny lee miller playing the monster & victor frankenstein in turns

(broadcast live to broadway cinema, nottingham)

the old vic's richard iii

directed by sam mendes

starring kevin spacey

(thanks to oli for offering me one of his £5 for 16 to 25 year olds)

in some ways, these two plays already share some similarities. big name directors returning to theatre, big name actors, both were sell out shows -- due to a combination of the above, and in the case of frankenstein the simultaneous artistic twist &, if we're being cynical, marketing gimmick, of having two main actors who play alternate roles.

there is, of course, the obvious to note: how both these sell-out shows were commercially successful in part due to their ties with the success of the cast and crew in the film industry.

this was played out particularly peculiarly interestingly in richard iii, particularly in its use of media.

we all thought kevin spacey, and the cast generally, were rather good (although i was a bit disappointed with one of the female leads, lady anne, i think - and this is often my experience of shakespeare, so perhaps it is difficult to play shakespeare's women well? without reducing them into stock characters or giving them complexity whilst remaining believeable? hm.), but the most memorable part of the play was kevin spacey on screen.

at one point in the play, we see spacey projected onto the screen at the back: richard is knowingly caught 'unawares' whilst in prayer. this is obviously calculated and part of his political image, and he goes on to make an announcement of sorts. it was cleverly done, and well thought out; spacey played the "oh hello. i didn't see you there, i was in the middle of being a devout & good" role. but it was so different from spacey on stage. on the stage his acting was big and bold, and on screen it was much more subtle & nuanced.

the two spaceys were believably the same character, but only just. spacey on stage was manipulative and scheming, but still often the butt of the joke, whether his own jokes or someone else's. on stage, however, the manipulation was more subtle, and also here the character of richard seemed much more in control. or, perhaps, it was here that spacey felt more in control, more comfortable. it was an interesting contrast, i think.

some of my fellow spectators thought this screened scene stole the show. it was clever, insofar as the publicity for the play features the above (first) image, and that is not dissimilar form the screened scene. i'm not entirely sure it it was the best bit, but it was definitely one of the more memorable spectacles. so, i wonder what else this says of about film and tv in comparsion to things like theatre - and how theatre has to evolve, update and adapt to stay in the fray.

i went to see frankenstein in part because of the buzz of the alternating roles and in part because i was curious to see how NTlive plays out. the national theatre broadcasts its productions live to theatres worldwide -- what would this be like? how similar would it be to going to the theatre? how different?

i saw frankenstein on a night when cumberbatch was victor & miller the monster. this is the obvious way around, i think, and i would have been curious to see it in the reverse. the opening was rather good, and i enjoyed the play overall. the most interesting about the experience for me was the live broadcast. the novelty of that in some ways overshadows that. that said, when i first started to write this blogpost, i briefly forgot whether i'd seen the play in person or not. perhaps our memories are cinematic too? psychoanalysis and film indeed.

so, on with the experience: arriving at broadway cinema, the atmosphere was much closer to that of theatre than a film. the fact that the cinema screen was packed out (completely full), the type of audience (demographics - particularly in terms of class & age), the fact that the audience arrived well ahead of time and the sort of chatter i heard.

before the play began, we were shown an introduction to national theatre live, which apparently broadcasts all over (so i'm not sure that they broadcast live to australia, with whom we share a 12 hour time difference), as well as preparations for frankenstein.

more interestingly, when that was over, and we waited for the play to begin, we were shown the audience in the theatre -- fidgeting, chatting, waiting. it was interesting to be presented the audience, having been in an audience like that myself; this is who you are, or who you are trying to be (seeing as weren't physically prenting). it was a strange experience, and it felt a bit illicit - we were present, but not physically present; we could see, but not see as the live audience did.

i can't imagine the live audience in the theatrewas necessarily thinking about how they were broadcast on screen (unless that broadcast image was shown to them too). i suppose the film cameras could've been obviously pointing at them, the live audience. and i wonder how much the presences of film cameras changed their experience.

the play itself. well, inevitably camera angles control how one sees (psychoanalytic film!) but in different way than with a film itself, since obviously the theatre audience is seeing the play from all sorts of different angles. in some way, the NTlive audience is at an advantage, being shown, the action from the 'best' possible but on the other hand, your eyes can't wander the way they would in theatre -- which is one of my favourite things to do, to look at the things that perhaps the audience isn't expected to pay attention to. and this includes the audience.

i can't remember now, if the audience applauded as the play ended. i think i suspected they would, but it didn't.

still from ian breakwell's auditorium

relatively recently, i went to visit a good friend of mine in sheffield. he took me around said fair city, and went to a fair few exhibitions, including the millennium gallery's ian breakwell: the other side. (rather densely, i've only just realised the significance of the name -- which like NT's frankenstein involves alternation!).

my partner in crime rather enjoyed the work, and we stayed to watch a video interview with the artist, which included the aforementioned work:

Auditorium (1993) [was] made in collaboration with composer, Ron Geesin. In this film Breakwell and Geesin studied audience reactions across the UK in a variety of theatrical settings, taking fly-on-the-wall photographs and video footage with sound recordings using parabolic microphones and 'bugged seats'. Their hypotheseis was that in dynamic live theatre the audience becomes part of a two-way performance, radiating an equivalent range of emotional expression to that emanating from the stage. They went on to work with and eventually record a 50-strong 'performing audience' at the Hawth Theatre.
source

it made me think of frankenstein & the national theatre live, a little, because of the emphasis / role of the audience. in researching (googling around) for this post, i came across this article (worth reading!), which concluded with the following, and it articulates the connection better than i could:

One of Auditorium's essential propositions is that when we are in an audience we are consciously or unconsciously performers ourselves: we are components of the event, not passive consumers of it. But the real ingenuity of this piece is the way it sets up a comparison between the screen audience and the live public watching it.

classic & contemporary

2011-10-18T22:56:00.044+01:00

chinatown

i only seem to spend time here with my family, who have come from far away to eat fascimiles of our food culture.

it's curious to think how my most recent foray into the world of employment is in a role which in a sense foregrounds (and dare i say capitalises upon) something with which i have always had difficulty coming to terms with -- my cultural and racial identity.

as a small child, i spoke both cantonese and english. growing up, i went to an english-teaching school, and so my chinese fell by the wayside. now, i can converse in cantonese without a problem, but in reading and writing i can recognise random handful of characters (noticing the chinese subtitles whilst watching english-language tv in hong kong, deducing what means hwat) and write an even smaller handful (the three i am most versed in are those which constitute my name). this put me in a somehwat vexed position of feeling simultaneously privileged (some chinese kids i mixed with whilst growing up were in awe of my accent, my pronunciation) and out of place (my mother considers me to be her least culturally chinese child of the three). then, there was boarding school, chubby and aged thirteen. existing in a country where, by contrast, i looked different from the norm, but more confusingly was confronted with a culture which was both familiar and unfamiliar. and then the whole thing was repeated once i started boarding school, albeit from a different angle. the culture shock of the familiar & unfamiliar of britain (more on this term later, perhaps), for example, and a whole multitude of complications i am not going to tease out here.

people i met on the job:

a nigerian scientists who discussed his country with me, and chinese construction workers there -- how overall he thinks the chinese are good people, but some take advantage of their fellow countrymen. advertising well-paid waitress jobs to women, who are then made sex slaves. (this article is what reminded me to complete this post).

a christian iraqis, friendly with a lovely smile. interestingly, (or perhaps not interestingly, although it was a surprise to me nonetheless) he seemed to get on best with other middle eastern students

iraqi kurds, who, by virtue of the unviersity's ties with the kurdish government in iraq, were in large numbers. some eager, some playful. it's hard to sum up a group & the purpose of my role was a way to encourage the students not to stick in their groups. they got better at mixing, towards the end, and it made my heart glad to see it, but i can understand to some extent why initially they want to stick to their 'own'.

thai students, many of whom seemed rather shy, soft-spoken. there was one one girl who i think felt a bit out of place with the culture.

a chilean, with the best accent, a beard, and another lovely lovely smile.

a gay frenchman from marseilles. feeling not at home in his home country, ready to explore, find & make homes.

chinese students from the mainland, some of whom fit the stereotype.

a few students from the south of china, meaning they speak cantonese, as i do. i refuse to converse with them in chinese, claiming that the purpose of their time here is to 'practice their english'. this is true, but there is some embarassment on my part too.

a few japanese students, one of whom apparently likes to hear cantonese, enjoys the cadences. they are by and large charming, and rather japanese, without being, well, too typically japanese.

taiwanese students, with whom i have discussed their cultural and national identity. how different do they see themselves from the mainland chinese? later in the office i learn one student was upset to have been classed as 'chinese' by the administration, rather than taiwanese. this reminded me of a conversation i once had in a youth hostel with a man in his fifties, who didn't such political & cultural conflations; i didn't have the patience to eplain. i will always say i'm from hong kong but yes, i am chinese. different political situation, though.

a well-dressed frenchman, elegant and always suited. he probably could be a model. a german guy who looks like he is a model. a german girl whose friendliness and curly hair reminded me of an old friend.

a lady from tanzania, who was a nurse in her own country. she spoke to me about how beautiful the cities are (comparsions in infrastructure), her hometime, her life there. she has a sister here, in milton keynes, who she went to meet. she wants to bring her family here because life is good.

a lot of the chinese students, by comparsion, are here to study. to capitalise on the cultural cache of a british degree.

this is what i mean when i refer to classic and contemporary immigration. ultimately, immigration is almost always related to wanting a better life - whether it be to flee persecution, or simply studying abroad to get a better job at home. this is of course not to say that the two are equivalent, although they are comparable in a strange sense. that is why this post is called 'classic' and 'contemporary'. i don't know how alright it is, to refer to 'classic' immigration (people emigrating for a better material life) and 'contemporary' immigration (people emigrating for a better cultural life, or rather, cultural capital in bourdieu's sense?) . the differences here are important ways important, but equally so how the distinction in some respects seems a bit blurred by virtue of moving countries being a solution. i don't know if i am making sense here. out of practice.

and now, a new job, which challenges personal problems tied up with privilege, still. so much to learn, still.

scraps: a timeline of the incomplete

2011-09-11T19:36:00.000+01:00

i have finished the wind up bird chronicle. and have finally broken the spell of temporary illiteracy. , and i now feel like i want to fall into some sort of reading coma and read as much as i can. i have even cancelled my lovefilm account in service towards this goal. (i am a silly and feel obliged to rent as many movies as possible in order to get the most 'value' for my money since my plan is 'unlimited'; this is despite the fact that the account was free for two of the three months that i had it).

my only problem is i'm not sure what to read next. i have at least three large 'to read' book piles at the moment. i think i will continue with northanger abbey, even though i am very much not a fan of austen - or rather, i'm not sure if i am not a fan of austen's work or if i am not a fan of how it is appropriated today. i suspect it is the latter, and should add that i have only ever read pride & prejudice when required to for GCSE english, and everything else is based on inference from films and the wider cultural discourse surrounding austen and her work. i strongly suspect that she is cleverer than the impression i have been given implies.

i particularly dislike the celebration of austen as somehow revolutionary because she gave documented the society of her time and gave 'voice' to the lives of women. honourable though these achievements are, i feel that generally the people who emphasise this do so in defence of (and in deference to) the triumph of the love plot, and the notion that the most rewarding thing a woman can do in her life is to marry. and in this sense, i can't help but reiterate my 16 year old self's impressions that such works are the chick lit of that time (and certainly the contemporary version draws heavily from austen).

so, i am reading northanger abbey: it is nice and short and more importantly for me, it is a (Gothic) parody. maybe i will come back to this when i have something better to express other than general frustration.

creation stories about having sex [sort of like this]

postcards from everywhere & anywhere; trying to capture art, small little pieces; museums (and 'giving' money); i've been there - souvenier - tourist

http://colormekatie.blogspot.com/2011/03/king-philip-iv.html --> gallery play: an intervention or engagement?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/15/sxsw-2011-internet-online --> pulsing

hello dear readers, what better time to blog when i can't sleep? (rather unfortunate given i have committed myself to waking early tomorrow). truthfully, what i have to say has been brewing and milling around in my mind all day anyway. sometimes i think of thoughts as snagging on something (like fabric from a woollen jumper on a nail - admittedly an image i must have stolen from tv/film having little experience of such things); it forces you to stop and unwind and unravel. today is not quite one of those days (even as i type i am yawning) - as i have said, it has been more of a brewing and bubbling.

in my blogger dashboard, i have a draft post which i have rather dramatically (arrogantly?) titled "the struggles of postcolonialism". the struggles i was speaking of, however, were not those relating to economic or material matters (material in the sense of conditions of living), but rather my own struggles with coming to terms with something i've had difficulty resolving for much of my life: so much so that i'm not sure if i even know how to articulate what this thing is because it is manifest in much of what i am interested in.

the original post was a response to a paper i read (phen cheah's "given culture") which critiques notions of hybridity. this was at at time when i had decided my ideal life plan would be to go to graduate school in america, after which i would spend my post-doctoral years in various more interesting countries (and by 'more interesting', i mean less academically respected in comparison to some institutions of the uk and us -- it is only just occurring to me now to what extent certain power structures are reproduced academically altho i was aware of critiques postcolonial theory as 'centred '). it seemed both practical (in the sense that these universities would be perhaps less prestigous) and more importantly, more interesting (i would be able to work outside of said power structure to a limited extent). and while i do think that cheah's critique is dependant on too straightforward an understanding of hybridity ___

FEEL/MADE TO FEEL 'exotic'

"WEST"/global north south.

robert young: colonailism & the desiring machine

(academic/personal)

reproduction (&/of) feminist self-critque

2011-06-12T15:44:00.001+01:00

source supposed reasons for lack of menstruation (and therefore ovulation & conception?)
i recently made the decision to start taking the pill. at 23, i am probably quite old in comparison to some young girls in the uk who begin to take hormonal contraceptives at age 16 and onwards. when i begin, this will be the first time i have used something other than condoms alone as contraception.

a lot of this is to do with a rather old-fashioned notion of purity -- i didn't want 'artificial' hormones to be affecting the 'natural' cycle of my periods. i am aware, this view seems to conflict remarkably with my feminist politics -- the idea of a 'pure' womanhood which will be disrupted by hormonal control seems to be a profoundly sexist one. after all, i'm sure (although i own up to not having done sufficient historical research, sorry guys) that the idea the pill disrupts the purity of one's womanhood was used by conservatives to argue against it. god forbid that a couple, and more specifically a woman, enjoy sex, and have sex for its own sake, rather than good old-fashioned reproduction. furthermore, the pill gave women control over conception, contraception gave women their education & employment (as they could choose when - or if - they had children), and the social & cultural impact of the pill is widely documented and acknowledged.

sourcewater massages to 'treat' hysteria, bringing about 'hysterical paroxysm' (or, an orgasm)
so why then, this internal resistance of mine to the idea of hormonal contraception? the notion of female 'hysteria' is one of a gender-specific madness, which has very ancient origins. there was the idea that hysteria was caused by a 'wandering' uterus, looking for its rightful place within a woman's body. the 'symptoms' of hysteria were wide-ranging, and hysteria was generally ascribed to any woman who was unwell, for reasons unknown, or who was un-well in behaving sufficiently 'womanly'. (wikipedia cites maines, who notes that 'a tendency to cause trouble' is one such symtom of hysteria; i should probably note that facts are lifted here and there from that great internet resources in this blogpost, and indeed, throughout this blog').

hysteria was sometimes treated by 'pelvic massage' in order to bring about hysterical paroxysm, or, in other words, an orgasm. hysteria, (i first came across this concept when i was quite young, through the film the road to wellville). in other words, was the pathologisation of a woman's sexuality, and indeed, of womanhood more generally.

to me, hormonal contraception (illogically & irrationally perhaps) can seem like a way of 'pathologising' the female. i suppose this is partly because, although i do have difficult periods, i view them as something kind of cool (note that i find rashes & most bodily functions cool too, so...), and maybe even worth celebrating. i remember eagerly anticipating my period whilst going through puberty: after all, it meant that i was finally a 'woman'! periods, in other words, are closely tied up to my idea of 'what it means to be a woman', even though this biological definition isn't something that i mentally ascribe to, emotionally it holds a lot of weight for me still, having grown up with difficulty negotiating gender norms. (i knew i was never going to be 'womanly' enough, because in postcolonial hong kong, this - to my mind - also included being white; but i still desperately wanted to be, aware that i was of the social rewards and acceptance this would grant me). and so, hysteria is particularly relevant to my case now.

this is because it's not even quite for reasons of contraception that i am considering this. i started taking antidepressants for depression & anxiety after the assault. i am taking sertraline, and the drug leaflets that came with one particular brand of box (american, i think; the brand i take differs depending on whatever the pharmacy has in stock, which varies according to availability, i imagine -- once there was a 'shortage' due to manufacturing issues, apparently) stated that it was sometimes used to treat something called premenstrual dysphoric disorder, abbreviated to pmdd.

further investigation led me to this rather useful website, which describes pmdd as "a condition associated with severe emotional and physical problems that are linked closely to the menstrual cycle". it comes and goes (and i'm sure there are other contributing factors) but at its worst, i get very depressed, cry for no reason, have difficulty sleeping, feel a very specific type of tired (heaviness) that i only ever get when i have my period, and, the most contentious thing perhaps - . at its worst, i have possibly all if not ten out of the eleven listed symptoms on the aforementioned website.

All of the symptoms need not be present and they may vary from month to month. At least 5 are required to make the diagnosis, including at least one of the first four.*

Very depressed mood, feeling hopeless
Marked anxiety, tension, edginess
Sudden mood shifts (crying easily, extreme sensitivity)
Persistent, marked irritability, anger, increased conflicts
Loss of interest in usual activities work, school, socializing
Difficulty concentrating and staying focused
Fatigue, tiredness, loss of energy
Marked appetite change, overeating, food cravings
Insomnia (difficulty sleeping) or sleeping too much
Feeling out of control or overwhelmed
Physical symptoms such as weight gain, bloating, breast tenderness or swelling, headache, and muscle or joint aches and pains

the website suggests that the contraceptive pill is also sometimes used to treat pmdd. and, after months of debating, i've decided to try it out -- my reasoning being that even if it doesn't help (i'm not sure the sertraline has), i will at least be able to regulate my periods & therefore anticipate moodswings etc. with better ease.

source"christ's wandering uterus"female hysteria, caused by the wandering womb seeking its proper place.
so, in the end, like hysteria, there are links with here mental health too.

i am not even entirely sure i emotionally believe in pmdd (which i have described to my friends as extreme pms). or at least, i don't believe in pmdd in relation to me. if a friend told me they had it, i would not doubt them, but with respect to myself... i find it difficult to imagine where the line between pms and pmdd is. is it a matter of not taking myself & my health seriously enough? certainly, the symptoms match up to mine, and more than one close friend has agreed with me that it seems possible. (my doctor's lack of interest, on the other hand, put me off somewhat). i suppose, at the end of the day, the extent to which the symptoms affect how one lives one's life, to what extent it is a disruption

this is also how one can consider mental health issues. often, the characteristics of mental health issues seem to be to characteristics in mentally 'healthy' people, but are taken to an extreme, and an extreme where these behaviours become disruptive to their lives. for example, we all get down from time to time, and people commonly use the term 'depressed' but looking back now at my deeper depression, i can recall a time when the effort of getting out of bed, and even taking my own medication, seem to be a significant amount of effort which i didn't bother to make. this is what makes it seemingly difficult for people to understand as mental health an important issue.

and, certainly, it is only after having taken antidepressants for a considerable amount of time that i have been open to taking the pill for this reason, partly.i do, to an extent, value aspects of my possible pmdd -- to be able to feel things that deeply, and strongly, even pain is something that i consider valuable. and again, i have that is another common trope of that those with mental health issues express. some people who are bipolar, for example, often refuse to medicate they value their 'manic' episodes. (i should point out my observations are merely anecdotal).

having said all that, someone close to me had an ovarian cyst in the past couple years; it was large enough to make her look pregnant. it, along with an ovary, had to be surgically removed. said someone started taking the pill, because the pill apparently can helps with preventing cysts.

so, perhaps my problem is that i am all too much separating my body and mind? i'm not sure. when i was asking a close friend of mine about his mental health, he spoke of it as predominantly genetic. mental illness was extremely common in his family; and in mine too, i undoubtedly have a predisposition.

i'll have to think (and bleed!) on it more, and perhaps wait for my heart to catch up with my head? (that old separation again...)

also, see lok's post on the issue.

current affairs

2011-05-18T12:09:00.004+01:00

as for DSK, i don't even know where to begin with what to say. i have actually avoided the story somewhat as i fear it'll upset me. in any case, i wanted to point you all here, my tumblr, if you are interested in reading me work through issues surrounding coping with the assault.

some like it old fashioned

2011-05-18T11:59:00.002+01:00

(reposted after being deleted by blogger; thanks iain for the RSS copy!)

often, when i watch old movies (by old i generally black & white films, of the studios era of hollywood), i often expect there to be some sort of radical social truth in the film. i'm not sure why this is so. certainly, the pacing & plot of these films are radically different to what we're used to, and i suppose i assume that with this different form, so too, should there be different content.

so when i watched some like it hot (quite a long time ago now), i was a bit disappointed by ... i was shocked too, by marilyn monroe's outfits -- how, whilst always fully dressed, her outfits emphasised her breasts (and sometimes even nipples), and were sheer: that old seduction of covered up but still on show. suggestions of sex.

of course, it wasn't that i wasn't expecting this sort of - what we now consider to be relative old, and outmoded - sexism to be in a film of that era. the story, after all, focusses on how she is looking for a man (and a wealthy one at that). so, my disappointment and shock forced me to think a little.

the sort of sexism present in a film like some like it hot is easily dismissed as a sexism which .

also, to dismiss such sexism is indicative of not only an acceptance of it, but also a sort of nostalgia. think of how many girls idolise audrey hepburn. think of there is a sort of revival for the figure of 'gentleman' among young men (i can't think of a good example off hand - if i can expand on this thinking later, i will though). i think this nostalgia relates to the stability of gender roles in a bygone age.

the popularity of mad men, a brilliant brilliant show, is possibly attributable to this portrayal of gender role stability. but at the same time, it is brilliant precisely because it also explores the drawbacks and interiority of such supposed stability too.

the ending of some like it hot does have a socially radical ending of sorts. one of the two men who have been attempting to seduce marilyn monroe's character ends up accidentally attracting and seducing an elderly rich man whilst in drag. as the two drive off in a boat (possibly running away from someone? i forget; it's been a while), he reveals that he is in fact, a man. the elderly man is not fazed, even
seems, perhaps to have been aware of that fact -- and most importantly, still wants to be with the man in drag.

however, it is presented as comedy, as a joke. the man in drag is surprised, shocked; and the elderly man throughout has a harmless 'figure of fun' -- he is in effect, as dismissed in the way we may now may dismiss the 'old-fashioned' sexism as harmless. in this case, however, the dismissal masks a homophobia of sorts: look how amusing and ridiculous it is to be gay! but the two dismissals are similar in
that by making something 'harmless' we are also trying to downplay it.

&

and just a passing thought while we're on the topic. a few years back i saw the remake of the day the earth stood still, at a time when i was reading lots of woolf. it seemed like a vaguely feminist scifi narrative: the alien manifests in flows and swarms, and takes on a monster form only in response to attacks, and does not attack independently. furthermore, there are 'strong' female characters in the form of the mother, and the vice president -- who acts on behalf of a not-present president.

at christmas i watched the original, wondering if there were similar strains and threads in it. not really, mostly your standard cold war scifi film. worth a watch regardless.

&
as an addendum to my previous post on egg waffle man: much institutional political support for ng yuk-fai stemmed from the fact that he claimed he did not claim social benefits, nor did he wish to. this, apparently turned out to be false. while for me, this doesn't make it any less sad that ng was arrested, in the hong kong media, i got the impression that this was considered to be a terrible thing. on a different day, i saw in the english-language paper, south china morning post, an article about how some american researcher or another gave a talk about how great hong kong was: citing how even though there are many people living poverty they refuse to be dependent on social welfare as an overwhelmingly and exclusively positive thing. i'm not sure this is so. ah, hong kong. crucible of capitalism. culture only matters when it costs.

heritage

2011-04-13T08:28:00.004+01:00

graffiti in tin hau. sorry about the time stamp.
since i'm back in hong kong i thought it would be appropriate to write a post i intended to write the last time i was here (christmas). we visited the hong kong heritage museum and it was quite an interesting experience to experience a museum from hong kong's point of view. most of the art galleries i've been to are private ones, clearly with a view to sell. this museum is a government-run one, and the building to me seems pretty similar to any other building which is open t the public in hong kong -- possibly even like a modest shopping centre or block of offices. it was quite difficult to navigate as a museum, and the permanent exhibition relating to hong kng and its history was in a style akin to that of the permanent exhibition akin to field museum in chicago (which i wrote about here).

there were a couple of temporary exhibitions (which in terms of the building was in a more prominent place than the permanent ones). one which was brush beyond space: works of tong yang-tze, which relates a little to the topics in a previous post about writing. painting quotes taken from literature, this female calligrapher (generally calligarphers tend to be male i think?) . the words are not particularly legible as chinese (unreadable writing!), which raises the question: how recognisable are the paintings as chinese? the visual characteristics are familliar to me but i can't really read chinese. do you need to know they are abstracted chinese characters to appreciate them? just some fleeting questions.

a suitable life

a swan goose

copper seas

perfect form

&
another was temporary exhibition there that i enjoyed was city flaneur: social documentary photography. of particular note were the following:

source
the megafauna series by (to use the museum's format for names; capitals denotes surname) CHEN kwong yeun, dick. it was presented as in a light box style (ie backlit) but due to the size of the image they looked a bit like billboards, which i thought apt given the subject of the photography.

source
from the city glow series byWAN chi chung, simon. layered images of billboards. the above photo is actually of a korean city, but the lit signage of hong kong is unique to it as a city, and i like the idea of multiple exposures laying them upon one another.

&

yesterday news of a street hawker (selling hong kong style egg waffles, and who is generally regarded affectionately by the general public) being arrested and the crowds who came to his defence has been in the hong kong papers. today there has already been official response (the health & food minister will try and arrange a permit so the streethawker is no longer arrested on for breach of food hygiene rules and many people have offered legal & financial support) due to the strong public reaction. i feel like there's a lot of interesting things to say about this, but i have yet to think upon it properly: the strict food hygiene laws is partly a result of avian flu and general hong kong hypochondria, street hawkers & street culture, the erosion of an 'old' style of living & the extent to which people are willing to protect it (or are selective in protecting it), the morality behind the story of a man who refuses to claim social benefits. there's a lot to consider. it's hard for me to articulate because a lot of my identity is tied up in hong kong, despite my relation being a complex and therefore confused one.

familial dystopia

2011-04-05T21:11:00.006+01:00

i recently (finally) read we by zamyatin, after having it in my possession for over a year or so now. as with 1984, which it is said to have inspired, i kind of enjoyed the dystopian aspects of the novel much more than when the protagonists discover 'freedom', 'love' or their 'humanity' etc.

and so today on the bus on my way to surface, i was thinking about various things ongoing in my personal life. i am not particularly in favour of monogamy, as one of my previous posts possibly points to. (it is in fact the first part of an ma essay i wrote; i shall get round to editting and posting the rest soon so perhaps one can better understand my position -- should anyone so desire). however, non-monogamy in reality is a lot messier htan in principle. so anyway, somehow my thoughts led me to that old maxim of the family unit being, well, a unit of capitalism, the capitalist 'machine'. specifically, i suppose, it is means of furthering the human population whilst keeping it within its own ideology - mini-baby making machines. how then, is this different, from the dystopian world of we or indeed the fictional world of atwood's the handmaiden's tale? well, ultimately the difference is that in dystopian fiction, the ideology is very clear-cut and takes form in one of its most extreme manifestations.

maybe, then, i enjoy the early parts of dystopian novels because that is when that dystopian world is articulated and set. maybe i like it when the ideology are clearcut and reach their logical conclusion. even now, our undersatnding of 'the family' and family values has become much more complex complicated than that of hte 1950s household. real life is not a dystopia, but, rather much more messy - for better and worse.

&

i am out of practice with writing, so excuse me if this is jilted. also, i don't have anything interesting to say about the subject in relation to mad men. (all i have to say is i want it back on my screen soon, plz). so instead, let me end then with a few links i've found interesting lately, but haven't managed to articulate further thoughts on.

* this reddit "ask me anything" written by someone who is intersex was really interesting and i admire the original poster very much. (thanks, lok).
* i wanted to say something interesting about this and museums -- but what? i think further thoughts will have to be elaborated later. something to do with funfairs vs museums and interactivity and the like. (the blogger is dating the man who started improv everywhere).
* and finally this article (from quite a while back) on sxsw:

A related danger of the merging of online and offline life, says business thinker Tony Schwartz, is that we come to treat ourselves, in subtle ways, like computers. We drive ourselves to cope with ever-increasing workloads by working longer hours, sucking down coffee and spurning recuperation. But "we were not meant to operate as computers do," Schwartz says. "We are meant to pulse." When it comes to managing our own energy, he insists, we must replace a linear perspective with a cyclical one: "We live by the myth that the best way to get more work done is to work longer hours." Schwartz cites research suggesting that we should work in periods of no greater than 90 minutes before seeking rest. Whatever you might have been led to imagine by the seeping of digital culture into every aspect of daily life – and at times this week in Austin it was easy to forget this – you are not, ultimately, a computer.

* edit also This Is My Porno Face: Reflections on Gender Performance and Power in Rock Music (via stephen)

breaking the silence & tapping the wire

2011-03-20T21:19:00.000Z

~~six~~ [now seven] months ago, i was sexually assaulted, at least, that is the official term for what happened. it may well have been the single most horrible thing that has happened to me in my life so far. it has taken me a long, long time to be able to say that, and to try and move beyond blaming myself for what had happened. and that is despite my own personal politics, despite my belief that no woman, no person, should ever have their personhood violated in that way.

i have been largely unable to write here because of my personal politics, my sexual politics. because i have been unable to reconcile them with how i feel & felt about what happened, about the assault. this is my attempt to do so. i think it is important that i do so here not only to work things out for myself, and not only because it continues in the bizarre combination of personal & academic that my blog has taken, but also, i hope, to 'raise awareness' and elucidate the experience & the horrific & pernicious sexual politics that lay behind such acts of assault & violation.

feelings of guilt, shame, inadequacy & fundamental 'bad'ness that the assault brought on are common for victims. for me, these feelings seemed to run endlessly deep: i knew on a rational level that the assault was not my fault, yet somehow these feelings still seemed to find manifestations, & often i myself was not even i was aware i was thinking them until much later.

indeed, it is not until relatively recently that i came to realise that the assault has very much affected me in terms of how i thnk and feel about sexuality. this realisation came after a weekend of watching season one of the the wire, where something horrible happens to the only strong female character, who goes undercover by virtue of being both female and black. there is also another scene in which d'angelo returns from buying drinks for a party to discover the party is all but over. he notices keisha, who had gone into the bedroom with wee-bey eariler, is unsettling motionless. when he goes into the room to check on her, the camera pans up along her naked body before d'angelo checks for her breath and realises she has overdosed. (you can see the sequence here from about 4:00 onwards).

this is what i mean when i refer to the pernicious side of sexuality - it can be a factor in reducing a person into a thing. (a bit creepily, as i was googling around to see if i could find any screenshots of that scene, wikipedia kindly informed me that the actress who plays keisha herself is uncredited, anonymous). and as i watched that scene, i became acutely aware how i could be reduced to just a body, how i was reduced to just a body in a similar way.

the assault has been particularly difficult for me because of how it has tied up in other personal issues i had been & am continuing to try to work out. nicola asked me whether the things i talk & think about here may have perhaps made it particularly difficult to deal with. i suppose in a way that is true.

keisha, dead from drug overdose (s01e08 of the wire)
i'm afraid i don't know what this painting is called, or who it is by. it was sourced from here, an interesting essay on mulholland drive which looks like it's worth a read

i wrote part of this from a train, tapping these words into my phone (the other half i written almost a month later, having not found suitable words or perhaps the will), which i will then email to myself & later blog. it's amazing what technology can do. but despite all this seemingly & strangely futuristic technology, it can also be used to address rather base and horrific ends -- technology was used in an attempt to track down my attacker (cctv, bank details to see if cash was withdrawn, mobile phone check to determine his whereabouts...) but to no avail, no conviction. that technology has to be used to prove such crimes, that such crimes are have a shockingly low conviction right and that such things are possible -- that is what is truly unbelievable.

archiving: waiting list

2010-12-25T01:44:00.001Z

imperial leather
sexual history of meat - adams, carol j
hong kong: culture and the politics of disappearance - abbas
hong kong's history: state and society under colonial rule
people's history of the US, zinn
moby dick - melville
politics of desire - goodchild
empire - hardt and negri
theology of money, goodchild
Michel Foucault. "What Is an Author?
on grammatology, derrida
anti-oedipus, deleuze & guatarri
brown, richard rodrigeuz
regarding the pain of others - susan sontag
selected peoms of william carlos wiliams
cities on a hill - frances fitzgerald
faith in fakes - umbrerto eco
*orientalism, edward said
a theory on adaptation, linda hutcheon
the singularity of literature, derek attridge
adaptation & appropriation, julie sanders
paratexts, palimpsests - gerard genette
*self-made man, norah vincent
writing down the bones, natalie goldberg
some sort of intro to american poetry: whitman, williams, cummings
one hundred years of solitute, gabriel garcia marquez
norhtanger abbey, jane austen
three guineas, virginia woolf

(b)elle

2010-12-05T22:34:00.000Z

last weekend [at least when i first started writing this entry], i went to see nicola in paris. the days can be summarised as going out, musee d'orsay and centre pompidou. the former is housed in an ex-train statin, and we didn't get to venture much int the clock-towery part of the building, but i liked how the hall was set up so you could catch glimpses of paintings at the other side. i don't know how to explain this well, and couldn't find photos of what i mean. anyway, here it is:

i suppose the best way to describe it is to say that as you walked along either the left or right hand side, there was space in which you could see snatches of the opposite end.

anyway, here we saw to two manet paintings which are oft-discussed in their representation of women:

olympia

the luncheon on the grass

olympia was controversial for its time because the female figure is portrayed in a conventional pose for the female nude but is also based on a prostitute (which the black cat apparently suggests). , and which i found to be more apparent in real life). it's perhaps difficult to see .

the luncheon on the grass is jarring for . perhaps what is jarring for me is that i'm nto sure , simply because i am so used to seeing naked women in paintings. the more i think about it, the more creepy the painitng.

i am here mostly rehashing what i remember hearing or reading, as well as gleaning a few things from the much-loved and much-reviled source of wikipedia. but i say all this because links nicely to the exhibition that we saw at centre pompidou, elles.

i really enjoyed the exhibition. the curation was centred around the theme of 'elles' but i think taken from the museum's permanent collection, and was found on the same floor of the pompidou as an exhibition featuring the work of nancy spero. in one room, the paintings/sketches/prints were displayed in a horizontal line across the room, like a scroll, which reminded me of ancient wall paintings -- a sense which was perhaps due to the fact that her work explores (sometimes mythic) representations of women's bodies. spero's work also featured text, typography, which ties in nicely with some work from 'elles' which both nicola and i particularly enjoyed. (nicola's academic work, by the way, is concerned with ways of practicing and performing philosophy which , thus making space for . (i hope this is an accurate summation, anyway)).

mirtha dermisache

&

irma blank

perhaps i should simply let these works stand on their own, and not offer any commentary. they are, after all, about unreadable writing, and expressing some things that cannot be expressed in the form of familiar letters, that language perhaps does not allow or enable women in particular to say or write. nicola brought up that she imagined these women were thinking of things they couldn't express through language as they created these works. i am not sure if this is necessarily true, sometimes i feel such repetitive mark-making is therapeutic. regardless, maybe this is why women 'talk too much and say so little'.

that said, now that i think about it (and thinking about an MA dissertation i got out of the library prior to writing mine, entititled "on writing: redressing the balance" which talks about writing and attitudes towards types of writing (i.e. arguing that the roman alphabet is more abstract (and by implication superior) than other scripts, like chinese or arabic) that these artistic works are quite 'eurocentric'. that said, i imagine similar works could be made using said scripts (or cyrillic or something else) -- and the point is that those scripts are still scripts, even if you don't undrsatnd the langauge, you undersatnd that it is meant to mean something; it already has meaning assigned to it. nevertheless, if such artwork was made using other scripts (arguably the works don't' play off the roman alphabet, but arabic reads left to right, for example, and some asian languages are traditionally written vertically), their power to speak as they do would be lessened, given how almost internationally recognisable the roman alphabet is.

hm! rehashing feminist debates? i'll leave it here for now. and regardless, the reason my absence is for now, unwriteable. (although i have made attempts to articulate it). you shall have to forgive me for it, that and my forseeable sporadicity.

i am thinking of you; i will be back.

2010-11-08T23:17:00.000Z

oops

producing desire and desiring-production (part i of ?)

2010-09-12T22:05:00.004+01:00

Producing Desire and Desiring-Production: An Anti-Oedipal Critique of Love and Capitalism in Sex and the City: The Movie

The film Sex and the City (based on the popular TV series) whilst ostensibly concerning those two topics, can be understood to actually focus on love and capitalism – sex is part of the 'dating game' which one plays to find love and is a major aspect in the romantic relationships of the main characters, whilst the city is the backdrop for this drama and also the ultimate site of their other love of fashion, inherent to which is shopping. A common misinterpretation of the title is “Sex in the City”, but the equivalence implied by juxtaposition of the word 'and' is integral to the critique that follows. Using Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's Anti-Oedipus, a text which takes the concept of 'desiring-production' as its premise, this essay will explore desire in the context of capitalism - specifically its relationship to, and also its relationship between, its romantic and material content. The anti-oedipal reading of Sex and the City will serve to elucidate Deleuze and Guattari’s abstract concepts through analysis of a cultural product. The film, rather than the TV series, will be the subject of examination due to one of its key scenes*: the second proposal of love interest Big to protagonist Carrie is an impromptu one, and Big is without a ring. He thus, in his terminology, 'seals the deal', with the unworn designer Manolo Blahnik shoes - the shoes which quite literally brought the the couple back together. (The shoes were left in the the house the couple bought together prior to the cancellation of the first wedding; they both return to the house right before it is to be handed over to the new owners, and that is when this proposal takes place). The replacement of the traditional diamond ring with a designer shoe thus foregrounds the connection between love and capitalism in the film: Big's assertion that the first proposal was “all business, no romance” will be reconsidered in light of Anti-Oedipus in order to demonstrate that the fundamental ideas guiding both business and romance are in fact similar.

The parallel between romantic love and shopping is in fact encouraged by the film. It begins with the voice of Carrie: “Year after year, twenty-something women come to New York City in search of the two Ls: labels and love”.^¹Within the film's reality, the voiceover represents Carrie's writing, thus the equation of the 'search' for commodities (in this case, the goods with a designer labels) with the search for love (one which is reinforced by a recurring lyric to the opening song of the soundtrack – “I'm shopping for labels, shopping for love”^²) can be understood to be metaphorical. For Deleuze and Guattari, however, “there is no need to resort to metaphors.”^³The two are intimately related: desire is integral to both commerce and love and “you just have to examine the many contingencies that gave birth to capitalism to realize how inseparable from the phenomena of desire are its infrastructure and economy.”^⁴Furthermore, as Deleuze and Guattari repeatedly affirm:

social production and desiring-production are one and the same... they have differing regimes, with the result that a social form of production exercises an essential repression of desiring-production.^⁵

Here, 'social production' is taken to incorporate the economic. Deleuze and Guattari emphasise the link between social production and desiring-production over their connections with economic production, because the economic is subsumed within the social. Deleuze and Guattari's theory of desiring-production and social production relates to savage and despotic societies, which do not have economies based on financial systems (which is the sense ‘economy’ is used today). Therefore, economic production here refers specifically to capitalism. As Ronald Bogue effectively summarises

Capitalism tends to reduce all social relations to commodity relations of universal equivalency. In the process, it 'deterritorializes' [in a sense, frees] desire by subverting traditional codes that limit and control social relationships and productions ... Yet it simultaneously reterritorializes desire by channeling all production into the narrow confines of the equivalence form. The Oedipus complex ensures that human desire is concentrated on the nuclear family, and hence individualized, and that only a residual and 'commodified' desire invests in the larger social domain, which is regulated by the economic reactions of capital.^⁶

Following Anti-Oedipus and its focus on capitalism, there will be an emphasis on understanding the economic nature of the social manifestations of desiring-production in capitalism: we are taught to love economically.

The concept of desiring-production is founded on “the most fundamental idea that the unconscious 'produces'”^, that is to say that it is a mechanism, a ‘factory’, a ‘desiring-machine’. Desire operates in flows, and it has no object: “it is, rather, the subject that is missing in desire, or desire that lacks a fixed subject; there is no fixed subject unless there is repression. ... Desire and its object are one and the same thing.”^⁷Capitalism takes ownership of objects (in other words, property) as its object; the productive aspect of desire is what capitalism seeks to fix, what it seeks to acquire by acquiring things. However:

From the moment we place desire on the side of acquisition, we make desire an idealistic (dialectical, nihilistic) conception, which causes us to look upon it primarily as a lack: a lack of an object, a lack of the real object. ... if desire is the lack of the real object, its very nature as a real entity depends upon the “essence of lack” that produces the fantasized object.^⁸

By introducing lack into desire, “all of desiring-production is crushed, reduced to being no more than the production of fantasy”^⁹; there is an object which can be acquired, but as psychoanalysts have noted, it is a fantasized object, both in the sense that it is fantasized about but also in the sense that it is an object of fantasy – it does not exist. According to Deleuze and Guattari, the object is one of fantasy because it is produced by desire, desire is not produced by it: “Desire is not bolstered by needs, but rather the contrary; needs are derived from desire: they are counterproducts within the real that desire produces”^¹⁰. In other words, there is no object of desire, only desire itself; an object as 'the object of desire' is produced after the fact of desire itself. There is a clear example of this fact in the film: originally, Carrie plans to have a small wedding, and for her wedding outfit she chooses a second-hand (or 'vintage') dress, much to the shock of her friends. However, she is coerced into posing for a wedding dress photo shoot by her boss at Vogue, and is later given one of the dresses she posed in as a gift from the designer of that dress. It is only through this process of posing for a fashion magazine, which notably aims to produce desire for objects among its readership generally, that the dress becomes an object of desire. In this scene, the process of objectification of the dress is literally recreated by showing the photographer, make-up artist and other staff at work.
-

* addendum: apparently the film is also 'worse' than the tv series in this regard. not having seen very much of it, i can't say for sure. certainly my impression is that there is less commercialism involved in the tv show.
1 Sex and the City, dir. by Michael Patrick King (New Line Cinema and HBO Films, 2008.)

2 Fergie, “Labels or Love” in Sex and the City: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (New Line Records, 2008).

3 Gilles Delueze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (New York: Penguin, 2009), p293.

4Gilles Delueze, Desert Islands and Other Texts (1953-1974) (Cambridge, Mass. and London: MIT Press, 2004), p267

5Anti-Oedipus, p116.

6 Ronald Bogue, Deleuze and Guattari (London: Routledge, 1989), p88.
^ Desert Islands, p232.

7Anti-Oedipus, p26.

8Anti-Oedipus, p25.

9Anti-Oedipus, p111.

10Anti-Oedipus, p27.

on male "lack"

2010-09-06T00:40:00.002+01:00

the origin of the world by gustave courbet (1866)

anthony tells me this painting was once owned by lacan. i will try and refrain from making 'lac(k)an' jokes, but that wordplay is part of what came to mind in choosing to post this picture along with the post.

so, i've discussed before my utter distaste for the term 'gash' as a referent for female genitalia, and how this term reflects some psychoanalytic understandings of sexual difference -- women as 'lacking' a penis. but what about if it were the other way around?

the first time i have sex with someone new (who is male, anyway), i am always surprised that there is no vulva there. i mean, obviously i expect a boy to have a penis (unless the person in question was trans), and i am not surprised to discover that they do. however, in the back of my mind i also expect there to be girl genitals underneath there. i am not sure why this is, other than the fact that i am familiar with my own anatomy and therefore 'transpose' it onto other people. in this respect, i can understand how a man can come to conceive of a cunt as a 'lack', in the sense of lacking a penis.

by this i mean that whilst i could understand someone being shocked by the sight of female genitalia (in the sense that the 'shock' is part of is seeing something new -- and ever alluded to but rarely discussed), that is not the same as the violent and misogynistic implications of referring to genitalia as a 'gash' nor the notion of female lack on which the idea of genitalia as a 'gash' is based upon.

so, that surprise, in itself, is not overtly objectionable, i don't think. sometimes we are surprised by difference.what is more important is how we approach difference. the problem with the psychoanalysis-inspired conception of female genitalia is that it essentially pathologises this lack, reflecting the grossly (in both senses of the word) sexist framework of thinking. it is not at all open to this difference, but fears it.

in this respect, i offer irigary (as summarised by wikipedia anyway) as a corrective: just because you cannot see the full extent of a lady's sexual organs, doesn't mean they're not there.

(that said, this hoodie is a misrepresentation in the sense that there is more to female sex organs than the purely reproductive! alas, i am not a baby making machine.)

female genitalia are not lacking in anything, except maybe respectful attitude towards them (and, you know, women in general).

in other news, i happened upon this:

Maggie Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy have signed on for the Victorian-era, medical-themed romcom Hysteria. The film charts the pair's fling against the backdrop of the invention of the vibrator, apparently created by a doctor who used it to treat hysteria in women.

have to say, i am curious as to how that one will turn out... probably a bit rubbish, but there's potential for it to be interesting.

other victorian sexuality trivia (which i may have mentioned before): some victorian doctors used to believe in biological differentiation between butch/femme lesbians. butch lesbians were characterised by a larger clitoris with which they o penetrate their femme friends. i wish i could remember where i read this, but in something article related to english lit -- possibly in first year, possibly even before univeristy.

in other other news, this is not me but well worth reading. i think she is incredibly brave for sharing her experiences. (trolls, don't make me regret linking this).

visual diary

2010-08-06T17:51:00.011+01:00

click for larger!
i am in need of cheering up and so went googling for nice things to look at (i should really figure out tumblr. or have joined ffffound prior to its memebers-only status). anyway,i came across the above via searching for a specific rothko. how much would you like to retreat there for a while?

from the beautiful blog i nicked it from:

1. Mark Rothko’s Chapel at the Menil Foundation in Houston sets itself as “a sacred space open to all, dedicated to art, spirituality and human rights” without pandering to specified religions, political agendas, grand narratives or personalised manifestos contained within the binaries of good and bad. Here, abstract art possesses a significance removed from things and ideas, and the monotone purple swathes appear calming, understanding, all consuming and beautiful.

i must have a proper peruse of ALMF later.

&

the world's largest photobooth (whatever that means) is ongoing as part of the nottingham contemporary's exhibit of arbus' work (the photobooth apparently takes photos 'in her style'). i can't say i am a big fan of arbus, but if you are willing to trawl through the photos you will find some gems.

&

via wooster
french graffiti artist princess hijab: a tiny little more on her here.

&
and now let's dip into my nice picture reserve -- in "c:\users\sarf\documents\my received files" i keep random photos that i like. the first few i found via various websites (which i shall list underneath) but some of them (the ones without extra annotations) i actually came to via facebook - mostly friends of friends. should any of those souls in these photos ever find themselves here, i have kept these photos because i think they are charming. please don't be afraid! and should you want your face removed from here my email is somewhere on your right.

hm. i can't find the original link for this anymore (and therefore can't give appropriate credit), but i found this poster on the guardian website: it was a set of posters with advice for new university students.

beautiful beautiful tattoo i came across via fuckyeahtattoos. on the arm of a lady who makes pretty things from broken plates! the tatt is taken from some pretty plate decorations.

the wonderfully talented rebecca artisma, whose artwork is still my desktop wallpaper (the real thing). i gave sai a locket made by her (you can see a little more on a now defunct livejournal which is where i first came across her, i think) because i wanted to buy something and couldn't justify buying something for myself.

photo by matt of marilyn and presumably his friend.

well, now i feel a little better. i hope you do too.

extract from second year essay:

2010-07-24T17:21:00.000+01:00

4. Is it possible to distinguish between literary and non-literary texts? Address this question with reference to Greenblatt and at least one other critic studied this semester.

Examples: Practicing Theory

Literariness: Spoetry
Spoetry is the term for the arbitrary prose which spam emails in order to overcome spam filters – the use of random words counteracts the high frequency of words commonly used in spam. Thus, an email about viagra would arrive in an inbox if it also contained words such as 'baccarat refuse alfresco'. This method has created texts which many consider to have literary characteristics:

Elizabeth you siren me, coriander. glasswort you alveolus me, chocks.

Dastard you backyard me, colonial cybernetic. risen you begrudge me,

This could, for example, be read as a love poem, where 'siren' refers to those of Greek mythology, and therefore can be read as 'seduce', while the final sentence can be read literally, thus referring to someone who has awoken or even 'risen from the dead'. In cognitive terms, this literariness comes from the human ability to transpose meaning where there is none; indeed, “the ungrammatical use of nouns as verbs is something Shakespeare was very fond of, as, famously, in King Lear when Edgar says 'He childed as I fathered'.”^¹ Eva Wiseman consequently considers spoetry art, “reminiscent of Ezra Pound”.^² She demonstrates the literariness of spoetry by asking an academic, Paul Edwards, to analyse a 'spoem': the interpretation that his close reading proves fruitful, and states that “With its disrupted phrases and clauses, the poem mirrors the channelling of the old stable ego into flows that are continuously redirected, interrupted and abandoned”^³. The use of random words results in some taking on symbolic meaning, Edwards reads the line “bosom it had sprung from his mouth” referring not solely to the erotic, but “the fantasy of being 'first over and over again': the American dream of (in Scott Fitzgerald's words), 'a fresh, green breast of the new world'”^⁴.

For Stephen Greenblatt, such texts could be seen as literary, as they are quite literally a transformed cultural product. However, following the theory of poetic genius, such texts would not qualify as literary, because they was not created by a 'genius'. For Blake, art created by poetic genius is founded upon the perception of the writer; without a writer, there is no possibility of the pure perception that he aspires to, and it is consequently not literary. In Blakean terms, these texts would be problematic in the sense that they can give the impression of perception. Similarly, classification of such texts for Kant would be complicated by the fact that, although they are not created by a genius, such poems are fine art in the sense that they require and inspire cognition on the reader's part. These texts therefore raise issues of authorship and intention in relation to literary.

Another dimension to spoetry is poetry inspired by spam emails. Ben Myers creates poems based on the randomly generated words that appear in his spam emails. In doing so, and in stating that “real spam poems require human input; they need a sense of order”^⁵, he demonstrates a Kantian desire for a 'mechanism' to regulate the words. Indeed, perhaps spoems for Kant would be an example of a 'work with no body' and whose spirit has consequently 'evaporated'. He implicitly makes links similar to Wiseman, he links spam with to modern and postmodern works when he speaks of spoetry as “the literary equivalent of recycling; it takes off-cuts and lets them ferment into something new and occasionally exotic”^⁶. In this respect, then, he shares with Greenblatt an appreciation of transformation of existing cultural products, since spam emails frequently consist of “incongruous yet titillating combinations of words or excerpts from science fiction or westerns”. Indeed, for Greenblatt, Myers' spoetry would be considered literary texts, perhaps more definitively so given the presence of an author. Similarly, the application of a mechanism would allow for spoetry to qualify as a literary text in term's of Kant's theory.

Conclusion

The question of what constitutes a literary text has been a key one in literary theory. In differentiating between the two, theorists usually elevate theory, sometimes even to the realm of the religious. For Kant, there were clear distinctions between literary and non-literary texts, although his notion of author's not fully understanding the works they create made room for the new historicist. For Blake, this distinction is a little more blurred, especially since his concern isn't so much with art, but with the notion of 'poetic genius' itself, which is universally available to all humans as well as all things – not just art. Greenberg shares this sense in thinking about imagination. In its emphasis on the non-literary, new historicism may initially appear to to call for an eradication of the distinction between literary and non-literary texts; however, it is important to note that new historicism still uses terms such as non-literary, which inherently implies that it is distinct form the literary. Even for Greenblatt, there is a distinctive aspect to the literary, and as Peter Barry notes, the notion that new historicism privileges neither literary nor non-literary texts “requires some qualification”^⁷.

---
1 Phillip West in Eva Wiseman, “An introduction to spoetry”, The Guardian <http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/mar/07/news.bookscomment> [accessed 9 May 2008].

2 Eva Wiseman, “An introduction to spoetry”, The Guardian <http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/mar/07/news.bookscomment> [accessed 9 May 2008].

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Myers, B. “Spoetry, please”, The Guardian < http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/07/spoetry_please.html> [accessed 9 May 2008].

6 Ibid.

7 Beginning Theory, p173.

i don't think this type of spam exists much anymore -- i'm not sure, i've stopped reading my junk mail inbox. when i wrote this, spam often included ctrl+c, ctrl+v snippets from no longer copyrighted texts. (you could google chance phrases and google would throw up the source). instead we have pop-ups and trick downloads and -- of course email spam still exists, but it seems terribly archaic already! all in the space of 2 years (although i also recalll it was already bordering outdated at the time of my writing the above). how speedy the internet is, hey?

so, yes. the above is from a bit over two years ago. i wonder (and hope) my writing has improved since. if i ever get round to posting my deleuze&guattari piece instead of talking about donig so, you can judge for yourself.

today i am trying to work on my notes. when i write i have a very time-intensive note-taking process of reading and underlining, and then later typing up all the relevant bits. for this thesis, i have been made an online blog for my notes (not available for public consumption but can be found here in case you're nosey; i do wonder if it'd be interesting to open it up, but mostly likely not terribly so) -- i wonder if this is useful or merely a means of procrastination? it is definitely partly a control thing - one feels one can never read enough (and indeed one can't) and can never have a good enough grip (and again, one can't), and so it falls to these little rituals to give comfort. i may not understand it all, but by god i have it here written in my own hand! (except i haven't).

what writing angst i have. i think a lot of people get it, but i can't help but feel that i suffer from it more severly than most. it sometimes isn't helpful too when, for the most part, other people dismiss it - and especially so this year because i have (for once) performed consistently well academically (normally i get goodish marks... and then don't. i confess with my dissertation i'm still waiting for the other coin to drop -- but then on the flip side, i also fear i that i will 'sabotage' myself into not doing well if i leave it too long!). i guess, as i have said before, is that ultimately the academic work i end up doing is intenselly personal. and writing becomes this existential beast. the trick is, as friend once told me, is to trick yourself into thinking it's not -- and it isn't, in the grand scheme of things really. but it still is to me. and it's important that it's important!

behind "the innocent smoothie of politics"

2010-07-18T12:20:00.004+01:00

source

Ever since Cameron was elected in 2005, he has sought to project a new image of the Tories, one far removed from the wad-waving Tory boy of the Thatcher years and the aristocratic patrician of yore. Cameron's Conservatives were supposed to be a new entity altogether: green, organic and open-necked.

And you can see why the Conservatives believed the approach would succeed – because it's already worked wonders for everyone else. All over the marketplace are companies who would once have been reviled as behemoths of capitalism, but who have somehow marketed themselves as concerned, friendly guys who are not trying to squeeze a profit out of you – oh no, they just want to be your mate.
- "the innocent smoothies of politics"

i remember thinking this at the beginning of this particular tory marketing campaign, but it is remarkable how quickly something like that becomes commonplace & i forgot to even notice.

also remarkable is this type of marketing: that capitalism works so fast that our resistance to what we negatively think of as capitalism (big corporations, etc.) is reworked into the system itself, and what we supposedly resist is being sold. and most notably this rejection is manifest in a sort of 'good to the earth' approach.

what is even more remarkable that this marketing approach is incorporated into politics: but then again, clearly i shouldn't put it past the tories! it fits in nicely with their somewhat localist focus in politics. (not that i am against local difference - which is pretty amazing and interesting (especially in relation to and in the face of globalisation), but localism is much more sinister i think - if you listen to APS' talk in my "note to self " post you will see what i mean!).

i am sort of writing my dissertation about this, but with regards to a more explicit sort of cultural exchange. i know that perhaps it all sounds a little unrelated, but i will hopefully unravel the ties as i write. anyway, the column is good, read it! and maybe i will have more interesting things on the topic later -- a promise i always make, and a promise i should try to keep more often. i guess i am trying to emphasise that these are just fleeting thoughts and there is so so so much more to say!

ps, i also hope to have things to say on this article too: china: the next superconsumer? also worth a read.

worlds.

2010-07-16T11:57:00.006+01:00

(source)

And directions in America are different: the search for arborescence and the return to the Old World occur in the East. But there is the rhizomatic West, with its Indians without ancestry, its ever-receding limit, its shifting and displaced frontiers. There is a whole American “map” in the West, where even the trees form rhizomes. America reversed the directions: it puts the Orient in the West, as if it were precisely in America that the earth came full circle; its West is the edge of the East.
- A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze & Guattari

maps seem to be cool these days. right now i am sat in the british library where there is currently an exhibit called magnificents maps. nottingham contemporary only recently closed its uneven geographies exhibit. the bbc has recently aired documentary series like "the beauty of maps" and "maps: power plunder and possession". the website strangemaps has a post on the above xkcd map and the concept of east and west. (i wonder why that is? this trend in interest. i am assuming it's more than a coincidence.)

anyway, as a once-student of american studies, i like the phrasing of america as the place where "the earth came full circle"; i think it speaks to the power of america as an imaginary (one that even deleuze & guattari cannot resist!)

ps in googling for images for this post, i came across this which is a nice little re-imagining of the globe, albeit for rather commerical purposes (but then again that's why maps are interesting, no? the contexts and values written to them).
pps and as a final side note, i'd rather like one of these. anyway, back to work.

note to self

2010-07-09T22:33:00.006+01:00

so i say this more for my own benefit than my readership (or lack thereof), but my good friend APS gave a pretty good talk on : listen to it here. drawing on heidegger and bergson, he talks about 'grey ecology' - a concept which is premised on the fact that the city is vitally important for us to live ecologically. PLUS it's aimed at people who don't know stuff so it is super accessible. yeahhhhhhhh

in other news, i am still thinking about posting the one essay i am actually proud of. hm. even if no on reads it. the people who might be interested have read already anyway, i think. nevertheless. (hopefully i will follow through - we all know this blog is full of best intentions not always fulfilled!)

in other other news, i am somewhat lacking in motivation. and since i have been linking to this all over the shop, i'll do it again! it's another example of why this blog is called playing pretend. (this missing word being 'grown ups'). i have many things i want to say here but i don't really know how to begin (for a start, wjt mitchell's book that i mentioned before? there is a chapter called "drawing desire" which is very good and i wish i could say more about). and as for my thesis, it is on a subject that i find very engaging (we should hope so; i chose the topic!) but my heart isn't in it because it is too busy fretting for my as yet undetermined future. i should probably devote my energy to better things, like unravelling my mind:

in an attempt to help me do this, my supervisor has made the very wise suggestion that i plan a little more than what i normally do (think it out as i write it out, writing as thinking), and that i try mind-mapping (i saw someone on twitter refer to their thesis tree, another term i rather like). it's the sort of thing everyone was taught at school (spider diagrams), but which seemed kind of pointless. but perhaps it isn't pointless, but rather what i'm not good at: summing up in advance, looking at the bigger picture not through the details but as it is. this is my effort (although i have yet to update it to incorporate my newer ideas). it's a kind of untangling too, i suppose:

briefly, blake.

2010-06-15T15:20:00.001+01:00

from william blake's for the sexes: the gates of paradise

(found on p.62 of mitchell)

i am currently reading wjt mitchell's what do pictures want? as part of my dissertation research. i'm not so sure it'll actually be mentioned in the text itself, but it is a fantastic read. he flagged up this blake image which i wanted to blog so i have a record/reference/note of it.

i think i understand it much better after having read some deleuze & guattari, as when i first read one of the chapters from this book i enjoyed it but was a little ambivalent. (speaking of which, i am considering posting my d&g essay here following the lead of my friend austin and also because it is sort of topical. i'm not sure if many people read now, but this is perhaps forthcoming.)

although i'm not so sure it will be that important for my dissertation itself, there is much to think and write about, which i shall hopefully do later.

love.

(hyper)real histories

2010-06-10T00:50:00.001+01:00

tonight [20th of may, when i originally starting writing this!], my dad was sat in front of cable news (although he wasn't actually paying attention) and i noticed coverage of the shanghai expo (mostly about how there were crazy long queues).

this is the modern world fair. perhaps it was naive of me to think that this tradition had discontinued: it's been going on relatively regularly since hyde park (see wiki's list of fairs) and is sanctioned/organised by the bureau of international expositions. i don't know if the shanghai world expo is making headlines in much of the 'west', but the bbc has this to say:

But it is hard to say for certain these days what a World Expo is for. In the past they were used to promote a country's strength as a world power. The first one - the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace in London in 1851 - was designed to demonstrate Britain's industrial, military and economic superiority.To China, this year's Shanghai World Expo is no less important.
It is an opportunity, officials say, to promote China's "soft power" - to show off its growing influence in the world - and, of course, for others to try to win favour with the Chinese.

i think it is kind of naive to pretend that that sort of nationalistic display isn't still at work here, as the reporter then goes on to note. i guess the difference is the nature of this power (as the reporter notes, 'soft'!) and i guess i don't necessarily see the two as being all that different. there is certainly a similarity which perhaps becomes more obvious when you look at the history of the world fairs. again, i am by no means going to give you a fully formed argument or history here, but here is a personal & potted one of what i know along with a few reflections on history

i suppose the first place any british-educated person has come across the phenomenen of the world fair is the first ever one, which was housed within the crystal palace at hyde park:

i probably personally came across this in GCSE history. i don't really recall what we learnt. i think about how lower class people visited on the cheaper days. the fire & eventual destrcution of crystal palace (after the exhibition had ended). what a feat it was. blah blah blah. either way, i don't think we learnt anything very interesting or challenging about it.

(in retrospect it is interesting to consider what history we are taught. in my (english-language) school in hong kong (which generally followed the uk state syllabus) which i attended until i was about 13, i wasn't even really taught the history of hong kong beyond a brief summary relating to the opium war and how hong kong came to be a british colony. in year 7, i remember a lot of henry the 8th, 1066, shit like that. this is a gap in my knowledge which i've only recently tried to overcome: i've been reading hong kong's history, a book i'd highly recommend because it takes an approach to hong kong's history which is neither solely focussed on colonialism nor china's influence - two discourses which are dominant in accounting for the city's past. in all honesty, it's helped me resolve a lot of personal issues i have had with feeling 'rootless' or not understanding the history of my hometown (if i can call it that), because it seemed to me that neither the 'british colonialism' perspective nor the chinese one accounted for my undersatnding of the city.)

with an undergraduate degree in american studies (as well as english), i came across a more critical approach the world fairs (obviously, specifically those of america):

chicago world fair 1893. (the first ferris wheel!)

in particular, i recall being taught about world fairs in the context of racism -- perhaps most obviously exemplified in how people were 'exhibited' in what wiki calls human zoos. in particular i remember the example of ota benga at the saint louis world fair (of particular interest was his sharpened teeth and its connotations of the primitive):

and more recently i have read about saartjie baartman (anglicised as sarah) the hottentot venus in sander l. gilman's "black bodies, white bodies":

that article was really quiet an upsetting read for me -- in particular the revelation that, amongst other body parts, baartman's genitalia was on display in a museum up until the 70s. (baartman as 'hottentot venus' was considered to be an example of the 'sexual characteristics' of black women, which somehow proved these non-white folk were more primitive too of course- i paraphrase of course, and i urge you to read gilman even if it made my stomach turn).

aside: my summaries here are rather crude, to the point where i feel a little uncomfortable posting this -- such a serious matter and i am mentioning it on my rather frivolous blog i am afraid i lack the knowledge to historicise and contextualise what i mention properly here, so please do further research. i am recalling mostly from my memory, which is faulty as all of ours are. ultimately, i guess although i am aware of racist thinking in our pasts as well as present, it always shocks and scares me when i find out about how it was manifest.

anyway, this isn't to say that i imagine there are similarly explicit racist displays at the shanghai expo (although i don't doubt there were lots of strange and possibly even pernicious displays at shanghai, and it is perhaps important to remember that at the time what i have mentioned above was in fact not considered problematic at at all at that time). i need to do more research. anyway, i would be interseted to see what history makes of the shanghai expo, if at all.

for now, though, in googling about it, i came across a news article mentioning the following:

A blogger, A Bad Friend, was summoned by security police for interrogation over tea upon writing an article, 10 sins of EXPO 2010, on his blog. After the tea session, he wrote another article, “La Dernière Classe”, recording the conversation between the security police and himself. The exchange reflects the ideological conflict between a party-state nation represented by the security police and a people-orientated nation represented by the student blogger. The two original posts were deleted but still circulated widely online.

although i can't find said posts at all. (any nudges in the right direction would be gratefully received -- sarah[dot]fok[at]gmail[dot]com).

my dad referred to the shanghai expo as "like disneyland", by which i assume he is referring to the emphasis on spectacle and hence. the world fair is composed of different . perhaps we can compare to "it's a small world" ride:

but really, i want to move on and talk about something else which i have previously blogged about - a recreation of noah's ark in hong kong (website):

it's sort of disneyland-esque in that it is almost a theme park. we were late so didn't look around extremely extensively. as true testament to the creepy hyperreality of the place, the replica ark, which of course had pairs of animals on show, made us question the reality of two toucans (i think) -- behind the glass, their movements were so mechanical, we wondered whether they were robots. their beaks looked like they were made of plastic. (the matter was eventually cleared up when one flew up onto a tree branch).

toucan

i also took some photos, but sadly forgot to bring a digital camera with me, so they're still waiting to be developed. i think they have this in hong kong because the 'discovery' of what is considered to be noah's ark in turkey was an expedition which involved some people from hong kong. there some nice little diaroama of previous attempts to find noah's ark. (i like diaoramas!), but i didn't get to dwell upon these because my companions wanted to make sure we didn't mix the next 'showing'.

that's right, i said 'showing'. in the part of the ark that we looked at, we were treated to two '4d experiences'. the first was about the biblical story of the noah's ark and the second was entitled 'future ark'. both had apocalyptic elements to them, but the latter also focussed on quite a limited ecological rhetoric (take care of the earth lest there becomes a need for 40 days of rain/ark - essentially, 'being envrionmentally friendly IS our ark'). it was interesting to see how to some extent these little film shots were chinese-ified to some extent (in the latter film thing, noah was presented almost like a chinese god)

when i was younger, i attended a summer/sunday school. i think many of the kids were sent there for fun things to do over the summer rather than because of faith, and consequently the people running it did subtely try and introduce us to chrsitiantiy. perhaps it's because my own family is pretty religious so i was familiar with a lot of what they were takling about already, but even at that young age (8?), i found it particularly odd when one of the women there told us about how noah's ark had been 'discovered', talking about it as if this must prove that christinaity is correct.

there was a similar attitude going on this noah's ark replica -- at no point was the story of noah's ark foregrounded as a biblical story. for example, exhibits discussed what material the ark might have been made of (it isn't clear what the material that the bible mentions is, and this was taken very literally here), how different social groups have ark or flood myths (as if this too proves that noah's ark as it is in the bible must have existed) and even an exhibit discussing how noah's sons (and their wives) are the ancestors of different races - so one is the ancester of black people, antoher of white people, another middle eastern people (again, taking the bible very literally here).

yet it's interesting that despite this literal interpretation and understanding of the bible and the story of noah's ark, aspects of the replica also demonstrated awareness of how the story is a constructed one. for example, one exhibit consisted of many many toy arks, and the woman guiding us through this part of the exhibit noted that "you can tell which arks were made in china because they include panda". it's interesting to consider the implication of the inclusion of zebras, elephants, etc often appear in western/european arks -- the notion of 'africa as nature', perhaps? there was also a little exhibit about the 'different' arks that have been discovered and what each one symbolises and means. nevertheless, though, this does not really negate the overall impression that hong kong's noah's ark replica gives -- that this was a rea; it was history. and that, i think, is rather creepy -- particularly in a city where familiarity with biblical stories is not as widespread.

"not safe for work."

2010-05-20T16:33:00.005+01:00

i came across this on someone's tumblr, but sadly without a source citation. it looks like a traditional japanese painting, and makes me wonder whether there is a japanese tradition of rays shining out from between lady's legs. specifically, i am referring to the modern manifestation of said tradition in the shape of period girl, which, by the way, my awesome friend alex has a tattoo of:

maybe the older image is just a reference to female ejaculation in the context of japanese love for sexy paintings, like of tentacle porn.

i appreciate such sort of frank discussion is a but much for some. but honestly, dudes, so long as you don't turn it into a sex joke or a come-on (lololol) i am happy to talk about your ejaculation. curious even. i don't think there is anything wrong about frank discussion of bodies (male or female). i also like to gross stories akin to that of a 8 year old boy who thinks snot is cool. and i admit, i like the element of 'shock' these images might elicit from some people. i think part of the reason that they are shocking is because they are frank, not especially sexual - and even fun. and that is precisely why they are also interesting -- because it is important to consider why there might be shock factor involved at all & whether such shock/offence is justified.

what, exactly, is wrong with vaginas? (also why is the preferred neutral term vaginas? as in, why are we focussing on the part of the genital organs which delivers babies and is penetrated? there is always difficulty with naming, i guess. but when we are referring to vaginas i think we're more generally thinking of vulvas, no? but then perhaps this is not an adequate term either.) there is not very much is wrong with female genitalia.

and on a important note, bodily-frankness is particularly important in the context of sexual health. i realise this blog post is on a tad of the ranty side so let me direct you to ms laurie penny's cif article in the guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/20/abortion-advert-outcry in which she discusses objection to a television ad for an abortion helpline. read it, please. this is the more 'serious' side to what i am talking about here: i do not have the heart to go into such matters and penny does so better than i could.

lastly, to return to names -- i just want to say that i find the terms 'snatch', 'slit' and 'gash' to refer to vaginas/vulvas far more offensive than 'cunt'. i am pretty ok with 'cunt', in part because of the reclamation of the word and because i don't think there's anything wrong with cunts. some are even nice. but 'slit' implies that a hole is all that female genitalia is - which, i promise, is not the case. 'gash' is even worse - the vulva is not a wound. and snatch? as far as i can work out, is a reference to "noun. a trap or device used for ensnarement" (thanks, urban dictionary), or in other words, vagina dentata. (speaking of which, this woman on etsy makes vulva 'portrait' jewellery, which is both pretty lols and also pretty cool. at one point she did sell have a vagina dentata pendant:)

i also have a mini-rant regarding what 'qualifies' as hetero vs homosexual sex but i am still thinking it out a little and so shall share in the future.

ps, with regards to the title, lok mentioned this. i think i will someday i may regret attaching my real name to this blog. just like some day we will probably all regret facebook. hello world, i am employable, promise!

pps, with regards to the previous post -- these are improvements i could make in all areas of my life.

for now.

2010-05-18T10:58:00.001+01:00

there are many a half-written blogpost on my blogger 'dashboard'. for now i just want to say that to improve to be a better writer/academician (yay made up words), i need to

i) become more confident in my abilities (altho perhaps i should wait til i get marks back before i speak to soon)

&

ii) figuring out how to better articulate the bigger picture. as it stands i get involved & lost in nuance (which makes for some good qualities) but have difficulty directing my readers. and making good phd proposals etc.

coming soon: a love story of sorts.

2010-03-30T01:21:00.003+01:00

source

on the saturday just past, at 10.30am, whilst i was work (at a cinmea multiplex no less), an interesting little radio show aired, entitled 'never before in the history of motion pictures...'. it is a brief history of the film trailer, complete with a classic 'gravelly' voiceover man. (i personally wouldn't characterise the voice as gravelly, but that's what radio 4 call it. in intonation though it is also a very specific speaking style too). it is well worth a listen to if you can (i think bbc radio is available even to those outside the UK and it should be online until saturday).

there is something undeniably pleasureable about a trailer, i think. (and the thought of being able to pop into a cinema and just watch endless trailers for free, as someone on the radio show mentions having happened in the past, sounds like a rather enjoyable way to spend an hour or two if you ask me! although i wonder if i would bother going to the cinema at all then). i like even the crap ones (and by that i mean rather predictable trailers for rather predictable movies), and of the crap ones in particular there is a sort of 'language' of trailers that is easily identifiable.

and i wonder if that language is part of its enjoyment, almost. for me, i know part of the excitement is that a trailer, well, trails the film. it builds up to the 'main event', but there is almost a sense in which it is a pure experience of cinema in itself - the lights have darkened and you're watching the screen for the sake of it. the same material conditions as when you're watching the film proper has taken place, but you're not watching the film -- not just yet.

personally speaking, the trailer is also something that you can kind of talk through or immediately after. the whole silence during the film is a very culturally specific one. generally speaking, talking through and at a film seems more common to communities where the cinema is relatively new - although i might be wrong about this; i'm basing mainly on memories of reading about people talking during films in the context of film-watching only being possible when cinemas 'visited' town (ie there is no building devoted to such a practice). (apparently americans have the stereotype of black people talking during films?). regardless, the trailer is one thing i am happy to talk through - usually in the form of making a snarky remark to whoever my companion may be - but it is rare that i am willing to lean over to someone during the film itself to make a comment or observation lest i ruin their 'experience' of it. (as an aside: my talking habit is also true of the various commerical adverts that precede the trailer and the film. why are there so many car ads by the way? none of the cinemas i go to are the kind which require driving to. is the association that strong? and also why all those ministry of defence ads? are they trying to recruit disillusioned youth who they believe will fall for the spectacle of violence and the allure of fighting wars?)

that the form and style of trailers are so familiar to us was made evident to me at work. in the radio show they talk about how, in the past, trailers were constructed first with an 'audio bed' and the pictures inserted as an afterthought. the modern trailer, however, is focussed very much on visual imagery rather than sound. (although maybe at this point we should note that we are talking about a radio show about film trailers and it still works!). this emphasis ont he visual was s something that has been made apparent to me at work. from where i stand at the ice cream stand, i can see the lcd screen which plays trailers in the general area. and sometimes, in between screenings when it's quiet and there's ntohing left for me to do, i watch the trailers on the screen without sound. it is remarkable (or perhaps it shouldn't be!) how much you can follow without audio, and in my head i could 'make up' what was being said and probably get it right if not word for word, then more or less.

the conventions of the film trailer are also evidenced by the popularity of this video which has been making the rounds (and mighty good it is! it does take things perhaps a little further):

my personal favourite trailer convention, which isn't featured in the above video, is how thriller or action films will often end with the audio string instruments crescendoing into a big bang and visuals of a fast-paced montage and then an explosion/flash and then a dark screen.

this love affair, though, is not a simple one. (indeed, are they ever? -- i'm not sure if what i'm about to say makes sense since it is in a sense a matter of the heart).

nina of infinite thought mentioned the following "Adorno claims that most films 'are advertisments for themselves'. Trailers are thus the truth of the film for which the film is the advert. Length is secondary." to which someone else followed up with "Jameson updates this, or at least repeat this, in his essay on Culture and Finance Capital, '...the inveterate viewer of these enforced coming attractions (five or six of them preceding every feature presentation and replacing the older kind of shorts) is led to make a momentous discovery: namely, that the preview is really all you need. You no longer need to see the 'full' two-hour version (unless the object... is to kill time, which it so often is).'"

all this is well and good if you are not a fan of what i guess you could call capitalist culture or popular/mass culture (ie if you are adorno!). never before... does nicely demonstrate how trailers often don't represent a film though (since the purpose of a trailer is to be an ad) in its example of the trailer for vs the film of terms of endearment (i'm working from memory here so here's hoping i remembered the right film). i suppose you could argue that regardless of whether a trailer is 'representative' of a film or not, jameson's observation about 'killing time' still stands in the sense that the film still serves as a distraction from our oppression.

i'm not sure if it's as simple as that. (this is not to say that adorno, jameson and nina's positions dont' have merit -- being aware of these aspects of 'capitalist culture' is very important!). part of an ongoing argument i have with myself is where i find myself sitauted in this sort of debate. i love love love the strange little bits of culture that capitalism throws up; i think they are the most interesting thing about culture sometimes. and i don't think they would take on these strange little forms that they do were it not for capitalism. but that does not mean i think capitalism is great and that we should all carry on with it. not at all.

but this does leave me a little unsure of myself, and how my politics fits into my view of culture. i am not for a frankfurt school view of culture, where all mass and popular culture is 'bad'. but nor am i for what is arguably a near apolitcal celebration of these aspects of culture either. there are people who advocate for an 'in between' but sometimes i find these writers the most infuriating of all -- perhaps because they are so close to my position but not quite. i guess in deleuze & guattari terms what i am interested is something which has been de- and re-territorialised but nevertheless demonstrates a flicker of something else. one of the things i find most exciting about them is the fact that this wonderful world of which they speak isn't out of reach, but is possible. that said, i have a very very very hard time imagining such a world (and perhaps the very fact that i refer to it almost 'another world' illustrates how distant and impossible it seems to me -- as opposed to believing in this one: as deleuze says "restoring our belief in the world - this is the power of modern cinema (when it stops being bad). whether we are christians or atheists ... we need reasons to believe in this world".

in discussing urban ecology with anthony (on which he has written two blog posts here and here which i really urge you to read), he said something along the lines of -- "i don't want there to not be culture. that would be horrible!". but what form does culture take outside of capitalism? what form does it take in the ideal political world? it is in many ways so hard to imagine when capitalism encapsulates nearly everything around us. there is a small little part of me that fears -- but does this mean, as d&g say, that i am desiring my own oppression? i'd like to think not. rather, i suspect that, as with many brilliant ideas, that thinking (about culture) outside of capitalism is seems so simple and yet it is so deceptively hard precisely because of the and all-encompassing nature of capitalism.

and i find that this failure of my thought -- of not going as far as it should -- doesn't apply merely in this case but in many. one of my lecturers loves to go on and on about how we must never 'close the book', that we must always remember that our knowledge is partial, and that it is really very hard to do this, to remain open all the time - and sometimes i get bored of hearing that. i know, i know. you can stop telling us already! i think. but in truth, although i do know, the moment i think that i am trying to closing the book already. and sooner or later i must open it again.

oh, and finally, paul merton's weird and wonderful world of early cinema looks rather lovely. i have yet to watch it though. i still have a post to write about older films and gender. and i still have lots of older scifi films lined up to watch that i really must delve into. recently also watched chaplin's modern times via youtube on my phone when my laptop fell ill - modern times indeed. more to say as always, but i leave you with love.

this is a te(s/x)t

2010-02-23T23:49:00.004Z

ok. i am blogging, thanks to the wonders of technology, via my phone. i know my friend scarlett does this, but i normally don't see the point as i can type much more efficiently with a keyboard. but my current situation necessitates this, and what better way to experiment? perhaps the restrictions of technology on pace will yield altogether different results, just as writing parts of my dissertation by hand, as per anthony's suggestion, did. except this time, rather than eschewing technology i am embracing it. of sorts.

(i must confess that, in addition to restrictions imposed by my phone service provider, i purposefully chose a qwerty phone which was not slick but clunky. it was in part a resistance of the ipod/mac mafia, a resistance of progression in its purest form. without a working laptop, i find it frustrating to use chat, because i can't snap back with an answer or response as i can with a computer. but, so far at least, this is going ok).

but on to business, the reason i am compelled to blog is not mrerely for the sake of the experiment, but also because i was thinking about what one could call this blog's decline or turn. i'd ask you to for being indulgent, but in some ways a blog is surely meant to be nothing but!

furthermore, in actuality, it is not the blog itself that i'm concerned with here, but rather what its 'decline' is perhaps indicative of. much as my choice of phone is indicative of something else.

[my wrists or my will is weakening. a break.]

i recently had a telephone interview with a professor at one of the american universities i applied to. it wasn't an interview, not officially, anyway (he called it a 'chat') but i can't help but feel i disappointed. i was aware, by the way my answers were directed by his questions, that i wasn't saying what he anticipated.

he told me that the dept was 'really excited about [my] candidacy' and in conversation it was apparent he really 'got' & appreciated aspects of my undergraduate dissertation that were overlooked. and this in turn has made me realise how little confidence i have had in my intellectual interests.

i have always been exceptionally poor at conceptualising those interests (perhaps for a lack of belief too?), and as a result of this am by no means decisive in my academic endeavours (although it would be fair to say i am indecisive by nature). for this (by way of potentially having made more informed decisions about which university courses i chose, etc) and various structural/institutional reasons (for example, the traditional nature of the english studies dept i studied in jointly w/american studies at undergraduate level), i have received little support for my interests - i haven't been encouraged to pursue them.

this is not at all to suggest that i believe myself to be some undiscovered genius, but rather that, until rather recently, i have not considered certain aspects of my interests (the most important aspects!) to be academic enough, to be legitimate. and the interview really helped undo that. i was on the phone to an actual academic who was not only interested in but also enthusiastic about work i had done! (in a way, i feel both tempted & obligated to thank that man for it, but i'm not sure if this is considered appropriate conduct).

but at the same time, this man's excitement made me a little scared. am i still doing similar stuff now as i was then? for the first time in my higher ed career, i'm achieving consistently high marks - is this because i'm in effect conforming to the dept i'm in now? or is it partly to do with the discipline change? (i really am engaging w/critical theory & cultural studies, although i still feel resistance to some aspects of how or what i am being taught - sometimes it doesn't sit/fit quite 'right'. that said, will i feel this way wherever i am? i am by nature very critical). also, i've developed intellectually a lot since then, and while i'm still interested in issues relating what my undergrad dissertation was about, they've also expanded and thickened (through complexity). my diss was about adaptation (ie from books to film), but taking this in some senses to an extra-textual level in relation to digital media (specifically youtube). i can see how some of my interets now overlap with & have grown out of that, but i am also more interested in these sorts of issues at a global (& postcolonial) level, and in a sense, in a more political level. and i am somewhat cautious about how that fits into the specific phd programme that that lecturer was from. i suppose what i'm saying is that in many ways i don't 'fit' into any department or discipline, and feel i never will. nevertheless, my conversation-interview helped me see that this is not entirely the case, altho i think i must be careful of placing too much emphasis on finding a place that fits completely. there may be no such place, but in a way that's ok too because often the most interesting work is that which is done at the margins.

[as a sidenote, the title here is part wordplay but also a reference to my earlier education in the form of exams. i remember at gsce being struck by the 'this is a blank page' statements in exam papers. obviously it's somewhat ironic, but serves the purpose of placating students who think they are missing a page. it's a funny sort of situation (ie, 'official') that necessitates such a statement. a variation is 'this page is left intentionally blank. intentionally blank, that is, except for the statement. i mention this because i'm purposefully going to leave in some paragraph breaks (ie when i pressed enter) in this blogpost which i had to put in in order to make my phone properly display the text box i am writing in. (that said, i suspect the wonders of blogger will render them invisible in its auto-formatting).. so here goes, i'm going to submit. i hope it doesn't get lost to the void as my phone can't do the auto-save nor do i have capabilities to copy and paste...]

2010-02-22T14:04:00.000Z

so, that project has been somewhat of a failure. patience, please. (if, indeed, anyone is waiting). i have an idea that has long been the works but has yet to articulate itself.

for now, all i want to say that my laptop screen and all its little pixels has decided to display white and nothing else. and that it is remarkable how being unable to write/type has left me in my endeavour. i can, of course, put pen to paper, but it has a different shape, a different weight. perhaps it is time to instate one of my two currenctly defunct typewriters.

(unrelated, the above image is one of the search returns for an image google search of the word 'type'. it reminds me of when i caught the tail end of the printer's row lit fest in chicago. there were peeople selling huge metal type, but there weren't enough 'good' letters left. i think i also picked up an assortment of random books, most of which i left with my gracious host, but i kept a pretty looking reader's digest with the prospect of making another hollowed book in mind:

confession progression

2010-02-11T14:11:00.002Z

in a bid to be proactive, i have been going to various extracurricular events, the most recent of which (on this fine and sunny morning which is no longer morning as it is 1342) was a workshop on 'how to start writing and stay writing'. it was quite useful, although i also realise that the principles underlying the variety of tips and tricks that were covered are things that i do (or did) through this blog. (principles which are in part informed by the above pictured book which i read parts of in the summer of 2008 in preparation for a creative writing module i ultimately didn't take. as the title/cover may suggest, is a little self-helpy in tone, but i did find it helpful).

this is, by and large, an electronic notebook in which i practice some form of free writing. the bonus and burden of having it public and publicised (by which i mean i link to it all over the shop) is that having an audience validates the project and process, gives it a little purpose, but it also makes me incredibly conscious of what i say (and particularly when i'm talking about 'sensitive' subjects which are nuanced and i don't want to come across as careless with and in my words and thoughts).

writing things down is extraordinarily helpful for me in terms of thinking through things, but it is rare that i do this. in fact, an exercise in the workshop helped me refine a little an essay idea that has been knocking about in my head. so i should do it more often, and suspect i don't out of a form of fear (that committing words to paper seems to grand for the little letters that make up the thoguth things that patter and scatter in and around mymind). i don't like to write things down until i feel a little more sure of them, and perhaps i need to get out of that habit - because in writing i usually become more sure.

anyway, all this is a long-winded way of saying i hope to blog more often. perhpas once or twice a week? as an exercise of sorts. i have to say this out loud (+ retrospecitve speechmarks for this being the written word/the internet) so that i feel like someone (hello big Other) is holding me to it. the formative foetus thoughts might not gestate here, however, being too fragile, but i hope to find a place for them too.

repetition.

2010-01-31T00:13:00.001Z

"These are the top six most commonly seen chicken boxes in East London. I wanted to capture them because they are like history for me. To me they represent a piece of London in this decade."... Joe Holbrook

(via wooster)

(firstly, for those not familiar with such a sight, in the UK, the main places to go for post-pub (ie post-drinking) food is a kebab/chicken shop (pretty much one in the same thing in that they sell a variation of the same menu, the only difference being in how they choose to market themselves) and fried chicken is served in the above boxes.)

so, is it art? for bourdieu, culture is 'classifying' in that it creates and reinforces social hierarchies. the above image is part of a wider exhibition (for more info, follow the wooster collecitve link). the culture of higher classes is also what he refers to 'legitimate' culture, and what we might consider 'high' culture - that is, the culture of museums. this culture is considered as legitimate, in contrast to TV soaps, say. there is a hierarchy to culture which i think we can all recognise.

legitimate culture generally requires a specific knowledge in order to understand or access. i'm sure something i've read before used the example of the fact that say a farmer in a pre-victorian era would see a horse in a painting, whereas an upper class gentleman would see in the very same painting stylistic genius, a work of art, without much regard for the fact that the subject of the painting is a horse - it could very well be something different. this is because the 'gentleman' would have an understanding of the art of painting. this is a very crude recapitualtion of that example, but i hope it illustrates a little of what i am trying to get at.

the importance of bourdieu's thesis is that this specific knowledge is not something that is natural and innate, but rather something that is learned and acquired. nevertheless, legitimate culture presents itself as 'natural' (bourdieu uses the phrase 'charismatic'). we speak of people who have 'taste' and 'grace' as if these are characteristics that they were born with, but in fact . this affectation towards being 'natural' serves to reinforce 'legimtiate' culture's legitmacy - it is the true culture because it is the natural one. (but, rather importantly, this natural culturei s only available to specific people...)'

one might think that the type of contemporary / pop art that the image above evokes is lessi nvolved in and less subject to the this aspect of classifying aspect of culture. but it is in fact equally at work here: for someone who works in a kebab chicken shop, it might just be an image of different cardboard boxes into which chicken . for the an art student, however (and for the artist himself, i think?) it is, to use an oft-repeated phrase, a comment on our times and society. the difference here is mainly one of

for me, the above image is 'art' in as much as it portrays itself as such in the style of the image. i have to say that it prompted this post in the first place because i myself have wondered about those boxes (i am not a frequent patron of such shops, but i have noticed that every time i do order chicken in nottingham, it is served in the same box - the one on the bottom right - and i have drunkenly wondered if there's some sort of special chicken box supplier that these kebab shops get them from). it appeals to me in that it classifies in that it is cataloguing, almost. but i don't know whether that is problematic or not.

i think bourdieu has incredibly relevance to understanding not only how class and culture intersect, but how truly powerful culture is, and how it intersects with many different types of power structures. it is, however, sometimes rather difficult to be confronted with precisely how one's tastes fit within bourdieu's schema. i love certain aspects of 'high' culture, but i love equally certain aspects of 'popular' culture too. i guess the question is, do i love them differently? do i love 'popular' culture in a way which is similar to 'high' culture? i think i do to some extent. and is this bad? how can i tell?

another difficulty i have with bourdieu, love him though i do, is that - in as much as i have read and been taught - i am not sure where to go with him. in some senses, to truly recognise the extent to which culture, and one's 'tastes' etc, are the result of learning, can be a revolutionary thing; and if it happened at a society-wide level, i think society itself would have to take on a very different shape. but on the other hand, i'm not sure if sometimes i am not sure what to do with my realisation and recognition that culture is in a sense created. when someone brought this up in class ('so what is bourdieu saying we should do?') my lecturer - for some reason i still refer to the academic staff as lectuerers, even though they technically do not lecture is but rather lead seminars - responded that bourdieu is asking us to recognise how lucky we are. but i'm not sure if that really goes far enough for me. after this recognition, how then am i meant to negotiate culture? i don't know. perhaps i really am underestimating the importance of truly taking on what bourdieu says, and the simple power of and of being open to that sort of constant evaluation and not being fixed in my approach to culture.

my friends and their compatriates at aufs have been posting about books which have been influential to their

academic development. i am not going to try to replicate them, but it did bring to mind the above book, ways of seeing by john berger. i have mentioned it here before, many times, i think. the book was originally based on a series of documentaries which, should provided the internet gods are smiling upon us, you should be able to watch here.

berger, drawing on walter benjamin's famous essay, also talks how modern means of experiencing art affects our experience of them, how we see, that is, our ways of seeing. it was beyond thrilling for me to discover that someone was thinking and writing seriously about that sort of thing, and this approach is still hugely important to me today. in addition, as i have previously mentioned, one of the essays in this book was also what got me to think about gender seriously. a male friend of mine mentioned that he didn't really 'get' the ubiquity of the concept of the gaze - and i do admit that it is sometimes used inappropriately and excessively by some - it really brought home to me the way in which i experience(d) my body as female in the sense that it was perceived through :

a woman must continually watch herself. she is almsot continaully accompanied by her own image of herself. whilst she is walking across a room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping

i can't speak for others, but there was very much a sense in which this was felt true for me, particularly as the teenages girl i was when i first read this book.

perhaps particularly relevant to bourdieu is an essay in which berger explores our attitudes to the art museums, and how they are perceived as sacred places, churches. in particular there is the following page (this comes up in relation to the essay on the reproduction of art):

(click for larger)

searching: the [meta] joys of google.

2010-01-20T15:04:00.009Z

i must confess that although there is no tracker button on this blog, i am watching you all, dear readers. the post that follows is rather self-indulgent and maybe even juvenile. i allow blogger to make me searchable, and one of the silly and simple pleasures i get from blogging is finding out how people come across mine. some are simply searches for people/articles/artefacts i have mentioned, and some are searches that i myself made (lazily looking for a specific blog post i made but can't remember which one it is) & then, there are the more curious ones.

firstly, there are the search terms that make me a little happy, because people are searching for things which i too am interested in, and it is comforting to know that other people think they are of interest too (like woolf's [essay "america which i have never seen"] - hurrah! it seems to be obscure and have little internet presence the last i looked). this category encompasses those who search for people/articles/artefacts that i have mentioned, but also search terms like ["british museums" "american museums"] and ["female wiggers"] are interesting. another notable one is [vagina dentata +mrs dalloway]. i'm not sure exactly what in the text promopted said searcher to google such a thing.

mention of vagina dentata accounts for a fair amount of google searches that people make that lead them to my blog. and, on a related note, there is what i didn't forsee in naming my blog 'playing pretend', and in talking about the sorts of things i talk about, would result in. there are - what i imagine to be, although this is of course somewhat of a stereotype - lots of (pre)pubsecent people looking for porn, with search terms like ["women playing with there vagina"], and specifically porn relating to periods and pee.(hm. i hope this post doesn't lead to more such visitors. if so, hello! i'm sorry there is no porn here. sexuality is not a shameful thing, although lots of porn is rather misogynist.)

i am not listing these potential pornography pirates (i like alliteration and they're searching for porn, ok?) to shame them but it is really demonstrates to how little sex, sexuality and even the female body is discussed, and kept under wraps and therefore promotes all sorts of myths. and that makes me a little sad. (i have had people come here asking [when do women pretend they are on their period] and [why do women pretend that their periods are painful?]. for the record, i've never pretended to have my period when i don't, and it is painful sometimes.)

there are also the ones that make me wonder. why, for example, would someone search for [playing pretend instructions]? i do get a few visitors searching 'playing pretend' along with something sexual, so i suppose that's a possiblity, but i prefer to think of some soul out there who naively believes that playing pretend needs instructions. when i was little, i was worried i didn't have an imagination. my younger sister clearly had this same worry, as she once declared her conviction that she didn't have an imagination - and then preceded to tell us a marvellous story about how she thought of humans as puppets controlled by god.

i also rather like that [film couple pretend don't know each other] brought someone here, although i can't say why, nor can i name such a film (though it does also happen in season 3 of mad men). but my favourite favourite search term to speculate about (and to romanticise), however is [regretful caretaking]. it makes me rather sad, but why would someone search for this? answers on a postcard please, or even a comment.*

all this, of course, reminds me of a game i used to play when i was younger. i would explore the internet, using google images, with a (sometimes sentimental) search term, and sometimes it brought up such lovely gems:

another fun (and stalkery) game to play is to search for the photo file names that a camera automatically assigns digital photos, such as P1010160.jpg:

singaporean kids playing guitar!

and, how can i not end this post without at least alluding to the following:

if google left china via pri

the great firewall of china via strangemaps

*click 'read more' for the full list if you are bored and/or curious. ps, i'm not sure why someone searched for ["reading a book" sarargh]? of course i read books!

sarah expletive
jane austen zombie sarargh
site:sarargh.blogspot.com own
"sarah fok"
financial stream sarargh
david lachapelle
period girl
sarargh angry white "shades of grey"
"american pie" typography
"hyperbolic coral crochet" ireland
"teeth" dentata
"what the movies told us" arnold
david la chapelle
lachapelle
playing pretend sarah
sarah fok
travels in hyperreality
travels in hyperreality notes
woman raped film
"angry white black boy" analysis
"british museums" "american museums"
"female wiggers"
"i was in love with the place in my mind"
"i was in love with the place"
"i'm concerned that we're sitting here like i'm a responsible adult. i'm pretty sure i stopped growing up in my teens and have been faking ever since."
"i'm concerned that we're sitting here like i'm a responsible adult. i'm pretty sure i stopped growing up in my teens and have been faking it ever since"
"in love with the place in my mind"
"lonely cowboy" semen lasso
"playing pretend" meaning
"pretty sure i stopped growing up in my teens"
"reading a book" sarargh
"the tension was palpable" sexuality girl blogspot
"this american life" dinosaurs actuality
"thomas leitch"
"thomas leitch" "adaptation, the genre" article
"tom and brody are so comedy"
"tom and brody" comedy
'm concerned that we are sitting here like i'm a responsible adult. i'm pretty sure i stopped growing up in my teens and have been faking ever since
art controversy
beauty in its form
broderick chow personal website
camera obscure - french navy
celebration of womanhood history- wikipedia
cleavage
edward said + foucault + other + derrida + subject
elephant gus van sant chinise proverb
essay "america which i have never seen"
example of pretend plays with traditional sex role
example of pretend plays with traditional sex role
exxxtremely romantic comedy
faces covered in white prentend to be in a box
film couple pretend don't know each other
film pissing
french new wave posters typography
french new wave typography
gabriele silten timeline
gerald swatez+conventions:the land around us
heidi laure, lars von trier
hillary kolos
hyperreality dinosaurs
i was in love with a place in my mind
i was in love with the place in my mind
i was in love with the place in my mind, in my mind
in a dolls house how was nora's reactions? was is right?
interant workers in ireland
japan: a story of love and hate
jonathan grey paratext
lauren slater striptease
lesbian/princess/unware
lichtenstein's portrayal of women
linda hutcehon "adaptation"
link:weloveyouso.com
micachu
michael brooke nationalist nottingham
movies pissing
multiated.com
on being a good stream: postmodern fables of financialisation
paraphernalia sarargh
pissin girl in men
pissing women in periods films
playing pretend and talking to yourself
playing pretend at older ages
playing pretend heros
playing pretend instructions
playing pretend/youtube
portrayal of women in horror films
poster ideas for women and their bodies
pretend conversations
pretend models teens
pretend notes
pretend rape on film
pretend spaghetti bolognese
pretending to be two different posters
quote and our faces, my heart, brief as photos
reading about train journey esl
regretful caretaking
richard rodriguez
roy lichtenstein's portrayal of women
sally estcourt
sara expletive
saraargh.blogspot
sarajgh.blogspot.com
sarargh passivity
sarargh.blogspot.com
shesex
so we re alone again
taimina
teeth dentata
teeth dentata employee
teeth dentata uncomfortable
the lonely cowboy
the theme of hyperreality in contemporary art
timeline of the train
timeline on a train
train timeline
travels in hyperreality
umberto eco travels in hyperreality book notes
umberto eco travels in hyperreality summary
vagina dentata +mrs dalloway
what is a prolific procrastinator
what is vagina dentata
what was pip's pretended experiences
when do women pretend they are on their period
why do women pretend that their periods are painful?
woman playful with avgina video
women and their bodies film
women playing with there vigina
women showing and playing with their, period
www.whom/vagina
blarg sarargh
site:sarargh.blogspot.com "a theory of adaptation"

i want to cross oceans

2010-01-19T20:03:00.003Z

i don't have much to say lately, but in researching for a (now thankfully written essay) on the hong kong store G.O.D. (and kitsch, class & culture(s) via bourdieu), i came across a blog called learning cantonese. i've only just started reading it properly, but might i suggest that any one curious about such things start with the most recent blog here. it is a write-up for a protest (ostensibly about a high-speed rail service that's to be built between hong kong and 'mainland' china, but i think there are more implicit issues at hand too. a nice little discussion of the use of 'new media' in protests too. ("post-80s" refers to people born in the 1980s and thus were relatively young at the time of the 1997 handover. i'm not sure how easy the post is to understand since it transliterates some cantonese phrases, but by all means ask if you are confused and i'll try and help out).

ruins & refinement

2010-01-03T12:22:00.011Z

over the holidays, my sister asked me if i felt like my course was ruining my enjoyment of everyday life in the sense that it pervaded everything, made me overthink things. i answered in the negative, although conceded that it's true that it is rare that in my daily life some aspect of my course won't come up in my thoughts. but it is not ruining my life, far from it, it is enriching and even helping me understand things that i find very difficult to make sense of. my 'real' life is not separate from what i learn as part of my MA, and it is for precisely that reason that i am motivated to pursue it.

when i answered her question, i had in mind a specific example. even before i left for hong kong, i was preparing for the cultural shifts in what i was packing. i purposefully selected items of clothing from my wardrobe that i knew would be more acceptable there, and i purposefully left behind clothes that i knew would be considered too revealing or too scruffy and untidy (somehow kids in hk manage to pull of 'messy' in a very 'clean' looking way). dress is but one example of the multitude of ways cultural differences are manifest. and for a tourist, or someone visiting a foreign place, these cultural differences are clearly apparent. for me, however, what is particularly difficult about feeling at sea, out of synch, is that hong kong is meant to be (one of) my home(s), and yet i don't know how to navigate it, or it takes time for me to become re-accustomed to life there, and how things work. this feeling is furthered by the fact that i do not appear foreign, and look like i should not know what to do.

that said, it must be noted, that generally people can tell that i am 'westernised', that i have been to school abroad - be it from my accent, my dress or how i carry myself. because although culture is learned (as evidenced by the fact that when you go abroad you notice all those tiny little differences), it is also formed into habit. and it is partly through this habit that we are able to pretend that culture is natural, rather than naturalised*. although culture is learned and taught, the mechanisms by which this occur are hidden, and the very fact that culture is not natural is glossed over too.

it's important to understand this, i think, in order to understand the importance of culture and the analysis of it. the implications of this are really very far reaching, but something i am still thinking through (today, with the help of bourdieu - who speaks of how "taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier"). and on that note, i really must leave this discussion for later and return to him:

But, more broadly, this sense of distance, even strangeness, which scientific objectification itself produces and which is intensified by the differences in historical traditions, giving different contents to different realizations of the same structures, must not prevent the reader from reflecting on his own society, onto his own position within it, in short, onto himself, the analysis he is offered.
- 'Preface to the English-Language Edition' of Bourdieu's Distinction

*and i am thinking here specfically of the use of this word in relation to citizenship.

aside: new year, new post (that's the button i click to get to the page to write this!). i am not going to promise to be more prolific, but i must say that, as with adam, i suspect my blogging capabilities may have been somewhat sapped by twitter. it provides an immediate outlet for obscure thoughts, albeit in those infamous 140 characters, and in that sense, doesn't give time for thoughts to germinate and grow, doesn't give them time to brew. with all that said, though, a quick scan over my twitter feed mostly highlights some pretty inane stuff. but then again, it is from inanity that interesting emerge.

words of wisdom

2009-12-19T10:46:00.004Z

i was once told to think of the application process as a test of your desire to do something, a measure of whether you yourself were ready enough to take that thing on. i think this is a helpful way to think about applications, especially for someone like for whom anything that requires a combination of extolling their own virtues and discussing their future brings on a minor existential crisis. nevertheless, many a crises i did have, but perhaps it's for the better that the most extensive application i had to complete was also the first. i am over 500 USD poorer, so here's hoping it comes to something. and if it doesn't, you live and learn, i suppose. and talk in cliches.

i was also told of a walter benjamin quote: "the work is the death mask of its conception". i think this too is a useful way mind-experiment, to think of one's writing, or rather, a written piece of work, as a deathmask. i suppose that in many ways this is true if one thinks of a work's 'conception' as more than there mere moment, but the process of conception. speaking which, in the past (whilst writing an essay relating to feminism and repoduction), i have thought of my essays as something i had 'birthed'. but maybe that's cos i'm a little mad. certainly, though, that sort of idea counters that of the death mask metaphor to the extreme - if you think of it in those terms, the writing process seems to focus very much on that outcome, that death, which is rather macarbe. that said, i think a 'death mask' pretty aptly sums up how i feel about an essay when the day or two after i've completed, i'm about to hand it in, and it feels like a corpse. what i mean, essentially, by all this back-and-forthing is that benjamin is right in a sense that the written word is the 'deathmask', but it in understanding what he's saying, we shouldn't take it to mean that process itself isn't vital in a sense.

all this rambling is to say that i need to write. i have more to say about hong kong, but now is not the time to say it.

the dotted line.

2009-11-25T11:24:00.006Z

(by the way, in my search for the above image, i came across a collection of 'writers autographs' here)

we have been discussing derrida this week and last, and to help explain the concept of play (i think!), our tutor referred to the signature. this reminded of my first encounter with derrida in signature, event, context, which he ends with his own signature. simply speaking, derrida discusses the signature as both original (in that it is unique to a person) and repeatable (a person signs their signature much more than once in a lifetime):

"By definition, a written signature implies the actual or empirical nonpresence of the signer. But, it will be said, it also marks and retains his having-been present in a past now, which will remain a future now, and therefore in a now, in general, in the transcendental form of nowness (maintenance). This general maintenance is somehow inscribed, stapled to the present punctuality, always evident and always singular, in the form of the signature. This is the enigmatic originality of every paraph. For the attachment to the source to occur, the absolute singularity of an event of the signature and of a form of the signature must be retained: the pure reproducibility of a pure event." (Jacques Derrida, "Signature Event Context" in Margins of Philosophy, tr. Alan Bass, pp. 307-330)

(the above quote was lifted from a page regarding the banning of a piece of performative art, inspired by derrida's essay, which was banned - presumably its connection to the holocaust memorial).

signatures always seemed to a mystifying 'grown up' thing to me as a child, and i do think the moment in which you need one marks some sort of entrance into a specific symbolic world. i've always felt a bit of a fraud because i can never get my similar to look the same (although never to the point where someone has thought that i was ).

but in the UK, we pay for things by PIN numbers, and technology arguably is making the signature obsolete. i had an interesting experience earlier in the week with regards to this: i am in the midst of US university applications & for most forms (as with many things online), i was required to 'tick' a box to indicate my agreement, but for one particular application, there was a box with a statement, and then underneath a section stating 'signature of applicant' and a blank box in which one could type. at first, i was perplexed. what did they expect me to do? how was i to sign? did they want me to type my name?! after a few moments of hesitation, i tentatively typed my name:

Sarah Fok

coagulation

2009-11-15T16:39:00.005Z

friends, there is something about the title of the following documentary that is very 'radio 4' (and also the type of word play i find myself engaging in but which i nonetheless makes me cringe a little when i hear it on the radio). radio 4 is a little hit and miss for me (i used to listen to it frequently and first thing in the morning, but these days it annoys me), but do listen to selling cheese to the chinese.

i often avoid documentaries about china - often they feel a little too much as if they're trying to be 'on trend' and 'hip' by talking about the 'right' thing, but the very specific focus of this documentary appealed to me, especially in the context of thinking about table manners and eating habits as i have blogged about previously. i am also interested in the concept of what i suppose you could call a cultural colonialism (made possible by capitalism and globalisation), which the documentary's title hints at. rather more importantly, howevever, the piece itself also nuances this. the references to the cultural revolution and the impact on cultural inheritance is also quite interesting; it makes me feel a little less alone in what i feel to be my pseudo-rootlessness.

and then i suppose this leads me to personal element in my interest too, along with all the issues of cultural identity at play. because of the nature of my upbringing and because cultural practices are naturalised (so that we don't realise their status as such until something challenge this), i have always noticed the 'differences' between myself and others. in hong kong, i feel and am told that i much more westernised than is the standard. and over time, i have come to realise there here also, my experiences and cultural reference points are not the same. it is only in the past year or so (in conversation with my then-housemate) that i realised that my experience of cheese was 'unusual' compared to the average british person. as a child, my family only ever ate the american cheese slices (which my mum liked melted on toast) and laughing cow cream cheese* (which i often had on white bread). at one point in my childhood, i always used to order spaghetti bolognese when we ate out; in retrospect i suspect this has much to do with the powdered parmesan that came with the meal.

*her 'earrings' always bemused to me.

role reversal

2009-11-11T20:39:00.003Z

d'arcy thompson's transformations
(it came up in a lecture on levi-strauss -- i think in discussion of mythologiques and the transformation of the myth being akin to evolution. namely, in that the structure remains the same but the relations within it change. i rather like the diagram, and it made me think a little about last year when i did work relating to adaptation in a non-scientific but hopefully holistic sense)
so, post-reading week and post-personal life madness (of the good yet busy-making variety), i have returned to being taught. i am coming to realise that my feelings towards my two main modules have swapped round:--

i am slowly coming to grips with 'subject and sign', although this may be in part because our most recent discussion has centred on application to film, making it much more accessible to persons such as myself who just don't think as well with the theory alone (if there is indeed such a thing). perhaps it is also because i have got more of the course under my belt. hopefully a little of the latter.

conversely, with 'material cultures', i'm coming to realise that despite its surface-level simplicity, i am not delving as deeply as i ought to. the difficulty with a course like this is that it interrogates everyday practices, which are quite difficult to separate one's self from. and, as i've mentioned before, it's quite easy for me to fall into the trap of assuming that i know what is being discussed, and assimilating the information, without really critically considering my own behaviour. to that end, i'm considering embarking on a little experiment. my tutor for this course keeps on suggesting we keep various journals - a 'boredom' journal for a week detailing what how we deal with boredom, for example. i'm wondering if it would be worthwhile to do something like this via twitter; make it a little more interesting (and potentially even have people participate? unlikely but a nice idea).

i'm slowly formulating essay topics for both, although i'm nowhere near set in my decision (as if i ever am!). once i get into the further reading, things will take shape, but i have a time-consuming tendency to want to read everything and then realising i can't before i even get to the maybe-i'll-start-writing stage. it seems everything i do i do slowly, and yet i feel frantic. such is masters life, i suppose.

on the digitisation of our age, i have recently had two interesting experiences - both took place on the same day, and both relating to authority -- the authority of the material, but also authority's use of material (or lack thereof):

i sat the GRE last friday. exams in and of themselves are rather nervewracking experiences, but because this was computerised, the process leading up to it was very daunting. you register once you arrive, rewriting by hand (perhaps the most material process involved here!) a statement saying you won't disclose the contents of the test to anyone else, and then are told to sit in a rather faceless room, not knowing where you're going to be led to next. i understand that these people this everyday, but a little guidance wouldn't have gone amiss to aid the ease of the examination process. you take the exam by computer in a cubicle, so that you can't see others who are in the midst of test-taking - the benefit of the computer test being that people can start the exam at different times, cancelling out the need for an invigilator who gives preliminary instructions, telling you what you can and cannot do. instead, it's all there before you in the screen. this obviously reduces the human element involved significantly, and the human interaction you do have, as i have recounted, is very impersonal. all this adds to the intimidation of the exam set-up, and the impersonality of taking the test on a computer.

and at the end of the exam, you can designate four institutions you wish to send your scores to, and one (or at least i) can't help having the feeling that this method feels somewhat unreliable. thoughts like did i pick the right school? there were 3 listings for the same university ran through my mind afterwards, because this set-up was unfamiliar to me and there was no human face to guide me, merely the suspect technology itself. in other words, i couldn't help but want some sort of piece of paper at the end of it, to confirm my choices, or even to have specified these choices by writing them out in a form. somehow to do so would've made the process seem more reliable.

common sense dictates that i should've asked an invigilator to confirm that i did what i was meant to do correctly, but the atmosphere intimidated me into not doing so. i wonder (to again draw upon and possibly mis-appropriate the idea for which he is most well-known) what foucault would have made of the whole thing -- the exam room i was in was one of two, and the exam invigilator's room (with its windows looking into each exam room) was between them. it reminded me very much of the watchman's tower. and, where i sat, if i looked up, i could see a surveillance camera (since the window of the 'watchtower' only allows the invigilators to see if an examinee has raised their hand or left their cubicle, the camera allows them to see what the examinees are doing at said cubicles). but the more typical type of camera - it was the kind which is obscured by a one-way mirror, in the shape of a section of a sphere. and because of its reflective qualities, when i looked at (and into) the camera, all i could see what the the camera would see: myself.

the other example relates to the police. after my test, i met with a friend, and unfortunately, an incident occurred that necessitated a visit to the local police station, so that we could report a crime. when we arrived, there were several other people waiting sat on the benches opposite the area where you could speak to the police officer, which separated from the waiting area by a glass door, so we could see the proceedings going on inside, and they could see us. affixed to the glass door was a sign which instructed us to take a seat and wait to be called forward. we did so. interestingly, the 'queue' to see the policeman at the desk was only determined by decorum -- no . but then this is britain, and queuing decorum reigns supreme. (i wonder if there has any work been done on this too!). or perhaps they were relying ultimately on the policeman's authority - we were to wait to be called forward (although in reality the man at the desk let decorum take its course - in fact, one city-type/businessman let younger dude go first, since he knew that he was going to be a while, but the dude wasn't going to be long). as i sat, reading the various signs, i realised that we could report our crime to the what is referred to as the 'police information point' (or PIP as it will hereafter be known. ah, great expectations... it's actually rather fitting - and possibly even intentional? - that it abbreviates into a name of sorts, given that its innocuous name and appearance is intended to create an aura of approachableness. this was made apparent to me by my friend astute observation that it was 'calling for attention' or some similar personification). in addition to theft (which was what we were there to report), posters helpfully also informed us that we could amongst other things, we could also report hate crimes to PIP (or, alternatively, online). now, i don't know about you, but there seems something a little bit wrong about such an impersonal method of crime-reporting given the personal nature of the crime.

now, i understand the logic of 'efficiency' that underlies this self-reporting of crimes, and in the case of a hate crime, a victim or witness may even find the anonymity of the internet to be a benefit. nevertheless, there is another issue involved here - the authority of the material (and also the 'personal', as opposed to the digital). we opted to go to a police station (despite being aware of the internet reporting option) because it somehow seemed more valid, more authoritative than sending the details of a crime through broadband cables.

anyway, my friend initially refrained from using PIP but i was both bemused and curious as to how reporting a crime to it worked, and so i started the process to see what PIP would ask a person to do. the queue was long, however, and so suzanne opted to try PIP out. i assured her that we would probably be given some sort of confirmation slip - serving as an authorative material object, since PIP seemed to have a slot from where we could collect such a slip from. after the tedious process of reporting the crime to PIP, the option to print off the reference number came up. we instructed PIP to print accordingly and, ultimately (perhaps aptly for the purposes of my story), everything but the relevant information was printed off. by this point, the businessman was speaking to the policeman (notably i overheard him saying he lost not his phone but his iphone -- more on such distinctions later, maybe) and no one else was waiting, so we figured we might as well get him to double-check that it's gone through. the rest of suzanne's saga is irrelevant in this context, but the fact is that we do not always trust technology, being aware of its flaws. and so we place belief in what we do know - the material. (and people too, i suppose).

and, for me, in many ways, it is difficult to imagine a world in which this distrust doesn't exist. it is difficult to imagine a world where the material is largely irrelevant. but as technology perfects itself, and as people become more accustomed to using it in ways that currently seem foreign, and even threatening, to us, the world as we know it probably won't exist. and in its place will be one which people may now describe as a world where the machines have 'taken over' (this loss of autonomy/control to technology obviously being a source of anxiety not only of our times, but of many of those before us). and yet, as n katherine hayles noted in the conclusion of a talk she recently gave at nottingham, we're already at this point where the machines have taken over. our phones, computers, the internet -- they all have mechanics we don't understand, do things which we don't understand and unbeknownst to us, which nevertheless affect us. all that we experience is what it presents to us, and this is why the concept of technological 'functionality' exists at all - it refers to the effectiveness of a machine in allowing us, as humans, to use it.

oh, an aside: the above image was one of the many posters i inspected whilst waiting to see a police officer. i first encountered one of these set in a similar setting - at night, at a bus stop, so the entire ad was lit up. it was rather intimidating and disturbing, partly for reasons succinctly summed up here,

You may have seen the slogan “Keep Calm And Carry On” on posters and t-shirts recently. It’s a poster design from the archives of World War II, when invasion of these islands was expected. It’s now the direct inspiration for this new police campaign. The original has grown in popularity because it’s a quaint relic of a bygone era which has seen its message of stoic British resolve reapplied now. It’s all very tongue in cheek. By using this format, the Home Office may be seeking to be trendy – but they just end up co-opting aspects of what the message meant then and means now. The original was simply a propaganda poster. Draw your own conclusion from that.

on practicing (and perfection?)

2009-10-16T16:03:00.004+01:00

at the bottom of the sidebar is my blogger profile, in which i state that i am a messy eater. and i am. an ex once pointed out that although i know many of the rules and conventions of table manners, i simply choose to ignore them. to a large extent, this is true. who needs to look delicate when food tastes good?

this conception of myself, however, has recently been challenged by the latest week of seminars in 'material cultures and everyday life'. this week, we discussed cultural practices relating to food. one of the required readings was the section on table manners in norbert elias' the civilizing process. and at first, i began the reading thinking of myself as almost above/detached from this world - ah, look at those thirteen-century people of the court and their aversion to the bestial and animal in relation to food! (bad manners are likened to the actions of slovenly pigs, for example). of course, however, i am part of this continuum which develops from this into things as they are today. and when i consider my attitudes more carefully (thinking specifically of how an acquaintance's eating habits used to bother me, for example), i realise that i am as much a part of this tradition -- as my lecturer noted, she finds the thirteenth-century source material amusing sometimes, and the only reason this is so is that we have all naturalised such views. this is a point that elias himself makes, but it is easy to dismiss one's self as being 'detached' from this if one does not consider things fully. it is easy mistake to make perhaps, but this is does not excuse the fact that it is in a sense bad practice.

in this particular case, my position is complicated by my background. the book discusses how when eating meat, we tend to try and distance the meat on the plate from the idea of the animal, form the idea that it came from an animal. having grown up in hong kong, where the heads of animals are served with the dish in order to prove 'freshness', and having witnessed visiting british friends' aversion to this (and the fact that in the cuisine in which i was brought up, eating off the bone and spitting the bone out), i felt myself as separate from certain anxieties relating this. but in the civilizing process, in a section knives and knife-use, elias notes that in chinese culture, the knife (which is integral in this process of literally deconstructing the animal into the cut of meat we eat) is never present at the table. the act of cutting up is absent from the table; it is confined solely to the kitchen. perhaps then, these anxieties are manifest in different ways, despite the fact that there are some anxieties in common.

i realise too that my thinking of myself as 'above' this has to do with my evaluation of my omnivorism. there is an interesting discourse surrounding the justification of eating meat relating to hypocrisy. in other words, 'it is ok that i eat meat because i can bare the fact that this meat comes from animals - i can accept it'. but truthfully, i can't say if i would be able to kill an animal to eat (although i think i would be ok with the preparation of it) - i don't think i will ever know unless i actually try - and my line of thought as i explained above is in some related to this discourse of meat-eating hypocrisy. (as a side note, i would like to read the sexual politics of meat. there is so much to read though! i am barely managing my required reading, let alone anything extra. hopefully reading week and the holidays will give me time enough to catch up -- otherwise this blog is in danger of becoming merely a collection of books i intend to pursue!)

on a different note, there is an interesting facet of the notion of the naturalisation of certain modes of behaviour relating to class. in elias' analysis, manners 'spread' throughout a society because upper classes adopted htem first, and lower classes sought to emulate them (which in turn made the upper classes complicate - or even reverse - existing definitons of what was acceptable and encouraged). but these manners, because they are supposedly 'natural', are never spoken of -- they are simply something you are supposed to know. and thus those who do, have social 'grace'; they are thought of positively by society, and those who do not, are not. i wonder to what extent this can be applied to other aspects of our social lives, and what this says. there are certainly people we all know who are socially 'graceful', who are easily likeable -- what does this say about them? i find this more difficult to think about and wrap my head around, perhaps because this thinking is more 'engrained' within me, and as someone who grew up shy and awkward, i was (told to be) envious of those who were not.

&
another perhaps related mistake i have beeen making in my approach to my studies is relating ot mastery. despite being warned against this urge i do have within me the impulse to 'master' things, as i think i have highlighted before. and this is precisely almost the exact opposite of what my course is about and also opposed to what i myself think. in a sense, this conflict within me is what motivates me. and i think this conflict is what motivates a lot of academic work, or at least, that's how it seems to me. to give another example, much of what i have written in the past relates to concepts of 'high' and 'mass/popular' culture (the implication of the word high, however, being that the other is 'low'). i think there is great value to be had in the popular culture, which is also derided. and yet i can also be quite snobbish in my tastes. how can i reconcile the two?

anyway, mastery. it is partly why i have included "(and perfection?)" in this blog title's post, because i suppose a mastery of knowledge implies a perfection of a person's knowledge. what in part appeals to me about this course is it is a way into key thinkers of whom i have heard so much about, but about whom i know so little. in particular, the tradition of critique lecture series is useful in that it gives an introduction to many of them. and in a sense, my desire to know. and in learning about figures such as marx and freud, i have been able to get to grips a little better as to what they were actually about (as opposed to what they are about in other people's interpretations and in the popular imagination). but i still don't feel like i understand or know much about them. in this respect, lacan has been rather helpful, although (or perhaps because?) i don't feel i understand him beyond this vague sense or shape in my mind. in seminar XX, he begins his lecture on 'God and the ~~Woman~~'s jouissance', he says to his audience,

reading in no way obliges you to understand. You have to read first.

this was of some comfort to me, but unfortunately i only came across it after struggling with all the other lacan required readings!

of some comfort too, was freud. but his work was also equal amounts of despair - reading his work on melancholy made me rather sad. i suppose because a lot of what is said rings true, and yet there seems to be no way around that. i seem to have been very much affected by what i've read lately, sometimes in adverse, unintentional or surprising ways. the class we spent discussing table manners led me to be even more 'conventional' in my manners, as my disproportionate squeamish about hair in a slice of cake illustrated. the discussion of 'a dialectical relationship between the desire for an ever-present intimate or personal connectivity and the impoverishment of the social and geographical environment in which it occurs' in the little i read of michael bull's sound moves: ipod culture and urban experience only made me more away of how my own practices recreate this dialectic, and in turn only made me feel a little lonely. it also made me wonder whether this dialectic has even determined the nature of my romantic relationships to some extent. and so on that note, i shall leave you with this:

disclaimer: much/most of this was written weeks ago, but i never got around to posting. so whilst it still applies, it isn't as explicitly on my mind. i have more to say about life of late, but perhaps that those thoughts too need time to stew, digest, and germinate.

the first of many: time to face the theory

2009-10-01T19:47:00.003+01:00

i the photo on the left as featuring of the trent building clock tower (which you can also see in the photo below), but i am unsure as to account for the other buildings. i suspect if it is indeed the clock tower, that i did not expose the film twice, but multiple times, and in addition to nottingham, these photos may also feature cheltenham and london.
so, here we are. i am a week (in as much as i have had my week's lectures/classes by wednesday) into my course. i would be lying if i did not say that i am more than a little overwhelmed by all the reading i have to / would like to do for this course. i am determined to make as much of it as i can, having finally come (perhaps too late?) to an academic epiphany of sorts towards the end of my final year.

this semester i am taking modules entitled "material cultures and every day life" and "subject and sign after freud and saussure", but as part of my MA am also required to attend a lecture series 'tradition of critique'.

'material cultures' looks set to be exactly the sort of thing i am interested in doing. we have been encouraged to keep a journal/blog of sorts in an attempt to document are daily experience and interactions with material cultures and every day life. on this subject i don't have much to say today, but i think following what i have mentioned previously*, i'd be interested in writing on how laptop/computer use affects the cultural practise of watching dvds or films.

in spite of the fact that the cultural studies aspect of my course will be what most ostensibly overlaps with my academic practise, my masters is also in critical theory. my encounters with it thus far have been limited to literary theory and 'american thought & culture'. my gaps of knowledge and skills in this area are wide and in need of being filled. even if, in the hopefully unlikely event, that it transpires i don't enjoy it much, i will be glad for having done so.

it is quite overwhelming at the moment, partiuclarly in relation to the lecture series. the first lecture was on kant, who i feel i only have the most cursory of understandings of right now. this is frustrating. i am tempted to think that because the lecture series serves an introduction to key thinkers and , it does not have as explicit focus. and perhaps in this sense, i am falling into the trap of wanting to 'master' such things - to want to know everything and then be done with it - through despite the fact that i know i cannot truly do so, points that two of my tutors have made eloquently apparent. (upon successful completion of this degree, however, i will technically be a master of critical theory and cultural studies!). and indeed as i as prepare for the next lecture (hello hegel), things are seeming to come together a bit better, and the overall intention of the series is more apparent ( - the tradition of critique!).

the 'subject and sign' seminar, i am sorry to say, did not receive as much attention from me as it deserved this week due to, well, external factors. i have commented to others, perhaps rather rashly, that i found it not so exciting and expect it shall do as time progresses and we move beyond the 'establishing' thinkers. true this may be to some small extent, having thought on the seminar discussion a little more after, i think this is not entirely the case.

like 'material cultures and everyday life', 'subject and sign' is a compulsory module. but as i am not taking straight cultural theory, this is to the exclusion of 'social and political theories'. i would love to become better versed on that subject too, but 'subject and sign' seemed more relevant to my interests overall. hopefully, though, i will manage to improve myself in this arena too over time.

i apologise if this has been horribly dull for any readers who have made it this far, but this reflection upon the first week has been useful for me to make sense of things. i am still settling into it, and there is so much that i must and want to do that it is difficult to keep on top of it all. hopefully as i get to grips with things more i can soon post on something more meaty. in the mean time, let me direct the unintiated to a wholly interesting discussion about tarantino's inglourious basterds here. and on a final and unrelated note, i am listening to this trio a lot lately. and so should you.

*but also incompletely. those references - while relevant - aren't the most interesting part of hutcheon's book relating to this topic. i shall have to look it up again later.

a collection of recollections on collecting

2009-09-16T00:07:00.015+01:00

from a lovely blog called books at home

i have recently acquired travels in hyperreality (finally!) and and our faces, my heart, brief as photos through gloucestershire county council. perhaps it has bee the anticipation, but finally having these books in my possession has been a great source of joy for me, despite the fact that i know i must return them. reading from a book is obviously a very physical thing, and one can literally 'sense' the book in multiple ways. for me, there is always feeling of a 'bond' with a specific physical book after reading it. i wonder how this relates to the desire to own, because this bond can exist perfectly well without my having to actually own a book, but then it is predominatly manifest through ownership, as proved by the disputes between my older sister and i about what book belongs to whom.

after the summer lull, i am now going to begin my MA in critical theory and cultural studies. i'm both excited and daunted by the prospect. i suspect that the course will increase my bloglust as i'll need somewhere to think things out. we'll see.

jg ballard as featured in writers rooms from here. a nice selection of writer's rooms here
given my current circumstances, i was directed to walter benjamin's "unpacking my library: a talk about collecting". i have in the past expressed frustration over the desire to own things and my attachment to said stuff. amongst many other things, i think benjamin articulates and explains this rather well:

naturally, his existence is tied to many other things as well: to a very mysterious relationship with ownership (something about which we shall have more to say later); also, to a relationship to objects which does not emphasize their functional, utilitarian value - that is, their usefulness - but studies and loves them as the scene, the stage of their fate.

this is undoubtedly an an oft-blogged about piece (for when others are in similar circumstances), and in my googling endeavours to track it down, i came across a choice few, which, dear reader, i shall share with you:

unpacking my record collection by julian dibbell (who seems like someone i should have known about already) is reflection on music 'collecting' in mp3 form:

But if unpacking my CD collection has drained it of some kinds of intimacy, I can't help feeling it has also infused it with others. Sitting before my computer, gazing at the lists of songs on my screen, I feel closer to my music than I ever have before. I point, I click, I hear. I can know these records now as I have never known them, moving from song to song with an immediacy no user interface from the Victrola to the CD carrousel has yet afforded. I can chase associations and similarities that might have remained hidden or only guessed at while my songs still lived in plastic, on the shelves. Stripped of its physical shell, my music collection lies naked before me, more available to my touch, in some ways, than it was when I could actually touch it.

And if I am now on more intimate terms with my collection, then I am also more intimate -- thanks, above all, to Napster -- with my fellow collectors. And not to sound weird or anything, but I do mean intimate. Maybe it's just me, but I suspect that most people who have ever opened their personal computers to live, incoming connections from anywhere on the Internet -- as Napster requires users to do -- have felt an almost sexual frisson at their sudden connectedness and vulnerability to the wired population of the world. Add to this the fact that Napster is a network essentially saturated with raw, undiluted music lust (enhanced, thanks to copyright law, by the perennial turn-on of the illicit), and you are left to conclude that record collecting has become a sexy pursuit indeed. The traditional eros of collecting has been perverted, connecting the collector not just to objects but, of all things, to other people.

it is really a rather good read, and i advise you enjoy it in its entirety, despite my posting a large chunk here. i like very much how dibbell ruminates on the benefits of technology in the world of collecting, and just collecting in general, and also the suggestion that collecting is perverted by virtue no longer being (socially) 'perverse'. this doesn't mean, however, that it loses some the positive aspects of said perversity (something to which i've referred to before).

in discussing his mp3 collection, dibbell also charts how he lost interest in his record collection - his physical one. the same, perhaps, can be said of kazys varnelis,

But this was only a ruse. I had decided long ago that it was time to rid myself of these things. Moving from Los Angeles only confirmed my feelings. After the movers had gone, I looked at my apartment and thought about the shelves that once lined them, stuffed full with books.
"The modernists had it right all along," I said to myself, "but damn them. They wrote too many books." I resolved to do something about this.
With three of my own books published last fall, my pace slowed from frantic to manic and I had some time in the evenings to unpack my library, but not to lovingly put it back on the shelves as Benjamin did. Instead, I would sell it off mercilessly.

to be honest, what collector does not consider cutting ties with all that they have amassed? (or for that matter, what person does not consider that at some point in their life? certainly not a collector, i'll vouch). varnelis seems to be doing so successfully, but i'm not sure if that necessarily makes him any less of a collector. perhaps i am romanticing too much about what it means to be a collector, bug again, i can't imagine being someone who collects things and not having a tendency to romanticise. while i don't doubt it is wholly possible to live an ascetic lifestyle, the decision to give up something is often said to demonstrate just how much said thing has a hold on you. varnelis too muses on the role of technology, ending his post thus:

The global continuum of information and product flow that we live in means anything is available to anyone at any time. When that is possible, the need for permanent ownership ceases. Does life become a constant field of variation, our possessions an endlessly reconfigurable but minimal set of objects?

unpacking walter benjamin, ryan trauman gets at various issues brought to light by benjamin very concisely. his approach to the issue of technology is this:

But the thing is, lots of these notions are in need of deconstruction within the context of the digital age. Books are going digital, and that slow transition (yes, it will be slow) has all sorts of cultural impacts. At the forefront of these shifts in perception is that “digital” books are “virtual” books. While the distinction might not seem important initially, when “virtual” is commonly juxtaposed with “material,” the implications for the future of books are potentially enormous. If digital books are non-material, will they lose their capacity to do the work they’ve always done?
Don’t fret. We can fix this. I’ve got a plan. But there’s a lot more I need to learn. And I’m gonna start with Mathew G. Kirschenbaum’s book Mechanism. His argument? “Digital” is very, very “material.”

this solves, to some extent, the issues arising from the dibbell article, and all of the posts touch upon the notion of technology. another issue that trauman takes from benjamin is how the context a collection provides informs understanding of a person, a little like what i discussed with regards to facebook previously:

A book, in and of itself, establishes little about the person who owns it. ... But it’s not merely the book’s presence on the shelf that establishes this semiotic value. Instead, it’s the assumption that the library’s owner has found the book worthy of investment. In one sense, this construction of collector’s value is recursive. Ownership and a place in one’s collection confers value on the book, while book itself becomes a materially constructs some element of the owner’s identity.

the notion of books in the context of a collection is also the beginning of a piece written by bhabha (someone who i have also encountered only in a cursory manner via introductory lectures), which i am going to try and find in full.

places and faces.

2009-09-02T00:19:00.004+01:00

jan von hollenben via we love you so
i finally finished sontag's on photography a few weeks ago, having really struggled with it. it is a thoroughly interesting book (the 'unlikely' man at king's cross was right!) and written in a very accessible style, so it is safe to say that neither subject nor form was what i found difficult. in fact, it is precisely because the essays are so perceptive in its assessment of photography that i find it problematic. sontag definitely understands the allure of the photograph - no doubt that is what drew her to the project in the first place - but, for her at least, part of this allure is bound up in what she finds difficult about photography, and she can be very critical indeed. i find what she says persuasive, and yet, at the same time, difficult to reconcile with what i feel to be the positive aspects of photographic potential (see above!). i am still trying to work through this and maybe it if sits with me for a while longer i figure something out -- if only i could reread it! (my immediate to-read pile is probably door-handle high). perhaps because i live in a more modern world than she, i take some of these she is critical of for granted, although many of her criticsms still stand; conversely, there might be more to be said now that times have changed.

and on that note, while much has been made of foucault and facebook (and i have to admit now that other than a little cursory/introductory reading for a course called 'exploring theory', i have read no foucault whatsoever), and while much has been made of facebook (and twitter) in the mainstream media, but they are often really cringe-y column or filler pieces. i can't say i have really come across anything that reflects the way my peers and i interact with it, and more generally speaking, young people's interaction with technology is often portrayed as something foreign.

the most interesting phenomenon surrounding facebook that i am witness to is best summarised by what a school friend of mine lists as her 'religious views' (somewhat ironically it must be noted) thus: "it must be true, i saw it on facebook". -ith another friend, i have ofen joked that "it's not real until it is on facebook". in on photography, sontag speaks of how photographs come to substitute reality. a holiday is not real until it is photographed, for example. she cites the example of how on occasions of accidents or natural disasters, witnesses speak of how it "was like a movie".* this aspect of photography can be extended to facebook, but also is present in it - while this is a bit o an exaggeration and not wholly true, it often feels that at university, social events are photographed and don't really matter until they appear on facebook, for the world to see and for us to re-live and remember.

another interesting thing is the way in which facebook allows us to form specific images of ourselves (and indeed, censor very specific images through 'de-tagging'). facebook statuses, the facet of facebook most closely related to twitter, often to seems to be very performative. i say therefore i am. i say i am having a great birthday, and it is so by virtue of other people reading my status and being aware of this fact. with this in mind, it is easy to see how and why companies like to use the such mediums for self-promotion. henry jenkins wrote an interesting post which touches on this: The Message of Twitter: "Here It Is" and "Here I Am".

with all this said, my experience of facebook has been one which has been very much determined by my university social context, as the entrance of the t-o coincided. i have used the site primarily in relation to my social life at university, and in general this is a time social instability, a context in which facebook 'thrives' and can become integral to people's social interactions. (it is perhaps worth remembering that it was in a university/college context that the site began, before being 'released' to the public). i note this because it seems that even both my friends for whom facebook and uni did not coincide seem to use it differently.

brief & belated thoughts on antichrist

2009-08-19T15:23:00.005+01:00

the above image from lars von trier's antichrist is also featured in the film's poster. i first saw the poster immediately prior to seeing the film itself, and i was very much taken by it -- it is a terrific image in more than one sense of the word. and it was probably with this poster in mind that i latched onto the notion of the film as fairytale, as suggested by one of the two men who gave an introduction to the film. of course, by fairytale neither he nor i am referring to the disney-fied sense of the word, but in reference to the rather more grim grimm fairytales, or in the vein of angela carter's the bloody chamber.

i think this is a useful way to consider a film which blurs many genre boundaries but also draws from and explores many traditional tropes and stereotypes (women & evil, women & nature, emotional female/rational male). i suspect the speaker introduced the idea of the film as fairytale to counter the main subject of their speech - the controvery surrounding the film (particularly genital mutilation - more on this later), the inference being that this is a result of considering the film too literally. by thinking of the film as fairytale, the more fantastical and violent aspects of the film do not have to be read literally, and indeed, this fantastical element is not limited to the violence of the film. it is present in the cinematography; infinite thought sees

the initial shots of von Trier’s ‘Eden’ (filmed on location in Germany), pre-imagined by Gainsbourg’s character on the train [as] closer to computer game images than any ecological celebration

and indeed the film's primary setting of a holiday home named eden is unreal and unrealistic in another sense, as noted by ads without products,

Lars von Trier is famous for never flying, and thus never visiting America, despite the fact that he’s set most of his recent films there. Some laugh about this; others compare him to Kafka when the latter is up to this sort of thing ... Back to Antichrist: Americans do not as a rule own Scandinavian-style summer shacks deep in the woods, unreachable by car, and which they arrive at on weekends via train and then taxi and then hike. We don’t have trains like that, and if we did we likely wouldn’t have taxis like that either. We drive. This even goes for psychotherapist/grad student couples who live in Seattle, who would pull the Subaru up to the sidedoor of their cabin just like any other red-blooder USAer.

eden, of course, is the site of the fall of the man - brought about by a woman. accusations of misogyny have been made against antichrist, and many who consider this accusation often cite the existence of a researcher on misogyny in the film's credits. i wonder how much the mere existence of said researcher has contributed to this (notably, before heidi lauren herself spoke in defence of the film, i could only find one reference specifically naming her as the researcher, and everything else was mere allusions). one argument for the film as misogynist is

The creepy implication is that somehow she and her child are being punished for her taking pleasure in sex. source

on this matter, von triers himself claims "my technique is to put [forward] a thesis of some kind that i do not agree with" (that women are evil). i am not sure if he does this exactly, however, i would argue that he definitely explores misogyny. in my understanding of antichrist, it is not von triers or the film's 'world' that punishes the 'she' character for her sexuality, but rather it is 'she', having internalised the misogyny of her thesis research materials (if i remember correctly, this is made explicit at one point in the film when the 'he' character says someting along the lines of "you don't really believe this stuff [her research sources], do you?") and also, although it is not explicitly portrayed, in the culture around her; in her grief, who punishes herself. that 'she' could be convinced by such arguments is not solely the result of her grief, however, but part of the conflicting and complex conceptions of femininity. to put it in very crude terms, wider culture and society does not allow for a woman have both sexuality and a family; consider the villification of women who express their sexuality as 'whores' or 'sluts' (and even, possibly, witches, in the case of the 'she' character's research), and the ideal of the woman as virtuous - as the mother. this is clearly problematic, as sex (if not sexuality) is required for procreation and the creation of a family. in other words, women who have families, mothers, aren't mean to enjoy it - and yet 'she', does, and in one particular instance it leads to her child's death. and so, 'she' comes to believe she is responsible (although i don't think she ever says as such). in comparsion, 'he' has no such issues of guilt - yes, he is the more 'rational' of the two, and yes, he was a less involved parent, but as a man, he is also less severely admonished for his sexuality and therefore does not equate his sexuality to any possible failure as a parent.

the specific sequence that the above daily mail quote on 'the implication of punishment' refers to is the black & white prologue, noted by the writer as "pretenious, bordering on kitsch"; i.t. refers to it as "bleak in the way that adverts for cars and expensive washing machines are". in the epilogue of the film, the b&w prologue sequence is portrayed again, but editted to make the link between sex and neglect even stronger - it implies that the 'she' character may have seen her child walking in on her and 'he' having sex, but wrapped up as she is in the sex act itself, she ignores her child. to me, the epilogue version (re-cut from the prologue) is from the point of view of 'she', whose sense of guilt leads her to believe that she is at fault for having a sexuality and in turn that she is evil. perhaps this can be extended to the prologue too - the kitsch, car-advert style of it as a reference to the influence of contemporary society on 'she', and how she internalised the implication of society's values. as i have already noted, there is no explicit reference to culture or society beyond the couple, but the visual style of the prologue and epilogue clearly are evocative of it.

to illustrate better what i mean by the 'she' character's conflict, perhaps we could consider a scene featuring a tree (like in the photo above). after 'she' has done various gory things to him, 'he' escapes from her and the house and hides hides in a burrow under tree, the entrance of which, combined with the way the tree trunks appear, are reminiscent of a vulva. 'she', searching for him, screams "where are you, you bastard". upon discovering his hiding place, she continues screaming - "get you, you bastard, get out". having failed to pull him out of the burrow by his legs, she then adtops a different approach, shovelling the ground above him and eventually pulling him out by the arms. in a discussion between sai, anthony and myself after having seen the film, anthony explained his understanding of this as a sort of breeched birth - citing, his legs hanging outside of the vagina, her screams of get out you bastard, and the eventual shovelling as equivalent to a caesarian section. this is a convincing interpretation, but i have difficulty reconciling it to the film as a while; instead, at the time, i argued that in this scene the screams of get out you bastard to refer to penetration, and the shovelling to be representative of her desire to literally rip him out of her - a desire that has already been manifested in her mutilation of his gentials. however, it is important to note that she later also mutilates herself, cutting off her own clitoris. i would argue that a case for the film's misogyny would be stronger if she only multiated 'he' and not herself as well, as this presents an image of 'she' as a psychotic out to 'get' the man. instead, the fact that she mutilates herself doesn't suggest she is any less mad, but it does illustrate the confusion surrounding sexuality. in light of this, i think both readings of this three/burrow scene can be considered as valid, relating to frustration with the somewhat simplistic yet still relevant idea differing and conflicting conceptions of women as sexual being and as family figure or mother.

i realise that these thoughts are by no means 'brief' in length (as i claim in the post title), but they are in the sense that i have not even begun to do justice to the full complexity of this topic, but also the variety of complicated and complex yet intertwined subjects antichrist deals with. in trying to make my case, i also hope that i have not been too reductive (especially since it has been just under a month since i actually saw the film), and if i have, you must forgive me, and keep in mind that the film has much, much more to think about. [edit: antichrist: the visual theology is probably a far more fruitful read (i say at the end of my ramble).]

and so, finally, on the subject of misogyny and gender, i refer you to the final act of this episode of this american life ("striptease" by lauren slater, "") is interesting:

george believed that bodies outside him were missiles, poised and poisonous. his aggressive slit-eyed stance is a typically male phenomenon. my eating disorder, the obsessive desire to be thin thin thin and perfectly poisonously poised is typically a female phenomenon. george and i were both victims of our culture's fear of the feminine, unable to lay down our system of weapons and spread our legs open to life because we learned that in this posture we will be shamed, not invigorated. we did not know how to trust what we could not dominate. and the recovering anorexic is not only in a partiuclarly good position to articulate these truths, she is also ironically in a partiuclarly good position vis a vis therapy to treat the misogynist male. she understands perhaps more than anyone the urge to whip and dominate, discipline and even delete the female form. (46:50-47:47)

&

from this interesting set of photos

while i was aware of the fact that there was controversy surrounding antichrist, up until the introduction to the screening we attended, i was unware as to what the main focus of this controversy was (genital mutilation). the speakers gave made impassioned speeches for, well, actually watching the movie before judging it -- or, before suggesting it should be banned. yet, for all the people in the audience who chuckled along to quotes from the previously linked article, whilst watching the film i could not help but feel that the controversy was what the majority of that audience went to see. for most of the movie up until the scenes in question, people kept coming and going (to the loo, but also to the bar) -- and when said scenes came on screen, well, the tension was palpable. in response to this tension and in light of the 'controversy' the introduction, i found myself thinking so this is the money shot. i am not referring to my personal view here, but to my reaction to the sense that many in the audience were clearly there for the gore, and the gore alone. this approach both distracted me from and detracted from the film, which is clearly about so much more.

before the film, while we were waiting for sai to arrive, anthony asked me if i was nervous about seeing the film. i responded that i wasn't expecting it to be scary as such, but disturbing; i expected it to unnerve me. he agreed and spoke about the notion of 'consumable' vs 'unconsumable' violence (our expectation of antichrist being the latter). action films are perhaps an easy example of consumable violence, but so in a sense is the news. (aside - i went to on a school trip to spain when i was 15, that is in 2003 when the iraq war officially began. the news there was significantly more graphic). i think susan sontag writes on a similar subject in an essay of hers that i have recently read:

[diane] arbus' work is a good instance of a leading tendency of high art in capitalist countries: to suppress, or at least reduce, moral and sensory queasiness. much of modern art is devoted to lowering the threshold of what is terrible. ... but our ability to stomach this rising grotesqueness in images (moving and still) and in print has a stiff price. in the long run, it works out not as a liberation of but as a subtraction from the self: a pseudo-familiarity with the horrible reinforces alienation, making one less able to reaction real life. what happens to people's feelings on first exposure to today's neighborhood pornographic film or to tonight's televised atrocity is not so different form what happens when they first look at arbus' photographs.

the photographs make a compassionate response feel irrelevant. the point is not to be upset, but to be able to confront the horrible with equanimity. but this look that is not (mainly) compassionate is a special, modern ethical construction: not hardhearted, certainly not cynical, but simply (or falsely) naive. to the painful nightmarish reality out there, arbus applied such adjectives as 'terrific', 'interesting', 'incredible', 'fantastic', sensation - the childlike wonder of the pop mentality. the camera - according to her deliberately naive image of the photographer’s quest - is a device that captures it all, that seduces the subjects into disclosing their secrets, that broadens experience. to photograph people, according to arbus, is necessarily 'cruel, 'mean'. the important thing is not to blink.
- susan sontag, "america, seen through photographs darkly" in on photography, p40-1.

(another aside - also before seeing antichrist: anticipating, as one would with a film named antichrist, theological ties, i wondered about the portrayal of violence in other 'religious' films. i asked anthony whether he thought the violence in the passion of the christ was 'consumable' as i hadn't seen that film. in his estimation it is. this makes me wonder if the urge to 'consume' violence is in some way related to christianity, a desire to see christ suffer in order to 'save us'.)

edinburgh: without rhyme or reason

2009-08-15T18:46:00.007+01:00

the edinburgh festival has (well, up until recently) always alluded me in more ways than one - or more precisely, two. firstly, i had never been. secondly, i didn't really understand it. by that mean, i was aware of references to the festival in relation to comedians and i was aware of drama-friends going off to perform there. it was not until after i had decided to go and after i was asked by an american that i aware of it as is "a collective term for several simultaneous ars and cultural festivals ... arranged by a number of formally unrelated organizations, meaning there is no single event officially termed the Edinburgh Festival." (thanks, wiki).

my last minute decision to go up with one school friend and to stay with another was a wise one. not having booked tickets for a single event, and with only 48 hours (and one full day) there, we managed to 8 shows in all. 1 of which we were offered free tickets to and 7 of which were part of the free edinburgh fringe festival - partly a platform for exposure and partly in protest for the fact that many performers rarely receive much money for performing at the larger (paid) venues due to the high cost of renting them. without internet, with many to choose from and only the show names to go by, our picks were pretty arbitrary. i was glad to be able to see a stomp-inspired show, which sadly wasn't very well attended. my two favourites were the following:

ok, so we technically didn't see tom and brody are so comedy, but instead saw speedbumps where he performed in place of rachel anderson. he was the best bit in the show and having read about his, i am sad i didn't get to see it as the other act sounds equally entertaining. from the website:

You’re so comedy and you don’t even know it. The hosts of Time Out recommended comedy night Every Other Monday and half of 2008’s regularly packed out Fringe comedy hour Homework for Heroes return with two scoops of smack-down stand-up in a duo of distinct flavours:

Tom Goodliffe: Comin' straight outta Maths Club! Tom's fellow trainee accountants voted him the most likely to talk to a girl (and wet himself in the process). Now, armed with numeracy, supportive parents and a love of hip hop, the lanky jester brings his friendly, upbeat comedy to Edinburgh and attempts to talk to entire rooms full of girls AND make them laugh (with him). “the performance is exemplary” - Chortle

Broderick Chow: Probably the only Chinese-Filipino-Canadian comedian on the Edinburgh Fringe, and definitely the cutest boy in the library, Brody’s comedy is a wry and witty mélange of stories about his family, philosophy and discomfort at being alive. He’s got a love of literature and a healthy fear of cats (making his favourite book Attack of the Cats); the perfect recipe for comic genius. ‘constantly entertaining’ - Edinburgh Evening News

i wasn't particularly interested in seeing cabaret, but as my friends were. earlier in the day we saw cabaret whore (a sort of character comedy cabaret - which honestly kind of creeped me out because the performer was so completely and convincingly each of her characters). at the end of a long day, we saw was la petite mort. everyone really enjoyed it: she was articulate and interesting and funny (and a lot less polished-looking than the above photo implies, with a lovely little gap between her teeth and an australian accent, both of which i thought charming). the venue and timing was perfect suited as well - a small slightly parisian-looking room (or at least, parisian to my mind - probably largely based on a stereotype) was completely packed out at midnight. from the website:

La Petite Mort - The Orgasm is a comical cabaret romp through sex and sexuality

"Not only a cabaret extravaganza of sexual and sensual songs; it was highly sex-positive, provocative and feminist." - Pleasure Activism Australia.

paratext paraphernalia

2009-08-01T12:02:00.006+01:00

the movie title stills collection

the art of the title sequence

the end.

mostly via we love you so, although i think matt has showed me 'the end' before.
there are some more links worth looking into on wiki.
a brief note on the post's title:
for those not in the know - paratexts (also the title of gerard genette's book which i should and have yet to read) refers to "the thresholds of interpretation", "those liminal devices and conventions, both within and outside the book, that form part of the complex mediation between book, author, publisher and reader: titles, forewords, epigraphs and publishers' jacket copy are part of a book's private and public history." for the purposes of film, paratexts are film posters (which often become dvd covers), title sequences, opening and end credits.
as an aside - i have to confess i am very fond of the world paraphernalia. i love that it sounds almost perverse. i suppose this has much to do with the fact that it is often used in conjunction with the word 'drugs'. but i also associate the word with collectors, and i think the word gets at something of the clandestine nature of collecting. interestingly, i have just found out the word's origins apparently relates to the property of married women - could be worthwhile to consider the word's evolution.

i have always loved title sequences. a good title sequence will get you excited about the film that is to come, and in this sense, i think they are far more effective than and preferable to trailers, which i generally avoid.

trailers, particularly with more 'mainstream' films, often give too much away, or too little - by which i mean, i often feel as though they misrepresent the film itself. in contrast, more mainstream films generally produce more interesting, if not more flashy/'stylish', title sequences - i am thinking of casino royale for instance.

i suspect this is due to, well, the commercial nature of these films - it is not hard to consider how these title sequences serve as a form of branding the film (like the iconic bond gun barrel sequence, and, of course, these big name production companies simply can afford to hire people to do them up especially. in contrast, (i am of course generalising here) 'indie' films tend to have low-key opening sequences, often in keeping with the film's aesthetic or subject matter (which i just as much love as those of 'mainstream' films but in a different way - ghostworld is an especial favourite). but it is at this level, i think, that you can see most clearly the connection between ads and films, and why many big name directors (like ridley scott) have previously worked in advertising.

in an an exchange between himself and ray carney entitled the end of art, arthur vibert, who is involved advertising, says this on the links between the two:

Hollywood shares many qualities with the advertising industry. Indeed, they might be reasonably perceived as two heads of the same Hydra. Hollywood is about money, and nothing else. Everything that is done there, every decision that is made, everything that is created is ultimately at the service of money.

but i don't think this relationship between art and the commerical exists purely in hollywood film (although this is perhaps it is most extremely manifest), or even in film in general. an interesting example in relation to books is the "re-packaging" of jane austen books 'to appeal to women put off by the idea of reading a 19th century author'.

and i think this relationship is why paratexts interest me in the first place. not only are they at the 'threshold of interpretation', but in the modern world, they are also the point at which art (here, i am referring to less mainstream media) and marketing (- and consequently money!) interact. it is in this sense (and the sense that i am alluding to when i say film posters for example often 'misrepresent' films, a complaint i made of the dvd cover for shortbus), paratexts often expose interesting dissonance between predominant cultural values - or at least, from the perspective of those who are trying to sell and know what sells, and the cultural values in works of art, which are in many respects more 'real' and representative - or at least, they are to me.

playing pretend (& extending youth)

2009-07-29T14:23:00.006+01:00

stickman without glasses says in panel 2 i'm concerned that we're sitting here like i'm a responsible adult. i'm pretty sure i stopped growing up in my teens and have been faking ever since. (xkcd)

my friends and i are going to blog collectively, but there is drama aplenty already. i'll keep you updated; it's going to be here.

wish i could say i've been busy living life, but this is a lie. i've been without interesting thoughts to share and without internet. still trying to figure out what to do with myself post-undergrad.

the wider world.

2009-07-19T22:49:00.012+01:00

for the same reason i avoid window-shopping (it makes me want too many things), i rarely browse on the internet these days (there is just too much interesting stuff out there and it is hard to limit myself) - or at least, not in the ways i used to as a teenager. nowadays my interent usage is more functional, and while i still look up things of interest, i don't really 'surf' the net as such. (goodness, how quickly did that phrase become outdated? that said, i don't know of anyone my age who ever used it in seriousness).

however, circumstances have prevailed in favour of internet discoveries, largely through following blog links. and so, here are a few gems --

via wooster
which reminds me something of friends of a friend (my friend matt, incidentally is the one who introduced me to wooster).

&
so let me start show you matt's degree show project:

An educational tool for the measuring and explanation of distances between the planets of the solar system.

All of the words are made from the same line, and once stretched, will create the actual to scale distance between the planets. The circles are the planets to scale on the path.
from here

the words, if it wasn't clear, are a mnemonic for remembering the names of the planets. (the image featuring the full sentence above, however, does not show how the planets themselves are incorporated into the piece, which the middle photo does demonstrate) .

&

sally estcourt and grace (~~who i don't have a website for, sorry~~) were involved in something they called the serial stitcher project:

&
another friend of matt's brigitta anderson, made this:

While looking at language, I have been exploring the theme of taboo language and how we find certain words offensive and whether the degree to which we find words offensive would change, depending on what setting it is put in. 'Cunt' is one of the oldest swear words, yet it still reigns the most taboo word.

... The idea is not just to offend the viewer by sewing or knitting a rude word, but instead to surprise people by bringing together two contrasting visuals and contents and making them sit side by side and seeing what one does to the other. It questions what we recognise as acceptable and offensive.
(full post)

&

this in turn reminds me of a journal article, Feminism, Activism, and Knitting: Are the fibre arts a viable mode for feminist political action? this is the introductory paragraph, with me helpfully bolding the issue i find most interesting:

Domestic crafts such as knitting have experienced an upsurge in Western popular culture as of late. This point might be painfully obvious if you live in a medium-to-large-sized city in North America, where yarn shops have been springing up, or springing back to life, since the beginning of the twenty-first century, due partly to the popularity of the publication Stitch’n Bitch: The Knitters Handbook (Stoller 2003). This book, with its ironic tone and kitschy visuals, and the flurry of activity on the Internet (in the form of weblogs, websites, and netrings devoted to knitting) shed some light on the complicated relationship third-wave feminism has had with feminist politics and traditional femininity. Popular third-wave discourse, exemplified by Debbie Stoller, who is co-founder of the third-wave magazine Bust as well as author of Stitch’n Bitch, aims to celebrate and reclaim the domestic arts as a way to fuse fun with politics and her belief in women’s community building through do-it-yourself (DIY) culture. Valuing the craft of knitting is a feminist act in itself according to Stoller, because the denigration of knitting correlates directly with the denigration of a traditionally women-centred activity. This type of reclamation has faced scrutiny from those who argue that the celebration of the domestic arts is neither politically effective nor feminist; rather, the resurgence in the popularity of knitting is merely an extension of a trend that supports individualistic, apolitical consumerism, as yarn prices certainly reflect a tendency to sell to upwardly mobile women with considerable disposable income. While I agree that the celebration or reclamation of a craft is not an end in itself, Stoller’s position warrants further examination, especially as it offers an avenue to examine what I call ‘feminist knitting practices,’ which include active and purposeful knitting projects used in the spirit of feminist goals of empowerment, social justice, and women’s community building.

&

and also, the hyperbolic coral crochet reef

The Reef begins with the technique of hyperbolic crochet discovered by mathematician Dr. Daina Taimina, which the Institute has taken up and elaborated into a polyphony of organismal crochet procedures, bringing into being in a wide taxonomy of reef-life forms. Loopy "kelps", fringed "anemones", and curlicued "corals" have all been modeled. While the process that brings these models into being is algorithmic, endless permutations of the underlying formulae result in a constantly surprising panoply of shapes. The quality of yarn, style of stitch, and tightness of the crochet all affect the finished forms so that each is as individual as a living organism.
...
Each crochet model results from the application of an iterative recipe. Like fractals, such as the Mandelbrot Set, these forms come into being through the process of doing a small set of steps again and again and again. Though experience often serves as a guide, there is no way to know in advance what a specific algorithm will produce and we have many times been surprised when seemingly insignificant changes in the underlying pattern led to fundamentally new results. In a very real sense, this is a kind of experimental mathematics and we invite crocheters everywhere to explore for themselves the possibilities inherent in these techniques.
from here

a nice little 'web exhibit' on the causes of colour.

finally, allow me to do a little housekeeping.

* in my post on photography i overlooked the blatantly obvious - i like photoessays. most of the photos i take should be seen in conjunction with one another. there is a lot more fun to be had with juxtaposition than one on its own, i think. at least it is truer for my experience of things. which is not to say that photos that stand alone don't have their own merit as well.

* i would like to make a correction regarding my post on adapting art:

this by dave choe

is actually a reference to

this (at the moulin rouge, henri de toulouse-lautrec)
as i discovered when i saw the above painting at the art institute of chicago. clearly more similar in composition, and not renoir, although both are impressionists.

* there is something else i wanted to ad an addedenum/correction to, but i can't currently remember what exactly it was. story of my life.

in ireland: initial impressions

2009-07-17T23:01:00.008+01:00

i am on a family holiday in dublin at the moment, so this is going to be short and sweet:

further to my ramblings on museums, i think i have worked out (thanks to the national museum of ireland and its section on military history, of all things) the tension between my understanding of the presentation of information as ideologically informed and the desire for ... not quite objectivity, but for concise information that covers a lot of content. and ultimately, i think, it is, ultimately about providing people with enough information to form their own opinions, but also in a manner which allows people to form their own opinions.

the specific physical thing that sparked this realisation (simple though it is) was these 'background briefing' for each war that was being discussed. the information was displayed in these vertical drawers that had to be pulled out from the wall and lit up (museums seem to fond of attempting kinesthetic interactivity, don't they?), and listed in a fairly simplistic manner why said war happened, or why the irish were involved - pretty much how i remember GCSE history. of course, this simplification still inevitably ideologically inflected.

indeed, as one of the headings of the information posters (? - i don't know what to call them) i was reading stated, "history is written by the victors". whilst i am (in a very general sense) aware of irish history, the cultural implications of this is something i have not thought about. ethnically, the irish are 'white' and we tend ot think of the 'victors' as white too. but the history of the country is more complex than such clear binaries and this has quite clearly informed its culture and national identity. there have been various incarnations of my woefully simplistic thinking, with one example being my surprise at a mural in a small town we went to (the name of which currently escapes me). depicted in the mural are the standard people smiling by the seaside etc, but this is juxtaposed with a more 'historical' image involving the union jack being trampled (by horses? we were in a car and so i saw it only briefly). i was a little surprised to see such an image in what in many other sense was a setting familiar to me in a british context. and i must admit that i have had to try and check myself sometimes - reminding myself that this is not britain. it is a very strange relationship that the country has to the uk, in that it is often defined by its not being british, but that this distinction must be made so strongly because of the british presence in ireland, which has left its mark on the country too.

The Great Famine ravaged Ireland in the 1840s and became a turning point for Ireland and America as millions of Irish emigrants boarded boats bound for American shores.
i guess what i am saying is that all this makes for an interesting impression. ireland, to my eyes at least, is a strange mix of what i know of britain and europe and even america. i wonder to what extent the cultural aspects i associate with the latter country has to do with the abundance of american tourists i have seen. i think, in tourist areas, this contributes to my impression of americanism, but i suspect that my sense of this also comes from the vast numbers of irish immigrants to america - and consequently, as well as in addition to, a shared sense of history between the two countries (most obviously, of course, Not Being A Fan of britain).

i suppose the military display at the museum (which i initially approached thinking i would give it a cursory skim but got drawn into for the above related reasons) inevitably sheds much light on the country because its specific military history sheds light on the country in ways which others do not. (or perhaps, because i know more about the other countries that this already informs my understanding of them?) i was particularly intrigued by information on irishmen fighting in wars that were not 'theirs' as such. it was interesting to note within this part of the display, the description accompanying items that irish soldiers looted from various, largely 'native', enemies that they defeated whilst fighting for the british, for example. the description, it seems to me, downplays the sinister element of such behaviour.

i am not trying to endorse some sort of racial hierarchy here, nor am i overlooking aspects of irish history in which the irish were treated very poorly indeed. i am happy to admit that the museum descriptions do concede that irish soldiers were party to, well, the nastier sides of colonialist behaviour that british soldiers were engaged in, but i find the comparativley little attention paid to such complicity problematic as this serves to draw one's attention away from that very complicity. indeed, if i remember correctly, the wording in the descriptions was relatively gentle and the text, whilst alluding to the wrongdoings of the british, does not detail these wrongdoings, so that the irish involvement is not made so explicit. i'm not saying that it need be the focus of the display, but this made me aware of how history was still being told from a very specific perspective. it made me aware of the way nations create certain images of themselves (and even how museum exhibtions contribute to this!).

and so in an attempt to tie what i have just mentioned, and to name drop yet another book i haven't read yet and should, i would like to say that in semi-relation to such topics it would be worth reading noel ignatiev's how the irish became white (mentioned in my lecture on angry black white boy). it is about irish immigrants in america - and it is important to keep in mind that in the context of early irish immigration to the states, the irish were not considered 'white' and were subject to the same racism much like other non-white americans. (this is also true of italian immigrants). here is a review from on the book's amazon page:

In a book he admits raises more questions than it answers, Ignatiev, a radical activist and editor of the journal Race Traitor, asserts that the Irish were initially discriminated against in the United States and "became white" by embracing racism, a concept Ignatiev (citing Daniel O'Connell) says they learned in the United States. Ignatiev targets the Irish because they were the largest immigrant group to compete with blacks for manual labor jobs. Does American labor history dismiss racism as an element in the workers' struggles? Did oppression in Ireland under the Penal Laws help to make the Irish oppressors in America, or did they learn racism only after reaching America? While many of the primary sources support Irish racism, fewer support Ignatiev's opinion on where it began. This book is more a springboard for discussion than a source of answers but is strongly recommended for that purpose.

(and given the books topic, isn't that a brilliant cover? image googling brings up another, but this is clearly superior).

it is getting far too late, so i shall end this here - with another book that i would like to read, and having delved yet again into the bemusing and confusing complexities of race, culture and post-colonalism - to go to bed in preparation for my last full day in ireland.

what we talk about when we talk about sex.

2009-07-12T00:05:00.004+01:00

hm. so this blog post has been in the making for a while now (by which i mean, i have considered writing it for many weeks, even a couple of months -- although if you want to get really pinickity, it has been in the making for years and years if you consider every single moment of my life and the lives of others who have influenced mine leading up until this one), and yet i still have yet to sufficiently gather my thoughts to write about what i want to in any other manner beyond an inept one. so, i am going to lapse into my usual style of haphazard observations.

i suppose the specific origins of my desire to post on the subject of sex comes from a conversation two of my male friends were having, in which they referred to sex - specifically, the increased incidence of it as a result of our undergraduate lives were coming to an end (people being more emotional, unresolved tensions coming to a head, etc.) - as 'gold dust'. in my mind, the term 'gold rush' would actually be more appropriate, but that is not the point. also, i know that at least one of the two interlocutors have read this blog and i want to make clear that i am not specifically attacking them as people so much as this wider way of thinking and talking about sex -- and although in the grand scheme of things this 'gold dust' concept is a more mild example of a negative trend, in some ways, i think all the more reason to consider it, because it is not considered all that offensive. indeed, in response to what must have been a look of disapproval/disgust on my part, one of the boys pointed out that it wasn't a sexist term. and that it is not, no. but i guess i find it a little objectionable in the wider sense of conceptualising sex -- or rather of reducing it. that sort of phrasing, while it does imply that sex is something 'special', kind of overlooks precisely what makes it so - other people. rather the focus is on the act in and of itself, which, really, is only ever really worthwhile (in my opinion at least) if the other person in . this is not to say that i think people who use such language thing solely in this way - in fact, i doubt this very much indeed - but nevertheless, this is what such language implies. i guess i am not frustrated so much by individuals, but the wider and predominant way of talking about sex.

perhaps to better illustrate my example we can compare the dvd covers for the film shortbus that i saw available in fopp the other day. the above is the image that i saw in the shop; it is, presumably, the british cover. visually, it focusses very much on sex and sort of plays up to conventionally 'sexual' images with, mostly obviously, the film's protagonist either aroused or about to orgasm, the red of the strange heart shaped pillows, and the visual disembodiment of other people engaged in sex acts. the typography of the film's title very much , and there is the tagline 'an exxxtremely romantic comedy', with review snippets such as "the most sexually explicit film to go on release". all very heavy emphasis on the sexual content of the film -- and yet while i cannot deny that there is a lot of sex in shortbus, in a way, it isn't really what the film is about at all. to be honest, i was kind of mad when i saw this image cover and what i feel to be its misrepresentation of a film i really like.

compare that to all these other covers/posters (taken from here:

while i concede that the latter two do suggest an element of sexual explicit-ness, but not nearly in same sort of gratuitous way.

&

the post's title is a semi-nod to haruki murakami's what i talk about when i talk about running, which i suspect in a turn is referencing raymond carver's short story collection what we talk about when we talk about love -- the latter of course being perhaps a little more relevant to this blog. i make the link, however, because anthony mentioned to me a couple of weeks back that (and please correct me if i misrepresent you here) that he sort of read murakami as representing a particular type of modern masculinity. in light of this, the following passage from the wind up bird chronicle was particularly interesting to me:

only after i became a married man had it truly dawned on me that i was an inhabitant of earth, the third planet of the solar system. i lived on the earth, the earth revolved around the sun, and around the earth revolved the moon. like it or not, this would continue fo eternity (or what could be called eternity in comparison with my lifetime). what induced me to see things this way was the absolute precision of my wife's twenty-nine day menstrual cycle. it corresponded perfectly with the waxing and waning of the moon. and her periods were always difficult. she would become unstable - even depressed -for some days before they began. so her cycle became my cycle. i had to be careful not to case any unnecessary trouble at the wrong time of the month. before we were married, i hardly noticed the phases of the moon. i might happen to catch sight of the moon in the sky, but its shape at any given time was of no concern to me. now the shape of the moon was something i always carried in my head.

i had been with a number of women before kumiko, and of course, each had had her own period. some were difficult, some were easy, some were finished in three days, others took over a week, some were regular, others could be ten days late and scare th hell out of me; some women had bad moods, others were hardly affected. until i married kumiko, though, i had never lived with a woman. until then, the cycles of nature meant the changing of the seasons. in winter i'd get my coat out, in summer it was time for sandals. with marriage i took on not only a cohabitant but a new concept of cyclicity: the phases of the moon. only once had she missed her cycle for some months, during which time she had been pregnant. (29)

and i realise in retrospect that this complexity of 'modern masculinity' is sort of what i was trying to get at in an essay on some sex scenes in norwegian wood- which any attentive readers of playing pretend may recall. i suppose in part harp on about it so much because i feel the lady who marked it clearly didn't 'get' it, but also because i am still very much still trying to work out the wider issues these relate to, as no doubt, this post evidences. my basic thesis was that although murakami engaged in what traditional feminist stylistics would read as sexist portrayal of the sex act (in that the female was passive and the male active), the sex scenes themselves, the protagonist and even murakami himself are not sexist in themselves. i mean, first of all, there is the almost inevitable sense in which a woman is inevitably 'passive' in heterosexual sex as she is the one being penetrated. this is not to say that there aren't occasions in straight sex when the woman is the active one and the man is the passive one, however. and elsewhere murakami makes much of this too. it is difficult, i find, sometimes, to differentiate between sexism and differences between genders, or rather, it is difficult not to conflate the two. things are not as simple as contemporary (popular) culture makes them out to be, but nor are they as simple as some feminist readings suggest either.

and, in relation to this sort of critique of feminist critiques (when taken to their extreme), i have found an essay called "gays and the gaze" from beyond masculinity rather interesting. specifically, ahmed refers to the traditional feminist notion of the gaze and how it renders those who are gazed upon to be powerless, but 'the gaze can be forcibly drawn' too, and thus make the gazer powerless in a sense too. this is a crude little summary, and but one aspect of a really interesting and nuanced essay that i do encourage you all to read. it (and all other beyond masculinity essays) can be downloaded as an mp3 file.

&

so. a lot of what i have been discussing is linked to
a wider dissatisfaction with 'family values', but i am still working my head around this. i think in some ways it is harder for me deconstruct because said values are so much more embedded in my 'default' modes of thinking, and i am often not very good at seeing the bigger picture. if anyone has any helpful reading suggestions, they are more than welcome.

on fidelity, or a lack of it.

2009-07-08T12:18:00.005+01:00

books in beer boxes at printers row, chicago

i have recently begun but not finished the following --

* midnight's children - salman rushdie
* pastoralia - george saunders
* selected poems of william carlos williams.
* the wind up bird chronicle - haruki murakami
* on photography - susan sontag
* northanger abbey - jane austen

(and then there are the books i began long ago and have forgotten). i am probably 'into' each book equally in terms of page numbers proportionate to book size - that is, into each book by an equally tiny amount. something must be done about this. for whatever reason, i haven't the attention span lately.

my (reading (and watching)) life lately, part 2.

2009-07-05T00:26:00.004+01:00

after beginning hermoine lee's biography virginia woolf (famed for the way in which it 'changed' the genre of literary biography - something particularly relevant in this respect given woolf's own thinking on the subject) back in december 2008 (in preparation for a module on woolf), i have finally finished it. (when the spring semester began, i put it aside, despite being only a 100 pages or so from the end). honestly, since returning to it recently, i have been almost reluctant to finish the book, because then virginia woolf will have to die. this is perhaps a little silly, i know, but also perhaps a bit of a meta-experience (just as her writing often places little value on plot, when reading the biography, which i knew was inevitably going to have to end in suicide, i read on. perhaps i am taking this a little far, but indulge me). the book also surprised me (although perhaps it should not have) in its focus on leonard woolf after virginia's death, which genuinely made me rather sad. there was also discussion of the impact on other people for whom virginia was important, and also how woolf's writings were posthumously shaped by these people.

on an unrelated note, -- returning to the biography makes me a little sad that we don't write letters anymore. i think they probably do a lot to help develop and maintain one's 'style', although this inevitably differs depending on to whom one is writing to. in a relatively recent conversation with adam, he compared our topic of conversation (which i can no longer remember) to derrida & how he once described his works as semi-private conversations. this in turn led me to think about and comment on how often when i write, i often do so with a specific addressee in mind, but ultimately the writing itself is not intended for that person, but they (or the idea of them - another thing i think about a lot: the idea of a person vs the person themselves) enables me to articulate things that i would not otherwise be able to if i were just writing 'on my own', with no one in mind. and it is in this sense, i think, that letter writing can be beneficial to us as individuals as well as us in relation to people (as it is a rather intimate form of communication).

to that end, i would like to invite any and all people to send their addresses to sarah[dot]fok[at]gmail[dot]com if they would like to receive a letter from myself - i don't particularly mind who you are. whether i know you well and see you almost daily or if i don't, i would love to send you a letter. (although i would suggest if you are currently a stranger to me, as an opening you might want to tell me about a good thing that has happened to you lately, or something that you like). i don't know if anyone will respond to this request, but i hope you do. the last time i tried this (a long time ago now) i had two responses, both of which developed into a nice little repertoire of correspondence - one was with someone to whom i rarely speak these days but in some ways was rather influential in my intellectual (?) development; the other i ended up dating. but that is a whole other story.

&

the post title is a bit of a lie. the above was originally written to accompany the post on photography. i have not read much lately, but i have been watching a lot of tv and films, which leads me to my next topic -

&

so, initially didn't intend on posting on gus van sant's elephant - a film i have been hankering after to see for an age - but i found myself making notes on it in the comments section of the 'on photography' post (it's a habit of mine to write notes to myself on my own blog whenever subject matter overlaps but i don't want to actually write things up) and then reading a little more about it here and there, and now here i am.

oh, but before i go on, i would like to endorse the imdb film discussion boards for a moment. i almost always go there after seeing an interesting film, even though there are a lot of flamers and pointless arguments that go on there, because it gives me a better understanding of other people's appreciation (or lack thereof) of the film i've just seen. and i confess that i do sometimes read forum threads entitled "this movie was gay" to witness the flame war, but i think doing so also helps me form my opinions about a film in a more concrete manner, and forces me to try and articulate what it is that i like or find interesting about it. (it's also great for consideration of parts of the film that i have found intriguing or confusing - in this case, for example, the character of benny).

so the thing that made me initially link elephant with the post on photography (about susan sontag's book of that title, but also in this specific reference, to delillo's libra), is that this film also draws juxtaposes the camera and the gun through when the character of eli photographs the teenaged boys with guns. i think this also dramatises the viewer's position as party to the events of the film, but also their real life involvement with such events via the media. (notably, in charlie brooker's screenwipe, the sensationalist the media portrayal of such events & to furthering, and its relation future occurrences, is highlighted - by giving the killers' notoriety, others who seek such fame may replicate their actions. i'm sure i read an article by an academic which isn't ostensibly about this, but mentions it also; i can't for the life of me remember where it was i read this.)

because the film concerns events with which the contemporary audience is intensely (or at least relatively) familiar and which is emotionally evocative, i think the audience is (or at least i personally was) aware of the portrayal of the events, but in particular the the character of alex, who is 'masterminds' the shooting. this in turn creates a level of detachment (perhaps recreating our experience of such events through the media). is this detachment valuable or does it detract from the film? or is it both?*

what is most interesting about the film for me is how i feel about alex. on the one hand, he is the subject of the film precisely because he is so terrifying to us. his motives can never be understood in the way we would like to understand them (that is, definitively). on the other, this impulse to understand is also dramatised in the film - in the ways it dramatises his 'daily' life and how he spends his time. yet these re-imaginings don't ultimately give us the full understanding we would like. and i think this too is something the film dramatises. (this is also reflected in the form of film - the run-up to the shootings is given from multiple perspectives with non-linear chronology, whereas the shootings themselves are portayed in a more 'straight' narrative style). this is a forum post from imdb on the topic:

I think it's there along with a lot of other "clues" to play around with the many theories as to the WHY of the attacks which was bandied around by the media after the Columbine massacre.

For years it was believed that the Columbine killers decided to attack the school for reasons such as that they were picked on by other children (Gus Van Sant has a shot of Alex being bullied in school), because they played violent video games (in Elephant we see them playing a first person shooter), because they were obsessed with Nazi propaganda (Van Sant shows us them watching a documentary on the Nazis, but one of them has to query the identity of Hitler), and another theory suggested that they felt outcast due to them being closeted homosexual(in Elephant we see them kiss each other).

Taken like that the shower kiss is just another tiny little..."joke"...almost, pandering to the possible causes of the attacks by showing glimpses of possibilities as to their reasoning, but with no definitive answer, no conclusions. And of course that all ties up with the title, "Elephant", and the story of the blind men feeling the elephant and all believing they are touching different animals. None have the whole picture and the whole truth of the situation.

in these respect, elephant shares many similarities with libra. (a little aside - the film's title is apparently a reference to "the 1989 BBC film of the same name, directed by Alan Clarke, which reflects on sectarian violence in Northern Ireland". for clarke, elephant refers to the proverbial elephant in the room, but "thought that it referred to the Chinese proverb about five blind men who were each led to a different part of an elephant. Each man thinks that it is a different thing." i like this story because it it exposes and demonstrates the way in which something (in this case a saying/phrase) can be misinterpreted and subsequently reinterpreted, and given several layers of meanings).

and finally, to return to the image above (which, in my personal relationship with/experience to film, stood in for what was going to be an interesting film expereince, having seen said image in some magazine when i was in my mid teens and wanting to see the film ever since - but for some reason failing to until now). it is interesting to me that it refers to a tiny tiny moment in the film, a moment which barely takes up a second in the film (in terms of that kiss itself). i suppose in marketing terms it implies a (teen) love plot and therefore is intended to appeal to a certain demographic. it would be possible for such a love plot to exist in the film, but then the film would be an entirely different one altogether. nevertheless, i do think it acts nicely as a counterpoint (a small and tender act of kindness) to both the film's ostensible and more subtle subjects. at the risk of romanticising too much, i think it does point to the urge or impulse in us that makes us so horrified by the events that elephant portrays and refers to.

*although it was the module in which i acheived my lowest mark since first year, i am glad that i took the module in "political fictions" because it has enabled me to think about such issues. they are most prevalant in the discussion of politics and art, but some of the more general writing on the topic seems to me reminiscent of the wider discussion of the 'purpose' of art.

on knowing and not knowing. (life lessons)

2009-07-02T01:24:00.005+01:00

despite my best efforts, i can't sleep. i am currently listening to music made by an old classmate of mine under the moniker rural life. it always makes my heart a little achey because, for me, it makes me feel difficulties of my particular sort of rootlessness - in part through my own projection as said classmate is from where i am from originally (hong kong), but also i think because he has at least some similar experiences & that comes through in the music. that said, not many of the songs are explicitly about the funny nature of such situations, but they still somehow sum up that sentiment for me.

my heart has also recently ached for (because of?) synechdoche, new york, which i liked a whole lot. when i was feeling out of sorts earlier today, i contemplating going back to see it again but opted out because the process of purchasing the ticket wouldn't have been anonymous enough. (i only saw it the night before, and the cinema is small and the staff would probably recognise me as my lovely friend (with whom i've discussed some of what follows) & i ere the only ones there last night. i as feeling fragile and consequently self-conscious). i particularly appreciated the act that most of the 'weird' or 'quirky' things about the film felt perfectly natural to me; they made sense within the film's reality. there is a point in the film (and here i am summarising crudely) where someone speaks of their loneliness & sadness and wonders they haven't expressed this to anyone before only to conclude that everyone is so preoccupied with their own pains that they cannot ever fully understand another's. i don't think this is meant in a selfish way - it is inevitable that we can never truly understand someone else's pain because of the simple fact that we are not them. this is a sentiment/line of thinking that i am constantly preoccupied with.

i recently received an email in which someone described me as 'together'. i'm sorry to say i don't feel very together at all. i feel, in fact, a little lost - as, i'm sure, many of my peers do now that - except for the ceremony - we have graduated. it terrifies me to have only tentative plans. and to some extent it amazes me that i can come across as someone who has it 'together'.

it has only been at university that i have become aware of the gap between how i think of myself and how i'm perceived. to some extent, this is flattering, but on the other hand, it is also kind of scary. i remember in my first week of univeristy, one of my flatmates (one with whom i have very little in common - she embodying what i can only crudely describe as the 'popular girl') said something similar to me, and it was such a shock to hear that from someone who i had thought of as relatively together herself. certainly she didn't show any signs of the anxiety of the social demands the week made of us, demands which i felt acutely. but, it transpires, she did (although perhaps to a lesser degree). nevertheless, it was a bit of a shock to me, how much we do not or can not know another person - be it people few don't know very well at all, or our very good friends. (again, admittedly, the nature of not knowing differs depending on the nature of relationship, but i think it will always be there a little).

more recently, a dispute with a friend, and the subsequent resolution of said dispute, has made me realise that i am seen by my friends as an opinionated and even, god forbid, principled person -- something i associate with and admire very much in my older sister. on the flip side, it also made me aware the of the necessity to present myself and my views conscientiously, that the force with which i argue can sometimes be alienating and frustrating.

but my time at university, as a undergraduate at least, has come to an end. i am going home tomorrow - and, although i will return at some point next week - things somehow (finally) seem final. i both know and do not know what i'm going to do with the life that lies before me; this is both scary and exciting at once. i write this partly to try and communicate this feeling, but ultimately no one quite knows what it's like as me; many many many others have been in this position before too but i don't know fully what it felt like as them. (& i guess that is the scary thing about it - knowing that this is something i am going to have to work out on my own, even though i will be, and have been, getting lots of help and support from others).

so, what's the point? what can we do if this nature of 'knowing' a person seems so futile? in my previous post i spoke of an incident in which a stranger commented on the book i as reading - the comment itself was unexpected, but what was even more is that i did not expect such a comment to come from said stranger based on my very initial impressions of him (formed literally whilst he made the comment, as i hadn't noticed him before that). i love it because it illustrates how complex people are, how they can surprise you because you can't know them in the sense that you can't know what it is like to inhabit their particular bodies and minds. & it is very hard, but i think if we try to remember this, and try withhold judgment as best we can, then the resultant social environment might also allow us to be more fully or unashamedly ourselves in a more public manner. i don't know - perhaps this is a little naive of me, but i do honestly believe it.

on photography - my (reading) life lately.

2009-06-29T22:13:00.007+01:00

standing in a queue for a delayed train (in what transpired to be an exercise in futility, seeing as the powers that be didn't have us queue anywhere near where the train finally arrived and any attempt at orderliness quickly fell apart), a man in the crowd exiting the train station said to me, without slowing down or stopping, "that's a good book". i like that he didn't stop - that that was all he wanted to say, and i like how he didn't seem the 'type' of person to read such a book (loud and almost 'laddish' -- this, of course, says more about my misgivings than anything else, but that said, i love it when my expectations of people are defied in this way).

(i feel like more people should scan their books. i prefer my tired looking.)

the book in question is susan sontag's on photography. i have tentatively delved into it, having found it at a thrift store/second hand shop in chicago (a day or so after buying regarding the pain of others - sontag's last book, which also discusses photography and the power of images).

i have to confess that i am rather poorly-read and i rarely (if ever) read non-fiction books, but ever since i realised sontag had written a book of such a title, i wanted to read it. (i first encountered her through 'notes on camp' for the american thought and culture). i am also only one essay in ("in plato's cave").

in some respects i am tempted to say it seems pretty standard so far. but i think to say that would be to undermine sontag. i think instead that i feel inclined to say so because i agree with her. often she speaks of things that i think i 'knew' already, things which 'seemed so obvious', but i never explicitly thought or said these things. i have had such a reaction to writers i like and i would argue that such statements detract from the writer -- because really feeling this way demonstrates the brilliance of the person you are reading. you (and i) didn't think or say that, and they did. they were able to observe something clearly which you thought of only in a nebulous fashion, and were able to deconstruct it -- and that is what makes them good at what they do, and in a way that is what is so clever about it, because it makes so much sense.

i suppose what makes me tempted to summarise sontag's points as 'standard' is the old phallus metaphor - just because i am wary that it is something that detractors can easily an argument for this without actually paying attention to the content. i think, to some extent, sontag herself is aware of this.

the camera as phallus is, at most, a flimsy variant of the inescapable metaphor that everyone self-consciously employs. however hazy our awareness of this fantasy, it is named without subtlety whenever we talking about 'loading' and 'aiming' a camera, about 'shooting' a film. (13-14)

she implies there is something colonising and predatory about the act of taking photos - drawing a parallel between how in the past people literally shot animals in a safari in africa, but now we 'shoot' them with a camera. (and now that i think of this, this notion of 'shooting' is bound up in don delillo's libra too, which in a way also explores how mass media can impact cultural memory and affect us in ways which text cannot).

certainly there can sometimes are ethical issues surrounding photography - in professional photojournalism in the middle east for example. i don't know about you, but they often make me feel very uncomfortable because as a viewer you are so very passive (part of the power of the camera is that it reduces the subjects to, well, exactly that, mere subjects, while the photographer has portryal-control from behind the camera. but that is not what makes me uncomfortable - it that someone was just there taking photographs while all these horrible things happen; "this very passivity - and ubiquity - of the photographic record is photography's 'message', its aggression" (7)). and for me, the only way to cope with this is to try and emotionally distance myself from what i see:

to suffer is one thing; another thing is living with the photographed images of suffering, which does not necessarily strengthen conscience and the ability to be compassionate. it can also corrupt them. once one has seen such images, one has started down the road of seeing more - and more. images transfix. images anesthetize. an event known through photographs certainly becomes more real than it would have been if one had never seen the photographs ... but after repeated exposure to images it also becomes less real.

and i think in specific context i am talking about, the situation is made all the more complex because of the such a cultural gap between the (western) photographer and his (non-western) subjects. and because, as sontag notes, (another key point) that photographs are never wholly objective (at the most basic level because a photograph must be framed in a way the world is not), the photographer's vision is never the whole truth - what he chooses to photograph is determined by what he believes 'worthy' of being photographed.

such problems necessitate the existence of organisations such as new exposure (which an old acquaintance of mine is involved in; they recently put on a small exhibition) are important, because they aim to overcome such issues by "document[ing] under-reported or misrepresented issues by working with the people who live at the heart of those issues ... equip[ping] them with cameras and encourag[ing] them to document their lives through photography so they are able to capture their experiences and tell their story in a way only they can."

this is not to say that 'official' photographs, or photographs legitimated by publication in newspapers for example, are not a valid representation of an event, but that it is represents one of many experiences of an event. a photograph is not the whole picture. like the text of a newspaper, there is ideology underpinning them. and one must be aware of that.

and there is this strangeness - "ultimately having an experience becomes identical with taking a photograph of it, and participating in a public event comes more and more to be equivalent to looking at in photographed form" (24). not only this true of the media, but also in our personal lives. i am thinking specifically of facebook, and how many my age eagerly upload and trawl through photographs of the nights before. (although, rather disturbingly, this is true of one's experience of facebook in general - perhaps in particular relation to the 'relationship status'. all too often i, or my friends, have jokingly said "oh, but it's not real until it's on facebook". that the joke can be made in the first place is evidence of some degree of truth in this statement. this puts me in mind a post i came across on foucault and facebook).

but i am digressing. interesting though it is, i have not thought through the above properly to talk about it at length, and the subject of this post is photography. (although sontag's discussion of photography certainly reveals as much about our modern society beyond photographs). and what i want to talk about instead is a little indulgent - my own attempts to showcase my photography. i had a very hard time deciding how best to share my snapshots of chicago - a very hard time indeed. in part this is because of my emotional investment - my desire to have the photographs represent something more than what they depict alone, to share the place beyond what is literally in the image.

(as an aside, sontag has this to say on photography and tourism - "travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs. the very activity of taking pictures is soothing, and assauges general feelings of disorientation that are likely to be exacerbated by travel. most toursits feel compelled to put the camera between themselves and whatever is remarkable about their encounter." (9-10))

now, i would like to think that i am acutely aware of photography as something subjective (as, dare i say it, art). and as an extension of this, i also think how one encounters an image impacts its interpretation. and this was a big part of my dilemma - facebook didn't seem like the correct medium to show my photos, but neither did flickr. the former allows you to treat photos as stills in of a film almost, and as a narrative, because you can 'scroll' through the photos very quikcly through the use of the '<-' & '->' arrows of the keyboard. the latter is more a means of sharing photos as individual pieces -each image that stands alone, not really in conjunction with anything, unless you are using 'sets' which are limited unless you have a flickrpro account. (and while admittedly flickr shows thumbnails of the previous and next photo in the 'stream', in order to view said photos one must click and wait for a new page to load, as opposed to facebook, where flash (?) essentially enables you to remain on the same webpage). i suppose, though, what i find difficult about both 'mediums' is that they require you to view photos individually. and my experience in chicago cannot be expressed in one singular photo, but in all of them all at once.

so i opted to have them all on one page, in a way in which allows me to juxtapose some images and let other stand alone - but all as part of one mass (albeit still linear as it requires scrolling up and down). i prefer this, and in fact, said site used to serve as a photoblog of sorts. (perhaps i should reinstate it as such? or create a new one? or is that one blog too many? i suspect so). i like having this degree of control, so i can say hello world! chicago is colourful - look at the rainbow of newspaper stands (?), look at the red of an umbrella on a dready day. and in that way, that is a benefit of the frame of a photograph. sometimes it makes an ordinary thing rather interesting (or at least, i hope it does). and, for me, the whole point is to share my very specific and very individualised perspective. it is, i suppose, an attempt to 'capture' something that i am amused or moved by - maybe even to 'own' it (in the way i have spoken about how i feel the need to own books and films). but, of course, that can never be fully 'owned' or 'captured', just as life itself cannot. it is to some extent futile - just as my attempt to articulate my 'philosophy' of photography has been, it seems.

the subtle glories of small gigs

2009-06-29T01:15:00.011+01:00

click for larger.
let me preface this by saying i am very tired indeed, and so if i am more incoherent than usual, i apologise.

my first sunday in chicago was spent in a bar called the hungry brain. my gracious host brought there for the weekly jazz night. that particular night, josh berman and his band performed. it was a lively show (to use the american parlance) - in particular berman himself and his vibraphonist. i was particularly appreciative of the latter, because it was intriguing to see an instrument i have primarily encountered in a primary school context to be played in a manner so foreign to me.

rather than have punters pay on the door, the mc declared that he would come around to collect money (7USD was his recommendation) at some point during one of the two sets. (he also established the house rules - namely, no talking during the set). this happened towards the end of the first set, and had caught me a little off guard; the man came around with a basket into which we all dropped our american dollars. i later told anthony this reminded me of church - most superficially for the use of a basket, but also, i now realise, the insider knowledge involved. this method of payment was something i had forgotten about (due to my enjoyment of and engagement the performance itself), and for this reason i was caught a little off-guard; similarly, i imagine to the uninitiated, the collection portion of a church service may seem a bit bemusing (although it is generally announced more explicitly - right before the collection takes place).

later, one of our group (possibly a girl named erin? my memory fails me, and i only met her that one night) mentioned that she referred to these weekly jazz nights as her 'church' - superficially because they take place on a sunday, but also because (to paraphrase her words) people sit around and chat otherwise and there is a nice little sense of community. at the time, i didn't think much of this explanation, perhaps due to my own experience of church attendance. i always found those post-service socials a bit awkward: having to talk to grown-ups who knew my dad but who i didn't really know, coupled with my poor cantonese and the general cultural gap.

the second evening of my return to nottingham, i went to a gig at lee rosy's featuring 7 hertz, jean elliot snr and bonsai projects.

lee rosy's is a cafe by day, and as they don't have an alcohol license, and serve their usual tea and cakes etc during gigs instead. as the space is small, it is very intimate indeed - in fact, so much so that the characteristically british audience stays quite far back from the bands, meaning that those at the back are very far away indeed! the gigs at lee rosy's are generally very relaxed, and involve individuals (such as myself) sit cross-legged on the floor (something which has always reminded me of primary school. it is a great place for a gig of a certain breed, i think. indeed, when i last blogged about live music, it was in relation to a gig i went to there.

so, working in reverse order -- the man who makes up bonsai projects was a little nervous and a little awkward, although less so as his set went on. if my memory serves me, his songs were a combination of sweet and silly in subject matter, but treated (i almost wanted to say 'tret' there) very seriously and sombrely. he was then followed by jean elliot snr, a french man who, with the help of a loop pedal, played many many instruments indeed, including a theremin (incidentally, included in an episode of this american life that i listened to on my train journey back from heathrow). the loop pedal has done wonders for the traditional one man band:
and i can't help feel that jean elliot snr channels the sensibility behind the original: he plays children's instruments - or else instruments rather whimsically decorated, or 'found' and created - dressed as a sailor. and finally, 7 hertz consisting of a man on double bass, a woman playing violin and another playing the clarinet or saxophone, depending on the song. it is a rather experimental combination of jazz and classical (and i have to say now i've always found double bass players very intriguing - the way the very instrument requires the use of their full body. and in general the phsyicality of this performance reminded me a little of berman and his band).

all in all, it was a lovely gig -- and it was not just 7 hertz that put me in mind of that night in chicago, and what was said. jean elliot snr's use of the loop pedal (especially when he used it to harmonise with himself) made it difficult to tell where the sounds are form (my favourite thing to do whilst watching a live performance of music from a very young age). his use of the theremin was especially eerie, given that the instrument doesn't require the player to touch it - and yet he is in control of the sounds it makes by waving his hands around it. both these aspects of his performance lent it an almost spiritual aspect, making me think of the documentary the pervert's guide to the cinema, in which zizek talks about the disembodied voice and its ability to scare us. surely, a disembodied voice also recalls god? and 7 hertz's perfomance - when the double bass stand (not the correct terminology; i am referring to the retractable metal prong, sort of like a radio atenna, that is used to prop the instrument up), gave way to the vigour of the bass player's movements, and when the violinist, having witnessed this event, couldn't help but laugh, her laugh seemed as much part of the song as anything else - was gorgeous. and the smallness of the place itself, the intimacy which invites an awareness of the audience made me feel like i was sharing all these lovely little moments with everyone else in the room. and at last, i understood what the girl for whom sunday night jazz was church meant.

regretting and forgetting (or, being the caretaker of the great barrier reef)

2009-06-21T17:21:00.000+01:00

i regret forgetting /not keeping up with the languages i have learnt. (german, spanish, mandarin -- i wish also that i was more proficient in cantonese).

i regret not pursuing 'speech & drama' (or whatever it is called). admittedly, i only did this in early primary school, but i would like an excuse to read poetry/prose out loud, and an excuse to perform.

i regret giving away my flute to my little sister's friend; and in general, i regret thinking i was too cool, or rather, that certain things were too un-cool. i regret not appreciating the value of playing music.

i regret not partaking in the feminist reading group and women's network more generally at university (true also of people & planet and rambling soc - a nice excuse to be outside and i like walking).

i regret not taking modules in creative writing and american poetry. instead i took stylistics (which wasn't what i expected) and american drama (which was interesting but the class - in terms of people - as a whole wasn't very enthusiastic or engaged). i wonder why i chose to suppress that side of myself in an academic arena (for me the two modules are sort of linked).

these things the tip of the iceberg. many of these regrets are representative or symbolic of something wider. i regret not being more rigourous with myself in a way. and while some of these can be amended, ultimately it is the loss of time in which to do all these things.

i used to think i was jealous of people with passions - people with something they believed in (i'm not talking just about religion), but i realise now that what i was really envious of was that these people knew what they wanted, and they knew themselves in a way. and i feel like i am getting there. and if this is it, if this is all that i regret, i really must acknowledge that i have led a rather charmed life -- i mean, sure, unsavoury things have happened too, but i like to think of them as part of the process. and i have seen lots of the world (although not nearly as much as i'd like!), i know lots of wonderful and interesting people and for the most part, i am able to do what i enjoy. a while ago, in response to my saying that, after we hung up, i was going to watch a film as part of my revision, my mother told me that i was like the caretaker of the great barrier reef because work and play are all one. i thought that was a rather lovely way to put it.

on the politics of naming (and not naming), also known as a belated manifesto.

2009-06-17T15:53:00.010+01:00

names in literature are important - often they are chosen for some sort of symbolic significance. the power of a names are equally acknowledged by public figures, such as politicians or actors (think martin sheen aka ramon estevez).

in light of this, i hope you'll bare with me while i indulge in something a little egotistical (putting aside the fact that this whole exercise in blogging itself is self-serving): i'd like to dwell a little on my online moniker, sarah expletive.

(image stolen from flickr; sorry girl i don't know who is wearing black bar glasses.)

my actual name is sarah fok (fok is pronounced so as to rhyme with 'rock' or 'block'). on a boredom-fuelled whim, i changed my facebook name to sarah expletive, and everyone else has loved it so much, i've kept it.

it is interesting that without the internet/facebook this wouldn't really have been possible. i would look odd introducing myself to strangers as 'sarah expletive' (& i probably look odd to some using this name on the internet!). on this topic, hillary kolos wrote a short piece, bouncing off the walls: playing with teen identity, in which she speaks of how as an adolescent she used her bedroom wall to construct her identity, and suggests that this is also true of facebook 'walls'. indeed, i like the name in part because, as a friend noted, it "sound[s] like you should be fronting a band that opens by reading poetry by Virginia Woolf and then thrashes around on stage screaming bloody anarchy, laced with subtle hints of folk rock" - if only! (woolf, to my knowledge, never wrote poetry, but her prose is more than poetic enough).

my surname has often been a source of confusion and even awkwardness for english speakers. obviously this is because it resembles the swear word 'fuck'. in school, when doing the register, some substitute teachers would call everyone else by their full name and when they reached me, go "sarah... sarah?". yep, that's me. by way of habit (to avoid any inevitable confusion), i usually spell my surname when booking a table at a restaurant or talking to the gas people over the phone - or anything that involves the other party having to write 'fok'; it has been variously reincarnated as 'fuk' 'folk' and 'fox'. with new people in a social situation, i don't bother with the spelling thing, partly because i enjoy the awkwardness a little. a word is a word (and sex isn't really dirty anyway) so it doesn't bother me. wordplay is fun and i have no problem with fok/fuck inspired nicknames ('fokker' and 'fokface'). more than anything, i am bemused and amused by some people's reactions more than anything else - sarah expletive (gently) pokes fun at that.

however (and here we get a little serious), i also indulge in a little fancy that the name would well suited if i were a radical communist who believes that surnames are complicit in an ideology of capitalist ownership, or a radical feminist who rejects the inherent patriarchy - and to lesser extents, i am. at the very least, one cannot deny that the names of of individuals (particularly in relation to marriage and families, as discussed on infinite thought) matter. with all that said and done though, in a real life context i would feel a bit uncomfortable rejecting my surname outright. on a simple and superficial level, i rather like my name, for the awkwardness cited above. and in a small way, the awkwardness of others and my indifference regarding potential offence on this matter has helped to shape my politics. it is also a public and constant connection to a culture with which i do not engage in the traditional sense, but which has just as equally has shaped who i am as a westernised non-westerner living in the west. (aside: i am not sure how i feel about the usage of the term 'west' in these contexts, but i currently am not well read enough to have a better alternative at hand).

finally, this post also serves as an opportunity to state my real name (sarah fok sarah fok sarah fok) and thus make myself googleable, in part for the sake of accountability, and how this relates to truthfulness. on this blarg, i try to be as honest about my opinions and my experience - i am hesitant to say this what i am about to, to use such simplistic labels - as female, 'postcolonial' (for want of a better word) and simply a individual in this funny world of ours. i hope that in so doing i contribute in my small way to highlighting things that aren't quite right about popular or predominant ways of thinking; and i tentatively hope too to prompt thought on such issues or even facilitate discussion (alas not much of the latter has occured).

notes on my travels in hyperreality

2009-06-15T23:52:00.007+01:00

state mottos from strangemaps
(click for a larger image)

the post title borrowed from umberto eco's book, which was mentioned in this this american life episode entitled "simulated worlds" (and which i must get out of the library whilst i still can). i listened to the podcast shortly before i left chicago (i am back now by the way. hi!), and it sums up lots of what i find compelling about american studies - a lack of history and the subsequent need to create one. this history is inevitably and inextricably ideologically infused, yet the whole construct is a fundamentally flawed creation. it is something which doesn't quite exist (or, arguably, exists only because so many people believe in it and complicit in the fiction as fact). but i digress.

the above is what ira glass et al made me think about, or rather, helped me pinpoint as something of interest (i am woefully inadequate when it comes to articulating my interests) and thus preoccupied, my mind was naturally inclined to see america in this way in general - in particular, in relation to museums.

much of my tourist-y time spent in chicago was passed in museums. i took full advantage of the free entry days (and for the art institute my host's kind friend who works as a librarian and was able to get us free passes) - without this, i think i would have been considerably more broke, as, being america, the museums are not subsidised/funded by the state (or federal government or what have you - see, even the semantic difference is crucial), and are consequently quite expensive. the only museum i did pay for was the last i visited, the chicago history museum. student entry cost 12USD (to the museums' credit, there at least was a student rate - i remember standing in the queue for the belvedere in vienna and an american man was complaining to his companion that students got discounts to get in european countries) - pretty hefty, especially considering it wasn't the biggest place in the world.

now, i like museums. as i have mentioned before, i think, my mum, although not formally educated in the arts, is a great appreciator of all sorts of cultural fun and introduced me to them at an early age, although i am not sure how much she directly was involved in my museum indoctrination. to my mind, when you say museum, i think of the natural history museum here, or the british museum, or the tate modern. in my mind, i think of august institutions and buildings - these grand places of authoritative information. and although the counterpoint is the smaller niche cosy ones, museums in britain draw heavily from a sense of authority, putting me in mind of john berger's argument in ways of seeing that "that art galleries are considered the prerogative of the rich and educated, and often associated with the church in the public psyche." (that said, i think the many of tate galleries now have set days and activities to encourage child engagement and participation: i remember a sunday walking in a gallery of important portraits hanging on the deep red walls of the tate britain with children building and flying elaborate paper aeroplanes in the room's centre).

and while i accept berger's 'church' comparison is made in relation to art galleries, and that such an atmosphere isn't true of big british museums like the science museum and the natural museum, which are intended to be educational and child friendly, i still sense a certain air of authority there which i did not in american museums. even in the very way the information is presented, there is less of a sense of objectivity - rather than directing you to go here first and then there in order of chronology, for example, one is confronted, as in one area of the chicago history museum, with a large room divided into different themes (such as 'jazz/blues club', 'sweet home chicago' [neighbourhoods], city on the make [early history and industry], 'city in crisis' [notable events, eg 1919 race riots], 'my kind of town' [theatre, sports, etc]). this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the geography/layout of the room meant that even within each 'section', how one is meant to approach the exhibit is not clear-cut, and there is no way to take in all possible information without backtracking a little.

i don't know - with all museums, i have a desire to do things systematically, always fearing that i will miss out on some important little bit of information if i don't. this is true of me for art museums too. for someone who places such emphasis on subjectivity, i really do appreciate the objective in museums - i think because comprehensive yet concise summaries and introductions are difficult to find and i think of information museums as a source of these (and to a lesser extent art museums). i like to know things, and at least feel that i know them well enough. (perhaps this is also why i am interesting in maps and graphs - because they represent a certain mastery of information, albeit information that is manipulated. it speaks of certain tension though - i have simultaneously a desire to challenge authoritative narratives - for example, on feminist or postcolonial terms, yet also an almost desire for these narratives to exist. this is an issue that comes up in adaptation studies too - in the form of the question of to what extent to adaptations reinforce the canon rather than subvert them - an issue i did not consider seriously enough at the time). but again, i digress.

another thing that was of particular interest (concern, even) me was the presentation of 'civilisations' in the field museum (chicago's natural history museum). to me, their very presence in a natural history museum is somewhat questionable in and of itself, although i can understand that particularly as an american museum, the field museum would want to represent the various old cultures relevant to america and its history. anyway, i first must confess of the many such sections ('the ancient americas', 'inside ancient egypt', 'north american indians', 'northwest coast and artic peoples'), i only visited the "africa" section, so my account may be somewhat skewed, although the entrances to many of the exhibits were executed in the style of a playground or theme park. i suppose this is also true of the the evolution/dinosaur exhibit, but it is somewhat disturbing in a postcolonial context here, i think.

while i appreciate that (perhaps particularly because museums are expensive and therefore even more primarily used as an educational tool for children rather than anything else) the exhibits are geared towards engaging children (something the museum does effectively overall), i do feel like this impulse extends to the portrayal of the exhibit as a whole. i felt like i was in a theme park of some kind, gazing at the spectacle of savages/natives. i think that at times the need to involve and engage goes a bit too far - in the 'africa' exhibit, they attempted to recreate the experience of what it was like to be captured as a slave and sent by ship to an unknown destination. this was represented by a dark tunnel in which you hear voices singing and talking about their experience whilst you (literally) walk up a pseudo bridge. as you come out of this tunnel, you turn to face placards of cartoon men staring at you (representing people who want to buy slaves - and i have to say, to me this was eerily effective in making me feel threatened, so in that sense, at least, the exhibit succeeded). in the context of such a playground/theme park feel to the exhibit (which i cannot really articulate very well, i know), i don't think it is hard to see how this cheapens and lessens actuality of what has happened. i don't know. it disturbs me because it makes me feel a little like what is on show can easily be dismissed as entertainment, and as unreal.

this is also true of the 'evolution' section of the field museum. initially, i liked this because to see the dinosaurs (and that's what everyone wants to see, right? the dinosaurs. that great spectacle - which in the 'simulated worlds' TAL episode is argued to be more representative of how we/americans think of ourselves rather than accurate recreations), one has to walk through an evolution exhibit. that said, i did notice that there was a possibility to discretely exit after the dinosaur exhibit - thus evading the section of evolution exhibit which shows us how humans evolved. (although i don't know how many people who don't actually believe in evolution visit natural history museums in this first place.) while the portrayal of dinosaurs etc in the theme park fashion is distinctly more common to us (i am thinking of my experiences as a child in hong kong, although i cannot accurately recall how they do it in britain), this type of portrayal too makes things seem less objective. or at least, it does to me - walking through i was thinking about how easily a parent who did not believe in evolution could possibly dismiss it because of the way the exhibit was set up. i think it is certainly easier when the exhibit in some ways recalls (at least for me) jurassic park.

i suppose much of this theme park/fun fair atmosphere comes from a particularly american history of museums, which i have encountered briefly in my 'thought and culture' modules, but also rather notably a module in 'american drama' (think of how a museum exhibit is to some extent staged). we discussed museums, like pt barnum's american museum, in relation to melodrama, when morality plays were performed in theatres which were part of a museum. to quote wiki, please note that:

Barnum opened his museum on January 1, 1842 to create a place where families could go for wholesome, affordable entertainment but his success drew from the fact that he knew how to entice an audience. Its attractions made it a combination zoo, museum, lecture hall, wax museum, theater and freak show, that was, at the same time, a central site in the development of American popular culture.

and as this site, these museums functioned as places where one could reassert their social status and sense of public morality.

the notion of the spectacle is, i suppose, inherent in very museum, but i felt this all the more so in the museums i visted in chicago. at the chicago history museum, they had a collection of dioramas, something which i've not quite seen before in such a capacity. they were lovely to look up, but very much setup as a spectacle, and almost proportioned like a cinema screen. the room itself was dimly lit so that your attention was drawn to the dioramas. such use of lighting was also true of the exhibits of stuffed animals in the field museum, and i felt that there was a sense of staging too at the lincoln park zoo. (which is free, by the way! that in itself is rather impressive, i think). also in the field museum, there was literally an old style cinema entrance for dinosaurs alive: 3d within the building, as well as ... well, scientists on exhibit! there were labs set up with large glass panels so we could scientists at work. again, the lab inside was brightly lit but the surrounding area dimly so, to draw your attention to these 'screens'. this made me wonder a little if they were hired actors - it must be very strange and unnerving to work there otherwise.

i'm not sure how to end here. the phenomenon of the spectacle and hyperreal in the museums i visited is an interesting one, and arguably an exaggeration of what any museum must do. i didn't really feel this way about the art museums i visited, but it is interestingly it was at at a lovely exhibit we saw at the museum of contemporary art, entitled "take your time" by olaf eliasson, when i next wondered if people were part of the exhibit. the image above is of an installation where there is this lit mist in a dark, dark room. in order to get there, you walk down a very short corridor before turning into the room -- and when we entered, there were two children with umbrellas and raincoats running through it. as i became acclimatised to the darkness of the room, i became aware of the children's parents videoing and photographing them, which made me think no, you're just being silly. of course the children aren't part of the exhibit!. afterwards, however, my companion expressed some uncertainty as to they too were part of the exhibit.

on blooming late and learning.

2009-06-01T23:15:00.003+01:00

prompted by an article by a retiring lecturer in AMCAS , the newly-revived (internal?) "newsletter of the school of american and canadian studies and institute of film and television studies" here at nottingham, i feel compelled to write a little about my belated interest in my studies. by 'interest', i mean an intentional and active interest in the academic beyond the mere essay writing and exam taking (not that i wasn't poking around the internet around the juicy bits of my courses as is - that, for me, is almost inevitable).

dave murray's article 'on teaching' discusses his personal experience of and the changes in higher education over his forty years -- of particular note is how in recent years, as university education becomes increasingly commodified:

What seems to me to have happened is that, in response to bigger numbers we have gradually started to treat people as if they’re still at school. Sadly, students now have come through a style of education obsessed with assessment, which has led them to focus on education as a measurable product. In the past a student might have come to ask me what else he or she could read to further an interest. Now it’s more likely to be which essay should I do if I want a 2(i).

this ideology of commodified is something i certainly not something i cannot claim to have not engaged in, despite its flaws - and while i may be able to partially attribute it to the 'system' which taught me this way of thinking, i cannot deny at level of personal complicity in not questioning such ideology.
(please note: murray is not wholly critical of the system as it is in now. he points out that before there were not as many students - the majority of came from public and grammar schools - and that "it was a wildly inefficient system where nobody expected too much of staff and some really neglectful teaching went on.")

he concludes:

Sadly I no longer felt nearly so positive about my answer [to the question from "one wonderfully idealistic student who believed passionately in de-schooling and who thought of the formal education system as little more than a way of slotting people into society and conformity and discouraging them from really thinking for themselves [who] asked [him] ‘Are you sure you’re not doing more harm than good?’'], largely because of my sense of the university now as a place to process a large number of people, and what I see as the student’s own tendency to behave like consumers demanding services rather than people taking responsibility for their own learning. No doubt this is a jaundiced view and as good a sign as any that I should be stopping. Certainly the possibilities are still here for a great (and I’ll even say a liberating) education, but perhaps given the large numbers it is even more up to you as individuals to take up your chances. Members of staff really do want to communicate, and they do have real enthusiasm and expertise to pass on, and we’re often surprised and frustrated that you don’t use us more to talk about ideas and not just deadlines and such like. So, use us and all the other resources of the place, while you can. The 3 or 4 years really do fly past – and even in my case the 40.

and when i read those final sentences (from 'certainly' onwards), i do feel like i have not made the most of my time here. and it is all very well and good for me to express that regret now, but what can i do about that now?

i think, in part, the reason i haven't made the staff as resources is sheer timidity(!). unless the lecturers were very explicit in their help, etc, i have always feel a bit uneasy about approaching them. clearly one corrective step i can take is proactivity. this is not as simple as it sounds, because this lack of action on my part is linked inextricably linked to both me working out what it is i want from academia (if anything!) and just my own personal strangeness.

however, as i was reflecting on the article, i realised that my late academic blooming is inextricably link to two friends i have made this (academic) year. the first is one of the most engaged and enthusiastic undergraduates i have met, and talking with him about our courses made me encouraged me to think about my studies from a different perspective. through him, i met another friend who has been incredibly supportive. and by virtue of being older and further along in his education, he has been a sort of model for the potentials of further study. so, i owe them both that (hello!).

forgive me if i'm rambling - i am inexplicably tired and this post has ended up less interesting than intended. forgive too, if you can, the general introspection of late. it is probably of little interest to others, but i'm afraid almost-graduating brings it out in me.

i was in love with the place (in my mind).

2009-05-31T21:22:00.006+01:00

in preparation for going to chicago (coupled with the fact that it overlaps loosely with the course material for my upcoming exam), i recently watched conventions: the world around us, about the 1968 democratic national convention. i was hoping it was an informative documentary for someone like me, who knew little about it, but it was instead a surprising stylistic experiment, and i do think it is best to approach it as the makers themselves describe it, a 'documentary film essay'. footage is edited and interspersed with quotes, and towards the end there is a particularly interesting stylistic experiment, which i later discovered from the poster for the film, was - perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly - to enable the viewer to "Experience American politics in the late ‘60’s as an LSD trip while Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention play “The Return of Son of Monster Magnet.”" it is interesting to contrast the poster with the film - the former is a lot more explicit in the latter, and emphasises spectacle. keeping in mind that conventions was made in 1971, this ties in with the filmmaker's understanding that

film technology makes available to the researcher a technique closely related to the dominant contemporary mode of perception: previously, a few may have seen themselves as "actors on the stage of history"; today, whole populations see life "as a movie". Film particularly facilitates research into those social and political phenomena --such as revolutions-- that are equally the expression of shared fantasies as they are the simply determined product of economic, or other, forces and conflicts. ... those who came to Chicago in August of 1968 demonstrated a tendency to conceive and become involved in the events dramaturgically, and so it seemed fully appropriate to study the setting and the action with a technique attuned to that sense of things. Finally, the 1968 convention was an event experienced by millions of people.

this is something which has come up in my political fictions module which i am particular interested in - the notion of cultural memory.

i like also the acknowledgment that "film research is more accessible to broader audiences than ordinary academic publication, without, hopefully, any compromise in the quality and authenticity of the report. This kind of research, although expensive to conduct and to publish, ought to render academic work not only relevant to the community, but accessible to it, and to help de-mystify the work of the university."

what i find particularly interesting here, however, is the claim to objectivity.

Using a combination of modern film technique for heightening audience involvement and academic technique for establishing the distance that makes objectivity possible,
the makers of “Conventions” have provided an opportunity to participate both emotionally and sensorily and to understand intellectually.

furthermore, it also describes itself as an 'instructional film ... divided in forty-four and twenty-four minute sections for convenience in classroom use' and i even found an introduction to the film which includes a study guide. i suppose one has to keep in mind the context in which this film was made (in 1971 - a mere 3 years after the convention), but nevertheless, conventions is clearly ideologically motivated and

all this is not to say that i disagree with the ideological implications of the documentary per se, but it's interesting to see 'underlying message' of their documentary, simply that it's interesting to consider how the filmmakers deal with this tension between subjectivity and objectivity, especially since the film text is not very conventionally 'objective' account of the events (ie giving facts about what happened at such and such a time on such and such a day). i will think more about this one, because i don't think i am being very insightful here yet but am nonetheless intrigued.
(NB: i googled to little avail in finding out more about both and conventions its makers,gerald swatez and kaye miller.)

&
i don't know if it is something specific to the era, or to the nature of the event, but i also came across a book entitled chicago 68 by david farber. while it is ostensibly a history book, it's quite experimental in form too:

to give the history of chicago '68, i tell the story of the convention protest and defense from three major perspective,s on after another. first, i tell the stories of the yippies, who created themselves solely for the purpose of confronting the democratic convention. then i gave the story of the mobilization, the antiwar movement's most important national planning organization, which despite much internal debate about chicago spend over eight months organizing the convention protest. finally, i tell the story of mayor daley and his police, who did their best to insure [sic?] that their city was protected form the unwelcome protesters.

i tell each story separate because each set of participants had such very different perspectives on the chicago protest. at the heart of my history of chicago '68 is the argument that the conflict at the convention was fueled by the completely different conceptions of political practice and social order the main orders brought to the planning and realization of the convention.

in addition to the 'narrative' sections, there are the more traditional history 'analysis' sections to the book. unfortunately, the book hasn't returned to its shelf since i had a look at it, but i am interested to see how successful farber is in his narrative.

i have also taken out a variety of books on chicago from the library. one, published in 1964, is simply entitled chicago and is part of 'the centers for civilization series'. i don't quite understand the premise for it (perhaps it is is intended to explore the cultural history of the place), but it was such a beautiful book that i borrowed it for the aesthetics of it alone.

another, published in 1967, is "chicago: an extraordinary guide". i am not entirely sure why the library has a travel book, although there is a sticker which says "presented to the university of nottingham by michael brook 1997". anyway, it is obviously quite dated, although there are bits of it which i still think can be useful to me as an actual tourist. what struck me about it, however, was the little notes about race and whether a white or black tourist would be welcome at certain establishments. and it wasn't just the fact that these asides existed, but the language with which the author dealt with such issues. it just kind of shocking to see on a page before me. i mean, i am thoroughly aware of the tensions of the time, but to come across something like this in a non-academic book, in a book which isn't dealing with issues of race, kind of made it seem more real. just to demonstrate what i mean, let me quote from the book:

Note: Negro visitors will find themselves welcome at most restaurants in this city. The exceptions will be some of the smaller ethnic restaurants in the following chapter. Conversely, whites will find themselves welcome at middle-class Negro restaurants, but depending on the tempo of the times, perhaps not at some of the soul food stations because of their locations in the ghettos.

Make reservations everywhere - as far in advance as possible, on weeknights as well as on weekends. You're in competition with hordes.

Know that places change, especially those run by chain or absentee management. With luck, you may find them to be exactly as reported, but it can't be guaranteed. restaurants owned and run by experienced individuals or families are likely to remain constant: pride of ownership and individual traditions generally assure continuity.

i guess what is so shocking about this is that the writer then just segues into other general advice. although i tend not to use capitalisation, i did so the quote to highlight the difference between 'Negro' a proper noun and 'white' as common noun, something which betrays a certain ideology too -- not that i haven't seen it before, but it is indicative of the notion that white is the normative/default state, and 'negro' as proper noun also makes me think of the concept of Other.

&

in preparation for writing this post, i googled around a little for nice maps of chicago. i have always been interested in maps, although i can't tell you why. i think there is just something pleasurable about having all this vast information put on a page for you. i came across some rather lovely old ones, but also the one above - a sort of typographical map of the neighbourhoods of chicago via a very interesting looking blog called strangemaps.

there is a book in the library entitled Chicago in maps: 1612 to 2002 which i was tempted to borrow, but it was rather large and heavy and i suspected that i would be unlikely to actually read it before i left. although i did have a skim through to admire all the pretty pictures.

for similar reasons, i also failed to take out Chicago architecture: histories, revisions, alternatives, but i am excited to see gorgeous buildings and in its place have borrowed a rather less cumbersome but more book, landmark neighborhoods in chicago, which focusses less on landmarks but is interesting nonetheless. i am aware everyone may be sick of me talking about this city and no one else may care about this.

what you should care about is the fact that the art institute of chicago houses:

american gothic by grant wood

nighthawks by edward hopper

!!!

i have never been more excited to see pieces of art work in real life. never. (klimt's the kiss and picasso's guernica were pretty exciting though)

whilst i'm away, however, i will be missing several exciting things, the most academic of which is an interdisciplinary convention 'bordercrossing'. (i don't think there is any information online about it). it is organised by the same guy who organised the 'generation net' talks that i have spoken about (sadly, the last one on transliteracy was cancelled as the speaker was ill).

i don't know if it's just because this year i am interested in these events and therefore notice them more, but there seems to be a lot of interesting postgrad organised things going on lately. i've noticed posters for a nottingham poetry series too. perhaps they figure in my mind more strongly simply because i actually note them with a view to attend/participate rather than an 'oh, that's nice'.

trying.

2009-05-30T00:23:00.004+01:00

so, half an hour past midnight - waiting for my cupcakes to cool so they can be iced in time to give as a thank you gift to jonathan, who kindly initiated me in the ways of the dark room (incidentally on the sunniest day in a long while) - seems as good a time as any to write here. although i have encountered many interesting things, i have little to say about them, or little to say about them right now.

instead, in the midst of deciding whether i want to be sung to or to hear sounds alone, i shall attempt introspection. i say attempt, because, although i am feeling and thinking a range of things, i am not sure if i can fully acknowledge them. as always, for me at least, writing about them helps in this respect.

introspection is perhaps inevitable at times of change. i didn't get the postgraduate funding, and, in retrospect, i can understand why. it was a very rushed application, and a bit before i decided to actually apply one of my lecturers did suggest that i wait til next year. this is, of course, a disappointment - more so than i admit to either others or myself. but, in the end, for all the wrong reasons. or rather, for some of the wrong reasons. i invested a lot into it because, although they can afford to support me (i think), i would like to not depend upon my parents financially. this desire for independence, however, extends a little further than that, in that i (like many others, no doubt) harbour a desire to start again in a new country - and prove to myself that it can be done. that i can do it. which, in some ways, i know i can, but my goodness, how tough it would be.

i do honestly love studying, and some ways, cannot imagine doing anything else, or rather, cannot imagine not doing this. (that said, parts of my past seem so far away that they are like a film, of sorts, but at the time they must have felt at least partially real). but i have not taken into account practicalities - what exactly is it i want to do? what do i want to study? and where? i have also romanticised a life of academia - in some respects, it will require as much 'networking' as any other job, for example. also, i cannot be half-hearted about this: half-hearted out of fear of failure (and then use said failure ). if i am going to do this, i have to do it right, properly - and if i am not going to invest all of myself in it, then i won't be able to do it properly, in particular in relation to the practicalities.

(one of the practicalities is what exactly i want to do. there is a lot i am interested in, and even then, my interests are, in the grand scheme of things, very limited. although . the vastness terrifies me a little; i just get so overwhelemed. on the other hand, that's precisely what is exciting and makes things interesting; i am interested in so many things.)

i have also, it seems, not achieved as well academically as i'd like to have this semester. it bothers me a little, because it effort and passion do not necessarily translate to good work, although i do strongly believe that they are ultimately vital. just in and of themselves, they are not enough. i still have learning to do, clearly.

a return to rehashing: more thoughts on dealing with developments in technology

2009-05-19T21:01:00.006+01:00

i am a fool. had i read more (or more diligently) linda hutcheon's a theory on adaptation, i would have been able to put it to such good use in my dissertation. alas.

specifically, i am referring to her notion of 'modes of engagement'. i have spoken already about specificity in adaptation theory:

Specificity assumes that different representation practices, such as literature e and film, have individual material and formal structures that distinguish and differentiate them from other practices. Conversely, fidelity is a differential notion that purportedly measures the extent to which a work of literature has been accurately recreated (or not) as a movie.
- timothy corrigan, "literature on screen, a history: in the gap"

modes of engagement, however, refers to - well - exactly that. hutcheon splits up the different modes loosely into three categories: telling (eg when we read a book), showing (eg when we watch a film) and participatory (eg playing videogames), which all 'immerse' us in texts differently. the latter is particularly relevant in consideration of more modern mediums, like videogames. while each mode of engagement relates to a medium, they are not limited to them, and this is where i find her argument particularly compelling:

this is not to say we do not engage differently with different media, but the lines of differentiation are not as clear as we might expect. the private and individual experience of reading is, in fact, closer to the private visual and domestic spaces of television, radio, DVD, video, and computer than it is to the public and communal viewing experience in a dark theatre of any kind. and when we sit int eh dark, quiet and still, being shown real life bodies speaking or singing on stage, our lvel and kind of engagement are different when we sit in front of a screen and technology mediates 'reality' for us.
- linda hutcheon, a theory of adaptation, p27

this also relates a little to my wondering about how tv on demand (and downloading) changes affects viewing habits and how we relate to/interact with those movie or tv texts. henry jenkins discusses this phenomenon a little (television goes multiplatform"), but more in context of how this effects how tv programmes are made and marketed (cathing up: the future of television). hm. still need to think more about this - the changes in habits are easy to discuss, but how this actually changes how we approach texts is more difficult, i think.

as an aside, jenkins mentions an article which mentions a couple who are watching different media content on their ipods in bed, and describes them as 'physically together' but occupying 'different mental spaces'. i've always wondered why it is that we talk about the internet in such spatial terms - an obvious one being 'cyberspace'. there are other better, more pertinent examples that i have thought this about, but can't currently recall. for "investigating english language" last year, i used text world theory to analyse a short story from no on belongs here more than you by miranda july, and quite obviously this idea of worlds is linked. i just wonder why at a fundamental (psychological?) level we are drawn to this notion of space and worlds in relation to such mediums.

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ben fry
speaking of the internet, a phd student (iain robert smith) at my univeristy has set up a series of talks called generation net. sadly i missed the first one, which sounded rather interesting:

Free/Libre Open Media'
Professor Gary Hall

This talk will present a series of performative media projects I term 'media gifts'. Operating at the intersections of art, media, critical theory and continental philosophy, these projects are gifts in that they are part of the 'academic gift economy' which circulates research for free rather than as market commodities. They are performative in that they are instances of media that endeavour to produce the effects they name or things of which they speak and which are engaged primarily through their performance. So they are a way of practising an affirmative media theory or media philosophy, where analysis and critique are not abandoned but perhaps take more creative, inventive forms. (source)

i did, however, make it to the one last week, entitled "On Being a Good Stream: Postmodern Fables of Financialisation" (given by dr david berry). of all the four generation net talks, this is probably the one that appealed to me least, and because i wasn't familiar with some of the theory (most crucially, lyotard's 'stream'), but one thing that i found particularly interesting was berry's discussion of the 'aesthetics' of finance. as i understand it, he is referring to graphics involved in conveying information about the financial markets: because there is such a wealth of information, it has to be made easily digestible, and it is therefore put into graphs and charts and other such things. obviously, in 'representing' information, said aesthetic representations can never truly convey the full complexity of the information (especially because there is such a wealth of it). the numeric order is replaced with a symbolic once, and there is inevitably a level of abstraction involved. (this implies that the visual representations of information can therefore be manipulated). most interestingly, he mentioned that at some corporation or bank (i can't remember which, sorry), they were hiring artists and graphic designers to create these visuals. (apparently ben fry is worth a look at if you're interested in this).

there were other interesting things raised in his talk - like what the finance does to time in the way it conceives of it (in graphs, for example, time is conceived of as space; also, my notes read: velocity of trading: milliseconds -> microseconds) and the commodification of life (life conceputalised discursively in finance: child as future, home as investment). lastly, going to the talk itself was also a worthwhile experience, i think, in terms of getting a better idea of what phd students get up to, etc. oh! and the speaker (david berry) is a co-founder of schnews!

anyway, the next talks are:

Professor Chris Atton - 'Virtual Community and Popular Culture: Expertise and Authority in Fan Discourse'
"Studies of popular culture have increasingly turned to the amateur media practices of fans to understand how ordinary people make sense of their own pleasures. ... This paper will explore the nature of internet-based fan discourse and will look particularly at how fans' engagement with their objects of desire – and with each other – have developed in an on-line environment."

Professor Sue Thomas - 'Transliteracy: A Unifying Concept'
"Transliteracy is currently defined as the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks. This talk introduces the concept and offers it for future development."

i'm excited. (the next thursdays 6pm at the grad school in trent)

&

(poster designed by saul bass, who is responsible for other lovely film posters)

and finally, a brief note on vertigo. having had the plot ruined for me a little by zizek, i managed to see the film on the big screen at a local independent cienma. sadly, and rather uncharacteristically, they messed up the order of the reels (or whatever the modern equivalent is) so that the story was a little bit jumbled. this may contribute to the fact that i really couldn't stand any of the characters, although obviously they are interesting in psychoanalytical terms. i loved the colours of the film too.

but all of this is not the point, which is this. the screening i went to transpired to be part of a weekly 'silver screen' feature for the over 60s. the experience of watching a film is inevitably shaped by who you watch it with (or indeed how you watch it - at home alone or in the cinema). i have watched one or two (fairly commercial) films in the cinema twice before, and found that my understanding and enjoyment of the movie differed on each occasion.

i have mentioned elsewhere on the blargh how generation gaps apparently in how films a 'read' and interpreted by their audiences. watching vertigo film with people for whom film was an exciting new invention rather than common place, was rather interesting. most notable (although a little annoying at the time) was the audience's tendency to talk and tut during the film. i suspect the lady sat behind us was also particularly chatty, but the tutting suggests to me a much more immediate understanding of film. she did so when bad things happened, and to me this seems to suggest an audience which reacts to the film not as a film, but more immediately as a story. an audience which is less aware of the conventions of film too, perhaps, and its artifice and everything that goes behind it. so, all in all, a rather banal observation, but ia point of interest for me nonetheless.