The hyperreal and 48 FPS (Skip to the part about the Hobbit films about 9:00 in)

These nerds talk about how 3D and higher frame rates impact video and film. (Traditionally shot at 24 frames per second, or FPS) They seem to be mostly scared and confused. It (according to their own words) makes them feel like it's both more real and more fake. Just thought it was interesting and would pass it along.

Rhizomes - I wish I had a more clever title.

Rhizomes

When I opened up the Deleuze writing, for a second I thought I mistakenly downloaded a PDF on botany. I read on, and realized that I could only be so lucky...

I kid.

Rhizomes versus Tree

Deleuze begins this article by discussing the nature in which discourse was originally examined comparing the structural method to that of a tree (the genealogical approach). We have item Z (film, speech, art, etc.) and we trace back to item A, its origin. Along the way, we make stops from Y to B, and so on and so on. It’s a simple narrative form- beginning, middle, end or in this case the tree metaphor- leaf, branch, trunk, root.

Deleuze takes issue with simplistic, rigid method. Instead, he offers the alternative method of approaching discourse- the rhizome. 

Deluze begins with a lesson in ginger and couch grass, “A rhizome as a subterranean stem is absolutely different from roots and radicles.” (29) The botany lesson quickly proves its validity and essential to study of this method. The examples of tubers and bulbs illustrate the idea that a rhizome acts as a singular point, a node, from which a variety of roots and shoots arise. The rhizome can also be broken down into its individual pieces, which then can be used to grow new plants.

Deleuze breaks down the characteristics of the Rhizomes into six categories. (With 1&2 and 5&6 being lumped together.)

1 and 2: Principles of connection and heterogeneity

“Any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be.” (29)

In this section, Deleuze focuses his argument to the field of linguistics. 

Linguistics seeks to define language in binary terms, as a friend of mine in the field (a doctoral candidate at Iowa) put it, “linguistics tries to establish "right" and "wrong" language. It does this by mapping out speech and drawing boundaries between dialects (through things like morphology, syntax and phonology).” The linguists, like Chomsky, are drawing these lines and creating these hierarchies and genealogies to describe it.

Deleuze rejects this entire system, charging that it is too concrete, too rigid “Our criticism of these linguistic models is not that they are too abstract but, on the contrary, they are not abstract enough...” (30) Deleuze points out that the linguists are almost far sighted, seeing individual trees, but missing the forest at large. While linguistics focus on the words- how they’re constructed, the phrases they create, and their sounds- they miss the surrounding components like the “perceptive, mimetic, gestural, and cognitive.” (30)

Essentially, Deleuze argues that the idea of attempting to place a rigid structure onto the study of words is flawed. There is no universal language, or "mother tongue", only a dominant group with political roots and stems that spreads from a central node. The language is never exclusive (and therefore cannot be looked at isolated in a bubble), it’s a part of bigger system.

3: Principle of Multiplicity

Multiplicity deals with rhizomes and the importance of their inter-connectivity. We take the multiple, the node, and recognize that it does not stand-alone. Rather, each multiple must be directly tied to surrounding concepts and ideas.

Deleuze references psuedomultiplicities, these are the unconnected or weakly connected bits of discourse that crumble upon close inspection. (It’s kind of like trying to pick up a wet clump of sand. It seems viable, but quickly disintegrates.)

The way I consider multiplicity is the raster image:

The raster image (think bitmaps, jpegs, photoshop files, MS Paint, etc.) creates its complete picture by combining many little pixels (or to use a Deleuze term- multiples,) to create an image. Each pixel is its own entity- they can be differentiated by hue, saturation, brightness, darkness, and so on and so forth. 

Now, consider a high-resolution image (on a digital camera or via painting or image creation in Photoshop.): it’s jam packed with a lot of unique pixels, which are a part of this large mosaic that creates an image. The greater number of unique and varied pixels that are connected, the higher quality the photo from a clarity, contrast, and color reproduction standpoint.

A low-resolution photo, like the insert on the flower shot above, does not have as many pixels available to it. It's connections are flimsy and weak. As the pixels get larger their bonds weaken. There is less variation, less diversity. Upon manipulation, the low-resolution photo will fall apart, become distorted and lose all meaning- it seems like an excellent example of the pseudomultiplicity.

4.Principle of asignifying rupture

"A rhizome may be broken, shattered at any given spot, but it will start up again on its old lines or on a new line...Every rhizome contains lines of segmentarity according to which it is stratified, territorialized, organized, signified, attributed, etc., as well as lines of deterritorialization down which it constantly flees. " (30)

The asignifying rupture is what gives fluidity to the rhizome. Think of it as something along the lines of an oil spill. The oil pools outward from its source, creates paths, separates, and diverges. It's a free form that moves entirely in a natural, smooth motion.

Another example of the asignifying rupture came with the advent digital editing for film and video.

In film based editing, great care had to be taken and large amounts of consideration had to be placed on each and every cut entered into the film. The physical film footage (as in a process negative) was cut and spliced back together to take raw footage from a mass of individual shots and convert it into a coherent narrative piece. This was known as destructive editing because while every cut contributed to the completion of the film it also destroyed a small bit of it as well.

Digital editing changed all of this by introducing a system that was known as non-linear and non-destructive. This meant that all of the footage (regardless of whether it was captured on film, shot digitally, etc.) could be edited over and over again with causing destruction to original material- with even allowing for different versions of the film to be saved at a time. Shots, scenes, sequences could all be lifted, moved and replaced at the will of the filmmaker. Each new cut and new tweak unlocking new meaning in the film and allowing the take chances and be able to dig for new ideas and thoughts to share.

The technological advancement turned film from finite to infinite, from dead artifact to living organism, from structure to rhizome.

Deleuze uses the heterogeneous relationship of the orchid and the wasp to illustrate deterritorialization and reterritorialization.

The orchid deterritorializes itself by making itself appear to be a female wasp, "tracing the wasp" (32) The wasp in turn reterritorializes itself on to the orchid's image of a female, which begets the deterritorialization of the wasp as a piece of the orchids reproductive puzzle and that ultimately leads to the reterritorialization of the orchid when the hornet transports the pollen for the Orchid.

It's very much like a dance, which when seen in action (in the YouTube video above) is even further illustrative. A brilliant visual representation of the rhizome overlapping itself and weaving in and out of its own path, two processes- the desire to mate on the part of the wasp and the desire to propagate on the part of the orchid- overlap and intersect to a degree where there is no signifier, just the dance.

5 and 6: Principle of Cartography and Decalomania

"A rhizome is not amenable to any structural or generative model... The rhizome is altogether different a map not a tracing."(35)

The tracing is built on the "use of the genetic axis and a profound structure."(35) What exactly does he mean by that? Tracing, in the sense of its relationship to rhizomes, is incredibly literal. When we trace, we draw the lines from point to point, it seems analogous to a coloring book or a maze- it is more primitive and simplistic. You simply start at a given point and work your way back to some sort of point of origin. It's matter of fact.

A map, on the other hand, represents something all together different according to Deleuze. It's a part of the rhizome. The map itself is almost like a living organism. “It is itself a part of the rhizome. The map is open and connectible in all of its dimensions; it is detachable, reversible, susceptible to constant modification. It can be torn, reversed, adapted to any kind of mounting, reworked by an individual, group or social formation...it always has multiple entryways” (35)

And of course, whenever I hear living map, I'm always reminded of this.

Control Societies (Empire and Deleuze)

Deleuze kicks off this piece with a shout out to his boy Foucault with a discussion of the demise of the "disciplinary society" and the rise of the "control societies."

According to Deleuze (via Foucault), disciplinary societies are usually associated with the eighteenth and nineteenth century, reaching its "apogee at the beginning of the twentieth century." (Deleuze, 177) They operate by organizing "major sites of confinement- family, school, the barracks, the factory, the hospital from time to time, and maybe prison, the model site of confinement." (Deleuze, 177)

The control society is a more tailored approach to the individual oppression than standardized approach of a disciplinary society.


So, the confinement society worked off a program of analogical molds, meaning there's a shared language/experience and despite the confinement, we were not separated. We can still relate from person to person.

 "The behaviors of social integration and exclusion proper to rule are thus increasingly interiorized within the subjects themselves." (Empire, 23)


In the society of control, on the other hand there has been a shift and push to eliminate that bond that people share in their suffering. The term digital modulation refers to each person's experience dealing with control. It is just varied enough that the individual remains alienated from his fellow sufferer.


The new order of the control society, has also created a shift from the factory to the business. This represents an even further push towards the individual control and suffering. Factories brought individuals together to work as a part of a greater good type scenario, with people banding together to achieve a common goal. 


Now, businesses have implemented "friendly competitions" (Deleuze, 179) to pit co-worker against co-worker in order to maximize productivity and drive a wedge between each other and dividing each within themselves. So, just know that the next time you go to Walgreens and they offer you a candy bar that's on sale at the register, you're promoting the new order control society machine. :)


These friendly competitions have spilled over into education as well. Schools and the governmental funding agencies behind them have adopted a "may the best everyman for himself win" policy.


On a University level, among faculty and students, the capitalistic re-imagining of academia has left people who should be friends and colleagues often pitted against each other for scholarship and grant moneys, tenure track positions, and entrance into prestigious programs, fellowships, etc. It's sort of cut throat out there right now and while it may promote more productivity at what cost is the trade off? 


On a lower level, from High Schools down through Grade School, states have implemented a battery of standardized tests- in order to assure that the student body is fit to graduate and proceed on to higher education or join the workforce and that the teachers are qualified enough to retain their jobs. 


My sister is a 7th grade English teacher near Toledo, OH. By the year students reach her classroom, they will be preparing to take their fifth round of the Ohio Achievement Assessment not to mention having to also pass the state's graduation test as well as taking SAT and ACT tests to get into undergraduate programs. 


While these standardized test do help to create a good little group of motivated, competitive children, or occasionally a defeatist group in poorer/underfunded areas, they serve even better as an excellent example of turning education into a business.

"In disciplinary societies, you start over again and again... while control societies you never finish anything." (179) 

Orson Welles' The Trial 1962 Based on the work of Kafka. Apparent Acquittal and Endless Postponement

  

Society of Control is a variation on the panopticon. "Power becomes entirely bio political, the whole social body is comprised by power's machine and developed in its virtuality. This relationship is open, qualitative, and affective." (Empire, 24)

"Life has now become... an object of power." (Foucault)

"Biopower extends well outside the sites of social instituations through flexible and fluctuating networks." (Empire, 23)

  

Lastly, in a control society the key that unlocks the door is no longer a signature, but a password. (I feel like you could extend this to also include things like usernames, avatars, the general online identity at large as well). 

Individuals are reduced to 'dividuals' (divided selves), masses are simply data, samples, markets, or banks. 

Even places where you shop, rent movies, or watch tv want to know more and more about, with the express idea of breaking you down into your data like some sort of post modern scrap heap.

The concept of the dividual also puts me in mind of places like Bank of America and Wells Fargo that charge you fees for you using the debit card that they gave you to access your money that you gave them. 

And on that depressing note let's go to the questions:

1. Locate and describe the society of control in your daily life.

2. How does the concept of rhizome function in light of structuralism and post structuralism?

3. Who would win in a bar fight Deleuze or Baudillard? 

4. Compare and contrast the theory of Empire with Rhizomes.

More Prometheus!

http://mashable.com/2012/04/17/prometheus-david-ad/

I'm totally stoked for this movie. Here's something super creepy that kinda ties in with Simulacra.

Globalization

Empire

    Over the years we have seen an increase in the interaction and integration among people and cultures. Hardt and Negri said that we have witnessed an irresistible and irreversible globalization of economic and cultural changes. Along with the global market and gobal circuits of production has emerged a global order, an "Empire", which focuses on a new global form of sovereignty. Empire is the political subject that effectively regulates these global changes, the sovereign powers that govern the world (xi). Hardt and Negri sought to interpret how this order came into its formation. Against other theories, they came up with their own and claimed that sovereignty had taken a new form composed of a series of national and supranational entities unified under a single logic rule. This new global form of sovereignty is called Empire. Sovereignty of the nation-state was the foundation of the imperialisms that that European powers constructed throughtout the modern era. For Hardt and Negri, Empire is different form imperialism due to the boundaries set by the nation-states that were instrumental in their progression. Imperialism was just an extension of sovereignty of the European nation-states beyond their own boundaries. It policed the purity of its own identity and excluded others by constructing a Leviathan. But the Empire establishes no territorial center of power and doesn't rely on fixed boundaries or barriers. It is, however, a decentered and deterritorializing apparatus of rule that includes all the entire realm within its open, expanded frontiers. This unversal form has emerged from the declining of modernity.
    Hardt and Negri says that many locate the ultimate authority that rules over the processes of globalization and the new world order in the United States. They claim that many critics charge the U.S. of repeating the practices of old European imperialist, while others believe they're getting right what the imperialist got wrong. According to the authors' beliefs, imperialism is over and no nation will be world leaders in the way modern European nations were. They believe that although the U.S. does hold a privileged position in Empire, it's privilege comes from the differences rather than similarities of old European imperialist powers.
    Hardt and Negri says the concept of Empire lacks boundaries and has no limits. The concept of Empire posits a regime that rules over the entire "civilized world". Secondly, it must present itself as an order, suspending history and fixing the existing state of affairs forever. Third, the rule of Empire functions on all levels of the social order, extending down to the social world and presenting a paradigmatic form of "Foucalt's "biopower", regulating social life in its entirety. And finally, although the practice of Empire is continually bathed in blood, the concept of Empire is always dedicated to peace-a perpetual and universal peace outside of history (xv). Hardt and Negri's description of an Empire is that of an ideal world, a "utopian society". According to them, the Empire we are faced with wields enormous powers of oppression and destruction, but should not make us yearn for old forms of domination, for the access to Empire and its processes of globalization offer new possiblities to the forces of liberation.

The Clash of Globalizations

    The dominant tension of the decade was the clash between the fragmentation of states (and the state system) and the progress of economic, cultural, and political-in other words, globalization (Lemert, 603). Hoffman talks about the events of September 11 and implied that it was the beginning of a new era. He said that in the conventional approach of international relations, war occurred among states. But the events of 9/11 was carried out, as he described, by "poorly armed individuals, challenged, suprised, and wounded the world's dominant superpower. He believes that because of globalization, it made it easy for terrorists to commit this violent act. Globalization, which has various meanings, can be defined as interaction and integration among cultural and economic exchanges. Although globilization has its benefits, it can incite conflict and terrorism. Terrorism, although a complex term, is a violent act used to instill fear. Hoffman describes it as a bloody link between interstate relations and global society (603). With individuals and groups becoming more involved globally as "global actors", there is a sense of insecurity and vulnerability growing.

 Hoffman identifies three forms of identification, each with its own issues: economic globalization, which results from recent revolutions in technology, information etc. The main actors are companies, investors, banks, private service industries, as well as states and internal organizations. This form of globalization was foreseen as being an issue by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. They believed it posed a dilemma between efficiency and fairness. The problem with economic globalization is an issue between the "haves and the have-nots". Cultural globalization leads to interaction and interconnectedness. It stems from the technological revolution and economic globalizing, which together promotes the flow of goods. Americanization and diversity are key choices.

The result is both a "disenchantment of the world" in (Max Weber's words) and a reaction aginst uniformity. The issue comes when the latter takes form in a renaissance of local cultures and languages as well as assaults against Western culture , which is denounced as a mask for U.S. hegemony (605). Political globalization is characterized by the domination of the United States, its political instituitions and a vast array of international and transgovernmental networks. The issue hangs over the fate of American hegemony, which faces significant resistance abroad  and is affected by America's own oscillation between the temptations of domination and isolation (605).

The Spirit of Terrorism

The 'mother' of all events, the attack on the World Trade Center, the pure event uniting within itself all the events that have never taken place.                                                                           

The moral condemnation and holy alliance against terrorism are on the same scale as the prodigious jubilation at seeing this global superpower destroyed-better, at seeing it, in a sense, destroying itself, committing suicide (Baudrillard, 4). For it is that superpower with too much power that stimulated the violence throughout the world and with our unconsciously terroristic imagination that lives in us all unknowingly. The fact that we dreamed of this event, that everyone without exception has dreamt of it because no one can fail to dream of the destruction of any power that has become so dominant. It is unacceptable to the Western moral conscience (5). Baudrillard says that we longed for it to happen. If we don't take it into account, then it's purely an arbitrary act, the murderous illusion of a few fanatics would then only need to be eliminated. But we know that this isn't how it is. It goes far beyond hatred for the dominant world power by the deprived and exploited, those who have ended up on the wrong side of the order. Allergy to any definitive order, to any definitive power is - happily universal - and the two towers of the World Trade Center were perfect embodiments, in their twinness, of that order (6). Baudrillard claims a rise in the power- increases the desire to destroy it. The symbolic collaspe of a whole system came about by an unpredictable complicity, as though the towers, by collasping on their own, by committing suicide, had joined in on the event by lending a helping hand in the action. The more concentrated the system becomes globally, ultimately forming one single network, the more it becomes vulnerable at a single point (8).


Discussion Questions

1. How is globalization transforming the meanings of culture in today's world? Is it a threat to cultural identity?

2. What impact does globalization have on developing countries?

3. How does globalization relate to terrorism?

Telephone, Mind Control and Disney?

I was reading this article and decided I may as well throw the link up here.

What do you all think of this?

Performing Postmodern Identity

 This band Gogol Bordello are my country-men - Ukrainian Jews - and a self-described gypsy punk band.  I really dig them and think you should check them out.  However, I also believe that they are experts at performing the Eastern European identity, which goes along with the whole gypsy motif.  Anyways, check it out and let me know what you think on Monday:

Lady Gaga

My avatar in Second Live has a Facebook profile

Postmodern art, postmodern architecture, postmodern philosophy, postmodern literature, postmodern music, postmodern criticism, postmodern this, and postmodern that.  “…when it becomes possible to describe all these things as ‘postmodern’ …then it’s clear we are in the presence of a buzzword (CTPC p182). 

OK, so everything is postmodern, but what does that mean?  What ties postmodern art to postmodern philosophy?  Basically, it is the rejection of a belief in Truth (with a capital T).  Postmodernism argues that all the rules, laws, and the natural order of things do not really exist.  They are only social constructs which change as society changes.  Postmodernism is the questioning of all the things we used to be so sure about.

Lyotard

Lyotard argues that while the metanarratives or grand narratives of modernity have collapsed under “‘positive’ science” (466) to liberate humanity (185), science has arisen as postmodernism’s grand narrative, however up until this point science had been seen as independent of narrative. Science is supposed to be purely “denotative” (466) or made of facts, true statements. Its denotative nature legitimated it; however Lyotard uncovers the flaw that science’s denotative nature presupposes a narrative developed during the Enlightenment which is universality (466). “A science that has not legitimated itself is not a true science if the discourse that was meant to legitimate it seems to belong to a prescientific form of knowledge, like a ‘vulgar’ narrative, it is demoted to the lowest rank, that of an ideology or instrument of power” (466). Lyotard shows that science does not legitimate itself, but the language of legitimation is dependent on “the Life of spirit” something like the “vulgar” narratives dismissed in lieu of science. Science becomes “the general mode of knowledge” or “the metanarrative” that umbrellas other disciplines (466). The metanarrative is a “language game” that tries to construct the self-evidence and primacy of science but fails which Lyotard says is evident by the “dividing of reason” into theoretical and practical according rules based on its relevance in the hands of practitioners of the “ethical, social, and political” (467). Science is not given, irreducible, nor self-legitimating—there is no “universal metalanguage” to declare its Truth (468).

Baudrillard

A woman came up to me after a presentation I gave at FedEx Corporate HQ a couple of weeks ago.  She introduced herself and said she worked with my father (also Kevin Gallagher) a few years ago at another company and had recently re-connected with him on Linked In.    She was shaken and a little confused when I informed her that my father had passed away in 2010.

As I was working on this blog post, I received the following email:

Between the email and the readings, I started thinking about the Facebook friends I have.  I have never met some of these people.  Others I haven’t seen in 20 years or more and wouldn’t recognize them if I passed them on the street.  Despite the lack of physical connection, I would say I am very close to some of my FB friend.  I chat with them regularly, follow their lives and careers, laugh with them, send birthday greetings, and try to comfort and encourage them in difficult times.  But would I know if they died?  I can’t even say with certainty that some of my close “friends” are or ever were real people.  They could be fictitious personas created by some third party.

This is not the only intersection between “real” life and virtual life.  In fact, the digital world has not only grown exponentially in the past two decades, it has become deeply integrated into daily life.  Web presence is not just a convenient side part of a business; in many cases it is essential to profitability.  Not so long ago, having a website was optional for a business.  Now, having a business is optional for a website.  Although Amazon is one of the nation’s largest retailers, it does not have a single store.  At least they sell real things.  Real world courts have been asked to rule on disputes between virtual people over the sale of virtual property using virtual money.

A decade before the internet and two decades before Facebook, Jean Baudrillard described the increasing dominance of the unreal over the real.

 “It is no longer a question of imitation, nor of reduplication, nor even parody.  It is rather a question of substituting signs of the real for the real itself; that is, an operation to deter every real process by it operational double, a metastable, programmatic, perfect descriptive machine which provides all the signs of the real and short-circuits all it vicissitudes.  Never again will the real have to be produced: this is the vital function of the model in a system of death, or rather of anticipated resurrection which no longer leaves any chance even in the event of death (p480).

In the case of my father, his Linked In profile continued on two years after his death.  For those who interacted with him only through Linked In, he did not die until last week when I had them pull the plug.  Had he wanted to, my father could have scheduled messages to be sent long after his death.  Or, I could have taken over his account and he would be alive today.

Simulated breast milk for better brain development in a Postmodern world.

As stated earlier, objects, people, and other things which are replaced by simulations are the simulacra.  But what of creations which are meant to represent something which never existed?  For Baudrillard, this is the hyperreal.  “Hyperrealism, he claims, is the characteristic mode of postmodernity.  In the realm of the hyperreal, the distinction between simulation and the real implodes" (p187).

Jameson 

Where Lyotard points to the fall of metanarratives or grand narratives, it seems that Jameson points to history, a metanarrative that must be uncovered, grasped again to understand what capitalism is doing now. Jameson references the word whole like “whole global…postmodern culture,” “whole new economic world system,” “whole object world” (3-7). There is an ongoing, whole system at work that has been made inaccessible by components of postmodernism such as pastiche. Jameson explains: "Pastiche is, like parody, the imitation of a peculiar or unique, idiosyncratic style, the wearing of a linguistic mask, speech in a dead language. But it is a neutral practice of such mimicry, without any of parody's ulterior motives, amputated of the satiric impulse, devoid of laughter and of any conviction" (17). Pastiche as “dead language” keeps the artists saying nothing with the intent to say what was said. At best it is allusion to stereotypes of a mythic past. Jameson uses the example of nostalgia films where “the desperate attempt to appropriate a missing past is now refracted through the iron low of fashion change and emergent ideology of the generation” (19). The films try to regain and reminisce the past through distorted “pastness” or semblances of the past in films from the 1930’s and 1950’s (19). Pastiche makes it necessary to cannibalize “all the styles of the past” (18). This is also the case with historical novels, “it can only ‘represent’ our ideas and stereotypes about the past” (25). Ultimately Jameson wants to point the reader to accept “the dissolution of an autonomous sphere of cultural sphere,” in fact everything has become “culture” (48). Storey restates that everything has become culture at the expense of “critical space,” which makes culture the vulnerable mechanism of capitalism (194).  

10 Commandments (God, 1200 B.C.E.)

Discussion:

1) Consider the power of the image.  God thought representations of other gods (which may or may not exist) could be powerful so he banned them.  What other images or simulations affect your daily life, despite the fact that they represent things that do not really exist?

2) Discuss the importance of 3D in Avatar.  In particular, if the film is a contemporary version of Orientalism, how does the added dimension affect the meaning or impact of the film?

3)  (The authors of this blog post have intentionally left the third discussion question open to your interpretation. Please elaborate in your response.)