DCMP: Essay BLOG
23/01/2024
Introduction
Today we were introduced to the DCMP projects which involve writing an essay and creating a piece of media to do with space, place and experience. We looked at a few different examples of experiemntal video to inspire our work. I really enjoyed looking at these and would like to take some inspiration from these to create my own piece, perhaps utilising VR. I have been very interested in using VR and going into the gaming realm and I feel like this project will help me to do that. I am looking forward to the workshops which might delve into these aspects of media and the many different softwares I can use.
Here are the notes from today’s lecture:
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Introduction
Today we were introduced to the DCMP projects which involve writing an essay and creating a piece of media to do with space, place and experience. We looked at a few different examples of experiemntal video to inspire our work. I really enjoyed looking at these and would like to take some inspiration from these to create my own piece, perhaps utilising VR. I have been very interested in using VR and going into the gaming realm and I feel like this project will help me to do that. I am looking forward to the workshops which might delve into these aspects of media and the many different softwares I can use.
Here are the notes from today’s lecture:
30/01/2024
What is Expanded Media?
During
today’s lecture, we looked at many different examples of ‘expanded media’. All
these examples were different to the general norm of cinema and we decided that
expanded media means differing from what is expected in film and media. This
opened up the discussion around what we could do for our projects which could
be anything in a sense as long as it relates to space, place and experience. I
really enjoyed looking at these videos as they gave me lots of ideas about my
own filmmaking as I am particularly interested in creating strange and unique
media.
04/02/2024
‘Photography and the Optical Unconscious’ by Shawn Michelle Smith and Sharon Sliwinski
This week, I decided to read ‘Photography and the Optical Unconscious’ by Shawn Michelle Smith and Sharon Sliwinski, Editors. Throughout the book, the writers acknowledge several photography professionals and philosophers, in particular Walter Benjamin, further emphasising his points on how a photograph is manipulated and perceived, bringing extra insight to the subject. The writer also goes into detail about the past of photography, how painters became photographers and how negatives were turned to positives by the hand of Henry Fox Talbot. The book also consists of a plethora of early photographs, explaining their meanings and greatness despite displaying them on a simple, white page rather than seeing them at a gallery for example. Freud’s philosophies are mentioned in relation to photography, talking about the conscious and unconscious.
‘ ”Photography, in the hands of the bourgeoisie, has become terrible weapon against truth”- Brecht’ pg 37 This quote is particularly interesting to me as is shows the more upper-class view of the photograph, mainly from a much older time. Now-a-days, almost everyone has access to a camera and can still, indeed, alter the truth with editing.
‘Hill and Adamson’s long exposures compelled their subjects to sit absolutely still before the camera for several minutes. Ans so they composed themselves, bracing against the blaring sun’ pg 57 Here, this quote is demonstrating just how far technology has come; from subjects having to wait an abnormally long time for their picture to be taken, for it only to be taken within a millisecond today.
‘The viewer sees through the photographer’s blind eye’ pg 62
‘[Barthes] does not want other people to have the leisure to stare at the photograph while learning nothing. [...] He prefers to encounter it in the periphery of lucida where an animating glance can sweep over it [...] but this, he cannot ensure strangers will do’ pg 268 I find this interesting as it is nearly impossible for Barthes to enact this kind of viewing on the audience if it is hung in a gallery but now there are ways for a picture to be shown on a screen for only a brief second to create a similar effect.
‘some of the most outspoken critics did not just distrust the camera, but they also expressed their distrust in the course of advancing a Marxist analysis of photography’ pg 289 It is important to view critics’ thinking from their own political perspective and the author here is expressing how many of these critics overlook a more leftist/Marxist approach and it is important to remember this when researching.
07/02/2024
Realism and Authenticity
Unfortunately, I was unable to attend yesterday’s lecture due to attending student ambassador training but after reading the slides, I have a good idea of what it was about. The lecture talks about how realism and authenticity used to be one of the most important parts of photography when it was first invented yet, now, it is less so, and more an artistic expression. Realism is an attempt to represent the world in an objective and truthful way and confers authenticity through its supposed transparency – a factual reflection of reality. Andre Bazin argued that realism is the most important function of cinema. “Bazin’s realism is not a realism concerned with the perceptual accuracy of filmic images, or with the correspondence between filmic images and reality. It is, on the contrary, a realism that has its basis in a conception of authenticity.” The lecture then goes on to talk about Walter Benjamin and ‘In the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’; I have previously studied Benjamin and his book where he talks about how art can be perceived in different ways depending on the context it is shown. Moreover, today, this has been turned up to the max as photographs are almost always manipulated in some way before being shown to anyone. David Rodowick argues that the digitalisation of photography shapes its social uses and content, as well as its ability to document truth or ‘capture’ an event: “A photographer neither can lie nor tell the truth; it only denotes (automaticallyregisters space) and designates (is causally related to a past state ofaffairs)”. In conclusion, I regret that I wasn’t able to attend this lecture as it is very interesting to learn about how the idea and meaning of the photograph has changed. I would like to do some further reading in relation to one of the questions on this topic in future.
13/02/2024
Space, Place, Techno and Post-Industrialisation
Whilst I am not that interested in techno, I did find it incredibly interesting how the formation of capitalism and post-industrialisation has caused the music industry to change. In Detroit, it is especially noticeable as techno originated there as a sort of contradictory way of going against technology. It’s significance in sci-fi and anti-government culture today is very interesting to me and I’d love to know more about why these things have come about because of industrialisation and how the different classes have been changed because of it.
20/02/2024
Failure
During today’s lecture, we spoke about failure and how it is not always just the opposite of success but rather the path to success. Nothing is perfect and so it is important to take failure in your stride in order to make something better than it first was. Hegel said it is the perfect learning curve and is the reason why we succeed in the end. I really enjoyed looking at the glitch art too, which has inspired me to do a series on glitches and impurities with my own photography which I will document here.
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Failure
During today’s lecture, we spoke about failure and how it is not always just the opposite of success but rather the path to success. Nothing is perfect and so it is important to take failure in your stride in order to make something better than it first was. Hegel said it is the perfect learning curve and is the reason why we succeed in the end. I really enjoyed looking at the glitch art too, which has inspired me to do a series on glitches and impurities with my own photography which I will document here.
23/02/2024
This week, I read ‘Materialist Film’ by Peter Gidal. Although he speaks about how film is produced, with its materials and equipment, he mostly talks about how politics affect the making of films. With Capitalism and Consumerism today, there is no doubt that the film industry has used this as bread and butter in order to provide entertainment to the masses. The problem here is that it depicts the directors’ own political stance oftentimes and can cause radicalisation. Gidal argues that there is no suc thing as a universal film experience as we all have our own views and no matter how impersonal the production is, there is still a bias being shown on screen. He talks a lot about gender and the differences between male and female and how this is changing with modern feminism but also how these roles are crucial to society.
Below are some of his quotes and notes I've made:
‘there is a direct analog between the represented film-time and the time for the viewer’ pg1
‘For the British, a radical negativity resulted nevertheless, for the Americans, an idealist positivity’ pg3- Interesting how he is talking about the difference in culture given the continuous debate today.
‘The contradictory histories of subjectivity within materialist aesthetic must occur without the reactionary existential, expressionist and neo-expressionist, romantic and neo-romantic, politic.’ pg9- Here he is talking about how politics mustn’t affect a piece of experimental work as it goes against all that what that work stands for. It is made to be expressive of all, not bound by a specific political stance.
‘The social discourse of experimental cinema is instituted in this way, against the individualist discourse of the sometimes seemingly more social existence of dominant cinema’ pg11- Experimental cinema goes against dominant cinema, causing society to favour the latter since it is more social and widely available.
‘” Attacking sexuality... is in the end attacking the assumption that men and women are complementary somehow, at some basic level’” quoting Christine Delphy pg12-13- Given the now accepted other identities other than male and female today, this is a very interesting point. Identity is extremely important today.
‘”when we use the word ‘women’ and we don’t agree with the category ‘women’” pg13- It is interesting as we seem to be erasing ‘men’ and ‘women today to create a fairer world but we are also obsessed with creating boxes, and sometimes we can’t agree what exactly a ‘woman’ is.
‘The duration of that ‘image’, and that image’s transformation, always preceded by other images, always affecting other images, and their meanings and uses, is inseparable from the material-physical support’ pg16- Images are seen in different ways, depending on the context, so the material used it very important in reading said image.
‘it is not a matter of ‘non-manipulative’ cinema, but of an awareness of its manipulations in-process' pg20- We must be aware of how video is constructed even before it’s construction, during its inception.
‘expressionism, neo-or otherwise, inculcates the imaginary self-identifications that materialism radically struggles against through its (historical) dialectic, the latter in terms of both the spectator's sexual and economic objectivity and, not always separable, individual subjectivities.’ pg 36- He is saying that expressionist film is more personal to the producer, whereas the materialist viewer may have a different experience to that what was intended because of their own values.
‘Many of the filmmakers, not coincidentally, are literary critics manque, and vice versa (often two manqué residing in one body)’ pg41- He makes a good point here about critics only criticising the story without taking into consideration the medium with which it is told. Today, critics are more niche and so a film critic should recognise the motion aspects as well as the story and how they intertwine.
‘Once the class ‘men’ disappears, ‘women’ as a class will disappear as well, for there are no slaves without masters’ pg42- While Gidal may seem a bit sexist here, likening women to slaves, it is interesting how he then talks about feminism and what t is to be a woman. He says it is inevitable and cannot be erased while oppression seems to be built on social constructs of sex.
‘”the widespread theoretical schizophrenia of the left on the subject of women’s oppression. The contradictory analyses they produce are due to a desperate desire to continue to exempt men from responsibility of the oppression of women... men as a class which oppresses and exploits women.’” quoting Monique Plaza in ‘Phallomorphic Power and the Psychology of Women’ pg 43- This is a very interesting stance on the left as an ideology but I’m not sure I can agree with it, especially today, where most people accept that men have oppressed women in the past regardless of your political stance.
‘Materialist Film’ by Peter Gidal
This week, I read ‘Materialist Film’ by Peter Gidal. Although he speaks about how film is produced, with its materials and equipment, he mostly talks about how politics affect the making of films. With Capitalism and Consumerism today, there is no doubt that the film industry has used this as bread and butter in order to provide entertainment to the masses. The problem here is that it depicts the directors’ own political stance oftentimes and can cause radicalisation. Gidal argues that there is no suc thing as a universal film experience as we all have our own views and no matter how impersonal the production is, there is still a bias being shown on screen. He talks a lot about gender and the differences between male and female and how this is changing with modern feminism but also how these roles are crucial to society.
Below are some of his quotes and notes I've made:
‘there is a direct analog between the represented film-time and the time for the viewer’ pg1
‘For the British, a radical negativity resulted nevertheless, for the Americans, an idealist positivity’ pg3- Interesting how he is talking about the difference in culture given the continuous debate today.
‘The contradictory histories of subjectivity within materialist aesthetic must occur without the reactionary existential, expressionist and neo-expressionist, romantic and neo-romantic, politic.’ pg9- Here he is talking about how politics mustn’t affect a piece of experimental work as it goes against all that what that work stands for. It is made to be expressive of all, not bound by a specific political stance.
‘The social discourse of experimental cinema is instituted in this way, against the individualist discourse of the sometimes seemingly more social existence of dominant cinema’ pg11- Experimental cinema goes against dominant cinema, causing society to favour the latter since it is more social and widely available.
‘” Attacking sexuality... is in the end attacking the assumption that men and women are complementary somehow, at some basic level’” quoting Christine Delphy pg12-13- Given the now accepted other identities other than male and female today, this is a very interesting point. Identity is extremely important today.
‘”when we use the word ‘women’ and we don’t agree with the category ‘women’” pg13- It is interesting as we seem to be erasing ‘men’ and ‘women today to create a fairer world but we are also obsessed with creating boxes, and sometimes we can’t agree what exactly a ‘woman’ is.
‘The duration of that ‘image’, and that image’s transformation, always preceded by other images, always affecting other images, and their meanings and uses, is inseparable from the material-physical support’ pg16- Images are seen in different ways, depending on the context, so the material used it very important in reading said image.
‘it is not a matter of ‘non-manipulative’ cinema, but of an awareness of its manipulations in-process' pg20- We must be aware of how video is constructed even before it’s construction, during its inception.
‘expressionism, neo-or otherwise, inculcates the imaginary self-identifications that materialism radically struggles against through its (historical) dialectic, the latter in terms of both the spectator's sexual and economic objectivity and, not always separable, individual subjectivities.’ pg 36- He is saying that expressionist film is more personal to the producer, whereas the materialist viewer may have a different experience to that what was intended because of their own values.
‘Many of the filmmakers, not coincidentally, are literary critics manque, and vice versa (often two manqué residing in one body)’ pg41- He makes a good point here about critics only criticising the story without taking into consideration the medium with which it is told. Today, critics are more niche and so a film critic should recognise the motion aspects as well as the story and how they intertwine.
‘Once the class ‘men’ disappears, ‘women’ as a class will disappear as well, for there are no slaves without masters’ pg42- While Gidal may seem a bit sexist here, likening women to slaves, it is interesting how he then talks about feminism and what t is to be a woman. He says it is inevitable and cannot be erased while oppression seems to be built on social constructs of sex.
‘”the widespread theoretical schizophrenia of the left on the subject of women’s oppression. The contradictory analyses they produce are due to a desperate desire to continue to exempt men from responsibility of the oppression of women... men as a class which oppresses and exploits women.’” quoting Monique Plaza in ‘Phallomorphic Power and the Psychology of Women’ pg 43- This is a very interesting stance on the left as an ideology but I’m not sure I can agree with it, especially today, where most people accept that men have oppressed women in the past regardless of your political stance.
27/02/2024
Acceleration, Space and the Future
During today’s lecture, we learnt about how society is moving at an increasingly fast pace and that this has become an idea named ‘accelerationism’ which suggests that this is a good thing, despite how it leaves certain people and communities behind. The politics during this lecture in relation to afrofuturism and media is very interesting and a good idea to talk about for our essays. This week, I want to look at the essay questions and begin writing an answer so that I can get some feedback from my lecturers well in advance of the deadline.
02/03/2024
‘Cinema, Memory, Modernity’ by Russell J. A. Kilbourn
This week, I read ‘Cinema, Memory, Modernity’ by Russell J. A. Kilbourn which delves into memory in the cinematic sense. Kilbourn discusses how cinema hold memory in a way that is contrived and often edited, not necessarily staying true to the original memory. Memory is not only derived from physical technologies such as photographs and videos, but is also a more personal experience, mentioning trauma and the real trauma of going back to that experience with something like PTSD. Photographs and videos only hold certain information yet the whole event may not have been recorded, therefore the memory can be lost or even replayed in someone’s mind when viewing the physical technology. Many of our memories are triggered by technology but this technology can also give a flase narrative, leading to false memories. He also goes on to talk about how Western media is often plagued by the narrow view of Christianity, failing to represent the ‘other’.
‘This study is able to begin from the assumption that memory today derives its primary meaning, its existence as such, from visually based technologies like cinema; that cinema is not merely one of the most effective metaphors for memory but that cinema- alongside photography- is constitutive of memory in its deepest and most meaningful sense’ pg1
‘For Aristotle, in other words, memory is not part of thinking (conception) but rather part of the basis for thought, as an aspect of self-perception. A strong sense perception leaves a palpable impression or ‘image’ on the soul of the recipient; this literal image in turn occasions an ‘affection’ or emotion or ‘movement’ in the soul which is the direct cause of the memory (the process of recollection)’ pg 5 after quoting ‘De Memoria et Reminiscentia’ (ca. 350 BCE, 29-30)
‘cinematic memory’ in this sense at best supplements and at worst destroys ‘natural’, human memory by naturalising the technical and artificial, providing a seemingly ‘universal’ objective visual language for the representation of the subjective (re-) experience of the past’ pg 6
‘in terms elaborated here, modern memory, whether individual or collective, is by definition ‘exterior’, hypernmesic, hence archival’ pg 20
‘A photograph, therefore, is in this sense like a finger- or footprint, left behind at the scene of a crime, indices or traces heralding the actual presence of someone who was there and is now passed on’ pg 59
‘memory signifies here on the collective-cultural level [...] as ‘History’, on the one hand (the diegesis), and as cinematic intertextuality, or the other (visual style)’ pg 105
‘’trauma’ is not in the original event or experience but in the re-experiencing, via memory: it is memory that is traumatic, not the original experienceper se’ pg 133
‘In modern culture the ‘fetish’ mystifies the relation between the object or referent and its representation or sign; in post-modern terms the fetish mystifies the relation between signifier and signified’ pg 166
‘How we think about ourselvestoday literally coincides with how we see ourselves; how we represent ourselves to ourselves and to others, but also howand to others, but also how ‘we’ represent- or fail to represent- the other’ pg 179
05/03/2024
Psychogeography
During today’s lecture, we began by drawing our journey to uni. Many of my classmates included some interesting things such as people they met on their journey, their feelings and animals they saw. I really enjoyed learning about their journeys and how some of them have to travel. My own journey wasn’t particularly interesting but I learnt that I should be more perceptive of my environment. After a short break, we began learning about psychogeography: the way in which we percieve our surroundings and how that changes our perspective. This was very interesting and it was good to learn how it has roots in revolution and going against authority at the time of its conception. I also enjoyed learning about the Freudian idaes regarding ‘comodity fetishism’ with how we percieve items as having value and therefore favouring those who have expensive or meaningful items. This has inspired me to read some of Freud’s books and will take one out of the library to read this week. I also want to pick a question this week and begin writing a draft early on so that I can get some feedback as soon as I can on this.
Here are my notes and the map myself and Noah drew:
10/03/2024
‘An Outline of Psychoanalysis’ by Sigmund Freud
This week I read Sigmund Freud’s ‘An Outline of Psychoanalysis’ in response to the previous texts I have read which often quote Freud in relation to film and photography. While he opens every chapter with the somewhat friendly, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen!’, much of his writing is in a less formal tone yet describe concepts that are often misunderstood. He first talks about dream theory and whether dreams hold any meaning, referring to memories and the act of forgetting. He talks about how dreams are inherently sexual and seems quite focused on that fact to say that he discourages anyone who discourages himself, saying ‘this sort of derivation tends to reap the anger of all those researchers who are not psychoanalytically inclined’ pg20. He goes on to mention the ‘Ich’ or (evil) desire in people or our conscience and the ‘Uber-ich’, that very strong desire. It is interesting how he objectifies our desires in this way. In the section ‘Fear and Drives’, Freud goes on to talk about how the first fear was being born and thus from this experience, we gain apprehensiveness. He relates fear to the libido; somewhat of an unpopular stance here. He mentions that boys fear being castrated while girls fear losing love... I can’t say that I truly believe all he is saying without seeing any studies he has conducted. In the section ‘femaleness’, Freud talks about how the male and female psychology is different and that during puberty, both sexes experience different things as they grow towards adulthood. With relation to the Oedipus complex, he explains how children are innately ‘bisexual’ and come into their sexuality. This is really important to read, as, while I disagree with a lot of what he says, the question of homosexuals and trans people are not mentioned, which leaves a large gap in his theory when relating childhood to libido and sexual stages. Freud then goes on to talk about the differences in psychoanalysis, science and religion, arguing that religions stunts scientific research and reassuring the reader that psychoanalysis is extremely important and should be studied. Mentioning how religion opposes these views while being respectful to those who follow it is very interesting as it can certainly be said that today, we can be both scientific and religious without too much backlash. Both parties are trying to find the ‘truth’ but in very different ways so it may be beneficial to combine forces in order to move forward as peoples.
‘all dreams are sexual in nature’ pg4
‘every dream includes a memory-trace of or allusion to one or, frequently, several of the previous day’s events’ pg7
‘preconscious- thinking; they could also have been thought in the waking life, indeed were probably formed over the course of the day’ pg14
‘I feel inclined to do something which would give me pleasure, but I refrain from doing it on the grounds that my conscious forbids it’ pg55
‘What people fear is evidently their own libido’ pg77
‘What is unquestionably ‘male’ is the male sexual product, the spermatozoon, and its vehicle; what is unquestionably ‘female’ is the egg and the orgasm that harbours it’ pg103
‘if you say ‘male’, then you usually mean ‘active’, and if you say ‘female’, then you usually mean ‘passive’’ pg104 – Despite this apparent sexist statement, he does go one to talk about how the ‘female’ is passive in the sexual sense but is absolutely active when raising a child for example.
‘Women can display great activity in many different directions; men can’t co-exist with their own kind unless they develop a high degree of passive submissiveness’ pg105
‘The sexual fragility of women, which we encounter so often that it seems to confirm this pattern of discrimination, is a phenomenon that is not satisfactorily understood’ pg121
‘If you want to know more about femaleness, you should question your own experiences, or turn to the poets, or wait until science can give you more profound and coherent information’ pg125
‘Except in the case of a few people who are, as we say, ‘possessed’ by art, it doesn’t seem to venture to encroach on the realm of reality’ pg149
12/03/2024
Retro and Residual Media
During today’s lecture, we learnt about restro and residual media and the phenominon with the resurgence of vinyl and analogue media. As we move towards an increasingly digital world, we want to tap into our nostalgia and thus buy physical media to have that tangible experience. It is really interesting how the vinyl is a growing market despite being a ‘dead medium’ and we tend to hold onto that aura retro technology gives.
17/03/2024
‘An Introduction to Karl Marx’ by Jon Elster
This week I read ‘An Introduction to Karl Marx’ by Jon Elster which delves into Marx’s key concepts around capitalism, historical materialism, alienation class struggle and communism and their relevance to contemporary, social and political issues. Elster examines Marx’s ideas, offering positives and negatives to the practice throughout while explaining his ideas thoroughly to the reader. He talks about some of Marx’s influences and circumstances for his ideas and how this has then influenced many scholars and people today around socialist, capitalist and governmental ideas. Marxist theory critiques capitalism with these key concepts:
- Historical Materialism: material conditions of society determine the development of human history, economic structure affects social structure
- Dialectal Materialism: opposing historical factors lead to the emergence of new societal structures
- Capitalism and Exploitation: the critique of capitalism as a system characterised by private ownership of the means of production, which then includes exploitation of those workers. He argues that capitalists accrue profit by exploiting their workers
- Class Struggle: There is an evident class divide and capitalism furthers this divide, causing a conflict between the classes, eventually leading to revolution
- Alienation: workers become disconnected to the products they produce and even their own humanity
- Socialism and Communism: Socialism is the middle stage between capitalism and communism, where the means of production are owned collectively therefore the means for profit disappears. Communism is the absolute stateless society where produce is delegated to those in need
- Ideology and Hegemony: Marx analyses ideology as a set of beliefs that legitimise the existing social order, often serving the interests of the upper class. Hegemony is where a dominant group shapes norms, values and institutions of society to retain control
- Critique of Imperialism and Global Capitalism: Capitalist expansion exploits peripheral regions, exacerbates inequalities and perpetuates dependency
This is very interesting to read about and it is important to know what other writers are referring to when they mention Marx. His theory is often used as a parallel to art theory with its placed importance on going against the social norms. However, I find this somewhat contradictory since, while it is possible to make art for art’s sake, most artists go on to sell their work for a profit, therefore continuing the capitalist ideas around money and innovation.
‘Methodical individualism is the view that all institutions, behavioural patterns, and social processes can in principle be explained in terms of individuals only: their actions, properties, and relations’ pg22
‘Society, they argued, begins as a primitive, undifferentiated community. Persons are essentially similar to one another, without distinctive character traits or different productive functions’ pg35 – alienation of an individual then leads to individuality, forcing the individual to leave the community, only for the third stage to be when a group allows individuality within the group
‘The choice of wage labour is forced, although uncoerced’ pg82
When talking about why Ancient Rome did not become a capitalist society, Elster argues ‘that capitalism did not arise because there was no competitive national market’ pg119
‘purely “commercial” or capitalist government would be too myopic or too greedy on behalf of capital, thus undermining its long-term interest’ pg146- when speaking about Walter Bagehot’s ideas around why capitalism doesn’t benefit the bourgeoisie
‘religion is the “opium of the people”, with the statement that religion helps people adapt to their miserable lives’ pg171
‘he proposed an “abdication theory” of the state, according to which the state is allowed to have some autonomy but only because it suits the interest of the capitalists’ pg198
‘On Film and Radio’ by Bertolt Brecht
I also read ‘On Film and Radio’ by Bertolt Brecht which talks about how visual and sound mediums can influence critical engagement and social change. I have previously acted in some of his plays and so it is very interesting to me to see his thoughts of film and radio as opposed to theatre and poetry. Brecht is particularly famous for his ‘Epic Theatre Principles’ which allow the audience to be critical of the art they are being shown. Artists are encourages to use techniques such as defamiliarization to disrupt passive identification with characters and narratives; this can also be done through the art of film and radio. He talks about montage, interruption and direct address to encourage audience participation even in film and other media, this is to form a dialectal relationship between the work and its audience. He mentions some Marxist views too, especially in relation to dialectal materialism, exploring how Marxist thought in media can reveal economic structures of society, highlighting class contradictions, alienation and exploitation. He also critiques the dominant narratives propagated by mainstream media, which often serve the ruling class. He calls for a ‘committed’ art that aligns with the struggle of the working class and challenges ideologies such as capitalism and imperialism. Brecht experiments with formal techniques, drawing inspiration from avant-garde movements such as Soviet montage and German Expressionism. He explores how editing, narrative and sound design can be manipulated to convey social and political messages. He seems to have a willingness to break from traditional norms. Additionally, he includes a few screenplays which demonstrate his political views.
This was a very interesting read as it highlights a different perspective on art in a way that goes against the capitalist regime. But, again like with Marxist theory, Brecht fails to understand the importance of selling art on the free market, which is around because of capitalism, therefore it is very difficult to make art without adding to the ‘problem’.
‘Joyce uses the Verfremdungeffekt in Ulysses. He alienates both the way of representing (mainly through the frequent and rapid changes) and events’ pg10
‘times are good when the production side, far from supplying obsolete, worn-out and apathetic theatres, decides to eliminate this kind of theatre’ pg33- the ‘kind of theatre’ he is referring to here is ‘ones unsuitable for their plays’.
‘No snob doubts that artistic experiment is dead’ pg146
‘These people felt that, by agreeing to deal with the film industry, we put ourselves in the position of someone who brings his laundry to a dirty ditch for washing and later complains that it is ruined’ pg161
‘The opposition between author and production technology is resolved dialectically and at the same time it characteristically includes technology’s dependence on the market’ pg188
‘A Communist film no longer has commercial value because Communism is no longer a threat for the bourgeois public’ pg203
‘Artistically valuable films are commercially damaging because they ruin the public’s taste by improving it’ pg203
‘To earn their money, they are willing nevertheless to enable us to produce a (damaging) film’ pg204
19/03/2024
Essay Preparation
Today we had a look at the different essay questions and began preparing to write them. We discussed different ways of research and how to go about writing the essay with the help from our tutors. I have chosen question 2 regarding film and reality as this is very interesting to me and I want to talk about some of Wes Anderson’s films in relation to this as I think they are both routed in reality and estranged from it. This week, I’d like to start writing my essay if I have time and will aikm to get a full draft finished by week 12 so that I can get some valuable feedback on it.
20/03/2024
Today I read ‘Speed and Politics’ by Paul Virilio where he explores the relationship between speed, technology and power, arguing that the speed at which our society is changing in the world of technology affects the world of politics. He talks about dromology, which is the study of speed and its effects on society, suggesting that the history of civilisation can be understood through the lens of acceleration and technological advancements. This heavily relates to Marx’s theory where it is industry and capitalism that have pushed society forward. He also mentions warfare and the speed at which the military are trained to quickly take others territory. The current (and historic) politics regarding the need to control someone’s land has lead to the development of faster weapons, transportation and communication technologies. He says that speed has made the nature of conflict more instantaneous and unpredictable. He goes on to critique accelerationism, which advocates for the rapid advancement of technology either in a capitalist sense; to create the greatest form of capitalism possible, or in a leftist sense; to bring about capitalist downfall. He warns against this acceleration, arguing that it can lead to economical destruction and social alienation, particularly between the classes. He then goes on to talk about urbanisation and how the proliferation of highways, high-speed railways, and air travel has changed the organisation of cities, leaving them congested and with a clear class divide. The way that communication has evolved has affected the speed at which technology is changing. Virilio argues that the easy ways in which information can now be transmitted has caused an increase in misinformation and manipulation of public opinion. He then reflects on the ecological consequences of speed, highlighting the depletion of natural resources, pollution and climate change caused by industrialisation and calls for a re-evaluation of our relationship with the environment. I really enjoyed reading Virilio’s thoughts on the current climate and I will definitely use some of his ideas in my piece, calling to slow down our accelerated culture in order to help us understand where we are in the here and now.
‘”History progresses at the speed of its weapons systems”’ pg11
‘Echoing Heidegger, he writes that “dromocratic intelligence is not exercised against a more or less determined military adversary, but as a permanent assault on the world, and through it, on human nature”’ pg14
‘Todays information is architecture by other means’ pg16
‘The city is in essence a bunker, characterised by Virilio as a deliberate “reduction of power in favor of a better trajectory, life traded for survival”’ pg20
‘(Trotsky, 1914) “the static phases of their psychology then give way to the dynamic phases”’ pg57
‘It represents the revival of capitalism because it is none other than the technical surpassing of the old fortified place, which was rendered obsolete and dismantled by the power of the new State armies. This is the answer to exorbitant economic requirements of the continental military class, to its claim to dominate the flows of terrestrial traffic’ pg64
‘history progresses at the speed of its weapon systems’ pg90
‘when they try to unite in their hands alone the twin schemas of spatial appropriation of territory, robbing the native populations by trying to reduce their descendants to the level of servi casati, to the fate of tenant slaves- manpower deprived of its right to military defence’ pg95
‘Financial politics are exercised around abduction of persons, ransom systems; social protection leads to the perversion of charity into bodily assistance, of poverty into the power of money- to such an extent that when these great mechanisms stop functioning profitably, the Roman papacy of monks collapses’ pg113
‘Technologies of body and soul are thus strangely complexified in American pop-culture' pg128
‘the utopian use of defence reflexes leads us to modify aesthetics and the nature of production’ pg144
26/03/2024
During today’s lecture, we spoke about Martin Heidegger’s ‘The Being of Time’ and quote that “the essence of technology is nothing technological”. We discussed how technology has affected our lives in the modern day and how we have taken all the aura away from these new things, only for our lives to become commodified. This was very interesting to me and is was especially interesting to hear about how other countries control the population’s social media usage. We talked about the negative effects of social media and the internet where we often go to reaffirm our own beliefs rather than widening ourselves to others. The internet is a very negative space where haters will hate on anything they deem to be wrong from their perspective and there is very little nuance to debates, leading them to seem more like arguments on places like Twitter or Instagram. It was argued that even in the Western world, our governments control what we see online, allowing there to be no sucjh thing as true freedom of speech or even freedom in general. As we all become more connected with our phones, the essence of technology really does feel as though it is no longer technological but a way we live our lives.
‘Speed and Politics’ by Paul Virilio
Today I read ‘Speed and Politics’ by Paul Virilio where he explores the relationship between speed, technology and power, arguing that the speed at which our society is changing in the world of technology affects the world of politics. He talks about dromology, which is the study of speed and its effects on society, suggesting that the history of civilisation can be understood through the lens of acceleration and technological advancements. This heavily relates to Marx’s theory where it is industry and capitalism that have pushed society forward. He also mentions warfare and the speed at which the military are trained to quickly take others territory. The current (and historic) politics regarding the need to control someone’s land has lead to the development of faster weapons, transportation and communication technologies. He says that speed has made the nature of conflict more instantaneous and unpredictable. He goes on to critique accelerationism, which advocates for the rapid advancement of technology either in a capitalist sense; to create the greatest form of capitalism possible, or in a leftist sense; to bring about capitalist downfall. He warns against this acceleration, arguing that it can lead to economical destruction and social alienation, particularly between the classes. He then goes on to talk about urbanisation and how the proliferation of highways, high-speed railways, and air travel has changed the organisation of cities, leaving them congested and with a clear class divide. The way that communication has evolved has affected the speed at which technology is changing. Virilio argues that the easy ways in which information can now be transmitted has caused an increase in misinformation and manipulation of public opinion. He then reflects on the ecological consequences of speed, highlighting the depletion of natural resources, pollution and climate change caused by industrialisation and calls for a re-evaluation of our relationship with the environment. I really enjoyed reading Virilio’s thoughts on the current climate and I will definitely use some of his ideas in my piece, calling to slow down our accelerated culture in order to help us understand where we are in the here and now.
‘”History progresses at the speed of its weapons systems”’ pg11
‘Echoing Heidegger, he writes that “dromocratic intelligence is not exercised against a more or less determined military adversary, but as a permanent assault on the world, and through it, on human nature”’ pg14
‘Todays information is architecture by other means’ pg16
‘The city is in essence a bunker, characterised by Virilio as a deliberate “reduction of power in favor of a better trajectory, life traded for survival”’ pg20
‘(Trotsky, 1914) “the static phases of their psychology then give way to the dynamic phases”’ pg57
‘It represents the revival of capitalism because it is none other than the technical surpassing of the old fortified place, which was rendered obsolete and dismantled by the power of the new State armies. This is the answer to exorbitant economic requirements of the continental military class, to its claim to dominate the flows of terrestrial traffic’ pg64
‘history progresses at the speed of its weapon systems’ pg90
‘when they try to unite in their hands alone the twin schemas of spatial appropriation of territory, robbing the native populations by trying to reduce their descendants to the level of servi casati, to the fate of tenant slaves- manpower deprived of its right to military defence’ pg95
‘Financial politics are exercised around abduction of persons, ransom systems; social protection leads to the perversion of charity into bodily assistance, of poverty into the power of money- to such an extent that when these great mechanisms stop functioning profitably, the Roman papacy of monks collapses’ pg113
‘Technologies of body and soul are thus strangely complexified in American pop-culture' pg128
‘the utopian use of defence reflexes leads us to modify aesthetics and the nature of production’ pg144
26/03/2024
The Question After Technology
During today’s lecture, we spoke about Martin Heidegger’s ‘The Being of Time’ and quote that “the essence of technology is nothing technological”. We discussed how technology has affected our lives in the modern day and how we have taken all the aura away from these new things, only for our lives to become commodified. This was very interesting to me and is was especially interesting to hear about how other countries control the population’s social media usage. We talked about the negative effects of social media and the internet where we often go to reaffirm our own beliefs rather than widening ourselves to others. The internet is a very negative space where haters will hate on anything they deem to be wrong from their perspective and there is very little nuance to debates, leading them to seem more like arguments on places like Twitter or Instagram. It was argued that even in the Western world, our governments control what we see online, allowing there to be no sucjh thing as true freedom of speech or even freedom in general. As we all become more connected with our phones, the essence of technology really does feel as though it is no longer technological but a way we live our lives.
02/04/2024
During today’s lecture, we discussed sound and it’s importance in the art space and how many artists use it more than even their visuals. It is a very important part of media and we discovered many artists who use both sound and visuals or even just sound on its own as a way to spark imagination and make the listener be more active, rather than passive like in a general film. This was very interesting as important going forward for our project as sound is an important part in creating the right atmosphere for the exhibition.
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10/04/2024
Essay Tutorial
During today’s session, I had a one-to-one conversation with Julian which really helped move my essay writing forward. I explained how I wanted to write about question 2 and Rushton’s filmic reality in relation to AI and Julian helped me realise how I would go about talking about AI in this context by mentioning how it is changing our reality or perception of what media is. I wrote a few bullet points down in relation to this and look forward to writing my essay in full over the next few weeks. I would also like to keep in touch with my lecturers before the deadline to make sure that I am staying on track with my essay.
I also made a references bank which will be used as a way to store quotes and descriptions from books that I have read that may relate to any essay that I have to write in the future.
Here are the bullet points I made:
Sound
During today’s lecture, we discussed sound and it’s importance in the art space and how many artists use it more than even their visuals. It is a very important part of media and we discovered many artists who use both sound and visuals or even just sound on its own as a way to spark imagination and make the listener be more active, rather than passive like in a general film. This was very interesting as important going forward for our project as sound is an important part in creating the right atmosphere for the exhibition.
10/04/2024
Essay Tutorial
During today’s session, I had a one-to-one conversation with Julian which really helped move my essay writing forward. I explained how I wanted to write about question 2 and Rushton’s filmic reality in relation to AI and Julian helped me realise how I would go about talking about AI in this context by mentioning how it is changing our reality or perception of what media is. I wrote a few bullet points down in relation to this and look forward to writing my essay in full over the next few weeks. I would also like to keep in touch with my lecturers before the deadline to make sure that I am staying on track with my essay.
I also made a references bank which will be used as a way to store quotes and descriptions from books that I have read that may relate to any essay that I have to write in the future.
Here are the bullet points I made:
26/04/2024
‘The Reality of Film:
Theories of Filmic Reality’ by Richard Rushton
Today I read ‘The Reality of Film: Theories of Filmic Reality’, chapter 2, ‘Realism, Reality and Authenticity’ by Richard Rushton in preparation for my essay which is heavily related to this chapter. Rushton talks about several theorists such as Bazin, Prince and Rosen and many films in regards to their base in reality. In Richard Rushton's exploration of André Bazin's position in film theory, he challenges the common interpretation of Bazin as a straightforward realist. While many scholars view Bazin as advocating for a cinema that faithfully represents reality, Rushton argues that this interpretation oversimplifies Bazin's ideas. Instead, Rushton suggests that Bazin's conception of cinema goes beyond mere representation and delves into the ontological relationship between film and reality. Rushton further contends that Bazin's realism is not about replicating reality but about constructing a shared understanding of reality. He critiques scholars who dismiss Bazin's ideas as outdated, particularly those who emphasize cinema's inherent artificiality and its inability to capture reality. He argues that such criticisms fail to recognize the mediated nature of reality itself and misconstrue Bazin's conception of cinema.
‘All the key factors of Bazin’s realism seem to be here: that the quest for realism is part of cinema’s essence, and that realism is an automatic result of cinema’s photographic nature.’ Pg43
‘The overarching fallacy of the mediation argument is quite simply that it presumes a reality that is out there in some kind of pure and unmediated form. For their part, the media can thus only deform this pure reality because the media are subject to codes, conventions and technologies. ‘ pg45
‘For him (Bazin), reality is not a pure, unmediated substance out there. Rather, reality is composed of a set of shared, potentially communicable concerns. As such, realism in the cinema is not a matter of a film’s measuring up to a preconceived, prior and pure reality. It is about establishing sets of shared concerns, a matter of discerning degrees of meaningfulness and understanding about what we might be able to agree upon as being real.’ Pg47
‘Digital cinema, so the argument goes, is a completely different beast from the cinema of celluloid, especially as films can now be made without any reference to ‘reality’ at all.’ Pg53
‘[Prince] argues that illusion in the cinema goes hand-in-hand with reality. According to his argument: illusion in the cinema is effective only if it is based on a shared conception of what is real; the illusory works as illusory only inasmuch as it is juxtaposed with an already assumed reality.’ pg59
‘By the same token, in a painting the figures should never be painted in such a way as to be looking out towards or gesturing towards the viewer. Rather, they should be painted in such a way as to ignore the fact that they are going to be looked at.’ pg67
‘The story or subject of the film is thus only important in so far as this subject virtually disappears and becomes synonymous with the scene, where all sense of a fabricated story fades away.’ Pg69
‘I would hope that a sense of how a painting or a film can be authentic or ‘true to life’ in this way is beginning to become apparent. This sense of an artwork’s being ‘true to life’ has little to do with copying reality exactly, that is, it has little to do with notions of verisimilitude or of an artwork’s realistic correspondence with perceptual reality. Rather, this notion of being ‘true to life’ is one that stresses a commitment to a certain mode of being or a certain way of life, a condition that amounts to something like, as Pippin argues, ‘the realization of a condition necessary for any life to have any value for me – that it be my life’ (Pippin 2005: 591).’ Pg74
‘The importance of cinema for Bazin lies in its ability to produce worlds or visions of the world which we – as audiences – might be able to ‘take’ for reality. Not a perceptual or psychological reality but a shared, social reality dependent upon providing views of what we might be able to accept as being real. This is not perceptual or psychological, but deeply social and historical. It is one way of considering the reality of film.’ Pg78
I also made a document for all my references and printed it out so that I had a physical reference sheet to hand while writing my essay.
30/04/2024
Today a wrote a first draft for my essay, taking into consideration the planning and past lectures. I am relatively happy with this version of my essay but hope to gain some feedback from my lecturers and peers about the quality of my essay as I aim to do better than my previous one.
Essay First Draft
Today a wrote a first draft for my essay, taking into consideration the planning and past lectures. I am relatively happy with this version of my essay but hope to gain some feedback from my lecturers and peers about the quality of my essay as I aim to do better than my previous one.
06/05/2024
Final Essay
After receiving some feedback from my lecturers, I spent some time researching and changing my essay. This took some time but I am happy I have made the changes needed to improve my essay to a better standard and look forward to hearing back regarding more feedback so that I may improve in future essay writing. I have now written the final version of my essay which you can view here.
