AD603 Critical Theory

hegemony - scritti politti

I feel that i must tread lightly on such topics- as i have little expertise, or even understanding of them.  I don’t mean this in a critical way; my lack of understanding is in no way attributed to a lack of receptivity on my part-more so a lack of immersion.  How can I, the cover girl for the average, ever truly grasp third-world ethnocentrism?  I admit i have never been to Africa, Asia, or South America.  Not to say that i won’t- i just haven’t yet.  I’ve never been to Europe either…actually come to think of it, i have never left the midwest.  I don’t even know what an ocean looks like.  I have read about them, seen pictures, and even watched documentaries; I could probably write a research paper on the ocean.  However this ability doesn’t translate into the art world.  I can understand the ebb of the tide by hearing it through someone else’s words, but to understand the nuances and the hierarchy of tradition in post-colonial art, not so much.

Mosquera quotes, “…the diversification of artistic circuits clashes with the difficulties of intercultural evaluation already pointed out.  Critics, curators and historians have a great responsibility in this sense.”  I agree full-heartedly about the circuits, but i disagree with the responsibility.  I feel that when the problem at hand is authenticity within cultural circuits, that the critics and curators can only exacerbate the issues rather than rectify them.  The spectator is more responsible for the intercultural evaluation than the critic.

Maybe i am wrong in discussing this, but i cant help but overlook the issues with art and authenticity, and focus more on the social-political aspects.  What about gentrification?  Or more so, the effect that gentrification has on public works of art.  Before i moved to west lafayette, i was living in west Humboldt park, a puerto rican neighborhood on the west side of chicago.  (although this and the title of my post may confuse you, i am in fact, not puerto rican.)  Aside from all the cultural gems i was fortunate enough to experience while i lived there, one of the most communicative and thought-provoking were the murals.    Puerto Rican artists have been commissioned from time to time over the last 50 years to create beautiful murals showing pride in their culture and honoring religious and political figures.  Does anyone question the authenticity of these AMAZING works of art?  I didn’t think so.  However, over the past few years, the very edges of Humboldt Park have been succumbing to gentrification.  What happens when they need to tear down the building this mural is painted on to build a 3-flat of condos for the young urban professionals who think the area is “up and coming?”  Its at this moment that all authenticity is lost, and it becomes street art.  Maybe its even considered graffiti.  In fact, by existing, these images are disservicing the whole area.  The social relevance is what determines the authenticity of these “murals“, ”street art”, unsightly graffiti.  How quickly authenticity becomes irrelevant!

This movie was shown in Humboldt Park (the actual park) over the summer, and was created by a young art student at Columbia college.  I think its cheesy.  Like, really cheesy.  I suppose partly because it is difficult for me to truly empathize with the politics and social systems in puerto rican culture.  But the point being made was honest enough.  As a Puerto Rican artist in America, do you risk losing your cultural vision by “westernizing” your work? (succumbing to eurocentrism) OR do you maintain your cultural tradition and authenticity under the risk of gentrification eradicating your social relevance? 

Between Western and California trailer

between western and california interview

So unfortunately none of you knew me before grad school (quite a shame, i used to be so fun and interesting!)  But i was reminded this weekend of a party invite i sent out for my 23rd birthday.  It was a play on the famous photograph of Andy Warhol and Jean Michel Basquiat, and i thought it was interesting to include in this post because of the struggle Basquiat faced as being identified as a “black artist.”

****the party was off the hook, btw….

Rather than write a response to the essays which i had difficulty relating to this week, i chose to record a “round table” discussion of the Piper article with a couple of my art and design comrades in Chicago.  It was interesting to discuss some of the racial issues Piper addressed with Maya, an african american artist, and Rachel, a caucasian industrial designer.  The nice part was that, since they are also my best friends, i feel very comfortable speaking with them about very controversial issues (like race).  Feel free to listen in on some of the things we discussed!

piper_discussion_part1

piper_discussion_part_2

Pastiche, Facsimile and the sculptural object.

So this weekend was the S.O.F.A. show in Chicago.  I wanted to go, but I was feeling the pressure of homework.  (I think Melissa went though, I hope she took pictures!)  SOFA stands for sculptural objects, functional art.  I thought it was an almost spooky tie in to post modernism!

In response to Krauss, I was captured by her point that sculpture has become, in postmodernism, a negative condition.  The idea of being site less, nomadic, or transient appealed to me.  Maybe its because I spent the past summer as a transient, without a “base” or “location”, or maybe because my presence has always been that of an ephemeral being, something that lacks temporal and spatial representation.  Either way, this negative categorization, or identification through lack (“not-landscape” “not-architecture”) had resonance with me.  It is in this same manner that I categorize postmodern design (or what I can best assume to be post modern design).  The idea behind the SOFA show is to show the crème de la crème of post modern design: sculptural objects which are not-sculptural enough to be in a museum, and functional art, which is not-functional enough to be in mainstream retail.  

In response to Jameson, if I have learned anything in design throughout my collegiate career (and I am pretty sure this is in fact the only thing I have learned) its that all modern design is in some sense a pastiche, or a parody.   The idea that individualism no longer exists, or even more so, that it never existed at all is pretty much one of the only things that makes sense to me anymore.  Any design is reactionary to a previous design; all innovation is simply imitating dead styles and speaking through masks – we only change the voice.  Perhaps the worst part is the quote, “If there is any realism left here, it is a “realism” which springs from the shock of grasping that confinement and of realizing that, for whatever peculiar reasons, we seem condemned to seek the historical past through our own pop images and stereotypes about that past, which itself remains forever out of reach.”

Well, duh. Just within this class every response of mine has been some rehash of a pop image.  But is that so wrong?  It’s communicable and discursive.  The images and forms are constantly recycled, yes, but the meaning, the message, is constantly changing.  Communicative, or more accurately discursive design, uses recognizable imagery to make statements about society and culture.  Parody?  Perhaps.  Facsimile? I think yes.  Pastiche?  You tell me.

Take Philippe Starck, the iconic postmodern designer.  He constantly plays off of the existing or iconic to use it in new context.

or even better, check out this cinematic facsimile by kropserkel!  (Sadly i saw the pillow before i saw the godfather, so the meaning was lost on me!)

I am showing these examples because of their relevance to postmodernism in that their form is irrelevant, their meaning is in the breakdown of language and symbolism that reinforces the form and its relevance in modern, or postmodern, society.  It has nothing to do with personal identity.  If anything, autonomy is detrimental in these cases.  Its all about the mass perception.

*****ps- totally get why Lacan in critical theory now.  totally. 

Why why why do we buy buy buy???

I found Foucault’s readings insightful and thought provoking in relation to product and experiential design because of the way he systematizes and organizes human behaviors and responses.  Finally, someone I can relate to.  I know Foucault didn’t identify himself as a structuralist per-say, but it is easy to see the connection.  The systemization of city structures and political systems, and the way they are direct responses to territory, communication and speed is similar to the relationship between consumers and products. Foucault speaks of liberation vs. imprisonment.  He emphasizes the fluidity and relativity of the word freedom, and its effects within the structure system.  Foucault’s writings focus on architecture, where as I feel his social theories are even more successfully applied to the arena of product design.  Obviously, architecture is that which divides and organizes the space.  But even Foucault admits that the architect is not a figure of domination, despite his control over the use of space; the architect designs the space, but is powerless as to how we use it or how we alter it.  This power relationship is different when deferred to product design, however.  The product does dictate and control how we use a space, how we experience, how we interact with others.  Look at the television-regardless of the space it is placed in, the effect will be the same-people will watch it.  With the exception of avant-garde, postmodern installation artists, no one is using the television for anything else.  Even when taken out of its intended space and environment, the product has the upper hand in the power relationship between product and user.  As an individual, we take the liberty of altering our surroundings, we change our houses, alter buildings, reorganize landscapes…but when we are faced with a television, we are powerless to do anything other than watch.  This subordination occurs with most products.

Not only do products control our interaction with them, they control our acquisition of additional products.  Look at the theory of planned obsolescence.  Products are being designed sequentially.  Every year there is a new updated version of almost anything dictating that we need to buy it.  The “new and improved” marketing traps us into thinking that we need something because it is now available in another color.  And the product designer knows this.  Some brands notorious for planned obsolescence by way of color expansion- for example – Apple, Kitchen aid, American apparel.  These brands fuel our consumption by promising freedom, when it actually imprisons us further and further.   Foucault states that the only guarantee of freedom is freedom.  This idea of freedom is the driving force behind product design.  Look at the iPod, the most recognizable product to come out of our generation.  The motivation behind creating mp3 players was to “free” the masses from the burden of the portable CD player.  In theory, by owning one, we should become free.  However the freedom we gain becomes another constraint; we need to buy headphones, chargers, decorative cases, ones that hold more music, pink ones, U.2. themed ones, extra small ones, touch screen versions; the list goes on and on.  Modern society becomes imprisoned by their own desires. 

This desire can also be addressed by some of Foucault’s theories on sexuality.  He muses that our sexuality is repressed, which, if that’s correct, would explain why we are so easily entranced by sex-driven advertising.  The saying is “sex sells”.  Is selling not an integral part of designed objects?  If so, then wouldn’t the acquisition of designed objects that appeal to our sexual desires relate product design to Foucault’s theories? 

I think the connection between Foucault and product design is incredibly strong- that’s why I am cutting myself off here, because I am concerned I could ramble on endlessly on so many of his points.  The power relationship especially caught my attention; and I feel ties directly into planned obsolescence.  Look at clothing…something we replace seasonally…based only on miniscule stylistic differences.  Even the systematic process of acquiring, interacting with, and being dominated by clothing dictates where each person fits within the societal structure.  Clothing dictates gender, culture, age, status…even religion.  Its the most intimate way of altering the space we directly interact with…ourselves!

you see what i did there? with the language? my unconscious totally interpreted “Why Lacan” (as in why do we study Lacan, why is he relevant) into “Why, Lacan?” (as in whyyyyyy would you do this to us Lacan??) Just goes to show the inconsistencies within language because of the different contexts we all use to process rhetoric. More on Monday!

National Public Radio is doing a special broadcast for Monday nights Critical Theory class……sweet!

P.S. Don’t forget, “Both Lacan as an analyst and we as students and readers of Lacan are mentally ill in some ways if we pretend (for, of course, there is no sense to be made of it) to understand what we talk about. We are like mental patients locked in an asylum, inflicting our paranoid delusions on others.” -Tallis

See you all in the crazy house on monday!!

this-american-lifedoes-indiana3

This was by far the most difficult reading to date. I am glad I am not the only one left feeling this way. Or at least that is what my conscious is feeling; subconsciously, I associate Freud with negative latent memories from childhood. I don’t mean that. I really don’t know what I mean at this point. In fact, I don’t think I have ever been so confused in academia in my whole life. That is, except for one other time. Ironically enough, this one other time also had a lot to with latent sexual content and the unconscious. It also had to do with art. I of course could only be referring to my intro to sculpture class many years ago back at UIC. I had one of those teachers who felt that art could not be censored, and proceeded to constantly show us disturbing, macabre, pseudo-sexual video installation art. (This was his genre) Reading Freud, desperately trying to figure out where the ego, superego and id fit into any kind of design or art, I remembered this film we watched in class. We were actually forced to sit through 3 parts of Matthew Barney’s Cremaster cycle. For those of you unfamiliar with Matthew Barney

1. You are so lucky and untainted
2. He is the stereotypical definition of pretentious installation artist
3. He is married to Bjork
4. His films are pretty much long, horrific dream sequences. I can just see him and Freud knocking back a sixer, disucussing the ego, superego and id, thinking up the horrors of the unconscious and how to represent them in video and sound in 5 two hour installments.

So because I am unable to grasp Freud well enough to write any kind of comprehensible response, here is my best attempt at interpreting what he is trying to say through an existing artists work.

A clip from Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle part 3

SO……if i had to put a visual on Freud’s psychoanalysis of the subconscious…….there it is…

So somewhere in between the chorus line of sheep girls, the punk battle between agnostic front and murphy’s law (while artist Richard Serra throws ladles of Vaseline against the corner), the pink half-naked cheetah pouncing around the Guggenheim, and Matthew Barney himself with a giant feathered cap and a bloody rag coming out of his mouth, we get the psychoanalysis.  The best part is that this insanity (the conscious) actually has a latent meaning (over all, the reproductive cycle, more specifically to this part, the initiation rights of the Masons……) If this doesn’t scream Freudian theory, i dont know what does.  And i really mean that, what does?  I really, really dont get this.  At all.

****P.S.  If you think this film was weird, you have no idea, i showed you the safe for classroom part, it gets ten times weirder and more graphic.  And maybe on a subconcious level, thats why i switched from studio arts to industrial design.  Thanks Freud.

Am I the only one who feels like everything around me is a spectacle?

My entire existence has been designed, and overly so- to the point where my existence is an illusion; however not only am I aware of it, I embrace it.  In fact, I am starting to think the illusion is my life blood.  Scary.

“The spectacle is not a collection of images; rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images.”  I’d be lying if I said my future career (hopefully) didn’t depend on this relationship.  Product design and marketing/advertising are like peas and carrots.  Sadly few designers are aware of this dependency.  The desire for a product (desire for consciousness) is non-existent without a constant assault of visual representation.  If the world is a commodity, than our existence within it is based on visual imagery.

Now comes the superfun part of this response where I struggle to relate the text to industrial design.  Both for myself and for Shannon, the only one probably reading this text.  Guess what?  This one isn’t too hard.  Guy Debord’s entire message is describing the relationship between commodity and consumer, and the industrial designer is nestled right into both of these categories.  I found his theses 43 most relatable to the current balance in the world of product design.  “The spectacle is a permanent opium war designed to force people to equate goods with commodities and to equate satisfaction with a survival that expands according to its own laws.”  Damn right it is!

Perhaps an example of this “opium war” will show the context within product design.  How about razors (the kind for your face, you crazy emo kids….)?

The original Gillette razor was created to last.  Gillette (a salesman from Fond du Lac, WI) was the first person to realize the benefit of the disposable razor.  By disposing of the blade the consumer was forced to constantly buy new razors, establishing their permanent cycle of supply and demand.  The razors had a single blade and the body was aluminum and quite heavy. (So I hear)  Fast forward to a few years ago.  Schick unveiled their new “Quattro razor” (actually by this time, it was no longer even referred to a razor, it was a shaving system) The

razor had four blades.  FOUR.  Every man in America had to rush out to by this new “resolution” (it is never so) to their shaving dilemmas.  It is plastic and somewhat resembles a space ship.  Why?  Who knows, perhaps a constant reminder of the futuristic existence it provides its user with.  This four blade razor must be the end of the razor war, right?  Finally a resolution.  WRONG!  What does Gillette do?

Meet the Fusion.  The resolution to the limitations of a four blade razor.  It boasts five blades….FIVE FREAKING BLADES.  It is styled like a racecar (no doubt a reference to its unbeatable speed at shaving a man’s face?) It has a moisturizing strip and a flex fit head.  It solves every problem you never realized you had when shaving.  It is more disposable than ever.  Nonexistent use value, illusions of shaving grandeur.  If only I could assure you that this is the resolution to shaving.  Sadly I cannot, because as Debord dictated, the consumer culture, the spectacle, is in a permanent opium war.

There will be a new resolution-yes!  A six blade razor! - In fact I shall make it my industrial design thesis; a new resolution for the woes of shaving!

J/K!!!!!!!

****the irony here is why do we even shave?  Does it actually make us better?  I am going to play the “increasingly unnecessary commodity” card on this one.

CLICK ME CLICK ME CLICK ME CLICK ME CLICK ME CLICK ME

also, Micah’s response made me think of this. (bizarro world/circus freaks/globalization)

If film was the most practical application of reproducing and delivering art to masses a hundred years ago, then what channel of technological reproduction is currently distributing “art”?

We have to consider some of the subtle differences between modernity (post-modernity? Post-post modernity? Where are we now??) and the past. If cinematic art is experiential, a way to briefly escape reality and enter fantasy, then how does this apply to a culture that lives in a constant fantasy? The tables have shifted so radically that we currently live our lives as a fantasy, pausing briefly to view cinematic productions intended to briefly pull us back into reality if only briefly. How does this counterbalance affect the way that we define cinematic art and our (the masses) relationship to it?

If its ability to be technologically reproduced and experienced by the masses is what defines cinema as art, then are we not living art? Let me explain. Technology has progressed so much further than Walter’s could ever have predicted. Within his text, he refers to the camera as the apparatus, the actor as the artistic performer, and the collage of stills edited together to create a film the “art.” In modern times, however, we, the masses encounter the apparatus daily. Our every move is recorded, by means of cell phone, personal video cameras, web cams, even security cameras. We are often unaware we are even interacting with some of these covert Orwellian apparatuses. These are then channeled to the masses through internet sources such as you tube, facebook, blogger, flicker, my space and other social networking websites. We waste endless hours on the internet, watching other people’s reality, which in turn becomes our escape (fantasy) and escalates the medium to art status. Intentionally or not, just existing has transformed us into artistic performers. As we ride in an elevator, and a security camera acts as an apparatus that films us performing such a mundane interaction, we are still performing. We are being watched by security guards (and who knows who else!) and by that experience transforms our existence into art. If anything, such unscripted behavior is much more raw, much more pure than any film work that is scripted and rehearsed. The aura of our artistic selves radiates the strongest when we are unaware that we have become the art.

This also brings up the question of scripted reality. Perhaps it is a cause of the reversal of art and reality. What is the consequence of the constant submersion of the masses into a cinematic interpretation of “reality?” When our reality is eroded to a point that scripted reality television becomes reality, the psyche has no choice but to then seek out the illusion, the fantasy, the art. If the fantasy is reality, than the reality is forced to become the fantasy. Every photograph we post of ourselves, every video clip, even every facebook status update, creates a mirror image of ourselves to be transported to the masses. (The internet has become the new apparatus for art creation.) If the best effects are always achieved by “acting” as little as possible, than isn’t existence (provided it is distributed and observed) the most pure artistic performance?

art in its purest form

By distributing moments in time, mirror images of myself through this apparatus, and others similar, am i not the work of art?  I think yes, yes i am.

“Oh hot damn! This is my jam!”

Why, oh why would I begin with a lyric from Flo Rida? Perhaps Adorno is, in fact, my jam? Or perhaps I am the very measure of the modern effects of the Culture Industry, my outburst merely a consequence of these cultural commodities being streamlined into my brain via the radio. I’d like to think I exist somewhere in between; still dependant on the system to deliver me meaningless satisfactions under the guise of innovation (in this case lyrical genius), all the while taking into consideration how I can use the same meaningless satisfaction to develop a product that will eventually be delivered to you.

Who am I kidding? Adorno is so my jam. I agree with him on an endless number of points, except for one which I will approach in a brief moment. It is sometimes hard to swallow his critique on mass culture, because, seeing has how we all fit within the realms of mass culture, it is a critique on us. As a designer, I have spent years convincing myself that every thought in my head is completely autonomous, and that I myself am far too enlightened to be swindled by the culture industry. That was until I reviewed my experience reading Adorno today. In the time it took me to cover all the readings, I stopped twice for a snack, three times to refill my glass of water, and (wait for it) SIX times to check Perezhilton.com* and various celeb gossip websites. What a horrible realization to come to when reading Adorno, that you are dependant on the cultural commodities he is criticizing as the reason for conformity. Ouch. That’s twice my water intake! I had actually deluded myself into believing that by achieving cultural enlightenment (Adorno) I had earned the simple satisfaction of celebrity gossip. That is, ironically enough, what Adorno was referring to when he said, “The total effect of the culture industry is one of anti-enlightenment, that is the progressive technical domination of nature, becomes mass deception and is turned into a means for fettering consciousness.”

*no wonder my opening line was Flo Rida……

So the one point I have to disagree with or at least question is Adorno’s criticism of the consumer’s knowledge of deception within the cultural industry. Am I the only one who thinks “meaningless satisfactions” cannot exist? If it satisfies us, no matter how non-autonomous, conformist, unquestioned, unanalyzed, and undialectically presupposed, how can it be viewed negatively? Is it so morally wrong to enjoy the swindle? To desire the deception? To take gratification in the transparency? I think that in moderation these small pleasures pacify and soothe us, allowing us to deal with reality, rather than disassociate us from reality all together.

But what do I know? I looked at Perez Hilton six times today.

Would we really be a more autonomous culture if there were no MTV, no radio, no movies, no Perez Hilton? I guess that’s something for the class to discuss because I don’t have an answer.

One cannot help but wonder what Adorno would say having observed a week in any of our modern lives. The context has, of course, changed drastically from when his “Culture Industry Reconsidered” was written. We are no longer at war (oh wait, yes we are), we no longer romanticize the expressions of culture transmitted to us through movies, music, and television (oh wait, yes we do!) We no longer use music as a channel to commoditize ideas and cultural preconceptions (oh hot damn! We do.) I made these Adorno posters out of Dior ads because I thought high fashion was an interesting approach to high art. Is fashion not a creative expression? If you view it to be, that it is a great example of commoditizing the idea of culture and status. There is nothing new or autonomous about a purse, except perhaps maybe the color or the material, but owning this commodity is what separates the truly enlightened (the owners of Dior) and the rest of us (the conformists of mass culture).

On that note, I am AGAIN breaching 700 words. Does anyone else have this problem? Aside from the lovely Dior (excuse me, aDiorno!) posters, I am including a surprise pop-cultural reference that I feel communicates the irony to which Adorno was referring.

Don’t you want to find out what i put here???

I can’t help but try to understand critical theory in my own narcissistic way, by filtering it though the looking glass of things relevant to myself and my status in the world. My world is composed of many influences but most heavily by two dominating factors: pop culture, and industrial design.

Perhaps I am suffocating under the weight pop-culture, but I was best able to understand Marxian theory though observations of it being applied in modern media outlets. The leanings towards anarchy and economic equilibrium of the communist league are actually not as new to me as I had previously thought. You see, Marx has managed to covertly slide his criticism of the capitalist economy right into the blockbuster film “Fight Club.” Among its many themes, it has a subplot of the uprising of the working class to destroy all the financial institutions, eliminate debt and wealth, and eradicate the status quo. “It’s getting exciting now, 2 and 1/2. Think of everything we’ve accomplished, man. Out these windows, we will view the collapse of financial history. One step closer to economic equilibrium.” (Tyler Durden in Fight Club.)

There is also the desire to return to arts and crafts, to agriculture; to break free from the oppression of the capitalist-proletariat cycle. David Held also touches upon this rebellion towards capitalism as was seen in the uprisings in Russia right before World War I. The historical context is simple enough, I find myself able to translate Marxian theory into relatives terms and ideas that make them easier to process, but what about critical theory? So intangible a topic that even philosophers, theorists, sociologist; the greatest minds in history cannot agree.

In what ways does critical theory relate to industrial design? I suppose I am also a proletariat…..my existence is dependant on selling my labor as a product, a commodity. But in this process, in addition to my labor as a product, the fruits of my labor is an actual, tangible product. By creating objects to be mass-produced for the proletariat to both manufacture and acquire, do I become a capitalist? Am I somewhere in between, perhaps a capitaletariat? I have concluded that if design is additional labor, therefore increasing the inflation on the product and raising the surplus value that ends up in the capitalist pocket, then one can only deduce that as a designer of products, the inflation occurring on the products we all buy is caused by me, the capitaletariat. To summarize, my role is to make utilitarian things more expensive for you to buy and more profitable for the few selling. I apologize. This is where critical theory enters, a knight in shining armor to the industrial designer. With critical theory, we can agree or disagree. Lukacs argued against the weighted Marxian views to express the totality of societal relativity. The capitalists are dependant on the proletariats; the proletariats are dependant on the capitalists; everyone is dependant on the consumption of goods. Especially designed goods which allow for connotation of implied status. Without goods, would there be class distinction? Just like modern times we assume that we are defined as individuals by products- by the goods we consume- the Frankfurt school was theorizing that societal classes are determined by products (capitalists consuming labor, proletariats consuming goods). This is also referenced in Fight Club, the idea that we define ourselves by what we consume. So the industrial designer, the capitaletariat, is producing that which allows us to be classified in society. Without the dynamic between producer and consumer (a dynamic fueled by product design, yea!) Societal structures would collapse, and the economy would disintegrate into mayhem. So one could theorize that industrial design is a preventative measure against anarchy. Perhaps that is taking it one step too far, but the point is made, designer redeemed.

Perhaps the members of the Frankfurt school are rolling in their graves at my crass interpretation of the fundamentals of critical theory, but at the same time, their fundamentals allow me this luxury of interpretation and analysis. Thanks guys!

On a side note, sorry for being the cause of inflation on pretty much everything. I hope we can all move past this and be friendly.

check out the vids!

Tyler Durden on modern society

economic equilibrium achieved!