Groom updates Facebook status during vows

http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/93216/married-at-this-very-moment/

Groom updates Facebook status during vows

http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/93216/married-at-this-very-moment/

Baudrillard

"Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the matrix. You are the eventuality of an anomaly...from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden assiduously avoided, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a measure of control. Which has led you, inexorably, here....The function of the One is now to return to the source, allowing a temporary dissemination of the code you carry, reinserting the prime program."

- "The Architect", The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

    The Architect, who appears in the much maligned Matrix sequels, is ultimately the character who evokes the true philosophy Baudrillard was getting at regarding simulacra and simulations.

    The first Matrix movie offered the base premise that our mundane reality was merely the facade for a grim void which mirrors Baudrillard’s warning that there might be no reality at all. The movie ends with Neo telling us that we can break free. However in the next movie Neo is faced with The Architect who, true to Baudrillard’s vision, flat-out tells our hero that even his impressive, Buddha-like awakening against the world of simulation is in itself ALSO a simulation. This is where the Wachowski Brothers get their turn to warn us that our innate revulsion and pushback against phoniness might not be our genuine feelings, but rather another social impulse to “play it by the numbers”.

    It is as if The Architect is looking us, the audience, in the eye and asking: “You honestly believed that hokey that the first movie was trying to peddle to you?”

    Nevertheless, amidst his Moebius strip-like explanation of our non-reality, Baudrillard does not advocate that we simply give up, take the Blue Pill, and become a proverbial battery. That is to say, we should actively participate in the game, fight the good fight, whether we think we’ll arrive at The One Big Truth or not (he’s betting we won’t, by the way). We continue to fight the establishment but, rather than topple it outright, we’re charged with rendering it illegitimate by providing our own narratives, and not the ones the establishment hands us.

    Just as Baudrillard (and perhaps Henry Jenkins) hopes, the end result is that we’ll live in an infinitely nebulous reality where nothing need be taken at face value unless we choose to. In many ways, though, this freedom of ideas can be insidious. Take for instance the actual increase in recent years of Americans who don’t believe in evolution. One would hope that if those people are pushing back against the establishment of science that they aren’t merely retreating to the establishment of religion which is a far gloomier scenario for individual thought.

    Aside from tangible enemies of authority by the few, the other forces we have to fight off are our own mass ignorance and mass complacency. The Architect would have you believe you’re still stuck playing the game, but at least you can bend the rules.

baudrillard's a lonely lonely man

Baudrillard's blurb reminded me of most of our reading so far. With Debord's description of the self perpetuating cycle of spectacle to McLuhn's talk about the media, Baudrillard echoes the notion that the ways in which we form meaning, especially in light of new media and information technologies, are not only pervasive, but so far removed from the realm of gritty, verifiable fact and fiction. Now society can tout whatever it wants and someone somewhere will regard it as reality based.

This idea of a metaphysics and poetry existing between the space of something actual and its translation into a map, book, television show, etc, is interesting. The idea that this metaphysical, 'magical' quality is lost when something is based on something that was never tied to its original source of inspiration is also interesting. But I guess Baudrillard is very suspicious of this because he thinks it diluted reality. My issue with what he is saying is because I err on the postmodern side of truth anyway and feel that this more direct pure relation between the terrain the cartographers attempts to map it never really existed. It sounds like Baudrillard was getting nostalgic.

In my own undergraduate field of cultural anthropology, I witnessed a college program undergo a sort of crisis (well, not quite) when it decided to change the name of it's major to "critical theory and social justice." The department's new understanding of the whole field of anthropology was that it had been, for too long, grounded in false notions of true unadulterated objectivity in the ethnographer's field work. The consensus was that no anthropologist was capable of writing about another culture without writing jane eyre, or some very personalized, two-cent novel reflecting their own pathetic lives. I thought the acknowledgment between ethnographic writing and humanities writing made sense. It took the pressure of objectivity out of the picture and it made it more fun. Did it dilute the field of anthropology?...probably. So maybe Baudrillard was right.

Where Deceit Deceives Itself: The Society of the Spectacle- Response by Melanie Hung

Guy Debord, a man introduced as a lonesome and depressed being, is the true focus of the article, “The Society of the Spectacle.”
At the moment, I do not feel the urge to write about what the article summarizes. (I am sure everyone in class took notes and can look at this confusing article with at least tad bit of comprehension. I am more interested in the author himself and why he would write such a multi-layered piece of analysis.
From the first few paragraphs, one can state that Debord sees things in an interesting perspective. He finds that people are living in a world that is representational of not the people in it but the ideal lifestyle people wish to pursue. It is believed by the author that this process will eventually lead to an “autonomous movement of non-life.” My understanding is that the media, the entertainment or the everyday “spectacle” towards life as a whole is altered by people to make people less accepting for what they have already. Since the “deliberate distortions” has grown to be powerful enough to bridge people, I find that Debord looks at himself as a helpless victim of the situation. Although contradictory to what peoples’ lives actually are, Debord believes that it will eventually shape social life. Take for example, advertising is able to shape the “sphere of production.” Or easily worded, the how market would not be there if there were no marketing techniques.
The point that all of what social life and social organization seems to be is all mere appearance I think is both negative and positive since although the lifestyle shown by the media is fabricated and unrealistic, it makes people strive for more than what they have and may try harder to work for the lifestyle the media portrays.
Overall, I feel that Debord made a solid point in the media definitely provided a spectacle for people within to look out and vice versa. However, this exaggerated excerpt provided me with a more depressed perspective towards the impact of the “spectacle” in our lives, it makes me ponder intermittently.

Being a PA on a reality show is SO important.

This will be a recap of my interpretation of the individual points made in Debord's "The Society of the Spectacle" (1968):

1. So, everything in today's society is spectacle.

2. So, we now exist alongside this parallel reality that is totally bogus and the complete inversion of real life. We've heard this one for years.

3. So, the biggest way we're being duped by this Society of Spectacle thing, is that it falsely brings us together. We all relate to and talk to eachother about what television shows and movies we're watching, what programs we're using, etc. It is a place where our most basic behaviors, longings, and emotions get magnified into a crystalized glitter parade. The reason this is deceptive is because our base behaviors, longings and emotions are rendered unrecognizable from their original state, and yet this is the version of these base feelings and desires that we view as the true universal forms of these experiences that everyone in the world has in common.

4. So, its not just a picture book on a coffee table, it's a picture book that dictates who and how we're supposed to talk to the people sitting around the coffee table. It isn't neutral, it actively engages with us and instructs us on how to behave.

5. So, this Society of Spectacle isn't the sole offspring of technology. It's not reality deliberately made over to be totally unrealistic. Rather, it is the byproduct of whatever we, as the human species is thinking and feeling. The spectacle is the inevitable exaggeration of our world view, like a folk tale that casts the staunch old woman across the street as a witch that wants to kill you and your children.

6. So, what Debord means by the 'mode of production' is basically a stand in word for civil society, its economics, manufacturing, etc. This parallel realm of spectacle, the more colorful version of our drab, overly complex lives, is what fuels the masses who hope to acquire some vestige of the reality shown on T.V. So, we're fueled by dreams that we dreamt up our selves, and we want to be rewarded with those same dreams. This madness came from us. And when we try to be savvy consumers wanting to make a heartfelt choice about what brand of toothpaste to buy, it won't matter, because the choice has already been made by the all powerful realm of spectacle. Society projected what sort of toothpaste it believed we should have into that parallel reality, and that parallel reality made versions of that vision available to us in our stores. So when we make a decision to by Tom's toothpaste, we're not making a choice. The spirit of the times has already made it for you.

7. So, there is this distance between the reality of who we really are, and how we are portrayed by the society of spectacle. This distance exists because the spectacle seems so different from our reality, which it is. But the truth is, its easy to loose sight of the fact that spectacle gets its ideas for movies and television programing from our everyday lives. But because spectacle, and television, looks so much better, we're convinced that our everyday lives can only aspire to the TV version of it, even though our real lives are original source material. So we're not giving ourselves enough credit. We each had a hand in writing Seinfeld.

8. So, you can't knock one without knocking the other. Sure, reality is more real than the spectacle, but it lends a lot of that reality to spectacle, not just in the form of inspiration, but because, when your producing a reality tv show, the crew has to really interact with each other. This lends that false reality a heavy dose of reality that almost seems to make task of producing a reality show seem important. And in a way it becomes important because people are literally living off the money they earn from such a silly thing. So its a give and take between the spectacle, the way it intrudes into our real lives, and then how we give from our doll drum lives the very real life toil that makes the spectacle possible. Its very cyclical, and according to Debord, the heart of our society is this back and forth give and take between the real and the unreal. It sounds like economics.

9. So, in this present system, things are so inverted that what we perceive as truth is actually false. Like, its wrong for people to be rich when they're are so many poor, but television shows the opposite, so the truth becomes, its true that their will always be rich and screw the poor. I think this is what he means.

10. So...forms of visual diversification are not real. And....don't forget, that the spectacle is a negation of life and even things like variety and choice are part of the same system.

11. So...you really can't talk about the spectacle, that alternate reality, without intimately knowing about facebook, or LOST, or all the other stuff. A person who isn't in the know about mainstream culture is perceived as socially irresponsible and a weirdo. Because its not just spectacle, it is a political social arrangement in which we live, so in a way, to not be on face book IS socially irresponsible. Bottom line, its going to be very tough to get out of this very pervasive matrix of existence.

12. So this passage confused me just a little bit. So I understand the the spectacle is generally regarded as the realm of entertainment and hollywood fairy tales that society adheres to, but having Debord suddenly bring up the possibility of the spectacles influence on the value system made me think of H.P. Lovecraft who's fringe writing was revered for its ability to delve into the unfathomable depths of human nature. So much of Lovecraft's writing was spent trying to describe the indescribable, and sometimes all he could do was fail to describe and apologize to the reader for not being able to do so. But it didn't matter. All he had to say was that something was beyond the realm of our earthly comprehension and, for a few brief moments, the reader would feel a sense of having more breathing room as he or she contemplated the possibility of something so different, so outrageous, that it wasn't broadcasted on television. So, I interpret point # 12 as the perceived values of what is appropriately right and appropriately wrong as shown on television. Anything outside that order is left to the fringe realm of anti-social horror writers.

13. We really love living in the Society of Spectacle. It is our reason for being.

14. May the fight for fame, fortune and fairy tale endings never end.

15. Long live the Society of Spectacle. It is our God.

Paint us, you destitute worthless piece of....

There is a reciprocity in the process of seeing. Between McLuhn and Guy Debord, there is this sense that vision is key to the way we relate to one another and the world around us. But Berger probably says it best when he describes the scenario of a person seeing a hill and knowing that because he can see the hill, whoever is on the hill can also see him. When Berger says that this reciprocity is more fundamental than spoken dialogue, he is addressing the general theme from the course readings we've covered so far, namely that there is this very complicated thing going on in the way we relate to images and the way they are being fed to us.

Berger's essay reminds us that there is an intrinsic perspective within images. They are records of the way in which the painter or photographer was relating to the person place or thing before them. He explains that the usefulness of these 'records' is dependent on the present days relation to the past, and this is how his thoughts mirror the social and existential themes made by McLuhn and Debord: We're prone to all kinds of delusion if we're not more aware of what is going on when we look at something. In this case, Beger claims that while interpretations of art are affected by current idiosyncrasies, these interpretations can also can also gauge the ways we are feeling about the present day, because if we're not feeling so great about the world in which we live, chances are, the meaning gleaned from old paintings will be 'mystified.' For Berger, like history, paintings offer vital clues to why we are the way we are, little microcosms of history that our as prone to politically motivated reinterpretations as past wars.

The bulk of Berger's essay describes the machinations of an elite minority controlling the value of art, and that because the elites are best served by the idea of a justified ruling class, they mystify the the more straightforward interpretations of paintings. Berger's key example of this 'mystification' is shown in the popular interpretations of Frans Hals' painting of 'Governors and Governesses of an Alms House.' Commissioned by the people who spared Hals' from total destitution, the innate awkwardness between the painter and the painted is downplayed in most art history interpretations. Rather, scholars focus more on superficial details, like the technique rather than the social implications.

Berger explains that the sensation of experiencing the characters in Hals' painting as people we might know is not just because of Hal's masterful skill, but rather, it is because our present day society shares similar values to the world in the painting, awkward exchanges and all.

It is this straightforward, and probably useful, interpretation of Hals' painting that is deliberately muddled by "a few specialized experts who are the clerks of the nostalgia of a ruling class in decline." In this remark and the discussion on mass producibility of old paintings, Berger describes a scenario where the influx of information and accessibility of art, not unlike our conversations on internet technology and the media, has been hijacked by a class of people who wish to perpetuate power dynamics advantageous to them. Or, as Berger puts it, "people who thrive off the 'continuing values of an oligarchic, undemocratic culture."

In his apt description of a new technology that alters the worlds sense of space and time, Berger describes how the camera fuels these old undemocratic dynamics by leaching off the perceived authority of old paintings--an authority derived from the simultaneous perception of all its elements. (This quality has been mentioned in my intro to design course) This is a simultaneity that film and photography lacks, because the weight of its visual statements is an easily manipulated sequence. Bogus spirituality and mystification also bolster a paintings authority and discourages the viewer from reading paintings like Hals' as staunch social commentary.

It seems that Berger believes that despite the mass producibility of old art pieces and the personalized uses they're appropriated for in albums, bedroom walls, or video projects, Berger believes that these paintings are still kept in the realm of the elite who, having had to compensate for a painting's loss of uniqueness and singularity (something to be experienced at a certain place in time by a few people at a time) began to promote the value of 'authenticity.' Berger shares the example of the Virgin on the Rocks housed in the National Gallery in London and its catalogued history that does not "deal with the meaning of the image" but describes, instead, in great detail, the person who "commissioned the painting, legal squabbles, who owned it, its likely date, the families of its owner." All of this is catalogued precisely to make it crystal clear that the paintings status as the 'original,' its art sanctioned indicator of value, is never in question.

It is little surprise then, that Berger ends his essay with an admonishment: Don't be ignorant about what's happening to you when you see an old painting, mass produced or the original. The way you experience it is probably the exact way someone is hoping you will, and that someone probably wants you to remain ignorant of the social and economic inequalities that give the painting its monetary value. Echoing our previous conversations on the social consequences of new information technology, Berger concludes that the pervasive presence of art in our lives offers us an opportunity to abandon set interpretations. He encourages us to get back to art's direct value as a window into a moment in the past. Because a clear cut glimpse at a moment between a bunch of creepy dutch people with cash and a destitute painter can enlighten us to our own shady and questionable interactions.