War Images and the Mechanical reproductions of ‘Film’.

I like to consider myself an avid admirer of all things – art. But then again, who isn’t? I am still quite a long way away from my winter escape to sunny Europe. So it is perhaps rather unsurprising that my attempt to read the quite brilliant piece – ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproductions’ by Walter Benjamin, managed to stir up imaginations of Van Gough, Magritte and of the idea for an experimental film involving European train stations. But more importantly, I thought about Laura Mulvey and Lev Manovich, whose writings seem more characteristic of the usual painstakingly difficult-to-read scholarly material. But what is even more important than speculating the extent of my humble brain capacity and occasional dyslexia, is recognizing in their writings a measured and common thread of concerns relating to film and/or the photographic image. I apologize in advance for the length of this post. But being the mentioned ‘avid admirer of all things – art’, I must, at least briefly, share here the very interesting subject of discussion canvassed by these authors, by which I cannot help feeling affected.

They are essentially about the shapes of changes in the ways in which objects and the images of those objects are being produced and reproduced. Mulvey (2006) and Manovich (2000) talk about the ‘death’ of the times in which our views and perceptions as seen through camera lenses were documented through the ‘natural magic’-al combination of light and photo-sensitive material. A process of which is substituted today by numerical systems and digitalized information. The cinema, more in this age than ever before, seems fixed on ridding any association with the authenticity of the pictured object, creating a visual culture that settles for nothing more than the art of indexical animation. Walters ventures into more detail on the effects of mechanical reproductions, expounding the decay in the authenticity and the changes inflicted on the traditions embedded into any unique aural/visual experience.

“The desire of contemporary masses to bring things “closer” spatially .and humanly… is just as ardent as their bent toward overcoming the uniqueness of every reality by accepting its reproduction.”

–          Benjamin Walters (1979)

That was brief. A lot more where that came from. But for fear of OVER-exceeding the word limit and causing too premature a death by boredom, I’ll get back to the imaginations that Walters’ piece produced in my head. One of my research assignments this semester was concerned with how war related films have been framed to incite different perceptions and feelings in audiences. One of the films I watched (on youtube) was a 1941 German Nazi war propaganda film entitled Sieg Im Westen. Commissioned by the Oberkommado des Heeres (or The German Army High Command), the whole 114minute film was made up entirely by news-reel footage of very REAL happenings on the battlefields and on the German home front. The sequence of images, compiled for the local German viewership, was accompanied by spoken explanations of the Nazi’s reasons to go to war. It included assertions about a benevolent and peace-loving Adolf Hitler, who was forced into leading the country to war because of overseas threats aimed at the German people. It was interesting to see how filmic documenting of historical events can be framed and re-contextualized to create different meanings and affections to and for history, experiences and life itself. It was also very interesting to think about the developments that have gone into the processes of production, distribution and exhibition of this particular example of the art of film:

It was life recorded onto photo-sensitive material, cut up and pasted together by some 1940s splice-and-thread machinery. Then copied multiple times, lit up projectors in theatres around Germany, and gave new meanings of worldly events to its locals. Sometime between then and about two weeks ago, it was converted into a matrix of numerical and indexical systems, wired onto the world wide network, and hosted on a much loved video sharing web-site. Two weeks ago it lit up a singular macintosh  monitor in room 114 of the Robert Webster Building in UNSW, Sydney, and treated me with new meanings of the developments in the art of the cinema and in perceptions of art itself.

Today, as I read Walter Benjamin’s work of art, imaginations and understandings of Mulvey, Manovich and Sieg Im Westen were re-produced; and now at this very moment as I ‘write’ this, I am quite blatantly doing it again.

And if you have read all that were re-produced in this post, pictured or at least voiced my imaginations in your head, then surely you understand that you too are part of this Age of Mechanical Re-productions.

But then again, who isn’t?

 

Patents, Generosity and Ethics

“We are entering an age where everything is only limited by our imagination” – (Dr. Craig Venter, 2010)

The above quote was taken from a video interview with Dr. Craig Venter, one of the leading scientists involved in the controversial and successful efforts to create synthetic life. The Mycroplasma Laboratorium – a REAL and living cell claimed to have been made from scratch via the seemingly limitless boundaries of bio-scientific engineering/imaginations – has attracted its fair share of speculations, doubters and of course (yes, you guessed it) moral outcry. The same old ethical concerns that have threaded the waters of some other fantastical and similarly infamous imaginations such as cloning and ‘designer’ babies, seem to permeate through anything and everything concerning the word ‘life’. And of course, it is not too difficult to understand why that is.

But aside from the usual hullabaloo that ascribes suggestions of ‘playing God’ to scientific endeavours such as this, a rather different form of ethical conflict is now beginning to resound more prominently in the public’s earshot than ever before. The matter of ownership/sharing seems to have been formulated to challenge the limitations of our imaginations in this (dare I say it) globalized era. Guided to fame in the high-pressure melting pot of ethical discussion by the music industry, file and data sharing is now also a raging subject for more scientifically related chatter. Sharing of scientific data and research material has been made possible by trans-national links throughout the global scientific community. Putting that infrastructure to use will, as its proponents believe, create a higher degree of potential for discovering more effective solutions to at least some of the sixty-four thousand dollar questions lingering around our hospital beds, on the streets outside and in the skies above. But while the idea sounds rather amicable, for many, it is sadly a somewhat idealistic one. For it is difficult to imagine scientists, such as Dr. Venter, who commit themselves to years and years of work and research, whose lives rely so heavily on the monetary investments that fund their efforts, willing to allow their hard work to be left unprotected by copyright laws and possibly relinquished of creative attribution as a result of the processes and laws exercised in and for data sharing.

Interestingly, it seems that Dr. Venter is considering doing the somewhat unthinkable. Reserving the rights for a scientific innovation or discovery is one debatable issue in itself, as is messing about with anything concerning the word ‘life’. The somewhat unthinkable is in fact the attempt to patent or copyright a living organism such as the Mycroplasma Laboratorium (however ‘synthetic’ it may be). But what’s more important than fussing about the moral issues related to this somewhat unthinkable decision, is of course fussing about the absolute unthinkable. It is perhaps unfortunate that we can only hope (and should not think) that what the latter entails does not involve patenting, copyrighting or owning life, in every sense of that word. Mindful of the accelerated pace at which science and bio-engineering seem to be advancing, I dare restrict myself from the thought that I am sounding overly fantastic here. After all, aren’t we entering an age where everything is only limited by our imagination?

P.S. If you have somehow stumbled upon this page, read through the post (till this point) and have not seen the awesome video for ‘the coalition of the willing’ (that proposes methods for countering climate change), here it is. I think its a very interesting idea and this is my humble effort to promote it. Also the animation and art work are great!

 

Video journalism/documentary project – The Tragic Caveman

Short documentary/VJ project, made for (UNSW) ARTS 3061 – Video Project.

Film Synopsis:

Given the task to film a documentary/ VJ project on the theme of ‘disaster’, we went on our way to Silverwater Prison to film the protest against the imprisonment of Bondi Caveman, Jhiymy ‘Two Hats’ Mhiyles.

 

Micropolitics for Community, Identity, Stability: Google connects

“Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance…feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumble puppy… In Brave New World, (people) are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short… Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.”

–Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death (NY: Viking Penguin, Inc., 1985), vii-viii.

Reading about micropolitics got me thinking about one of the episodes of Hungry Beast in which there is a mapping of how Google is going/trying to take over the world. I thought it was a good example of exposing the micropolitics involved in the connections between google’s various services as well as the possible ulterior motives embedded in and for their functions. Of course the information in the video are mostly based on theories, but nonetheless it presents an insightful and factual account of what Google has been up to. It is perhaps easy to forget or ignore the fact that we are being more permissive than ever before in submerging ourselves into the various virtual networks and ecologies that surround us. It probably isn’t such a bad thing. We are after all only living or putting to good use the shapes and designs of our new social organization. But it is quite interesting to take a peek into the operations of those working networks and ecologies (or at least an example of it), to have a look at some of those profiting from our helpless dive into this information age. Maybe even to sneak a glimpse into the future, just in case there is any need to prepare ourselves for who will be our ‘Ford’ once we’ve reached the depths/heights of this our own Brave New World.