Jacques Rancière Day 5

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Jacques Rancière taught a class entitled: POLITICS OF AESTHETICS wherein we discuss the relationship between what is allowed to be seen and the dominant political regime.

NOTE: As with all my notes from the European Graduate School, there will likely be mistakes because I did not record the lectures, I made notes as they spoke, so I am perhaps interpreting what they are saying as I am writing.

Kinoeye as a practical activity: it's the peak of the Communist aesthetic and it's the new sensorium with the idea of art as art beyond...

We have a text today by Brecht (1939) "On the Experimental Theatre" that bids farewell to the idea of aesthetic utopia. Critical art as a mediation that is able to change reality by prompting decisions. Political art as mediation in a struggle for Communism.

Brecht reads this as an initial division, entertainment and instruction. This is a decision, Brecht seems to forget that those that made agitprop wanted to dismiss, by making theatre another activity in the world. Meyerhold wrote a lot about this - no distinction between work and entertainment.

Blending two forms of activity - media as performance, an activity with its ends in itself; at the same time this is a blended with theatre as working activity that must be rationalized like any other industrial activity. Meyerhold makes similar parascientific investigations as Eisenstein. All theatrical activity has to be identified and defined with in a multiplicity of competences.

Brecht seems to ignore all of this.

Meyerhold realized a radical Constructivism, and Reinhardt transformed natural, would-be showplaces into stages: he performed Everyman and Faust in public places. Open-air theatres saw productions of A Midsummer Nights' Dream in the midst of a forest, and in the Soviet Union an attempt was made to repeat the storming of the Winter Palace with the use of the battleship Aurora. The barriers between stage and spectator were demolished. At Reinhardt's productions of Danton's Death in the Grosses Schauspielhaus actors sat in the auditorium, and in Moscow Ochlopkov seated spectators on the stage. (3)

These were matters of abolishing the conceit that an actor is on stage and there is an auditorium but the spectator should be a passive recipient - theatre as a site of agitation. People no longer gathering to observe a spectacle but to take part in the spectacle :

At times the theatre did well in endowing social movements (the emancipation of women, perhaps, the administration of justice, hygiene, even, in fact, the movement for the emancipation of the proletariat) with definite impulses. Still it cannot be secreted that the insights which the theatre permitted into the social situation were not particularly profound. It was more or less, as the objections pointed out, a mere symptom of the superficial character of society. The intrinsic social legalities were not made perceptible. Consequently the experiments in the province of the drama led to an almost complete destruction of plot and the image of man in the theatre. The theatre by placing itself in the service of social reform suffered the loss of many of its artistic efficacies. Not unjustly, though often with rather dubious arguments, do we lament the prostitution of artistic taste and the blunting of the stylistic sense. In fact, there prevails over our theatre today as a consequence of the many diverse kinds of experiments, a virtual Babylonian confusion of styles. On one and the same stage, in one and the same play, actors perform with utterly dissimilar techniques, and naturalistic acting is done within fanciful scenic designs. (5)

Brecht resists the the aesthetic of montage and its break with the idea of aesthetic unity. The assemblage of montage was to shatter the idea of unity and instead produce specific shots and shocks. Farewell to the idea of the aesthetic revolution. Brecht sees that there has been this transformation in the methods of sensory perception but these don't add-up to an aesthetic revolution where ends and means fuse; they are simply techniques and these don't transform the performance. Thus he says the Revolution never existed.

What happened to the international avant-gardes?

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Slavoj Žižek Evening Lecture

As part of our curriculum at the European Graduate School we must attend evening lectures from the faculty. This evening Slavoj Žižek spoke to us.

NOTE: As with all my notes from the European Graduate School, there will likely be mistakes because I did not record the lectures, I made notes as they spoke, so I am perhaps interpreting what they are saying as I am writing. This is certainly the case here with Žižek as once he starts talking, he will carry on for sometime. My notes, then are going to be problematic. To overcome my limitations I will embed the lecture here as well:

"Trauma and Israel"

Sometimes the world changes and not for positive reasons, for example √-1 which was discarded but now it is understood as i. Perhaps capitalism will be so treated. Capitalism is always in crisis, surviving only by borrowing from the future. Maybe what distinguishes Man from Animal is the rise of a new impossibility.

That which separates us from noumena are ethics, etc. There is no reality outside what appears. Noumenal real is overpowering and shocking. In the moments before certain death we can see reality not human reality.

Jews are both upper and lower class; too smart, too sexual; these are the classical stereotypes of the antisemitic tropes. In early Modernity the pressure was to force Jews to convert to Christianity, but in the late 19th century conversion is useless. For the Nazis the guilt of Jewry is in their very being. This began to be the case at the moment when Capitalism was developed and so the stereotypes of miserliness, etc. became qualities others sought. Thus deprived of what they were, Jews became the Absolute Jew and so condemned for some other more fundamental guilt.

Antisemitism in Europe began as Europe came out of the Dark Ages, when currency began to circulate as Capital.

Zionist antisemitism, the inheritors of Spinoza, those who still hold to the public use of Reason. Is the logic of antisemitism not that of global circulation and fluidification? It's hard to understand the critique that Western European democracy at its root is antisemitic when the greatest contributors to the development of democracy were radical, nomadic European Jews. It seems that Israel the State has become antisemitic.

Symptom is the exception which disturbs the surface; the fetish is not this. The fetish has a constructive quality that allows us to cope by clinging on when reality is too traumatic. Fetishes can operate in two ways: we are unaware of it, or we are aware of it.

• But let's further distinguish between dismissive cynical fetishism as opposed to populist fetishism. 
• False universality - where we advocate equality but privilege a secret group. 
• Fetish mystification - where anti-capitalist struggle of the working class is transferred over to the struggle against Jews.

Jews are the fetish for fascism; the last thing that is seen before outright class struggle. It's very rare to get Nazis to become Communists, that is, it's hard to rationalize someone out of their fetish.

Mao's statement that everything is in chaos so everything is okay means something more than what is being said here.

The provocative conclusion

We are caught in an antagonism: the Liberal West vs. Radical Fundamentalism. What we need is a more radical Left. The true opposition, though.

Kierkegaardian repetition, Deleuze says there is no difference between repetition and the new.

[Does this mean the future of the world is Confucianism? He said we should repeat Lenin.]

"Perhaps the Left will resurrect good manners."

Mike Shapiro Day 4

NOTE TO FACEBOOK VIEWERS: to view any of the clips you'll need to visit the actual blog. Scroll to the bottom and click "View Original Post"

Mike Shapiro taught a course entitled GEOPOLITICS IN CINEMA. This class attempts a rethinking of the planetary impact of media such as cinema as a challenge to political thought.

NOTE: As with all my notes from the European Graduate School, there will likely be mistakes because I did not record the lectures, I made notes as they spoke, so I am perhaps interpreting what they are saying as I am writing.

I've always been interested in the imaginary geographies of the world, it began with Machiavelli, and when I read Kundera's Ignorance I was struck by the vertical depth of the spaces. When the novel opens there is the surprise question to the expat: it shows that those that don't get confirmation of where they are aren't anywhere.

Identity is a relationship, as Lacan said. You need a model of difference in order to have identity; Levi-Strauss worked always toward this identity economy.

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Jason Wirth at the Mike Ryan Lecture Series

Jason Wirth, long-time friend to the Philosophy Student Association, leading Schelling scholar, and authority on the philosophy of zen, gave a talk for the Mike Ryan Lecture Series, "Mountains & Waters: Zen Master Dōgen and the Sutra of Nature" on the 12th at Kennesaw State University.

***Please be aware that, as is the case with my notes from the European Graduate School, what follows are my notes to the presentation and as such may not do justice to the presenter (although I am a big fan of Jason)***

"Friends of wisdom love their friends like other people love gold..."

I'm going to attempt to allow Nature to reveal itself through Dōgen's thinking. When discussing Dōgen you have a real dilemma: either you say what is true and risk not making sense to the 90% of the audience that has never been exposed to Dōgen, or you barely communicate Dōgen's thinking at all. It's a rock and a hard place scenario.

I want to see if Dōgen can help us express Nature in language. Dōgen begins by asking us if we can even hear. If our minds were mirrors which reflect everything we saw and these mirrors were dirty, what would we see? We'd see filth everywhere: the world would appear dirty to us. We would assume that everything we saw was dirty; not that we were the dirty-minded.

It's difficult to communicate this. If the mind was dirty, then all it heard would be dirty, and so we couldn't hear the truth of how dirty our mind is.

We look to the Pāli canon: there is this dialogue between the Buddha and Bhâradhvâja. Bhâradhvâja asks the Buddha with whom he should study. This is a good question. How do you know who is a good teacher without first receiving their teaching? Buddha says, look at what kind of person they are: are they greedy, full of hate, or fully-deluded? What kind of mind do they have? What they teach, think, and value reflects directly on the kind of person they are.

Dōgen takes this to a whole new level.

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Trevor Paglen at Art Papers Talk

Trevor Paglen, experimental geographer and artist, presented an interesting talk about his work at Emory University as part of the Art Papers Live! lecture series on the eleventh. You might also be interested to see him on the Colbert Report (Facebook viewers will have to come here to the blog to view this):

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Trevor Paglen
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating

As is the case with my notes from the European Graduate School, my notes here may not do justice to what the speaker intended and are not actual transcripts of the talk, they are notes I took.

So, here's a photo of where I work at UC Berkley, McCone Hall:

It's named after a former CIA Director (John A. McCone). This helps me to remember that knowledge production is integrated with the production of power. I was standing at the end of the hall on the weekend (I like to work then) and noticed a man was messing with this photo at my office.

I asked him what he was doing and he explained to me that he had been a pilot and asked me if I knew what this photo was. I told him it was Nellis Air Force Base in the Nellis Range.

This is an airbase in the state of Nevada where the Air Force trains fighter pilots. At this site there is also something called "The Box", a restricted area where no pilots are allowed to fly. If you were a pilot at Nellis and you were to experience an emergency requiring you to land and you had to do so in "The Box" you are instructed to instead ditch the aircraft. The pilots are told to eject rather than land at the strip in "The Box".

This pilot told me about a fighter pilot who had to make just this decision and rather than risk ejecting and wasting the millions of dollars that his fighter jet cost, he landed in "The Box" and disappeared for a week. When he came back he could not say a single thing about occurred to him upon landing in "The Box". That's because "The Box" is part of what is called the "Black World" whose annual budget is somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 billion. You can arrive at this number by looking at the Pentagon's defense spending budget.

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Heidegger & Arendt in the Popular Media

My dear friend, John at the University of Hawai`i Mānoa, shared this link to a New York Times article introducing a new book on Heidegger.

In this article, by Patricia Cohen, I am once again reminded why it is important that at all times I strive for comprehension by those that hear me. Cohen's article promulgates several unfortunate and familiar - as in cliche - opinions (not hers, I suspect, but present without discussion) about Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, and ultimately thinking itself.

The article, it seems, exists to inform the Times' readership that Emmanuel Faye's book is going to be published soon. I s'pose we must consider it, then, an advertisement. But Cohen's article seems largely to be infotainment as what is reported here is that there is (cue the E! and Inside Edition people) a scandal at play in this publication! OMG! Heidegger had sex with Hannah Arendt! Quick! Get the editors on the horn, we got us a whopper!

(now an imaginary conversation in my head)
Editors: Good eye, Cohen. But this is the New York Times, we're really more a vehicle for advertising on the backs of information. You gotta present more information here. Did anyone else announce that this book was going to be published?

Cohen: Yes, the Chronicle Review

Editors: Great, now it looks like we did some background work. Run it. Remember, "if it bleeds, it leads."

Sorry a flight of fancy. I suppose I should remember that the Books section of the NYT is simply an advertisement.
 But is that all it should be?

Couldn't the paper present something more?

I'd just like to point out one thing that seems glaringly obvious, but probably would upset those whose palms were greased in getting this infotainment manufactured: the gist of the book is that Heidegger thought one way and acted in other ways, and the author (Emmanuel Faye) doesn't like that.

Faye doesn't like that there is this ambiguity (adults, I sugges,t are marked by their ability to navigate ambiguity).

Now, it might seem unfair to do this, but didn't Heidegger himself say that we cannot overcome previous thinkers by simply dismissing them, we must think what was unthought in our predecessors? In other words, what ever philosophy is, what ever thinking is, it is first and foremost a task that requires thinking/philosophizing with those that came before us. It's an activity that requires considered opinion. It's a task (when done properly) that will be reminiscent of deep affection or love: philosophy = love (philia) of wisdom (sophia).

True to the tabloid nature of mainstream media, Cohen brings in Hannah Arendt (the Rihanna to Heidegger's Chris Brown) simply to say that Heidegger tainted her thinking and cites another unfortunate piece by Ron Rosenbaum at slate.com. Rosenbaum, naturally, parades the familiar (again, cliché) idea that Arendt's phrase "the banality of evil" is too dismissive.

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Jacques Rancière Day 4

NOTE TO FACEBOOK VIEWERS: to view any of the clips you'll need to visit the actual blog. Scroll to the bottom and click "View Original Post"

Jacques Rancière taught a class entitled: POLITICS OF AESTHETICS wherein we discuss the relationship between what is allowed to be seen and the dominant political regime.

NOTE: As with all my notes from the EGS, there will likely be mistakes because I did not record the lectures, I made notes as they spoke, so I am perhaps interpreting what they are saying as I am writing.

Today we will first discuss democracy and equality and then to what montage means.

Let's redefine the reality effect of Barthes.

• The point is not knowing why this object is here but rather the political effect. 
• The reality effect, according to Barthes is a tautological proposition: this object affirms the Real. 
• But for me it is an equality effect - any object is equally capable of being an art object and thus the expansion of the sensible. 
• Our capacity for the aesthetic effect is similar and politically it allows for the possibility of a community gathered in its ability to communicate these experiences.

There is something in action, though. In The Red and the Black we see equality is questioned; also in Leaves of Grass (1855) which had the same democratic effect as Madame Bovary (1856).

The extract "Song of Myself" has the perfect quality of all characters and activities (see page 40 from 1882 edition, right):

All of this becomes a quaint symphony of the city. What interests me is this infinite inclusion where everything is both material and spiritual. All things are equivalent, given by the voice which absorbs all of these.

This is the first time where writing is being extended into something beyond writing through a device, a new construction of totality. Plotinus was a big influence, so there is this procession of the world. The "Song of Myself" is the voice of multiplicity with its equivalence of all things. But it seems impossible to have stable political entities in this because there is political subjectivization when there is a section of society which is not allowed to have a voice.

Here we have, in section 26 (see image on left from 1882 manuscript) the tension between aesthetic democracy and political democracy. On the other hand we have the aesthetic democracy is not so different from the Communist Revolution - look to young Marx: The task of critique is to reveal the world as it is, so the world can do its work; an act of confession, revolution is an act of confession. **

This was 1843; in 1842 Emerson wrote to Whitman something similar. Aesthetic equality goes beyond politics because we can't compose political subjects, it is more than just revolution and politics.
The spiritual link for Emerson and Whitman, as well as the German Idealists (of which we must include "Young Marx") is that the material world is spiritual, a collapsing of the transcendental principle and a lowering of the metaphysical horizon to an immanence. The point here is not to discuss the distinction but to show the two poles from which we can come to this aesthetic revolution.

**NOTE: It seems that Rancière is paraphrasing Marx here, I'm not sure if this is an artifact of translation or his interpretation. The closest I can find to what Rancière says Marx said is from the Introduction to Marx's A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843):

It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics. (itals. original)

Democracy is always an excessive presentation, aesthetic democracy is the equal capacity to live any kind of life or the community to act the enactment of a shared capacity to experience and communicate, to be a member of the sensorium, where we can share that experience in communicating to anyone else.
In a world of economic domination there is no ability to interact with the world (alienation); the fear that Bovary introduced was that everyone suddenly was allowed to question their ability to participate.

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Alain Badiou Evening Lecture

As part of our curriculum at the European Graduate School we must attend evening lectures from the faculty. This evening Alain Badiou spoke to us.

NOTE: As with all my notes from the EGS, there will likely be mistakes because I did not record the lectures, I made notes as they spoke, so I am perhaps interpreting what they are saying as I am writing. To overcome my limitations I will embed the lecture here as well:



Aristotle's Book IV of Metaphysics, 3 Princles:

1. identity: a proposition is equal to itself
2. noncontradiction: it is impossible for p and non-p to exist simultaneously
3. excluded middle: there is no third way - it entails double negation

The power of exclusion and there is the power of imposition of choice; never yes & no, but always either yes or no.

Since negation of negation is affirmation we have a nullification; Hegel says it is not immediately affirmation but perhaps reflexively so - reflexive logic.

War, classically understood, is a binary - it makes no sense to say that the city is occupied by both your troops and the enemy's. If neither camps occupy, Classically we would say that the city is not at all occupied.

With paraconsistent logic we can say both camps occupy the city; and also that the city is not occupied. Think of Stalingrad during World War II, where both Germany and the Soviets claimed they occupied the city.

As we move from Classical logic to Intuitionism and then to Paraconsistent logic we have a gradual diminution of negation.

In my ontology, a thing is a possibility without any qualification, a pure multiplicity. All laws are appearing within a context. The thing exists as an object in the world. Clearly the logic of being qua being is Classical; this is because Classical is extensional, this assumes point A and point B. As a consequence of this thinking, multiplicity is seen as Classical.

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Mike Shapiro Day 3

NOTE TO FACEBOOK VIEWERS: to view any of the clips you'll need to visit the actual blog. Scroll to the bottom and click "View Original Post"

Mike Shapiro taught a course entitled GEOPOLITICS IN CINEMA. This class attempts a rethinking of the planetary impact of media such as cinema as a challenge to political thought.

NOTE: As with all my notes from the EGS, there will likely be mistakes because I did not record the lectures, I made notes as they spoke, so I am perhaps interpreting what they are saying as I am writing.

There are several texts I recommend you visit as we consider the Geopolitics of Cinema:
Atlas of Emotion by Giuliana Bruno
Stupendous Miserable City: Pasolini's Rome by John David Rhodes
"Is There a Deleuzian Aesthetics" by Jacques Ranciere (in Qui Parle journal)

Kant was able to make the experience of art an epistemological phenomenon; we have to think about what arts are, here in this class they are agglomerations of the senses. We must situate Deleuze's aesthetic.... The most expressive artist for Heidegger was Holderlin. Catastrophe, from the Greek meaning turning-down.

Deleuze is about the disjunction, his logic of sense rather than essence. He uses the power of the false (see Cinema II)

There is homology between the city and the arts because both are a bundling of sensation. There is a very serviceable distinction made in epistemology between subject matter and object matter, that to which theory is applied. Fascism is an attempt to situate the subject in an historical moment so as to minimize the multiplicity....

If you want to shit like an elephant you can't eat like a bird.

Check-out Kittler's "The City Is a Medium"

A city can be understood as a series of flows - what are the coercive elements that effect those flows? In terms of the city, there is the crisis of attention (see Kaja Silverman's The Threshold of the Visible World)


Here is a clip from Bread and Roses (2000) by Ken Loach

There are these contentious "Contact Zones" within urban environments.

What could be more micropolitical than the policing of sexuality in public places?

Forensics vs. Metis - what kinds of knowledge are deployed with these? Odysseus had metis, cunning skill.

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