essay thoughts
Feeling a bit lost with the essay - lots of things I'm interested in exploring, but a bit worried I'll go off on innumerable tangents and not actually argue a point.
Things I'm thinking about for inclusion:
---------------------------------------------------------------
‘Real’ can be opposed to (or set in contrast with) ‘fake’ or ‘illusion’. HOW has the development of cyberspace [CS] (or other recent technological innovations) made us RETHINK the oppositions between real/ fake and real/ illusory?
(You might also consider the question: to what extent has CS made us rethink the distinction between 'original' and 'copy.')
---------------------------------------------------------------
REAL - LACAN, BAUDRILLARD
ILLUSION - NIETZSCHE, BAUDRILLARD
OPPOSITIONS BETWEEN - swallowing each other up?
ORIGINAL & COPY - simulacra - remind self of the four stages of an image:
reflection of reality
mask over reality - "denatures" it [baudrillard]
void mask - hides absence of reality
simulacrum - bears no relation to ANY reality - relates to nothing but itself
read baudrillard's clones
MOVIES:
SOLARIS - reality replaced by simulacra - in a strange, disembodied environment, dead loved ones return, formed not from factual remnants but from memories - memories that could well be distorted [think about nostalgia - BAUDRILLARD & NOSTALGIA] - the illusory yet "real" [physical, sentient] loved ones that present themselves could actually bear no relation to their originals, and are at any rate not complete, formed only from what their companions remember - no self construction, only formed from external sources [LACAN - objectified self, conception of the external]. Yet they're all their companions have left of them - not remnants though, but created anew to torment them. [Is their self-awareness of their own incompleteness, and the means of their existence, relevant?]
THE MATRIX - within this cyberreality, people can achieve the impossible, armed only with unwavering self-belief and training [both a celebration of the American dream, and a critique of the limitations of the life this dream has brought about]; they can become the superhuman of Nietzschean ideology if they try; also brings up Borg-esque insectoid collective mentality on the part of the antagonists [discussed by Zizek] - one consciousness transferred and shared liquidly between agents who exist both in the "real world" and "matrix".
TV:
NEWS - Media technology, instant relay of information, closed circuit of information? [baudrillard]
- 9/11, it happened so we displayed it, movies displayed it so it happened... chicken/egg syndrome, which was the original, which was the copy?
- DIANA, 'the people's princess' a tag devised by the media [tabloid headlines?], not by the actual people - media PRESUMES to speak for the people, and thus replaces them...
- ...debate panels of people we don't personally know set up to represent us, voxpops that speak for public opinion, when public opinion itself is/should be a mass of shifting, opposing opinions - but do we take on the opinions fed to us? when all facts are imparted, interpreted/summarised and understood on our behalf, do we need to think, and formulate our own opinions?
- if the people as a truly receptive/active body no longer exist, the media speaks only to itself in an endlessly self-referential loop.
CYBERSPACE:
- livejournal
- myspace
- internet messageboards
- online gaming/roleplaying
LIVEJOURNAL.COM - most prevalent example of diary sites, where protagonists document - most commonly - their own lives, observed and participated in [via comments, and interaction with other, "befriended" journals] by others.
- Breeding ground for many an injoke, sparked by the nature of evolution of internet language [acronyms, creative spelling, commonly used phrases, ironic typos [e.g. oh my god!!1!1one] - circularity of injokes [they beget themselves] - large part of internet culture in general - massive, ironic, cynical self-awareness.
- Gave birth to the injokey-yet-taken-far-too-seriously [?] phenomenon of "ljdrama" [of which there is now even - inevitably - an official community] - he-said-she-said arguments, into which various users are inevitably drawn in, based on something written in someone's journal and seen by unintended eyes. See internet messageboards.
-Communities spring up for likeminded people - sometimes local communities, supplanted to an online, digital, cyberspace; more often though, linked by interests, social networking, common problems. Social groups are frequently formed from group members - meetups take place, friendships are formed on the basis of the comradeship established online. Typical examples include:
- creative communities, where participants all engage in similar creative activities and share these online;
- support groups, e.g. anorexia, self-harm;
- local "scene" groups, e.g. London indie scene, DC punk/hardcore scene, moviegoers in a particular area;
- fans of bands/films/'celebrities' [icons?]/other cultural phenomena; -->
--> and a recent and increasingly popular breed, fan-fiction - written about the object of fans' admiration, where the "icon" [already a two-dimensional projection on the part of his admirers - and this most frequently occurs with actors, or specifically, characters within a fiction, e.g. cult tv dramas] is placed within a further fictional setup, and made to play out the notions and fantasies of his/her fans. In some cases this is merely dramatic and narrative, in others it reaches into the realms of the erotic.
MYSPACE - social networking tool, seen by some frequent internet users as a step on from blog sites - one can maintain a blog as part of a more integrated and dynamic profile.
- The basis is on briefer, snappier communication - photos, bulletins that are sent to all of one's contacts. Baudrillard'd have a lot to say about it - bulletins fill up people's pages, saying nothing - people send bulletins to announce their state of boredom - their lack of anything to actually say.
- Myspace photos - the most cliched take photography to its most two-dimensional limits - high-contrast, Photoshop-edited self-photography, in which you only ever see a user's "good side", one half of their face, tilted and angled flatteringly and archly. Doesn't even pretend to represent reality - but does this make people FAKE, or merely show them experiementing with the different identities the site makes possible?
MESSAGEBOARDS - like lj communities, users are drawn together based on common interests; collective and personal relationships are formed; arguments are played out via the constructed medium of the messageboard [and does the chosen layout - threaded, inline etc - affect the discourse?] - users' use of the media is often woven into the content of the argument. Peacemaking users attempt to calm arguments saying "it's not worth arguing about, because it's only the internet" - the implication being, the space is not real, therefore neither is the argument.
- Infamous, somewhat tasteless internet image, often thrown sardonically into internet messageboard arguments: http://www.viperalley.com/gallery/data/502/109argue.jpg [slogan: "Arguing on the internet is like running in the Special Olympics - even if you win, you're still retarded"
- Interestingly, it's now been reinvented, and claimed as a political tool - http://justoneminute.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/bush_special_iraq.jpg ["Starting a war in Iraq is like running in the Special Olympics..."
http://www.freedominion.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=29591 - messageboard conversation about it on a Republican messageboard
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2004/week42/ - ...but elsewhere, speculation that it was a Republican trick to smear Democrats.
Interesting how an initially "geeky", intendedly humorous [though offensive] internet joke has become a political phenomenon in the "real world", and implicated politicians who may not even personally use the messageboards where this kind of image regularly appears [most frequently on pop-culture/gaming/technology boards where the boards' setup allow the inclusion of users' code and images, and the userbase is highly self-aware and self-referential].
Things I'm thinking about for inclusion:
---------------------------------------------------------------
‘Real’ can be opposed to (or set in contrast with) ‘fake’ or ‘illusion’. HOW has the development of cyberspace [CS] (or other recent technological innovations) made us RETHINK the oppositions between real/ fake and real/ illusory?
(You might also consider the question: to what extent has CS made us rethink the distinction between 'original' and 'copy.')
---------------------------------------------------------------
REAL - LACAN, BAUDRILLARD
ILLUSION - NIETZSCHE, BAUDRILLARD
OPPOSITIONS BETWEEN - swallowing each other up?
ORIGINAL & COPY - simulacra - remind self of the four stages of an image:
reflection of reality
mask over reality - "denatures" it [baudrillard]
void mask - hides absence of reality
simulacrum - bears no relation to ANY reality - relates to nothing but itself
read baudrillard's clones
MOVIES:
SOLARIS - reality replaced by simulacra - in a strange, disembodied environment, dead loved ones return, formed not from factual remnants but from memories - memories that could well be distorted [think about nostalgia - BAUDRILLARD & NOSTALGIA] - the illusory yet "real" [physical, sentient] loved ones that present themselves could actually bear no relation to their originals, and are at any rate not complete, formed only from what their companions remember - no self construction, only formed from external sources [LACAN - objectified self, conception of the external]. Yet they're all their companions have left of them - not remnants though, but created anew to torment them. [Is their self-awareness of their own incompleteness, and the means of their existence, relevant?]
THE MATRIX - within this cyberreality, people can achieve the impossible, armed only with unwavering self-belief and training [both a celebration of the American dream, and a critique of the limitations of the life this dream has brought about]; they can become the superhuman of Nietzschean ideology if they try; also brings up Borg-esque insectoid collective mentality on the part of the antagonists [discussed by Zizek] - one consciousness transferred and shared liquidly between agents who exist both in the "real world" and "matrix".
TV:
NEWS - Media technology, instant relay of information, closed circuit of information? [baudrillard]
- 9/11, it happened so we displayed it, movies displayed it so it happened... chicken/egg syndrome, which was the original, which was the copy?
- DIANA, 'the people's princess' a tag devised by the media [tabloid headlines?], not by the actual people - media PRESUMES to speak for the people, and thus replaces them...
- ...debate panels of people we don't personally know set up to represent us, voxpops that speak for public opinion, when public opinion itself is/should be a mass of shifting, opposing opinions - but do we take on the opinions fed to us? when all facts are imparted, interpreted/summarised and understood on our behalf, do we need to think, and formulate our own opinions?
- if the people as a truly receptive/active body no longer exist, the media speaks only to itself in an endlessly self-referential loop.
CYBERSPACE:
- livejournal
- myspace
- internet messageboards
- online gaming/roleplaying
LIVEJOURNAL.COM - most prevalent example of diary sites, where protagonists document - most commonly - their own lives, observed and participated in [via comments, and interaction with other, "befriended" journals] by others.
- Breeding ground for many an injoke, sparked by the nature of evolution of internet language [acronyms, creative spelling, commonly used phrases, ironic typos [e.g. oh my god!!1!1one] - circularity of injokes [they beget themselves] - large part of internet culture in general - massive, ironic, cynical self-awareness.
- Gave birth to the injokey-yet-taken-far-too-seriously [?] phenomenon of "ljdrama" [of which there is now even - inevitably - an official community] - he-said-she-said arguments, into which various users are inevitably drawn in, based on something written in someone's journal and seen by unintended eyes. See internet messageboards.
-Communities spring up for likeminded people - sometimes local communities, supplanted to an online, digital, cyberspace; more often though, linked by interests, social networking, common problems. Social groups are frequently formed from group members - meetups take place, friendships are formed on the basis of the comradeship established online. Typical examples include:
- creative communities, where participants all engage in similar creative activities and share these online;
- support groups, e.g. anorexia, self-harm;
- local "scene" groups, e.g. London indie scene, DC punk/hardcore scene, moviegoers in a particular area;
- fans of bands/films/'celebrities' [icons?]/other cultural phenomena; -->
--> and a recent and increasingly popular breed, fan-fiction - written about the object of fans' admiration, where the "icon" [already a two-dimensional projection on the part of his admirers - and this most frequently occurs with actors, or specifically, characters within a fiction, e.g. cult tv dramas] is placed within a further fictional setup, and made to play out the notions and fantasies of his/her fans. In some cases this is merely dramatic and narrative, in others it reaches into the realms of the erotic.
MYSPACE - social networking tool, seen by some frequent internet users as a step on from blog sites - one can maintain a blog as part of a more integrated and dynamic profile.
- The basis is on briefer, snappier communication - photos, bulletins that are sent to all of one's contacts. Baudrillard'd have a lot to say about it - bulletins fill up people's pages, saying nothing - people send bulletins to announce their state of boredom - their lack of anything to actually say.
- Myspace photos - the most cliched take photography to its most two-dimensional limits - high-contrast, Photoshop-edited self-photography, in which you only ever see a user's "good side", one half of their face, tilted and angled flatteringly and archly. Doesn't even pretend to represent reality - but does this make people FAKE, or merely show them experiementing with the different identities the site makes possible?
MESSAGEBOARDS - like lj communities, users are drawn together based on common interests; collective and personal relationships are formed; arguments are played out via the constructed medium of the messageboard [and does the chosen layout - threaded, inline etc - affect the discourse?] - users' use of the media is often woven into the content of the argument. Peacemaking users attempt to calm arguments saying "it's not worth arguing about, because it's only the internet" - the implication being, the space is not real, therefore neither is the argument.
- Infamous, somewhat tasteless internet image, often thrown sardonically into internet messageboard arguments: http://www.viperalley.com/gallery/data/502/109argue.jpg [slogan: "Arguing on the internet is like running in the Special Olympics - even if you win, you're still retarded"
- Interestingly, it's now been reinvented, and claimed as a political tool - http://justoneminute.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/bush_special_iraq.jpg ["Starting a war in Iraq is like running in the Special Olympics..."
http://www.freedominion.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=29591 - messageboard conversation about it on a Republican messageboard
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2004/week42/ - ...but elsewhere, speculation that it was a Republican trick to smear Democrats.
Interesting how an initially "geeky", intendedly humorous [though offensive] internet joke has become a political phenomenon in the "real world", and implicated politicians who may not even personally use the messageboards where this kind of image regularly appears [most frequently on pop-culture/gaming/technology boards where the boards' setup allow the inclusion of users' code and images, and the userbase is highly self-aware and self-referential].
posted by Gen Williams at 12:30 PM
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