Electronic Monument

The Monument has been established and locked in!

www.Wix.com/StephenJLind/Peanuts-Gallery

Neon, Neon, Neon... am I getting tired of Neon?

(Dec. 6, 1962)

We suffer from compassion fatigue:  Granted.  Tourism requires spectacle:  Granted.  Beyond that... I'm not so sure.

Reading this last chapter from Ulmer's Electronic Monuments, I can't help but return to a theme I struggled with a few weeks ago - that of Reason vs. Neon.  If we suffer from a certain numbness and tend to allow the abject to stay abject, is the solution more potent spectacle?  Perhaps more strategic spectacle?  Spectacle directed at that which is not yet spectacle?  I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this approach.  There seems to be a certain danger to it...

Again I find Ulmer's work thought provoking, but at times a little alarming - alarming in a way that I'm not entirely okay with.  It seems that there is a certain exploitative use of Neon over Reason happening more than once.  That is not to say that the Reason is absent, but rather that the combination of gas and electricity may be problematically volatile.  For instance, in the recollection of the Times' "Portraits of Grief," it was noted that "an editor named Wendell Jamieson circulated a memo admonishing contributors to avoid certain tropes.  By then, evidently, the Times had filled its quota of bond traders who loved their wives and kids and were fanatical about golf" (244).  Perhaps I am simply missing it, but there seems to be no condemnation of such approach.  The victim is not the right type of spectacle, so figure out a new way to showcase him is the line of thought.  If devoted golfer-husband-father is how that bond trader self-identified and how the family remembered him, why is the egent given license to recast him as more spectacular and "free of the burdens of compassion fatigue?"

Ulmer routinely uses dramatic, graphic material to illuminate his ideas.  It would be naive not to recognize the value of such in the marketability of a book.  That's not to say that Ulmer is merely falling in-step with academic capitalism, but I wonder how much is spectacle in order to draw attention to the book.  That then compounds the problem of our ethical limitlessness - how much Neon per part Reason?  While he remarks off-hand that there is "more to capitalism than fraud" (251), he still proposes for consideration "an eternal stove labeled Invest in the Future into which visitors [to Ground Zero] are invited to toss their cash" (247).  Are we okay with such a proposal, even if just a "proposal?"  Are we okay with the constant invokations of Bradley McGee?  I'm not sure that I am.

Perhaps this is spectacle for the sake of overriding our own academic compassion fatigue - bending the bar too far so that when it relaxes it is in the proper place.  But at what cost?  Ulmer tells us, "When you see the gain, look also for the loss" (247).  What are we losing in this drive for MEmorialization, for Electracy?  For what lies "beyond" (258)?  The Sufi that Ulmer mentions (252) had a battle years ago with Spectacle in Turkey.  The Karagoz shadow puppetry (BELOW) became a hit with the masses - largely in part to its spectacular screen-ishness.  Islamic law prohibited such as they were representations of animate objects, but ultimately came up with the line that the perforations in the puppetry made them non-representative, and thus they were permitted.  The Sufi were backed into a corner - either fight the will of the masses or lose part of their religious consistency.

Does electracy/MEmorialization back us into a corner?  What might WE be losing?  Perhaps LOSING BE US...

Stability and Change...

Hi All --- I am going to keep this post short, given that NCA and the great city of Chicago are calling my name (sorry usual Peanuts strip, even you don’t make the cut this time…)…

A couple orders of business – first, the reading for this week.  Boy oh boy does Ulmer continue to get convoluted, with folds upon folds of meaning. 

It seems like Ulmer would not be a non-fan of the images I posted last time (Abercrombie and Sean John).  He puts forth “the premise that advertising is one of the practices most committed to inventing the discourse of electracy” (182) by the way it creates gaps that are a/e-ffective: “What is new in the ad is that the inference is a work of images rather than concepts, of associated signifiers rather than arguments” (183).  Perhaps this is thus not a means by which to have Neon trump Reason, but rather a way of having Neon create new pathways for constructing/articulating/creating/communicating Reason, largely through Memory.  This is done through images, which serve as signifiers, creating a “mood” (186).  These ads work in a way that Ulmer seems to conceive us as evolved beyond the traditional literate way of thinking.  If these modes of ‘working’ become cliché, however, like with the good cop/bad cop routine, then they stop working (194).  The egent has to be a step or two ahead – that seems to be the nature of electracy. 

So what then (our second order of business) can I take from this in application to my MEmorial project for Schulz?  Well, I know that I should not be predictable and rudimentary.  That wouldn’t fit with the transversal approach of connecting ideas.  Yet I need to think of what will be most a/e-ffective.  The video “More” seems to be a useful peripheral for my project.  One current monument to attach it to is the host of YouTube posts about Charlie Brown/Peanuts.  Their presence serves to memorialize the great fandom that the franchise still commands – and  a YouTube Video Response would be a peripheral way of attaching new signifying images to expose the gap in readings of Peanuts.  I’m not sure how much Neon or electracy is at work there, though.  Barbara’s thoughts on going the different direction of attaching Peanuts to the topics under-recognized (like Vietnam, the economy, feminism, etc.) seems a little more Neon… but I’m not sure if the peripheral matches up as well.  And thus I am at an impasse.  I think the “More” video as a peripheral is a solid approach – in fact, it’d be great if I could get the Charles M. Schulz Museum in CA to display the video (I’d be able to put the CNN debacle behind me then, for sure!).  I am a little worried that I am not being clever or transversal enough.  It doesn’t seem to live up to the Miranda-esque standards Ulmer puts forth for us.  Then again, maybe I’m being too hard on myself.

Hmm… things to think about… and now off to explore more of the Windy City and “Stability and Change" through NCA’s 95th annual convention!

Video Subproject

CNN iReport - Christians and the Media

(Oct 8, 1970)

For better or worse, we spend A LOT of time in front of our image-machines.  While I did not read this particular chapter until after making the iReport video, it is clear that this chapter on the Transversal is quite relevant to the issues raised in the video.  Ulmer writes that "the agenda-setting power of popular culture is based on its ability to transform science and history [and I would add religion, or the naively purported lack-thereof that constitute the mythology of our society" (95).  In contemporary society, Christian belief and ideology is at risk of being wholesale written out of the societal mythology.

One might see the approach of increasing Christian representation in Entertainment media as somewhat consistent with the strategies advocated by Ulmer.  In that our "identity experience" (99) is connected and influenced through a growing visual and electrate world, and that "one's own scene may be figured by the news[/entertainment media]" (95), it makes sense to explore that world of the Spectacle as a way of "using the visible to write the [increasingly] invisible" (111).  Breaking through the emerging barriers, though, may be difficult, in that the public sphere "sanctions certain images and not others" (100), and the image of the normal/sane Christian is an image that seems to be on the outs. 

Video ALSO posted on CNN's iReport:  http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-345054

(NOTE:  Video Clips obtained from Public YouTube channels of ABC and IGN Downloads)

Referenced News Articles:

Roland Martin: "Hollywood and God can co-exist" - CNN.com

"GLAAD Sad about Grey's" - TVGUIDE.com

Neon Lights, Full Moons, and Lucy

(October 30, 1964) 

Ulmer seems to have a rather distinct answer to that question.

Below is my video response (albeit spoken rather quickly) to the next section of the readings:

Links:

BBC Posts:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/641394.stm

Monte Schulz Interview: http://www.newsarama.com/comics/091014-Schulz-Jordan-Fantagraphics.html

"I'm a Lucy" YouTube Page:  http://www.youtube.com/user/IMaLUCY

Software/FREEware Link:

CamStudio (Screen Capture video software): http://download.cnet.com/CamStudio/3000-13633_4-10067101.html?tag=mncol

A New Language

(Oct 11, 1962)

I do not have much experience speaking through the language of film/video.  My vocabulary is pretty limited, and my accent is even worse.  But, like with any new language, practice by immersion is the best way to learn, and thus my video response to the next portion of the readings:

"Hot Summer Lights"

(c. 1962)

We all have things to work out - both collectively and as individuals... things that perhaps lemonade stands alone can't solve... things that doctors alone can't solve.  It seems, from this section of reading in Ulmer, that Monuments, or more perhaps more precisely MEmorials, are intended to heal something, someone, someones. They help us find ourselves within our relationships to the collective (18) and work inventively to address particular issues of concern (13). Ulmer quotes Gloser as saying of Beuys Wound Works that it is an “attempt to heal the place” (27). Perhaps we should return at some point to questioning this notion of healing and wounds, but first let’s take a look at what might be another example (though probably not as direct or as insightful as those discussed in ch1) of monumentality.

Cedar Point is a roller coaster amusement park located in Sandusky, Ohio. During most evenings in the park, the Midway is filled with the “Hot Summer Lights” show. The show is a combination of video and animation displayed on a large screen, loud music of all genres, and choreographed pyrotechnics. Debuted in 2006 (http://www.cedarpoint.com/public/news/history/index.cfm), the show features elements that speak to the need that Americans have for unifying, even in our exceptionally diverse and heterogeneous society.

The show is set in the center of this massive roller coaster park. This is not exactly the site of “wounds” that Ulmer hints at being a profitable location for monuments (though the park is on a peninsula which is often rumored to be sinking – so perhaps there is something to be said about that, in Cedar Fair’s constant need to make structural improvements to safeguard their multi-million dollar rides’ longevity). The towering rides, some over 400 feet tall serving as an ominous backdrop to the displays on the screen. It is an impressive place of play: “the more a place is set apart for free play, the more it influences people’s behavior and the greater is its force of attraction” (Chtcheglov qtd. In Ulmer 29).

The images include many scenes from the park, including computer generated animations of riding a roller coaster, but there are two highlights to the show (at least as evidenced by the crowd reaction). The first is the BigTen section. In this section, the school fight song for each of the BigTen schools is played while footage of their football teams is shown. This elicits wild cheers from the massive crowds sitting on the pavement watching (the biggest cheers coming during the Ohio section and the biggest boos coming during the Michigan section). This is an example of that simultaneous need to recognize and build individuality and community that our society is made up of. In a period of national identity crisis, sports serve as a metaphor for individuals relating to themselves through their relationships with others and larger institutions (similar to the superego discussed by Ulmer through Freud/Deleuze/Guattari (18-21).

The next section of the show that generates a strong reaction from the crowd (the tourists) is the patriotic section. During my last visit to the park, I could see dad’s swaying with their sons and daughters on their shoulders and mom’s having their little ones salute or place their hands over their hearts as they watched images of tire swings and fields of grain to the tune of “Proud to be an American.” It struck me then that this was an important cultural ritual – and I now see it as a sort of monumentalizing, in that “it is not what tourists say but what they do that counts” (25).

So this may be an example of monumentalizing or memorializing. Is it tied to a specific problem or wound that needs healing? Maybe – our national/social identity crisis at this current state. If we move past this point (though Ulmer seems to indicate that we will inevitably de-nationalize in our conceptions – see page 29), does this cease to be a monument/memorial in the Ulmerian sense? Rushmore still seems to be, so I suppose this would as well (though admittedly I am still grappling with what it means to be monumental/memorial in the Ulmerian sense of the terms).

Some Early Questions

Civic engagement via the net is not a foreign concept to us. Certainly the ’08 Presidential Election here in the US demonstrates such, and there are plenty of examples of non-governmental actors engaging one another via various net tools – e.g., YouTube channels, Facebook groups, etc. (Though I suppose the question still remains as to what degree of “citizenry” they share, in the non-legal sense).

Ulmer turns our attention to this new borderless/fluid-borer landscape as a space in which memorials can be built-virtually. This has been done in a variety of ways already (e.g., posts from fans to a blog reflecting on the death of Peanuts creator, Charles Schulz). Ulmer’s point is not that this is completely hot-off-the-presses (he offers his own URL for examples), but he argues that a key component largely lacking lies in Education, such that we become more EM-electrate .The education that Ulmer suggests includes action on the part of schools and cooperation from local agencies – producing a bottom-up approach/supplement to Expert knowledge.

--

A couple questions remain for me, though, at this early point in the reading –

1) To what degree should we expect the success of this Education? (My ability to answer will obviously change as I embark on this shared experience of EM-formation).

2) What if we don’t explicitly educate on this matter? Are we electrate enough as a society already such that advancement is inevitable? Is this a “the genie is already out of the bottle” sort of moment?

3) To what degree does the EM/electracy focus rely on Design studies (including advancements in aesthetic qualities, programming skills, etc.)? Ulmer explicitly claims that “EM makes no attempt to stimulate Web design”(xvi), but I kind of don’t believe that. Or, at least, this advancement will be a necessary byproduct, even if not an explicit intention, of the program… Right?