vilma

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2004-05-07	Dalia : digest

I was talking about this notion of disorientation for VILMA. Vattimo interprets this concept using Heideggerian notion of Stoss and Benjaminian shock. What is disorientation if we put it in simple words? It’s flling out of triviality out of our daily, common view and sense into the authenticity, into the real, into our own experience and understanding by the means of shock, of not only setting up the world but also of setting forth of the earth even more the earth which in a way destroy the so called common world, our triviality. So for me the power of transformativity inscribe in this concept is of extreme importance together with a notion of transgression, which is also my long time love. But in a way these notions are also a bit dangerous and we have to try to avoid the pitfalls here as they imply a notion of “progress”. Because to transgress it also means to have something new, interesting, and we usually transform for newer, better… we can’t just return to something “old” in order to be authentic, to have experience of something interesting as virtual and unstable reality also gives us real experiences and ideas which could become material. We are not so naļve to believe in the possibility to maintain illiterate gaze being literate. But sometime we forget, especially thinking about “new media” that in we still maintain this modernistic belief in the idea of progress. We transgress something old to have something new… new ides, new media, new newness, on the whole “new attitudes, new forms”. We have to keep a distance from this kind of progressiveness, maybe even ironic one. VILMA joins these, to put them positively as a possibility of a transformative action - what transforms something misunderstood to well-understood, or well-understood to another, to differently understood, what unveil some hidden points and angles of possible views… it is important not to overestimate what happens to new media in regards to progress. Setting forth the earth means to bring something real, earthly for people who already forgotten that. the main thing is to transgress the common sense, to step out of our daily selves It is interesting how Vattimo motivates why we have this disorientation, why it is more important in contemporary world than this classical art with beauty, and then “truth” and all transcendental values. The post modern man becomes hypersensitive, more flexible, and also not so hard yet also more stressed…(Here we can see a connection with the notion of masculinity and femininity, as it is commonly supposed that man becomes more feminine, not so strict and hard, and women not so soft and inside and home orientated but also social agents) here we also have to pay attention to the contemporary theories of subjectivity and understanding of a contemporary subject, which is sometimes difficult even to be called subject because it has so few things from this classical term. Subject is more a gathering of constantly changing intensities. So why art should not speak of constant beauty, perpetual ideas and classical transcendental values, but has to look instead to the boundaries of the person, the view, the attitudes and try to transform, disorient: so again we have new attitudes. What is important with Lacan here is the distinction between gaze and eye/vision andd also opening of the determining impact of the view, of the gaze to the conscious of the subjet to the very way the thinks and sees and finally is. I want to draw a parallel between ‘new media’ and the virtual and human being. Lacan of course talks only about the human being and the conscious, but it was interesting for me to look at it in another way, with Lacan on my mind, in relation to unity of body and technology in the sameway as Lacan was talking about unity and distinction of real and human, of theirmutual dependence. Some technological things allow to get into a virtual reality, or processes, and the human being is immersed into technology, so that it is impossible to distinguish. Lacan distinguishes between eye and gaze, as a split, so we can also think of this in relation to technology and new media. The gaze is a priori, and we are subjected to this gaze, in the same way we are subjected to preexisting technology as a priori thing with its own rules. In the same way we are split but indistinguishable and dependent. Now we are immersed into technology not only into the materiality. And this bring virtual as parallel to real both intersecting at me as meeting point and determining me. Therefore I have the text of Mcluhan here in relation about an immersion of human and technology, technology as extension of human body, mind spirit or soul whatever you call. In this excerpt he discusses that by adding energy to discover a new extension, we lose attention or become insensitive to other parts of ourselves… and adds that we serve our extentions. That is in a way strangely close to what talks Lacan but only view from different point. We are dependant to our medias and realities we are subjected and finally subverted by them. McLuhan discusses this sense of unity of human being and technology, and a corporality… equipment as separate and as a part of your body - media becomes corporeal, also thoughts and conduct, behavior. Kristeva’s text brings in the notion of the abject, which we separate ourselves from and interpret in a negative sense. It is taken as a form of negativity in our psyche, which we may transform. She just gives us what we might transform. Not something not ourselves, not other but just abjet. To bring it into being from this non-being state, from this compulsion to recognition. It is interesting how things that are culturally told to be “not so good” let’s say in this way could be transformed... It is important that this negativity is put outside yourself, but it is impossible, to daring to put it onto an-other... what is abjet? Neither to object nor to subject in that classical sense. If we think of semiotics, subject, object in opposition to each other, abject as complement of objec (or other), which does not belong to it but is a part of me but I separate myself from it and the fourth corner…. Is what? VILMA? Belonging both to subject and to object, not like abject belongs neither to subject nor to object…. In Vattimo, there is transgression. New theores of subjet, new subjectivity, even postmodern personality and Hyper-sensitivity. In Kristeva we have abject which is negative which we have to transform… to transgress… Lacan tries to analyze … he is related to human conciousness, and relates to Kristeva, as abject could also be interpreted in the term of gaze as something that defines us. Abject is closely related to psychoanalysis. We feel disguis with it. But there is also objet petit a, as something we desire we owould like to have but we don’t because nobody has and nobody even knows what it is, but everybody is attracted with. In Mcluhan we have a different standpoint when he tries not to stress distinction but instead unity… When thinking of new media it is like the gaze - it predicts us. Mcluhan talks of all these media extensions and subjecting human … In Mcluhan the serving of new media is causing a loss in other places…. If we talk about modern technology and have in our mind the final unity, and we never know what defines us … like language, which makes our structure of the conscious nd both unconscious as Lacan has suggested… Lacan tries to find something in the visual field, that makes us see as we see, so he makes the split between eye and gaze…This gaze which makes us… but in a sense we don’t have a stable “I”… as subjects…but having some type of chora…. With text of Vattimo there is a kind of utopia. What is negative in earlier sense in the word of disorientation he turns to be very positive. It is important in the understading of contemporary art and new media art, which is very often misunderstood and people require some “common art”. And for this he uses Heidegger and Benjamin, “stoss” and “shock”. Vattimo explains that the stoss is related to anxiety of being, but in a more positive sense… and this is interesting for example how he turns to join Heidegger and Benjamin… As he tries to bring new notions of aesthetic experience or experience of art beyond catharsis.New Media is the very place where that should be possible to do that. And we somehow talking about media missed voice - in western culture, it is supposed to be masculine, feminists say that a woman has no voice. So … reading Kristeva and thinking about her notion of abject, it is possible to think of female voice as cultural abject. For example, how is feminism understood in Lithuania by males, as in very negative sense. Even our minister of finance (Dalia Grybauskaite) is told to be “masculine”, which she has in a way true (she holds a black belt, etc…) but it is also interesting what makes her to be like that. And this silence which is designated to woman.. it seems to be very crucial point that we are talking about VILMA being a feminine character and name, but we are silent about her voice… the voice is impossible exactly because it is from female silence….VILMA factory was producing tape recorder, and so we haven’t mentioned producing which voice … a recorder is always a silence it only reproduces... and so this vilma with abjected voice.