Critical Reflections: Reflexivity & Social Critique

This week we'll be looking a selection of work which calls our attention towards the medium of cinema, television and other ocular technologies whilst asking us to critically evaluate the power structures that are embedded within these mediums. Cinema, television, and now our more hyperactive forms of social media (cellphones, Facebook, YouTube) all constitute technologies of representation through which the reality of our daily lives are mediated. "To mediate" can be understood quite simply as (from OED): To act as a mediator or intermediary with (a person), for the purpose of bringing about agreement or reconciliation; to be the medium for, or means of bringing about (a force, reaction, etc.); or to lie or occupy the space between two things, times, etc. If we think of the mediator as a figure in a discussion, this person is on some level meant to help translate two perspectives. A mediator helps guide a conversation. I'm want to reinforce that visual media as a force for mediating our experience acts as something that occupies the space between reality and ourselves. 

Take, for example, the Arab Spring. I assume that none of us experienced the Arab Spring directly, though it has direct impact on the new organization of global politics, creates shifts in global economy (both of which directly impact us), and may even have direct impact on our own personal political ideals. However, we experience this cultural reality through media, thus our experience is mediated. Mediation need not be understood as historically specific as my example of the Arab Spring, but I use this as the most literal evidence of media's being-between us and a particular reality. We are constantly engaging with social visual media that is a reality of its own (a very real media object occupying coded space) and yet is also a separation from reality. Media is one step removed from "reality itself" (and I put that in quotes because I am very hesitant & suspicious of using language like that...I might say instead, "physical reality" or some other such thing). 

Reality is turned into spectacle; transformed, translated, mediated. A spectacle is a specially prepared or arranged display of a more or less public nature (esp. one on a large scale), forming an impressive or interesting show or entertainment for those viewing it (from OED). We might say that there are "minor" and "major" spectacles. A minor spectacle might be short videos posted on the web, which might take an intense multiplicity of potential shapes and run the gamut from hilarious to horrifying, highly staged to journalistic. Major spectacles are what we might call television series, films, and news broadcasts. These objects are more highly produced, are designed for a particular large-scale audience, and are themselves of a larger duration and scale. The latter would be what is typically referred to as "mass media." The former, "viral media." It's important to keep in mind that the vocabulary of scale here implies nothing about the relative power of these forms of media. As we know viral media exerts as much, if not much more, social force in the contemporary world. The word viral encapsulates this perfectly, because a virus is incredibly small and contains the power to wipe out its biological or technological host. 

 

The spectacle mediates reality. It is reality turned into a commodity designed to circulate within a social network. This circulation may serve the intention of generating revenue, disseminating information, or perhaps more "purposeless" desires. I want to encourage us to keep in mind that there is always the force of a desire encoded in the spectacle. The spectacle reveals a reality hiding behind the veneer of the image. I will venture to say that every spectacle represents a complex set of desires and fantasies that motivate the impulse to capture the image, to create the spectacle. These forces may be the forces of memory (personal or cultural), forces of power (political, sexual, or ideological), or forces of fantasy and desire. The work we'll be engaging with this week sets out to engage with ideas of the mediation and uncover some of the more violent notions hiding behind the surface of the spectacle.