Den Alltag dialektisch verstehen
October 11, 2009
Eine Frage der Ähre
Man stelle sich einen Hamster mit mittlerer Reife auf der Durchreise von Amsterdam nach Berlin vor, der an der Raststätte Garbsen vor Hannover einen Zwischenstopp einlegt. In froher Erwartung einiger frischer Getreidekörner betritt der Hamster in Begleitung seines Frauchens die Raststätte und muss feststellen: Es gibt nur Wasser! Und das ist bei aller Kundenorientierung der Mitarbeiter auch nur auf Nachfrage zu erhalten. Da er in Damenbegleitung ist, muss er sich der Nahrungsbeschaffung alleine widmen – nur Herrchen dürfen hier ihren Schutzbefohlenen zu Seite stehen.
Auch der etwas betagte Dalmatiner W., der gegen 9.30 Uhr in Begleitung der Familie M. aus G. in Garbsen ankommt, ist erschüttert. Hatte ihm die Grundschule und das Gymnasium bereits 12 Menschenjahre seines ohnehin kurzen Lebens geraubt, muss er jetzt zur Kenntnis nehmen, dass die freundlich-höfliche Anrede seiner Person nur darüber hinweg täuschen soll, dass auch für ihn hier an Wasser und Breckies nur „gedacht“ worden war, Taten sollten in unbestimmter Zeit folgen.
Stellen wir uns abschliessend also jene Person vor, an die sich dieses Schild eigentlich richtet – das Herrchen bzw. den Kunden in seiner Funktion als konsumierender Weltreisender, der zu jeder Zeit an jedem Ort der Autobahn eben jenen Komfort erwarten darf, den er in seiner unmittelbaren Lebensumgebung auch vorfindet. Schließlich ist er es, der, trotz aller Bemühungen demokratischer Bildungspolitik, von allen Mehrbeinern immer noch der einzige ist, der durch die Lektüre abstrakter Buchstaben (in den meisten Fällen) jene zu sinnvollen Worten zusammenfügen und (im besten Fall) auch verstehen kann.
Verstehen wir diese absurde Krönung von Kundenorientierung hier also richtig, müsste sich aus dem Geschriebenen eine Handlungsanweisung ergeben. Bleibt nur die Frage, wer hier handeln soll. Das „Herrchen“, das in absentia implizierte „Frauchen“ oder doch das Team aus Zwei- und Vierbeiner? Wir stellen uns also abschließend den mit Waffenschein ausgestatteten Rottweiler des ledigen Markus P. aus D. vor, der nach der Lektüre dieser Zeilen mit einem kühnen Sprung hinter die Theke des Raststätten-Shops – zu deutsch: Convenience Area – einen prekär beschäftigten Mitarbeiter in eine noch prekärere Lage bringt, indem er ihn durch eindeutiges Augenrollen und lautes Bellen AN DAS AUFFÜLLEN DER WASSERSCHÜSSEL ERINNERT.
PS: Beschwerden bitte an: Autobahn Tank & Rast GmbH, Andreas-Hermes-Str. 7-9, 53175 Bonn. Telefon 0228/922-0, Email: kundenkontakt@serways.de
Human Patterns
October 10, 2009
Under the motto “Voir, Observer et Penser” the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris is currently exhibiting about 100 photos by German photographer August Sander (1876-1964). Sander is best known and admired for his work on human types, professions and social classes. His “People of the 20th century” is an attempt to give an image of the people of his time and stands at the center of his human typology. Directed against expressionism Sander employed photography to “create a universal language” by an “objective” image.
His photos show beggars and stars, peasants and artisans – people from all sides of society at the beginning of the 20th century. His magnum opus has been reissued in a collector’s edition of 7 volumes. The exhibit in Paris also features some of his little known landscape portraits of German rivers and mountain regions apart from botanical studies.
August Sander: Brethren, Westerwald (about 1918) Ⓒ Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur - August Sander Archiv, Köln
Characteristically, images are captioned with types of people rather than individual names. His concern lies with patterns in culture and how a social environment shapes posture and facial expression. A “factory owner” posing in tuxedo with his glitzy wife in front of a villa is juxtaposed with a “brick layer” – carrying bricks. His portrays are carefully crafted for each subject alike and allow space for self-reflection. Similar to his landscape studies of rivers, patterning is the overarching theme that he seeks to capture and objectify with his camera.
The problem with looking at such a typology at the beginning of the 21st century is to assume a perspective that is not by default self-referential. Hyper-mediatised as we are, it is difficult to look at an image of an individual and consider it as typical of a larger group. Where we are looking for self-expression and uniqueness, Sander’s photos upset this longing by defying individuality to the people depicted.
Backpackers by exactitudes
Descriptive Excess: Jacques Racière’s take on the Reality Effect
September 22, 2009
Politics of Aesthetics
Given that the height of French structuralist criticism has long passed away (along with its most prolific writers) the review by Jacques Rancière at the Berlin Institute of Cultural Inquiry (ICI) on September 21 was a welcome chance for a couple of hundreds of people to review the “politics of fiction” through an analysis of 18th and 19th century Realist literature.
Starting with Roland Barthes’ classic “The Reality Effect” (1968), Rancière attempts to recapture the political impact of Realist fiction through its radical dismissal of boundaries, of high and low, of subjecting parts to an overarching idea. The “descriptive excess” of Realism, in his words, does not conflate high art and the profane passions of every day life, but affirms that in democratic literature all elements play an equal part in the construction of the text. Invoking Borges’ criticism of Proust (“There are just too many pages in his work!”), Rancière underlines that what a appears as a representation in a Realist novel, actually dissolves representation by putting all signifiers on an equal level. The Real is produced as an effect of the text itself and is not supported by an external reality.
… in other words, the very absence of the signified, to the advantage of the referent alone, becomes the very signifier of realism: the reality effect is produced, the basis of that unavowed verisimilitude which forms the aesthetic of all the standard works of modernity. (p.234)
(Roland Barthes “The Reality Effect” In: Dorothy J. Hale (2006) The Novel: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory 1900–2000, London: Blackwell, pp. 230-234)
Rancière went on to point to the self-sufficiency of the realist description that self-consciously employs details and description to destabilize existing structures of power. By breaking the distinctions of class, of textual conventions, of conflating different media forms and images, Realist fiction does not so much produce reality as such, but offers “new possibilities of a sensory experience of equality”.
We might add a reference to the Constance School and Wolfgang Iser here to point to the democratic appeal of popular texts precisely because they need to be appropriated by a reader and are not in themselves meaningful.
Rancière has devoted a large part of his research to (re-) negotiations of space, of distribution and division in the legacy of Deleuze, and his more recent works summarize the “Politics of Aesthetics”. His defense of Realist fiction as a political art form might sound surprising. Whereas the Modernists rejected Realism on the grounds of its excessive logic of description, Rancière defends it. Realist fiction embodies a “self-contradiction of cause and effect” and follows a logic of addition (of details or images). Structuralists, Futurists, and Dadaists – in short the Modernist movement – on the other hand favored subtraction in painting, in writing and theater. Rancière emphasizes that Realist excess of description is an immanent criticism of cause and effect as a logical function of language itself. By placing signifiers on equal levels, Realism is the first truly democratic form of fiction and should not be dismissed as a mere representation. Without its representation, he contends, reality remains even more elusive.
This is not Ljubljana - but the ICI hinterland
Wie ein ZEIT-Artikel funktioniert
September 19, 2009
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Born to be Dialed
April 16, 2009
The World at your fingertips
Reviewing the strange trends that have accompanied media revolutions, it occured to me that Marshal McLuhan’s thesis of new media overtaking functions of older one’s was worth pondering in relation to the Internet. Especially digital network media seem to be endowed with a revolutionary force no other medium has ever possessed. In their alleged annihilation of physical space, of lived experience, of social relations, in their drastic rewriting of the rules of business, and the vast opportunities of self-reflection and creation, the digital (network) media find their way into every conceivable act of interaction.
Yet, a quite opposite thesis would hold that these new media merely facilitate and improve what was already there. Now, everyone can make nice and professional looking pictures with a plethora of easy-to-use digital cameras and imaging software. While the developers are working on the next big hit in interaction design, it’s the bulky Yellow Pages disappearing from the hall. Search engine availability optimizes the use of one of the oldest modern media… the telephone. It has become so common to call someone in case of a knowledge gap or where actions need to be coordinated instead of finding an individual solution to a problem. Formulaic language is introduced, similar to a code pattern, that is exchanged vocally instead of a nuanced written text. The easy availability of contact data forces some to artificially close the channel, block off communication to be able to perform their assigned professional functions. On the back of ready access comes a new culture of exclusivity.
“I pick up my telephone receiver and it’s all there; the whole marginal network catches and harasses me with the insupportable good faith of everything that wants and claims to communicate.”
(Baudrillard: “The Ecstasy of Communication“)
Introducing _ Abrasion Studies No 1
February 6, 2008
It has been a hobby of mine to collect traces of abrasion all around me. In shops like H&M or department stores, the floor shows traces of abrasion always at certain main routes that people take to get to the elevator, the newsstand or other main points of interest. Initially I became aware of abrasion in Japan, where the art of wood work has a long standing tradition and temples are made to exist for many hundreds of years.
A particular aspect of wood as a material is that it can get wet and dry easily, especially very hard woods, like the Japanese cedar. Abrasion makes the surface smooth and flat, allowing water to roll of and keep the surface from deteriorating. In all kinds of arts, abrasion smooths out uneven levels, makes shine surfaces and heightens the appeal and durability of certain materials. The quality of an even surface, that is the microscopic density of molecules, is largely determined by the degree of abrasion. A very fine polishing stone for metal (3000+) lets you create very sharp knives which don’t wear off easily, because the distance between particles is very low. For any process of abrasion, an abrasive tool is applied to a surface of a lower density under pressure.
“Abrasion resistance refers to resistance to being worn away by rubbing or friction. Abrasion resistance is a matter of toughness, rather than hardness. It is a necessary quality for floor finishes, enamels and varnishes.”
From: top500.de
To my eyes, processes of natural and man-made abrasion mark counter-acting forces: For artifacts and handicrafts to develop abrasion stands at the beginning of culture and goes down to industrialization by continuously scrap off coal from the mountain or dig it from the landscape. At the same time, natural abrasion is the counter force to man-made culture, as we see in winds and water which causes erosion of coastlines and deterioration of concrete and stone surfaces. Applied over a long term, even small particles like sand can force denser structures to crumble. The keyword here is continuous.
What is abrasion studies?
So far abrasion studies (German: Abrieb) is more a hobby than a field of study. To give you an idea, I collected some pictures of abrasion and my free interpretation of them in relation to social processes. Inevitable, traces on the material floor of a station or a department store tell us something about the social dynamics, since the traces of abrasion have been brought about by a continuous, repetitive movement of large numbers of people that interact with a given material in an identical fashion. Thus traces of social movements are inscribed in the material world. Lets decipher some of them.
This a brass handrail in a museum. It is located in the left side of the stairs, so that people who descend approach it once they reach the first step on the top. However, they seem to let loose once they are on the stairs. What does that tell us? The frightening length and height of the stairs prompts you (me too) to seek safety. But once you discover that the stairs are wide enough and not steep at all, the handrail is no longer needed (for most of us).
My favorite example that should be familiar from many cities. Apparently the “Orange Line” is a popular way to travel the center of Berlin, as it connects East and West. As people look for their way they scratch on the map. The more people come to Berlin, the more they wipe out the center. In a very Barthesian twist (“L’Empire des Signes”), I would extend that interpretation to the city, not just the map. They more the center is designed for easy consumption and mega shopping malls, the more flows of tourists wipe out the historical center of the city. In Berlin, this center was empty anyway due to the Berlin Wall. After 1989 there have been attempts to artificially re-erect it as an island called “Potsdamer Platz”, which does not offer much of an urban experience after 10 p.m.
This is a listening station in a department store. Apparently, PLAY, FF, SKIP, and VOL UP seem to be the most popular buttons. Does it mean that no one takes the time to listen to music attentively any more? Or is the capacity of hearing deteriorating? Does it say something about the CD as a fast-forward medium, when parts of electronica sound like a fast-forward rush? I wonder what the players in the classical music department look like? Maybe the same?
More to come…
