Hello everyone,
Welcome to my blog. This is a blog
that is attempting to think about Dr. Greg Ulmer's Electric method in a
heuritic way. It's important to note that this is what Ulmer has denoted
as an experiment created in order for us to understand the new way that
the world is organized - not through literacy, but through Electracy.
The experiment consists of five steps, made into an acronym: CATTt.
C = Contrast [In our case, The Propensity of Things,by Francois Jullien]
A = Analogy [The Cinematic by David Campany]
T = Theory [The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis by Jacques Lacan]
T = Target [The Internet]
t = tale [This blog - my Heuritic Experiment]
In
this blog, I attempt to construct a recipe of sorts so that whoever
happens upon this page can replicate it. It's scientific, but also not,
also artistic in a way because we are creating something.
A little bit about the process:
After
reading each text, we are to come up with a set of five instructions
from each book (this means that I will theoretically produce five blogs
for the CAT, equaling 15ish blogs). All of these instructions will be
thinking about the second capital letter T (the Internet). In fact, this
whole blog is thinking about the internet as a major part of Electracy.
Although Electracy started just as soon as the industrial revolution
did, since that denotes a major shift in history, science, literacy,
basically everything in our world, and the internet (I believe) is
another wave of that drastic shift.
I will combine,
pick out, remix 5 out of the 15 Contrast, Analogy, and Theory
instructions to create a kind of poetics that will further explain the
patterns that emerged out of the CAT. It is ultimately these last five
blogs that will allow me to create the master instructions list, a set
of 10 blogs, that will finally allow me to produce a final project, a
demonstration of the Electrate process at work (Hopefully).
After
I end each C-A-T, I will also blog a series of Reflections (and their
response from Dr. Ulmer) to introduce a little of my thought process
throughout this experiment.
A small note about the
chronology of the blog: I made sure to post them in such a way that they
were in methodological order. It was a little bit difficult to do this
because Blogger updates the time stamp every time I edit a post. That
means that, once I put the post in their proper order, I couldn't edit
or else I would have to re-order all of the posts. This is very much NOT
like WordPress, where the time you post a blog is "frozen" no matter
how many times you go in and edit. I thought Blogger was originally like
that, which would have made the process a lot easier, but it's not. It
was an interesting process though, in both Electrical terms and
otherwise.That means that this About post is the last post I posted
(when it should have been the first?). What I mean to say is that the
act of posting these blogs became an experiment of its own, one that I
obviously didn't anticipate, but which allowed me to think a lot about
Electracy from another point of view.
Anyway, that's that: I hope you enjoy. A least a little.
Saturday, May 3, 2014
Contrast (Jullien)
The Contrast allows us to see alternative, usually established, methods for structuring our world. In the case of The Propensity of Things,
Jullien utilized an ancient Chinese character -- Shi -- to illuminate
the Chinese vs. (a very general) Western ideologies. For us, this is of
particular importance since literacy as a process is something that we
assume came out of the west. To see the contrast of that in Jullien's
book was very exemplary - We not only had one contrast to work with, we
had two. Electracy is something that is both related to those literate
means, but, more importantly, it is attempting to develop something
quite different.
A small hint: It is important to recognize that this is the Contrast section. As such, the instructions harvested from Propensity might seem to be off-kilter with the other two texts. There isn't anything wrong, don't panic, this is just your Contrast speaking.
So that's that, and here we go.....
1. Manipulated
2. Scroll Painting
3. Zoom in Zoom out
4. Time Machine Propensity
5. Outside Over There
EMAIL 1[Jullien Email 1] - WWWeb
A small hint: It is important to recognize that this is the Contrast section. As such, the instructions harvested from Propensity might seem to be off-kilter with the other two texts. There isn't anything wrong, don't panic, this is just your Contrast speaking.
So that's that, and here we go.....
1. Manipulated
2. Scroll Painting
3. Zoom in Zoom out
4. Time Machine Propensity
5. Outside Over There
EMAIL 1[Jullien Email 1] - WWWeb
Analogy (Campany)
The Analogy section of the CATTt is highly important. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you had to skip every section of the CAT but one, that the Analogy section is the one that should be held on to. I say this because The Cinematic provides clear-cut examples that can directly directly (not theoretically or contrastingly) help us come up with a system, our a set of instructions.
What makes Cinematic so interesting is that it's not only Campany's view; instead, it is an anthology with many different types of analogies and examples to follow from multiple authors. It is helpful, too, that many of the authors of various chapters are themselves photographers or filmmakers. Their artistic focus (whether its a second or third or etc... focus along with their writing) allows us to get an example of HOW they did things, not only why. It is the how that we are most interested in because we are trying to create a how ourselves.
This is what we look to...
1. Still Movement
2. Reel Time
3. To Infinity
4. Photobombing
5. The Wind's Wind
EMAIL 4 [Campany Email 1] - My Life Flashed Before My Eyes
EMAIL 5 [Campany Email 2] - Electracy As Art
What makes Cinematic so interesting is that it's not only Campany's view; instead, it is an anthology with many different types of analogies and examples to follow from multiple authors. It is helpful, too, that many of the authors of various chapters are themselves photographers or filmmakers. Their artistic focus (whether its a second or third or etc... focus along with their writing) allows us to get an example of HOW they did things, not only why. It is the how that we are most interested in because we are trying to create a how ourselves.
This is what we look to...
1. Still Movement
2. Reel Time
3. To Infinity
4. Photobombing
5. The Wind's Wind
EMAIL 4 [Campany Email 1] - My Life Flashed Before My Eyes
EMAIL 5 [Campany Email 2] - Electracy As Art
Theory (Lacan)
Here be theory! Here be Lacanian Theory. A dangerous journey in its own right. In this text The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, Lacan offers us a model for which he talks about psychoanalysis that we can utilize to talk about Electracy. I think it's important to understand that Electracy is not exactly psychoanalysis, but that the foundation and formulation and the structure and scaffolding is similar, so that psychoanalysis might allow us to see a kind of blue print for what Electracy could be.
Check them out:
1. Gap
2. Repetition Re Petition Repeat tion
3. Lack/Unreal
4. Termination/Brushstrokes/Keystrokes
5. Gaze - The Libido For the Eyes
EMAIL 2 [Lacan Email 1] - The Circuitry of Language
EMAIL 3 [Lacan Email 2] - Boomerang
Check them out:
1. Gap
2. Repetition Re Petition Repeat tion
3. Lack/Unreal
4. Termination/Brushstrokes/Keystrokes
5. Gaze - The Libido For the Eyes
EMAIL 2 [Lacan Email 1] - The Circuitry of Language
EMAIL 3 [Lacan Email 2] - Boomerang
Manipulated (Jullien instruction 1)
In The Propensity of Things, the way of life, unknown to the Chinese people, is manipulated.
On page 69, Jullien notes: That logic also implies an inherent distrust of words, since words allow a kind of manipulation through rhetoric. But rhetoric involves turning towards other people so that they know what they are getting themselves into when they agree or when they reply in the negative. Rhetoric then also allows a person to be in conflict with what is being argued. They can rebel. This is where Greek democracy was born. Manipulation, not persuasion or rhetoric, is the way that the Chinese acted [it was an art], since it was both an individual and collective behavior towards others. But this pattern of conditioning is so pervasive and "natural" that it never has even become a theoretical discourse in China. They don't think anything of it, even if we on the outside can't help but observe it, because they accept it completely. No one ever thought to investigate its logic
In this paraphrase, I think it's important to note the actual contrast at play here: there is rhetoric and then there is manipulation. Dr. Ulmer mentioned rhetoric/persuasion several times during seminar. The thing is that you can have the most logical and persuasive argument ever, but you're going to keep saying the same thing over and over until you're blue in the face if the person you're trying to persuade won't be. In fact, persuasion will never work unless there is a small kernal of doubt to begin with.
The process of manipulation creates that kernal in the first place. It creates it and fosters it until it grows and there is no need for people going blue in the face. It becomes logic. This is done behind the owner's back, so to speak.
How can we think about this in instructional form? How does it, more importantly relate and allow us a contrast in our understanding of Electracy.
Here is an instruction: using some kind of photo manipulation program, take a "thin" celebrity's face or body and make them "not thin."
We are used to this type of manipulation, but in reverse. The resulting rhetoric is this: All these people are so perfectly shaped that it is causing a massive population spike of people who suffer from some kind of eating disorder. Reversing the mechanism totally by re-manipulation of the image, but backwards, in the opposite direction, will cause one of two reactions: "OMG, is blah blah blah got so (overweight/fat/obese/...)" or "That picture is NOT real. Someone made it like that." One feels the reality of the image and the other questions it, despite perhaps not questioning it when the celebrity is made to look thinner than they actually are.
Here is an interesting fact: In order to do this, one must use a tool called "liquify." I'll leave the implications to you.
On page 69, Jullien notes: That logic also implies an inherent distrust of words, since words allow a kind of manipulation through rhetoric. But rhetoric involves turning towards other people so that they know what they are getting themselves into when they agree or when they reply in the negative. Rhetoric then also allows a person to be in conflict with what is being argued. They can rebel. This is where Greek democracy was born. Manipulation, not persuasion or rhetoric, is the way that the Chinese acted [it was an art], since it was both an individual and collective behavior towards others. But this pattern of conditioning is so pervasive and "natural" that it never has even become a theoretical discourse in China. They don't think anything of it, even if we on the outside can't help but observe it, because they accept it completely. No one ever thought to investigate its logic
In this paraphrase, I think it's important to note the actual contrast at play here: there is rhetoric and then there is manipulation. Dr. Ulmer mentioned rhetoric/persuasion several times during seminar. The thing is that you can have the most logical and persuasive argument ever, but you're going to keep saying the same thing over and over until you're blue in the face if the person you're trying to persuade won't be. In fact, persuasion will never work unless there is a small kernal of doubt to begin with.
The process of manipulation creates that kernal in the first place. It creates it and fosters it until it grows and there is no need for people going blue in the face. It becomes logic. This is done behind the owner's back, so to speak.
How can we think about this in instructional form? How does it, more importantly relate and allow us a contrast in our understanding of Electracy.
Here is an instruction: using some kind of photo manipulation program, take a "thin" celebrity's face or body and make them "not thin."
We are used to this type of manipulation, but in reverse. The resulting rhetoric is this: All these people are so perfectly shaped that it is causing a massive population spike of people who suffer from some kind of eating disorder. Reversing the mechanism totally by re-manipulation of the image, but backwards, in the opposite direction, will cause one of two reactions: "OMG, is blah blah blah got so (overweight/fat/obese/...)" or "That picture is NOT real. Someone made it like that." One feels the reality of the image and the other questions it, despite perhaps not questioning it when the celebrity is made to look thinner than they actually are.
Here is an interesting fact: In order to do this, one must use a tool called "liquify." I'll leave the implications to you.
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