In his Third and Fourth chapters of "Electronic Monuments," Gregory Ulmer looks to news reports and pop culture for models of how a MEmorial might function. This blog will serve to document some of the relative features that Ulmer sees as useful to the EmerAgency in its attempt to use the MEmorial to draw the public into a virtual civic sphere.
The Provocation
The starting point for the MEmorial, as related to a news story, is that there must be an event, a disaster or a circumstance that provokes the egent to action. We live in a world that has become so over-informed and inundated with stories and images that we become numb and unresponsive when we encounter them. The key for the egent is to be touched by something, anything. If the egent is touched by something, this provocation calls him or her into an interaction with that disaster or event, and this is the starting point. This provocation can come in many shapes and sizes, but it typically comes for one reason: something about the news story or the event hits home, it relates to the egent in a personal way. When one has a personal way of relating to an event (or image,) then he or she can feel and be compelled to action or reason.
Reasoneon
Apart from the news story, Ulmer equates the proclamation of a "state of emergency," or its representation as an image, to a neon sign. A neon sign catches one's attention, but as Ulmer says the reasoneon does more than catch one's attention. The sign (MEmorials might be one manifestation of this reasoneon) in this case does more than simply indicate or convey historical information or the "facts" of a disaster or state of emergency. The role of reasoneon is to capture one's attention to the extent that it provokes further inquiry into that situation. The neon (sizzle) grabs the attention, the reason stimulates critique. The neon sign, under the idea of reasoneon sets the stage for the consulting practice that is to come.
The Aura and the Punctum
Ulmer begins speaking of "aura" by equating its role in electracy to the role of clarity in literacy. In the literate world, clarity reveals truth or makes knowledge of the truth more possible. So, in the electrate society, aura does the same thing. How does it do this? Aura gives to an image a quality (emotionally provoking or personally significant) that draws us, touches our emotions or connects to us. Ulmer associates it with the "ax blow" of the punctum- that "third meaning" of an image or photograph that somehow "pricks" the viewer. Something about the image or photograph breaks through the thick skin that we have developed, and we feel it somehow. We are personally situated in relation to the event or disaster because the aura of the image or the news story harkened us to some past memory or experience in some way, shape or form. The relevance to the EmerAgency is this: that the news story that I connect to because of its aura is somehow a reminder of something "I already know or should know." This is the point of departure for the MEmorial- as a response to a news event that has somehow pierced its viewer in a personal way.
The key for the MEmorial and the models that it is based off of is that the goal is not so much to tell a story in the traditional sense: to provide the details of the story and how things happened. The aim is more to capture feelings, moods, memories that evoke a different sort of connection to the viewer. Practically, a viewer can see a news story and not feel anything- but when that news story is represented as a collection of images that connect him to a mood, emotion, tone or memory- the viewer (or egent) is situated inside of the story.
In his chapter on the Transversal, Ulmer takes the news from the previous chapter and places it in the realm of entertainment, leading us to the world of the spectacle- where, as Ulmer says, "actuality and images merge and become indistinguishable." Ulmer makes mention of an argument that says that the effects of the spectacle- namely, the condition in which people see/know more and feel less- is a necessary defense mechanism, lest we become overstimulated and overwhelmed by the amount of images, events and information surrounding us. The MEmorial, and the EmerAgency, look to find ways to exist that are compatible with the vast "data stream" of the spectacle. In this chapter, Ulmer documents ways in which arts and entertainment are capable of being used to grasp "a situation holistically in an image." The use of image categories is important in that it allows the connection between individual identity and collective identity to be formed. Image categories are the "transversal" mentioned in that they connect all levels of identity/being.
Simulacrum
In the context of the MEmorial, categorical images which are transversal can be considered "simulacrum"- images that are representative of something else and needing no reference to an origin. Simulacrum are a way to "map" the relation of an item or meaning between different spheres (such as the various arenas of the popcycle- family, entertainment, career, school) which express the idea or image in different ways. Relevant to EmerAgency is the way in which an idea or image can cross between these different spheres and be interpreted and related differently in each arena. As a whole, they can create a map that can demonstrate our collective understanding of an idea/concept/image, while still maintaining individual perspectives as well.
Ulmer uses various stories of transsexuality to show how this idea passes through the popcycle. He starts with the idea of transsexuality in the life of an individual, in the school setting- and shows a story of some of the concerns and complications that may (or may not) arise in that setting. He then passes the simulacrum through the lens of entertainment- showing how a news story of a bank robbery that was prompted by transsexuality was the motivation for a movie. He then shows how the movie motivated a fine arts piece, which represented the story in a different way- bringing back the original and actual bank robber and created a spectacle of the story through the blurred lines between "the movie" and the "real movie," or the way it really happened, as told through the reenactment of the robbery. Finally, he shows another perspective of the movie itself, one which does not focus directly on the character itself but on the environment and the other actors as figures for something else.
Becoming Image
One final idea of note is the transformation that Ulmer describes of the individual, the self identity in an electrate culture. Ulmer first points out that what is considered real (including individual identity) is relative to the apparatus of the day, and thus being renegotiated under the electrate apparatus. The "new experience of identity" in an electrate world is that of "becoming image" in the sense that celebrities become an image more than an individual. An "image" of a person can become determinant of the self's identity- sometimes even more so than the organic body, to the extent that it can the image can impose itself on the "self's" behavior and circumstances. The phrase, "I have an image to upkeep" resonates- as there is, for some, a pressure to conform one's physical appearance or behavior with that of his "image." This is also becoming more of a reality in a virtual world, where "images" are easier to produce. This highlights the transformation of the concept of identity in the electrate apparatus. In the oral apparatus, identity was formed through spirituality in religion; in literacy, identity was shaped through rational science. In electracy, identity is shaped by imaging or self becoming image.
Questions:
1) Has there been a news story recently that has "pricked" you? What was it and what about it pricked you?
2) Have you ever felt like "you" exist and are identified more through an "image" than some notion of physical/spiritual self?
3) Ulmer says "Commemoration in the public sphere is dominated so far by the spectacle, which is to say it is a collective process that sanctions certain images and not others, around which group subjects form." What is an example of a "sanctioned image," and what would be an example of a non-sanctioned image- that which the MEmorial might pay attention to?
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