DOiT

Media.Music.Bass. Performance. Creativity. Innovation...

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Academic Canvas: My plan in Media Studies

To read my complete Academic Canvas: My Plan in Media Studies, Please follow this link. Thank you.

Academic Plan Tomas Uribe

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Feminism Identity: Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto

Women's identities have been attached to the various connotations of historical events that have modeled humanity and social exchange. Haraway's writing portray the wide palette of conceptualized relations that cyborgs have women's identities and place in human interactions. Undoubtedly, not only in first world societies but also in third world environments, women have been subject to be man's object of desire. Although in the 'modern era' we live in several feminist ideologies have surged, the cultural implications that society holds is very strong, and as the author refers to MacKinnon (Haraway, 159), there is arguably no true identity that can 'firmly ground women's unity'. From a media perspective, I believe that this 'informatics domination' is a double sided concept. This comes to collation since some of the media makers in current times are in fact women. Throughout the creation of products that talk or argument against this non-identity of women, another phenomenon is starting to shape. It relates to the fact that there are constant victimizations due to the supposedly subjacent categories under which women fall. The sole idea of feminism gives way to the search of an identity in this category. An identity that cannot be found precisely because of the self-underestimation of race/gender/sexuality. In order to conceive an identity that can serve as a common ground for women's unity, there has to be an objetive perspective of how to achieve this true identity. Again relating to media products, the creators keep on feeding themselves from the feministic views that are portrayed in everyday life. Even in regards to misogyny or misandry, these concepts would not exist if it weren't for the subjacent connotations that people have created in terms of discrimination or such. Of course, this relates strongly to the biblical standpoint of extreme machosim (anglicization of 'machismo' in spanish), where women were portrayed as a symbol of sin, basically. But what surprises me, is that the current talks about feminism (and the other -isms) still relate to a certain degree to these ancient and retrograde points of view. The more and more the media talks about them, or keeps referring to women of certain age/gender/race as 'minorities', the more the historical implications will continue to haunt us and widen the gap of the identity that is being searched in women's unity. Will another gender rise from cyborg feminism? Will it challenge the informatics of domination? The answer lies in a world without 'gender', simply a world of humans.

Source: Donna Haraway, «A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century,» in: Socialist Review, 80, 1985, S. 65–108, reprinted in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991), pp. 149-181; (http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/source-text/115/)

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My Second Life in Second Life

After my first encounter with the virtual world of Second Life, I was truly amazed of this digital environment. McLuhan's predicaments of our media extensions are portrayed in each and every single animation, gesture, texture for clothing, mesh, tree, discotheque, or botanical garden that Second Life houses. Initially, and to my surprise, my first avatar was a vampire. I believe that naturally, my intentions for this avatar was to be as similar as possible to my physical characteristics. I tried on a few clothes, a couple of animations (courtesy of 'am garota'), and went on to explore the virtual realm of SL. I began to purposely feel as if I was completely immersed in this world, without actual connections to the 'real' world, but eventually acknowledged that this was impossible. The physical connotations that SL suggests is that we never leave our space, since it is our common ground, and that we only seek out to create a set of multiple identities in the virtual space. I was particularly childish when exploring the 'human' capabilities that, as an avatar, I had. Then I though to myself, of course, it is a digital human...err..avatar..err..robot? A common cultural, identity question rised: who am I?

The second time I entered SL, I felt that I was part of the community (another question came to my mind, what community? I don't even know these people). On this occasion, I tried to be someone else. A muscular, sweaty, aggressive male apparently with the capability of dancing as a Brazilian native. I came to the conclusion that my subconscious pushed me into transforming my previous vampire avatar to a modern, hype, virtualized Anaconda's Jon Voight. I remembered Beth Coleman's TED Talk about her book "Hello Avatar: Your Networked Life". She expressed the multiplicity of identity when we become part of a virtual network. Our social media has become a multi-legged extension of our identities that have a wide variety of identifiable elements. In other words, and paraphrasing that Galloway speaks of networks, we are nodes of a distributing network where our information becomes a particular characteristic of a social environment. In my experience in SL, I felt as one of those nodes. I was creating a unique environment that could only have existed with my individuality (another question coming up: what is individuality?). My flash mob dancing skills improved surprisingly in my digital avatar, although I tried to dance Salsa, but did not accurately follow my real-life abilities (I enjoy dancing salsa). In fact, it became my first flash mob ever, and I knew all the steps. Our SL guide, Pygar, led us into the hallucinations chamber, where schizophrenia can come to fruition in SL (advice: listen in stereo headphones). I encountered unicorns, I flew, I did not have sex, I danced at a gay club, and enjoyed the solitude of a gondola ride. I definitely came to the conclusion that the more we immerse ourselves into this digital realm of multiple identities, the more questions rise regarding our true self and individuality. We are nodes that cannot be identified if separated from other nodes. We contain several elements that makes us unique, but are inevitably attached to the similar attributes other avatars/humans possess and define our modus vivendi.

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Avatar Multiplicity

Analyzing Beth Coleman's "Hello Avatar: Rise of the Networked Generation" (MIT Press, 2011) and several other websites that relate to x-reality, I came across Carlo Ratti's SenseAble City Lab. Interestingly enough, it explores how networking serves as a tool for originating change in the world. This networking is what draws attention because it relates directly to how we, as humans inhabiting a physical world, are currently relating to one another. As Coleman describes, even our grandparents have become part of this networked environment, creating their own avatars in order to communicate and 'see' their own grandchildren; it's the only way they can actually communicate with them: through the computer screen. Networking has rised to such a dimension of interaction, that it defines the way we communicate. It should be noted that I don't mean by network as the way to get a job more easily, but to how people are inevitably attached to one another by one or more digital threads (i.e. in computer science, a thread is the smallest sequence of a programmed instruction). Therefore, if we were to say that one person has died, a wide series of threads will be disconnected, given that the implications generated by that person's networking activity in the digital world were multiple. 

The attractive possibility of being capable of flying, of being a millionaire, or even of being someone entirely different as we are in the 'real world', can only be possible in the virtual world. But as Coleman suggests, how can this virtual reality be more than just that? How can it be truly placed before us? Here I intend to paraphrase what Samuel Weber suggested of television in his "Television: Set and Screen" (Weber, 117) writing, when he says that the medium of television itself 'places before us' a new space. It's not about the images or content we see when we experience television, but how we engage in the act of 'watching television'. Augmented reality will come to fruition eventually I believe, but the implications of this occurrence can even more so determine our networked and mediated environment. Tracing back to The Matrix (1999), when augmented reality is a common denominator, we will be living in a place where this augmented reality will pose few to no limits of human behavior.

Image taken from www.google.com

The implications I am mentioning, brings me to the analysis of the movie Inception (2010). It comes to a point where the creation of architectural environments, which purpose is to extract dreams, grows without limitations, where the so-called architect can build and build to limitless extent, widening more and more the eventual threads a person may have with the created environments. While as an spectator, one tries to follow the story of the movie, but at the same time thinks of the huge implications the movie suggests. The perception of time and memory can only be conceptualized upon when awake, but it's a whole different story when one is sleeping. One can dream about flying and being someone entirely different, but can one truly become this through augmented reality? Is it in this subconscious state of mind or REM where our multiple avatars come to life and experience their own little digital worlds?

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Hiroaki Umeda's Haptic & Holistic Strata

Haptic & Holistic Strata by Hiroaki Umeda

New York Live Arts (March 8, 2013)

Imagination is truly a non-limited virtue human beings have. Our mind extends to our senses multiple elements that transform into living art. Do we live in a technological matrix? How do we interact with technology? Is technology a part of us or are we part of technology? If the living matrix in which we all interact turned inside out, we would be experiencing a small breath of Hiroaki Umeda’s sub-bass, strobing, RGB (red, green and blue), and wavy colored pieces (Haptic & Holistic Strata).

Japan based Umeda has traveled around the world performing and leaving in awe several audiences that encounter his pieces. The artistic elision of different musical leitmotifs or musical ‘events’ is presented in an organized pattern, almost as if they were following a Fibonacci sequence. From small to large, short to long, thin to thick and scattered to dense, the performer’s body and dance movements develop throughout both pieces, further evolving into a constant industrial-glitch loop. The profundity of the concept in visual terms attracts the human eye and stimulates the senses. The quality and precision of the meticulously elaborated video and lighting software sets forth the artist’s idea of both pieces, stating the exchange of communication between man and machine.

Haptic relates to a foundation, a grasping, a perceiving, and a radical perspective of technology in the world of mankind. The first glitch sounds, bleeps and sub-bass frequencies add on to a sequence of movements that build up to the mind’s extensions: arms, legs, head, and torso. The multi-colored stage illuminates the audience’s faces back and forth, with a somewhat disturbing/impacting strobe effect, up until the predominant palette of RGB colors light up Hiroaki’s head. (excellent description/interpretation)

After and awkward and mumbled intermission, Holistic Strata was due: a truly important moment of the performance. Soaring strobe lights and perfect synchronization with body movements appeal to a sea of noisy waves. The fluidity of the performer's dance steps suddenly become disrupted by the cracked and glitched sound loops (which at the same time relate to Haptic) that intervene the dance sequence. Jean Baudrillard's concept of hyper reality would be further embellished with these two performances, as they summarize the intense relation we forge with technological objects, suggesting that our individual consciousness is most probably lost in space, and that we are now forever dependent of technology.

Reviewed by Tomas Uribe.

Photos taken from www.NewYorkLiveArts.org

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The difference between Film and Theater

Susan Sontag states that "[Cinema] is a medium that encapsulates any of the performing arts and transcribes them into film." Then what is film? Is film not the medium itself? In relation to theater, is the latter not a medium either? Sontag describes the various connotations these two mediums (film and theater) may have, by confusing the terms in which they relate to spectators.

She perceives film as an object, that which can be totally and completely manipulable and calculable. One may ask if theater, in the case of a real-time performance, is then an opposition to film (non-object). Is it then non-manipulable and non-calculable? I believe that to some extent, it cannot be true. Theater, although it can't be editable (as film can), is subject to another object: the script. Film is based in scripts and screenplays, but because of its power of infinite manipulability in terms of editing, its result is that of something that has never existed before. What spectators see through film, is not the representation of a script, but of an entirely new creation. 

In relation to what is described in the first paragraph of this post, asking whether film is a medium like theater, it is in the sense that communicates a message. Cinema on the other hand is a term to describe an industry. A modern-world industry which relies on the foundation of the new medium: film. Mediums communicate messages which are encoded and decoded (referencing Stuart Hall's discourse) constantly. Communication itself exists because an exchange takes place. An exchange of speech or messages that occur between producer (origin of message) and receiver. The difference between film and theater is the way in which communication comes to being. In terms of the relation of communication between film and auduence and theater and audience, is the fact that by being a mediatized form, the way film communicates changes the meaning of communication mentioned before (exchange of producer and receiver). Here, communication imposes a hierarchy in how the producer communicates a message, whilst in theater, hierarchy tends to function the other way around; receivers can acknowledge the fact that a non-mediatized medium (theater can in fact be mediatized but in the majority of the cases, it is not) can change in real-time and same moment. It is therefore a temporal art, but it does not fit into the same category as film or music, as Sontag suggested. 

Schopenhauer described music as being the "purest of all art forms, as it is not a copy of ideas, but a depiction of the will itself". It is the intangible art form (contradictory enough) that complements the other art forms. It suggests various meanings with a temporal perspective to art forms which address other senses. Although I agree that "all art is first a mental act, a fact of consciousness" (Sontag), such as the 'object' aspect of film or the 'performance' aspect of theater, art is a communicating 'device'. It is used as an exchange of constant mental acts between producers and receivers, but this device and become obsolete, and search for different ways of communicating in a more fast and efficient manner. As happens with music, film and theater differentiate because of the way they communicate messages and how spectators receive and decode those messages. They are temporal events, but in the case of film and sometimes music (i.e. recorded music) the temporality is also manipulated, turning into a different kind of temporality, one that as spectators will never know, because it exists merely as an illusion of temporality. 

Radio Soulwax is a live-electro rock band that play electro music. Their live performances is truly engaging, completely amazing experience. A theatrical, filmic, and musical perspective is exposed in their DVD "Part of the Weekend Never Dies". And in their case, it is true, their temporality is unique and they live it very single night. 

And here is singer-songwriter James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem) trying to describe how nuts Soulwax's performance is...

Sontag, Susan. Film and Theater. Film Theory and Criticism; Ed. Gerald Mast, Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. 

Videos taken from YouTube.

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Jérôme Bel and the Physical Entertainers.

After watching the naked-women-and-men performance by Jérôme Bel, I felt encouraged to take a look at some of his other performances. I had the chance to read some of his analyses towards his own performances and the perspectives he has developed in relation to the body as the main human instrument, sexuality, and how not to take ourselves seriously. 

After watching this performance, one can clearly see the attitude a person assumes when s/he thinks no one is listening or no one is paying attention to him/her. It is the representation of the awkward moments that we as humans have when concentrating all our energy and thought into one single thing (music). Bel's approach towards the nature of the body and the performances he creates, portray the idea of the distance felt between an audience and the performers. He quotes: "If there’s no distance or separation, there’s no theatre, it’s just life and in life there are no spectators, just actors. That’s why as a director I have to maintain this distance, I have to distance myself in order to see what the audience will see. This position produces a particular aesthetic which is mine. It’s part of me and I can’t change it. Whenever I’ve tried to, it’s been a failure".

On a specific occasion, Bel's performance included people with disabilities and their limited abilities were in some way shocking to the audiences' pre-established idea of what a performance might offer. Again, Bel is making a statement in relation to how people see other people's bodies, the misinterpretations that rise because of culture-based judgments, and exploring other corners of the bodies' capabilities allow separation from taboos. Theater serves as a way to see what one is note used to see. It creates confrontation. This way, it gives way to a whole other viewpoint of the body and how we use our body. Our bodies' objective lies within the boundaries of entertainment and pleasure. In some way, our bodies shouldn't be taken very seriously, for it is our only body (as Bel describes it), and we must take full advantage of it as well as try and obtain knowledge from it. When I speak of not taking our body seriously, is precisely to get rid of the distance we pre-establish with our own bodies! 

Video: YouTube

Source: http://www.jeromebel.fr/

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Liveness

Dixon's analyses of what liveness is and how it relates to various aspects of the live performance such as presence, are deep insights of what several theorists have to say about the live in liveness. Interestingly enough, one can see how some of these analyses step on each other's arguments and main ideas, leading to a general conclusion: there is no solid, black-or-white ontology or absolute truth in live performance.

This chapter gives a sense of relief to those who, like me, are in a type of oblivion when it comes to defining performance and its true objective, in addition to the issue arising from whether any art form is "concerned with presence or presentness, be it painting, poetry, net-art, recorded media, or live-performance". In relation to the latter, as Dixon suggests, art cannot have categories when it comes to understanding one specific media art form such as live performance, as a superior art form because of the human element that has to be present in order to have validity and truly be a live performance. Many factors can be questioned taking into account that technology has given art a wide spectrum of choices to serve as an extension and furthermore enhance the art piece. It is true that the real-ness of the performance itself has an important element (presence) which makes live performance a unique experience, one that cannot be documented or reproduced. Otherwise, as Walter Benjamin would say, the reproduced piece would lack time and space.

Trying to conceptualize these multiple perspectives of live performance, the bottom line of this subject is that of preference. In some occasions, a performer can decide if his/her piece of art is suitable for a specific medium, or whatever the piece requires to be successful as a media message; be it live performance or a digitized medium. The real critique towards an art piece comes from a vulnerable audience. An audience who can really appreciate a performance as a whole, and make a global and more approachable examination of the art piece. Sometimes a specific performance can be somewhat disappointing, as Dixon explains. This happens mostly because of the variable human behavior towards the different aspects of live performing. Mediatized performance can turn out to be a re-conciliating encounter with the same audience that on previous occasions, would probably have been influenced by external factors which may or may not depend on the live performance itself. 

This matter comes to a relative appreciation of what liveness is all about. Live music for example, pertains to a constant way of promoting music. As a concert-goer, I've had several highlighted-moments during live performances of bands, but at the same time, I must admit that some of the best shows and performances I've seen, have come from a recorded or documented performance. It might be true that the ontology of performance changes, but one can also analyze that a true comparison between the contrasting views of live performance will not take place simply because the perspective of the live performance viewer will never have the same conditions or circumstances as the mediatized/reproduced/digital viewer. As I suggested in a previous post, I believe that every performance presents itself in the eyes of the world as unique, even though there will be reproductions of that performance, each and every one of those will have additional or, in some cases, original content. This reading, as well as many others, aims to consider different points of view regarding live performance, but at the same time, it clearly defines some aspects of this art form. Unfortunately, it leaves gaps somewhere in between the actual way of engaging an audience, and thoughtfully performing live. In a broader sense, I believe that as an artist, one can choose an art medium or specific media technology to serve as the body and mind's extension. Will technology keep being part of future-to-come live performances serving as extensions of ourselves? Or does it, in a way, overshadow the present-ness? What other possibilities exist in order to engage furthermore a mediatized audience?

Dixon, Steve. Digital Performance: A History of New Media in Theater, Dance, Performance Art, and Installation. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007. Digital.

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The Ontology of Performance: Representation without Reproduction

Peggy Phelan states that "performance's only life is in the present." (Phelan 146) Meaning performance cannot be reproduced or documented under any circumstance, because it lacks the ontology of the performance. Its precise attempt is to "value that which is non-reproductive." (Phelan 148) She also manifests that even memory cannot help very much to the reproduction of a performance, as each person has different perspectives toward and from the performance. 

Although it is possible that a performance cannot have its true nature of being when it is reproduced or documented, simply because memory plays a certain game with us, trying to expose different manners in which to interpret a specific performance, then it can also be possible to understand performance as a sole act of the mind. Phelan suggests to understand performance as a single moment lived in the present where living bodies have to be present in order to live that instant. She supports performance as independent from mass-reproduction and technology. An important fact to take into account is the role that the body plays in performance. The body serves as an extension to the idea of the performance that is trying to be represented. The performance that the body may give under any circumstance has to change depending on the place and time it is done. An idea of a performance (or piece of art in any case) is originally brought upon a specific time and place ("reproductions [lack always] time and space" Benjamin 220) when/where the mind is subjectively vulnerable to any sort of inspiration. This original idea tends to morph into what we think of as performance. At the particular time and place when the mind creates an idea for a performance, that sole act of going through the process of creating is the true performance. A performance which in itself will only have subsequent -lifeless, according to Phelan- reproductions. 

Beethoven's Fifth Symphony was played for the first time in 1808 to an over-cheering crowd which would have thought of the performance as music perfection. But what would 2013's music-lover audiences think from a performance represented in today's contemporary social spectrum? They would probably think the same as the 1808 audience, even if it might have been a completely different performance. The true performance of a musical masterpiece, as in this case, would be only the inexistant one: the one resting in Beethoven's mind. Performances can be choreographed, rehearsed, and planned several times before the actual presentation, but in its true ontology, an original performance is that which exists in the creator's mind. The rest are reproductions. Or, seen from another perspective, reproductions are all true performances where memory is constantly creating new performances. 

In the attached video, a very well-designed performance by Mutemath. This performance challenges the typical (to address the name of the song as well) ways of making reverse effects in musical videos. Although this effect has been used in previous videos, Mutemath's performance had to be recorded backwards, in order to obtain a normal un-reversed video. They practiced the performance many times so they could constantly maintain their selves focused into knowing what was happening backwards in the song. It is a documented performance, which truly lies in the thin line of what can/not be reproduced. In concerts, Mutemath plays the song normally, but the music video turns out to be a documented performance of the same song, played backwards, without reproductions. One might say that the true performance was the one taking place inside the creators' minds. 

Phelan, Peggy. Unmarked, The Politics of Performance. London and New York: Routledge. 1993. Print.

Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. Ed. Hannah Arendt. New York: Schocken Books. 1968. Print.

Video taken from YouTube.

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Why DOiT.

Digital Organization of Interesting Topics. 

As a Media Studies student, it just seemed right to start of blogging. Posting about several topics I'm interested in with a very simple objective: create content I like. 

Digital. In a globalized world, the only accurate way we seem to effectively communicate is throughout digital media. I believe that a longer way to go would be to write to thousands of online magazines or blogs in order to get my piece online. 

Organization. Throughout my life, the tendency has been to do many things at once. The urge of getting organized has always haunted my head. I've many interests, especially the ones that complement the art of music. With this blog, I intend to organize ideas and organize thoughts, mainly about my interests.

Interesting. Music is my profession as well as my hobby. I also make pedalboards (www.laduradera.com) and love audiovisual performances and experiences. I enjoy watching and playing sports. Whatever has to do with media, I'm sure I'd like to get to know about it a little bit more. 

Topics. Absolutely everything, but above all, music-media related issues, such as electronic media, graphic design, digital and analog effects, current entertainment and culture topics and whichever thing I like. 

This blog is to do things, comment about things. As the Nike advertisement says: Just DOiT.

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Name: Nemo

City: New York

Sponsored by: Budweiser

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Live Performance in a Mediatized Culture

Live Performance in a Mediatized Culture

Auslander’s text can tend to be somewhat provocative in terms of his analyses of live performances and how new digital media and technology has in some way invaded the realm of live performance. Provocative in the sense where one can challenge even musical live performances as non-real, simply because of the distance created by technological means. Auslander states that television is not an extension to a performance, but is instead a replacement. The liveness of a performance will therefore be lost once it has passed through a digital medium. In a musical live performance, what we hear will never be the real voice of the artist or performer, but the result of a technological object distancing the real source (i.e. a microphone). This can be frustrating taking into account that the main objective of live performances today is to precisely encompass larger audiences. In other times, art would be present only in wealthy environments; concerts would take place in the living room of a king. Why frustrating? Because with the appearance of radio, tv, and furthermore film, live performances now depend mainly on digital and electronic means to attract audiences.

A truly self-made-real-live performance no longer exists, be it because the narrator of a play needs a microphone to address the audience, or because a concert needs social media to promote itself, or simply because Beyonce can’t sing in cold weather. The uniqueness of a live performance depends mostly on the innovation it is inherent to and how it manages to mix new media.

Photo taken from: soltandomonos.wordpress.com

Auslander, Philip. Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture. London and New York: Routledge. 2008. Print.

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