And the Bodies Piled Up

There is a continuing sense of life in the United States, in particular, being experienced as a film or TV show. This is obvious. The question is really to map where the far reaches of this hyper-reality extend. To listen to a large class of the U.S. public is to listen to recycled television and film dialogue. Someone said this week, or wrote actually, during an argument with friends, "I am a fan of drone warfare". He later explained this by saying he felt it protected American lives, and was a more accurate way to kill "terrorists". Of course the now viral Joe Klein comment, echos the same … [Read more...]

Cop Stories

The film and TV world are useful studies because of exactly how they both reflect social reality, and at the same time, create social reality. But it's not that simple. Let me just make a few observations, or really, just ask questions. How do films that cost fifteen million dollars get made? How do films that cost eighty million get made? Is is the same process? How do films that cost one hundred and sixty million get made? How do one million dollar films get made? When I was last in Los Angeles, I made the rounds of studio's new micro budget divisions. I found them run by the same morons who run any division at a studio. Same people. Same gold rolexs, same myopic world view, same … [Read more...]

The Shadow of the Shadow/ Colonizing Consciousness, part 2

I remember Geoffrey O Brien wrote once, I forget where, about just the sheer volume of film and TV screened since its invention. I dont recall the figure, but it was suitably staggering. I think about this volume sometimes, and how obviously it affects all of us in the West. In the developed world. Of course there is no shortage of TV in under-developed worlds. One has to reach the far perimeter of non development to find no electronic media. . The corporate media is changing all the time, but always sort of behind the curve. But then network TV is mostly obsolete. But think back over fifty years of network programming. How much that has informed the cultural dialogue of most U.S. … [Read more...]

Colonizing Consciousness

Jerry Mander wrote a book many years ago, in 1977, called Four Arguments for the Elimination of Televsion. He worked in marketing for years before that. He recently wrote a piece for Monthly Review... http://monthlyreview.org/2012/10/01/privatization-of-consciousness This is, obviously, a topic I come back to from many angles all the time. The colonizing of consciousness. Now, Mander is right, but he doesn't take this nearly far enough, for their are structural elements that mediate experience on even deeper levels than he suggests. From an interview on globalization with Mander and Scott London: London: I was working in the north of Norway in the mid-1980s. At the … [Read more...]

Theatre / part one

I've wanted to write a few thoughts about theatre that have been collecting in my head for months now. How does 'space' unlock itself to us in a theatre? First, before any answer, there is the question of 'external reality'. There is always several places in any such image (the above) -- the psyche is the seat of observation. The seat in the theatre of existence. One of the things Lacan introduced with the split subject is that there is always another screen. Perspective represented space. The Freud/Lacan notion that perception is always a transcription to *representation*. In film, something happens that is connected to the idea of a screen, a plane surface. In theatre, … [Read more...]

The Hungry Sheep Look Up

I have noticed lately that a lot of both leftists and liberals are resorting to bullying and manipulation around, mostly the US elections, but in other matters as well. Rebecca Solnit's piece is such an example. Now, I've always like Solnit, and I love her book on Muybridge, but this is just a very stupid and very sort of duplicitious piece. http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175598/tomgram%3A_rebecca_solnit%2C_we_could_be_heroes/ I have been thinking lately of activists and of occupy wall street, and of the enviornment. But because of who I am, and in this format, I've been thinking, as I always do, of how the populace today is being educated and how the master narrative is being … [Read more...]

Heimatland

I have been busy with lots of things, but wanted to post at least a brief entry today. As one watches the political spectacle of U.S. presidential elections, you will naturally come across all manner of other "news" distraction. This week was the emmies. I am surprised they still exist, and maybe I thought they didn't. But apparently they do, and the headline in three different on-line newspapers was about who was best dressed. So, it seems the awards don't even matter anymore within the enclosure of discourse established by the culture industry itself. (I think Julianne Moore was voted best dressed for those wondering). The actual winners were, in fact, hard to find. I never did find a … [Read more...]

From The Last Wave to Witness

I am noticing something of late, culturally speaking. I cant say I at all fully understand it, but I can offer a few observations. It seems that US culture, film and TV, is now so influential as to constitute reality. History has become the history of movies. Mention the name John Foster Dulles and it seems, from this present generation, you will likely see blank stares. Mention Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and you see their eyes light up. Mention Pinochet or Lumumba, or Suharto..........you get very little reaction. Mention NYPD Blue, people will have a reaction. I've written on a lot of this already and there is a lot more to say. However, I want to focus on a few specific … [Read more...]