Blog Entry on Mediation for Section 2 by Ian Hooley
The technological revolution of the past century has not only succeeded in overhauling our lifestyle but our perception of reality itself. Media, by default existing in the middle of this rapidly-changing world, has not only provided insight into worlds far unlike our own but allowed us to re-examine the very world we live in ourselves. Dr. Pandian notes in Popular Tamil film and the remaking of rural life that the attitude of certain villagers towards themselves (and particularly the troubles of the younger generations) in the Cumbum Valley appears to co-depend upon the portrayed cinematic reality and the actual everyday life of the area.
This led me to wonder what De Zengotita’s reaction to this would be—Zengotita argues that over-mediation has anaesthetized us to deeply-problematic issues such as AIDS, yet Dr. Pandian observed that cinema seemed to help villagers overcome hardships and view their lives under a different light. To what extent would you argue that this vicarious living through cinema of the rural villagers supports Zengotita’s pseudo-cynical stance that media is blurring our perceptions of reality?
It was Goethe who once said “what we perceive by the eye is foreign to us as such and need not impress us deeply”. Benjamin, arguing that both the cultural and geographical ‘aura’ of an artpiece along with the features such as texture are what define it as unique (non-reproducible to the masses), would likely agree with Goethe. Simply viewing a painting is not nearly enough to impress—it appears as though a range of sensory information and mental processing are necessary to achieve vitality within a piece of art, and that mass mediation could potentially foster the loss of this supposed ‘invisible life’ of a painting (Benjamin points out the history of ownership as an example of what could be lost through mediation). Do you agree with the argument that mere ocular perception of art (namely via mass media) is not enough to truly understand its significance?
Magritte’s renowned painting of a pipe with the French subscript Ceci n’est pas une pipe (hyperlink below), is a symbolic representation of artistic acknowledgement that painting is not reality. Painting, a form of media itself, in this instance is used to encourage audiences to reflect upon the effects of media upon our vision reality. It would be easy for one to look at a painting of a pipe and say ‘that is a pipe’, yet Magritte points out he would be lying if he said “This is a pipe” due to the fact one could not stuff it with tobacco. Paintings themselves in the debate of mediation seem to be largely ignored— the articles we read reflected upon the extent to which the photographing and reproduction of paintings have changed perceptions of the paintings themselves but not the fact that the paintings are media representations of reality in the first place. Do you believe that the atmosphere of the original scene of a painting (whether it be an imaginary setting in the artist’s head or real) can be truly conveyed via the media of painting? If so, could the ‘aura’ of the original scene of the painting be carried through a reproduction of the painting itself even if the painting’s aura was not conveyed?
Hyperlink to Magritte’s painting: http://enculturation.gmu.edu/3_2/images/magritte1.jpg
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11 comments:
I would argue that de Zengotita would have written a very different paper had he studied the peoples of the Cumbum Valley. I don't think the two worlds, and subsequently the authors' messages, can be exactly compared. De Zengotita speaks on behalf of a 21st century urban world, inundated with reality-blurring content. He says, "And sheer quantity really matters, because here we collide with a real limit...namely, how much a person can register at a given instant." This person is very different than the rural farmer in Tamil Nadu. The farmer actively looks for a reflection of himself and his life in the cinema, and has time to mediate on whether the portrayal was accurate or meaningful as he tends to the field. Although Dr. Pandian writes that the media presence has greatly expanded in the Cumbum Valley, it is still not comparable to that of a modern American city. Whereas the Cumbum Valley farmer meditates on the messages he appreciated from a film, the American mind has often been hit with a new message before the previous one can be analyzed. So, while the sheer amount of information to decipher is often what causes the blurring of reality among the Americans of de Zengotita's article, it seems as if any blurring of reality among the peoples of the Cumbum Valley are self-imposed as they seek to actively compare their lives to those of their actor counterparts.
-Paulina Goodman
In contrast to what Ian says, Benjamin's article pays a great deal of attention to painting and its existence as a form of "mediated reality". Benjamin juxtaposes the painter and the cinematographer through his analogy of the magician and the surgeon. While the magician heals by "maintain[ing] a natural distance between himself and the person treated... the surgeon does exactly the reverse." The surgeon, Benjamin argues, like the cinematographer, "penetrates" his subject. This penetration is illustrative of the "closeness" which has diminished the aura of art. Thus, while paintings are a kind of representation of reality as Ian says, they are unique (even the most realistic works of art are still an interpretation of the artist's singular reality), maintain a distance (as Benjamin says, "the painter in his work maintains a natural distance from reality"), and have significant ties to traditional authority. The "aura" as Benjamin attributes it to all that is distant and ritualistic in art, has not been lost on paintings. Benjamin goes on to say that paintings resist the idea of becoming "art of the masses" in that they "exert a claim to be viewed primarily by a single person or by a few." Thus, paintings may be the only source of unique, authentic art left, the only media that resists becoming the subject of collective organization and response.
-Sarah Schulman
I disagree with Paulina’s idea that de Zengotita would have written a completely different paper had he studied the people’s of the Cambum Valley. In much a sense, the author could argue that the villagers’ perception and distinction of reality has become indistinguishable from fabrication. This can be seen as Pandian notes how common it was for him to hear people say “the history of my life deserves a cinema,” or a similar phrase. Such an association of ones life as a movie actually supports de Zengotita’s claim of this blending of reality and fabrication. Pandian also notes that there is “an element of pride in the face of hardship” that has been “nurtured in part by Tamil cinema’s close attention for nearly thirty years to the everyday trials and tribulations of rural existence.” This feeling that has resulted in the people of the Cambum Valley could be interpreted as a form of numbing of the senses that de Zengotita discusses that overstimulation of media has caused. Such examples show that de Zengotita’s idea of this numbness caused by overstimulation of media and indistinguishableness of reality from fabrication can apply to both cultures.
Kyle Bieg
While I would agree with Paulina that the contexts in which rural agrarian Indian society and contemporary Americans experience media vary too drastically to allow for productive comparison, I think the description of media impact as proffered by the villagers would, if anything, weaken Zengotita’s argument for blurred perception. Zengotita explains the effects of overstimulation as impelling one to virtualize everything they encounter, making wolves into “wolves”. In this way media hinders the capacity to perceive and formulate in one’s mind a real life experience. Conversely, the rise of the Tamil Film did not hinder the articulation of reality but rather served as a reference point for expression. For rural villagers “film [had] come to provide a language for the social life of kinship and attachment” Pandian 131). Film in this instance becomes a mechanism for expression but remains separate from reality. The criticism which Rasathi Rosakili met with “because it was too real and at the same time not real enough - because, in a sense, it insisted too crudely on the shame of rural society itself” (Pandian 137)shows a critical distance maintained between fabrication and reality, the antithesis of Zengotita’s notion of their obscurity.
No, I do not think the atmosphere of the original scene of a painting can be truly conveyed via the media of painting. As Sarah describes in her response, perhaps paintings are the only unique media that “resists becoming the subject of collective organization and response”. While I agree with this claim, I have to question Benjamin’s reasoning why paintings are allowed to resist the collective opinion. I find it hard to believe that paintings “exert a claim to be viewed primarily by a single person or by a few.” Perhaps part of the “aura” of the painting is that it aims to elicit the same feeling or meaning by everyone. In this view, if the point of the painting is to provoke an emotion or represent an emotion (as in abstract art or expressionist art), would it not be deemed original if it were able to promote that emotion through reproduced copies? Would the claim be viewed by more than just “a few” if the artist was successful in educing these emotions? So while the atmosphere of the original scene might not be obvious, I suggest there are instances in which the aura can, in fact, be carried through in reproductions.
De Zengotita would agree that the media is causing the villagers of Cumbum Valley to “blur” their perceptions of reality. It was clear in that the villagers often compared their lives to the lives of characters in films. Pandian included a story in which one villager casually remarked that an ordinary, daily occurrence was “just like cinema.” It is clear that the villagers did not distinguish their personal reality and the “reality” that the actors present in the cinema, or the fabrication that de Zengotita emphasized. De Zengotita also argued that these indistinguishable realities cause numbness to such fast paced sensory overload of media. That is, people are more often unaffected by the newspaper headlines and startling statistics than they are inspired or moved in a powerful, lasting ways. As Zengotita puts it, people are trained to “move on.” Pandian’s depictions of the media’s influence on the daily lives of the villagers would indicate that the cinema indeed had an impact. The strong morals of the characters in the cinema acted as a silent, unwavering source of motivation for the villagers in difficult moments. In this case, and regarding his main argument, I believe de Zengotita would be stumped by the lasting effects that the cinema has on the people of Cumbum Valley, even if the realities are “blurred” by the media.
-Kate Appel
Benjamin argues that reproduced artworks lose authenticity as they are produced in different forms and distributed. Yes, they may dilute our perception of reality at that time (like de Zengotita argued) but the connotations of the "aura" or entity depicted are still present. Consider the 'Mona Lisa': the painting is arguably well known and contains the "aura" of her in that time and place- she is wearing clothes that are most likely typical of her social class and the style of painting is classical realism (mainly seen during the 1500s). Now consider reproductions of the Mona Lisa in a humorous fashion (example: http://www.tdcgames.com/edgeMONA-LISA.jpg). The original painting is still decipherable but artists have recreated it in order to make the painting more relevant to the current time period and to appeal to today's more lighthearted audience than the Renaissance men of the 1500s. At the time the 'Mona Lisa' was painted, the culture was much different than it is now but we can look back at pieces like this to understand cultures of the past. In other words, authenticity is not lost but rather preserved and added to.
I believe that the concept of the fragmented nature of the cinematic scenes and songs that the villagers use is of importance regarding the question of whether or not the villagers “living through cinema” supports de Zengotita’s view that media blurs our perceptions of reality. I would argue that the depth of immersion in media that de Zengotita’s essay describes is somewhat distinct from and to a significantly different extent than the fragmentary use of cinematic scenes as exemplars that the villagers utilize. When I speak of extent of immersion, consider the following example: in de Zengotita’s essay, he refers to when people anesthetized by media go out for a hike and see a wolf, they actually see a “wolf”, an icon of itself due to unfamiliarity in real life but awareness through media. In contrast, Dr.Pandian’s interlocutor Manivannan is a lumberjack-turned-goat herder, and although he has enough exposure to media to quote fragments of movie lyrics in order to express his opinions on a subject, I would seriously doubt that he sees goats as “goats”. It is true that Dr. Pandian’s essay illustrates a common view in the Cumbum Valley that the villagers’ lives are cinematic in nature, and thus demonstrating some degree of the blurring of the villagers’ perception of reality. However, I do not believe that the endless and constant interaction with media in our society as described by de Zengotita’s essay can be faithfully applied to the residents of the Cumbum Valley with their significantly more fragmented and sparse exposure to media.
Going back to the topic of the aura of a painting, Benjamin explains that reproduction assimilates paintings based on "the desire of present day masses to get closer to things, and their equally passionate concern for overcoming each thing's uniqueness" (105). He defines the aura of an original painting to be the "veil of the object." To me, this sounds like the aura Benjamin talks about is the inaccessibility of the painting; it is not yours, you do not own it, you can't see it whenever you want to. If aura is a "veil," I would agree that once the painting is mass produced, this does destroy its aura, since anyone is free to see the painting then and the sense of curiosity inspired by the aura is gone. Consequently, I believe aura then, is not a beneficial or desirable attribute of original artwork. Copies of paintings allow anyone interested to access the authenticity of the painting. By authenticity, I mean the ritualistic and traditional meaning behind the painting that Benjamin describes. Even though the person buying the reproduced painting is not reproducing the painting himself/herself, they can better understand the ritualistic/traditional meaning the actual artist intended for the artwork. So going by Benjamin's definitions and explanations, I believe reproduction of paintings destroys the original aura of a unique painting, but allows its authenticity to be understood by the masses.
Also, Benjamin says that actors in film do not embrace the aura of the character they play like a stage actor does. Still, I believe the end result of the process of film and acting creates a character with an authenticity that seems real due to the lack of equipment. It does not seem as if the film is being "produced" since the actual process of creating the film is not seen. This is why I can understand how so many of the people who Dr. Pandian studied in the Cumbum Valley connected on such a deep level with film. They connected so much that they can even compared their own lives to films, as Dr. Pandian observed. But I still agree with Paulina in that the people's lives in the Cumbum Valley are not as submersed in media as the lives of American's are (so much so that there becomes a blur between reality and media). Therefore, they can still see their own lives apart from actors' lives, though they draw many comparisons.
Looking at what Jillian said, I would have to agree that no one can make a legitimate claim that a certain painting, doesn't matter who by or when, should be viewed by only one person or a select few. Reproduced copies of paintings in my opinion are allowing the "aura" of certain paintings to become realized by more people. An example is the Mona Lisa and the fact that not everyone can make their way to see this painting in person and even when they do, it is far away, enclosed and difficult to see. Reproductions of historical paitings such as this one allow the so called "aura" of the painting to be felt by a wider variety of people. In contrast to this, it should be on the author of paintings to determine whether reproductions should be allowed, but if these paintings are being produced, im sure the reproduction of the paintings spread the word about their talent and in the end the "aura", which could be some form of emotion are feeling is felt by a larger group of people.
I also tend to agree with Kyle. I believe that de Zengotita would not have written a different paper if he had studied the Cumbum Valley and its people. This becomes very evident when Pandian talks about how the people of the Cumbum Valley talk about how their lives should be in a movie. In de Zengotita's paper he talks about how fabrication and reality are somewhat blended; which is exactly what Pandian saw in the Cumbum Valley. Although de Zengotita is writing about a 21st century world based in an urban culture, after reading about the Cumbum Valley it seems like a lot of their aspects of their lives were almost ahead of their time and has some similarities with modern day, albeit some differences in values.
John Ranagan
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