Surveillance in the Simulacrum Notes From a Lecture

This lecture was about the ways in which the Simulacrum is a model for surveillance. The idea was to present the ways in which surveillance can be seen as beginning with juridical power of classical liberalism. This is best illustrated by the ways in which the power of the monarch was all about the right to use power over life and death to enforce commands. An illustration of this can be seen in Bentham’s model prison. This classic surveillance was built into the architecture and focused on reducing the cost of surveillance of the prisoners. In Bentham’s prison the efficiency was maximized when the few could easily and efficiently monitor the many. The norms we live by create the prison. Foucault writes in Volume One of History of Sexuality:

Power was exercised mainly as a means of deduction, a subtraction mechanism, a right to appropriate a portion of the wealth, a tax of products, goods and services, labor and blood, levied on subjects… a right of seizure… it culminated in the privilege to seize hold of life in order to suppress it.

This is, of course, Foucault’s starting point when he sees the prison as a metaphor of control and power. In the panopticon it was the prisoner’s role to internalize their own surveillance and become their own guards. In the wider society this can be seen by the ways in which we all become our own guards as we have internalized the social rules around us.

In order to illustrate this, I used the art history in order to illustrate the shift from the single dominant explanatory model to the complexity of regulatory and surveillance models. I started with showing them Diego Velazquez’s Las Melinas from 1656. After describing what the image portrayed we spoke of the positioning of the artist, the royal couple, the courtiers, dwarves and dog. The meaning increased with the understanding of who everyone was. The next image was Thomas Gainsborough’s Mr and Mrs Andrews

(1750) which portrayed the wealthy couple showing off their wealth. It reminds me of the boastful elements of social media. The next portrait was John Singleton Copley’s Portrait of Sam Adams (1772). This shows Adams slightly disheveled, holding a petition and demanding change. His head is oddly sized to his body and its hardly a flattering portrait. The image captures the high point of his activism rather than his physical prowess and wealth.

 

 

A major technological development is the camera. Now that mechanical reproduction was possible the question of what could be done in art was open for experimentation. From this point we see the development of different styles from the expressionism of Edvard Munch’s The Scream (1893), to the dadism of Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, Jackson Pollock’s abstract expressionism, and the pop art of Andy Warhol.

These forms of art are often criticized for being simple and hardly worthy of the praise and attention they receive. The goal was to explain the ways in which we have moved from the dominant explanations of the world and begun to accept that multiple models of explanations that overlap and co-exist. The earlier forms of art are representations of a single idea and people. Later art has nothing so simple models of explanation but they are there to be interpreted and can offer different answers to different people. It was a fun exercise.

In particular asking the students whether something was art or not. Along with these famous images I also showed them an image of the joke that some people played when they put a pair of glasses on the floor in a gallery and people began taking photos of them.

Asking the students if this was art led to an interesting discussion. Could Marcel Duchamp exhibit a urinal and everyone called it art then what was different with the eyeglasses?

The goal was to discuss the world of surveillance without a dominant narrative and how power is redefined. Instead of the (juridical) centralized power we are left to our norms and this comes into a form of control by desire. The desire to belong to, and follow a group of norms. I had the students post questions on the readings in advance. Some of the questions were:

So is Bogard saying that being able to predict the actions of a population is a more effective form of control than making the population think it is constantly being watched?

Do you believe that people want to be ‘private’ in certain aspects of their life because of over-surveillance or has there always been an innate feeling that we are being watched?

Does constant surveillance morph people’s personalities over time?

if simulations are truly a way of surveilling, or something else? Are simulations a violation of privacy if they are not technically real?

With this I moved on to explaining the simulacrum as envisioned by Baudrillard who asserted that,

as simulation ascends to a dominant position in postmodern societies, the sign’s traditional function of representation, i.e. its power to “mirror reality” and separate it from false appearances, comes to an end, along with its role in the organization of society.

and

The utopian goal of simulation…is not to reflect reality, but to reproduce it as artifice; to “liquidate all referentials” and replace them with signs of the real. The truth of the sign henceforth is self-referential and no longer needs the measure of an independent reality for its verification.

In explaining the simulacrum I turned to The Idea Chanel and Mike Rugnetta to help illustrate the concept. His video “How Is Orphan Black An Illustration of the Simulacrum?” is a great and popular way to introduce the concept.

So Baudrillard shares Foucault’s sense that the panoptic model of enclosure and its disciplinary logic are historically finished. They are not enough to explain the ways in which norms are used as control and surveillance.

The discipline enforced by panoptic surveillance evolves into a general “system of deterrence,” in which submission to a centralized gaze becomes a general codification of experience that allows no room for deviation from its model. In post-panoptic society, subjectivity is not produced by surveillance in the conventional sense of hierarchical observation, but by codes intended to reproduce the subject in advance.

Not to mention that…

…power does not vanish, but becomes simulated power, no longer instantiated and invested in the real, but rather reproduced in codes and models.

In order to help explain the ways in which norms are used in enforcing I used Judith Butler’s ideas that its not that we are determined by norms – but rather that we are determined by the repeated performance of norms. In Gender Trouble she writes

In a sense, all signification takes place within the orbit of the compulsion to repeat; ‘agency’, then, is to be located within the possibility of a variation on that repetition.

The next step was to introduce the concept of biopower. This is becoming more and more interesting with the increasing use of wearable devices and fitness apps. This mode of surveillance comes with the idea of measurement through ideas of normal. Once we introduce concepts such as IQ, standardized testing, and BMI we instantly measure ourselves against them. They are the basis for creating a “correct” way to be. After the readings, some of the questions asked by the students were:

Is invisibly guiding people towards information that reinforces their biases (presumably what they want) a form of corporate efficiency, informational slavery, or both?

Does this type of surveillance bother us? Why not?

How does personal technology increase the constant surveillance of our bodies?

But how can we really trust algorithms in surveillance?

Here are the powerpoint slides I used in the class.

Art must also reflect decay

In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.

Ernst Fischer

Erotic Canoe

This must be one of the best headlines ever This Japanese Artist Was Fined for Distributing Plans to 3-D–Print Replicas of Her Vagina. It gets better when the model Rokude Nashiko is distributing is a kayak.

So it seems like its not illegal in Japan to make a mould of your vagina and turn it into a canoe – it is however illegal to distribute the specs…

On 8 May 2016, the court handed down its decision. She was found not guilty of the charges related to the kayak, on the grounds that the sculpture, with its bright colour and decoration, “did not immediately suggest female anatomy”, in the words of the BBC report. However, she was found guilty of the charges related to the 3D data, and was fined 400 000 yen, about half what the prosecution had suggested was appropriate. Wikipedia

 

Copyright and Mike Tyson’s Tattoo

Interesting developments in the silly side of copyright: (via BoingBoing) Warner Bros. Sued For Using Mike Tyson’s Tattoo in New Movie

The tattooist who decorated boxer Mike Tyson’s face is suing Warner Bros. on allegations the studio is misappropriating that tattoo for its upcoming movie, The Hangover Part II.

Victor Whitmill, who tattooed the left side of the face of the former heavyweight champion in 2003, and has copyrighted the work, (.pdf)  is demanding a federal judge block the tattoo from being shown in marketing and in the comedy film itself. The federal lawsuit, filed in Missouri on Friday, claims the movie features a “virtually exact reproduction” of the original, which appears on the Stu Price character played by actor Ed Helms.

The copyright tattoo is a fascinating subject. In particular the question of who is the copyright holder. In a similar vein read Jordan Hatcher’s (2005) paper Drawing in Permanent Ink: A Look at Copyright in Tattoos in the United States and the slides & The 1709 Blog recently (April 2011) had an interesting post on the topic Tattoos and moral rights: a couple of points to ponder.

Update: There is an interesting discussion on Mike’s tattoo over at the Freakonomics blog.

The cost of borrowing

Of course I was naive. I guess if I thought about it I would have known that I was naive. But when I heard that a museum has lent a collection or a work to another museum, I got a warm fuzzy feeling. This was cultural altruism. I know, I know… Naive.

In a fascinating article in The Art Newspaper, the director of Musée Picasso reveals the true cost of borrowing.

Baldassari revealed the museum raised between €1m and €3.5m a year since 2008 from the touring exhibition “Masterpieces from the Picasso Museum”. It has visited eight cities so far, including Madrid, Helsinki and Tokyo. “We have made [in total] €16m,” she said, adding that the museum levied different charges for loans. “The tariffs vary according to the number of works, the team [involved] and the expertise.”

Brings a whole new meaning to the word to borrow. But then I guess art lease would sound a bit to0… mercenary?

Jeff Koons Must Die!!!

Of course computers and computer games have had an impact on art. There are fields that study art and video games, or indeed even art in games, but I was particularly amused by this twist to the theme. It’s art in the form of an old style arcade video game. The game is created by Hunter Jonakin and is called Jeff Koons Must Die!!!

The game is a first-person shooter and the goal is to destroy as much of Koons’ artwork as possible. If the player does not destroy the game ends.

However, if one or more pieces are destroyed, an animated model of Jeff Koons walks out and chastises the viewer for annihilating his art. He then sends guards to kill the player. If the player survives this round then he or she is afforded the ability to enter a room where waves of curators, lawyers, assistants, and guards spawn until the player is dead.

The motivation for the game is given on the website:

Jeff Koons is one of the most polarizing and well known contemporary artists living today. He attempts to elevate the banal by constructing large metal sculptures that resemble balloon animals, oil paintings that contain subject matter derived from digital collage, and large-scale pornographic photographs featuring the artist and his former wife, to name a few. All of Koons’s art is constructed by assistants. In general, viewers love or hate Koons and his work, and that is why he was chosen as the subject matter for this piece.


Recently Jeff Koons – who has himself been sued for copyright violation – sued for copyright violation (see Koons strikes back) but eventually backed off. It’s going to be interesting to see his reaction both to seeing his works replicated in digital format, used (abused?) in this manner and then the fact that he himself is portrayed in the game.

Koons stikes back

A couple of days ago I mentioned the Jeff Koons lawsuits in a post on the problem of copyright in appropriation art. Usually people are angry with Jeff Koons for using and abusing their work in his creative process. Interestingly now it’s Koons who is attempting to use copyright to stop other people using his art.

Art and Artifice write

just before Christmas Koons decided to take the initiative… His lawyers sent a cease and desist letter to Park Life a San Francisco shop for selling balloon dog book ends.

Besides the confusing fact that Koons is now the infringed the case is stranger by the fact that the shop is not the manufacturer or sole reseller of the product. Artinfo writes

The bookends, in fact, are manufactured by Toronto-based imm Living. They retail for $30, and are supposedly available in some 700 stores in the United States, according to an article on the dust-up in the Bay Citizen. The Park Life representative said that the original cease-and-desist letter demanded that the store hand over all remaining balloon dog merchandise to representatives of the artist.

Finally lets not forget what we are talking about: copies of balloon dogs…

New York Trip: Jeff Koons on the roof show by luccawithcheese

image: New York Trip: Jeff Koons on the roof show by luccawithcheese (CC BY NC SA)

is this then also copyright infringement?

Street art and social commentary

Being a big fan of street art I often spend time in new cities looking for interesting examples and in Turin I found some really cool stuff. The two best projects I found were the portrayals of Muslim women and an excellent media criticism project. While I realize that many are critical to what they see as a defacement of public space it is important to remember that art can act as a conduit for social commentary, giving voice to those who might not otherwise have one. This is particularly true in the case of street art since the public street is more easily accessible to the artist than the gallery.

In addition to this these public spaces are available to all people without requiring them to enter into the unfamiliar  structured work of “established” art. Many may feel unsure of how “established” art may be interpreted, this coupled with a fear of making a fool of oneself makes it easier to ignore art rather than attempt to participate in the discussion. Street art places no such demands. It is immediate and easily accessible: either you like it, or you don’t. Either it talks to you, or it doesn’t. They are our streets and everyone has a right to an opinion. No hierarchical canon rules our opinions.

The media criticism project was a humorous portrayal of the way in which media controls our minds and makes us into robots.

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The Muslim women project was a colorful and thoughtful portrayal of women in everyday situations. My favorite pictures were the ones were the women are interacting with technology and showing that we are all the same.

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The artist has presented the motivations for his project in the Wooster Collective:

“My project deals with the representation of Muslim women and their social condition. I was been studying and dealing with this theme for years. As you can imagine, here in Turin, my posters are seen as an ambiguous subject. Some people mislead and rip them, while others love them. I would like to make people know that there is nothing strange with this particular subject: Muslim women are equal if compared to Western women. My Muslim women are represented in daily life situations: they are mothers, grandmothers and daughters, smoking, taking pictures and smiling. My message is: pointing out that Muslim women have the same needs and necessities of the majority of Western women. Certainly, the only exception is the veil. The veil changes in different countries, and here comes the sociological aspect of my work: I am very careful in rendering the different types of veil, the Maghrebi veil, the Afghani burga and the Iranian chador.

In my opinion, nowadays it’s crucial to conceive street art as a tool to spread social messages. Moreover, I made a deep research and I discovered that I am the only artist, in the street art movement, that deals entirely with this topic. Isn’t it strange? In general, the woman is the best source of inspiration for artists, why Muslim women wouldn’t be the same? I would like to create a network of artists of all nations, about this subject, eventually to compare the different viewpoints.

My posters are drawn and coloured freehand, each of them is unique. The subjects are not invented but real, I use images taken from newspapers, magazines and websites. Often they are portraits of important personalities of Muslim society (novelists, poets, entrepreneurs, feminists etc…), in order to make Western societies know who they are and what they do.”… BR1 on Flickr

Fairey gets two years

On Friday Shepard Fairey was sentenced to two years’ probation by the Boston Municipal Court. The sentence is based upon the images he posted on public and private property over the years. (via Designboom)

the well-known illustrator and graphic designer has pleaded guilty to three charges of vandalism, including defacing property and wanton destruction of property under 250 USD. he had 11 other chargers which have been dropped. he has been fined 2,000 USD for graffiti removal. Designboom

Fairey’s most widely spread and famous work (probably) is the André the giant obey mashup (or whatever it should be called).

Multi-affiches Boulevard St Germain 06e? .jpg by yoyolabellut (CC BY-NC-ND)

But he reached new peaks of fame for his wonderful “hope” poster designed during the Barack Obama campaign.

Obama Posters by el clinto (CC BY-NC-ND)

Is this the plight of all known street artists who become famous enough to be identified?