Realist theory, in the cinema, often conjures up the "real" as that which precedes the image, for example, in the performance taking place in front of a camera, but in this the cinematic realists (as distinct from the stoics) have the same problem as the platonists.
What is in front of the camera, in the "profilmic", in the "outside", is the same problem, whether one is a cinematic realist or platonist. It is (we are arguing) a virtual reality.
But whereas the platonist turns from this problem (of the virtual) to the eternal (as it's realism), cinematic realism turn towards the image as it's realism (towards rediscovery of stoic realism). The cinematic realists discover the image as a reality in it's own right, even if they start in terms of the same virtual space (the same problem) in which platonic realism starts.
The virtual is always the space in which the difference between stoic realism and platonic realism can be rendered or regarded as indistinguishable. It is not that this is the case, but that it can be either engineered this way or be comprehended this way. So both camps can often sound as if they are talking about the same thing. And in many ways they are, they are within the same problem. But it is where they are heading, their destinations, their solutions, that one gets a sense of their difference between them. Platonic realism heads towards the geometrical and the mathematical, while the realists head towards the physical and dynamical (stoic realism).
Now neither is a substitute for what is "really" outside. So neither are solutions to a "real" outside the image. I've often entertained the idea that there is no outside (if only for fun), but insofar as our virtual realities seem to suggest there is some sort of outside or to render themselves that way, as indicative of that (whether mathematically or physically) I take it as a form of intelligence (rather than ignorance). And it seems more spiritually correct to think there is a world bigger than ones self anyway. I certainly feel comfortable with the idea of a world larger than myself.
But are we doomed or liberated in only being able to represent that outside, be it as aliens who control our virtual reality, as in The Matrix or Dark City, of as a TV producer and his audience, as in The Truman Show, or to defer it's representation altogether. The image, on the other hand, be it real or virtual (physical or mathematical) counter-posed as an internal process, are things we can possess, or of which we are possessed, and of which we do not need to represent (or defer such representation) but can invoke directly as objects in themselves.
Realist theory restarts itself, in a physical image (a real image) and does not seek to replace the outside with this image, but to treat the physical image as the basis for what occurs or can occur back in virtual reality which comprehends it.
Platonism restarts itself as well, and does not necessarily seek to replace the outside with it's image either. But it is more prone to that risk. It turns back to the real image (the structural space of such), from the point of view of the mathematical, and can numerically mimic the physical image that otherwise occupies that space. This is sometimes theorised as if it's ability to govern such images (that mimic the physical), within our virtual realities, were indicative of an outside that governed the physical image in the same way. This theorisation occurs in classical physics (and sometimes attempted in modern theoretical physics). And it occurs in some digital media theory as well. There is an assumption that recurs as a consequence of this, that the outside is, if belatedly (!), prefacto a given, and that any debate can only occur in the light of that belatedly comprehended given.
Realist theory provides an alternative to this. Where it can go, though, remains a question.
Bergson's Deleuze restarts a larger world (a transcendental one) that would behave in ways that parallels the world we've been considering so far: the world of our own personal consciousness. This larger world will be one on the side of the image, a world which is an image in itself. And this world at large would be a consciousness as well, not too unlike our own consciousness. Each world has a hole in it. Within each world, through the hole in each, enters something of the larger one. These holy worlds become, in the limit, a W-hole.
What I like about this is that it doesn't necessarily pose an outside any different from the inside. Just bigger. There is a bigger picture and a bigger consciousness born of it (a bigger virtual reality).
Deleuze often speaks in terms of planes which I interpret to be a kind of minimalist platonism. The images of the kind being discussed need a surface, and the plane acts as that surface. In computer generated images, planes are subdivided and structured into geometrical objects that eventually become images. But the type of image being discussed are those image which would occupy geometry rather than be the result (or effect) of any geometry. It would be those images which do not need anything more than a plane in which to exist.
Carl
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Derrida, Spectrality and Messianicity
MESSIANICITY
Derrida, like Marx, envisages an optimistic future, but instead of that future arriving (like a messiah) - which is where Derrida might differ from Marx, Derrida argues for an optimism in the structure of that arrival rather than in any requirement for the actual arrival. He is aware of what that can sounds like but he believes (I would suggest), as the saying goes, that "tomorrow never arrives", and it is in that sense he argues his point. "Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do to do today" is another way of interpreting Derrida's messianicity. If tomorrow never comes that doesn't mean we would relinquish the optimism associated with that sturcturing of tomorrow. The optimism exists today whether tomorrow comes or not. For example, we can entertain optimism today for a world in the future in which climate change will have been averted, whether or not fate decides that climate change is (or will be) averted. Now thinking in this way becomes more understandable when considering arguments against doing anything about climate change.
Where Tony Abbott argues that Australia's efforts to curb carbon emissions won't help the climate, he is effectively arguing that because (tomorrow) pollution will happen anyway, we should not entertain (today) any practice which would try to alter that outcome. The cost is Abbott's bottom line in this, of course, but that is besides the point.
The obvious counter-argument (which supports Derrida's argument) is that by attempting to do something about climate change today, even if one believes it won't help one single bit, we can say (even if Derrida doesn't) that it could avert disaster, would have a bigger chance of doing so. Or to put it another way, anyone saying anything else (such as Tony Abbott's argument) is just a self-fulfilling prophecy.
SPECTRALITY
Where Marx sees commodity fetishism taking place at the moment an object is presented as a commodity, Derrida argues it is occurring earlier, within the production of the commodity.
In both cases (Marx and Derrida) the commodity is treated as a spectre (ghost), but where Marx would otherwise hope to encourage dismissal of the ghost, as an illusion in the head of the consumer, Derrida treats the ghost as not so easily exorcised. The ghost is treated as effectively immune to dismissal (because it is not an illusion), and quite resistant to exorcism (because it is quite potent). For one thing it is not at the moment the object is for sale that it becomes a ghost. The object becomes a ghost before this point. So while I might succeed in ridding myself of commodity fetishism (for example, ignoring the fetish I have for a 3D camera) it's not as if that would stop the camera from finding someone else to possess.
Marx predicted, that the illusory nature of ghosts (of commodity fetishism) would eventually mean such fetishism would fail, ie. that capitalism would fail. Or that a practice aimed at dismantling such illusions would otherwise determine that failure.
The issue for Derrida is that capitalism may not be doomed in that particular way because the commodity is a ghost before the consumer is involved, before it possesses the consumer. So for example, it is not because I have a fetish for 3D cameras that I purchase the camera (Marx), but that the 3D camera (ghost) already has it in for me or someone else like me (Derrida).
Derrida doesn't provide a solution for this but provides a start. Instead of attempting to dismiss the ghost (or exorcise it) as if it were some ephemeral thing, one can open up a dialogue with it. To treat the ghost, not as an ephemeral illusion (which would evaporate anyway), but as a potent force to be reckoned with. The force does not need to be considered as originating within ourselves (but even if it did, so what?) but as one which requires negotiation if it is to be reckoned with (rather than relying on exorcism or dismissal).
Derrida, like Marx, envisages an optimistic future, but instead of that future arriving (like a messiah) - which is where Derrida might differ from Marx, Derrida argues for an optimism in the structure of that arrival rather than in any requirement for the actual arrival. He is aware of what that can sounds like but he believes (I would suggest), as the saying goes, that "tomorrow never arrives", and it is in that sense he argues his point. "Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do to do today" is another way of interpreting Derrida's messianicity. If tomorrow never comes that doesn't mean we would relinquish the optimism associated with that sturcturing of tomorrow. The optimism exists today whether tomorrow comes or not. For example, we can entertain optimism today for a world in the future in which climate change will have been averted, whether or not fate decides that climate change is (or will be) averted. Now thinking in this way becomes more understandable when considering arguments against doing anything about climate change.
Where Tony Abbott argues that Australia's efforts to curb carbon emissions won't help the climate, he is effectively arguing that because (tomorrow) pollution will happen anyway, we should not entertain (today) any practice which would try to alter that outcome. The cost is Abbott's bottom line in this, of course, but that is besides the point.
The obvious counter-argument (which supports Derrida's argument) is that by attempting to do something about climate change today, even if one believes it won't help one single bit, we can say (even if Derrida doesn't) that it could avert disaster, would have a bigger chance of doing so. Or to put it another way, anyone saying anything else (such as Tony Abbott's argument) is just a self-fulfilling prophecy.
SPECTRALITY
Where Marx sees commodity fetishism taking place at the moment an object is presented as a commodity, Derrida argues it is occurring earlier, within the production of the commodity.
In both cases (Marx and Derrida) the commodity is treated as a spectre (ghost), but where Marx would otherwise hope to encourage dismissal of the ghost, as an illusion in the head of the consumer, Derrida treats the ghost as not so easily exorcised. The ghost is treated as effectively immune to dismissal (because it is not an illusion), and quite resistant to exorcism (because it is quite potent). For one thing it is not at the moment the object is for sale that it becomes a ghost. The object becomes a ghost before this point. So while I might succeed in ridding myself of commodity fetishism (for example, ignoring the fetish I have for a 3D camera) it's not as if that would stop the camera from finding someone else to possess.
Marx predicted, that the illusory nature of ghosts (of commodity fetishism) would eventually mean such fetishism would fail, ie. that capitalism would fail. Or that a practice aimed at dismantling such illusions would otherwise determine that failure.
The issue for Derrida is that capitalism may not be doomed in that particular way because the commodity is a ghost before the consumer is involved, before it possesses the consumer. So for example, it is not because I have a fetish for 3D cameras that I purchase the camera (Marx), but that the 3D camera (ghost) already has it in for me or someone else like me (Derrida).
Derrida doesn't provide a solution for this but provides a start. Instead of attempting to dismiss the ghost (or exorcise it) as if it were some ephemeral thing, one can open up a dialogue with it. To treat the ghost, not as an ephemeral illusion (which would evaporate anyway), but as a potent force to be reckoned with. The force does not need to be considered as originating within ourselves (but even if it did, so what?) but as one which requires negotiation if it is to be reckoned with (rather than relying on exorcism or dismissal).
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Virtualisation, Objectification and Othering
The process of virtualisation begins before we are even conscious of it. Whether this is an inherited automatism of some sort (genetic), or otherwise acquired (in childhood) need not concern us. It is certainly related to Peirce's famous categories of firstness, secondness and thirdness. However virtualisation starts prior to these, before there is even an image on which to operate. Now it may not be this way for the newly born infant, but we'll treat Peirce's categories as pertaining to what is otherwise experienced across the interval of one's life, rather than at it's inception. So we can say that, or propose that, there is a virtual reality already constructed (for whatever reason) in which these categories will have a stage on which to act. If we eventually perform an 'othering' which will separate a recognised object from consciousness of it (Cubitt), it's not as if the process of othering had not already begun.
Peircean firstness is an act which begins with the real image - but it begins with that real image having already been virtualised. A virtual image of it. Or at least that is the way I'm defining "virtualisation". We can always propose the Peircean operators as occuring prior to consciousness - as if virtualisation were none other than Peircean operations. In this case we can assume a second round of Peircean perception, that which does take place within consciousness, perhaps recovering or echoing the first round rather than necessarily repeating or adding to it. Either way the virtualisation (of which I'm speaking) is one that would (whether Peircean or otherwise) precede consciousness. It occurs after the real image on which it operates, and before we are aware of it (before consciousness).
At least that is the argument being pursued here.
From the point of view of an audience watching a film there is certainly no conceptual difference, at the level of the real image, between, for example, a hand drawn animation and an otherwise cinematographic one. In the digital age we can say that both, irregardless of origin, end up as pixels.
However I don't directly experience such a real image. I experience a virtual version of such. For example, while the cinema image begins life for me, on my retina, what I physically experience is the image as outside of myself, as up on a screen. Indeed the process of virtualisation encodes my body, as located relative to the screen, as the observer of that image on the screen. I have this powerful, if not magical, sense of being in a space called the cinema and watching a film. Before the film has even started I am objectifying the space in which the film will screen. And I am objectifying the film as if it were there on a screen outside of myself. And in this context the film, even before I see what is in hold, is a virtual image.
Now in relation to the space of the cinema, and the screen, we might say that this process of objectification (virtualisation) is an adequate correction. While the image forming the basis for this objectification occurs on the retina we have learned, in one way or another (Lacanian mirrors?), that the image does not originate with us, but belongs to some process other than ourselves. If our virtual reality acts in a way to delocalise that image, to separate it out from us, then it has a certain bodily intelligence in doing that - assuming of course the images do belong to something other than ourselves.
However we can also end up, consciously or otherwise, objectifying images that do not require it. Or might be an error to do so. On the other hand an entertaining aspect of an animated film is often through allowing the automated objectification have it's way with such images. The effect of motion in an animated (and cinematographic images) occurs through the virtualisation of movement where there is otherwise still images. The motion that might properly belong to other objects becomes ascribed to the film images. But in the case of an animated film the virtualisation would not be a correction since the animated film never had motion in the first place. It is animated by working in concert with the act of virtualisation which will supply that movement. But with cinematographic images the virtualised motion would be a correction. Or at least that is how we're defining the cinematographic. The virtualisation process restores the movement that was otherwise lost during the process of creation. That it can "restore" motion to things that never had it we can choose to allow or deny as we see fit. So while each might be equivalent at the level of a real image (as information, as pixels) the act of comprehension (virtualisation) is able to make ammends in the perception pipeline - to restore motion to things that originally had it, or to allow/deny motion for things that didn't.
Or be misled.
For example one can be misled into believing that cinematographic images are no different from animated images, for example, that since neither have motion and that the act of virtualisation, which otherwise bestows motion on both, must therefore stop entertaining the possibility of any difference at that point. One can be misled into believing that if any perception of difference emerges, no matter how obvious, or even because of it's very obviousness, it must be treated as a some potential defectiveness in one's perceptual apparatus.
But there are also other forces involved. The act of comprehension that occurs in relation to a film can be manipulated by the filmmakers, not necessarily for evil, but not necessarily for good either. The process of objectification which otherwise corrects an image or allows animated films to work, can be (amongst other things) brought to the point of indistinguishability. Not that such is easy to do. Or even evil. There is an appreciation one can allow the efforts of photo-realists (or psuedo-realists for Bazin). A Manovichean universe in which the animated and the cinematographic are the same thing. Here it is not a question of whether a comprehended distinction should be internalised as a sign of error (because the distinction does not exist), but why: why should an absence of distinction here, (where otherwise one might have existed), should become the basis for treating any or all distinctions, which are comprehendable, as not so.
There is a desire here, for a kind of homogenous universe, without any holes. Without inconsistencies. An error free world where the concept of correction becomes redundant.
At some point the process of virtualisation separates a recognised object from consciousness of it. Or attempts to do so. This is the point at which virtualisation either makes it's biggest mistake, or it's biggest correction. But it's not just with recognised objects. The unrecognised can undergo the same operation. I may not recognise an object in a photograph but I would not necessarily retain it as anything different from what I do recognise. I can still perform the act of separation for those, along with the other objects I do recognise.
But what gets exchanged in this process? And how does the capitalist system exploit it? Or is objectification to be exorcised at it's root, as the actual basis for commodity fetishism? But on what basis can a capitalist system claim ownership of this process of objectification? Was this, or is this objectification an invention of capitalism?
I'll leave these as rhetorical questions for now because this talk of capitalism reminds me I have other work to do, if I'm to survive the poverty that capitalism creates.
----
In the meantime, since the task of survival never seems completable, we can return to this question of othering. The virtual reality, in which a real image (retinal image) is virtualised, reaches a point where there is a classical compulsion to then separate the virtual object (and/or the framework) from the temporary consciousness (the virtual reality) in which it is otherwise suspended. As if othering had not yet already started. As if the virtual reality was not yet already the other of what it otherwise seeks to comprehend. The classical (and also modern) compulsion is to substitute the partially comprehensible, with it's comprehension, (as part of the act of such) and it necessarily resitu/f/ates the retinal image as having originated, not within the partially comprehensable, but within it's substitute. Within it's comprehension.
If our virtual framework is constructed in terms of an eternal one (the mathematical), in which otherwise interim random forces have no option but to (in the limit) cancel each other out, we should not be surprised to find virtual images evolving towards this. But it should also not surprise us, that an act of comprehension, re-othered as (exchanged for) the universe itself (whatever that may be), as an eternal version of that, should then have fundamental trouble acting as the origin of the image which it otherwise frames.
Carl
Peircean firstness is an act which begins with the real image - but it begins with that real image having already been virtualised. A virtual image of it. Or at least that is the way I'm defining "virtualisation". We can always propose the Peircean operators as occuring prior to consciousness - as if virtualisation were none other than Peircean operations. In this case we can assume a second round of Peircean perception, that which does take place within consciousness, perhaps recovering or echoing the first round rather than necessarily repeating or adding to it. Either way the virtualisation (of which I'm speaking) is one that would (whether Peircean or otherwise) precede consciousness. It occurs after the real image on which it operates, and before we are aware of it (before consciousness).
At least that is the argument being pursued here.
From the point of view of an audience watching a film there is certainly no conceptual difference, at the level of the real image, between, for example, a hand drawn animation and an otherwise cinematographic one. In the digital age we can say that both, irregardless of origin, end up as pixels.
However I don't directly experience such a real image. I experience a virtual version of such. For example, while the cinema image begins life for me, on my retina, what I physically experience is the image as outside of myself, as up on a screen. Indeed the process of virtualisation encodes my body, as located relative to the screen, as the observer of that image on the screen. I have this powerful, if not magical, sense of being in a space called the cinema and watching a film. Before the film has even started I am objectifying the space in which the film will screen. And I am objectifying the film as if it were there on a screen outside of myself. And in this context the film, even before I see what is in hold, is a virtual image.
Now in relation to the space of the cinema, and the screen, we might say that this process of objectification (virtualisation) is an adequate correction. While the image forming the basis for this objectification occurs on the retina we have learned, in one way or another (Lacanian mirrors?), that the image does not originate with us, but belongs to some process other than ourselves. If our virtual reality acts in a way to delocalise that image, to separate it out from us, then it has a certain bodily intelligence in doing that - assuming of course the images do belong to something other than ourselves.
However we can also end up, consciously or otherwise, objectifying images that do not require it. Or might be an error to do so. On the other hand an entertaining aspect of an animated film is often through allowing the automated objectification have it's way with such images. The effect of motion in an animated (and cinematographic images) occurs through the virtualisation of movement where there is otherwise still images. The motion that might properly belong to other objects becomes ascribed to the film images. But in the case of an animated film the virtualisation would not be a correction since the animated film never had motion in the first place. It is animated by working in concert with the act of virtualisation which will supply that movement. But with cinematographic images the virtualised motion would be a correction. Or at least that is how we're defining the cinematographic. The virtualisation process restores the movement that was otherwise lost during the process of creation. That it can "restore" motion to things that never had it we can choose to allow or deny as we see fit. So while each might be equivalent at the level of a real image (as information, as pixels) the act of comprehension (virtualisation) is able to make ammends in the perception pipeline - to restore motion to things that originally had it, or to allow/deny motion for things that didn't.
Or be misled.
For example one can be misled into believing that cinematographic images are no different from animated images, for example, that since neither have motion and that the act of virtualisation, which otherwise bestows motion on both, must therefore stop entertaining the possibility of any difference at that point. One can be misled into believing that if any perception of difference emerges, no matter how obvious, or even because of it's very obviousness, it must be treated as a some potential defectiveness in one's perceptual apparatus.
But there are also other forces involved. The act of comprehension that occurs in relation to a film can be manipulated by the filmmakers, not necessarily for evil, but not necessarily for good either. The process of objectification which otherwise corrects an image or allows animated films to work, can be (amongst other things) brought to the point of indistinguishability. Not that such is easy to do. Or even evil. There is an appreciation one can allow the efforts of photo-realists (or psuedo-realists for Bazin). A Manovichean universe in which the animated and the cinematographic are the same thing. Here it is not a question of whether a comprehended distinction should be internalised as a sign of error (because the distinction does not exist), but why: why should an absence of distinction here, (where otherwise one might have existed), should become the basis for treating any or all distinctions, which are comprehendable, as not so.
There is a desire here, for a kind of homogenous universe, without any holes. Without inconsistencies. An error free world where the concept of correction becomes redundant.
At some point the process of virtualisation separates a recognised object from consciousness of it. Or attempts to do so. This is the point at which virtualisation either makes it's biggest mistake, or it's biggest correction. But it's not just with recognised objects. The unrecognised can undergo the same operation. I may not recognise an object in a photograph but I would not necessarily retain it as anything different from what I do recognise. I can still perform the act of separation for those, along with the other objects I do recognise.
But what gets exchanged in this process? And how does the capitalist system exploit it? Or is objectification to be exorcised at it's root, as the actual basis for commodity fetishism? But on what basis can a capitalist system claim ownership of this process of objectification? Was this, or is this objectification an invention of capitalism?
I'll leave these as rhetorical questions for now because this talk of capitalism reminds me I have other work to do, if I'm to survive the poverty that capitalism creates.
----
In the meantime, since the task of survival never seems completable, we can return to this question of othering. The virtual reality, in which a real image (retinal image) is virtualised, reaches a point where there is a classical compulsion to then separate the virtual object (and/or the framework) from the temporary consciousness (the virtual reality) in which it is otherwise suspended. As if othering had not yet already started. As if the virtual reality was not yet already the other of what it otherwise seeks to comprehend. The classical (and also modern) compulsion is to substitute the partially comprehensible, with it's comprehension, (as part of the act of such) and it necessarily resitu/f/ates the retinal image as having originated, not within the partially comprehensable, but within it's substitute. Within it's comprehension.
If our virtual framework is constructed in terms of an eternal one (the mathematical), in which otherwise interim random forces have no option but to (in the limit) cancel each other out, we should not be surprised to find virtual images evolving towards this. But it should also not surprise us, that an act of comprehension, re-othered as (exchanged for) the universe itself (whatever that may be), as an eternal version of that, should then have fundamental trouble acting as the origin of the image which it otherwise frames.
Carl
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
How to populate shadows with content
If I hold my hand up, in front of a light, it casts a shadow on the wall. My hand (my image of it) has lots of details. The shadow of my hand (my image of it), is empty of such details.
I had this idea in the late eighties (while at art school) of how to populate a real shadow with an image, while outside the region of the shadow would be another image. I never implemented it due to lack of resources. But here is how I was going to do it.
It involved substituting the wall with a translucent screen. On either side of the screen would be a video projector projecting an image. A projector on one side and a projector on the other. When you held up your hand in front of one of the projectors, it would cast a shadow. Inside the shadow would be an image and outside the shadow would be the other image.
A computer would operate on a source image (a video signal) splitting that signal into two signals, but in a completely random way. One signal would go to one projector while the other signal would go to the other projector. Now each signal on their own was just noise (no signal) but when recombined on the screen the result would be the original signal. This was inspired by Neils Bohr's deconstruction of Einstein's EPR experiment and Plato's parable. Anyway, if you were to put your hand in front of one of the projectors, the result would be a shadow, but in the domain of which, would be noise. Everywhere else would be the signal.
Now if the projection occurs at a fast enough rate (eg. 50 herz) there is a perceivable integration which can occur in the interval between one frame and the next (or previous). So two otherwise random patterns, when integrated, would tend to cancel each other out - which is why noise looks sort of empty. But if the circuit was programmed to produce successive psuedo-noise patterns, that when integrated, formed an image instead, then in the domain of the shadow an image would be produced. Outside the domain of the shadow the alternative image would be reconsituted. The outside of the shadow would occur as a function of spatial reintegration on image A, while the inside of the shadow would occur as a function of temporal integration on image B. There would be no bleeding of one signal in the domain of the other.
The arm placed in front of the projector would act as a physical switch between these two images.
Now the alternative way of achieving a similar effect, but doesn't tap into Bohr's deconstruction of EPR is the following:
To projector 1 is sent the image: A-B
To projector 2 is sent the image: B.
Outside a shadow the images will combine to produce: A = A-B+B
Inside a shadow (with a hand in front of projector1) you have only projector2: B
However, on the surface of the hand will appear image A-B.
In the random version, on the surface of the hand won't appear an image (or signal). What will appear instead is noise.
Carl
I had this idea in the late eighties (while at art school) of how to populate a real shadow with an image, while outside the region of the shadow would be another image. I never implemented it due to lack of resources. But here is how I was going to do it.
It involved substituting the wall with a translucent screen. On either side of the screen would be a video projector projecting an image. A projector on one side and a projector on the other. When you held up your hand in front of one of the projectors, it would cast a shadow. Inside the shadow would be an image and outside the shadow would be the other image.
A computer would operate on a source image (a video signal) splitting that signal into two signals, but in a completely random way. One signal would go to one projector while the other signal would go to the other projector. Now each signal on their own was just noise (no signal) but when recombined on the screen the result would be the original signal. This was inspired by Neils Bohr's deconstruction of Einstein's EPR experiment and Plato's parable. Anyway, if you were to put your hand in front of one of the projectors, the result would be a shadow, but in the domain of which, would be noise. Everywhere else would be the signal.
Now if the projection occurs at a fast enough rate (eg. 50 herz) there is a perceivable integration which can occur in the interval between one frame and the next (or previous). So two otherwise random patterns, when integrated, would tend to cancel each other out - which is why noise looks sort of empty. But if the circuit was programmed to produce successive psuedo-noise patterns, that when integrated, formed an image instead, then in the domain of the shadow an image would be produced. Outside the domain of the shadow the alternative image would be reconsituted. The outside of the shadow would occur as a function of spatial reintegration on image A, while the inside of the shadow would occur as a function of temporal integration on image B. There would be no bleeding of one signal in the domain of the other.
The arm placed in front of the projector would act as a physical switch between these two images.
Now the alternative way of achieving a similar effect, but doesn't tap into Bohr's deconstruction of EPR is the following:
To projector 1 is sent the image: A-B
To projector 2 is sent the image: B.
Outside a shadow the images will combine to produce: A = A-B+B
Inside a shadow (with a hand in front of projector1) you have only projector2: B
However, on the surface of the hand will appear image A-B.
In the random version, on the surface of the hand won't appear an image (or signal). What will appear instead is noise.
Carl
Mechancial Deproduction
The source of the problem, of so many photographs that look the same, goes back to the error in reading a photograph as if it were no different from a painting, or the output of a printing press for that matter. The error is in reading a photograph as if it were the result of a printing process, a reproduction process, where something is being reproduced, where there is believed to be an already existing image.
The printing press was originally built to aid in the reproduction of books, which, until then, had to be manually transcribed by hand. One of the main tasks of a medieval monk was to "print" books by hand. Now in this situation the object being printed (whether by hand or press) exists prior to it's reproduction. There were always variations that occured - the marginalia, the illuminations. But the primary content had as it's origin, an original. In the case of reproductions with a long history the original might have since turned to dust.
Photography remains, for the most part, interpreted as a copy of something, as a reproduction, as a print. Indeed one author situates photography as having it's origin in the printing press.
While I can fight this reading head on, here now, it is not necessarily possible to avoid that when reading a photograph. Even when it is most clear, in words, a counter-argument, it is easy to slip back into the habit of reading a photograph as if it were no more than a mechanical reproduction of some pre-existant (if temporary) original. Even realists fall back into this way of reading. Perhaps realists most of all.
However the theory can take a different tangent from practice. It need not determine practice. It can act as a way of thinking in words around whatever practice one does pursue. Indeed practice, I believe, can be regarded as a way of thinking, through another channel, one that doesn't necessarily use words, or one that isn't necessarily even possible to be mediated through words. That doesn't mean words can't still operate, or rather, co-operate with such practice.
Now I've been suggesting, implying or almost saying that photography is not a reproduction (mechanical or otherwise) of anything. But that is not quite true. Photography can reproduce things, and is often used to do so. But the argument I've been developing is that reproduction is not it's fundamental attribute. It has this power, but it is not it's only power, nor is it photography's fundamental power.
A photograph is capable of speaking in a language that does not need the eternal (the ideal virtual), and is capable of arguing against that virtual and upsetting that virtual - deconstructing that virtual at it's basis. It is a language, perhaps, which involves a form of gambling in which the artist can place a bet, rather than necessarily operating the table. But the object of the exercise is not winning (or losing) but playing the game in such a way that it doesn't matter whether one wins or loses. Perhaps "gambling" is not the right word since such implies an investment in the outcome. However it's the random nature of gambling that is the interesting part, or rather, it's dialectical relationship to the owner of the table.
The printing press is a deterministic system in which there is an object and it's reproduction, where each can be regarded as a reflection of the other, irregardless of their chronological order. An original implies it's reproduction and vice versa. But at the heart of photography is not this deterministic system but an acausal one in which there is no fundamental cause/effect in operation. If photography has the power to reproduce, it is achieved by working around it's fundamental indeterminancy. It is the equations of quantum mechanics (more than 50 years after the invention of photography) that formalise (virtualise) both the indeterminacy and the ways around it. The ways around it were discovered informally, ie. in practice, and probably account for why photography has been historically read as "mechanical reproduction".
An example of the use of quantum theory, to get around photography's indeterminacy (while simultaneously exploiting it) is the hologram. A hologram is made using film which is not any different from ordinary film, other than being of a higher definition. Otherwise it reacts to light in exactly the same way as ordinary film. But by using laser light, arranged in a certain way (according to quantum theory), a three dimensional image can be created.
Now the ways around the indeterminacy of photography is the way of casino operators. An alternative approach is not that of the gambler as such, but in what is possible in the dialectical space between the gambler and the casino operator.
The printing press was originally built to aid in the reproduction of books, which, until then, had to be manually transcribed by hand. One of the main tasks of a medieval monk was to "print" books by hand. Now in this situation the object being printed (whether by hand or press) exists prior to it's reproduction. There were always variations that occured - the marginalia, the illuminations. But the primary content had as it's origin, an original. In the case of reproductions with a long history the original might have since turned to dust.
Photography remains, for the most part, interpreted as a copy of something, as a reproduction, as a print. Indeed one author situates photography as having it's origin in the printing press.
While I can fight this reading head on, here now, it is not necessarily possible to avoid that when reading a photograph. Even when it is most clear, in words, a counter-argument, it is easy to slip back into the habit of reading a photograph as if it were no more than a mechanical reproduction of some pre-existant (if temporary) original. Even realists fall back into this way of reading. Perhaps realists most of all.
However the theory can take a different tangent from practice. It need not determine practice. It can act as a way of thinking in words around whatever practice one does pursue. Indeed practice, I believe, can be regarded as a way of thinking, through another channel, one that doesn't necessarily use words, or one that isn't necessarily even possible to be mediated through words. That doesn't mean words can't still operate, or rather, co-operate with such practice.
Now I've been suggesting, implying or almost saying that photography is not a reproduction (mechanical or otherwise) of anything. But that is not quite true. Photography can reproduce things, and is often used to do so. But the argument I've been developing is that reproduction is not it's fundamental attribute. It has this power, but it is not it's only power, nor is it photography's fundamental power.
A photograph is capable of speaking in a language that does not need the eternal (the ideal virtual), and is capable of arguing against that virtual and upsetting that virtual - deconstructing that virtual at it's basis. It is a language, perhaps, which involves a form of gambling in which the artist can place a bet, rather than necessarily operating the table. But the object of the exercise is not winning (or losing) but playing the game in such a way that it doesn't matter whether one wins or loses. Perhaps "gambling" is not the right word since such implies an investment in the outcome. However it's the random nature of gambling that is the interesting part, or rather, it's dialectical relationship to the owner of the table.
The printing press is a deterministic system in which there is an object and it's reproduction, where each can be regarded as a reflection of the other, irregardless of their chronological order. An original implies it's reproduction and vice versa. But at the heart of photography is not this deterministic system but an acausal one in which there is no fundamental cause/effect in operation. If photography has the power to reproduce, it is achieved by working around it's fundamental indeterminancy. It is the equations of quantum mechanics (more than 50 years after the invention of photography) that formalise (virtualise) both the indeterminacy and the ways around it. The ways around it were discovered informally, ie. in practice, and probably account for why photography has been historically read as "mechanical reproduction".
An example of the use of quantum theory, to get around photography's indeterminacy (while simultaneously exploiting it) is the hologram. A hologram is made using film which is not any different from ordinary film, other than being of a higher definition. Otherwise it reacts to light in exactly the same way as ordinary film. But by using laser light, arranged in a certain way (according to quantum theory), a three dimensional image can be created.
Now the ways around the indeterminacy of photography is the way of casino operators. An alternative approach is not that of the gambler as such, but in what is possible in the dialectical space between the gambler and the casino operator.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
The Real, the Virtual and Quantum Theoretical
The visual experience we have, of a world outside of ourselves, is an hallucination. Now it is not the outside world in itself, that is the hallucination, but rather our experience of it.
Now while this might sound consistent with Plato's argument, with his parable of the cave, the problem for Plato, and modern variants, such as The Matrix and Dark City, is that we can not necessarily distinguish any experience of the outside world (such as a cave shadow) from anything that would be any other than just another experience of that outside world (such as Plato's retina). In other words there is not any determinate difference between Plato's "reality", outside the cave, and the experience of those inside the cave. They are both, in a sense, inside their own cave - inside an experience of what is otherwise outside.
On the other hand we could read Plato as being more metaphoric than literal, that he is not necessarily meaning what is available as an experience outside the cave but rather, meaning the idea of an outside, outside of experience, outside of the cave.
However, the idea of an outside, is still something that occurs within thought (within a cave). And one could argue that the idea of an outside, precisely because it is more metaphoric than literal, is actually more removed from the outside than the simpler, more literal experience of such.
But lets not treat this as necessarily a criticism. We can always regard a suitable idea of an outside as a way to correct an otherwise the internal, cave-like nature of experience. But is such a correction necessary? Is not the hallucination of an outside, appearing as if outside, already it's correction? Do we not (normally) experience the images on our retina as if they were not on our retina? Do we not already experience those images as if they were already outside of ourselves?
Before going further, we need to to agree on a code. The code I adopt is from optics.
In optics the term "real image" refers to those images which occur at a surface. The use of the word "real" has nothing to do with the content of such images. It is simply code for surface images, such as a shadow on a cave wall, an image on a retina, or an image on the screen in a camera obscura. In contrast to such real images, is the "virtual image". A virtual image is that correction which occurs, which re-situates a real image, as if outside of ourselves, as if out there in space. It is the virtual image which we effectively experience.
Now the last term I want to use, and which has already been used, is the "outside". This is the difficult one because there is no way of clarifying this term other than as some sort of negation of the previous two. Neither real nor virtual it is outside of both and has no image. It is an empty signifier.
The reason it is empty is not necessarily because it is empty but because we have yet to find what is signified by such. Or even if that is possible. It is a signifier in search of some sort of meaning other than those discussed, and other than being just this other.
In it's current form it is transcendental and therefore open to criticism as such. Nevertheless we hold on to it and if needs be, we can always abandon it. Or put it back in the cupboard for another day.
Now what strikes me as marvellous about the virtual is this correction which occurs. It's not necessarily a complete correction, or even an adequate one, or even a correction (!) but it's a transformation performed by the brain, on real images. This is particularly striking in the case of stereoscopic images. The images themselves (the real images) have no depth but the brain is able to, almost immediately, to experience the stereoscopic images as if they were occupying the space either side of the screen in which we would otherwise situate those images. This depth effect occurs in our brain. This effect demonstrates what is meant by the virtual. It is not just the stereoscopic image which is virtual but the entire space around it as well. The entire world around us, whether inside a cinema (cave), or outside, is virtual.
But the basis for this virtual (apart from the brain of course) is the real image (shadow, retinal etc) which informs it and on which the brain operates. The real image sits at the interface between the virtual and the outside. Or at least that is our proposition. The virtual provides for a correction in relation to the real image, reposing the image, as if it were outside of ourselves. We could also call it an illusion (rather than a correction) if we assumed there were no outside. Or we may want to call it such even if we do believe there is an outside, but calling it an illusion so as to indicate the so called correction isn't a correction, or could be a better correction.
Now what can complicate this is when we introduce images that are not so immediate. For example a photograph. While cave dwellers pondering a shadow are doing so at the same time as the outside of such is taking place, a photograph or a film occurs somewhat later, and can (and usually does) involve various additional processes (such as special effects) which complicate or otherwise void any correction. Correction, in this case, would be a somewhat inappropriate word. But nevertheless, those operations, which we've otherwise called a "correction" still take place. It is only the word which is inappropriate. So with that understood we'll continue to use the word "correction" for the operation, even if a correction isn't the result. A better word, in this context, might be "virtualisation".
Irregardless of how a real image is constructed we virtualise that real image. Not only by situating a retinal image outside of ourselves, but situating any real images within that (such as a photograph) as having content outside of that image.
Now returning to Plato, the problem for Plato, is twofold:
1. the virtual already makes a correction in relation to real images.
2. the space in which this correction occurs can not be the source of a real image
The second point is worth re-reading. Plato's argument is that the reality/origin of the cave shadows is outside the cave. But Plato's outside is not that of our currently empty signifier (which we'll speak about later) but the virtual - that psychological space in which the cave shadows (or Plato's retinal image) undergoes virtualisation. This occurs as an operation on the real image. The real image can not be a function of the operations which otherwise operate on that real image. It is the virtual image which is a function of operations on a real image. Not the other way around.
Now, of course, we can construct images in our imagination, ie. within the virtual, and actualise those images as real images. For example, computer synthesised images can be imagined, constructed, and rendered. The space in which such images have their origin is effectively the virtual. Which brings us to what has been, until about a hundred years ago, an equivalence that could be created between the virtual and the outside.
The virtual starts out, no doubt, as an evolutionary response to real images. There has evolved a kind of bodily intelligence in relation to real images, a virtual reality, in which otherwise real images (retinal images) are corrected inside the brain. We see things as outside of ourselves because (we propose) what we see represents what is outside of ourselves. And what better representation than to appear as if outside ourselves. But in addition to such we have also developed schemes for representing the outside in terms of geometry and mathematics. So precise were these additional tools we've been able to create what we thought were completely accurate models of what was otherwise happening outside.
But about a hundred years ago, models that been in use since antiquity, while undergoing various modifications and rethinks, underwent it's biggest rethink, the philosophical ramifications of which are still being hotly debated to this day. Quantum mechanics was discovered and quantum theory developed. It turns out (perhaps not surprisingly) that the outside may not be completely thinkable in terms of our virtual frameworks. Until then we could have always asserted that our virtual reality is just a substitute for some actual reality - that what we mean by our virtual reality is that actual reality. That when we say a real image, such as a shadow, has it's origin outside the cave, even if the outside is a virtual reality, we mean by that virtual reality, what that means: some actual reality.
That argument is one that could have worked, (or has worked), prior to quantum theory. In classical theory, if a theory was really correct, then the virtual (the theory), and what it otherwise represents ("reality") could be interchanged. In this classical context a real image would have it's origin in an outside "reality" and that "reality" would be no different from an ideal virtual that otherwise reproduced it. If it walks like a duck it probably is a duck.
Now quantum theory is very strange and the reason for this strangeness isn't necessarily a function of it's assumptions. Indeed the theory is generally, and most successfully, I'd argue, described in terms of classical assumptions because it is through classical assumptions that it's fundamental strangeness is most obvious. While it's tempting to think that alternative assumptions might alleviate the strangeness, I've never found this to be the case. For some theorists the many worlds interpretation of quantum theory is less strange than the original quasi-classical one. And to some extent it may be. But personally I think the alternative assumptions just make quantum theory even stranger. But that could very well be a good thing.
In classical theory (Plato, Aristotle, etc) it is an assumption that images are an effect of a reality outside the image. Not all classical theory is of this persuasion. But let us just say that what we mean by "classical theory" is that which assumes this is the case. The task of classical theory, armed by the certainty of mathematics, and the assumption of images as a function of an outside reality, is to (or was to) define an equivalent virtual reality for that outside. If a virtual reality (ie. a theory) could produce images that were the same image as those created by the reality outside, then the virtual reality could act (virtually) as a substitute for that outside reality. The virtual reality could be, in principle, the mind of God.
With the advent of computer generated images we can partly (if not wholly) see what classical theorists (as a whole) have in mind. When you put all the theory together, you see quite remarkable demonstrations of more or less exactly what they are thinking. An entire branch of computer generated imagery is devoted to producing the basis for an exchange between virtual reality (comprehension) and reality (the outside). However the emphasis has shifted somewhat. The goal of the exercise is now more about creating a subconscious sense of an equivalence rather than necessarily an actual equivalence. But perhaps for good reason.
For reasons we can feel free to admit as beyond us, it is (it would seem to me) impossible to completely exchange the virtual for the reality it otherwise seeks to represent, (or to be). I sometimes feel, in a moment of random insight, that I know why, only to realise I have no idea. What I do recognise, is the historical pressure, to discover why (or how) it is like that, or why/how it isn't like that. It is a pressure I try to ignore.
In quantum theory the relationship between a classical description of an experimental setup, and a classical description of it's image (a real image) is not classically describable. Or rather, a classical description of this relationship, in terms of a direct one to one mapping, fails. What is possible, in it's place, is not any better (in terms of a one to one mapping) but has the virtue of being, at least (so far) correct.
to be continued
Now while this might sound consistent with Plato's argument, with his parable of the cave, the problem for Plato, and modern variants, such as The Matrix and Dark City, is that we can not necessarily distinguish any experience of the outside world (such as a cave shadow) from anything that would be any other than just another experience of that outside world (such as Plato's retina). In other words there is not any determinate difference between Plato's "reality", outside the cave, and the experience of those inside the cave. They are both, in a sense, inside their own cave - inside an experience of what is otherwise outside.
On the other hand we could read Plato as being more metaphoric than literal, that he is not necessarily meaning what is available as an experience outside the cave but rather, meaning the idea of an outside, outside of experience, outside of the cave.
However, the idea of an outside, is still something that occurs within thought (within a cave). And one could argue that the idea of an outside, precisely because it is more metaphoric than literal, is actually more removed from the outside than the simpler, more literal experience of such.
But lets not treat this as necessarily a criticism. We can always regard a suitable idea of an outside as a way to correct an otherwise the internal, cave-like nature of experience. But is such a correction necessary? Is not the hallucination of an outside, appearing as if outside, already it's correction? Do we not (normally) experience the images on our retina as if they were not on our retina? Do we not already experience those images as if they were already outside of ourselves?
Before going further, we need to to agree on a code. The code I adopt is from optics.
In optics the term "real image" refers to those images which occur at a surface. The use of the word "real" has nothing to do with the content of such images. It is simply code for surface images, such as a shadow on a cave wall, an image on a retina, or an image on the screen in a camera obscura. In contrast to such real images, is the "virtual image". A virtual image is that correction which occurs, which re-situates a real image, as if outside of ourselves, as if out there in space. It is the virtual image which we effectively experience.
Now the last term I want to use, and which has already been used, is the "outside". This is the difficult one because there is no way of clarifying this term other than as some sort of negation of the previous two. Neither real nor virtual it is outside of both and has no image. It is an empty signifier.
The reason it is empty is not necessarily because it is empty but because we have yet to find what is signified by such. Or even if that is possible. It is a signifier in search of some sort of meaning other than those discussed, and other than being just this other.
In it's current form it is transcendental and therefore open to criticism as such. Nevertheless we hold on to it and if needs be, we can always abandon it. Or put it back in the cupboard for another day.
Now what strikes me as marvellous about the virtual is this correction which occurs. It's not necessarily a complete correction, or even an adequate one, or even a correction (!) but it's a transformation performed by the brain, on real images. This is particularly striking in the case of stereoscopic images. The images themselves (the real images) have no depth but the brain is able to, almost immediately, to experience the stereoscopic images as if they were occupying the space either side of the screen in which we would otherwise situate those images. This depth effect occurs in our brain. This effect demonstrates what is meant by the virtual. It is not just the stereoscopic image which is virtual but the entire space around it as well. The entire world around us, whether inside a cinema (cave), or outside, is virtual.
But the basis for this virtual (apart from the brain of course) is the real image (shadow, retinal etc) which informs it and on which the brain operates. The real image sits at the interface between the virtual and the outside. Or at least that is our proposition. The virtual provides for a correction in relation to the real image, reposing the image, as if it were outside of ourselves. We could also call it an illusion (rather than a correction) if we assumed there were no outside. Or we may want to call it such even if we do believe there is an outside, but calling it an illusion so as to indicate the so called correction isn't a correction, or could be a better correction.
Now what can complicate this is when we introduce images that are not so immediate. For example a photograph. While cave dwellers pondering a shadow are doing so at the same time as the outside of such is taking place, a photograph or a film occurs somewhat later, and can (and usually does) involve various additional processes (such as special effects) which complicate or otherwise void any correction. Correction, in this case, would be a somewhat inappropriate word. But nevertheless, those operations, which we've otherwise called a "correction" still take place. It is only the word which is inappropriate. So with that understood we'll continue to use the word "correction" for the operation, even if a correction isn't the result. A better word, in this context, might be "virtualisation".
Irregardless of how a real image is constructed we virtualise that real image. Not only by situating a retinal image outside of ourselves, but situating any real images within that (such as a photograph) as having content outside of that image.
Now returning to Plato, the problem for Plato, is twofold:
1. the virtual already makes a correction in relation to real images.
2. the space in which this correction occurs can not be the source of a real image
The second point is worth re-reading. Plato's argument is that the reality/origin of the cave shadows is outside the cave. But Plato's outside is not that of our currently empty signifier (which we'll speak about later) but the virtual - that psychological space in which the cave shadows (or Plato's retinal image) undergoes virtualisation. This occurs as an operation on the real image. The real image can not be a function of the operations which otherwise operate on that real image. It is the virtual image which is a function of operations on a real image. Not the other way around.
Now, of course, we can construct images in our imagination, ie. within the virtual, and actualise those images as real images. For example, computer synthesised images can be imagined, constructed, and rendered. The space in which such images have their origin is effectively the virtual. Which brings us to what has been, until about a hundred years ago, an equivalence that could be created between the virtual and the outside.
The virtual starts out, no doubt, as an evolutionary response to real images. There has evolved a kind of bodily intelligence in relation to real images, a virtual reality, in which otherwise real images (retinal images) are corrected inside the brain. We see things as outside of ourselves because (we propose) what we see represents what is outside of ourselves. And what better representation than to appear as if outside ourselves. But in addition to such we have also developed schemes for representing the outside in terms of geometry and mathematics. So precise were these additional tools we've been able to create what we thought were completely accurate models of what was otherwise happening outside.
But about a hundred years ago, models that been in use since antiquity, while undergoing various modifications and rethinks, underwent it's biggest rethink, the philosophical ramifications of which are still being hotly debated to this day. Quantum mechanics was discovered and quantum theory developed. It turns out (perhaps not surprisingly) that the outside may not be completely thinkable in terms of our virtual frameworks. Until then we could have always asserted that our virtual reality is just a substitute for some actual reality - that what we mean by our virtual reality is that actual reality. That when we say a real image, such as a shadow, has it's origin outside the cave, even if the outside is a virtual reality, we mean by that virtual reality, what that means: some actual reality.
That argument is one that could have worked, (or has worked), prior to quantum theory. In classical theory, if a theory was really correct, then the virtual (the theory), and what it otherwise represents ("reality") could be interchanged. In this classical context a real image would have it's origin in an outside "reality" and that "reality" would be no different from an ideal virtual that otherwise reproduced it. If it walks like a duck it probably is a duck.
Now quantum theory is very strange and the reason for this strangeness isn't necessarily a function of it's assumptions. Indeed the theory is generally, and most successfully, I'd argue, described in terms of classical assumptions because it is through classical assumptions that it's fundamental strangeness is most obvious. While it's tempting to think that alternative assumptions might alleviate the strangeness, I've never found this to be the case. For some theorists the many worlds interpretation of quantum theory is less strange than the original quasi-classical one. And to some extent it may be. But personally I think the alternative assumptions just make quantum theory even stranger. But that could very well be a good thing.
In classical theory (Plato, Aristotle, etc) it is an assumption that images are an effect of a reality outside the image. Not all classical theory is of this persuasion. But let us just say that what we mean by "classical theory" is that which assumes this is the case. The task of classical theory, armed by the certainty of mathematics, and the assumption of images as a function of an outside reality, is to (or was to) define an equivalent virtual reality for that outside. If a virtual reality (ie. a theory) could produce images that were the same image as those created by the reality outside, then the virtual reality could act (virtually) as a substitute for that outside reality. The virtual reality could be, in principle, the mind of God.
With the advent of computer generated images we can partly (if not wholly) see what classical theorists (as a whole) have in mind. When you put all the theory together, you see quite remarkable demonstrations of more or less exactly what they are thinking. An entire branch of computer generated imagery is devoted to producing the basis for an exchange between virtual reality (comprehension) and reality (the outside). However the emphasis has shifted somewhat. The goal of the exercise is now more about creating a subconscious sense of an equivalence rather than necessarily an actual equivalence. But perhaps for good reason.
For reasons we can feel free to admit as beyond us, it is (it would seem to me) impossible to completely exchange the virtual for the reality it otherwise seeks to represent, (or to be). I sometimes feel, in a moment of random insight, that I know why, only to realise I have no idea. What I do recognise, is the historical pressure, to discover why (or how) it is like that, or why/how it isn't like that. It is a pressure I try to ignore.
In quantum theory the relationship between a classical description of an experimental setup, and a classical description of it's image (a real image) is not classically describable. Or rather, a classical description of this relationship, in terms of a direct one to one mapping, fails. What is possible, in it's place, is not any better (in terms of a one to one mapping) but has the virtue of being, at least (so far) correct.
to be continued
Friday, March 9, 2012
Another Earth
Winner of the Sundance Film Festival 2011, Another Earth tells the story of Rhoda Williams, who, having been responsible for a car crash which took the lives of a mother and her children, comes to terms with that.
This story takes place against a backdrop in which another Earth has literally appeared in the sky. Indeed it is the appearance of this other Earth which is partly responsible for the car crash. Rhoda was distracted by it's appearance.
All the way through the film, all I kept thinking, was how unreal this second Earth was, but asking myself why this unreality didn't necessarily impact on what was otherwise the real story. The second Earth starts out as a distant one, a small blue ball. During the course of the film it gets progressively larger in the sky - moving closer. But if such a thing were really happening it would be causing all sorts of strife in gravitational fields. The Earth would be deflected out of it's orbit and we'd be watching a disaster movie which lasted a few minutes.
The way in which the other Earth is mediated is via a number of modes including:
1. As the subject of radio commentary by over-enthusiastic radio hosts, who would otherwise be talking about any equally silly thing.
2. As a vision (a special effect) in the sky, ie. within the film's own reality (as distinct from a radio braodcast within that reality).
3. As the subject of disbelief but otherwise resignation to it's reality, by observers.
4. As the subject of television documentary.
The first acts to treat the other Earth as no different from any other misinformation that goes on in the world of radio.
The second acts as a partial contradiction to the first but one that could be interpreted as an illusion created by the first, ie. when told of something one might believe it and even see it.
The third acts to support the second. A disbelief dispelled by the evidence of it's image (or illusion). The second Earth need not be there but everyone in the film can see it and believes it is there even if we don't. So we can be watching, for example, the deluded, which is not unbelievable.
The fourth is where it runs into a little trouble but is rescued by taking place within the displaced reality of television. It is in a science fiction mode. The trouble is that experts depicted on the television (as distinct from radio jockeys and your average punter) would know better - that it's impossible in the way it is otherwise depicted.
However what is so well done by this film (even if this was not it's original intention) is that this backdrop, of a second Earth emerges as just that: a backdrop. The real story has nothing to do with the second Earth and everything to do with the guilt Rhoda has about the car crash and how she deals with it. And about the sole survivor in the other car. This is the body of the film one might say.
In other words the film is not a science fiction film.
It did, however, begin as one. Or at least the commentary around the film's origins suggest such. Now in this light, the modes in which the science-fiction aspect operates can be re-interpreted as simply an economic device by which otherwise expensive special effects could be bypassed - the basic stuff of low budget film-making. However what emerges in the finished film is that those science fiction (or science fantastic) aspects are (fortuitously, or fortunately) rinsed down to what becomes poetic punctuation.
But had it become a science fiction film (as it originally aspired to be), it could easily have failed to find the story it found. The story of Rhoda's guilt could have been lost, or remained little more than a crutch for posing the science fiction ideas. And being a low budget film it could have easily failed at that as well. It admirably exceeds it's roots, finds it's story, and reposes it's roots as punctuation.
Carl
After writing this post I came across this article which is insightful:
http://io9.com/5822258/secrets-of-another-earth-the-science-fiction-movie-that-rocked-sundance
This story takes place against a backdrop in which another Earth has literally appeared in the sky. Indeed it is the appearance of this other Earth which is partly responsible for the car crash. Rhoda was distracted by it's appearance.
All the way through the film, all I kept thinking, was how unreal this second Earth was, but asking myself why this unreality didn't necessarily impact on what was otherwise the real story. The second Earth starts out as a distant one, a small blue ball. During the course of the film it gets progressively larger in the sky - moving closer. But if such a thing were really happening it would be causing all sorts of strife in gravitational fields. The Earth would be deflected out of it's orbit and we'd be watching a disaster movie which lasted a few minutes.
The way in which the other Earth is mediated is via a number of modes including:
1. As the subject of radio commentary by over-enthusiastic radio hosts, who would otherwise be talking about any equally silly thing.
2. As a vision (a special effect) in the sky, ie. within the film's own reality (as distinct from a radio braodcast within that reality).
3. As the subject of disbelief but otherwise resignation to it's reality, by observers.
4. As the subject of television documentary.
The first acts to treat the other Earth as no different from any other misinformation that goes on in the world of radio.
The second acts as a partial contradiction to the first but one that could be interpreted as an illusion created by the first, ie. when told of something one might believe it and even see it.
The third acts to support the second. A disbelief dispelled by the evidence of it's image (or illusion). The second Earth need not be there but everyone in the film can see it and believes it is there even if we don't. So we can be watching, for example, the deluded, which is not unbelievable.
The fourth is where it runs into a little trouble but is rescued by taking place within the displaced reality of television. It is in a science fiction mode. The trouble is that experts depicted on the television (as distinct from radio jockeys and your average punter) would know better - that it's impossible in the way it is otherwise depicted.
However what is so well done by this film (even if this was not it's original intention) is that this backdrop, of a second Earth emerges as just that: a backdrop. The real story has nothing to do with the second Earth and everything to do with the guilt Rhoda has about the car crash and how she deals with it. And about the sole survivor in the other car. This is the body of the film one might say.
In other words the film is not a science fiction film.
It did, however, begin as one. Or at least the commentary around the film's origins suggest such. Now in this light, the modes in which the science-fiction aspect operates can be re-interpreted as simply an economic device by which otherwise expensive special effects could be bypassed - the basic stuff of low budget film-making. However what emerges in the finished film is that those science fiction (or science fantastic) aspects are (fortuitously, or fortunately) rinsed down to what becomes poetic punctuation.
But had it become a science fiction film (as it originally aspired to be), it could easily have failed to find the story it found. The story of Rhoda's guilt could have been lost, or remained little more than a crutch for posing the science fiction ideas. And being a low budget film it could have easily failed at that as well. It admirably exceeds it's roots, finds it's story, and reposes it's roots as punctuation.
Carl
After writing this post I came across this article which is insightful:
http://io9.com/5822258/secrets-of-another-earth-the-science-fiction-movie-that-rocked-sundance
The First Code?
A code is an agreement, between communicating parties, for what will be signified by some particular signifier, or reciprocally, what signifier to use for some particular signified.
But negotiating agreement on any code seems to require another code in which agreement on the new code would be negotiated. In any theory of origins, the first code then becomes impossible because, being the first code, there is no prior code with which to negotiate that first code.
Either codes go back in time indefinitely, for which the problem of the first code becomes unreachable (God), or that codes can be negotiated in terms of something other than a prior code.
The first alternative reads like a cop-out but is otherwise one solution. The second is more interesting. It opens up the possibility of further thought.
One way of creating a new code, without requiring a prior code, is to reach agreement on the code, after the "code" has been created rather than before. In this scenario the "code" does not yet fully exist as a code. But can evolve into one. We can postulate the creation of a completely random "code" which has the benefit of not requiring any prior code in which to be created. Now such a "code" can't be a proper code if it's completely random since nothing can be communicated via the random. However the random, despite the absence of any apparent content, and despite being random, does exhibit properties. For example a random list of numbers, when added together, yields a number close to zero. And the longer the list the closer to zero becomes it's sum. The reason is simple enough. In an infinite list of random numbers, for every positive number there will exist, in the list, it's equal but opposite number: it's negative. Added together the result is zero.
This is the domain of statistics which is not quite the same thing as mathematics. In mathematics there is no such thing as the random. So mathematically we would be in trouble postulating the first "code" as completely random. However we can postulate that mathematics is not the be all end all - that the random can be a fundamental object for which mathematics is simply not the correct framework in which to postulate such. However we can still employ a mathematical framework using psuedo-random numbers as a substitute, so long as we remember the substitution and the possible side-effects (of which there are many).
In a statistical framework the number zero is not a primary object (as it is in mathematics), but one that would be created if an infinite sum of random numbers were possible.
In this light we can treat Mathematics as the language of eternity and Statistics as the language of the temporary.
From within the temporary we can imagine (postulate) a random code which, given time, could begin to resemble otherwise coherent rational mathematical structure such as zero. However we are mindful that in an otherwise empty universe (codeless) that the best a random system could ever code is precisely that zero, ie. nothing.
However, in the interim (prior to reframing such within the eternal) there will be all manner of structures occur, the only limitation on such is that be temporary. Because if we take any of these structures to their logical conclusion (into the eternal) we are back to an empty universe, back to zero. To put it another way, the random must, in the end, signify zero.
However we are not discussing the end. We are discussing the beginning.
While the random, for which we have supposed it's spontaneous existance outside of the eternal, eventually auto-signifies (in eternity) a zero in the mean time we have a signified (spontaneous existance) for which there is no corresponding signifier in the eternal, other than what it would eventually become: zero. Until then it requires a signifier other than zero: the non-zero. Or perhaps "one" (historically speaking, the first number).
So we have here, in a somewhat elaborate argument, postulated a first code, 1 and 0, which can come about without necessarily requiring a prior code. Certainly we have used codes to describe it, but the object of that description does not necessarily rely on the description. It all depends on whether the random can exist. We can only theorise it's existence and one at odds with mathematics, but in so doing we have a way of thinking how the first dialectic can occur.
But negotiating agreement on any code seems to require another code in which agreement on the new code would be negotiated. In any theory of origins, the first code then becomes impossible because, being the first code, there is no prior code with which to negotiate that first code.
Either codes go back in time indefinitely, for which the problem of the first code becomes unreachable (God), or that codes can be negotiated in terms of something other than a prior code.
The first alternative reads like a cop-out but is otherwise one solution. The second is more interesting. It opens up the possibility of further thought.
One way of creating a new code, without requiring a prior code, is to reach agreement on the code, after the "code" has been created rather than before. In this scenario the "code" does not yet fully exist as a code. But can evolve into one. We can postulate the creation of a completely random "code" which has the benefit of not requiring any prior code in which to be created. Now such a "code" can't be a proper code if it's completely random since nothing can be communicated via the random. However the random, despite the absence of any apparent content, and despite being random, does exhibit properties. For example a random list of numbers, when added together, yields a number close to zero. And the longer the list the closer to zero becomes it's sum. The reason is simple enough. In an infinite list of random numbers, for every positive number there will exist, in the list, it's equal but opposite number: it's negative. Added together the result is zero.
This is the domain of statistics which is not quite the same thing as mathematics. In mathematics there is no such thing as the random. So mathematically we would be in trouble postulating the first "code" as completely random. However we can postulate that mathematics is not the be all end all - that the random can be a fundamental object for which mathematics is simply not the correct framework in which to postulate such. However we can still employ a mathematical framework using psuedo-random numbers as a substitute, so long as we remember the substitution and the possible side-effects (of which there are many).
In a statistical framework the number zero is not a primary object (as it is in mathematics), but one that would be created if an infinite sum of random numbers were possible.
In this light we can treat Mathematics as the language of eternity and Statistics as the language of the temporary.
From within the temporary we can imagine (postulate) a random code which, given time, could begin to resemble otherwise coherent rational mathematical structure such as zero. However we are mindful that in an otherwise empty universe (codeless) that the best a random system could ever code is precisely that zero, ie. nothing.
However, in the interim (prior to reframing such within the eternal) there will be all manner of structures occur, the only limitation on such is that be temporary. Because if we take any of these structures to their logical conclusion (into the eternal) we are back to an empty universe, back to zero. To put it another way, the random must, in the end, signify zero.
However we are not discussing the end. We are discussing the beginning.
While the random, for which we have supposed it's spontaneous existance outside of the eternal, eventually auto-signifies (in eternity) a zero in the mean time we have a signified (spontaneous existance) for which there is no corresponding signifier in the eternal, other than what it would eventually become: zero. Until then it requires a signifier other than zero: the non-zero. Or perhaps "one" (historically speaking, the first number).
So we have here, in a somewhat elaborate argument, postulated a first code, 1 and 0, which can come about without necessarily requiring a prior code. Certainly we have used codes to describe it, but the object of that description does not necessarily rely on the description. It all depends on whether the random can exist. We can only theorise it's existence and one at odds with mathematics, but in so doing we have a way of thinking how the first dialectic can occur.
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