Demise of Indexicality

Levin's article makes the claim that the loss of the referential power in photography and cinema has led us to attach more significance to surveillance.  We now attribute realism to surveillance and consider it to be true, in a way that we can no longer trust photography in the age of photoshop. 

I wonder what the possibility is, though, of manipulating/mediating surveillance/realtime images.  It seems like technology is not too far off, so is surveillance, too, in danger of obsolescence?  Will technology enable images to constantly evade indexicality?

If surveillance can be manipulated, does it have any significance?  Or is the only appeal in the claim to realism?

TV in Enemy of the State

Earlier in the course, we talked about how television seems to prove that more information does not necessarily lead to corrective action. In fact, as demonstrated by the Sarajevo crisis, media overexposure can actually do much more harm than good. Because even when people are glued to the catastrophes taking place on their television screen, they feel somehow removed from them. The glass wall of the television screen effectively separates them from whatever is going on in the world that CNN feels the need to report.

That's sort of why I thought that one of the most interesting moments in Enemy of the State was when John Voight's character, Reynolds, is watching television with the little girl, who is presumably his granddaughter. He is treating the television as background noise, and is thus irritated when she draws attention to it by changing the channels back and forth. When he tries to get her to stop jumping up and down, he realizes that she has located a channel that seems to be broadcasting the couch that they are sitting in.

Television thus invades the safe, removed space of his own living room, and reminds him that it is not, in fact, safe.

Last night, as I was watching the election results, I couldn't help but think about how the nation is so utterly connected through television. One could think of the election as something out of the ordinary-- it only happens every four years. It seems to be a discontinuity in an otherwise continuous system. This discontinuity really overshadows everything else on television, newspapers, and any other sort of media. It creates one humongous imagined community-- I don't know if I've talked to one person who wasn't watching some kind of news channel last night at 11.
Our thoughts and emotions are controlled by the television as well. Not only do we feel like we are a part of our nation by watching the television, but we also allow our news station to dictate things to us. The moment I heard that Obama had won the presidency (a projected outcome, by the news station... not concrete yet), I jumped for joy. Literally. Those who were a part of my imagined community ran outside toward the main green to jump around and be merry.
My point is that this was all dictated by the television. I could not ignore this; it seemed to really connect to last weeks readings. It's crazy the way that television is so omnipresent!

Surveillance and Power

Both The Conversation and Enemy of the State illustrate the connections between surveillance and power, and how these notions relate to voyeurism and the gaze of the camera. All of the "surveyors" in the film are in favor of surveillance not because they think that everything should be brought into the light, but because they want only themselves to be able to see anything. When the tables are turned and the watchers become the watched, they are not as complacent with the technology and surveillance as they were when they were watching others. Gene Hackman's character in The Conversation is calm and collected for most of the movie. However, when he finds out that he has been bugged and his conversation was listened to, he becomes extremely upset and kicks everyone out of his office. Likewise, when the NSA officials find that there own bugs have been used against them, they are even more determined to stop Will Smith. This shows the hypocracies of those that favor surveillance, in that they want to see everyone else but not be seen by others. They desire the classic position of power that comes with the unreturned gaze, the gaze of the voyeur.

Complicating the themes of voyeurism and surveillance even more is the audience watching the films that are about watching. As audience members we want to know more about the characters and the plot as well, especially in the case of complicated plots like these two films. There are also the cases where we cannot be sure whether we are watching a surveillance image or simply a regular camera shot. When we think we are watching the surveillance image, we feel less like voyeurs because it other characters are watching and we are just watching along with them. However, if it turns out that the image is simply a normal shot, we fill the role of the voyeur as the only ones watching. The audience is secure in their position of power because unlike the surveyors in the movies, their gaze cannot be returned back to them. Just like the anger felt by the watchers when they become watched, we might not be so willing to watch movies if we knew that others could watch movies of our lives

temporal indexicality in the age of facebook

In Levin's discussion of "the rhetorical consequences of the now increasingly widespread recognition of the photographic surface...as a construct" (584), there is a corollary: photo-chemical indexicality is replaced with temporal indexicality. I understand this argument as stating that history's own alteration of the photographic image, an alteration made possible through digital and technological advances, replaces the notion of the image itself as proof with the notion of the image as proof of time having passed, of an event, of something that once was. Yet I'm wondering if our own knowledge of the image as proof of the event, of a fleeting moment in time, of something that is - which will, after a photochemical process, become something that once was - almost negates that which is being photographed. I'm wondering if our knowledge - of the image as proof, and consequently, of the moment as proof - creates an artificial moment, and an artificial referent. I'm specifically thinking about facebook photos of red solo cup-clutching college students that have become commonplace and myspace photos of girls posing into their bathroom mirror. This sort of artificiality calls into question the relation of realness to truth; the image is real, but is the moment true? And in relation to the concepts of flow and liveness, how do moments that are photographed disrupt the flow of reality itself?

It also seems to me that there is a paradox in the notion of digital enhancement and photoshopping, for isn't it this very malleability of the photographic image that allows film to be "a vehicle for storytelling" in addition to a "medium that documents, that chronicle what actually happens in the world?"

I am also curious as to where the omniponence of surveillance images comes from.
"When one sees what one takes to be a surveillance image, one does not usually ask if it is 'real' (this is simply assumed) but instead attempts to establish whether 'the real' that is being captured by the camera is being recorded or is simply a closed-circuit 'real time' feed. This is precisely what gives these sorts of images their semiotic appeal" (585)
In this quote, it appears that there is no dispute over the realness of the surveillance image. I'm wondering what this says about the relationship between the camera that records the surveillance image and the spectator; is there something fundamentally different about this relationship that enables greater trust?

The "recognition of the photographic surface as a text, as a construct . . . [is] nothing short of an obsession in that locus of the social construction of vision which is contemporary commercial cinema." -Levin, 584

Levin poses this statement in his article, and I don't quite buy it. Cinema, regardless of its place in our culture is still fiction. The indexicality of photographic images do not raise cinema above the realm of fiction, so why would this recognition of "photographic surface as a text" disturb its place? Levin also claims that "films both teach us how to see the world and register a general sense of how our culture is doing exactly that", but aren't we all just sitting back and watching movies?

Seriousness

I found the google article by Lisa Parks very intriguing in that there were many correlations to past articles that we have read. The concept of the interpreted image appeared many times, twice on page 7:

"The satellite image is a site/sight that must be read...by clicking on a camera icon you can view a photo with the caption..."

I think this more than exemplifies the role of the myth as defined by Barthes for in this case it is clear that the image is being manipulated via missing dates and purely violent, stereotypical contents which "are as much the invention of Western imaginary and ways of understanding world conflicts as they may be accurate descriptions of conditions on the ground"(7). 

This also reminded me of the Snead article and how the portrayal of blacks in American/Western media has historically contained negative and subjugate connotations. That even in the image of starving African children, or savagely murdered African people, created to generate pity produce a feeling of civil superiority in the viewer. This was further demonstrated on page 4 when Parks lifts a quote from the Washington Post which read "This tool will bring a spotlight to a very dark corner of the earth" which resonates Africa as the "Dark Continent," a very dated and orientalist conception. 

Keenan's article on image overload also popped into my mind on Publicity and Indifference in which image overload creates the reverse of the desired effect.  Parks cited campbell who explained that the the images created to create response, "because of their familiar forms--just as easily lead to inattention and indifference..."(7) This revives a thought I might have shared earlier:

Do the powers in control utilize their understanding of media to impede humanitarian efforts, or anything in that matter? Does this transform the media into a form of surveillance?

 I think the article makes a good argument for this. In terms of the films, I enjoyed The Conversation in that the eye is replaced by the ear, hearing is the equivalent of seeing and there were many correlations, I thought, between this film and Rear Window in terms of public versus private. The soundtrack was very well done in that it seemed that the piano music in the beginning was very sharp and defined and as the movie progressed the sound and music sounded muffled and echoey. Mr. Call represents a collector of the public, he captures the public domain via private means and this makes him powerful yet he himself is a very timid and frightened man, an analogy for modern society. The surveillancer becomes the surveillanced identifies with Keenan, the panopticon, and the other readings for this week. 

Enemy of the State seemed to be a more literal demonstration of Park' article in which the surveillance for security and protection becomes a weapon of political and economic interest. One very powerful man attempting to maintain a secret, a fear, which ends up destroying him, similar to Mr. Call's situation. This film seemed to play up more the voyeuristic aspect of surveillance, there were a few Ms. Torso moments. Both films seem to relay the concept that surveillance is derived from fear of the hidden, more so the internal than the external.

Semantic Function in The Conversation

Perhaps I am still very much entrenched in the structuring of counter-cinema of Godard. In Coppola's film The Conversation, I found certain imageries/ colors of scenes as semantic function. For example, the office of Martin (or of director?) featured primary-colored furniture such as red couches and yellow columns in contrast to the dark business suits that prevail most of the scenes (and in the scenes taking place in the building of the director). Later at the electronic gadget convention as Caul discovers Martin on the velvet red couch in a mainly neutral-toned colored decor. In the convention room, a female receptionist/ worker is dressed up in a yellow dress.  Towards the end as Caul goes to director to return the data, his envelope is spotted noticeable blue (that he throws away in the greens and picks up again) and this same blue appears later again in the hotel room scene - with a vivid blue toolbox, Caul makes a hole on a wall of the bathroom in order to create an access to the other room - to create a way to surveillance. The use of colors in certain props of the film constructs a system of reference to surveillance. 

Apart from the use of colors as semantic function, the recurring notion of "circling" seems to take on a certain semantic meaning as well. There are imageries of circular action throughout the film such as that of circular- shaped video tapes, the couple walking in a circle in the park, and one of my favorite scenes of the film - in the parking lot of Caul's workshop/ studio/ office where Caul and a female character are surrounded by a motorcycle that circle around them in expanding circular motion. (around the couple, around the columns in the empty arena of the parking lot)

These recurring imageries/ ideas as semantic function seem to consolidate the notion of surveillance that is so vividly captured in Coppola's film. The circular motion seems to suggest a return of what has been done, come and go, the repetitive act that leads to meaninglessness (and more if thought more). This idea is apparent in the final scene in which Caul is trapped in his space of invaded privacy. The consequences that ensue from this job (surveillance) are brought upon Caul himself as his space is violated -- he dismantles and deconstructs his own living space -- human environment -- down to pieces and blocks of walls and plasters and industrial building materials - back to the origin. His loss of his own protection and privacy goes back to the very beginning of the development of individualism and construction of privacy at which one, without any barrier or walls of security, starts to build a system in order to protect himself. This initial act of building a wall of protection has come back years later to its origin - lack of protective barriers and only the prevalence of surveillance. 

The relationship is very intriguing - between the semantic functions embedded in the film and the structural engagement of 'surveillance' as discussed by Levin. The semantic meanings mentioned above (colors, a circular shape) effectively contribute to the construction and manifestation of the idea of surveillance in the film's structure and in "the condition of the narration itself." (Levin, 583)

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On an indirectly - relevant note... I just can't get over how highly mediated one's life is in the 'now...'  The prevalent use of digital media (primarily photography, video, internet, tv, etc..), its role as a recoding mean and representation of existence. (Refer back to the notion of Barthes "that has been...") The generation of the now is so accustomed to this omni-presence of media that not only are we being targeted as an object of vulnerability within the mediated system, we, as a subject, are also offering ourselves as an object to be viewed and remembered through this recording media.  The quintessential example that I believe best depicts the generation of now is, quite undoubtedly, 'Facebook.' 

One moment one would be at a social gathering and in a matter of an hour or two there will be photographs of this event uploaded on the web... It is almost terrifying and shocking to see the actions of media-accustomed generation that have almost become in a way mechanical. A camera (or better - a smart phone with the camera function) is always attached to him/her as a necessary item (or maybe a partner), the flashes that go off constantly in the dark are now beyond distracting and have become a norm of social gatherings/ parties - what is supposed to be an act of enjoyment and relaxed social act, and the moment one gets home he immediately goes over to his computer and upload the photos that have just been taken in real life onto a digital space..  

Perhaps one is so aware of the mediated system in which he is situated that he feels obligated to show his participation, the desire to be part of the 'imagined community' in an apparent, visible manner... It is almost as if a happening/ momental actions can be validated only through such an act of recording and its results -- that individual's actions or events require validation -- it is a mandatory act for the citizen of the now in order to be acknowledged of the existence of being. Quite a prime example of surveillance (and even subordination) I think...  how increasingly vulnerable we, as a member of the mediated era, are becoming, make ourselves to be in addition to the surroundings that already pose much threat of invasion. 

Enemy of the State post 9/11

I had watched Enemy of the State when it came out, and didn't really remember much about it so when I saw it again (this time, unlike it's release in 1998, in a post-9/11 world) I was surprised (and deeply saddened) by how unbelievably relevant it is currently, and how it seems to signal a shift in public perception with regard to security vs. civil liberties--i.e., the fear 9/11 instilled in many people have lead to massive erosions of civil liberties in this country with extremely little protestation from (and in many cases, with active support of) the majority of people.  The bill that the movie centers around does not sound that unlike the Patriot Act which was passed soon after 9/11, or the recent FISA legislation that passed very recently.  Both of these bills profoundly alter the place of civil liberties in this country, and conflict in many ways with the Fourth Amendment.  Yet, I have yet to speak to a single person my age who even knows what the FISA legislation is.  Even though it is a bill that allows the government to conduct wiretaps without warrants (granted, before they needed warrants, but the body that issued them was so pro-government they'd never refuse anyways--but it says an unbelievable amount that the government even rejected the illusion of oversight) and that immunizes telecoms for their complacency in illegally providing information to the government.  These are unbelievable provisions, which deeply challenge the rule of law in this country.  Yet, there was almost no public discourse about it--especially in the mainstream press, which barely covered it, and then, only after the issue had been brought and extensively discussed by many bloggers who were concerned with the rule of law.  And, while there eventually was a fairly prolonged struggle in the congress to come up with the final draft of the bill, that occurred as the result of a pretty small set of individuals who passionately worked against it--like Chris Dodd, who spearheaded the effort against telecom immunity in the senate, and liberal blogger Glenn Greenwald, who was one of the many people who wrote extensively about the issue, and helped to organize a campaign to stop the legislation.

Watching Enemy of the State, I felt profoundly sad, because the paranoid dystopian vision it offers is not that unlike the country we live in today, and many of the changes that have lead it on that path have happened while most of the nation sat by in complete silence.  For example, the massive databases and how the cross-referenced them to track Will Smith's movements and associations sound remarkably like the Main Core program in the government.  This is a program that is highly secret and has received practically no coverage in the mainstream press (I read about it in the small online news site Salon.com--which has done an excellent job of discussing these issues while the mainstream press completely ignores them), and is basically a mechanism to search through many different databases (allowing the government to do similar analysis and tracking as they were doing with the databases in the movie).  It appears highly likely that this program was the issue that was at stake in the now famous incident where Gonzales and Card went to the hospital, where Ashcroft was extremely sick, and tried to get him to sign on to something that he had already refused.  In fact, as a result of this, many of the highest ranking officials in the DOJ threatened to resign.

The question of how these increasingly Orwellian programs have been able to occur is fairly complex, as in many cases they were created behind closed doors, kept secret from not only the public but also most members of congress often (and in many cases they're completely illegal as well).  However, many of the changes--Patriot Act, FISA, etc.--were bills that were passed in the congress with little protestation.  Not only did people sanction giving broader surveillance powers to the government, but in the case of FISA, the legislation literally provides amnesty to people who broke surveillance laws that were set in place after Watergate to stop the kind of things Nixon did.  It's almost like Enemy of the State ended with the bill passing, with an additional amendment that let the main evil guy off the hook.

The part of watching Enemy of the State that I found the saddest is precisely that people in the movie strongly protested the curtailments of civil liberties.  Will Smith's wife works at the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), and towards the end of the movie he even says that she was right in her paranoia of the eroding civil liberties (not to mention the fact that the villains in the movie are from the NSA, which obviously is a rather anti-government-surveillance stance).  Now in most mainstream action movies, people who work in places like the ACLU are often made fun of as paranoid naive hippy panzies.  It's sad to think that not that long ago a movie--a mainstream action movie at that--actually had as one of its main messages that civil liberties are important and should be protected.

Also, this is kind of random, but did anyone else notice that when they pulled up his information, the bad guy (NSA guy) was born on 9/11 (1940)?  That just put the icing on the  creepy cake of watching Enemy of the State in a post-9/11 US for me.

Hope is Here. Change is Coming

I cannot start this blog without mentioning how amazing it is to know that Obama is going to be our next president!! Not to mention how shocking and wonderful was Brown's reaction. Marching down Thayer, through RISD, past Kennedy Plaza, and into the steps of the State Capitol, was a great way to celebrate, and a great addition to my freshmen year memories.



Anyways back to screens and projections.



"Not least since Orwell's 1949 vision of an aggressively invasive authoritarian 1984, our sense of the future -- and increasingly of the present--has been marked by the fear of being watched, controlled, and robbed of our privacy."

Just that first page got me thinking. Live Free or Die Hard is a combination of both films that we watched. It takes The Conversations' public spying on the public idea and Enemy of State's use of private cameras to spy on the public. Unlike in the Tiennamen Square incident, harmless traffic control systems are used to spy on the public in hopes of over throwing the government. It can be argued that when this happened after the clashes in Tiennamen Square, it was for the good of the people, for their protection. Live Free or Die Hard shows how easy it is for our forms of protection to be exploited.

The article also commented on the secret camera being part of the narration. Its impossible for me not to think of The Truman Show. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYj2m1yVpGU ) I love this trailer because it shows not only this week's topic, but past ones. To begin with, we can see that many things cannot be seen until the secret camera leads us to it. In the scene were Truman's wife arrives with the groceries, you can also see how advertising is intertwined with the rest of the narration. The trailer also shows a scene where Truman is talking to his best friend. You can see the editing team adding dramatic music and editing the scenes. Just proof of how music has as much importance as the angles the movie is shot in. Most importantly, this also shows Levin's argument of how you just assume what you see is real when in reality it can very easily be edited.