Jyotsna Kapur, ‘Shock and Awe: The aesthetics of war and its confrontation with reality’ March 14, 2008

 Jyotsna Kapur, ‘Shock and Awe: The aesthetics of war and its confrontation with reality‘, Jumpcut, No. 47, Spring 2007.I found this article just hunting about. Of particular interest was the section of pg. 2 about Mutual Conversations 1979-2005. I’ve always struggled a bit with the concept of the cinema projecting death. However Kapur’s example helped clarify the concept. However I do take issue with this suggestion,

the image and the real appear to merge together appearing in the darkened theater space as the projection of a ghostlike meeting in which the past and the present blend into each other. (Kapur, 2007, 2) 

 

Isn’t the real he referring to already an image.  The image is an image because it is projected from the past, therefore the ‘present-Covell’ must be an image because he is being projected onto the cinematic screen. Moreover, the encounter itself has occurred in  the past and then projected after it has passed through production. Indeed, there is an interesting placement of the past with the ‘not-so-past’, however it isn’t truly a present event. I’m probably just splitting hairs, but I think this is in an important point to clarify.  

 

 Also, the myriad of hoaxes that have arisen from the Iraq war are extraordinary. Kapur highlights the example of ‘Saving Jessica Lynch’ and the young Kodee Kennings (Both on pg. 1). Both were staged performances of war, made to provoke a particular emotion.  While it easy to condemn the producer what does this suggest about the consumer. Are we, as Guattari suggests,  ’machine junkies’, we need that emotional involvement mediated to us through the cinematic form. 

 

Any comments? 

Follow on… March 12, 2008

Regarding the issues of the real, and after completing Lisa Parks article about ‘Satellite witnessing’ (2005), I was reminded of a the decisive moment in Oceans 11 (Steven Soderbergh, 2001). As Terry Benedict watches Danny Ocean and his crew empty his safe, he receives commentary from Rusty. Both Benedict and the viewer, have no reason to believe that the visual and audio medium are deceiving them(Here I am referring to the sound coming from inside the vault). Yet, they soon discover the footage they have witnessed is an elaborate hoax. Gilles Deleuze suggests, “[The subjective and objective] mark poles between which there is continual passage”(Deleuze, 1989, 7). The penultimate scene of Oceans 11 reveals how the act of witnessing can never be regarded as a ‘true’ or ‘real’ experience. Nevertheless, it cannot be dismissed as completely false. The footage was temporally disassociated from the event, however the audio occurred in real time, albeit composed.    

  

 As Parks highlights this episode of surveillance is symptomatic of what occurs in military facilities. All footage is filtered, edited and appropriated to create the desired reaction (Parks, 92). Furthermore, while the viewer maybe skeptical about what they are witnessing, they do not have the resources to discover what has been excluded from the image.    

Real? March 11, 2008

So, what is real? As a general rule we may argue the real is what we experience. However, modern technology has enabled us to experience anything, anytime wherever we choose. If we’re using a dialectic methodology then the real presupposes an unreal or imaginary. Therefore maybe it is easy to begin by discerning what can be classified as unreal. However I don’t believe this is particularly helpful, as it suggests that all events, histories, phenomena, etc. can be separated into two specific categories It does not account for the news reporting, which does not slot into a specific category, but rather may traverse the line between the two. Par example: Footage from Iraq.  

 We cannot argue the war is not occurring, however we cannot discern the particular politics behind the image we are being presented with. Theorists, including Felix Guattari, who I’m endeavouring to explore, suggests we can no longer resume the objectivity of the machine. Guattari believes we must acknowledge a “machinic subjectivity” (Guattari, 1995). He is not suggesting a sudden robotics sensibility has developed (or at least I don’t think he is), but the inability for any form of production to be considered impartial.  

The footage produced by CNN presents us with a particular perspective, the US soldier firing the weapon. However, we do not see the aftermath of the gunfire. Therefore, as Lisa Parks argues does the event become abstract and remote. Is our potential for feeling limited by the manner, in which we experience war? How can we account for the tears in the cinema over Saving Private Ryan, and the relative apathy shown towards images shown on CNN. Furthermore, the ‘live’ images of war range from the standard military firestorm, to still photographs of  dead bodies; each eliciting a different response. 

 Most of the reading suggests the potential for a ‘real’ to be experienced through the tele-visual medium. Guattari suggests, 

“People have little reason to turn away from machines, which are nothing other than hyperdeveloped and hyperconcentrated forms of certain aspects of human subjectivity, and emphatically not those aspects that polarize people in relations of domination and power” (Guattari, 1995) 

 However, if we are able to rid the camera of the power relations, which currently dominate between producer and viewer, what will happen? Are we capable of experiencing these events through the television? By this I am suggesting, the distance established by the camera in wartime footage, which Parks elaborates upon, will always force the individual into a continual helplessness. Disrupting power relationships behind the camera can change perceptions. However, once an event has occurred we become obligatory viewers, and as John Ellis suggests “accomplices”.

Is the possibility of experiencing the real through the camera desirable?