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how to see, seeing

How to see, seeing, and changing a point-of-view: intractable questions, persistent challenges, fluid realities.

Last fall, after making yet another series of portraits on a trip with German friends to the Grand Canyon, I had the realization that the geometry of my portrait work had been locked-in for years, decades now. Changing subjects, changing situations, surroundings, but the fundamental geometry between camera, Self, and Other was/is essentially static: an unchanging point-of-view. Different Others in the relationship — the collaboration of portraiture — can it be that the essence of relation is also static? To implement a different geometry suggests the necessity of changing the nature of (the) relationship itself. The technical means, the protocol, does have an effect, of course: the choice of lens unequivocally determines a primary geometry of relation. But what is the intersection of that optical geometry and the sacred geometry sketched that is within the continuum of relation?

I use (almost exclusively) a medium-wide-angle (a 28mm with film SLRs, an 18mm with the digital SLR). These tools/technologies and their explicit protocols frame the relationship. The selection is not arbitrary. It’s not simply ‘environmental portraiture’ — that reductive term comes after the process that generates the images. It could similarly be called ‘distant portraiture’, and indeed, distance is a determining factor in the outcome. A wide-angle lens brings the photographer physically closer to the subject while allowing the intimacy to expand, encompassing the context of the situation. A telephoto lens often propagates a stealing-at-a-distance of visage. And it compresses the perspective of that visage in such a way that violates the normal perspective of the eye. The eye sees approximately as a 50mm lens on a 35mm camera.

But all this is merely the technology, the mediatory tool. Strip that away from the eye, and see. Through the wetware optics of the orb alone. Digging deep into the head. Transferring the energy of the world, and of that collaborating Other, inside: seeing, and be-ing in relation to.

posted
  • place: Arvada, Colorado

revolution?

For revolutionary educators, knowledge exceeds its semiotic end products; it travels intertextually within demarcated systems of intelligibility. Critical knowledge is understood as persistently open, disclosive, incomplete, and open-ended. In this way it remains cautious in the presence of reified social relations and epistemological distortions that occlude the social ontology of knowledge and its processual journey from fact to value. In other words, critical epistemological practice examines not only the content of knowledge, but also its method of production. It seeks to understand how ideological constructions are encoded and administered, how metonymic and synecdochical gestures are performed so as to obscure relations of domination and oppression, how the interpretive and interpellative frameworks by which we organize our sentiments construct ruling stereotypes, and how the governing categories of our everyday discourse render invisible and obscure real social relations of exploitation. — (McLaren, P., 2001. Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Politics of Hope: Reclaiming Critical Pedagogy. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies.)

Aside from the monumental use of academic blah-blah-blah here, the idea behind the obscurity is valid. That is, a radical approach to the facilitation of transformative learning requires a deep awareness of more than just a subject. It demands an awareness of how an embodied knowledge of that subject is founded or generated or discovered. This “how” is in many cases far more important than the “what” of knowledge. I describe this “how” as the meta-structures under which the learning is undertaken. It can be a material issue — bricks-and-mortar, the architectural setting — but also, consequent to an energy-based worldview, it is also a critical question of the entire set of flows within which the encounter is taking place. This is far, far more than opening a classroom window for fresh air, or sitting under a tree with a group of students, although the change in the energy ‘content’ of the situation can be quite profoundly altered by small actions on or reactions to the locale. An energy perception drives much deeper into the meta-structures than that, although any awareness is a good starting point. Because the energy content of the situation is most profoundly affected by the presence of the Self and the Others, the entire energy dynamic among participants must also receive this attention and care. This dynamic is more fundamental than ‘merely’ the social — it is expressed in my concept of continuum-of-relation, defined as the total accumulated network of relations, expressed as activated exchanges of energy, as Dialogues, that have occurred, are occurring, and will occur between members of the species. A holistic awareness of this continuum is necessary to optimize the facilitation.

No revolution is possible among people using language as per McLaren!

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  • place: Millers Point, NSW, Australia

work, labor, action

Arendt‘s tripartite approach to the sociopolitical — Work, Labor, Action — in “The Human Condition” suggests the expenditure or the flow of energy. All three are intertwined within the do-ing, the be-ing of life, and in the sense that they are all embodied expressions of life-energy, they are equal, divided only by the particularities of the pathways of expression of those energies. She begins, I believe correctly, with viva activa as her source: the active, activated life. However, she does not explicitly posit a connection between viva activa and the source of the possibility for an active lif, that is: ones life-energy (sourced in the energized thermodynamic flows of life itself). These impulses towards the social structures of collective life must have a source, an activated well-spring that drives the cumulative social (and life) dynamic. The question of the source is perhaps more important than the ultimate expression of the source.
more “work, labor, action”

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the American Dream is only to survive

David Brooks, columnist at the New York Times writes in this commentary on New Years Day:

Many people seem to be in the middle of a religious crisis of faith. All the gods they believe in — technology, technocracy, centralized government control — have failed them in this instance.

I have always enjoyed his pragmatism and basic awareness of a wider historical context. It frames the American Way as (merely another) expression of a global continuum of human presence on the planet. And he seems largely to avoid the hybridized reli(geo)-political Destiny’s Child(ish) mentality that so pervades the fragmentary remnants of mediated public discourse in this declining nation-state. more “the American Dream is only to survive”

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

another spadeful of encounter

In the contemporary framework of human encounter—dominated by instances of hyper-commerce and of tele-mediated presence—life changes to fit the mediation (it does not evolve in the same sense that Darwin’s idea of the process; instead it simply fits the technology), and the character of encounter with(in) life alters for each shift in the techno-social milieu that collectively generates the allowed pathways of exchange.

Freedom is not a question in this situation. Nor is autonomy. Those are absolutes of the abstract: virginal conceptions not directly related to the contingencies of be-ing in and of the world. Absolutes and abstractions do not prepare the Self for the shifting potentialities of collective human encounter which proceed by degree and layered complexity. And indeed, when abstractions govern encounter, the full field of possibility of human encounter is quickly limited to a less-than-finite set of conditions, processes, and outcomes. There arises the alienation of emotive loss in this limitation, but that is another issue to raise elsewhere. Or perhaps this alienation is the reciprocal experience of the (unfulfilled) possibilities of creative encounter.

Or is all this just about losing or gaining procreative (evolutionary) advantage for the species (via technological augmentation), and nothing more?

The fact that the strongest, most beautiful, most intelligent are, overall, given social reward when compared to the least. (Recognizing this, the revolutionary community organizer, Jesus, said (as interpolated by Mathew) “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” to invert the perception of this evolutionary order, and the alternative fact that following his lead will actually alter the order. Was this a miraculous strike at limited potentialities? Or mere agitprop for political expediency?

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

demise

house empties steadily of evidences of former existence, leaving echoing rooms and sighs behind. tired of family things, baggage, power struggles, gender clashes, legal crap, bogus relations and expressions. completely. will be glad to be done with all this noise and leave it behind. respect is something I now realize I should never expect within the slowly decaying framework of this human grouping. simply because it never was present in the constellation of relationships that was the arbitrary biological unit termed “family” in this case. with religion composed primarily of Word disconnected from perceptible Action, and a pointless abyss in application between outward appearance (church every Sunday), and actual outcomes that carried weight (praxis-based). there were enough off-balances represented within individuals to finally disperse it. good riddance. fiercely.

posted
  • place: Prescott, Arizona

continuum of relation

taking Frieder’s thought-provoking commentary on my proposal draft and grinding through a thought process that in a infinitesimal way is becoming more precise and confident in dealing with the subject material of the thesis. this evening I synthesize the phrase continuum of relation to describe the continuous field of action and dynamic that constitutes our presence in the world. it is the continuum where technology is implemented (apparently) to increase the probability that understanding can be propagated across multiple human subjects, when, at the same time this altruistic goal is promoted, that exact technology injects uncertainty, a degree of attenuation, and a general increase in the complexity of the communicative act! uff! what to do? but I like the phrase continuum of relation — Google it, there are only 26 entries, and none of them in any way overlap in meaning at all. I find that comforting to be obscure. and, perusing the nettime archive, in a discussion with Felix and Geert, I read a 1999 Howard Rheingold article On Innovation and the Amateur Spirit where he quotes the daddy of the WWW:

The dream behind the Web is of a common information space in which we communicate by sharing information. Its universality is essential: the fact that a hypertext link can point to anything, be it personal, local or global, be it draft or highly polished. There was a second part of the dream, too, dependent on the Web being so generally used that it became a realistic mirror (or in fact the primary embodiment) of the ways in which we work and play and socialize. That was that once the state of our interactions was online, we could then use computers to help us analyze it, make sense of what we are doing, where we individually fit in, and how we can better work together. — Tim Berners-Lee

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  • place: Prescott, Arizona

shifts and changes

three months out from accident/surgery and all reports are positive from Dr. Papadopoulos. he was busier than last appointment, but he gave the essential prognosis that I can wean myself from the brace and swim, hike, and so on. good deal. it comes off as much as possible. which may be a slow process, it has grown to fit, muscles succumbing to laze and sprawl in the molded plastic casing.

retro-fitting the travelog — now back to December 2000. about half-way, though the first half is probably twice the volume of text than the latter half. doubt I will get the whole thing done. it is a legacy project.

pondering how it is that I have not brought more relevant experiences into this travelog. the last decade of my trajectory is relatively singular, and has crossed the paths of a great many of those who are greater in the eyes of the mass pay-per-view. nothing rubbed off. or only a little.

it could be that, as with the subject of my inquiry — the continuum of human relation — I tend to take a relationist rather than a reductionist approach. that is, allowing a text (better yet, speaking!) to generate from the complex and dynamic space of the human connection rather than making a series of overarching reductions of that Other, through the encounter. hmmm. it is this pathway which almost requires an abandonment of social relevance, except as a chance by-product. there will be unprecedented outcomes.

it is exactly this reductionist approach which brings massive social rewards: the compressing/re-stating/re-creation of lived presence as completely embedded in the social system. indeed, this IS the essence of fame. the generation of parallel (yet seemingly convergent) pathways which appear known, or previously experienced (social structure is predicated on shared experience). when there is an encounter with an Other who, on examination, does not share any of the abstracted pathways of life-experience, we feel uncomfortable, distanced, and afraid. through the “getting-to-know” process — a process of trying to locate within the Self and the Other common pathways and patterns of being — if we are not successful in finding any shared pathways, then the social dimension of the relation is doomed. we are forced to simply be in the moment, in a fearful and unknowable sequence of moments that have no predictable outcome. “breaking-the-ice” — looking for the flow of shared life by breaking through the stasis and reification of socialization (judging on looks, on possessions). looking at life passing on around through the (distorted) socialized eye. seeing only the known, blocking out any confrontation of the unknown.

a couple Latino guys come to deliver the firewood. my ears are wooden. hard to understand them. not able to dredge up some English, and not used to hearing the Spanish, though I can understand when one of them translates to the other.

posted
  • place: Akureyri, Iceland

Inuit Lutherans

it arises in thought that the outcome of human connection has/is an embedded dialectic — either the possibility of open, transformative outcomes, or, the possibility of stylized, socially-defined relation. of course, the actual is always a dynamic mix, but the tendency to go one direction or another on this continuum is largely defined by the social matrix that the encounter is embedded within.

while on Icelandic National teevee, Greenlandic Lutherans sit in quaint chapels and worship the God of the Danes. women in traditional dress and men in pure white tunics sing in the choir. the native woman priest speaking Inuit with a Danish accent, christening a number of babies. where is the spirit in this spectacle?

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  • place: Akureyri, Iceland

The first lecture transcript

Introduction

This thesis, and indeed, all the process of this degree, is not based upon the rigors of science as Heidegger characterized as “research through projected plan and through the securing of that plan in the rigor of procedure.” It is instead a tracing of (phenomenological) experience without plan. A plan is an illusion: an illusory, limited, ex-tracted abs-traction that, when adhered to, more often than not, leaves life behind. Life is change. A knowing, a full sensual knowing/experiencing of the present that allows the seeing of the future. This is not about predicting, but about oracle. This is not the prediction of science, but the presence of omniscience.

Newton: “The bases that are laid down are not arbitrarily invented.”
more “The first lecture transcript”

posted
  • place: Boulder, Colorado

education

new bike, the Nashbar 5000 now 15 or so years old. still running, in need of some new parts, though, so I will contribute it to some charity. when in Amurika, upgrade. to what end? newness (an energized statement against entropic decay). but it requires an energy input. constantly. that’s what makes gold so desirable, that it requires almost no input over time to retain its luster. you only have to get it.

Education is a process that necessarily entails an interpersonal (not merely interactive) relationship between people — student and teacher (and student and student) that aims at individual and collective self-knowledge. (Whenever people recall their educational experiences they tend to remember, above all, not courses or subjects or the information imparted but people, people who changed their minds or their lives, people who made a difference in their developing sense of themselves. It is a sign of our current confusion about education that we must be reminded of this obvious fact: that the relationship between people is central to the educational experience.) Education is a process of becoming for all parties, based upon mutual recognition and validation and centering upon the formation and evolution of identity. The actual content of the educational experience is defined by this relationship between people and the chief determinant of quality education is the establishment and enrichment of this relationship. — David F. Noble

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  • place: Boulder, Colorado

time again

long telephone conversations ensue, maxing out my 3000-minutes-a-month-nights-and-weekends limit. and be-ing in this house again. hmmmmmm. histories and futures converge, cross, fade, re-emerge, flicker behind passing tree branches, hung with prayer ribbons, over-arched by sky and sun. some of the colored strips, embodied prayers, are tangled in the branches.

particular depths of connection simply remain outside my normal thought patterns. (survival) stress is a key factor in limiting the pass of sensual energies. but that same stress raises the intensity of some flows. in or out. no clear. thing. but if the confident line goes. and the Others in suffering lift hands in supplication or praise. then the channeling must continue. so to speak. a description of contact with the Dalai Lama seems to confirm all this stuff. well, that was known, assumed, and those levels of electricity are ambient around us every moment. just switch on the juice! in the Sun, in the Sky, in the Ground, everywhere. not a naturalistic thing, simply in all things, blanket, in all dimensions, irrespective to the model system applied.

and seeing how the Other lives. watching that in a distant and rigid side-ward stare. no, just seeing the fragments float past eye from time to time. and time again.

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  • place: en route Helsinki - Jyväskylä, Finland

raw suspicions

the raw suspicion that stability is a straw dog. (a term that Anthony first raised into my consciousness). in that conversation in a bar-restaurant somewhere on the Delaware River a long time ago. wondering what happened to him, no words from him in many, 18 moons ago. while now in the moment, the Leonids rain down from the sky. he was supposed to be going to Flagstaff, the wanderer that he is.

the last morning of the Media Lab workshop, I have something of a microscopic revelation in the number six tram. understanding that I am talking deeply about the power of presence as a creative strategy and practice, traveling around Europe preaching this, and all the while, at the same time, leaving my little boy behind. a little boy who is not so little anymore. everything seems impossible for this family. relationships are crushed and fragmented, distorted and removed, applied over distance and imbalanced. hmmmmmm.

another thread that came from the workshop this week were characterizations about the externalization of memory and the problem of re-presentation. with memory removed from the embodied self, there is an erosion of personal autonomy (the external localized memory is the technological network — which is not a network after all, but a lateral hierarchy). the act of placing memory externally reifies what would be an internally dynamic condition of evolutionary presence. and contributes to an ethical or even moral slide. (assuming that a static condition of memory is problematic — haven’t meditated on that one so much.)

here in Jyväskylä, dinner with Niina, finding out about the local situation (email never provides enough communications spectrum), in a hotel on campus by the lake. seminar tomorrow. a late call, like those many others, of the sadness I have caused to an Other. by not respecting innocence. and not providing the right dreams.

posted
  • place: Helsinki, Finland

confrontation

Bob Marley, Confrontation

Flows of energy cannot be categorized, only experienced. this is clear, though when you see them, feel them running the wrong way, like some minuscule route becomes a high-voltage river that rearranges all physical forms in its way, the energy sparking and running last night, my hand aching far into the night, gripping Sanna’s tightly for the duration of one of the most heart-clenching-peeling conversations I have ever had, suomen/englanti kielellä.

On the verge, and it is killing me. if I do not slay the dragon that is running me into the nothingness of insensibility, St. George’s dragon, like Loki’s favorite CD cover — “Confrontation” with a stylized and dreads-akimbo-barefoot Bob Marley astride a white horse (that’s Night-Shining-White, I tell him, the name of an obscure Chinese minister’s horse in an electric drawing at the Met, my favorite). there Bob sits, astride Night-Shining-White rearing, and the Dragon already impaled on the spear that the Rasta Mon wields. killing the dragon. brings my spirit up!

Night Shining White, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York

I temporarily stopped this travelog somehow partly because the manic energy which has driven my erratic and hectic movement during the last 5 or 20 years is dying. but not dying graciously or painlessly. it dies like a snake, no smart dog to whip it from the tail to zero being. just slow removal, slow in time, but time is moving fast, an inverse relativity. it has shed its skin a hundred times, and shape-shifted a million times, once for every moment that it was to be handled, grabbed, or even examined from a distance. another million times as it entered each other place, each of them, each millisecond, each micrometer of difference in viewpoint recreated it again. but it HAS to die, I HAVE to kill it, quickly. retrospect comes (with age?) or just with point of view? and retrospect says that I have made mistakes that now dog me. sinner paying. nah, like, it just has to be re-routed. re-formed, redistributed. (fat half-moon rising over the city horizon). eighth floor, on Mannerheimintie, with a view over Ruskeasuo, the “Brown Swamp,” a rather wild chunk of land that stretches north out of the city center to meet something of real Finnish forest — if there is such a thing in a place where all revel in endless rows of copy machines making copies of all things copyable and even some of those holy things that are not. endless trees turning into sheaves of toilet paper and laser copy feed-stock to take the words of one million and turn them into the collated and stapled tomes of twenty, a hundred million. nah.