<nettime> images, languages, digest [chandavarkar, sondheim x2]

["nettime's_pinhole" <nettime@bbs.thing.net>]

Re: <nettime> Re: Images and Official Language: The Gap or How not
     "Prem Chandavarkar" <prem@cnt-semac.com>
     Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
     Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>

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From: "Prem Chandavarkar" <prem@cnt-semac.com>
Subject: RE: <nettime> Images and Official Language: The Gap or How not to Know
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 2004 09:10:22 +0530

>But does she capture the divide between that image realm and what she
>calls the words that alter and subtract, the official language that is
>disseminated first by "administration officials" and then repeated by the
>talking/writing media? That official language seems to keep a large
>portion of the population reassured about what their Governments are doing
>in their name. Does she capture the specific nature of the violence and
>the sadism and the way that it is, even in its excessive form, a part of a
>larger system of pacification and detention(both inside and outside of the
>G7), of restructuring that most people just don't care to know about.

See John Berger's essay on "War Photographs".  He points out that for a
moment we are shaken out of the routine of our lives when we see horrific
images of war.  We may even comprehend the level of brutality and injustice
that is involved.  But the problem is that most people do not know what to
do subsequently.  Given a lack of opportunities for engagement we tend to
cope by de-politicising the image - either by saying it is happening in a
remote place which has nothing to do with us, dismissing it as an aberration
rather than a trend, or by assuaging our conscience by sending a donation to
the Red Cross or Oxfam.

So I wonder which is the overriding question - how to authentically
"capture" what has happened so that people are forced to "know", or how to
construct opportunities for political engagement.

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Date: Wed, 2 Jun 2004 11:18:52 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Re: Images and Official Language: The Gap or How not
 to Know

Apologies for the incomprehensibility, if that's such a word. And I didn't
express myself clearly on one issue, that 'about' tends to imply a
corralling of cause and affect, that it's a limitation. If one asks
'about' - it's like asking 'about' 'meaning' - it's endless, but quickly
turns to an obvious answer which allows pseudo questions, What is the
meaning of life, what is life about? What I'm getting at is the limitation
- yes, about oil, about daddy, about paranoia, about wmd, about these and
many many other causes - but I don't believe there's a _root_ cause or a
_root_ conspiracy - I think it's a collocation or heap of causes, if
you'll permit the metaphor, and a collocation or heap of blunders and for
that matter deliberate ignorance - ignoring the pain and suffering, etc. I
doubt Bush or any of his cohorts for example has ever read the Koran or
made an attempt to understand Islam. Does that matter? Yes, particularly
when another supposedly 'better' way of life is imposed from without. It's
the most brutal form of colonialism, and like capital, it seeps beyond
specific cause to heaps...

Alan

http://www.asondheim.org/ http://www.asondheim.org/portal/.nikuko
http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt
Trace projects http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm
finger sondheim@panix.com

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Date: Wed, 2 Jun 2004 11:21:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Re: Images and Official Language: The Gap or How not
 to  Know

But was it really a matter of 'spin'? It didn't look good right from the
beginning to many people - don't forget we were coming down out of the
Clinton era which was fairly prosperous. And 'spin' again seems too much
of a singularity.

It's like when you really really hate someone and can't pin down the
reason, but find your fury growing. And you don't question it, but you go
out with a knife at night.

I used to think that evil was non-existent, that it was always possible to
dconstruct; it seems to me now that evil is based on deliberate ignorance
and ignoring, tending towards the violation of the rights of others.

Alan

http://www.asondheim.org/ http://www.asondheim.org/portal/.nikuko
http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt
Trace projects http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm
finger sondheim@panix.com

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