501 lines
28 KiB
Plaintext
501 lines
28 KiB
Plaintext
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THE ELECTRONIC DISTURBANCE
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Critical Art Ensemble
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Part 2 of 7
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Published by Autonomedia
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ISBN 1-57027-006-6
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The avant-garde never gives up, and yet the limitations of
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antiquated models and sites of resistance tend to push
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resistance into the void of disillusionment. It is
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important to keep the bunkers under siege; however, the
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vocabulary of resistance must be expanded to include means
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of electronic disturbance. Just as authority located in the
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street was once met by demonstration and barricades, the
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authority that locates itself in the electronic field must
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be met with electronic resistance. Spatial strategies may
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not be key in the endeavor, they are necessary for support,
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at least in the case of broad spectrum disturbance. These
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older strategies of physical challenge are also better
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developed, while the electronic strategies are not. It is
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time to turn attention to the electronic resistance, both in
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terms of the bunker and the nomadic field. The electronic
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field is an area where little is known; in such a gamble,
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one should be ready to face the ambiguous and unpredictable
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hazards of an untried resistance. Preparations for the
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double-edged sword should be made.
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Nomadic power must be resisted in cyberspace rather than in
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physical space. The postmodern gambler is an electronic
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player. A small but coordinated group of hackers could
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introduce electronic viruses, worms, and bombs into the data
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banks, programs, and networks of authority, possibly
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bringing the destructive force of inertia into the nomadic
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realm. Prolonged inertia equals the collapse of nomadic
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authority on a global level. Such a strategy does not
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require a unified class action, nor does it require
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simultaneous action in numerous geographic areas. The less
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nihilistic could resurrect the strategy of occupation by
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holding data as hostage instead of property. By whatever
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means electronic authority is disturbed, the key is to
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totally disrupt command and control. Under such conditions,
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all dead capital in the military/corporate entwinement
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becomes an economic drain--material, equipment, and labor
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power all would be left without a means of deployment. Late
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capital would collapse under its own excessive weight.
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Even though this suggestion is but a science-fiction
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scenario, this narrative does reveal problems which must be
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addressed. Most obvious is that those who have engaged
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cyberreality are generally a depoliticized group. Most
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infiltration into cyberspace has either been playful
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vandalism (as with Robert Morris' rogue program, or the
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string of PC viruses like Michaelangelo), politically
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misguided espionage (Markus Hess' hacking of military
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computers, which was possibly done for the benefit of the
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KGB), or personal revenge against a particular source of
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authority. The hacker(*) code of ethics discourages any act
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of disturbance in cyberspace. Even the Legion of Doom (a
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group of young hackers that put the fear into the Secret
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Service) claims to have never damaged a system. Their
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activities were motivated by curiosity about computer
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systems, and belief in free access to information. Beyond
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these very focused concerns with decentralized information,
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political thought or action has never really entered the
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group's consciousness. Any trouble that they have had with
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the law (and only a few members break the law) stemmed
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either from credit fraud or electronic trespass. The
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problem is much the same as politicizing scientists whose
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research leads to weapons development. It must be asked,
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How can this class be asked to destabilize or crash its own
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world? To complicate matters further, only a few understand
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the specialized knowledge necessary for such action. Deep
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cyberreality is the least democratized of all frontiers. As
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mentioned above, cyberworkers as a professional class do not
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have to be fully unified, but how can enough members of this
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class be enlisted to stage a disruption, especially when
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cyberreality is under state-of-the-art self-surveillance?
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(*) "Hacker" refers here to a generic class of computer
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sophisticates who often, but not always, operate
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counter to the needs of the military/corporate
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structure. As used here the term includes crackers,
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phreakers, hackers proper, and cypherpunks.
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These problems have drawn many artists to electronic media,
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and this has made some contemporary electronic art so
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politically charged. Since it is unlikely that scientific
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or techno-workers will generate a theory of electronic
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disturbance, artists-activists (as well as other concerned
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groups) have been left with the responsibility to help
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provide a critical discourse on just what is at stake in the
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development of this new frontier. By approaching the
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legitimate authority of "artistic creation," and using it as
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a means to establish a public forum for speculation on a
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model of resistance within emerging techno-culture, the
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cultural producer can contribute to the perpetual fight
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against authoritarianism. Further, concrete strategies of
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image/text communication, developed through the use of
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technology that has fallen through the cracks in the war
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machine, will better enable those concerned to invent
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explosive material to toss into the political-economic
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bunkers. Postering, pamphleteering, street theater, public
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art--all were useful in the past. But as mentioned above,
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where is the "public"; who is on the street? Judging from
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the number of hours that the average person watches
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television, it seems that the public is electronically
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engaged. The electronic world, however, is by no means
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fully established, and it is time to take advantage of the
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fluidity through invention, before we are left with only
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critique as a weapon.
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Bunkers have already been described as privatized public spaces
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which serve various particularized functions, such as
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political continuity (government offices or national
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monuments), or areas for consumption frenzy (malls). In
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line with the feudal tradition of the fortress mentality,
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the bunker guarantees safety and familiarity in exchange for
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the relinquishment of individual sovereignty. It can act as
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a seductive agent offering the credible illusion of
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consumptive choice and ideological peace for the complicit,
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or it can act as an aggressive force demanding acquiescence
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for the resistant. The bunker brings nearly all to its
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interior with the exception of those left to guard the
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streets. After all, nomadic power does not offer the choice
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not to work or not to consume. The bunker is such an all-
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embracing feature of everyday life that even the most
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resistant cannot always approach it critically. Alienation,
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in part, stems from this uncontrollable entrapment in the
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bunker.
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Bunkers vary in appearance as much as they do in function.
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The nomadic bunker--the product of "the global village"--has
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both an electronic and an architectural form. The
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electronic form is witnessed as media; as such it attempts
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to colonize the private residence. Informative distraction
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flows in an unceasing stream of fictions produced by
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Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and CNN. The economy of desire
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can be safely viewed through the familiar window of screenal
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space. Secure in the electronic bunker, a life of alienated
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autoexperience (a loss of the social) can continue in quiet
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acquiescence and deep privation. The viewer is brought to
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the world, the world to the viewer, all mediated through the
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ideology of the screen. This is virtual life in a virtual
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world.
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Like the electronic bunker, the architectural bunker is
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another site where hyperspeed and hyperinertia intersect.
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Such bunkers are not restricted to national boundaries; in
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fact, they span the globe. Although they cannot actually
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move through physical space, they simulate the appearance of
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being everywhere at once. The architecture itself may vary
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considerably, even in terms of particular types; however,
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the logo or totem of a particular type is universal, as are
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its consumables. In a general sense, it is its redundant
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participation in these characteristics that make it so
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seductive.
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This type of bunker was typical of capitalist power's first
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attempt to go nomadic. During the Counterreformation, when
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the Catholic Church realized during the Council of Trent
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(1545-63) that universal presence was a key to power in the
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age of colonization, this type of bunker came of age. (It
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took the full development of the capitalist system to
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produce the technology necessary to return to power through
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absence). The appearance of the church in frontier areas
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both East and West, the universalization of ritual, the
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maintenance of relative grandeur in its architecture, and
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the ideological marker of the crucifix, all conspired to
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present a reliable place of familiarity and security.
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Wherever a person was, the homeland of the church was
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waiting.
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In more contemporary times, the gothic arches have
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transformed themselves into golden arches. McDonalds' is
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global. Wherever an economic frontier is opening, so is a
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McDonalds'. Travel where you might, that same hamburger and
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coke are waiting. Like Bernini's piazza at St. Peters, the
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golden arches reach out to embrace their clients--so long as
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they consume, and leave when they are finished. While in
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the bunker, national boundaries are a thing of the past, in
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fact you are at home. Why travel at all? After all,
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wherever you go, you are already there.
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There are also sedentary bunkers. This type is clearly
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nationalized, and hence is the bunker of choice for
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governments. It is the oldest type, appearing at the dawn
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of complex society, and reaching a peak in modern society
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with conglomerates of bunkers spread throughout the urban
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sprawl. These bunkers are in some cases the last trace of
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centralized national power (the White House), or in others,
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they are locations to manufacture a complicit cultural elite
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(the university), or sites of manufactured continuity
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(historical monuments). These are sites most vulnerable to
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electronic disturbance, as their images and mythologies are
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the easiest to appropriate.
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In any bunker (along with its associated geography,
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territory, and ecology) the resistant cultural producer can
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best achieve disturbance. There is enough consumer
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technology available to at least temporarily reinscribe the
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bunker with image and language that reveal its sacrificial
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intent, as well as the obscenity of its bourgeois
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utilitarian aesthetic. Nomadic power has created panic in
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the streets, with its mythologies of political subversion,
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economic deterioration, and biological infection, which in
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turn produce a fortress ideology, and hence a demand for
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bunkers. It is now necessary to bring panic into the
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bunker, thus disturbing the illusion of security and leaving
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no place to hide. The incitement of panic in all sites is
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the postmodern gamble.
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Chapter 3 ]]> Video and Resistance: Against Documentaries
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The medium of video was born in crisis. This postmodern
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technology has been shoved back into the womb of history
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with the demand that it progress through the same
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developmental stages as its older siblings, film and
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photography. The documentary--the paramount model for
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resistant video production--gives witness less to the
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endless parade of guerrilla actions, street demonstrations,
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and ecological disasters than it does to the persistence of
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Enlightenment codes of truth, knowledge, and a stable
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empirical reality. The hegemony of the documentary moves
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the question of video technology away from its function as a
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simulator, and back to the retrograde consideration of the
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technology as a replicator (witness). Clearly technology
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will not save us from the insufferable condition of eternal
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recurrence.
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Recall file entitled "Enlightenment." Enlightenment: A
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historical moment past, which must now be looked upon
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through the filter of nostalgia. Truth was so simple then.
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The senses were trusted, and the discrete units of sensation
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contained knowledge. To those ready to observe, nature
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surrendered its secrets. Every object contained useful
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pieces of data exploding with information, for the world was
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a veritable network of interlocking facts. Facts were the
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real concern: everything observable was endowed with
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facticity. Everything concrete merited observation, from a
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grain of sand to social activity. "Knowledge" went nova.
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The answer to the problem of managing geometrically
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cascading data was specialization: Split the task of
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observation into as many categories and subcategories as
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possible to prevent observational integrity from being
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distracted by the proliferation of factual possibility. (It
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is always amazing to see authoritarian structures run wild
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in the utopian moment.) Specialization worked in the
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economy (complex manufacture) and in government management
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(bureaucracy); why not also with knowledge? Knowledge
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entered the earthly domain (as opposed to the
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transcendental), giving humanity control over its own
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destiny and initiating an age of progress with science as
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redeemer.
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In the midst of this jubilation, a vicious scepticism
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haunted the believers like the Encyclopedists, the new
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social thinkers (such as Turgot, Fontenelle, and Condorcet),
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and later, the logical positivists. The problem of
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scepticism was exemplified by David Hume's critique of the
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empirical model, which placed Enlightenment epistemology
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outside the realm of certainty. The senses were shown to be
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unreliable conveyers of information, and factual
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associations were revealed as practical inference.
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Strengthened by the romantic critique developed later under
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the banner of German Idealism, the argument became
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acceptable that the phenomenal world was not a source of
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knowledge, since perception could be structured by given
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mental categories which might or might now show fidelity to
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a thing-in-itself. Under this system, science was reduced
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to a practical mapping of spatial-temporal constellations.
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Unfortunately, the idealists were unable to escape the
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scepticism from which they had emerged. Their own system of
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transcendentalism was just as susceptible to the sceptic's
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arguments.
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Science found itself in a peculiar position in regard to the
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19th-century sociology of knowledge. Since it did produce
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what secularists interpreted as desirable practical results,
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it became an ideological legitimizer even on the ordinary
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level of everyday life. Within the sceptic's vacuum,
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empirical science by default usurped the right to pronounce
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what was real in experience. Sensible judgement was secure
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in the present, but to judge past events required immediate
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perception to be reconstituted through memory. The problem
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of memory was transformed into a technological problem
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because the subjective elements of memory led to the decay
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of the facticity of the sensible object, and written
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representation as a means to maintain history was
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insufficient. Although theory and method were mature and
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legitimized, a satisfactory technology had yet to emerge.
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This problem finally resolved itself with the invention of
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photography. Photography could provide a concrete visual
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record (vision being the most trustworthy of the senses) as
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an account of the past. Photography represented facts,
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rather than subjectively dissolving them into memory, or
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abstracting them as with writing. At last, there was a
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visual replicator to produce a record independent of the
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witness. Technology could mediate perception, and thereby
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impose objectivity upon the visual record. To this extent,
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photography was embraced more as a scientific tool than as a
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means to manifest aesthetic intent.
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Artists from all media began to embrace the empirical model,
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which had been rejuvenated by these innovations in
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replicating technology. Their interest in turn gave birth
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to Realism and literary Naturalism. In these new genres,
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the desire for replication became more complex. A new
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political agenda had insinuated itself into cultural
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production. Unlike in the past when politics generally
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served to maintain the status quo, the agenda of the newly-
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born left began to make a clear-cut appearance in empirical
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cultural representation. The proponents of the movement no
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longer worshipped the idealistic cultural icons of the
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romantic predecessors, but fetishized facticity--tendencies
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that reduced the artist's role to that of mechanical
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reproduction. The visual presentation of factual data
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allowed one to objectively witness the injustice of history,
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providing those eliminated from the historical record a way
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to make their places known. The use of traditional media
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combined with Enlightenment epistemology to promote a new
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leftist ideology that failed relatively fast. Even the
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experimental novels of Zola, in the end, could only be
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perceived as fiction, not as historical accounts. The
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Realist painters' work seemed equally unreliable, as the
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paintbrush was not a satisfactory technological means to
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insure objectivity, while its product was tied too closely
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to an elitist tradition and to its institutions. Perhaps
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their only actual victory was to produce a degraded sign of
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subversive intent that meekly insisted on the
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horizontalization of traditional aesthetic categories,
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particularly in the area of subject matter.
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By the end of the century, having nowhere else to turn, some
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leftist cultural producers began to rethink photography and
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its new advancement, film. The first documentary makers
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intended to produce an objective and accurate visual record
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of social injustice and leftist resistance, and guided by
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those aims the documentary began to take form. The
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excitement over new possibilities for socially responsible
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representation allowed production to precede critical
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reflection about the medium, and the mistakes that were made
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continue as institutions into the present.
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The film documentary was a catastrophe from its inception. Even
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as far back as the Lumiere brothers' work, the facticity of
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nonfiction film has been crushed under the burden of
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ideology. A film such as _Workers Leaving the Lumiere
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Factory_ functions primarily as an advertisement for
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industrialization--a sign of the future divorced from the
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historical forces which generated it. In spite of its
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static camera and the necessary lack of editing, the
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function of replication was lost, because the life presented
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in the film was yet to exist for most. From this point on,
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the documentary proceeded deeper into its own fatality. A
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film such as _Elephant Processions at Phnom Penh_ became the
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predecessor of what we now think of as the cynical
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postmodern work. The documentary went straight to the heart
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of colonial appropriation. This film was a spectacular
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sideshow that allowed the viewer to temporarily enter a
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culture that never existed. It was an opportunity to revel
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in a simulated event, again isolated from any type of
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historical context. In this sense, Lumiere was Disney's
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predecessor. Disney World is the completion of the Lumiere
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cultural sideshow project. By appropriating cultural debris
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and reassembling it in a means palatable for temporary
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consumption, Disney does in 3-D what Lumiere had done in 2-
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D: produce a simulation of the world culture-text in the
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fixed location of the bunker.
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The situation continued to worsen. Robert Flaherty
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introduced complex narrative into the documentary in his
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film _Nanook of the North_. The film was marked by an
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overcoded film grammar that transcendentally generated a
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story out of what were supposed to be raw facts. The gaps
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between the disparate re-presented images had to be brought
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together by the glue of the romantic ideology favored by the
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filmmaker. In a manner of speaking, this had to happen,
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since there were no facts to begin with, but only
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reconstituted memory. Flaherty's desire to produce the
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exotic led him to simulate a past that never existed. In
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the film's most famous sequence, Flaherty recreates a walrus
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hunt. Nanook had never been on a hunt without guns, but
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Flaherty insisted he use harpoons. Nanook had a memory of
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what his father had told him about traditional hunting, and
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he had seen old Eskimo renderings of it. Out of these
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memories, entwined with Falherty's romantic conceptions, the
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walrus hunt was reenacted. Representation was piled on
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representation under the pretense of an unachievable
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originality. It did make an exciting and entertaining
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story, but it had no more factual integrity than D. W.
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Griffiths' _Birth of a Nation_.
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It is unnecessary to repeat the cynical history of the
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documentary oscillating along the political continuum from
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Vertov to Riefenstahl. In all cases it has been
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fundamentally cynical--a political commodity doomed by the
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very nature of the technology to continually replay itself
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within the economy of desire. Film is not now nor has it
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ever been the technology of truth. It lies at a speed of 24
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frames a second. Its value is not as a recorder of history,
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but simply as a means of communication, a means by which
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meaning is generated. The frightening aspect of the
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documentary film is that it can generate rigid history in
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the present in the same manner that Disney can generate the
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colonial meaning of the culture of the Other. Whenever
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imploded films exist simultaneously as fiction and
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nonfiction they stand as evidence that history is made in
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Hollywood.
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The documentary's uneasy alliance with scientific methodology
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attempts to exploit the seeming power of science to stop the
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drift of multifaceted interpretation. Justifiably or not,
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scientific evidence is incontrovertible; it rests
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comfortably under the sign of certitude. This is the
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authority that the documentary attempts to claim for itself.
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Consequently, documentary makers have always used
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authoritarian coding systems to structure the documentary
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narrative.
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This strategy relies on the complete exhaustion of the image
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at the moment of immediate apprehension. The narrative
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structure must envelop the viewer like a net and close off
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all other possible interpretation. The narrative guiding
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the interpretation of the images must flow along a unilinear
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pathway, at such a speed that the viewer has no time for any
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reflection. Key in this movement is to produce the
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impression that each image is causatively linked to the
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images preceding it. Establishment of causality between the
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images renders a seamless effect and keeps the viewers'
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interpretive flow moving along a predetermined course. The
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course ends with the conclusion prepared by the documentary
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maker in constructing the causal chain of images, offering
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what seems to be an incontrovertible resolving statement.
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After all, who can challenge replicated causality? Its
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legitimation by traditional rational authority is too great.
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A documentary fails when the causal chain breaks down,
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showing the seams and allowing a moment of disbelief to
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disrupt the predetermined interpretive matrix. Without the
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scientific principle of causality rigorously structuring the
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narrative, the documentary's legitimized authority
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dissipates quite rapidly, revealing its true nature as
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fictional propaganda. When a legitimation crisis occurs in
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the film, the image becomes transparent, rather than
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exhausting itself, and the ideology of the narrative is
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displayed in all its horrifying glory. The quality
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documentary does not reveal itself, and it is this
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illusionistic chicanery--first perfected by Hollywood
|
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realism--that unfortunately guides the grand majority of
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documentary and video witness work that leftist cultural
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workers currently produce in endless streams.
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|
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This pitiful display is particularly insidious because it
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turns the leftist cultural workers into that which they most
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|
fear: Validators of the conservative interpretive matrix.
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|
If the fundamental principle of conservative politics is to
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maintain order for the sake of economy, to complement the
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|
needs and desires of the economic elite, and to discourage
|
|
social heterogeneity, then the documentary, as it now
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|
stands, is complicit in participating in that order, even if
|
|
it flies the banner of social justice over its ideological
|
|
fortress. This is true because the documentary does not
|
|
create an opportunity for free thought, but instills self-
|
|
censorship in the viewer, who must absorb its images within
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|
the structure of a totalizing narrative. If one examines
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|
the sign of censorship itself, as it was embodied, for
|
|
example, in Jesse Helms' criticisms of Andre Serrano's _Piss
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|
Christ_, one can see the methods of totalizing
|
|
interpretation at work. Helms argued that a figure of
|
|
Christ submerged in piss leads to a single conclusion, that
|
|
the work is an obscene sacrilege. Helms' interpretation is
|
|
a fair one; however, it is not the only one. Helms used
|
|
senatorial spectacle as an authority to legitimize and
|
|
totalize his interpretation. Under his privileged
|
|
interpretive matrix, the image is immediately exhausted.
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|
However, anyone who reflects on Serrano's image for only a
|
|
moment can see that numerous other meanings are contained
|
|
within it. There are meanings that are both critical and
|
|
aesthetic (formal). Helms' overall strategy was not so much
|
|
to use personal power as a means to censorship, but to
|
|
create the preconditions for the public to blindly follow
|
|
into self-censorship, thereby agreeing to the homogenous
|
|
order desired by the elite class. The resistant documentary
|
|
depends upon this same set of conditions for its success.
|
|
The long-term consequences of using such methods, even with
|
|
good intentions, is to make the viewer increasingly
|
|
susceptible to illusionistic narrative structure, while the
|
|
model itself becomes increasingly sophisticated through its
|
|
constant revision. Anywhere along the political continuum
|
|
the electronic consumer turns, s/he is treated like media
|
|
sheep. To stop this manipulation, documentary makers must
|
|
refuse to sacrifice the subjectivity of the viewer. The
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|
nonfiction film needs to travel other avenues than the one
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|
inherited from tradition.
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