Leonardo Reviews Quarterly 1.04

Home , Artistic integrity, Fragile Future, Gary Grimshaw, Paul Wonner

L|R|Q

Leonardo Reviews Quarterly 1.04 | 2011

Executive Editor: Roger Malina Editor-in-Chief: Michael Punt Managing Editor: Claudy Op den Kamp www.leonardo.info © ISAST L|R|Q

Leonardo Reviews Quarterly 1.04 | 2011

Executive Editor: Roger Malina Editor-in-Chief: Michael Punt Managing Editor: Claudy Op den Kamp www.leonardo.info © ISAST Leonardo Reviews

Leonardo Reviews Reviews Panel

Leonardo Reviews is the work of an international Kathryn Adams, Nameera Ahmed, Katherine panel of scholars and professionals invited from Ancher, Fred Andersson, Wilfred Arnold, Jan Ba- a wide range of disciplines to review books, exhi- etens, Niran Bahjat-Abbas, Brian Baigrie, Jenny bitions, DVDs, CDs, websites, and conferences. Bangham, John F. Barber, Jon Bedworth, Roy Collectively they represent an intellectual commit- Behrens, Katharina Blassnigg, Martha Blassnigg, ment to engaging with the emergent debates and Barry Blundell, Catalin Brylla, Annick Bureaud, manifestations that are the consequences of the Franc Chamberlain, Chris Cobb, Ornella Coraz- convergence of the arts, science and technology. za, Geoff Cox, Sean Cubitt, Hannah Drayson, Anthony Enns, Jennifer Ferng, Enzo Ferrara, Leonardo Reviews publishes all reviews received George Gessert, Thom Gillespie, Luis Girao, from the panel monthly at www.leonardo.info. In Allan Graubard, Dene Grigar, Rob Harle, Craig addition, four times a year a selection of reviews Harris, Paul Hertz, Craig J. Hilton, Jung A. Huh, is printed in Leonardo and now Leonardo Reviews Amy Ione, Boris Jardine, Richard Kade, John Quarterly will be publishing an even larger selec- Knight, Mike Leggett, Helen Levin, Kieran Lyons, tion as a PDF together with introductory material Roger Malina, Jacques Mandelbrojt, Florence and overview essays. Martellini, Eduardo Miranda, Rick Mitchell, Robert A. Mitchell, Christine Morris, Michael Mosher, Reviewers interested in being considered for the Axel Mulder, Frieder Nake, Maureen A. Nappi, panel and publishers and authors interested in Angela Ndalianis, Martha Patricia Nino, Simone having their print or electronic publications con- Osthoff, Jack Ox, Narendra Pachkhede, Jussi sidered for review by the panel should contact: Parikka, Rene van Peer, Guiseppe Pennisi, Cliff Pickover, Michael Punt, Kathleen Quillian, Harry Michael Punt Rand, Sonya Rapoport, Trace Reddell, Hugo de Editor-In-Chief, Leonardo Reviews Rijke, Stefaan van Ryssen, Sundar Sarukkai, University of Plymouth Laura Salisbury, Lara Schrijver, Bill Seeley, Apar- Portland Square, B312 na Sharma, George K. Shortess, Chris Speed, Plymouth, PL4 8AA, UK Yvonne Spielmann, Eugene Thacker, Pia Tikka, mpunt(at)easynet.co.uk David Topper, Nicholas Tresilian, Ian Verstegen, Claudia Westermann, Stephen Wilson, Brigitta Zics, Jonathan Zilberg

iii Table of Contents

Editorials Michael Punt - Curiosity, Innovation and Agency �� vii Roger Malina - Curiosity, Borders of the Real and Multiple Futures �� ix Review Articles Beyond the Estuary Metaphor By Jonathan Zilberg �� 1 Arnheim for Film and Media Studies by Scott Higgins (ed.) Reviewed by Ian Verstegen ��12 Reviews Celluloid Symphonies. Texts and Contexts in Film Music History by Julie Hubbert (ed.) Reviewed by Jan Baetens ��19 Lumo: One Woman’s Struggle to Heal in a Nation Beset by War by Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Nelson Walker III Reviewed by Jonathan Zilberg ��20 Harnessed: How Language and Music Mimicked Nature and Transformed Ape to Man by Mark Changizi Reviewed by Richard Kade ��22 Destroy All Monsters Magazine 1976 - 1979 by Destroy All Monsters Reviewed by Mike Mosher ��23 The Secret War Between Downloading and Uploading: Tales of the Computer as Culture Machine by Peter Lunenfeld Reviewed by Jan Baetens ��30 Perpetual Motion Machine: The Story of an Invention by Paul Scheerbart Reviewed by Martha Patricia Niño Mojica ��32 The Horizon: A History of Our Infinite Longing by Didier Maleuvre Reviewed by Jan Baetens ��33 The History of Jungle Gardens by Lisa B. Osborn, Shane K. Bernard, and Scott Carroll (eds.) Reviewed by Allan Graubard ��34 U-n-f-o-l-d: A Cultural Response to Climate Change Museum of Contemporary Photography and Glass Curtain Gallery , Chicago, IL Reviewed by Elizabeth Straughan, Deborah Dixon and Harriet Hawkins ��35 ArtScience: A Journey Through Creativity - permanent exhibition 17 February 2011 , The ArtScience Museum, Singapore, SG Travelling the Silk Road exhibition 19 February - 27 March 2011, The ArtScience Museum Singapore, SG Reviewed by Stella Veciana ��36

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Water, Place, & Equity by John M. Whiteley, Helen Ingram & Richard Warren Perry (eds.) Reviewed by Zainub Verjee ��38 The Filming of Modern Life. European Avant-Garde Film of the 1920s by Malcolm Turvey Reviewed by Jan Baetens ��39 Lab Coats in Hollywood: Science, Scientists and Cinema by David A. Kirby From IBM to MGM: Cinema at the Dawn of the Digital Age by Andrew Utterson Reviewed by Mike Leggett ��40 Bauhaus Dream-house - Modernity and Globalization by Katerina Rüedi Ray Reviewed by Florence Martellini ��42 A Women’s Berlin: Building the Modern City by Despina Stratigakos Reviewed by Zainub Verjee ��44 Grafik Dynamo by Kate Armstrong and Michael Tippett, with essay by Joseph Tabbi Reviewed by Dene Grigar ��45 Design Thinking: Understanding How Designers Think and Work by Nigel Cross Reviewed by Dene Grigar ��46 Interface Criticism: Aesthetics Beyond Buttons by Christian Ulrik Andersen & Soren Pold (eds.) Reviewed by Ellen Pearlman ��47 Digital Practices: Aesthetic and Neuroesthetic Approaches to Performance and Technology by Susan Broadhurst Reviewed by Rob Harle ��48 Octopus Time: Bellmer Painting by Herbert Lust Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher ��49 A Touch of Blossom: John Singer Sargent and the Queer Flora of Fin-de-Siècle Art by Alison Syme Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher ��50 Zones of Re-Membering: Time, Memory, and (un)Consciousness by Don Gifford; D. E. Morse (ed.) Reviewed by Rob Harle ��52 Fastwürms Donky@Ninja@Witch: A Living Retrospective by Philip Monk Reviewed by Rob Harle ��53

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Affect and Artificial Intelligence by Elizabeth A. Wilson Reviewed by Jussi Parikka ��54 Apichatpong Weerasethakul: Primitive 19 May – 3 July 2011, New Museum , Curated by Massimiliano Gioni and Gary Carrion-Murayari Reviewed by Aparna Sharma ��55 Making Art History: A Changing Discipline and Its Institutions by Elizabeth C. Mansfield (ed.) Reviewed by Jonathan Zilberg ��57 Inside Jokes – Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind by Matthew M. Hurley, Daniel C. Dennett, and Reginald B. Adams, Jr. (eds.) Reviewed by Edith Doove ��58 Compression & Purity by Will Alexander Reviewed by Allan Graubard ��60 Visceral: The Living Art Experiment By Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr Think Art - Act Science (Pensar art – Actuar ciència): Swiss artists-in-labs by Irène Hediger Reviewed by Harriet Hawkins, Deborah Dixon and Elizabeth Straughan ��61 East Bay Open Studios Preview Exhibition Pro Arts Gallery, Oakland, California 3 May – 12 June 2011 East Bay Open Studios 2011 4 – 5 and 11 – 12 June 2011 Reviewed by Amy Ione ��63 Contemporary Art in Eastern Europe by Nikos Kotsopoulos (ed.) Reviewed by Florence Martellini ��65 Le Sel de la Semaine: Henry Miller by Fernand Seguin Poison Woman: Figuring Female Transgression in Modern Japanese Culture by Christine L. Marran The Rule of Mars: Readings on the Origins. History and Impact of Patriarchy by Cristina Biaggi (ed.) Reviewed by Jonathan Zilberg ��67 Theories of International Politics and Zombies by Daniel W. Drezner Reviewed by Anna B. Creagh ��68 Paris 1919: Inside The Peace Talks That Changed The World by Paul Cowan Reviewed by Jonathan Zilberg ��70

vi Editorial Michael Punt Editor-in-Chief, Leonardo Reviews

Curiosity, Innovation and What might be the consequences of a social or Agency institutional structure in which the proliferation of innovation naturalises the belief in possible directions rather than a commitment to a singular Somewhere toward the end of her book-length and agreed direction? essay on the changing form of curiosity in the late twentieth century, Helga Nowotny makes the Perhaps the most obvious consequence is a following claim about the demands of innovation shared uncertainty, personal insecurity in the and its expressions and consequences: face of science and technology that are seemingly autonomous. Dystopian scenarios, cultural They already manifest themselves in preliminary passivity and compensatory distractions are form – for example, in the artistic, creative pro- perhaps the most obvious. Take for example an fessions. For people who work in these fields article in London Review of Books discussing and who regard themselves as innovative and three recent books on Google by Daniel Soar, creative, this means repeatedly and voluntar- one of their editors. ily letting themselves in for the outstandingly staged forms of competition whose function is to … the stuff that Google makes publicly search- maximise variation to carry out selection all the able, or ‘universally accessible’. It’s only a small more rigorously. This proceeds under the sign fraction of the information it actually possesses. of seeming transparence and in adherence to I know that Google knows, because I’ve looked criteria shared by all, though these can be unjust it up, that on 30 April 2011 at 4.33 p.m. I was at and disputable in individual cases. (Nowotny, Willesden Junction station, travelling west. It 2008, p. 141). knows where I was, as it knows where I am now, because like many millions of others I have an The argument of the book is that science and Android-powered smart phone with Google’s lo- technology have produced an uncertainty about cation service turned on. If you use the full range the future which represents a rupture from the of its products, Google knows the identity of mid 20th century belief in a unidirectional and everyone you communicate with by email, instant causal link between innovation and invention. messaging and phone, with a master list – acces- She accounts for this rupture in the changing re- sible only by you, and by Google – of the people lationship between research and the institutional you contact most. If you use its products, Google expectations placed upon those individuals and knows the content of your emails and voicemail teams undertaking it. The current drive toward the messages (a feature of Google Voice is that it new as outcomes of scientific and technological transcribes messages and emails them to you, research, she argues, has provoked uncertainty storing the text on Google servers indefinitely) and plurality where there had once been con- (Soar, 2011, p. 3). sensus. In particular the vision of the future is so fractured that it no longer seems like a Don- In this extract Google ‘knows’, in a way that is nish affectation to talk about possible futures. At indistinguishable from human knowledge (I know root, the unflinching singular vision of the future that Google knows); elsewhere in the article Soar that drives the market – profit and more of it – writes that Google can ‘learn’ and is ‘clever’. This has impacted on the institutional frameworks may be just journalistic expression; a snappy that are necessary to support human curiosity way of writing about a topic that might not be im- to produce diversity, fragmentation and uncer- mediately appealing to a readership more used tainty. In themselves these tendencies are not to literary appreciation. But expressions have without obvious merit, but the question her essay consequences and Soar’s willingness to invest poses concerns the transformation of curiosity an algorithm with cleverness contrasts with his itself. Clearly its insatiability is instinctual but its view of real humans (presumably not the read- expressions and consequences are contingent. ers of LRB) who are apparently undiscriminating Insisting that research has innovative outcomes, when they are in the thrall of technology. then, leads to a different kind of curiosity, which may or may not be better or worse but before we Since there are more ordinary people in the world relinquish any determining influence it would be than there are businesses, and since there’s as well to consider what might be the impact on nothing that ordinary people don’t want or need, human curiosity of insisting on (research) ‘impact’. or can’t be persuaded they want or need when it

vii Editorial Michael Punt Editor-in-Chief, Leonardo Reviews flashes up alluringly on their screens, the money to be made from them is virtually limitless (Soar, 2011, p. 6).

Soar is not untypical of much of the loose rhetoric that surrounds new technology and certain scientific research. The reason, following Now- otny’s argument, must be clear: the reification of innovation for market advantage has discouraged attention to the nature of invention; its inevitability, its insatiability, its material and poetic forms and its purpose in the human order of things as the apparent control of the future is weakened through innovation. What Nowotny may be describing could well be too entrenched in the institutional and state structures that support research to be reversed, but that is not the same as relinquishing agency in the expression of our curiosity.

References: Nowotny, H. (2008). Insatiable Curiosity: Innovation in a Fragile Future. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Soar, D. (2011) ‘It Knows: you can’t get away from Google’, London Review of Books, Vol. 33(19), pp. 3-6.

viii Editorial Roger F. Malina Executive Editor, Leonardo Publications

Curiosity, Borders of the Real to replace oil as the dominant source of energy’. and Multiple Futures The embeddings of curiosity as a cultural value he emphasizes is illustrated by the way that curiosity evolved from a human sin at the time of Michael Punt in his L|R|Q editorial raises some Saint Augustine, to a virtue in twentieth century interesting issues: how is the future determined science. Even Francis Bacon denied being mo- by the way that human curiosity drives us in some tivated by curiosity but rather by human charity. directions and not in others? And as a result much discussion of the contribution of science and One of the gedanken experiments I sometimes technology to society is often framed in closed like to suggest is in the context of the search for and convergent ways that preclude many pos- intelligent intelligence (SETI) in the universe. The sible desirable futures. When invention drives SETI community has been engaged in practical creativity towards solutions to pre-defined prob- speculation for how to communicate with extra- lems, usually within areas identified as current terrestrial intelligence (CETI) for over 50 years. societal priorities, innovation opens up discovery In collaboration with the SETI Institute, Leon- space and multiple possible futures. He draws on ardo organized a number of space and the arts Nowotny’s book Insatiable Curiosity: Innovation workshops [4] in Paris which examined some of in a Fragile Future [1] to state ‘The argument of the issues and whether the arts and humanities the book is that science and technology have could bring a new perspective to the thinking produced an uncertainty about the future which (almost all SETI and CETI activities have been represents a rupture from the mid 20th century carried out by scientists and engineers from a belief in a unidirectional and causal link between traditional positivist scientific perspective). Often innovation and invention.’ inter-stellar message construction proposals rely on the assertion that scientific ‘facts’ are univer- Punt then asks: ‘What might be the consequences sal so that civilizations around other stars share of a social or institutional structure in which the underlying epistemology with our own; examples proliferation of innovation naturalizes the belief are that the structure of the hydrogen atom, the in possible directions rather than a commitment prime numbers. The conclusion is that the way to a singular and agreed direction?’ The innova- to initiate conversation is to rely on these shared tion research community has been asking this fundamental epistemological facts. Yet a cursory question for a number of years with the realization examination of the history of science gives pause. that the 1970s ‘linear model’ from fundamental For two civilizations around two different stars to science to applied science to economic develop- communicate, they must overlap in time (given ment has largely broken down and that the ‘triple light travel times) but the two civilizations may helix’ of government, academia and industry no be in very different stages of their development. longer dominates the innovation landscape [2]. In our cultures recorded science is less than This uncertainty about a unidirectional future 3000 years old, and adequate communication has provoked the establishment of a much more technologies less than 100. What if we were com- complex network of innovation actors, particularly municating with a civilization whose science and when the arts and humanities enter the innova- technology had been developed for over a million tion networks. years? What facts and methodologies would we really share? I could be convinced that we share The issue of the directionality of curiosity has the prime numbers, but what if their science does been on my radar for a number of years since not make use of numbers? What if instead of de- I read Sundar Sarukkai’s essay ‘Science and veloping technologies they cause the evolution the Ethics of Curiosity’ [3] where he challenges of their own organisms? What if their ‘reality’ and many of the tenets of the ‘ethos’ of science which ours don’t overlap significantly? Is there only a disconnects the path that science takes from the single ‘future’ that can be taken by science in fact that human curiosity is embodied, cultural, a given time frame? The answer is clearly: no. social, collective and enactive. He also points that curiosity can be motivated by any number The ‘phase space’ of what is knowable is huge, of factors and that in some cultures doubt rather and what is known at a given time very contingent than curiosity can be fore-grounded. The question on the history of science; so is the phase space ‘does matter exist’ drives different agendas than of creating predictive models. It is curiosity in ‘what makes the colors of the rainbow’ or ‘how our current science that drives discovery, but as

ix Editorial Roger F. Malina Executive Editor, Leonardo Publications pointed out in detail by Nowotny [1] the societal dark energy offer a telling reminder of the rela- context determines the routes that are enabled tivity of our direct perception and the fluidity of by institutions with their, generally, short term the boundaries of the real’. She talks of a ‘meta- objectives. No government committee today, if reality’ that draws on an expanded understand- we placed them in 1860, would in their right mind ing of the physical world as the combination of have funded research in electricity and magnet- the world accessible to the senses and senses ism at a time when improving the steam engine tightly coupled to instruments. was a priority. The Nobel Prize in physics this year was just awarded to three astronomers who Artists and Scientists have different curiosities in discovered that the expansion of the universe is part because their cultural, socio-political, context accelerating due to what is currently called ‘dark is different but also because their objectives are energy’. A Nobel Prize committee official made different. Artists seek to create work that is ac- the error of stating: ‘this discovery has no prac- cessible to human cognition, work that creates tical value’ [5]. I suspect that he will be proved meaning and sense in the context of the individual wrong, though I doubt dark energy will prove exposed to the artwork. Scientists seek to create to be a solution to our terrestrial energy crisis. work that is independent of human cognition and has global if not universal meaning and sense Another way of looking at this is that we can only within the system of science. Yet both artists and invent solutions for the ‘real’ world, but the bor- scientists work at moving the ‘frontiers’ or ‘borders of the ‘real’ world are fuzzy and evolving. ders’ of the ‘real. By coupling artistic and scientific Innovation expands the ‘real’. Iwan Rhys Morus curiosity together one can imagine other routes in his collected texts Bodies/Machines [6] states: that science might take. Physicist Alan Lightman ‘we live in an age simultaneously fascinated and [9] notes: ‘By definition it is extremely difficult to terrified by the boundaries surrounding the hu- imagine worlds outside our experience. For that man body and what might happen there…’ and we are as likely to receive guidance from our goes on to assert that the variety of ways that artists and philosophers as from our mathemati- such boundaries have been constructed, man- cians and scientists.’ Physicist Jean Marc Levy aged, resisted, sustained is a rapidly evolving one Leblond in his book Science is not Art [10] argues today. He points out that ‘[i]n the 19th century that one of the few values of artists’ involvement Victorian Futurism flourished because the bor- with science is the potential to ‘re-thicken’ un- ders of the real were so weak’. Victorian science derstanding by seeking ‘to re-establish the link was confronted with the realization that the ‘real’ between the concepts constructed by science world was other than they thought; electricity and and the reality from which they were abstracted’. magnetism revealed other fundamental forces at work in the world, photography and the expan- This brings us back to Michael Punt’s argument. sion into spectral ranges such as X-Rays and He states: ‘The reason following Nowotny’s argu- Infrared profoundly altered the view of the ‘real’ ment must be clear: the reification of innovation that humans inhabited. At the turn of the century for market advantage has discouraged attention radioactivity, then relativity theory and quantum to the nature of invention; its inevitability, its in- physics continued this process. satiability, its material and poetic forms and its purpose in the human order of things as the ap- Linda Henderson in the new edition of Fourth parent control of the future is weakened through Dimension in Art and Science [7] to be published innovation. What Nowotny may be describing by our Leonardo Books in 2012 looks at how the could well be too entrenched in institutional and concepts of the fourth dimension was a driver State structures that support research to be re- of curiosity for both artists and scientists before versed but that is not the same as relinquishing the Second World War and how these ideas are agency in the expression of our curiosity.’ seeing a resurgence today. The concept of cyberspace, as developed for instance in Michael We need both invention and innovation to both Benedikt’s 1993 [8] collection of essays, lays out thicken the real and alter its borders. To mix my the ways that the ‘real’ expands to include the metaphors, where invention helps us survive in virtual space created by on line constructions. given ‘niche’ defined by a given future, innova- Henderson argues that ideas embedded in string tion diversifies the niches and possible futures. theory and modern cosmology re-inject vitality How one translates this into governmental fund- into those ideas. She notes: ‘dark matter and ing, or university hiring, priorities is the problem

x Editorial Roger F. Malina Executive Editor, Leonardo Publications that Nowotny seeks to address and is a hard problem. Evolution (and the economic market) are not ‘clever’, they discard genetic or technical innovations that don’t improve survival in a given niche at a given time. Evolution and the market are short sighted. On the other hand as the niche changes, evolution draws on the underlying reservoir of genetic, or technical, variations. One would hope that governments, and universities, could be ‘clever’ and longsighted and enable curiosity-driven research for both invention and innovation to create this reservoir of variations that can lead to other possible desirable futures. Universities need to be a reservoir of possible variations that may prove crucial as human society mutates. I don’t have a clue, however, how to convert this into ‘metrics’.

References: [1] Nowotny, H. (2008). Insatiable Curiosity: Innovation in a Fragile Future. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, p. 141. [2] See for instance the work of Gerald Barnett on how the arts and humanities enter into the innovation networks: http://www.research.fsu.edu/techtransfer/ documents/constraint.pdf [3] Sundar Sarukkai, ‘Science and the Ethics of Curiosity’: http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/ sep252009/756.pdf [4] OLATS Space and the Arts Workshops: http:// www.olats.org/space/13avril/2000/mono_index.php/ [5] http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/ laureates/2011/index.html [6] Morus, I. R. (2011). Bodies/Machines. London: A & C Black Publishers Ltd. (ISBN13: 978185973691). [7] Henderson; private communication. [8] Benedikt, M. (ed.) (1991) Cyberspace First Steps. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. [9] Alan Lightman (http://writing.mit.edu/people/ faculty/homepage/lightman) quoted in: http:// www.math.brown.edu/~banchoff/abbott/Flatland/ Publications/1998penguin_intro.shtml [10] Levy Leblond, J.-M. (2010). La Science n’est pas l’Art: Brèves Rencontres. Paris: Hermann Editeurs (ISBN 978-2705669409). For a discussion see my rebuttal: http://malina.diatrope.com/2011/04/17/is- art-science-hogwash-a-rebuttal-to-jean-marc-levyleblond/

xi L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011

Beyond the all the more timely a discussion. veat with Dickens yet in mind. Estuary Metaphor For instance, consider the in- Educated in the British colonial troduction by Jane Jacobs in educational system as one of Hard Times where she wrote: Gradgrind’s empty vessels, I by Jonathan Zilberg “What alarmed Dickens was the chose science as my path at University of Plymouth, divorce that he sensed was oc- the mandatory early crossroad. Transtechnology Research curring between science and I only turned to symbolic anthro- the realms of imagination, po- pology in graduate school when [email protected] etry, myth, and legend… He the allure of the arts and humani- was identifying in its infancy ties became impossible to evade Introduction the mutual alienation of sci- any longer considering the re- ence and the humanities, the strictions of “normal” science in In the two last issues of the Leon- alienation that C. P. Snow, for that time and place. ardo Reviews Quarterly, Michael one, would deplore a century Punt and Roger Malina initiated later as two separate cultures Accordingly, I deeply appreci- a discussion on the problems unable to understand or appreciate the continuing relevance of of “big data” and the definition ate each other’s information and Snow’s sentiment and intentions of what constitutes trans-dis- values” (2001: xvii). A decade despite the flaws of his thesis, ciplinary research. While that ago as Jacobs viewed it then, which seems to have a tena- debate on the definition of trans- “cross-disciplinary studies and cious ambiguous hold over our disciplinary research is interest- cooperative research projects imaginations. For example, Amy ing in and of itself particularly and instruction remain[ed] spot- Ione’s introductory chapter in in terms of the responses to it ty…” By this date however, the Innovation and Visualization: and how this is being variously fields of inter-disciplinary and Trajectories, Strategies, and pursued in doctorate and un- trans-disciplinary projects are Myths (2005) reminds us of how dergraduate programs as well established practiced in the In- relevant the critical debate of as already practiced in the K-12 ternational Baccalaureate sys- Snow is to issues of art, media International Baccalaureate tem, and let us not forget that and science. It is in fact titled pedagogy, my purpose here is these concerns have always “Two Cultures?” There Ione different.1 Instead, I will explore been a foundational norm in judges Snow’s tight terminologi- how this debate, as advanced in cultural anthropology and allied cal boundary “unsettling” and Malina’s last essay has a special disciplines such as ethnomusi- shows how such distinctions relevance to the critique of the cology. Moreover, these con- “offer a misplaced concrete- legacy of C. P. Snow’s notion of nections between the arts and ness that disallows for any real “Two Cultures” as given in the sciences, media and technology sense of how words, actions, im- Rede lecture at Cambridge in have enormously expanded as ages and ideas have subtly and 1959. Returning to Snow and we learn daily through the Yas- systematically changed through the incisive but somewhat for- min network. This is so much time” (pp. 22). For those of us gotten critique that followed, the case that recently positions relatively new to the network, this essay extends the Leavis have even become available in addressing the issue of Big Data and Yudkin Cambridge critique “anti-disciplinary studies”. I like prescient as regards the Two by highlighting the alternative to imagine how Dickens might Cultures debate and the evolv- legacies of Vladimir Nabokov, have satirized this continuing ing discussion on the topic in the John Steinbeck and Stephen creative ferment. But back to Leonardo Quarterly Reviews, Jay Gould. Their lives and works C. P. Snow. Ione’s chapter and the relevant are exemplary of the many art- on-line articles in the Leonardo ists, literary figures and scien- To understand just how spe- Electronic Almanac are perhaps tists whose works defy Snow’s cious C. P. Snow’s thesis was useful to return to so as to avoid simplistic dichotomy and argu- we need to return to the damning reinventing the wheel.2 ably render it specious despite critiques by F. R. Leavis (then its apparent truth-value and ob- an eminent literary critic) and To begin with there is a fun- vious salience. Michael Yudkin (then a young damental difference between scientist) in Two Cultures? The trans-disciplinary and inter-dis- With the Charles Dickens’ anni- Significance of C. P. Snow ciplinary research as Michael versary coming up in 2012, the (1962). Before doing so, I should Punt deftly reminds us, the C. P. Snow debate is it seems first provide a brief personal ca- former productively crossing

1 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 and maintaining disciplinary estuary recapitulated a straw Debate in Early Victorian Britain boundaries and the later cre- man problem introduced by C. (2003), deftly provides an over- ating fusions between them.3 P. Snow. Revisiting Malina’s es- view of the nineteenth century First, he notes the need for pe- tuary metaphor and his subse- origin of the term “scientist” as a riodic synthesis in order to keep quent auto-critique of the Two Romantic reaction to rationalism up with the constant deluge of Cultures debate provides an and the Enlightenment as well data. Second, he clarifies the opportunity or extending the as its antecedents in Bacon’s difference between what con- current debate here in Leon- 1620 Novum Organum (1965) stitutes trans-disciplinary from ardo Reviews Quarterly and in and Platonic thought. Questions inter-disciplinary or multi-disci- the Transtechnology Research of origins aside, recently, John plinary research. He describes Reader series. This debate over F. Egger in The Huffington Post, how the defining feature of Snow’s hypothesis has become responding to an earlier article trans-disciplinary research is pervasive in discussions of liter- “Curriculum Designed to Unite to makes its results intelligible ature and science as evidenced Art and Science” published in and relevant across the disci- in The Routledge Companion to the New York Times (May 27, plines concerned rather than to Literature and Science (2011). 2008) by Natalie Angier. There create a synthesis. In contrast There, to return to Ione’s earlier Angier provided a useful list of to Punt though, what follows is critique and balanced defense, then current initiatives specifi- not a discussion about the chal- the estimation of Snow’s legacy cally designed to overcome the lenges presented by networked is not always positive. Indeed, as “problem”.8 e-culture upon which these Le- also noted above, Snow’s idea onardo debates have centered. of Two Cultures was soundly One of those “exercises in fu- The context I am interested in rejected at the outset at Cam- sion thinking” was the New Hu- is the classroom – university bridge by Leavis and Yudkin - manities Initiative at Bingham- or otherwise, the seminar and though it seems their essays ton University, a program that workshop, both the studio and have been forgotten. Regard- was appropriately conceived the laboratory, recognizing and less, Snow’s ideas have long by a professor in biology and a participating in their enervat- since achieved enormous cur- professor of English. As Angier ing digital extensions and con- rency in the popular imagination records it, George Levine’s re- nectivity.4 I ask: How is the and in American universities and sponse (he being an emeritus Two Cultures debate relevant have played an important role in English professor) to the NHI today? And how does it provide promoting holistic approaches proposal was this: “I was struck a productive challenge for those to science in an environment by how it absolutely refused the working across the arts/humani- of ever intensifying disciplinary simple dichotomy [of the human- ties and sciences? Both of those specialization. ities and sciences]”. Later the simple questions are interesting article concludes with Levine and problematic enough, never Today, the debate is all over the exclaiming in a perfectly C. P. mind the challenges presented place. Take for instance a pe- Snow-like voice, and not without by new-networked media and culiar instance, the “scientific” some basis: “There is a kind of doing cross-sector collabora- explanation for the gap in an on- basic illiteracy on both sides . . . tive work.5 In the end, as I con- line essay by Dan Dewey “C.P. I find it a thrilling idea that people clude, we must rely on what I Snow’s Two Cultures: Hardware might be made to take pleasure term Punt’s Proof. and Software, Discovery and in crossing the border.” Indeed. Creation”. There Dewey refers In LRQ 1.03, Roger Malina ar- to E. O. Wilson’s study Consil- On the 50th anniversary of C. gued persuasively for an estu- ience: The Unity of Knowledge. P. Snow’s Rede lecture, Seed ary metaphor for working across Dewey argues that Snow’s gap Magazine ran an article “Are We this broad disciplinary divide. still exists “but that its very ori- Beyond the Two Cultures?” (May But, more recently, in the lec- gin is unexplained”.7 Fortunately 7, 2009). It describes how John ture “Third Culture?: From the however, Amy Ione, in Innova- Brockman of the Edge Founda- Arts to the Sciences and Back tion and visualization (2005) tion, took up Snow’s proposal of Again” he presented an auto- drawing on Sidney Ross’s a third culture in “The Two Cul- critique of the estuary meta- “Scientist: The Story of a Word” tures: A Second Look” (1963).9 phor.6 There he argued rather (1991) and Richard Yeo’s Defin- However unlike Snow, Brock- differently that the notion of the ing Science: William Whewell, man is not proposing that scien- banks of the river forming the Natural Knowledge and Public tists and “literary intellectuals”

2 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 should communicate. Instead cance of C. P. Snow. The first ters literary, Yudkin’s critique is he points out that scientists are part by Leavis was delivered as more rhetorically measured but now communicating directly with the Richmond Lecture at Cam- no less devastating, perhaps an “intelligent reading public”. bridge in 1962. The second part even more so. Accordingly, to explore Snow’s by Yudkin was an additional es- dichotomy and the idea of a say from the perspective of a Leavis takes particular umbrage Third Culture and Third Culture scientist. that Snow threw virtually the en- Intellectuals, Edge interviewed tire history of modern literature six thinkers in separate on-line In the context of a Malina Es- from Dickens and Ruskin, to discussions in The Two Cultures tuary debate in L|R|Q, it is im- Conrad and Lawrence and be- Video Series, namely E.O. Wil- portant to return to Leavis and yond out of the canon. That cri- son, Janna Levin, Lazslo Bara- Yudkin’s critique for two rea- tique aside, no less the critique basi, Steven Pinker, Marc Haus- sons. First, the evidence be- of Snow’s unqualified notion of er and Rebecca Goldstein.10 If hind their scathing indictment culture and the very nature of his that reflective on-line activity is of Snow’s argument is incon- argument, the merit of Snow’s not enough, and it is a very small testable. Second, their critiques attenuated scientific work itself sample, there is Chris Mooney have a direct bearing on discus- remains to be revisited. But be- and Sheril Kirshenbaum’s Un- sions of the relation between the fore investigating that at some scientific America: How Scien- arts/humanities and sciences point, what we need to keep tific Illiteracy Affects Our Future today and thus to the topic of foremost in mind here was that (2009). Then there is the most trans-disciplinarity. Simply put, Yudkin, himself was a practicing obvious and symbolic testament Leavis and Yudkin and all sub- scientist at Cambridge. And as to the power of the Snow legacy, sequent critics of Snow do not many scientists are, contrary to the prestigious C. P. Snow Lec- oppose his aim, that of the mu- Snow’s “statistical” impression, ture Series at Ithaca College that tually enriching potential of all he was no stranger to literature has been ongoing for 40 years.11 knowledge. What they oppose is and the arts and humanities. With the unsettling statistic in his Philistine simplicity, the error Yudkin was thus able to inde- mind that virtually half of all US of his argument and the nature pendently add a contemptuously and UK citizens are not only ig- or lack thereof of his evidence. precise critique of both the sig- norant of the science of evolu- Their criticisms are in fact so nificance of Snow’s literary work tion but dead set against it as I damning, that one wonders how and his thesis of two separate have previously bemoaned, 12 it is that C. P. Snow is the one and mutually unintelligible cul- coming out against C. P. Snow remembered while the Leavis tures. is in some ways counterproduc- and Yudkin critiques are lost to tive to the greater cause of trans time except as campus legend To conclude, Leavis and Yud- and inter-disciplinary science at Cambridge. kin’s combined critique (contrary education – but nonetheless to Snow’s 1959 Rede Lecture) necessary. As with Punt and Malina’s es- show all the hallmarks of the says, rather than recapitulate studied intellectual, the disci- The Leavis and Yudkin Attack the Snow and Leavis essays in plined academic. For instance, on C. P. Snow’s Notion of Two depth, my aim is to draw those they pay careful attention to Cultures interested in the debate back how Snow uses terms such as to the 1962 Richmond Lecture the all important word “culture” Snow’s 1959 lecture has had so as to consider it in its en- with so much imprecision as to a powerful impact on continu- tirety. While the Leavis critique be meaningless. The Leavis ing discussions about the real remains legendary in its rare Richmond Lecture and the ac- and perceived rifts between the personal criticism of Snow, the companying essay by Yudkin sciences and other disciplines criticism of Snow’s evidence systematically took apart the and mutual illiteracy. In taking and logic or lack thereof, Snow’s entire edifice and the very de- up on the evolution of Malina’s rank ignorance of matters of tails of the Rede Lecture. If that thoughts on an estuary meta- history and literature, is insur- light, the fact that Snow’s lecture phor and going against the main mountable. As to the value of continues to have such a com- current, consider the early rejec- Snow’s claims to eminence as manding presence in academia tion of Snow’s argument by F. a literary figure of merit and thus and especially in some literary R. Leavis and Michael Yudkin one with the self-proclaimed ca- circles owes more to the gen- in Two Cultures?: The Signifi- pacity authority to judge mat- eral importance of the problem

3 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 in that historical context, and banks of a river as distinct and I am bothered by the river meta- today, than to the actual sub- un-reconcilable as two ecolo- phor since it sets up a ‘straw- stance rather than ideology of gies that develop within different man’ dichotomy between the the lecture itself. Let us fast- contexts, on un-mergeable con- arts and sciences. I would prefer forward to 2011 and L|R|Q 1.03. tinents, and have grown with dif- somehow to have a network of fering survival mechanisms and water streams to carry the idea The Estuary Metaphor and the goals.’’ Moving on Malina adds of ‘networked knowledge’ rather False Dichotomy that the co-editor Jacques Man- than trans-disciplinary practice delbrojt, in that issue of LRQ, as argued by David Goldberg Roger Malina’s thoughtful strug- had also reviewed the book and and Kathy Davidsen in the report gle in LRQ 1.03 moves from a pointed out that Levy-Leblond The Future of Learning Institu- 15 Two Cultures discussion to an is in the final analysis calling tions in the Digital Age. Estuary Metaphor. Subsequent- for special types of art-science ly, as noted above in the Shang- interaction.14 Malina, returning us to Punt, hai lecture, he abandons both concludes that “We are just at for the inherent binary tautolo- In the Shanghai lecture, Mali- the beginning of the ‘transla- gies involved. Malina’s Estuary na adds that for Levy-Leblond, tion’ to networked culture” and Metaphor has a wonderful built artists as “others” can provide that in this context art-science in sense of change and com- “creative friction” which can ex- collaborations provide oppor- plexity in time. But as he himself cite the scientific imagination. tunities for current problems. calls attention to - it still depends However, as he notes, ultimately Networked cultures aside, the on the separation of the banks. what Levy-Leblond is arguing following section adds further This is Malina’s dilemma born unease to the unqualified use for is the re-establishment of of Snow’s false divide. of Snow’s dichotomy through the links between reality and highlighting the work of authors scientific concepts, which were Malina’s engagement on the who have wholly defied the dis- abstracted out of that reality. Ma- issue appears to have been in- tinction. lina’s concern, and that of most flamed by a radical antipathy Leonardo readers I would imag- to a recent minor treatise by Steinbeck, Nabokov and ine, seems however to lie with Jean-Marc Levy-Leblond. Ac- Gould networked e-cultures, digital re- cordingly, perhaps it is best to alities. There, the issue at hand provide a lengthy quote here of If we turn to paradigmatic in- is how to highlight the value of the problem. As Malina writes: stances of mutual enrichment translation studies for current between science and the hu- To avoid the trap of the false synergies between the sciences manities, to the following illus- dichotomy that C.P Snow led and humanities. My concern is trative instances in art and lit- many into, I would prefer to im- however far more archaic. I find erature, we might gain a more agine a river delta. The river it important to first revisit Snow nuanced and fertile view. This beds themselves move with time while gazing over the horizon in view is not concerned with gov- and silt can create new banks this new century towards future erning metaphors for research and territories. In a recent book, art-science interactions but al- or networked opportunities but actually a pamphlet [La Science ways keeping the likes of Plato, with the nature of art, literature n’Est pas L’Art, 2010] of unusual Leonardo Da Vinci, Rembrandt, and science and their integra- vigor, Jean-Marc Levy-Leblond, John Ruskin and J.M.W Turner, tions. The case of Leonardo has mounted an all out attack on never mind Joseph Conrad and Da Vinci is so well known as to some of the claims of the art- Leo Tolstoy in the rear view mir- require no elaboration at all. In science field today… He decries ror. Consider then Malina’s con- contrast, somewhat forgotten in the search for a new “syncre- clusions: “the metaphor of our modern times, is John Ruskin’s tism” that would somehow help delta crossing begs the question relevant Victorian period obser- us create a “third culture” that of the nature and source of the vation that “the dreadful discov- melds the arts and sciences. river and the nature of the sea, ery that war is the foundation of and of the rain that feeds both all arts as well as the foundation Building upon his earlier re- the river and the land.” of all the high virtues and fac- view Malina elaborates Levy- ulties of man”.16 There are no Leblond’s view.13 There “the arts Extending this in a note, Malina shortages of minds that defy the and sciences are two different cautions: Snow Divide. Two authors and

4 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 one scientist whose collected in this book” (ibid. p. 109-110). symbolism relating to butterflies works are of special interest to Instead, with Edward Ricketts or commenting upon his scien- my own work on the conjunc- (Doc), Steinbeck abandoned the tific work, I simply draw the read- tion of the arts, humanities and project and went on to write Sea er’s attention to Joann Karges’ sciences are John Steinbeck, of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal Nabokov’s Lepidoptera: Genres Vladimir Nabokov and Stephen of Travel and Research - With and Genera (1985) and to Kurt Jay Gould. Their works show A Scientific Appendix Com- Johnson and Steve Coates’ sim- that though the humanities and prising Materials for a Source ilarly compelling but far more the sciences in many fundamen- Book on the Marine Animals of expansive subsequent study tal respects are separate do- the Panamic Faunal Province Nabokov’s Blues: The Scien- mains, they can and do inform (1941). Whether or not Sea of tific Odyssey of a Literary Gen- and enrich each other. Cortez constitutes a new disci- ius (1999). To be acutely brief pline and the partial fulfillment by way of enticement, consider John Steinbeck is an interest- of Steinbeck’s desire to create it, Johnson and Coates analysis of ing case because of the pas- it is a wonderful combination of the moment in a lepidopterist’s sion he had for marine biology biology and reflection. The best life when one’s imagination is and how this became integrated parts, for myself having “been seized by the passion for grasp- into some of his writing. Any- there” as it were, are his descrip- ing the complexity of the but- one reading Cannery Row with a tions of the visceral differences terfly itself, its ecology and this careful eye, would have noticed between laboratory and field sci- field of research (ibid. p. 40-41), that the description of Doc, the ence and the challenges of an that is Fyodor’s secrets as given marine biologist, of Doc’s labo- expanded sense of science, in The Gift (1963). For many of ratory and his collecting work in consciousness and the imagi- us with scientific interests who the tide pools must have been nation. Does not Steinbeck, as hunted butterflies as children informed by a profound first hand with Nabokov discussed briefly and especially who have con- knowledge. It was. Besides the below, provide us with instanc- ducted field research in ento- all telling details, the richness es of trans-disciplinary work at mology, for anyone entranced captured there, one learns in its best? For that matter, does by tide pools and the nature of Robert Demott’s edited volume not Thomas Hardy’s Under the shells, this rings profoundly true. John Steinbeck: Working Days: Greenwood Tree do the same as Simply put then, an awareness The Journals of the Grapes of a precursor to the combination of Steinbeck’s and Nabokov’s Wrath, 1938-1941 (1989) that of history, literature, anthropol- sustained and meticulous inter- one of Steinbeck’s most treas- ogy and ethnomusicology?17 ests in science deeply enhances ured goals was to write a guide one’s appreciation of their works to the marine ecology of the Bay Vladimir Nabokov is similarly in- and the significance of those littoral, the San Francisco Bay teresting because he was a rela- works to both science and litera- Guidebook (see note for Entry tively eminent scientist working ture, never mind to our own lives #106, pp. 172). The failure to do on the taxonomy of Lepidoptera and work. Yet it is true that some so was his greatest regret. He before he became an author. His scientists I have worked with found himself simply unable to autobiography Speak Memory consider literature and philoso- summon the discipline and rigor (1947), originally titled Speak phy, never mind art history and required. It was the darkest time Mnemosyne, and all his other philology, even the philosophy of his life. work is replete with symbolism of science, to be an errant waste relating to butterflies and moths of time, a complete irrelevance Steinbeck recorded this in his as with observations about ecol- to their own work as well as to notebook on Thursday, Janu- ogy and human nature. And a graduate science education. ary 4, 1940 with these perhaps while more people are aware of prescient lines for some of us at his path breaking literary study Fortunately Stephen Jay Gould Leonardo today. The dairy entry of the nymphet Lolita (1958), far presents a very different case. reads: “Came down here to try to fewer are aware of his contribu- An extraordinary role model for work on the tide pool hand book. tions to taxonomy, specifically to would be scientists with lives en- I discover that there are no easy the study and classification of riched by the numinous, Gould books to write and that this may the Lycaenidae through the me- was a pre-eminent biologist, well be one of the hardest… I ticulous observation of their sex one with a profound humanis- am attempting to find the foun- organs. For reasons of space, tic orientation and a great gift dation of some new discipline rather than exploring Nabokov’s for writing. He was of-course by

5 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 no means alone but as a leading interest in Wallace and reac- tioning here for the sake of em- figure in the study of evolution is tion to that, topics for big data phasizing what makes the best perhaps one of the better known and synthesis in another time literature and science “great”: biologists to have contributed to and place, I have drawn atten- Rebels, Mavericks, and Heretics what we might term the trans- tion to this specific article and in Biology edited by Oren Har- disciplinary quest. Take for in- author here for a particular rea- man and Michael R. Dietrich stance his article with Richard son. Gould and Lewontin show with an epilogue by R. G. Le- Lewontin - “The Spandrels of how art can be useful to science, wontin (2008), From Embryol- San Maro and the Panglos- if nothing else, for metaphori- ogy to Evo-Devo: A History of sian Paradigm: A Critique of cal and descriptive purposes. Developmental Evolution edited the Adaptationist Programme” Theirs is a classic example just by Manfred D. Laubichler and published in The Proceedings as Steinbeck’s descriptions of Jane Maienschein (2007), and of the Royal Society of London the nature of Doc’s work and tide the blind biologist Geert Ver- (1979 vol. 205 no. 1161, pp. 581- ecology are in Cannery Row and miej’s A Natural History of Shells 598). As A. L. Houston later doc- just as is Nabokov’s adaptation (1993). The list is endless. umented in “Are the spandrels of experiences, landscapes and of San Marco really panglos- symbols into his work, especially No doubt the problem of spe- sian pendentives?” in Trends in Pale Fire (1962) and “Butterfly cialization is a constant chal- in Ecology and Evolution (1997, Collecting in Wyoming, 1952” lenge as are the unique barriers vol. 12 no. 3, p. 125) it was an (Lepidopterist News 7, pp. 49- to becoming scientifically literate enormously influential article. 52). Any students with an in- and the importance thereof par- terest in both science and art, ticularly for government policy In part this success was due to latent or not, would be immeas- making. Some scientists might the article’s elegance, clarity, urably enriched by the cultiva- well be “culturally” illiterate as complexity and consequence tion of such awareness rather regards “great” and other lit- for research and debate in evo- than the Philistine narrowing of erature and most scholars in lutionary theory at the time. In their horizons in the name of a the humanities and social sci- other part, it was perhaps also Science divorced from artistic ences, and especially citizens due to the power of the organ- experience. in the “public” sphere, are to izing metaphor they chose and varying degrees scientifically how they used it. Gould and Le- Reading across the disciplines illiterate. Yet one likes to think I wontin introduced the logic for can only enrich future research imagine that the cases of Stein- their argument through discuss- and writing by expanding hori- beck, Nabokov and Gould as ing the structure of the roof of zons and sensitivities, critical extraordinary as they are stand St Mark’s Cathedral in Venice acuity. It can only enhance the out as beacons for trans-dis- and the integration of the paint- type of questions posed and ciplinary work. With their work ings within that structure. Their technical processes used and in mind, we might safely aban- point was that the organizational enhanced whether in art or sci- don but keep alert to the insidi- constraints of the structure de- ence. This is of-course what ous reality of the Two Cultures termine the elements and inte- Snow proposed if in such an debate. Finally, consider The gration of the design. They used unfortunately flawed and crudely Age of Wonder: How the Ro- this as a metaphor for critiquing advanced manner. What Leavis mantic Generation Discovered the logic of the trait centered and Yudkin make so abundantly the Beauty and Terror of Sci- adaptationist programme as clear is that discipline and com- ence by Richard Holmes (2009) advanced by Wallace and sci- plexity, rigor, logic and erudi- and Knossos and The Prophets entists subsequently advancing tion, must be central. They also of Modernism by Cathy Gere that line of reasoning. Simply emphasize that the humanities (2009), Donald Ault’s Visionary put they proposed a more plural and the sciences are neither in- Physics: Blake’s Response to Darwinist explanation focusing ternally cohesive, are certainly Newton (1974) and Page Stegn- on integration, development and not unitary cultures, nor are as er’s The Art of Vladimir Nabokov: constraint. divided as in Snow’s caricature. Escape into Aesthetics (1966) Revisiting this over 50 years and those mentioned below. The Putting aside the centuries of later, the Leavis and Yurkin re- list, across the disciplines and work on form and change par- quirements are nowhere more the centuries, is endless. ticularly in shells and butterflies, wonderfully immanent than in a and the recent resurgence of few scientific texts worth men- To return to Leonardo and Roger

6 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011

Malina, proposing a Three Cul- much more difficult proposition ing series for Stanford’s Con- tures approach is not a useful for a non-scientist to contribute tinuing Studies program, “An solution particularly because to science. As noted earlier, from Interdisciplinary Tour of the Hu- it recapitulates Snow’s binary. the constant flow of notifications man Condition in Three Stages: And though Malina’s Estuary on-line YASMIN list serve about Time, Life and Mind” provides Metaphor is indeed compelling, creative collaborations in the an interesting context for fol- perhaps we do not need such arts and sciences, this is a bur- lowing this exciting experimen- models though they are certainly geoning field of interest. Science tal moment of convergences in good for thinking through these is sometimes advanced by art. the sciences and arts and hu- issues. Nor do we perhaps then Take for instance the case of manities.19 Perhaps the crea- even need the term trans-disci- how the filmStar Wars inspired tive frictions produced through plinary for that matter. What we Ronald Raegan to transform- those events and the LASER need, at least in my own view, is ing art into reality through the and DASER contexts in the Bay for social scientists who aspire military-industrial complex, a Area, Los Angeles, New York to making a living out of criticiz- two way ideas and technology and Washington D.C. as well as ing science for a non-science imagination highway dating back the many exciting cutting edge audience to study science and to Jules Verne, Leonardo Dav- art science projects especially in the specific topic at hand in suf- inci and the Cro-Magnon era. Europe will generate innovative ficient depth, so as to be able And don’t birds and molluscs new scientific research. If so, it to ultimately contribute to the do it too, if more instinctively? will be important to track, docu- advancement of science.18 As Ever tried to build a nest or work ment and analyze the outcomes. Yudkin adds though, to truly ap- out the mathematical equation Though one can assume that art preciate and understand what generating a shell? projects will emerge as a mat- science is so as to critique it, ter of course, and while these they will have to first do some. To return then to Punt’s Proof - upcoming lectures and events Finally, despite whatever reality the ultimate challenge for those certainly provide a wonderful the notion of two cultures might working in trans-technology is public forum for sharing new well have, Leavis and Yudkin not participation in art-science developments in the humani- also pointed out that you can collaboration as that is not such ties and sciences, I am above hardly group together into one a difficult challenge. Take Edu- all left wondering what might be culture people who wouldn’t be ardo Kac’s glowing bunny ap- the consequences for science seen dead in the same room if plications for instance as given in the coming years. they could help it – unless of- in Simone Osthoff’s Performing course it was a mandatory fac- the Archives (2007). The really Take for instance a recent LA- ulty meeting. serious work begins when the SER event on August 3, 2011 in “outsider’s” analysis of scien- Stanford’s old Geology Build- Northern California Dream- tific research becomes of prac- ing, an artist and scientist, Cindy ing: Current Events at Stan- tical and theoretical use to that Stokes in a presentation titled ford “other”. To gauge a sense of “dynamic form” presented some how this might be, it will be in- of her photographic work and Before moving to a brief im- teresting over time to gauge the described the deeply embed- pressionistic account of some reaction to Judith Roof’s study ded ethnographic contexts from interesting things happening at The Poetics of DNA (2007) from which it emerged.20 What struck Stanford, I should re-emphasize within the scientific community, me about the intensely classi- the above-mentioned closing if indeed it has any significant cal quality of her prints was that point. While it is not uncommon impact on geneticists. Similarly, she seemed to be transferring for scientists to practice art, and I often wonder what botanists the rigor and discipline of her while imagining science is aes- might have concluded about scientific laboratory experience thetically interesting in and of Michael Pollan’s The Botany into the development process itself as illustrated in Imagin- of Desire (2001) in contrast to and thus into the power of im- ing Science: Art, Science and Jonathan Silverton’s An Orchard ages. For biologists, this sense Social Change edited by Sean Invisible: A Natural History of of wonder in the image and the Caulfield and Timothy Caulfield Seeds (2009). process is quite common of- (2008), and while artists more course to those working with and more are creatively collabo- Towards that kind of debate and microscopes, particularly elec- rating with scientists, it is very ultimately practice, the upcom- tron microscopy.21 In Stokes’

7 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 case, there is both a simple from the first Stanford projects might be lucky enough to see scientific chemical process and posted on the web page, stu- the performance for children an ancient alchemical mystery dents find these programs at- held in the outside auditorium at work in the almost magical tractive in that they allow for the overlooking the bay. There emergence of the image in the personal development of the you will observe young highly development process and in the artist in the scientist and the professional actors brilliantly exercise of the artist’s technical scientist in the artist.22 We can inspiring children to become expertise and creative judgment. be sure that some meaningful eco-activists, future guardians But my point is that while there and interesting art will result, and scientists of the littoral, their is such great aesthetic pleasure that the experience will be the intense fascination already en- to be had in the process and the highlight of their undergraduate gaged through the stunning product, what about the reverse work and ideally influence the exhibits of live jelly fish slowly equation? How might her work course of their lives, but what pulsing across the aquariums in the photographic lab and the of the science? How might sci- illuminated in the dark. Cannery ethnographic field ultimately in- ence be significantly enriched Row, and Steinbeck’s unreal- form and advance her science in the longer term through their ized dream, thus turns out to or her applications of science in projects? have significant consequence the business sector? Now that to art and science, especially is what I am really interested in Another question occurs to me. considering the marine research for the purposes of any future If one closely reads the descrip- sponsored at the aquarium by relevance of this essay. tion of Bio 196, even in the con- Hewlett Packard. densed description given above, The long term results of projects it reads very much like some- Having had the good fortune to such as the National Humanities thing out of the International have recently spent some time Initiative and the current project Baccalaureate (IB) program. It at Stanford, it is it seems a par- underway in The Senior Reflec- might well then be interesting ticularly interesting context to tion: A New Program in Biology, to conduct basic research on consider all these issues for Bio 196 which began at Stanford the emergence of such trans- many reasons outside of the act in 2010-2011 present potential and inter-disciplinary programs. that Steinbeck studied English contexts for studying this pos- One would want to determine Literature there though all cam- sibility over time. In this new the sources of inspiration for puses will have their own tale to Stanford program, in a work- such projects. Is there any di- tell. Consider for instance, that shop context over the course of rect connection between the the Stanford anthropology pro- their final undergraduate year, Two Cultures debate and the gram had to be physically divid- students undertake a creative Stanford Senior Reflection, or ed by the former President into biology project of special per- for that matter with the New Hu- two separate departments as a sonal interest. They are advised manities Initiative at Binghamton consequence of the academic by one faculty member from the University? Are they perhaps war in the 1980’s and 1990’s, sciences and one from the hu- outcomes of the rapidly ex- a war which literally tore many manities. Designed as a cap- panding use of the International a department down the mid- stone experience, individual or Baccalaureate program in the dle including my own. I know group projects are equally al- United States and elsewhere? the intensity of the animosities lowed and students may work For that matter, is the IB intel- well having crossed that divide in any creative medium of their lectual history born of Snow’s myself from physical to cultural choice. At the end of each year, legacy? No doubt there must be anthropology at that time. And there is an exposition hosted by any number of articles, books or those at Stanford who do the Department of Biology and and dissertations on the subject! not know this important piece the art works are presented to of campus history, consider the public be they performance, No matter that there is the long that Steinbeck lived in Encina film, dance or what have you. In term to consider for John Stein- Hall. There today one finds a addition, students are required beck’s legacy. Should you visit tendency for political scientists to produce a written reflection Cannery Row in Monterrey near within the Center on the Devel- illustrating the value of the work Salinas and spend some time opment of Democracy and the to themselves personally as to at the extraordinary aquarium Rule of Law (CDDRL) to assume the issues being tackled in bio- there, naturally with Steinbeck a scientific and economic rather logical science. As can be seen and Doc foremost in mind, you than humanistic perspective on

8 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 gauging and stimulating interna- – and moreover, that Renoir saw Jazeera, you name it. The range tional development and history. dance as both art and science and the potential of this expe- Imagine the potential relevance (Macauley 2011).23 riential history of art-science- of Steinbeck’s work for and in technology-media synthesis and The Grapes of Wrath to that Thus contrary to Snow’s pre- the attendant reading list and hall today. All universities have dictions, and despite the fiscal the political and pedagogical fascinating institutional histo- and/or intellectual crisis in high- dimensions are as endless as ries too little written about or er education in recent decades the stars in the sky - as poten- celebrated, sometimes of con- depending on the context, there tially peaceful and whacky as flict and integration within and has been a great deal of oppor- the Grateful Dead’s Micky Hart’s across the disciplines. Consider tunity for expanding art-science musical interaction with Active the conflict over Oscar Lewis interactions and inter-discipli- Gallactic Nuclei and the fabric and then his rightful memorial nary horizons. Past and ongoing of the universe. at the University of Illinois at Ur- wars within departments and bana-Champaign. Consider C.P. disciplines since 1959 aside, So to make the critique as blunt Snow at Cambridge! As for the and keeping in mind the long as possible, I have rarely met a Department of Transtechnology history of work across art and scientist, a doctor or a physi- at the University of Plymouth. It science in classical Greece and cist who did not have a profound is yet too young for any of this - from the 17th century on, we are interest in history and culture, but the bell doeth toll for us all! it seems in an age of renewed art and music. In fact, the final synthesis. Take for instance, the question for extra credit in my Still at Stanford, consider the cross-disciplinary anthropologi- undergraduate class on devel- rare 16th through 19th century cal study of medicine and art opmental biology was about the books in the Iris and B. Gerald by Phillip L. Walker and Travis morals, or lack thereof, of the Cantor Center for Visual Arts Hudson in Chumash Healing: characters in the Italian opera which illustrate the connec- Changing Health and Medical Cosi fon Tuti. It appears to me tions between the arts and sci- Practices in an American Indian that Dr. Freeman had a point to ences. Consider the fascinating Society (1993). At the same time make that is directly pertinent collection of past art-science take the illustrative art of Hae- to this discussion today though interactions as recorded in the ckel and how Kate McGowan it was a mysterious one at the student notebooks on exhibi- reminds us of how and why he time. Perhaps then, if Snow’s tion there. Consider too the Ro- erred in her article “Drawn to critique is taken for its intention din collection one of the most Life: The glories and failures of rather than substance, what we comprehensive collections in Ernst Haeckel” in the popular really need then is for scientists the world as elegantly present- journal Evolution (2011). Simi- and scientists in the making to ed in Bernard Barryte’s edited larly consider one recent other be reading such works which and revised version of Albert example of this long history, might not have been tradition- Elsen’s Introduction to the Rodin Ella Reitsma’s Maria Sybilla’s ally considered in the science Collection (2003). Consider the Merion and Daughters (2008) curriculum, never mind taking value of this collection not only which details the earliest com- more humanities electives sim- for art and art history students bined scientific and artistic study ply for the joy and unanticipated of all ages interested in proc- of the butterfly life cycle during consequence. But as for how ess above all but for the medical the 17th Century. Keep in mind art and the humanities might students studying anatomy. As only a very few relevant publi- inform science? Now that is the for the Burgers of Callais and cations such as these, no less real challenge because it is the other art works scattered across the story of the neuroscientist more difficult one. the campus, the relevance of Charcot and his students cross- these public art works to those ing the art and science divide, Conclusion: Punt’s Proof interested in cross-disciplinary and you will find that the current connections in history, art and synthesis has long since been To conclude, let us revisit how engineering and religion, never in place. From tool making and Michael Punt positions transdis- mind biology, is endless. And as cave painting to weaponized mi- ciplinary study. For Punt, it is for dance and art and science, cro-drone technology adapting different to inter and multi- remember that for Renoir, De- the study of the biomechanics of disciplinary studies in that the gas was the greatest sculptor insect flight and nano art, cyber- purpose is to accurately trans- of the 19th Century - not Rodin war fare and The Stream on Al- late data and ideas such that

9 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 they can be transferred to and arts studio education and the tilizes growth? Whatever the an- commented upon in other disci- role of academic writing in such swers may be, sciences and the plines. In addition, he believes pursuit is open for debate while arts and humanities, and each that the results of such analysis it also points to new connections discipline within, are diverse, by the “other”, the outsider, must to be explored among previously changing and internally rifted, prove to be of practical value to unrelated fields” (p. 174). deeply conflicted. Yet within those working within the disci- the humanities and within the pline being commented upon. Towards that end, we might sciences, all disciplines share Punt’s proof then establishes keep in mind Punt’s two-fold practices and concerns. There an important condition. We can test for the definition of what scientists are often artists or at test the validity of those in the constitutes transdisciplinary least interested in and inspired social sciences analyzing work work. First, one’s writing must by art and some social scien- in the sciences for instance, if be intelligible outside of one’s tists aspire to be more scientific the analysis makes sense there own discipline. Two, it must than others whether or not they and has a recursive productive have the capacity to produce are successful. What is clear I function. If the analysis is useful, new knowledge in the disci- think is that the scientists are adaptive as Gould would have pline being commented upon. at a great advantage in cross- it, then it should advance work Punt’s point is elemental. If the ing over to work in the arts. It is on that subject in the sciences. outsider’s analysis presents very difficult to go the other way Then the analysis would not no new ideas or some form of except for the most committed be mere cultural chatter, rheto- productive value to internal de- outsiders sufficiently capable ric, ungrounded or too loosely bate and future research within and willing doing so. That be- grounded philosophical mus- the discipline and data being ing said more and more Eng- ing, but of scientific merit in its analyzed, then the analysis or lish majors have been finding reproductive effect. art one creates is mere voyeur- their way into medical schools ism. Otherwise we are merely for many years now surely mak- To do so however one first has recapitulating inter-disciplinary ing a complete mockery out of to have a sound basis for work- or multi-disciplinary studies or Snow’s hypothesis. ing across the art/science divide rather simply engaging in para- when the Other is science. If sitology. It ends up being cultural Finally this brings us back to the not, one’s interpretations will be critique for the sake of internal problem of big data. Contrary to unlikely to survive Punt’s proof. debate within the humanities the doomsayers, as far as I am Second, Punt’s proof requires and of no value to the sciences concerned, the more data there Malina’s caution. If it is true that empirically speaking. In Punt’s is the better though as Mike Punt this is something new, then it is proofs, first we have to be able rightly points out again, the chal- only over the longer term that we to translate, then rotate/reflect lenge is availability, synthesis will know whether new forms of (as Malina would have it) and and transmission, something all knowledge are indeed emerg- then transmit information worth scholars, writers and scientists ing that can play a productive considering on the other bank including artists are constantly role in the sciences. Simply across the estuary. engaged in. So let us return to put then - it is one thing for art models, not conceptual models and social science to comment Does this however ultimately but role models. In the end, de- upon and draw from science, it entrap us in the two cultures spite his literary fame, Nabokov is quite another for them to in- metaphor and the associated felt immense regret at not having fluence science and to be able inherent and insurmountable dif- written his book The Lycaenidae to document this taking place. ferences between the sciences of Northern Europe or better yet, Perhaps this is something new and the humanities? Is there a The Lycaenidae of the World. for Simone Osthoff in Perform- problem at hand here? Or is it Yet in the long run he had a ing the Archive (2009) notes that my imagination? And how might major impact on this scientific even within the realm of the arts, Punt’s test affect the study of community and their methods. combining research, writing and knowledge as water? Is Mali- It was Nabokov who established art practice, itself a recent phe- na’s aqueous hypothesis not too the fundamental importance of nomenon, is only now becoming fluid? Don’t we need the banks studying butterfly genitalia in more common. But as of yet she and is the journey between the order to identify species par- writes: “The question of what many banks of the shifting sands ticularly polymorphic forms. So constitutes research in the fine of the estuary not that which fer- what then would you prefer to

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2008 Kohak, Erazim. The Embers be known for - a study of desire and the Stars: A Philosophical for a nymphet or the study of Demott, Robert, ed. John Inquiry Into the Moral Sense of Steinbeck: Working Days. The a whole genus based on their Nature. Chicago: The University of Journals of The Grapes of Wrath, Chicago Press, 1984. sexual parts and habits? Frankly 1938-1941. London: Penguin, I suppose when all is said and 1989. Laubichler, Manfred D. and Jane Maienschein, eds. From done, I’d rather have done Lolita. Dezallier d’Argenville, Antoine- Embryology to Evo-Devo: But to be serious, let us end with Joseph. Conchology or the Natural A History of Developmental History of Sea, Freshwater, Evolution. Cambridge: The MIT Steinbeck. Terrestrial and Fossil Shells. Press, 2007. London: Taschen, 1780/2009. Leavis, F. R. and Michael Yudkin. Leaving aside his Nabokov- Dunn, Rob. “How Plants Mate” Two Cultures? The Significance like failure to achieve one of with photographs of pollen of C.P. Snow. London: Chatto and by Martin Oegferell. National Windus, 1962. his deepest desires, the scien- Geographic vol. 216, no. 6, pp. tific one, though East of Eden 120-133. Levins, Richard and Richard partially filled that niche, Stein- Lewontin. The Dialectical Eddy, Melissa. “Milk does a body Biologist. Cambridge: Harvard beck was a consummate histo- good –even when worn.” The University Press, 1985. rian and fieldworker, and more, Jakarta Post/Associated Press, Friday November 18, 2011, pp. 21. Lewontin, R. C. “Epilogue: one with a social conscience. Legitimation is the Name of the He was an inveterate inter-dis- Elsen, Albert. Rodin’s Art: The Game”, in Rebels, Mavericks, and Rodin Collection of the Iris and B. Heretics in Biology, eds. Oren ciplinary worker making films, Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Harman and Michael R. Dietrich. writing speeches for President Arts at Stanford University, ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, Bernard Barryte. New York: 2008, pp. 372-380. Roosevelt, horsing around with Oxford University Press, 2003. Charlie Chaplin, aspiring to con- Lockley, Martin. The Eternal Trail: Eiseley, Loren. The Immense vey the essence of his charac- A Tracker Looks at Evolution. Journey. New York: Time Reading Reading, Mass: Perseus Books, ters and their larger significance Program, Special Edition, 1962. 1999. as archetypes - having been in- Feld, Steven. Sound and Macaulay, Allistair. “Sancers, spired by Carl Jung. I bet that Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, and a painter, at work.” The most of you reading this who Poetics, and Song in Kaluli International Herald Tribune, Expression. Philadelphia: Friday September 2, 2011. have a passing familiarity with University of Pennsylvania Press, Steinbeck, especially those who 1982. McGowan, Kate. “Drawn to Life: The glories and failures of Ernst might read this at Stanford, did Gere, Cathy. Knossos and The Haeckel”, in Evolution Summer not know any of this, nor per- Prophets of Modernism. Chicago: 2011, pp. 38-43. Chicago University Press, 2009. haps even that Steinbeck stud- Nabokov, Vladimir. Pale Fire. New ied at Stanford and lived in Enci- Hardy, Thomas. Under the York: Berkeley Books, 1962/1984. Greenwood Tree or The Mellstock na Hall - never mind the fact that Quire. Ware, Hertfordshire: Nabokov, Vladimir. Speak Nabokov had been a scientist Wordsworth Editions, 1872/1994. Memory: An Autobiography at Harvard while writing Lolita. Revisited. New York: Vintage Harman, Oren and Michael R. Books, 1947/1989. Big data indeed – whatever the Dietrich. Rebels, Mavericks, and subject. In all this Steinbeck and Heretics in Biology. New Haven: Nettle, Bruno. Nettle’s Yale University Press, 2008. Elephant: On the History of Nabokov are iconic figures of Ethnomusicology. Urbana: Holmes, Richard. The Age of University of Illinois Press, 2010. split-desire, two passions, art/ Wonder: How the Romantic literature and science. I think Generation Discovered the Beauty Pavord, Anna. The Tulip. London: there is a bit of that in most of and Terror of Science. New York: Bloomsbury Publishers, 1999. Harper Press, 2009. us on both sides of the river of Perry, George. Natural History of knowledge. Ione, Amy. Innovation and Shells. W. Miller, 1811. Visualization: Trajectories, Works Cited Strategies, and Myths, ed. Martijn Polan, Michael. The Botany of Stellingwerf. Delft: Delft University Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the Ault, Donald. Visionary Physics: Press, 2005. World. New York: Random House, Blake’s Response to Newton. 2001. Chicago: The University of Jacobs, Jane. “Introduction: Chicago Press, 1974. Dickens As Seer.” In Hard Times, Pyle, Robert Michael. Handbook Charles Dickens. New York: The for Butterfly Watchers. New York: Clarke, Bruce and Manuela Modern Library, 2001, pp. xi-xx. Houghton and Mifflin, 1984/1992. Rossini, eds. The Routledge Companion to Literature and Johnson, Kurt and Steve Coates. Reitsma, Ella. Maria Sibylla Science. New York: Routledge, Nabokov’s Blues: The Scientific Merion and Daughters: Women 2011. Odyssey of a Literary Genius. New of Art and Science. Amsterdam: York: McGraw Hill, 1999. Rembrandt House Museum, 2008. Caulfield, Sean and Timothy Caulfield.Imagining Science: Karges, Joann. Nabokov’s Roof, Judith. The Poetics of Art, Science and Social Change. Lepidoptera: Genres and Genera. DNA. Minneapolis: University of Alberta: University of Alberta, Ann Arbor: Ardis Publishers, 1989. Minnesota Press, 2007.

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Rothschild, Miriam. Dear Lord LRQ/LRQ%201.01.pdf. ethnomusicology is deeply Rothschild. Birds, Butterflies and scientific, see for instance Feld History. London: Hutchinson, Notes (1982). See Nettle (2010) on the 1983. evolution of this inter-disciplinary 1 See “Perspectives on Trans- field par-excellence. It seems to Ruskin, John. War. A lecture Disciplinarity: Interim Report me that ethnomusicology has delivered at the Royal Military of INTR (International Network however an inherent trans- Academy. Woolwich. 1866. for Trans-disciplinary (post disciplinary rather than inter- doctoral) Research” at http:// disciplinary nature though the Schmidt-Loske, Katharina. trans-techresearch.net/research/ former term is currently not yet “Introduction: Maria Sibylla intr. Also see the International in use in anthropology as far as I Merion’s ‘extremely costly journey Baccalaureate program at http:/// know, never mind the new notion to nature’s treasure house” in www.ibo.org. of “anti-disciplinarity”. Insects of Surinam, Maria Sibylla Meriam. London: Taschen, 2009. 2 See Leonardo Electronic 18 See for instance my critique Almanac, vol. 13, no. 5 May 2005 of Judith Roof’s fascinating study Sharman, Russel Apt. An at http://lea.mit.edu. The Poetics of DNA in Leonardo Obsession with Butterflies. Reviews Quarterly 1.01 (2010, London: Arrow Books, 2003. 3 See L|R|Q 1.03, May 2011, http:// pp. 13-15). Available at: http:// www.leonardo.info/reviews/LRQ/ www.leonardo.info/reviews/LRQ/ Silverton, Jonathan. An Orchard LRQ%201.03.pdf. Invisible: A Natural History LRQ%201.01.pdf. Conversely, of Seeds. Chicago: Chicago 4 See http://www.mypart. for a highly compelling instance University Press, 2009. weebeley.com and http://www. of a scientist working across the mypenglish.weebleycom. disciplines of biochemistry and Sobel, Dava. Galilieo’s Daughter: fashion, see the case of Anke A Drama of Science, Faith and 5 See Cathy Brickwood ed., Domaske’s invention of Qmilche Love. London: Fourth Estate, (Un)common Ground: Creative and the MCC fashion line (Eddy 1999. Encounters across Sectors and 2011). Disciplines (2007) and Zilberg Stegner, Page. Escape Into 19 See http:// (2008) http://www.leonardo.info/ ww.continuingstudies.stanford. Aesthetics: The Art of Vladimir reviews/feb2008/un_zilberg.html. Nabokov. New York: The Dial edu. Press, 1966. 6 Lecture given at the SIVA 20 See http://www.cindystokes. Shanghai Institute of Visual Art on Steinbeck, John. Cannery Row. com and http://www.scaruffi.com/ August 25, 2011. See http://www. stanford/tour2011.html. New York: Bantam Books, siva.edu.cn/renda/node6813/ 1945/1988. english/index.html. 21 See Rob Dunn in “How Plants Steinbeck, John and Edward Mate” with photographs of pollen 7 See: http://space.mit.edu/~dd/ by Martin Oegferell in National F. Rickets. Sea of Cortez: A ECON/two_cultures.html. Leisurely Journal of Travel and Geographic vol. 216, no. 6, pp. Research With a Scientific 8 See http://www.huffingtonpost. 120-133. Appendix Comprising Materials com/john-m-eger. For A Source Book On The Marine 22 See http://www.stanford. Animals Of The Panamanic Faunal 9 See http://www.edge.org/3rd_ edu/~suemcc/TSR/Reflections/ Reflections.html. Province. New York: Penguin culture/. Books, 1941/2009. 23 See Alastair Macauley in 10 See http://seedmagazine.com/ “Dance, and a painter, at work”, Strathern, Paul. Mendeyev’s twocultures/. Dream: The Quest for the the International Herald Tribune, Elements. New York: Thomas 11 See http://www.ithaca. Friday September 2, 2011, pp. 10. Dunn Books, 2000. edu/hs/events/series/cpsnow/ archivespeakers/. Vermeij, Geerat. A Natural History Arnheim for Film of Shells. Princeton: Princeton 12 See “Darwin’s Ghost: The University Press, 1995. Darwin Exhibit at the American and Media Studies Museum of Natural History”, Walker, Phillip L. and Travis Transtechnology Research by Scott Higgins (ed.) Hudson. Chumash Healing: Reader 2010, pp. 69-84, http:// Changing Health and Medical trans-techresearch.net/research/ Routledge, 2011 Practices in an American Indian reader. Society. Banning: Malki Museum 283 pp. Press, 1993. 13 See: http://malina.diatrope. com/2011/04/17/is-art-science- ISBN: 978-0415801089 Winchester, Simon. The Map That hogwash-a-rebuttal-tojean- Changed The World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology. 14 See: http://www.leonardo.info/ Reviewed by Ian New York: Avon Books, 2001. reviews/apr2011/levyleblond_ Verstegen, Moore College of mandelbrojt.php Zilberg, Jonathan. “Darwin’s Art & Design Ghost: The Darwin Exhibit at The 15 See: http://mitpress.mit.edu/ American Museum of Natural books/chapters/Future_of_ [email protected] History” in The Transtechnology Learning.pdf Research Reader, eds. John Vines and Brigitta Zics. Plymouth: 16 John Ruskin. War. A lecture Is it safe yet to call Rudolf Arn- University of Plymouth, 2010, pp. delivered at the Royal Military heim a major media theorist, on 69-84. Academy, Woolwich, 1866. par with Marshall McLuhan and Zilberg, Jonathan. The Poetics of 17 While Hardy’s novel is a Walter Benjamin? The question DNA by Judith Roof. L|R|Q 1.01, wonderfully rich literary study is important because Arnheim 2010, pp. 13-15. Available at: of musical change in England http://www.leonardo.info/reviews/ in the late 19th Century today’s the film theorist can always be

12 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 historicized to “Weimar,” “for- ing Film as Art and other look is not disappointed by a movie malist,” “formative,” and the around and forward to other me- as an aesthete, but because he like. “Media theory” points to dia like avant-garde film, radio is interested in how “expressive the future, to the larger role of and television. implication” either helps or fails technology in communication, an artistic message. Purity is to principles that are applica- Arnheim’s Project also not an aesthetic category ble to novel forms, not closed but one of expression. Dhir uses forms. The book under review, Before any criticism can begin, an analysis of Harold and Maud Routledge’s Arnheim for Film we have to understand what (1971), Hal Ashby’s quirky com- and Media suggests so and pre- Arnheim was trying to achieve. edy, to show the way in which sumably consistently that the The book begins with an essay shot design is used to “form both only way we can do justice to by David Bordwell, the godfather visual and semantic parallels” Arnheim’s film and radio theory of formalist film writers: “Rudolf (101). If Arnheim’s psychology is by opening up our horizon that Arnheim: Clarity, Simplicity, Bal- of film is just based on human he is really a media theorist and, ance.” Indeed, Bordwell’s sane perception, there is little sense furthermore, only when we admit spirit pervades many of the in carving up the pre-sound era this that we have an authentic chapters, as some of his stu- to him and the post-sound to Arnheim. dents are contributors. Yet for everyone else. If perception is years, Bordwell has preferred relevant, then such principles Although my general text of an inferential model of film com- will find application in all types 2005 attempted to set the prehension, which he alludes to, of moving images. record straight about Arnheim’s and never directly modeled his psychology of art, it did so as work on Arnheim. But the fact Arnheim the Modernist a partisan (Verstegen, 2005). is that they both seek to under- Therefore, I think it is fair to say stand film first in its communica- The art historian Wayne An- that this book is the most com- tive role. Thus they share formal- dersen (2008) tells a story prehensive writing on Arnheim ism as a methodological aim, if about Arnheim’s good friend, the in English to date. It is generally their mode of explanation is dif- art educator Henry Schaefer- conspicuously contextualizing ferent. Although a web essay by Simmern. Andersen admired and questions very usefully the Bordwell led to the conference a Dürer print in Schaefer-Sim- sole and loose reading of the and then book, the tone is light. mern’s Berkeley home but one 1957 edition of Film as Art. Many More often than not, Arnheim is day on a visit found it on the contributors make reference to compared to Gombrich for both ground, about to swept up by the other of Arnheim’s works and being interested in practice and house keeper. “My God, Henry, develop reciprocally informed constructive principles of art. readings. In short, our theorist why are you throwing out this is interpreted with some char- The real framing moment for the D urer??” Andersen inquired? ity, with the notion that he is a book comes, in my opinion, in “Oh,” said Schaefer-Simmern, clear thinker and that if there is Meraj Dhir’s chapter, “A Gestalt “It’s a fake.” Schaefer-Simmern a meaning to get at there, an Analysis to Film Analysis.” It was a modernist with a capital apparently unclear interpreta- comes closest to outlining what “M.” Many interested in film, me- tion should be exchanged for we can expect from Arnheim. dia and modern art would like to one more in line with his larger First, Arnheim is a psychologist. say the same thing about Arnhe- pronouncements. No matter how well he fit into the im. For example, Ara Merjian’s journalistic culture of Weimar, (2003) essay, which is cited sev- My review collects different he is ultimately a psychologist eral times in this volume, follows chapters under four headings: – not an aesthetician and not an this logic unmercifully. This is 1) Arnheim’s overall project, (2) art or film historian. Thus Dhir typical of a common ironic his- Arnheim and Modernism, (3) urges that we look to Arnheim toricism that sees all elements Film as Art and (4) Media The- for an “open ended methodol- of history as basically foreign. ory. Some chapters directly ad- ogy and approach” (90). As a But does it work for Arnheim? dress what Arnheim was about, psychologist, he looks to works At stake is not the lionization of others revise our understanding of art for their “intensified or con- Arnheim, although that is the of his project and relation as a centrated form of the expressive effect of several essays here, putative “Modernist,” others deal properties inherent in all per- but rather an accurate portrayal primarily with issues surround- ceptual phenomena” (94). He of what he was saying.

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Here, and briefly, I want to ad- that can be observed. cally, he predicted that, “com- dress one point cited by Mer- parison of these findings with jian and originally expressed by This is where the confusion be- the mental attitudes of the two Margaret Olin (1996), which has gins with Arnheim’s mention of groups would probably produce the effect of making Arnheim’s “homosexuals, sadistic murder- excellent illustrations of what theories bizarre through the ers.” First of all, the discussion is meant by the structural simi- rhetorical strategy of ridicule. occurs in a discussion of the larity of psychical and physical Discussing Arnheim’s classic methodological challenges to behavior” (70). Note, nothing is essay, “The Gestalt Theory of experiments that seek to cor- said here about bodies or their Expression” (1949/1966), pub- relate visual expression with configuration. What Arnheim lished in the important Psycho- a concept. The offending pas- wants to do is to compare the logical Review and included sage occurs in a footnote here structural similarities between in the 1962 volume edited by where Arnheim mentions the the Jews’ and Italians’ commu- Mary Henle of the New School Szondi test, a test involving nicative and cognitive style. Put for Social Research, Documents photographs, which was used this way, what interested him is of Gestalt Psychology, Olin reas a projective technique (like hardly controversial. What he marked that Arnheim’s univer- the Rorschach) to determine wanted to do was to bring the salism could instead be turned pathology. Interest in criminals rigor of the study of gestures ac- to exclude those as “deviant” and homosexuals was Szondi’s, complished by Efron to the study who didn’t conform to a stand- not Arnheim’s. In fact, criminal/ of mental attitudes, and see ard, because it came: homosexual represents a pro- structural similarities. It should jective pole in the test. All that be noted that Efron’s point that …close on occasion to turning Arnheim was saying (recall as gestures arise environmentally Gestalt into a new phrenology, a psychologist!) is that – given says nothing against Arnheim’s suggesting that the external his prior methodological discus- approach, who shared it. What forms of ‘criminals and homo- sion of matching – one could someone sympathetic to Arn- sexuals’ were related to the in- only expect this test to work (1) heim’s theory might say is that ternal molecular organization if there were indeed correla- even if gestures can change in that made them ‘deviants.’ To tions between the pathology and different environments, so too bolster his call for an examina- personality structures and (2) would cognitive styles. tion of the relation between the that the personality structures ‘spirit’ of national groups and the could be discerned in the pho- configuration of their gestures tographs given. This is entirely he cited a study of Jewish and consistent with his discussion Italian communities in Brooklyn of experimental methodology. (p. 469). There is no discussion here at all about “external form” except as This statement, I believe, is a failure to demonstrate it would based on a misunderstanding of methodologically damn Szondi’s his gestalt idea of isomorphism test (which in fact happened, as and the precise ways in which he it was unreliable). makes his arguments. She correctly characterizes Arnheim’s As for the ‘spirit’ of the Jews and theory as postulating “a bio- Italians, this is another misun- physical relationship between derstanding. Olin explains that human response to form and the author of the study (en- internal molecular organiza- thusiastically) cited by Arnhe- tion.” This is the Gestalt doc- im, David Efron, was a South Talk of phrenology is the kind trine of isomorphism, according American Jew who under Franz of talk that turns Arnheim into a to which there is hypothesized Boas’ tutelage sought to counter quack but actually falsifies the a structural similarity between the Nazi science of race. True richness of ideas held by past brain events and the perceived enough, but irrelevant to Arnhe- writers. Malcolm Turvey’s es- qualities of forms. Arnheim, im’s point. Essentially Arnheim say, “Arnheim and Modernism,” however, extends the meaning saw this work as an ethnogra- is so refreshing, then, for deal- of isomorphism to include all phy, a store of data to reflect ing with this issue squarely. He levels of sameness (iso-morph) upon psychologically. Specifi- seeks to revise his earlier view,

14 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 put forward in his Doubting Vi- ern painting for Greenberg but book of those parts that still held sion: Film and the Revelationist disappointing for Arnheim. He up as a companion to Art and Tradition (2008), of Arnheim as fulfills painting’s destiny for flat- Visual Perception, published just a modernist simpliciter. If Arn- ness for Greenberg but presents three years prior. heim’s aesthetics is based on a an undifferentiated message for suspicion of vision, he is more Arnheim. Eric Rentschler’s essay, “Rudolf than a “formativist” (Dudley) or Arnheim’s Early Passage be- a “creationist” (Carroll). But on Film as Art tween Social and Aesthetic Film reflecting on Arnheim’s larger Criticism,” gives very rich con- theoretical commitments (i.e. Turvey rightly suggests we re- text to Arnheim’s Weimar milieu psychology of art), Turvey con- fer directly to the first English and further serves as a useful cludes that art and vision are translation of Film as Kunst, the political context for the remain- more allied in his writings, which Film of 1933, in order to better der of the book, contributing to is contrary to Modernism. Tur- understand Arnheim, rather than the charity with which regard vey notes Arnheim’s alternation the “condensed and rewritten” his further theoretical positions. between art as radically different (32) version, Film as Art, of Once the full intellectual weight from vision and their similarity, 1957. Similarly, Eric Rentsch- of Film als Kunst is taken into ac- and states he, “is not sure Arn- ler calls the later book an “ad- count, as well as other journal- heim ever fully resolves the ten- aptation” (62), and endorses istic writings, Arnheim’s “early sion” (38). Arnheim does walk Sabine Hake’s (1993) opinion notices shared the impetus of a tightrope between vision as that Arnheim removed, “traces the influential social critic [Sieg- physical and phenomenological. of a political consciousness and fried Kracauer]” (55), revealing I prefer to see the case for art as deleted numerous contempora- “the critic’s marked sense of based on discontinuity to be an neous references.” Turvey notes historical context and strong aesthetic starting point, akin to when English language excerpts social engagement” (59). Arn- Roman Ingarden’s definition of that survive from the 1933 Film heim’s ‘aestheticism’ was born art as a derived intentionality. to the 1957 Film as Art but it of skepticism of the already de- Otherwise, good art continually would be easy for the reader to veloped film industry and worry falsifies a physicalist definition be misled that Arnheim actu- over political engagement. Rent- of vision (metrics, perspective, ally altered his texts because schler therefore reads Kracau- etc.); art and phenomenal vision “condenses” and “rewritten” er’s generally positive review of are similar. are ambiguous terms. It should Arnheim’s book, not as critical be emphasized that although in its aestheticism and deviation There follows a nice compari- sections were cut, and English from Kracauer’s sociology, but son of Arnheim and American translations were improved, no actually as slightly “territorial” critic Clement Greenberg that new content was introduced into (61). This leads Rentschler to questions the like-mindedness the original text or altered. Fur- the interesting idea that Arn- presumed between them by thermore, apart from a couple heim, a Jewish intellectual with Merjian. While Greenberg is sections retained, the book was leftist past, voluntarily sanitized clearly a medium essentialist, nearly cut in half, the first part his book in a way that Kracauer Arnheim never stated in Turvey’s remaining almost intact (save for did too. Arnheim did not do this words, “that an artist should in- one section being abbreviated) alone, with a weakness of re- vestigate and foreground the in Film as Art. Much of the sec- solve, but was one of a large properties specific to his me- ond part of the book is preoccu- number in McCarthy’s America. dium for the sake of purifying pied with the controversy of the This is a useful observation but it” (39, Turvey’s italics). I would sound film and Arnheim rightly in line with my prior comments, like to add that this clarification gave prominence to his newer aren’t necessary. Arnheim had should be considered in light “New Laocoon,” which clarified just produced Art and Visual of the original claims made by all his arguments, otherwise Perception for California and Noel Carroll (1996), which Mer- only available then in Italian. only the version he delivered jian cites. Furthermore, Turvey To move away from the sinister could satisfy what readers had argues, the historical teleology tone of some of this discussion, come to expect from him. that operates with Greenberg’s it should be remembered that medium essentialism does not the 1933 book was of course still Ontology exist in Arnheim; Pollock for available in libraries and the new example is the apex of west- version was a convenient hand- Two chapters have as their pri-

15 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 mary or tacit concern the ontol- discussion of the Rodney King role of changing technology – ogy of the film image: Patrick video, Arnheim (1993) notes that acknowledged in Galili’s chap- Keating’s “Art, Accident, and too much formative influence ter (see below) – which made it the Interpretation of the Modern – slow and stop motion before more difficult to emphasize the World” and Vincent Bohlinger’s the jury – damaged the video formative element in film after “Arnheim on the Ontology of the as evidence. But Bohlinger also around 1940 (e.g., Arnheim, Photographic Image.” Each sees extends such an analysis to the 1939/40). The second is that more compatibility between Arn- care-free photos from the SS while Arnheim was disappointed heim and the realist or causal Hocker album, and the recent by most films as artistic state- tradition of Kracauer and Bazin. photos of Sabrina Harman from ments, he clearly understood Keating departs again from the Abu Ghraib. In these two cas- that they were vital to under- Kracauer-Arnheim opposition es, we have “authentic” images standing modernity. Thus, he to question the incompatibility that seem to be transparent, yet recommended Kracauer’s Cali- between the two by focusing the Hocker photo, “Here there gari to Hitler in a letter of 1948 to on Arnheim’s later post-World are blackberries,” was shot just Bianco e Nero, writing that ideo- War II writings. Keating quotes miles from Auschwitz on a day logical analysis was essential at Arnheim who noted that in his that over one hundred people that historical moment (Arnheim, early theory he had defined film were executed upon their arrival. 1948). Bohlinger’s essay is inter- negatively for what it was not Oppositely, Bohlinger consid- esting in this sense because he (i.e. mechanical reproduced re- ers Errol Morris’ argument that shows how one isn’t capable of ality) and only later recognized the horrifying banality of the judging a work of art’s authentic- its “positive virtues.” Noting thumbs-up photos of the U. S. ity without outside knowledge. A Arnheim’s affirmation that com- Army specialist masks their evi- formerly superb work is known plexity is a necessity in all art, dentiary role in exposing torture so in light of its ideology and Keating shows that this “opens in the American-held prisons in vice versa. a space (admittedly, a rather lim- Iraq. Each photo counsels us ited space) for contingency in about the simplistic causal na- These movements away from art. Used correctly, contingency ture of a photograph: one isn’t ontology to “overarching aes- creates complexity” (146). Arn- real enough and the other is too thetic principles” (130) is in Jin- heim is stringent in his criteria real to get their proper message hee Choi’s chapter an almost for art but Keating goes further across. complete break. In “Perfecting to say that Arnheim is able to say the Complete Cinema: Rudolf interesting things about works of While Arnheim’s ideas un- Arnheim and the Digital Interme- art that not only automatically doubtedly grew as a result of diaries,” Choi sets up a useful capture contingency in their his friendship and exchange basis for any future expanded working, but also thematize that with Kracauer, I do not believe discussion of new media. She content. Keating departs from Arnheim’s relationship to him or successfully notes that techno- Arnheim’s brief comments on De the theme of accident is “am- logical limitations at the writing Sica’s Umberto D to show the bivalent” (Keating) or “slightly of Film as Art – for example the fruitfulness of such a distinction. amends” (Bohlinger) his posi- poor quality of sound and color tion. Yvan Tétreault (2008) has – caused Arnheim to occasion- The elision of Arnheim and Bazin recently clarified mechanical ally conflate aesthetic principles is accomplished by Bohlinger, reproduction in Film as Art by of naturalism with ontological who finds similarities between arguing that, “although the cam- purity. Using the example of the two theorists. Arnheim, how- era is a mechanical recording the digital manipulation of film ever, argues ironically that we device it still can be used for ar- (digital intermediary), she notes need formative information to tistic purposes.” The film camera how a pure ontological princi- be authentic. If in Film as Art he was always causal but not fore- ple does not hold. What at first argued that for a film to be art grounded in the early cinema. looks like a violation of media it had to supersede mechani- Rather than an insight gained – adding sound to film – turns cal recording, he argues that over years, it was already there out to be violating aesthetic prin- for something to reflect reality in the early theory. Here, I must ciples, which “might be fulfilled it needs to also be formative in draw attention to a couple points by a variety of technological some senses. Brute mechani- that do not seem to have been configurations” (133). Follow- cal recording will not guaran- followed up (Verstegen, 1999). ing Stephen Prince, she sees tee authenticity. Thus in his First, Arnheim recognized the digital intermediaries as allow-

16 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 ing for aesthetically acceptable chapter, “Deft Trajectories for have a more “vexed” relation- color or discordant black and the Eye: Bringing Arnheim to ship to Arnheim, Turim finds that white combinations. This is a Vincente Minnelli’s Color De- his later works “offer new con- good corrective that is univer- sign.” Against the color film in nections to be made between sally applicable in discussions Film als Kunst, Arnheim short- visual thinking and film” and of Arnheim. ly thereafter reconsidered his that – following his analysis of position with the emergence of Picasso’s Nightfishing at Anti- Sound, Color and Experimen- Technicolor. Higgins links Arn- bes (1966) – “his visual thought tation heim’s later writing on color to would go precisey in different film theory to show how in the directions when the object he With what has been said, it is case of Vincente Minnelli’s work was addressing did as well” easy to begin to contextualize a “close, moment-by-moment (174). Thus, in the same way some of the additions to film with analysis of detail” (117) is re- that Arnheim leads into quasi- an eye to new media but Nora warding. Arnheim feared a color psychoanalytic meaning in his Alter doesn’t make it so easy. film could not be disciplined into analysis of the Picasso, so too In her essay, “Screening Out an artistic statement but Higgins his theory might accommodate Sound: Arnheim and Cinema’s convincingly shows that Minnel- a contemporary filmmaker like Silence,” Alter flatly writes that, li successfully used Arnheim’s Su Friedrich. In her Damned if “Arnheim’s early antagonism to- principles to group character you Don’t (1987), “visual think- ward the sound film was clearly and motivate the narrative. Hig- ing should be so linked to the rooted in the modernist antipathy gins would probably admit that exploration of desire” (174). Be- toward mass culture” (73), she such effects are rare (and that ing a formalist here does not takes the historicizing route and in this case color is merely an mean only configurations are deconstructs Arnheim’s gender organizing factor), but following analyzed; rather formal means and class biases. While these no the aestheticization of medial sensitivity to the differentiation doubt exist, there are obviously effects, exist they do. of structure. much happier hunting grounds for such material. Alter usefully As a conclusion to the discus- Media Theory does close readings but only to sion of classic film and theory it draw out apparent contradic- is useful to pass on to Maureen In “Arnheim on Radio: Materi- tions in Arnheim’s position. She Turim’s chapter on avant-garde altheorie and Beyond,” Shawn properly distinguishes between and experimental filmmaking as Vancour discusses Arnheim’s the sound film and the talking a genre that breaks convention writings on radio from a similarly film but seems to muddy her po- and plays with artistic effects. expansive perspective, which sition when in the final sections “In Visual Thinking of the Avant- we can use to set up some gen- she writes simply of “sound.” Garde Film,” Turim departs from eral ideas on media. Vancour As she notes but neglects, Arnheim’s interesting ties to the believes Arnheim’s radio works Arnheim really objected to the New York circle of art cinema, have “continued relevance” talking film. Economical is his revealed in his essay on Maya (179) but also laments his later statement in the 1957 foreward Deren and the important “Art neglect of the “extra-formalist to Film as Art: “The talking film is Today and the Cinema” (1966). considerations” beyond radio still a hybrid medium, which lives Deren, Jonas Mikas and others he previously foregrounded. from whatever fragments of the precisely objected to the domi- He gives an excellent survey visual language were salvage- nance of language and narra- of Arnheim’s early writing on able and from the beauty of the tive in film theory and practice radio, from his book of 1936, creatures, things and thoughts and so the visuality of film was Rundfunk als Hörkunst, to his it reproduces” (p. 5). Ultimately, most interesting to these avant- work at Columbia with Paul La- I believe she doesn’t really take garde practitioners. Turim thus zarsfeld. If indeed reconcilable, seriously Arnheim’s aesthetics believes this was an avant garde Vancour is eloquent about the argument, which is presented that Arnheim perhaps “should power of combining the aesthet- so well by Dhir and Choi. have appreciated more than ic and extra-aesthetic strands in he was able in the late sixties, Arnheim’s thought. I wonder if Choi’s assertion that medial seventies, and eighties” (164). such an ‘expanded’ formalism, arguments in Arnheim should Although the work of later film- however, is really an act of will be reduced to aesthetic ones makers like Stan Brakhage, Paul or an artifact of Arnheim’s career is confirmed in Scott Higgins’ Sharits and Hollis Frampton can path. Beginning in 1943, just af-

17 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 ter leaving Columbia’s research as to a medium which Arnheim fitting conclusion. For Burnett, project, Arnheim began teach- never contemplated: comics. In Arnheim’s essay, “Style as a ing. For thirty years thereafter “Arnheim and Comics,” Greg Gestalt Problem” (1983/1986), he had to teach psychology both Smith considers how a “neo- solves two problems for film his- at Sarah Lawrence and the New Arnheimian” theory might theo- torians. First, it escapes the am- School for Social Research. In rize a comic, a sequential art in biguity between stylistic devices addition, he turned his atten- which text is part of the image and style as historical classes, tion to fields – painting, sculp- itself. Beginning with Arnheim’s which are conflated according ture and architecture – that had ground rules for the combina- to Burnett, in Bordwell’s popu- much less elaborate technical tion of media in “New Laocoon” lar Film Art. Invoking Arnheim’s requirements to explain. On the (1938), and arguing as a “film phenotype/genotype distinction, other hand, what if the psychol- cognitivist,” Smith believes that Burnett sees stylistic devices as ogy of art took it upon itself to the parts of Arnheim’s theory phenotypic and a “guiding proc- clarify embedding physical re- that are aesthetically “prescrip- ess” (240) as genotypic. Rely- alities and practices surround- tive,” like this essay, should be ing on the former causes us to ing works of art – this perhaps abandoned in favor or those that expect too much homogeneity. would be a useful addition to are more “processual,” based on A more stratified view of a style, an Arnheimian approach of the his experimental background. In however, avoids this and allows kind of power Vancour suggests. this way, one can violate Arn- us to see deep structural affini- heim’s maxim that one medium ties in a filmmaker like Robert In a chapter on television, Doron must predominate in a compos- Bresson, which would not be Galili goes a great distance to ite work, and accept the solution obvious otherwise. firmly addressing the topicality found in most comics that text of Arnheim to new media. Fo- and image exist side by side, Many of the contributions to this cusing on “A Forecast for Televi- not unlike speech in the motion book favor viewing a medium sion,” Galili notes that Arnheim picture. Smith shows clearly how itself as a kind of stratified “field refuses to treat television sepa- Arnheim’s larger theory helps of forces.” If a medium cannot rately from film and also that he address the unique situation in be reduced to its material base, sees television as basically a comics, where one is interest- or pure ontology, and we know combination of film and radio, ed in what is happening “within its effects through its aesthet- in short, as convergent. Be- the panel, across panels on a ic working (Choi), is this not a cause radio and television are page, and among pages in the dynamic view of a medium? If broadcast live, they have more entire work” (219). One interest- devices can be separated from in common with each other than ing possibility afforded Smith the style, then why can’t ma- film and television. As a conse- springs from treatments in the terial substrates, use patterns, quence (and in conformity with rest of the book: if he gives up and the like? Ultimately, we have Choi’s essay), Galili notes that the idea that for Arnheim a medi- seen that Arnheim is not hung Arnheim’s definition of a medium um is a “mythic transhistorical… up on strict definition but de- is here not rigid. Indeed, Galili ’essence’” (218), and if ontology scribing accurately what Mat- endorses Mary Ann Doane’s can be converted to aesthetic thew Kirchenbaum (2008) has point that intermediality allows effects, the prescriptive may turn recently called the “procedural us to truly appreciate the char- out to be the processual after all. friction” of different media. acterisics of single media. Fur- thermore, the way that television Conclusion - Style To summarize the viewpoint that begins as a means to transmit I think this book provides: dramatic performance is already I choose to end with Colin Bur- recognized by Arnheim as a kind nett’s chapter “Arnheim on Style - Film as Art remains a good of remediation. Arnheim consid- History” because it definitively summary of Arnheim’s ba- ers the effects of television not moves us into very general sic aesthetic positions but we so much for form but its instan- territory where we can finally should refer back to Film (or Film taneity, which he assumes will break away from the stereotype als Kunst) for the full Weimar have massive effects on modes of Arnheim the rigid formalist. context. of viewership. Burnett treats the concept of film style but I believe that what - Arnheim is not a die-hard for- It is in the last chapter that an he says applies also to media malist but always stresses the author applies Arnheimian ide- themselves and is an especially effect of mechanical reproduc-

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expression,” Psychological tion; media evolve and are not Review (1949); reprinted in Mary Celluloid stagnant. Henle, ed., Documents of Gestalt Symphonies. Texts Psychology (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California and Contexts in - Arnheim’s understanding of Press, 1962). medium should be rethought; Film Music History __, “Art Today and the Cinema,” it is not ‘essentialist’ but it is Art Journal 25 (1966): 242-244. realist. by Julie Hubbert (ed.) __, “Picasso’s ‘Nightfishing at Antibes,’” in Toward a Psychology University of California Press, - Arnheim understands a me- of Art (Berkeley and Las Angeles: 2011 dium both as a conjuncture of University of California Press, 1966). 508 pp. aesthetic effects (Choi) and part ISBN: 978-0520241022 of an economy (Galili). __, “Style as a Gestalt Problem,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 39 (1981): 281-289; Reviewed by Jan Baetens - Arnheim’s “New Laocoon” ar- reproduced in New Essays on gument does restrict applica- the Psychology of Art (Berkeley [email protected] and Los Angeles: University of tion to new media (Smith) yet California Press, 1986). interpreted more openly, the The study of sound in cinema __, “The Two Authenticities of the rules of combination of media Photographic Image,” Journal of has been, together with the re- are still useful. Aesthetics and Art Criticism 51 discovery of the (falsely called si- (1993): 537-540. lent) primitive cinema, one of the The authors have enlightened Carroll, Noël, “Medium privileged channels of the great their particular specialties with Specificity Arguments and the renewal of film studies since the Self-Consciously Invented Arts: a sympathetic look at Arnheim’s Film, Video and Photography,” late seventies. That we were still writings. To fully establish Arn- Theorizing the Moving Image missing a comprehensive text- (Cambridge University Press, heim as a “major media theorist” 1996). book on the history of the sound- will require a connection of all track within the broader frame of Hake, Sabine, The Cinema’s his legitimate film and media Third Machine: Writing on Film in film history itself had become a writings with his larger theory Germany 1907-1933 (London and historical anachronism, which to media theory as it is articu- Lincoln: University of Nebraska this collection admirably rectifies. Press, 1993). lated today. Kirchenbaum, Matthew, Bibliography Carefully and very didactically Mechanisms: New Media and the edited by Julie Hubbert, this Andersen, Wayne, “Moving Forensic Imagination (Cambridge: Constants — in the West,” MIT Press, 2008). book offers a combination of Common Knowledge 14 (2008): three lines of research that had 384-395. Merjian, Ara, “Middlebrow Modernism: Rudolf Arnheim at been developed in relative isola- Arnheim, Rudolf, Film als Kunst the Crossroads of Film Theory tion the last decades: first, the (Berlin: Ernst Rowohlt Verlag, and the Psychology of Art” in The 1932) Visual Turn: Classical Film Theory critical analysis of film music; and Art History, ed. Angela Dalle second, the technical study of __, Film, translated into English by Vacche (New Brunswick: Rutgers soundtrack; third, the examina- L. M. Sieveking and Ian Morrow University Press, 2003). (Faber and Faber, 1933). tion of contextual of the intro- Olin, Margaret, “Nationalism, the duction of sound technology. __, Film as Art (Berkeley and Los Jews, and Art History.” Judaism Angeles: University of California 45 (1996): 461-482. Celluloid Symphonies brings Press, 1957). these three threads together, Tétreault, Yvan, “Mechanical __, Rundfunk als Hörkunst (Carl Recording in Arnheim’s Film as knitting them together with an Hanser Verlag, 1979), completed 1936. Art,” Postgraduate Journal of excellent survey of the muta- Aesthetics 5 (2008): 16-26. tions of the filmic medium itself. __, “Nuovo Laocoonte,” Bianco e Nero (1938): 3-33, translated, Turvey, Malcolm, Doubting Yet the qualities of this book can- shortened and slightly altered Vision: Film and the Revelationist not be reduced to its merger of by Arnheim as “A new Laocoön,” Tradition (Oxford University Press, in Film as Art (Berkeley and Los 2008). already existing research tracks. Angeles: University of California Although the first ambition of Press, 1957). Verstegen, Ian, “A Formalist Reborn [Rudolf Arnheim],” Film- Julie Hubbert is not to propose __, “Fiction and Fact,” Sight and Philosophy: Electronic Salon 3 new close readings of specific Sound 32 (1939/40): 136-137. (1999): http://www.film-philosophy. works –her focus is as much on com/vol3-1999/n46verstegen __, “Lettera dagli Stati Uniti,” the contexts as on the texts–, Bianco e Nero 9 (1948): 44. __, Arnheim, Gestalt and Art: A her approach provides us with Psychological Theory (Vienna: __, “The gestalt theory of Springer, 2005). much more than just a new, yet

19 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 musically expanded version of rupture, and that the study of Eisler) are also the great names Hollywood, adding music, dia- historical change has to pay as of this book. Yet their reading is logue and sound or noise to the much attention to continuity as always very keen to disclose the already known shifts from before to revolution. This is the program internal multilayeredness of the and after the great paradigm that she follows in each of the discourse as well as the practice shift of the talkies. First of all, five parts, and which produc- of all these artists, and simul- what her book offers is really a es often-astonishing revisions taneously Hubbert provides us new history, and this new history of the often-overgeneralizing also with an incredible wealth is both broad and microscopic. claims one finds in traditional of other, often neglected voices Broad, because it encompasses textbooks or specialized case and testimonies. Each part of the complete history of Holly- studies on film music. Good her book is structured around wood cinema, as shaped and points in case for instance are tent to 15 historical documents, transformed by its relationship the analysis of the gradual emer- most of the times rather brief with sound; microscopic, be- gence of the score, which does but very diverse and always cause it refuses the traditional not arrive overnight but can be extremely instructive or pleas- vision of film as a sequence of seen as the technologically and ant to read, which constitute the autonomous periods, each rap- contextually enabled continua- perfect historical background of idly replacing and remediating tion and transformation of the the history. The great value of a previous, technologically less treatment of the motif struc- these documents is also that performing era. True, in Julie ture during the silent era or, at they are often borrowed from Hubbert’s meticulous account, the other end of the historical non-academic publications the history of Hollywood cinema spectrum, the foregrounding (professional magazines such is nicely divided in five different of the increasing convergence as Variety, interviews on radio eras, whose dominant features between film music and music stations) while giving also the and respective frontiers will not in the game industry. floor to a whole set of persons come as a surprise as the glo- who are not frequently quoted at bal structure of the book seems length in academic studies (such to follow almost slavishly what as highly commercial compos- we all know about the water- ers or anonymous reporters). shed moments of the Ameri- Thanks to the intelligent editorial can film business: 1895-1925: comments in Hubbert’s intro- the silent film; 1926-1935: the ductions, these voices become early sound film; 1935-1959: part of a polyphonic tapestry the Hollywood score; 1960- that helps us better see manifold 1977: the soundtrack during meanings of this new reading the years of the studio system’s of film. crisis; 1978-present: the postmodern soundtrack in the New Lumo: One Hollywood era. But Hubbert’s Woman’s Struggle well-documented research and detailed introductions (each of to Heal in a Nation the five parts has an editorial Beset by War presentation of some 30 pag- The second great achievement es, which make a small book of this book, besides its clever by Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt and of themselves) succeeds in an rewriting of Hollywood’s histo- Nelson Walker III exemplary manner to complexify ry, is the perfect balance that it The Goma Film Project, 2006 this history without ever blurring strikes between major and minor DVD, 72 min. the clear lines of the evolution. voices and names. Once again, The complexification is twofold: Hubbert does respect the exist- Distributor’s website: http:// on the one hand, Hubbert shows ing hierarchies: the great names www.gomafilmproject.org the amazing diversity that is at of Hollywood film music as we Reviewed by Jonathan work within each of the great know them (Steiner, Korngold, Zilberg , University of historical periods that she distin- Goldsmith, Bernstein, Shore, Plymouth, Transtechnology guishes; on the other hand, she Herrmann, Mancini, Williams, Research demonstrates very persuasively etc., and, inevitably, although that transition does not mean in a different mode, Adorno and [email protected]

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Lumo is the story of one victim’s coltan and cobalt. This history of While relevant showcase war path to healing in the Demo- resource extraction and extreme crimes trials continue at The cratic Republic of Congo, once violence has its dark precedents Hague and recently in the King Leopold’s Belgian Congo. in the reign of King Leopold II in DRC, there is no end in sight It provides a single account of the late 19th Century as so pow- of the crimes against human- the consequences of rape as a erfully portrayed in Adam Hoch- ity being committed every day weapon of war in the very Heart schild’s King Leopold’s Ghost: A in the DRC. There, the largest of Darkness. [1] Study of Greed, Terror and Hero- UN militarized presence ever ism (1998/2005). There today, in mounted at the cost of $1.35 Lumo introduces us to the medi- order to subjugate the popula- billion a year, has been judged cal condition of non-obstetric tion as before, and destabilize as “completely and utterly im- traumatic fistula requiring sur- the state, rape is occurring on a potent”. [5] In that unresolved gical repair, the consequence scale and with a brutality never and ever deteriorating context, of being torn apart internally before seen in recorded human Lumo will inspire awe as to how through rape including the use history. All groups including the anyone can survive the physical of sharpened sticks and knives, national army are participating and psychological trauma that guns discharged into the vagina. in these war crimes, something the victims have endured. The film documents what is be- we learn of through the story of ing done to help heal such vic- a girl called Lumo. Besides being a testament to the tims and the emotional journey power of goodness and hope, involved. To be brief, through to efforts underway to build this film, one gains a small win- The City of Joy for instance, dow into that world. Lumo’s is an it speaks on the other hand to experience so traumatic that this the very heart of human dark- review will not further comment ness itself. For those interested upon the nature of these crimes in history, it may take you back against humanity themselves. to the use of rape as a weapon Instead the review merely proof war in Rwanda, Serbia and vides some background for the Nankin, to Doctor Mengele’s concerned. Above all it com- crimes against humanity and mends the film as an activist to the extreme history of local work designed to impel viewers colonial violence described in to become involved in assisting the Roger Casement Report as the medical and humanitarian revisited by Michael Taussig in initiatives underway at the hos- his timeless chapter “Culture of pitals in Goma and Bukavu. [2] Terror-Space of Death” in Sha- As a documentary film, Lumo manism, Colonialism and the Though the Lusaka Ceasefire is above all about courage and Wild Man (1987). Ultimately, the Agreement of 1999 formally end- hope. An account of the re- film Lumo, besides performing ed the First African World War, markable work being done at this inadvertent larger function extricating the multiple African the hospital in Goma, its aim for students of history and an- armies involved, a humanitar- is to galvanize international at- thropology, is an unusual docu- ian catastrophe continued to tention. Relating one victim’s mentary film in that it serves as plague the eastern DRC. [3] In account to illustrate the plight of a medium for recruiting people that regional context, it was after many, it will be especially useful to donate funds to the Goma the Rwandan genocide in 1994, for introducing high school and Hospital. Therein, its ultimate when peace returned to Rwan- college students to the sexual purpose is to encourage people da, that the conflict shifted to the violence being perpetrated in to become politically engaged Eastern DRC. There foreign ar- the region. The brutality and in the HEAL Africa campaign. mies and the Hutu rebels, known scale of the situation defies the as the genocidaires, turned their imagination. Today these war Lumo thus does far more than attention to terrorizing the local crimes and rampant impunity merely bring awareness of the population. They did so and con- continue despite the efforts of crisis in the DRC to a broader tinue to do so in order to com- the UN, the ICC and multiple UN public. It stimulates activist par- pete in the international trade Security Council Resolutions. [4] ticipation. It may even come as of blood minerals particularly a surprise to many to learn that

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[4] See Herve Barr “DRC mapping an African World War passed by report: An inventory of atrocities nition as an example. While the largely unnoticed in the media, at www.mg.co.za/article/2010- light-hearted reference to Homo- 09-29-drc-mapping-report-an- Turingipithecus might prompt as was the massive carnage of inventory-of-atrocities. Recently the American war in Laos, but the DRC army has begun to some (Ray Kurzweil, et al.) to in that case deliberately kept se- prosecute army personnel for quibble, offering as rebuttal such crimes, see “DR Congo: UN cret. For those interested in the provides logistical support for evidence the IBM [2] Jeopardy! study of media and war, history rape trial of army general” at www. Challenge (where Watson won un.org/apps/news/story.asp?New and humanitarian aid as regards sID=3794&Cr=Democratic&Cr1= handily in the three-day exhibi- gender and violence, this film is Congo. The point to be made here tion game against Ken Jennings in regard to the film Lumo is that and Brad Rutter) of an “upwardly thus of immense importance. It the number of victims continues to brings attention to the fact that grow daily, the hospitals in Goma ratcheting goalpost” in the Tur- and Bukavu continue to struggle ing Test, especially after the re- the conflict in the DRC has by to cope with the need for surgical now claimed almost 6 million repair of fistula and post-operative match between Deep Blue and lives, displaced, maimed, en- care, impunity is the norm and Kasparov well over a decade the plight and future of civilians slaved and terrorized similarly in the eastern DRC remains as ago, the quirkiness of the incor- large populations, and utterly desperate as ever, never mind rect answers by Watson shows the fact that the active volcano conclusively that massive brute- ruined the lives of countless vic- above the city of Goma with its tims. There is no end in sight. As population of over a million people force database searches are no is a ticking time bomb. this movie asks then: What can substitute for cognition. or will you do about it? [5] See Hui Min Neo “UN: DRC mass rapes defy belief” at http:// Dr. Changizi acknowledges that Notes mg.co.za/article/2010-09-24-un- drc-mass-rapes-defy-belief. others have considered the mat- [1] On the colonial history of ter of language and how written violence in the DRC, see Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Harnessed: How language in particular enables Ghost (1998/2005) and (in the case of deceased au- Michael Taussig’s Shamanism, Language and thors) a form of “spirit chan- Colonialism and the Wildman: A Study in Terror and Healing (1987). Music Mimicked neling” (although the recently For the classic reference to Nature and released first volume of the colonial violence set in the Congo, see Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Transformed Ape Autobiography of Mark Twain Darkness (1902/1983) For Chinua to Man amply makes obvious the po- Achebe’s controversial accusation tential “petard pitfall” [3]). The that Conrad was “a bloody racist”, see “An Image of Africa: Racism by Mark Changizi author also concedes that he is in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness”, far from the first to think about Massachusetts Review 18, 1977. BenBella Books, 2011 the nature of music and its ef- [2] For another film on the same 242 pp. fects upon humans as well as subject as Lumo, see Lisa Jackson’s HBO documentary film ISBN: 978-1935618539 how it developed (in terms of The Greatest Silence: Rape in being a non-verbal form of ex- the Congo (2007). For a film on Reviewed by Richard Kade , pression, etc.) without delving fistula in Africa, see the PBS film Ubiquitous Iconoclast by Mary Olive Smith A Walk to too deeply into any of the history Beautiful (2007). For background (from Pythagoras and his Music information on Lumo’s larger story, [email protected] see Jonathan Zilberg “Combating of the Spheres through the Har- Rape as Weapon of War in the The book’s introduction opens vard Lecture Series by Leonard Eastern Democratic Republic of with a snippet from Stephen Bernstein culminating in the dis- Congo and the Campaign to End Fistula.” in Narrating War and Pinker’s demonstration [1] of cussion of musical ambiguities Peace in Africa, eds. Toyin Falola the amazing power of language, in the Debussy Afternoon of a and Hetty ter Harr (2010), pp. 113-140. Especially see, Gerard which is used to lay the ground- Faun or Wagner’s Prelude to Prunier’s Africa’s World War: work for Mark Changizi’s own Tristan and Isolde). Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, thesis while briefly recapping and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe (2009) and the report his most recent earlier book, The Having laid the groundwork for The World at War, January 2000 at Vision Revolution (2009). This solid foundation, he tells us, www.cdi.org/issues/World-at-War/ wwar00.html. allusion points out how much of “What is new here is that I am the research into the hard wiring putting forth specific proposals [3] See “The Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement”, Peacekeeping in the of the human brain reveals no for how culture actually goes DRC, MONUC and the Road to “reading instinct”, citing prob- about harnessing us. Saying Peace (2001) at www.iss.org/za/ lems in attempts at developing that language and music might Pubs/Monographs/No66/Chap3. html. software for handwriting recog- be shaped for the brain doesn’t

22 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 take us very far in understand- distinction between “harness- text of defining who, exactly, we ing the shape of language and ing” and natural evolution with a are and where within some vir- music, because we don’t have beautiful example reminiscent of tual proximity that “places” us a good understanding of the the old adage that dogs “adopt on the spectrum of my favorite brain.” The next few pages spell you as family but with cats, thumb-sucker: out the process of “natural har- well, you’re just staff.” We are nessing” and “cultural selection” not merely toilet-trained apes, “If Gutenberg made us all read- in terms not unlike the “function- we even design the very toilets ers and the office copier started al Darwinism” written about at upon which we sit. us down the road to becoming length by Henry Petroski. publishers, what will people fifty Perhaps, for the sake of com- years from now say the ‘net in Some might argue that this new pleteness, some attempt at re- general and the web in particular approach is little more than a view of the studies of dolphin ‘made’ us?” slight twist on the age-old chil- communication or the so-called dren’s questions of whether the “songs of the great whales” ... answers to that and other chicken or the egg came first. might have been a nice addi- such questions raised are the That, of course, is a gross over- tion even if nothing definitive “meat” for grinding in sequels. simplification. were unearthed. Without har- Notes boring any trepidation over the [1] Pinker, S., The Language The bulk of the book affords prospect of dolphins supplanting Instinct (New York, NY, Morrow, a systematic means of under- humans however many billen- 1994); pp. 1-2. standing much of the sociologi- nia from now (and despite the [2] http://www-03.ibm.com/ cal and anthropological ways clever subtitle of John McWhort- innovation/us/watson/research- team/index.html and http://www- language and music evolved. er’s 2003 book, Doing Our Own 03.ibm.com/innovation/us/watson/ Replete with examples of the Thing; The degradation of lan- research-team/dr-david-ferrucci. functions of the human mind guage and music and why we html. in dealing with natural stimuli should, like, care) such study [3] leonardo.info/reviews/feb2011/ kade_smith.php [CTRL + F] which, for all time, have been the might not be quite as outland- petard. (genetically pre-programmed) ish as one might suppose in [4] Holland, J., Unlikely purpose of the brain (or “purp”) light of recent observations of Friendships: 47 Remarkable as opposed to the quirks that of- interspecies friendships. In one Stories from the Animal Kingdom ten occasionally shape quantum instance, after a 2004 tsunami (New York, NY, Workman Publishing 2011); pp. 191-193. leaps but, far more often, are in Kenya, a baby hippo found a dismissed by the mind’s natural substitute mother in a 130-year- filtration system. old tortoise. Amongst the most Destroy All surprising findings was the de- Monsters The “smoking gun” (“QED” or velopment of a form of language Magazine 1976 - whatever term one might use) [4] employed by the duo. 1979 establishing the specific proposals spelled out at the beginning Back to humans, another pos- by Destroy All Monsters of the book is the Doppler ef- sible line of interest might have Primary Information, 2011 fect and how it relates to the ele- been successive generations’ ments of music. The text seems views of (disgust with) “new” 225 pp. geared to hypothetical great shifts in music and the language ISBN: 978-0978869786 grandchildren of the author’s (including “body language”): Si- own toddler daughter or infant natra (and his effect on bobby- Reviewed by Mike Mosher, son while explaining clearly the soxers), Elvis (“Pelvis Pres- Saginaw Valley State interrelationship between the ley”), Beatles, Michael Jackson University development of language and (crotch grab, etc.), Madonna, [email protected] music within the context of the (from “Like a Virgin” to the MTV physical world in a refreshing Awards Show kissing) Britney I teach my mid-Michigan paint- way with appropriate touches Spears and Lady Gaga? ing students about Destroy All of humor. Monsters, the youthful art-gang While I would also have loved consisting of Mike Kelley, Jim The book’s penultimate section, an examination of implications of Shaw, Cary Loren and single- “Conclusion”, summarizes the the larger anthropological con- named Niagara, that met and

23 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 assembled in Ann Arbor in and has recently been exhibiting ganda” Gary Grimshaw, where 1973. That was my own home- his collages in venues in New different chapters are printed on town, but since I had just left for York and Europe, with some re- different colors of paper (a meta- college out of state, I missed issued as trading cards. He also phor for Sinclair’s Rainbow Peo- the adventure. I received ex- sells DVDs of his old and new ples’ Party, formerly the White cited postcards from Ann Ar- films from his store Book Beat Panther Party), in Destroy All bor friends who hung out with Monsters Magazine different these creative hippie-punks, in the Detroit suburb Oak Park. colors of paper and inks appear acted in their movies, played unexpectedly, seemingly arbi- once or twice with their band, trarily, throughout the magazine. shared their recreational drugs. Kelley and Shaw attended the A few pages are reproduced on University of Michigan College a Ditto machine (Banda machine of Art and Design, and Loren in UK, and also called a spirit and Niagara lived together near duplicator for the alcohol solvent the campus. When these four used in the machine), a low-vol- were about 20, they were pro- ume favorite of educational insti- ductively and confidently making tutions in the 1960s to dissemi- drawings, paintings, collages, nate inter-departmental memos, installations, films and art-noise- student handouts and exams. music together. So in my class- Some use the older mimeograph room lectures, I drum home that process, and are then overprint- students in our state should be ed with photocopying in another doing the same too, now. It was color of ink. Others use a Canon fortunate that the new Destroy machine, released as product in All Monsters Magazine collec- The Destroy All Monsters maga- 1973 and appearing in Ameri- tion, published by Primary Infor- zine project was edited and pub- can copy shops about five years mation in New York City, arrived lished by Cary Loren 1975-79. It later, which used an electrostatic right after this semester’s lecture deserves recognition as a docu- process, which allowed for af- on the clique. Students peruse ment of several histories, includ- fordable color photocopies; this this kind of stuff intently. ing the technological. While Kel- medium was explored of Rene ley and Shaw had pulled prints in Yañez and Bob Basile in San I point out to today’s students their UM classes, Loren’s publi- Francisco. that both Kelley and Shaw have, cation occupies a curious place since then, built notable interna- straddling the borders between In an interview upon the book’s tional careers as artists upon artists’ books, zines, and fine art publication in 2011, Loren told motifs (psychological, sociologi- printmaking. In the 1970s, rebel- WDET radio that, at a community col- teenager, Niagara had pretty tributed to Sonia Sheridan, who printing: split fountains, messy, much already developed her taught at the School of the Art crazy things, screwing with the graphic style depicting femme Institute of Chicago (an attribu- press...why it looks so sloppy, fatales; today she thrives in the tion that overshadowed, to her strange, different colors, psych- metropolitan Detroit region as a dismay, other aspects of her edelicized”. He would “get on the painter and occasional acces- Generative Systems curricu- presses really fast, print over fly- sories designer. Her nights are lum). Many pages feature the ers stolen from record or flower sometimes punctuated by musi- low-resolution degradation of shops as soon as I had 1,000”, cal performances (as in Austral- the copy machine, flattening seeking a layered effect with ia, 2010), where she sings the snapshots and photography, three or four passes through the old songs, and meets new fans a look nearly universal in the press, employing “every kind who sport tattoos based on her Punk community of the 1970s of printing that existed in 1975 artwork. Cary Loren celebrated and 1980s. Unlike Michigan or 1976.” Loren takes pride in his toothsome girlfriend in his radical poet John Sinclair’s in- how “Things would get thick with Super-8 films and photographs fluential 1972 bookGuitar Army, ink, just not readable.” At first for his photo-based collages, designed by “Minister of Propa- this reader marveled how the

24 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 book, printed in Iceland, faith- our tapes” Their first cassette resolution, electronic schemat- fully reproduced the Krylon spat- release, of industrial noise mu- ics, and an image of Niagara ter, including neon (then called sic fortified with sound loops, with a knife. Pages sport rubber day-glo) colors of monotype-like was 1,000 copies, got 20 or 20 stamps, swimmers and spray pages, as well as coffee stains. orders for the $2 cassette. paint. There’s an “Acid Mon- I then learned from the WDET sters” song, which might either interview that unique pages A rubber stamp saying Destroy be one of Loren’s or perhaps were inserted in each copy of All Monsters dances across from an early Day Is Done- this reprint of the magazines, pages. A Tinkerbelle drawn by like Mike Kelley performance. an individual “three-second Niagara cavorts amongst pills, A poem “Sitting in Your Dorm painting” inserted in as fron- a fishnet-stockinged leg, and TV Room at Midnight” did not read tispiece to each issue. As the announcer George Fenneman. like the voice of any of the art- book project was taking shape, There is much of Andy Warhol’s ists. The mystery of its origin Loren fortuitously “found a stack world here: Nico, Jacqueline was solved when Loren told of color paper fake-signed by Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe (what WDET it was found sitting in strange celebrities”, by whom— looks like a Warhol painting shot dorm launderette, and that other which of his prankster friends or off television, photographical- items pulled out of garbage can. arty bookstore employees—he ly printed then photocopied). doesn’t know, upon which the Carol Doda, glamorous young There’s a murky “Captain Spit” hasty paintings were created Niagara, long haired Cary, an comic, reproduced twice yet by Loren and Jimbo Easter. So Op Art background. Imagery is largely obscured. Intentionally? I may herewith describe some mediated, multiple times if pos- Of course! A photo of dressed- pages unique to my own copy. sible. Boo Boo Bear, shot off up art students appears, and television; Roxy Music featured colonial-era skull and cross- Issue #1 contains an appro- a similarly grainy television im- bones. A documentary photo- priately feverish (like all good age on their Live album about graph of Shaw, Niagara and ones—Futurist, Situationist this time. friends meeting Andy Warhol etc.—in art history) Destroy at Centicore Bookshop in Ann All Monsters manifesto. “The A complex Jim Shaw drawing Arbor was taken by the dutiful main intention is not to produce of sexy women, male nerds, Warholian Loren, and, in its way, music, but to be engaged in an Nazis, fragmented yet tightly marks a passing of the Pop ba- activity that provides an instan- super-realist in rendering, and ton in Michigan, as a similar taneous feedback of powerful a collage with 1950s imagery. new generation of post-Pop art- cleansing noise...like poking an There’s also a notice requesting ists was also emerging in New animal with a stick or crossing a “spare mud puddle” over red York. We see Nancy Sinatra in the threshold and setting off an and blue mimeographed runes, stripes, atop a background of alarm.” They seek a “therapu- perhaps proposed site of a Mike striped Op Art; the puppet Topo tic” [sic] “emotion-deadening Kelley performance, with spray Gigio, Monopoly game money, machine repetition that sets up stencil over Ditto copy. There is celebrities like Glenn Camp- rythm [sic] for you to live by more what appears to be a real adver- bell, Mae West and Niagara. easily”, comparable to “electro- tisement for a plant shop called Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, shock” while “like a factory”, “a Flora Heaven. One could imag- shot off TV. Niagara and Hitler- hard way of life”. Recall that ine Loren approaching the own- moustached Bobby Epstein. this was the era of Lou Reed’s ers: we’ve got a new magazine, Niagara sprawled with knife Metal Machine Music (1975), we’ll sell you an ad...but he said and blood. Nixon with a bullet Iggy Pop’s “Mass Production” in the WDET radio interview that hole in his forehead, ecstatic (1977), and dissonant work by he would find discarded stacks woman repeated, faces from a that track’s producer David Bow- of flyers in dumpsters, which he school yearbook, a menacing ie. A program of “black noise” would then overprint. So evi- shot of soap maker Dr. Bron- would eradicate “any need for dently the florist and the young ner that appeared in a profile in pop entertainment of any kind”, collagist never met. Esquire magazine. Between this and “wouldn’t be anything—the issue and the next is a page of total existance [sic] of comfort”. We revel in, or puzzle to, the spray paint spatter with “Busby Loren told WDET that there was multiple passes: photocopy on Berkeley” written upon it. Loren a venal purpose behind the color copy on mimeograph of told WDET he found his stack of magazine’s genesis, “to sell cells, test patterns for copier line pages had been autographed,

25 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 behind his back, by an unidentifi- quist Shari Lewis in hard color, pencilled atop it; does this mean able prankster collaborator, but Niagara with knife, underground it’s his text, or reproduced from that was fine with him. filmmaker Jack Smith and his his personal, inscribed copy? actor Mario Montez all seem to The spray paint spatter page Issue #2 also has Oz-bound coexist logically. We are given reads “Jack Gelbert”. Dorothy off TV, an ornate frame, an alternate magazine cover, plus old English text. Everything Gomez and Morticia Addams Issue #4 is Gala Christmas Is- is mediated, grainy from TV, over Op Art. Niagara with an- sue, dated December 1978, a degradation of copy-machine other knife appears over Larry time of winter melancholy in repetition. Here’s Niagara and or Ben Miller poetry, in pages Michigan. Niagara’s cover draw- Bobby Epstein again, plus ce- reproduced directly from EM- ing shows the Evil Queen from lebrities Jackie, Marilyn, Louise POOL, a zine that Larry Miller Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty”, ice Brooks, and Ann Arbor “space” was producing with Link Yaco dripping off her cowl, ermine guitarist Larry Miller, playing (who acted in a notable Loren muff and sleigh. There’s an im- with Destroy All Monsters. Super-8 movie). Yaco was a age from the humor magazine There are early-‘60s photos of highly literate comic book col- circa 1900 called Life, Elsa suburban kids, JFK and Mari- lector who went on to write the Lanchester as Bride of Frank- lyn, then a line from Ann Arbor Eros Comics series Space Chix enstein, and Santa with a girl psychedelic songwriter Paul vs. the Businessmen, MetaCops child (Niagara?). A rhythmic Kazrin. Artist and occasional and a hardcover text The Sci- pattern of lipstick and fingernail Loren model Francesca Palaz- ence of the X-Men. polish samples decorates one zola is positioned near other page, followed by a Wally Wood- attractive friends (is the blonde Superman is depicted kissing drawn monster novelty. Frames girl an earlier Loren girl friend?), Little Dot’s boot, and more col- from the Zapruder footage of Loren himself, and his childhood lages include Little Dot, Shari President Kennedy’s shooting photos. Actress Joanne Worley, Lewis, Op Art. Niagara’s friend are overlaid with a comic book from Rowan and Martin’s “Laugh Ingrid Good holds a heart- balloon “Kill him—or we’re fin- In” and off-Broadway produc- shaped candy box and Loren ished!”, evoking Barbara Gar- tion “The Mad Show”, grins circa has lettered the lyrics to the son’s “MacBird” and its conspir- 1969. Loren’s photo of Michigan Doors’ “Crystal Ship” around acy. The famous 1940s photo of rockers Ron Asheton and Mike it. There follows a Mike Kelley filmmaker Maya Deren, mounted Davis is a portent of players who grotesque and “What Men Have on a background Santa Claus would have a major effect on Built”, apparently appropriated wrapping paper, almost looks his creative and personal life. from a religious tract (Kelley and like Niagara gazing out a win- Spray paint spatter pages are Shaw lived in a house with a sign dow into the Michigan winter autographed “The Creeper” on the porch, obtained from a gloom. Across the book’s gut- and “Felix the Cat”, but maybe roadside church, “God’s Oasis”). ter is a Mike Kelley drawing of that’s only in my copy. These A fat woman, more Op Art, child- grotesques, emblazoned with la- pages are reminiscent of the hood photos, actress Jennifer bels “John Q. Public” “A Blanket poems on red construction pa- Jones off television, a solarized of Ignorance and Death” “The per that communist poet Jack picture of Niagara. There’s a col- Criminal”, reminiscent of a Her- Hirschman used to give away lage by Jim Shaw that shows block political cartoon during in San Francisco in the early 1950s cars hovering over Christ the Cold War. Sean Connery, 1980s, where a single scrawled in the Garden of Gesthemane. Bettie Page, Jean Harlow, Andy name might invoke Che, Neruda The magazine’s credits are let- Warhol, an Utamaro geisha and, or Sandino. tered upon an Aubrey Beardsley of course, Niagara all look el- drawing by Loren, now residing egant, while Santa Claus toasts Issue #3 has a Niagara drawing in the Detroit suburb of South- a vampire with Coca-Cola. on the cover, a woman with a field. A collage with nuns and scorpion tattoo, electric-spark USAF fighter planes, Loren, Then among the photos we lettering. Following pages are Niagara, again with a knife. find a hand-lettered history of tattooed with Aubrey Beardsley, An alternate Destroy All Mon- Destroy All Monsters. “A visit Op Art, JFK, Marilyn (the pre- sters cover or poster, with Op with Destroy All Monsters rock vious two saints in the church Art, computer-printout lettering, band...How did Destroy All Mon- of Warhol, e.g., holy pictures). Topo Gigio A page from EM- sters get started anyhow? Hey, Sheena of the Jungle, ventrilo- POOL has the name “M. Kelley” am I talking to myself?!?” Mile-

26 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 stones listed include the winter, includes flyers for the band in provided, with Loren’s contribu- 1974 gathering of the four central his zine. Yet like cookie maker tion to lyrics and music noted artists, when Mike Kelley played Famous Amos, Loren lost his along with all others, for the his- drums and squeeze toys. While brand. By the mid 1980s, Nia- torical record. many local musicians jammed gara and Asheton tired of the with them, by summer 1976 Kel- Destroy All Monsters name, and A page that announces Ben and ley and Shaw had departed for had a new band through much of Larry Miller’s subsequent depar- California Institute of the Arts the 1990s, Dark Carnival. One ture from the band—fresh news in Valencia, California and the might have hoped that, like Ste- at press time—is leavened, or Miller brothers, Ann Arbor love Jobs’ company Apple, Loren given barbs, with anecdotes of cals, had joined. “Phase 3 of the had won Destroy All Monsters alcohol intake. Then there’s a History” is when Loren met Ron back; in a sense, Mike Kelley floppy “Have a Fun Vacation” Asheton, and with Mike Davis, gave it back to him in 1995, when cartoon, perhaps by Jim Shaw? he joined Destroy All Monsters Kelley and Shaw took renewed Shaw’s comment on Loren’s in April 1976. Rob King, a com- interest in the project, and se- enforced “vacation” from his petent rock drummer from a cured both capital and inter- band? A colophon notes that family that owned a music store, national venues for their new the magazine was printed at and whose sense of humor was exhibition and performance fol- Wayne State University, which described fondly, joined. In Au- lies. Loren has since recorded Loren attended at the time. Then gust 1977 Loren “once again lost original songs and music with harkening back to Destroy All his mind”, giving up girlfriend, Detroit collaborators under the Monsters’ tortured history, as band and serenity. “Phase 4” name Monster Island. recounted in this “Gala” issue, a of the band was, at the time of photo of Jim Shaw, Mike Kelley, this writing, soldiering on with- Turn the magazine page to find and ex- Stooges guitarist Ron out him, driven by Asheton and 1960s women, plus a lettered Asheton that had appeared in Larry Miller’s guitars. Was this text with “Nutty Professor” al- the magazine’s first issue—at personal history a fearless moral lusions to “Mr. Love” (actually that time with the innocent spirit inventory in a 12-step recovery? Buddy Love), then debonair of Look! Here’s Jim, Mike and a Is Loren’s an apologia, in the Sean Connery holding his liq- famous guy!—has been drawn Catholic sense? Exculpatory? uor. There are humorous col- over, repurposed into a poster With agonizing honesty, he ac- lages about photography us- for the present band, perhaps curately recounts his centrality ing imagery from the 1920s to by Loren at his loneliest in a to the entire project, an eye al- 1940s. Niagara is overlaid with monument to departed friends ready on the historical record. a quote from Jonathan Swift and collaborators (though the about looking “with joy on what gestural hand also resembles Kelley and Shaw departed for is past”. Another young woman, some 1980s Kelley drawings). graduate school in southern perhaps another girlfriend of the The band was opening act for California, musicians Ben and artist-editor, pokes her head re- the Ramones, whose name Larry Miller joined the band peatedly above the tumult. As (to the probable chagrin of the (their brother Roger, who was in previous issues, there follow New York Punk rockers and their soon to form Mission of Burma fan magazine-type pictures of fans) appears in small print. in Boston, played with them on Asheton, King, Loren and Nia- occasion too). Ron Asheton and gara interspersed with Marilyn, After a spray painted page la- Mike Davis, older veterans of im- Judy Garland, Andy Warhol and beled “Spaces”, Issue #5 an- portant Michigan rock bands the soup, and Loren’s own mother nounces it’s the Hollywood is- Stooges and the MC5, joined. (Warhol’s mother added hand sue, dated January 1979 and These musicians gave Loren lettering to her son’s commer- assembled by Loren during a and Niagara’s songs both skilled cial illustrations—did Mrs. Loren trip to California. It’s dedicated avant-garde and tough rock n’ contribute to her son’s project?). to Eric Von Stroheim and his roll edges. Loren “lost his mind” A Niagara drawing shows a lady era, and boasts a 1938 Anton- (his words) and “totally loco” with sleeping pills. A fake 45 rpm in Artaud text. One notes the was booted from the band. He record “Il Love You But You’re recurrence of icy screen god- lost Niagara to the Stooge Ron Dead” is juxtaposed with that desses, usually Nordic and Asheton (videos of a late version recurrent cellar shot of Niagara blonde, in Loren’s work; they in- of the band on YouTube feature with knife and blood. A Destroy fluenced how he photographed these two), yet Loren gamely All Monsters song list is dutifully and filmed Niagara too. Detroit

27 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 and its region in the 1960s and notes Artaud’s 1948 death date, Goltzius of a dragon munching 1960s were dominated by racial coincidentally the birth year of on beefy human corpses. The struggle, and this reviewer, a Ron Asheton, who charmed Ni- monstrous turns upon the man. product of the region in that era, agara away from Loren’s bed. looks back on a lot of art by white The mere title of “The Theater Issue #6 begins with a Virgil kids as a conscious avoidance of Cruelty” evokes the Stooges’ Finlay cover, with the note that of it. A cartoon of a menacing “Open Up and Bleed” and Iggy Finlay died January 18, 1971; black man by Kelley appeared Pop’s onstage masochism, Ron one suspects this was just about in the Destroy All Monsters Gei- Asheton’s Nazi regalia, as well the time Loren began dating Nia- sha This collection, but the only as early Destroy All Monsters’ gara. This one, numbered Vol. blacks that appear in this book loud assault of noise music and II no. VI, 1979, is called “Spe- are in a single photo of a curi- cinema. A stated goal is “To put cial Hollywood Issue”. In heavily ous group of teenagers in the an end to the subjugation of the embellished, fancy, fey lettering unpublished “lost issue”, as if Theater to the text”, much as we are assured “As ever, you will snapped by Loren as he passed Loren freed imagery from as- find it obsessed with time, age, a high school. sociative, explanatory text in beauty, death and the maze of his magazine. Artaud’s text is life”, for it was “Concocted in the In this issue Loren takes pride in further illuminated by his student hallucinatory neighborhood of his “Color Xeroxes”, noting with Loren, in marginalia of sexy un- Hollywood, California by a Mr. the attentiveness of an art histo- derwear ads, Bela Lugosi, Santa Cary Loren of Detroit.” Like Iggy rian how they were four months Claus, and Elvis with Mamie Van Pop about five years before, re- in production, from September Doren. cording the songs of “Kill City” 1978 to January 1979, and in- with guitarist James Williamson volved hand-developed E6 Ek- Aubrey Beardsley is juxtaposed while trying to score dope and a tachrome slides, hand-tinted with science fiction illustrator record deal, or perhaps novelist photographs and “magazine- Virgil Finlay. A repurposed Thomas Mann a half-century type collage”. “Xerox printing line of type says “Straight and before that, Loren celebrates his done in North Hollywood, Cali- Camp”, which might sum up visit to Tinseltown, in brief exile fornia.” Loren’s own aesthetic. Does from his quotidian rustbelt roots. he wear this motto as a tattoo? We are promptly given Alfred These are playful off-register, Sean Connery is back, pictured Hitchcock off television, a simi- overlaps, shuffling around Bob- with James Bond’s Aston-Martin larly reassuring (yet untrustwor- by Epstein as a Hitler-mous- DB5. Connery appears later in thy?) narrator of strange tales. tached lobster, a 1920s valen- the issue, in an ad for Jim Beam There is a stippled ink drawing, tine, horror movie villain Albert whiskey. A song follows, pre- unsigned and uncredited, but Dekker, girly magazine torsos. sumably by Loren, “Blackout in resembling those by Larry Mill- Loren’s layers, media imagery the City”. Baudelaire’s “Hymn to er’s past musical (and EMPOOL) in and out of focus and resolu- Beauty is lettered in fancy deco- collaborator Arnold Lellis. Plenty tion, veils of color and imagery rated calligraphy upon silent film of stills, snapshots, pretty faces from the past, a past imagined stars, grainy on bright green pa- in sunglasses follow, like a mid- by fantasy illustrators or Holly- per; it’s contrasted with Loren’s westerner’s cliché vision of Hol- wood cinema, or his personal own obsessive poem “Sanctu- lywood. There are images by past, from boyhood to his home ary’s All the Same”. Theda Bara, Jack Smith from his 1963 “Flam- with Niagara. The zine is a let- Eric Von Stroheim, Bettie Page ing Creatures”, whose showing ter from the suburban Detroit on Op Art field, all dance by our was shut down in the 1960s by Von Sternberg to his Dietrich, page-turning fingertips; today’s police in Ann Arbor, when Loren Niagara. And some of Loren’s reader might await a new De- was still in middle school about Ann Arbor friends were a lot like stroy All Monsters zine for the thirty miles away. There follows Peter Lorre. iPad. Then Loren’s “Time Bomb” a text by Jack Smith, and images poem is written upon a Beard- by Smith or perhaps Kenneth Is Artaud’s 1938 text taken from sley drawing. Like Walter Ben- Anger. its first edition? Is it different from jamin, Loren unpacks his library, the version in the Grove Press of fine old illustrated editions to An ad clipped out of a news- paperback The Theater and Its be then remixed and mashed up. paper announces a discussion Double, found on dorm room The last page is a Mannerist- or of Patty Hearst on a Detroit bookshelves since 1958? Loren Baroque-era print by Hendrik talk show, a rare intrusion of

28 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 the revolutionary politics of the dle, “The Whispering Master” herently and was considered by era (though Kelley, Loren and menacing a woman behind all to be a dangerous nut. He Shaw have all acknowledged her). There are binaries afoot, flipped—nervous breakdown” elsewhere the influence of John of grotesques/beauties, angels/ and left the group. A promotion- Sinclair’s White Panther Party aliens, culminating in the smile al text for Black Hole Records rhetoric on their aesthetics). Im- of a suave 1950s gentleman in makes effusive Lester Bangs ages from the Michigan band a dinner jacket, flanked by two read like terse Hemingway or SRC’s album “Traveler’s Tale” women. Veronica Lake, Albert Stein: “got to have a ghost to get are relevant again, for the reu- Dekker and Lon Chaney all pa- a ghost…a trance is coming… nited band has just played in rade by. Loren’s use of stills was petolpeyotlispotent [sic]…the Detroit what was advertised as akin to that of Forrest J. Acker- music sits like a vegetable sex its first concert in 40 years. man, editor of Famous Monsters organ all day long at night rot- of Filmland magazine, an obvi- ting a naked virus...” If there is a A photo Loren shot at the Detroit ous influence on the young De- biographical subtext to be found State Fair of a sideshow exhibit troiter’s aesthetic. In 2011 one here, it has grown increasingly boasting a living, headless wom- also can’t help but ponder the hermetic. Loren told WDET that an. Collages featuring Joanne persona and imagery of Lady he was thinking the magazine Worley, Bela Lugosi, Marilyn, Gaga, “Lady Monster” and her “as a picture novel by the end, Topo Gigio, Jim Shaw, bare- adoring “monsters” (fans), and with its old Hollywood imagery, breasted pin ups and Loren’s how the Destroy All Monsters of Creature Feature captions, pro- own movie stills. A Virgil Finlay 35 years ago might react to her. moting our new band Xanadu, illustration (gooped up by a short Defending her artistic integrity running “anti-Punk” rants.” De- prose-poem or fantasy synopsis in May 2011, Detroit MetroTimes stroy All Monsters had, alas, by Loren in flowery lettering), rock critic Bill Holdship asserted became “just Punk” under its an aging Marlene Deitrich (the that Lady Gaga was “More Nia- Asheton/Davis hegemony. avowed obsession with “time, gara than Madonna”. age, beauty”), and promotional In the issue, science fiction illus- material for the Japanese movie The face of a gauzy beauty trations by Virgil (credited “Vir- Destroy All Monsters. The mov- gazes at us, Loren’s “Winter on gal”) Finlay appear, and a Gus- ie features the giant monsters Skull Mountain” prose-poem let- tave Klimt drawing. Nineteenth Godzilla, Manda, Mothra, and tered in the margins. More Fin- century imagery of photogra- Rodan (no, not the sculptor). lay, Gustave Dore artwork along phers and printers affirm Loren’s They occupy Ogsawara Island, with the Metaluna Mutant from interest in craft, the issue “print- Japan, perhaps comparable to “This Island Earth”, in an ad for ed at Wayne State University in garbage-pit Zug Island in the “Blackout in the City”, a song Detroit and Albert’s [Copying] Detroit River, which Loren com- by a new band with Loren, the in Ann Arbor.” Mike Kelley and memorated in the name of a later Miller twins and Rob King called Jim Shaw are thanked in the psychedelic-folk music ensem- Xanadu, recorded on his Black credits. Perhaps Loren’s now- ble. There’s an image from an- Hole Records label. Joanne Californian friends took him to other 1960s horror movie, “The Worley grins at us again, on a the Hollywood Bookstore and Flesh Eaters”, and one from page of bright green, which also “Barthalamew’s” Movie Store? the “Mars Attacks” bubblegum reprints Punk rock zine reviews The back cover says Destroy All cards. An orientalist story is of singles by Destroy All Mon- Monsters in Art Nouveau type, written upon actor Warner (as sters (unfavorable, “just a girl and reprints an illustration from “Charlie Chan”) Oland’s face, singer posing on a musical back- a Frank Baum Oz, novel circa where a “traitororus [sic] fiend ground of swirling metal jive”) 1900, with its caption “Good- was drownd [sic] by perfumed though mixed for Xanadu. More Bye Ozma! Good-Bye, Dorothy!” barbiturates found in shriek reviews of Destroy All Monsters Behind this curtain, to what is Gestapo terrapins” in atmos- follow, from CREEM, PUNK, Loren bidding farewell? To his phere of “aquatic shrewism”. Trouser Press, some reprinted past art rock collaborators and Perhaps the shrew is a trope illegibly. PUNK magazine’s John their collaboration? Or to anoth- one might want to ferret out here; Holmstrom, like Loren a prac- er mid-western girl, who skipped women are shown menaced by titioner of hand lettering in his beside him on the perilous road stranglers, hostage-takers (in publication, recounts how Loren to their personal Punk Oz, Nia- one case the photo of a 1920s came by their 10th Avenue office gara? One is tempted to com- bride, with drawn babe in cra- for an interview, “rambled inco- plete the caricature, with Mike

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Kelley as Tin Man, then-shaggy resembles drawings by another at stoned. It is imbued with mes- Jim Shaw as the Cowardly Lion, Ann Arbor rock singer, Carolyn sages of menace, its TV Eyes Loren as the Scarecrow. We’re Moon. One collage using im- looking back at you in celebrity off to see the Warhol… ages from 1940s-1960s color opacity, portentous, freighted magazines suggests Winston with history. Like a good thump- A spray painted piece of lined Smith’s work. The blocky logo ing, droning rock song, there notebook paper is inscribed from the movie ZULU, and ani- is a rhythm to Loren’s almost- “Lily Tomlin”. Cut-out ransom- mal pelts, suggest a nascent reassuring repetition of imagery, note letters above a Virgil Fin- interest in popular Africana. A familiar faces recurring in the lay dragon inform us “This is couple contributions by Kelley crazy swirl of visual information. the Lost Issue! of Destroy All and Shaw were either sent back Monsters Magazine”. This un- to Michigan, or previously left Yet for all of Loren’s ransacking published seventh issue in 1979 with Loren; a lamb image from of history, grasping for gorgeous included several pages of color a Catholic children’s catechism, or ghastly idols, to assemble copies; but are these “xeroxes” and the double-entendre “He on the page his own universally as described, or made upon a comes in a cloud”, suggest Kel- synchronic troupe of emblem- Canon electrostatic copier, dis- ley’s hand. New revels in layer- atic superstars, there remains tinguished—and utilized by art- ing, color copying technique, the haunting presence of the ists like Loren and Yañez—by color applied to isolated images, singular muse. The same photo its separate passes for yellow, all suggest this creative periodi- of Niagara, sprawled on a base- magenta, cyan and black? In cal could have kept going well ment floor with a knife, is appar- these pages, Loren has shifted into the 1980s, had Loren so ently from the Super-8 movie the image for off-register ef- chosen. Cary and Niagara made (pos- fects or its appearance only in sibly prior to the coalescence a single color. Some faces from In 1995, Mike Kelley had a ret- of the initial art-gang band) for 1960s television shows “Leave rospective of his artwork at the the song the duo wrote, “You It to Beaver” and “The Addams Whitney Museum, and decided Can’t Kill Kill”. The reader of the Family” are hand-colored with to bankroll the release old base- complete Destroy All Monsters markers, pencils and pens. ment tapes of the foursome. Magazine, collected between Laughing (near-hysterically) Loren then published a collec- covers, notes that the image people in bathing suits are su- tion of old and new work called appears in both issue #1 and perimposed on girly playing Destroy All Monsters: Geisha in the long-unpublished #7. Per- cards; perhaps this is Mike Kel- This. The troupe reassembled haps even harder to kill than kill, ley’s, for he recently wrote an for projects in Europe, Japan, is—in all its creativity, yearning, appreciative introduction to a and at the Seattle Contemporary contradictions and heartbreak— Taschen anthology of the 1960s Arts Center (2000) and the De- love. humor magazine Sex to Sexty. troit Institute of Art (2003). Nia- The Metaluna Mutant from “This gara, however, had pretty much The Secret Island Earth” patrols a forest of lost interest in the old arty boys. War Between palm trees on wallpaper, the seven-headed Great Beast of Ars longa, vita brevis. Still, it’s Downloading and the Apocalypse is labeled “A nice to see an artist in mid-life Uploading: Tales Death-Defying Trio”, and other reaping appreciation for an of the Computer as monsters abound. Perhaps Nia- inspired early burst. The con- Culture Machine gara, by this time a Punk rock temporary reader appreciates persona getting notice, feels like Destroy All Monsters Magazine by Peter Lunenfeld the woman she drew here, with as a funky Cass Corridor upon The MIT Press, 2011 multiple hands grasping at her a historical road, one that in- body. An erotic story by Jack cludes Wallace Berman’s Semi- 144 pp. Smith is reminiscent of Aubrey na magazine as an antecedent, ISBN: 978-0262015479 Beardsley’s story “Under the and collage zines by D. Bolleri of Hill”. The swirly, paisley marker San Carlos, California as a frisky Reviewed by Jan Baetens drawings may be by Link Yaco, descendant today. Cary Loren [email protected] and, while the spiky vampiress assembled these pages for the drawn on burned notebook pa- viewer to interpret, to decode, to In this essay, which expands in per is probably by Niagara, it (a motivation in the 1970s) look a more systematic way on some

30 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 of the ideas already defended concerned the revival of Dewey who challenge the heritage of in his previous book USERIn- in this context is one of the many Enlightenment’s secular and op- foTechnoDemo (2005), Peter good surprises of the book). timistic culture. From the left: Lunenfeld puts the stakes very Lunenfeld is targeting the nega- high. Well known as one of the The title of the book is a perfect tive self-criticism of modernist best analysts of digital culture, synthesis of what it is all about. culture, its refusal to counter he opens here a certain number Lunenfeld does not only argue the anti-universalist stances of of historical, cultural, political, that our culture is a technocul- contemporary obscurantism, its and ideological questions that ture (culture and machine have refusal to recognize the deleteri- make this book a real must-read become exchangeable terms), ous effects of the vanishing of for all those looking for new and that this culture has now high culture, and its difficulty in answers to the problems that become a digital culture (the finding positive models for future modern technoculture has been machine of our age is the com- action and creation. From the facing since the end of what he puter), but also that the currently right: here the author gives a calls 89/11 (“eighty-nine eleven”, dominating device, the personal thorough critique of all forms of, the years of transition between computer, is far from a simple mostly theocratically inspired, the fall of the Wall of Berlin to continuation or remediation of anti-pluralism, outside the West the Twin Tower attacks). previous machines. It is radi- but also within our Western tech- cally different from the machines noculture. that created and structured the previous periods of our culture At the same time, The Secret (photography in the second half War Between Downloading and of the 19th century, cinema in the Uploading takes very seriously first half of the 20th century, and the radical condemnation of television in its second half), or modern civilization as a purely at least virtually different. The market-driven and amusement- problem with the computer is, oriented zombie or potato couch indeed, that it allows for two culture. Yet the answer he sug- possible uses, downloading gests is not a return to a mythi- (reception, consumption) and cal past, to a unified, patriarchal uploading (creation, participa- and theocratic society, but an tion) whose necessary balance attempt to rethink the openness, is now dramatically disturbed to complexity, creativity, and col- the sole profit of the former. We lective dimension of secular, use the computer mainly as a technologically enhanced En- Despite the author’s modesty, downloading device, thus con- lightenment. This attempt, which who emphasizes throughout tinuing and exacerbating what Lunenfeld does not present as participative and collaborative Lunenfeld considers the major a set of tailor-made answers, is action and thinking, The Secret failure of television culture: its very critical of some movements War Between Downloading and exclusive focus on dissemina- that have tried to bring cultural Uploading is a book whose po- tion and on passive reception uploading to the fore: The au- litical importance can be com- by its users, who suffer in vari- thor admits that avant-garde has pared to that of McLuhan (read- ous degrees a disease coined proven perfectly compatible with ers of this book, which proposes “cultural diabetes”. In the tel- the lowest and most despicable an inspiring blend of metaphori- evision age, 24/7 quantity has forms of the culture industry, just cal short-cuts and more classic wiped out the search of quality, as he is aware of the limits of the argumentation, may intuitively and the cultural and ideologi- “prosumer” culture (which does remember The Medium is the cal consequences of this ten- not always escape the only al- Massage), Adorno (given the dency are utterly deleterious: ternative of modern interactivity: highly personal tone of Lunen- on the one hand, the reduction either “buy now” or “buy later”). feld’s style one will think here of of culture to entertainment; on Minima Moralia, as much as of the other hand, the incapac- Lunenfeld’s book is a cry for the texts on the culture industry), ity to invent new and hopeful freedom––freedom from the and Dewey (and behind him the answers to the problems and market, which forces us to down- American pragmatist tradition of threats coming from all those, load and prevents us from up- critical inquiry −as far as I am both from the left and the right, loading, but also freedom from

31 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 all the reactionary forces whose Reviewed by Martha Patricia objects. It almost as a full human hidden or overt agenda goes Niño Mojica scale machine for small kids. [1] even much further. It does so [email protected] Despite being furry, Archivaldo by making four claims. First, the is able of squeeze adult people necessity to face the reality of Paul Scheerbart, born in Berlin, if they think is soft and do not technoculture, and to face it as is described as a novelist, play- know that it has motors inside. something positive (the machine wright., poet, newspaper critic, is not a devil, but part of our hu- a draughtsman visionary propo- manity). Second, the belief that nent of glass architecture, and these positive aspects have to inventor of the perpetual mo- do with the possibility of invent- tion machine. The book, trans- ing (without the invention of a lated from German to English new future there is the risk of by Andrew Joron, is forbidden repeating the errors of the tel- to be reproduced in any form of evision era, which infamously electronic communication. Ap- continues to destroy our culture). parently after having inventing Third, the urgency of doing so many things, Scheerbart does (after 9/11 we live in a culture not have any official products of fear, which is crippling us). listed. The book reads like per- Fourth, the craving for a collec- sonal opinion told through a tive, that is collaborative and collection of notes and draw- shared use of the possibilities ings over the time. The reader, of the computer, which is more perhaps, is tasked with animat- than a “personal” or individual ing the mechanisms in order to The first mechanism of the tool (hence for instance Lunen- animate the movement. The book looks like a draft with for feld’s insistence on Creative author is depicted as hardly a a mechanisma based in cogs or Commons and the aesthetics wise clown: he does not look like at least they are not described of “unfinishing”). that in a book that seems to be in the number of steps in the about how to create perpetual surface of the wheel or their ratio The Secret War Between movement using a variety of pul- equivalences. Although the idea Downloading and Uploading is leys––a very a good idea since is to create a machine for exca- a deeply committed book by a movement is for some physics or vation and construction, Figure man who is a no less a passion- a source of energy like lanterns 1 and 2 look like a strange draft ate lover of modern, i.e. both that are not a light sabre. All the for an animatronic mechanism man- and machine-made cul- mechanism seems to be kinet- for the eyes of Mickey Mouse ture, than a critical voice eager ic or designed for movement. and with the user weight. This to make a plea for values that I found the mechanisms very mechanism can be incorporated are heavily under attack: plural- serious and hard to construct in the imagination of the read- ism, high culture, gift economy. or difficult to articulate with er for her or his own creativity. Its highly appealing style and people untrained in the topic. People born already terrified by healthy sense of polemic and These seem to be central parts the existence of wars will un- provocation should make it a of mechanism already existing derstand the growth of disorder hotly debated work in the years in toys designed to be funny, like during the time if it is not contra- to come. Archivaldo that as I know them arrested with electrodomestic today does not seem to have machines that we wish lasted enough sensors for the current more than their warranty period. Perpetual Motion about two kilograms strength. It There is no information about Machine: The Story is enough to scare even a furry the weight loads of the machine of an Invention dog but probably not small chil- that are expressed as kilograms. dren that might find it and not by Paul Scheerbart be aware that it can really hurt Nobody is exempt to carry a Andrew Joron, Translator them. It seems to have only two weight either by their natural touch sensors. The problem is body and the extra weight of Wakefield Press, 2011 as old in philosophy as the ques- the tools that we use daily. 112 pp. tion about what is the difference ISBN: 978-0984115549 between live things, plagues and As translations may not happen

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watch?v=hlx-M53dC7M often, although for me they are rizon?, and what does it mean? already a very useful tool if you For Didier Maleuvre, the hori- have the time and are not terri- The Horizon: A zon is much more than the line fied or scared to talk in another History of Our where the land or the sea meets languages knowing that the pos- Infinite Longing the sky. The horizon is the place sibility of error is possibly bigger. of encounter between immanen- The interpretations of this text or by Didier Maleuvre cy and transcendentalism, and the comment of the book can be therefore one of life’s aspects California University Press, as long of the book itself––83 or elements that are most open 2011 pages depending on the read- to all the fundamental questions er’s knowledge. The pocket size 392 pp. that Man has been struggling book is a condensed small book ISBN: 978-0520267435 with since the very dawn of civi- with a lot of hand made drawings lization: What is the world that I Reviewed by Jan Baetens of mechanisms, perhaps, clear am living in? Is there something for Scheerbart but ambiguous [email protected] beyond the horizon? Is there a and some of them rather dan- God? Who am I? Eternal ques- gerous to use with out proper This is not, as the author mod- tions, perhaps, but not ques- instruction manuals or holding estly acknowledges in the very tions that travel through time body cases for the mechanisms. beginning of his book, a timely without changes. Maleuvre ex- Judging from my quick look at publication. This work on the cul- plains very well how the notion of the dates, it can be the start- tural meaning of the “horizon” horizon has permanently been ing points of many machines does not propose, indeed, the reshaped, and how our interpre- not mentioned that that we use fashionable mix of empirical re- tation of its meaning cannot be in the world today: cars, toys, search and critical critique that separated from the way in which clocks, machines for cutting attracts today’s PhD students. we define the horizon as such. paper, metro train, gyms and Neither does it reject the al- electronic sewing machines. most encyclopaedic and semi- The graphic design of the book abstract of the books that were is very simple and can be im- so typical of immediate academic proved in second editions by writing till the 1950s (as far as I the publisher. Another refer- am concerned, I could not stop ence not mentioned but useful thinking of Auerbach’s Mimesis, for the topic of perpetual ma- for instance). Moreover, it em- chines is the sculpture at BWM braces and links subjects that museum in Munich, Germany. modern specialization tends to [2] It is a good work of kinetic keep apart: philosophy, religion, sculptures that seem over glass. art, mostly. Finally, it accepts to This mechanism looks good and limit its research to the West- seems to be similar to the one ern, more specifically Greek and described in Figure 4. You can Jewish inspired traditions of the also find in the text more ideas phenomenon under scrutiny. Yet of mechanisms constructed by despite all these (apparent) re- pulleys, such as the ones used strictions, The Horizon is a great This enquiry takes mainly two for cutting grass, opening tin book, and one that should be forms. First of all, Maleuvre de- cans with food or threading yarn. read also as a defence of the scribes in large brushstrokes the The structure looks like it was kind of broad cultural studies various types of (once again: dated from notes ranging from that can be highly profitable to Western) civilizations that have 7 of June of 1908 to 16 of June contemporary humanities and one after another tried to cope of 1910. The author claims to even more to their perception with the problem of the horizon: be disappointed by dull labor. by a broader audience (for the the archaic age (Egypt, Ancient References ideal reader of Maleuvre is the Greece and the invention of life interested layman, not the disci- as a journey, translating space [1] http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=o4x-VW_rCSE. plinary specialist). in temporal terms, Israel’s exile http://www.youtube.com/ in the Desert), the philosophical watch?v=QxafIhYFOr0 The Horizon turns around two age (centred on classic Greek [2] http://www.youtube.com/ simple questions: what is the ho- philosophy), the theological age

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(from the first Christendom and productions of that period, and apt frame by which to view an Augustine till the Gothic culture this back and forth movement actual place, which I have had and the discovery of perspec- between cultural artefacts and the pleasure to visit many times. tive), the scientific age (Ren- highly abstract questions is, aissance and baroque), the undoubtedly, one of the great Three miles from the Gulf of scientific age (Enlightenment), forces of the book (the other Mexico in SW Louisiana, fringed the subjective age (Romanti- qualities being, besides the by Bayou Petite Anse, atop a cism and beyond, with a great great originality of the approach, deep salt dome left by the an- emphasis on the confusion of the admirable clarity of the style cient sea and an ever more ar- man and God in American re- and the incredible depth and chaic volcano, is Avery Island ligions such as Mormonism, breadth of information selected, with its marvelous Jungle Gar- which Maleuvre paradoxically summarized and remastered by dens. If the name of the island identifies as a religion of athe- the author). None of these analy- seems familiar, I can only tell ism), and finally the mathemati- ses may be entirely new, but the you that perhaps you have used cal age (our science-dominated overall story certainly is, as is its most renowned product on times, which tend to “solve” the the rhetorical tour de force of your food. For this is where Ed- problem of the horizon by de- Didier Maleuvre who manages mund McIlhenny first created claring it irrelevant). In each pe- to show the both eternal and Tabasco sauce to spice up, riod, he foregrounds a certain permanently shifting nature of as historians tell us, the bland paradigm, or a set of paradigms, questions that we may have be- fare then available in the Re- that establishes a certain rela- come afraid to discuss so openly construction South. Decades tionship between man and what and directly as he does. after its first commercial release is beyond man’s understand- in 1868, the sauce would bring ing. Each period, moreover, is The History of to the McIlhenny’s the kind of described as an answer to the Jungle Gardens largess that would facilitate the problems and difficulties raised creation of Jungle Gardens by in the previous one. And even if by Lisa B. Osborn, Shane K. the founder’s second son, E. the author refrains from suggest- Bernard, and Scott Carroll Avery McIlhenny . ing that the history of the hori- (eds.) zon obeys a certain teleological path, he demonstrates that the Jungle Gardens, Inc., 2010 transformations of the frontier 120 pp. between the immanent and the ISBN: 978-061532117 transcendent do follow a certain line: our Western culture tends Reviewed by Allan Graubard to “reason away” the problem [email protected] of the horizon. Yet although it is perfectly thinkable that one day In 1850 E. A. Poe wrote “The Do- our culture will have evacuated main of Arnheim,” a startling tale or forgotten the question of the as much for its sense of beauty horizon, this question remains through the medium of the land- still open today, and there is no scape garden as for its descrip- reason to think that we will live tion of that very place “seem- tomorrow in a purely immanent ing the phantom handiwork… culture. of the Sylphs, of the Fairies, of First opened to the public in the Genii and of the Gnomes.” 1935, Jungle Gardens is with Second, Maleuvre succeeds In literature, I do not believe that us today, much as originally very well in putting some meat anything equal to the domain of laid out, ever drawing tourists on these abstract bones by link- Arnheim has since appeared and locals. There time returns ing philosophical and cultural with the kind of élan that Poe to its natural cycles, the moss issues with illuminating cultural was able to bring to it. This tale, hangs low and thick from old analyses. The metaphysical in- poetic in setting, with its flow- oaks, alligators and turtles warm terrogations that lead human- ers, bushes, trees, water, sky themselves in the sun, frogs, ity from one answer and one and their inhabitants, however insects and butterflies abound, era to another are always con- unintentional it might seem to and birds are plentiful. Charac- nected with the major cultural us now, 161 years later, is an teristically, the first intrusion into

34 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 the natural landscape by E. Av- offer a view of what one man scientists, and communicators, ery McIlhenny (previously noted did from his love and respect have participated in expeditions as an arctic biologist then as for the land, knowledge of the organised by Cape Farewell to naturalist and conservationist) life burgeoning around him, and landscapes considered to be came in response to the open care for a red pepper, measured particularly ‘fragile’ in the face slaughter of the Louisiana egret for ripeness against a red stick of global climate change. Trav- in the early 20th century; the le Baton rouge, which appears elling to the High Arctic in 2007 delightfully frail white plumes transformed in restaurants and and 2008, and to the Andes in used as a popular decoration on grocery shelves worldwide. 2009, artists have produced a for women’s hats. And thus wide range of creative respons- Bird City was born, a protected There is every reason to get to es to this environmental crisis, area for nesting egrets in a small know E. Avery McIlhenny again some of which are on show in pond, enlarged precisely for that and to experience his legacy Chicago. purpose, from whence the gar- of enchantment, ecology and dens evolved, along with the commerce at any time in every restoration of the state’s egret season, from the sweltering July population. heat and humidity to crisper au- tumn days, just after another The oaks, the Camellia garden torrential downpour or when the with its 218 varieties (18 of which sun has burned too high for too originated there), the odd Sunk- long. en gardens, the Bamboo grove, the 800 year-old Buddha sitting Don’t worry: Jungle Gardens in its glassed-in pavilion over- and Avery Island itself, as Poe’s looking a quiet reflecting pool domain of Arnheim, will quickly Founded in 2001, Cape Fare- where dragonflies hover and work their magic. well’s remit is to allow for both skim, the welcoming Wisteria artists and scientists, as part of arch with its cooling shade, and And that is enough, for me at a small, intimate group, to see other passages and vistas leave least, to keep on coming back. first-hand the landscapes that little doubt that in this 170-acre are undergoing transformation reserve we can regain some- And so, The History of Jungle via changing average tempera- thing of what we have lost to Gardens… tures, shifting ocean currents, our hectic compulsions. loss of biodiversity and so on. U-n-f-o-l-d: A And as such its expeditions in- Recently Lisa B. Osborn, the Cultural Response evitably recall the placement of great granddaughter of E. Avery ‘travelling artists’ on board ships McIlhenny, a sculptor and former to Climate Change from the mid eighteenth century visiting lecturer at Harvard Uni- onwards, as the Enlightenment Museum of Contemporary versity, Shane K. Bernard, offi- impulse to inventory became Photography and Glass cial historian for the McIlhenny married with the colonial en- Curtain Gallery , Chicago, IL Company, and graphic designer terprise. These artists set out Scott Carroll have authored an February 2011 – April 2011 to fill the gap left by scientific overview of the Jungle Gardens, Exhibit website: http://www. language, to more accurately replete with archival and new mocp.org/exhibitions/2011/03/ convey complex scenes, and photos, many taken by E. Avery unfold.php to evoke a sense of wonder that McIlhenny. Their brief, if precise, stretched, confused and ulti- commentary captures the gar- Reviewed by Elizabeth mately fleshed out the West’s dens’ past, its present allure, Straughan, Deborah Dixon geographical imagination. and its value into the future. and Harriet Hawkins, Aberystwyth University Today, under the auspices of It is the kind of book that can [email protected] Cape Farewell, we see some- revive precious moments we thing of the same ‘coming to- have spent in the gardens, or U-n-f-o-l-d is a touring exhibi- gether’ around shared sites of that can draw us there whenever tion that showcases the work study and common fields of in- we are visiting the area. And of 25 artists who, alongside terest. There also appears to be it is the kind of book that can other creative practitioners, a critical reflection upon these

35 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 previous travelling endeavours, are folded together, opening ArtScience: A though, and their striving to ap- out the worldly consequences Journey Through propriate the secrets of distant of domestic behaviours. In Ack- Creativity - places – a curiositas mirabilium royd and Harvey’s (2009) Polar that has long been suspect, from Diamond, a polar bear bone is permanent Plutarch onwards, as shameless cremated and reduced to car- exhibition audacity. Instead, the creative bon graphite before its trans- responses on display seem to formation into a diamond; this is 17 February 2011 harken towards the traveller as a piece that asks the audience to The ArtScience Museum the ‘devout pilgrim,’ whose en- consider the environmental cost Singapore, SG counter with other peoples and of carbon intensive lifestyles. In places helps them to map out other works it is the embodied Travelling the Silk their own place in the world. senses that become the modus operendi for exploring the land- Road exhibition And so we find in U-n-f-o-l-d scape; the play of light as it is ab- 19 February - 27 March 2011 that it is often the passage of sorbed, reflected and refracted the journey itself – metaphori- through and by ice is a central The ArtScience cal and embodied -- that be- facet in works such as David Museum Singapore, SG comes the catalyst for creative Buckland’s Ice Texts (2008), Museum website: http:// practices. These include, for for example, where messages www.marinabaysands.com/ example, works that consider are transposed by video pro- singapore-entertainment/ the movement of the ship, as jector onto ice bergs, and Chris activities/art-science- in Tracey Rowledge’s (2008) Wainwright’s Red Ice- White Ice museum/ Arctic Drawing, which presents (2009), which presents the dif- the bold points and fine lines Reviewed by Stella Veciana , fering visual effects of white and of a pen, constructed as a pen- Research Arts Institute red flash photography, as well as dulum, marking the passage of in Lateral Moraine Meets Fjord [email protected] the ship with its sway. We find (2008), Nathan Gallager’s pho- an attentiveness to the embod- tographic work. ied and emotional responses to The first ArtScience Museum the journey in Amrije de Hass’s of the world recently opened As a collection, U-n-f-o-l-d has (2010) piece Wellness Over in Singapore. It has evoked taken Cape Farewell’s cultural Time, which notes the crew’s strong public curiosity but also responses to climate change physical reactions to the cli- controversy. The museum is matic extremes encountered. on a transatlantic journey, pre- comprised of an exhibition An emphasis upon the journey senting to its various audiences space of over 4,600 square is also manifest in the travelling works that explore the expedi- meters distributed among 21 form of the exhibition itself, flat- tions and their destinations galleries over four floors. The packed in Sam Collins’ (2010) through a number of materials symbolic framework of the eco-friendly, biodegradable -- unfired clay, photographic museum is embedded in an crates cum art works. plates, Lenticular print, carbon architectural form reminiscent and oil on paper, ink on paper of a lotus flower. It is intended Unsurprisingly, an emphasis -- and creative forms, such as to represent “The Welcoming upon the unfolding of key is- performance, installation, film, Hand of Singapore”. The sues from the minutiae of life poetry and music. Eschewing corresponding 10 “fingertips” is also central to the works on any overt political manifesto, the of the welcoming hand display. Daro Montag’s (2009) emphasis is firmly upon bringing are open windows to the Leafcutter Ant Drawing, for ex- the supposedly ‘far away’ – in skylight. Natural light ample, considers the passage time as well as space – into the illuminates the impressive of marching ants when con- ‘here and now,’ such that audi- curved interior walls if the fronted with a think black line ences can, hopefully, begin to curtains are not closed, as of oily carbon, a piece that ask map out their own place in the during the inaugural shows. questions about both ant and world as a prelude to undertak- However, Moshe Safdie human behaviour when pre- ing their own devout pilgrimage also knows how to integrate sented with a carbon problem: through its dips and troughs, his innovative principles of points of departure and arrival weaves and folds. sustainable design into the

36 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 original symbolic forms of the “ArtScientists” as Leonardo or but trivial floor projections and museum’s architecture. For Einstein can be searched for. sadly enough ended up dissolv- example, the central atrium at Once selected, the information ing in its shadows any hint of the roof of the building allows on the monitor gets projected architectural reciprocity with the rainwater to channel into a on a curved 60-meter high wall show. Probably more than in any reflecting pool and, in this to be shared with other visitors. other standard interactive media way, recycle it for use in the More interactive touch screens driven exhibit design, here the building’s restrooms. should inspire the visitors to cre- high tech approach is focused ate and send by Internet “their on simulating the integration Within this environmentally own work of ArtScience”, as of the exotic or unknown in an friendly space the museum as- email postcards to be made out all encasing experience. It be- pires to become “the heart of the of some preset forms. Finally, comes evident by the way the growing ArtScience movement,” the Expression gallery presents metaphor of the “cross-roads” as announced in the visitors’ a six-minute long promotional of exchange or mutual learn- guide. A permanent exhibition video as an “emotional and im- ing gets loaded emotionally and “ArtScience: A Journey Through passioned demonstration” of how this historical antecedent Creativity” presents the core phi- how artists and scientists have proposes an enthusiastic view losophy of the museum. Further- made their ideas real and how over the main theme of the mu- more, three renowned interna- common themes have emerged seum: “the fusion of art and sci- tional touring exhibits illustrate out of their practices. An ex- ence.” the corresponding key concepts. ample is the “Curiosity” about The main idea of the permanent the “machinery of nature” that Briefly, the Silk Road exhibit exhibition focuses on the “power becomes it’s “expression” in a constitutes a collectively well- of creativity” of the ArtScience mechanical horse and cart cre- known unique cultural heritage field to be subdivided into three ated by Lu Ban, a photographic theme. In fact, it is not the ac- galleries: Curiosity, Inspiration technique to study movement tual content, but the emotional and Expression. The “journey developed by Eadweard Muy- experience of this travel, that is through creativity” starts along bridge or a walking sculpture reinforced. And this emotional a staircase where some gen- build by Theo Jansen. experience is based on a com- eral questions are projected on mon interpretation ground of the wall: “Are the artistic and Besides the permanent show, symbols that plays within an scientific processes so differ- the first three “temporal block- always contrasting conceptual ent? What possibilities arise buster shows” that have been framework, as east - west. The from the merging of the two?”. on display simultaneously are contrast is actually increased Once upstairs the main foyer “Travelling the Silk Road,” “Ship- by restoring a past, distant, ex- is dedicated to the “Curiosity” wrecked: Tang Treasures and otic, foreign human activity to a area where a few drafts drawn Monsoon Winds,” and “Genghis present, proximate, close and by Safdie, the museum’s mod- Khan: The Exhibition.” All three almost touchable all encasing el, and some public feed-back exhibits were intended to evi- experience. In conclusion, we monitors are placed: “Where do dence the idea of “cross-roads” can assume that the much ac- great works of art or science by visualizing the contrasting claimed new parameters to de- begin? Do they originate from parameters of east - west, past fine an innovative ArtScience a common source, or do they - present and art - science. For Museum are actually borrowed spring from distinct places on instance, the Silk Road show from the modern theme parks the landscape of mind?”. organized by the American Mu- design. Sure enough, these key seum of Natural History in col- characteristics have already Turning right to the “Inspiration” laboration with many other inter- been developed in the 19th gallery, the visitor encounters national museums started with century for envisioning the first big kinetic inventions hanging some stuffed camels inviting the World’s Fairs. Its strategy em- from the ceiling as the MIT de- visitor to follow the trading route braces a universal theme as a veloped robotic fish that perhaps of east - west exchange. The playground to combine amuse- will help one day to inspect pipe- showcases were also conven- ment and emotional involvement lines. On several touch screen tionally arranged as in almost with international trade, cultural monitors, short descriptions of any Folklore or Ethnography Mu- exchange and technical fascina- “great ArtScience ideas” from seum. The dark illumination in tion. All three temporal shows a few almost too well known the galleries accentuated fancy follow these parameters in a

37 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 similar way. emy of Sciences’ conference, plexities of what equity might Challenges of a Transboundary involve. Ranging from abundant Not that this should come as World, honoring Helen Ingram, urban areas to poor rural areas any surprise, considering the professor emerita at University in the Americas, the book ex- museum’s location within the of California, Irvine whose life amines how social groups and Marina Bay Sands business- long work has been on water communities lack the political or oriented resort. As the first Art- politics and water equity. legal power to influence water Science museum of the world, decisions that may be detrimen- it becomes an anchor and part The book states “water will dom- tal to their way of life. Thus, it of the entertainment program inate world natural resource poli- highlights that context and place for the large-scale gambling tics by the end of the twenty-first are important in water resource and shopping area. The exhib- century much as oil dominated decision-making and that suc- its need to be as appealing as the late twentieth century” (p.1). cess may not be portable. cultural magnets as they can State, society, and individual re- probably be. Repeat visitors, quire new ways of thinking of from teens to whole families, global water resource allocation in sum mainly non-experts, is and management given the ris- the target group. Therefore, ing population, the continuing the exhibits need to be as eas- threat of climate change and cur- ily understandable as possible. rent practices policy and gov- Summing up, the critical press ernance. The central question talks about “lots of museum, not it poses: “What are the respec- so much ArtScience”. Anything tive - and possibly divergent highbrow will not attract enough roles - of markets and political clients. Hence, the question that institutions in contributing to, needs to be confronted by the and overcoming, inequities in contemporary practicing “Art- the allocation, distribution, and Science” community is related governance of water?” (p.302). to how the parameters of “nascent ArtScience museums” are The main thrust of the argument going to be set, whether inside is that the efficiency and mar- The studies range in scope or outside any resort context. ket approaches should be bal- and analysis covering topics And another unsolved problem anced with fair consideration of of transborder and shared riv- underlying this issue is how a multiple values of water, includ- er conflicts between the USA general public concern and gen- ing broader ethical, moral, and and Mexico, ethical issues in uine interest about the complex community values, and placing storm water policy in Southern issues emerging out of the field equity as a condition for a fair California, the inequities arising of “ArtScience” can be actually and just society. Both fairness in from imposed neoliberal poli- created. process and fairness in distribu- cies and privatization imposed tion is a theme that is explored on Latin America and South Water, Place, & throughout the book. The edi- America with cases in Mexico Equity tors conclude that a normative and Bolivia. For instance, one approach is needed to get be- case study explores the trans- by John M. Whiteley, Helen yond the utilitarian and policies boundary rivers of the Pacific Ingram & Richard Warren based on rational self-interest. Northwest regions of the USA Perry (eds.) Acknowledging that achieving and Canada, comparing the equity is a challenging prospect, approaches to hydropower de- The MIT Press, 2008 the editors suggest that further velopment and fisheries man- 318 pp. research is required regarding agement. Due to differences, ISBN: 978-0262731911 the implementation of equity environmental policies between practices. the two countries have seen Reviewed by Zainub Verjee very different outcomes. As a [email protected] Connecting place and water, result, in Canada there has been eight substantive case studies a return of salmon to the Fraser Water, Place, & Equity grew examine water issues in specific River. On the other hand, the out of the 2004 National Acad- regions and point to the com- Columbia River has lost much

38 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 of its fish resource. garde can only be understood garde continue to highlight and as a violent attack of bourgeois, emphasize. Instead, the careful It is pertinent to note that the rational, industrial modernity, reading of these works displays drive for wealth derived from avant-garde being the radical much more ambivalent and sub- mega hydropower damming side of aesthetic modernism that tle attitudes towards modernity. continue to take precedence is in no way compatible with the In certain cases, this ambiva- over issues of changing fish economic, technological and bu- lence goes so far that certain migration patterns, harm to the reaucratic understanding of mo- films can be read as much as a local fisheries, and, hence, food dernity as imposed by the grad- critique of avant-garde de(con) security as is evident of the cur- ual spread of global capitalism. struction than as a defense of rent decision being made to go The latter idea states that the anti-bourgeois values. Second, ahead with Xayaburi Damn in filmic medium, no matter which that modern critical thinking has Laos on the Mekong River. kind of cinema it represents, il- too uncritically embraced cer- lustrates a radical shift in human tain intuitions of Benjamin, per- This volume is a timely contribu- perception summarized by the haps because it has not had to tion to the environmental issues notion of distraction, the view- courage to question one of its and policy concerning water ing of a film being structurally own masters. resources, place, and equity. homogeneous with the sensory As a policy maker working with overload and the subsequent equity issues, I find this book is impossibility to focus on one a valuable resource for academ- single subject that define urban ics, policy makers, and anyone life in the modern metropolis. interested in the environment Both views, the standard vision and, in particular, water issues. of avant-garde as well as the modernity thesis of cinema, belong The Filming of to the survival kit of what one Modern Life. needs to know and to accept in order to be accepted as a partici- European Avant- pant in the ongoing debates on Garde Film of the modernity and avant-garde, and 1920s it is therefore a welcome surprise to see this kind of (stereotyped) by Malcolm Turvey idea questioned in what is, for The MIT Press, 2011 many people, a beacon of radical and critical art history. The For either of the two points he 170 pp. times they are a’changin’, even proposes to make Turvey has ISBN: 978-0262015189 in October circles. good arguments. At a general level, he is right to state that Reviewed by Jan Baetens Yet what does Turvey try to avant-gardism was in the very [email protected] demonstrate in this very clear, first place a critique of bourgeois even didactic book? Roughly modernity from within, so that For the robustly avant-garde speaking simply this: First, it is not astounding that many and definitely modernist series that none of the five films un- avant-gardists actually share the (“October Books”) in which it der scrutiny (Rhythm 21 (Hans same values and strategies as is published, Malcolm Turvey’s Richter, 1921), Ballet mecanique their despised enemies. The un- book has an astonishing argu- (Dudley Murphy and Fernand conditional praise of individual ment. Through a close-reading Léger, 1924), Entr’acte (Francis freedom and the often-ruthless of five major avant-garde movies Picabia and René Clair, 1924), individualism of the creator is the of the 1920s, the author chal- Un chien Andalou (Salvador most blatant example of it. At a lenges indeed the standard vi- Dali and Luis Buñuel, 1929), more concrete level, Turvey can sion of European avant-garde, and Man with a Movie Camera also drive home the point that while criticizing at the same time (Dziga Vertov, 1929)) enables most avant-garde films display the so-called “modernity thesis” the critic to confirm the a pri- several aspects and preoccu- of film as borrowed from the work ori, quasi-anarchist rejection pations of classic, bourgeois by Benjamin and Kracauer. The of (bourgeois) modernity that modernity. Each of the five former idea claims that avant- our standard visions of avant- great analyses that compose

39 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 the book tend, thus, to disclose ver, Turvey is, I think, mistaken [email protected] the hidden contradictions of the when he presents the “standard canonical avant-garde movies: view” as a monolithical and un- These two Cinema titles have Vertov insists on machinism, yet critically dominating approach intriguing areas of overlap; the his city symphony reveals also of what avant-garde means to- first examines how science in a profound sympathy for the day. Since at least a decade, general including computing is premodern conception of com- scholars have been strongly represented within the dream munity life as organism; Picabia criticizing the oversimplifying machine; and the second, how and Clair construct a film that dichotomy of reactionary bour- computers are both represented seems to abolish all known fea- geois modernism and radical and used for the manufacture of tures one could expect from a avant-garde modernity. It may predominantly popular enter- movie, yet their work is also an suffice here to mention the de- tainment. They both contain the homage to the popular enter- tailed and dramatically influen- tensions and anxieties of the ar- tainment of the chase films à tial studies by William Marx (on eas of focus and in the approach la Mack Sennett, etc. Corollar- the paradoxical relationships of taken to communicating such ily, Turvey confronts Benjamin’s avant-garde and arrière-garde) issues to a reading audience. radical ideas on distraction with or by Antoine Compagnon (on the more down-to-earth analy- the ubiquity of antimodern ten- sis by, among others, Rudolf dencies within modernism), to Arnheim, who insists instead make clear that the enemy that on the nondisruptive effects of Turvey is attacking is just a straw movie going in order to make a man, nothing more and nothing sharp distinction between narra- less. In that sense, his surprising tive and visual disruption on the thesis will not come as a sur- one hand and perceptive disrup- prise for all those who have been tion on the other hand. Turvey following these debates. Turvey states that the standard view is an excellent reader, but the of film as a modern, if not es- very stakes of his analysis are sentially avant-garde medium, partly ill defined. is wrong in inferring the latter from the former and defends a Lab Coats in much more selective approach Hollywood: of perceptive distraction that he limits to certain aspects of the Science, Scientists Lab Coats in Hollywood initial- avant-garde films that he is re- and Cinema ly captured my attention - Was interpreting. this a long overdue analysis of by David A. Kirby the part played by chemists in Although convincing in them- The MIT Press, 2011 the perfection of the image on selves, the readings of Tur- 264 pp. the silver screen? (Or as one vey suffer from, however, from chemist has put it, “The alche- a double flaw. They rely too ISBN: 978-0-262-01478-6 mist makes entertainment out overtly on author’s intentions: of silver!”) However no, this is The films are read through the From IBM to MGM: another story, slotting into the lens of the filmmakers’ com- Cinema at the media studies shelf and examin- ments (in certain cases even Dawn of the Digital ing the vicissitudes of the repre- unpublished notes) and the use Age sentation of science, aided and of this contextual information abetted by scientists cloaked tends too easily to downsize the as consultants. The iconic, the by Andrew Utterson revolutionary impact of the mov- indexical, and the symbolic are ies themselves. It may be true British Film Institute, 2011 not to be found here as the au- that Clair did not really agree 192 pp. thor, instead, using mostly field with Dada’s iconoclasm, but ISBN: 978-1844573233 research into the protagonists Entr’Acte remains until today a activities, deconstructs what film that comes close to what Reviewed by Mike Leggett , is ‘real’ about both the subtle one can reasonably expect University of Technology and the bombastic presence from an iconoclast film. Moreo- Sydney of scientists in front of and be-

40 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 hind the camera. The mission background as an evolutionary stream artists and the consid- for engaging with Hollywood is biologist shines through during erable experimentation taking clearly stated: “Any time a sci- many visits in his account to the place without significant budg- entist discusses or portrays, sci- set and the events behind the ets, often in collaboration with entific information, it is an act of makings of the Jurassic Park scientists working in commercial persuasive communication and series (1993 onwards). and government laboratories; as such it can have an impact outcomes ranged from abstract on scientific practice.” In From IBM to MGM: Cinema cinema to complex installations at the Dawn of the Digital Age searching for expanded forms Practice here means ability to Utterson’s account of IBM’s and and interactivity, bringing us to practice not methodology. The NASA’s involvement with Ku- contemporary thoughts about ethics of idea placement are brick’s 2001 are based on care- ‘future cinema’. not so much discussed as in- ful reading of the literature, (and stanced within recent cinema thereby a very complete Bibli- “Cinema’s power as a virtual history. When science teams ography), and the ramifications witnessing technology” is the promote their projects in the of the film’s messages viewed term applied to the cinematic public eye through exposure in from theoretical perspectives experience of being immersed the cinema, they gain advantage developed over the years since in the images and the informa- with politicians and investors its making in the mid-1960s; Ku- tion contained in features such and, thus, funding outcomes. brick posed some anxieties of as The Day After Tomorrow Though Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: the time about the computer and (2003). Kirby reports that it was A Space Odyssey (1968) estab- the musings of Marvin Minsky the subject of audience studies lished the idea of PanAm as an on Artificial Intelligence. The au- to understand what kind of com- airline of the future, it made no thor, thereby, advances to dis- munication occurs when a topic difference to their eventual de- cussions on evolutionary and like global warming is discussed mise but helped enormously to ecological trajectories posed by on the big screen. Contrary to emphasis the corporate success less visible systems and not sim- the studio approach of sneak enjoyed by NASA in the promo- ply lumps of interface hardware previews and market research, tional stakes at the point of land- decorating the sets. On this ba- this contemporary approach ing a man on the moon. Produc- sis Utterson’s preference is to employed ethnographic meth- tion anecdotes abound, for the discuss the latter sections of the odologies to gather data sets most part, recalling events in film, (using earlier discussions of useful for a range of purposes, scripting, pre-production, and Godard’s 1965 Alphaville from such as determining if public at- the studio floor, including mo- which to launch them), rather titudes to climate change are ments in front of the camera as than the opening sections where affected. Though the studies a line of dialogue is finalised. the credibility of ‘folk science’ is provided conflicting evidence, Amongst the more engaging in play at the core of the audi- the film was promoted by Green nuggets, NASA spacesuit en- ence experience. groups and, later, shots from gineers learned a lot from film it were used in Al Gore’s, An production designers engaged Inconvenient Truth (2006); ac- in inventing the look and feel tuality and simulation are inter- of the actors’ costumes, their changeable when it comes to style and appearance, the very contemporary anxieties colliding definitions of the dream facto- with the physical world. ries’ appeal. Product designers’ theories of form-into-function, Kirby’s book is no carefully pre- for all the engineers’ pioneering pared and arid academic tome. attitudes, lay well outside their In fact, it is the only one of the remit for inventing cutting edge titles listed by LDR to garner a space travel. The science accu- one-paragraph review, with cov- racy in Deep Impact (1998) was er image, in the Sydney Morning apparently good enough for the Herald weekend edition. The au- name to be used by NASA for thor is credentialed on the staff an actual funded research mis- of the Centre for History of Sci- sion completed in 2005 related ence, Technology and Media at to the film’s theme. The author’s He also gives voice to non-main- the University of Manchester.

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The film buff will enjoy this im- empirical approaches. Bauhaus For those interested, chapter mersion in Hollywood gossip, Dream-house is the first book two focuses on the theoreti- and it will be useful in the media on the Bauhaus that presents cal framework that informs the studies classroom as a means the institution through the fas- historical narration. Interest- of combining an understanding cinating lens of a critical social ingly, the author explains that of pervasive stereotypes with theory. The author examines its change is brought through the attractive and fashionable institutional formation and the fantasy, which helps construct wackiness of much of the Hol- spread and influence of its ideas new objects and practices. This lywood entertainment masquer- worldwide. Putting the Bauhaus often occurs during periods of ading as, or straining to become into its daily context allows the drama (eco crisis, war). Fan- informed scientific discourse. reader to de-mystify it by realis- tasy is essential in capitalism ing the extent of its challenges because it gives ‘meaning’ to For those pursuing a critical and the impressive tenacity and mass-produced commodities. approach to cinema and with creativity of its leaders to keep And the Bauhaus did harness some interest in the continuing the school open and to dissemi- fantasy to represent socio-cul- theoretical discourse, Utterson’s nate its ideas. It was both an tural change. It is heralded not book employs Conclusions at education establishment and a only as a beacon of artistic, de- the end of each chapter and a business of which development sign and architectural modern- final chapter so named, (also strategy is very familiar to us to- ism but also as the epitome of with a Conclusion), to assist day even though initiated almost modernity. Hence, its history is the reader with navigating ‘this 100 years ago. The book starts also synonymous of that of the particular cartography,’ bringing by contextualising the birth of Weimar Republic as it became focus for some to the historical the Bauhaus. It, then, focuses part of identity experiments by discussions that precede. (Fo- on the life of the Bauhaus itself, the new nation-state. cusing on the grey 8pt typeface explaining how social, economic is a greater challenge in an oth- and political pressures have in- erwise well laid out book.) Ref- fluenced its original ideals and erences to the futurist Marshall how it responded to the former. McLuhan throughout should for The last chapter traces its lega- many rehabilitate him as ‘the cy, looking at the dissemination man of integral awareness’, of its curriculum and the impact graphically showing the way of its thinking on cultural identity with the image of Noah’s Ark, and modernity. the vessel adopted by Utterson to ‘illuminate the screen culture’ The first part of the book His- of today as it sails into tomorrow. tories and Theories relates the history of architecture, design, Bauhaus Dream- and art education that led to the house - Modernity creation of the Bauhaus. Start- ing with the medieval guild to and Globalization the late eighteenth century when new institutions were created in Part two Weimar Republic gives by Katerina Rüedi Ray opposition to the expensive and the reader an insight into the Routledge, 2010 ‘out-of-touch’ classical learning. life of the school and its chal- 228 pp. In Germany, the Werbund tried lenges. Founded in 1919 by to integrate art and industry, ro- Walter Gropius, who fused the ISBN: 978-0415475822 manticising the guild model of Weimar Academy of Fine Arts Reviewed by Florence uniting imagination and produc- and the Arts and Craft School, Martellini tion. It aimed to ennoble prod- it was located in the provincial ucts with art on the principle cities of Weimar (1919-1924), [email protected] that mass-production can lead Dessau (1925-1932) and Berlin to quality product and that qual- (1933) and had three consecu- The field of research around ity of industrial goods improves tive directors Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus has mainly em- when designed by artists. Com- Hans Meyer and Mies van der phasized art-historical schol- modity design at the Bauhaus Rohe. Being on open admis- arship based on formal and emerged from this history. sion, its Basic Course was the

42 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 gatekeeper that offered formal a different idea of the Bauhaus curred through both personal and technical education but no market - popular necessities networks and mass media, history. The Bauhaus tried to came before elitist luxuries. He transformed the Bauhaus into straddle academy, technical and rationalised and restructured the an international phenomenon. craft education, adopting during workshops to improve produc- Political and financial problems its first period medieval ideals to tivity through standardisation. finally closed the Bauhaus, but integrate them. He disliked marketing. In col- the school dispersed across the laboration with Rasch, a wall- globe, in particular, the USA, The First World War led to paper company, wallpaper sales the former USSR, Mexico and a rejection of history and the became central to the school’s Czechoslovakia where some creation of a collective identity - economy. The school’s growing of its leaders and students es- space where people acquire em- economic success as well as tablished themselves. The last bodied cultural capital, the habi- its collectivization of production chapter focuses on how the Bau- tus. The latter became the focus formed a greater threat to the haus ideals continued to spread of critique and playful transfor- state than its economic prob- globally with its tools used differ- mation. Gropius recognised the lems. It was this rather than ently in different contexts. How- local political consequences of Meyer’s Communist sympathies ever, the author does not really the Bauhaus’ initial rejection of that allegedly became one of explain why neither the school’s social and gender traditions and the reasons he had to resign identity experiments nor its busi- gradually re-established social in 1930. ness models were adopted in its conformity. As economic stabil- offspring’s institutions. ity returned in 1924 the Bauhaus Unlike Gropius or Meyer, the increasingly embraced a more third director, Mies van der Overall, the book praises the conventional corporeal identity Rohe, felt no urge to create Bauhaus for its un-disputable with its growing focus on stand- designs for mass consumers. pivotal role in the twentieth ardisation, mass production and When the Communist cell re- century modernity and globali- collaboration with industry. In belled against his leadership, he sation. Freed from ‘dead con- addition, design being seen as called the army, ending the ‘pro- ventions,’ it became a sort of key to the appeal of German letarianization’ of the Bauhaus. commodity itself by uniquely products to compete interna- He attempted to escape political unifying design education, com- tionally, the Bauhaus was doubly conflict by denying a political modity production, marketing under pressure as an educa- role for the school. But when and sales. The author argues tional institution in regional and in 1933 the National Socialists, that it made visible “dangerous local systems without money amongst other pressures, de- and as a design school with manded him to remove several knowledge” [1] and challenged national economic potential. It masters for their ideology, Mies social norms. The Bauhaus’ forced a stronger focus on mar- van der Rohe closed the school. androgyny and a-historicism keting Bauhaus work. By 1924, suited private, public and cor- workshops were working at full Part three Europe and Beyond porate interests of industry, capacity but after the 1924 elec- explains how the Bauhaus colonialism and globalisation, tion the new right-wing Thuri- achieved such a global pres- distancing social issues from gian government questioned the ence. When the school closed visual and spatial practice. The school’s future. The attempt to in 1933, its products were being institution remained silent on fight politics with economics bought or licensed mostly by social relations discourse and, by making the school less de- German businesses. However, instead, became a commodity pendent on state funding was in the Bauhaus images, writings brand, allowing bourgeois ex- Weimar ultimately unsuccessful and pedagogies had already ac- ploitation, control of resources - politics supervened. In 1925 quired international presence and alienation of workers to the state terminated the contract and impact during the early continue. However, the author with the school. Gropius foresaw days of the Weimar Bauhaus. admits that the Bauhaus failed the crisis and had the school To achieve such a global pres- to fulfil its potential because it moved to Dessau. ence, corporeal and corporate could not and was not permit- identities, extensive networking ted to continue experimenting The second Bauhaus director, and publicity were at the heart to adjust to “realpolitik”. It lived Hans Meyer, further strength- of its management. These com- and died in extreme economic ened business initiatives but had munication efforts, which oc- and social conditions.

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This critical approach, which range of audiences — espe- chitects came together to build takes the Bauhaus as a case cially those interested in gen- highly successful residences for study, shows how ideas about der, urban, architecture studies women. Included in the exam- education impact institutional — uncovers this obscurity and ples are the all Women’s Lyc- culture, how educational pro- focuses on the role middle class eum Club, Victoria Studienhaus, grams are interlinked with re- women played, in spite of their the dormitory for women and gional, national and internation- social limitation, in shaping the the retirement dwelling Haus al policy and how institutions urban narrative, through self- in Der Sonne. These residen- connect to cultural networks determination. cies enabled women to continue and flows of ideas. Hence, this their studies and live with other book can appeal to an extensive Two texts that inform the tra- career-focused women and readership not only in the field jectory of this book are Henri have a Home of One’s Own. of visual arts education but also Lefebvre’s work on the pro- Stratikagos argues that it was in history, pedagogy and even duction of space and the 1913 women who responded to the business. Anyone who is curi- guidebook, What a Woman Must emergent needs of women and ous about the phenomenon of Know about Berlin. provides an insightful account of the Bauhaus will also find this how middle class women inter- book fascinating. Following in the tradition of Henri jected themselves into the built References Lefebvre, the book examines environment. the spatial dimensions and ar- [1] Knowledge safeguarded by professionals to ensure monopoly chitectural practices of women and control. as they claimed space in the social, economic, and political A Women’s Berlin: terrain, thus creating the modern Building the female identity. Modern City The 1913 guidebook, What a Woman Must Know about Berlin, by Despina Stratigakos was written for and by women. University of Minnesota Press, The guidebook provided women 2008 with an alternative way to imag- 264 pp. ine themselves by providing in- ISBN: 978-0816653232 sight into current issues, such as the struggle for a new all female Reviewed by Zainub Verjee orchestra or a look at fashion and capitalism. With the descrip- It is worthy to note that the au- [email protected] tive and detailed rendition of the thor brings to light Emily Win- contents of the guidebook and klemann, the architect respon- The Cover of A Woman’s Berlin the role it played in depicting sible for building these spaces, portrays an intriguing image of women as productive actors and the first woman to open an a photographer, a woman with in the city, the author lays the architectural firm in Germany camera in hand, perched on a groundwork in the first chapter in 1907. She collaborated with high crane overlooking the city. for the remainder of the book. other designers, architects, and Clearly, her clothing bespeaks patrons, all women, and became of another era and time. It is this As women gained entrance to well established gaining numer- “modern” woman and the city universities at the beginning ous commissions. below; that is the subject of the of the twentieth century, an in- author, Despina Stratigakos, creasing population of women The other chapters are dedicat- who argues that architectural made career choices over mar- ed to the substantial role women history has forgotten the role ried and domestic life. This shift played in creating spaces for women played in shaping the called for suitable housing for themselves, both in the built urban built environment at the university students and unmar- environment as well in social, turn of the twentieth century in ried professionals. economic, and political sphere. Wilhelmine, Germany. Wealthy women patrons aided One chapter is dedicated to The book, addressed to a wide with funding; designers and ar- Die Frau in Haus und Beruf,

44 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 the highly successful 1912 ex- Grafik Dynamo under review originates: In 2005 hibition, portraying women’ la- New Radio and Performing Arts, bour. Split into the two themes by Kate Armstrong and under the direction of Jo-Anne of luxury and mechanization, the Michael Tippett, with essay by Green and Helen Thorington, exhibition featured a vast range Joseph Tabbi commissioned Canadian art- of women’s work from architec- The Prairie Gallery, Alberta, ists Kate Armstrong and Michael ture, fashion, collectibles, fruit Canada, 2010 Tippett to produce a work for its Turbulence website. [1] Their and vegetable markets, sewing 48 pp. work, Grafik Dynamo, experi- and hairdressing among other ISBN: 978-0978064624 ments with social media, dy- things. This successful exhibi- namic systems, and storytelling Reviewed by Dene tion placed women as the sub- in a way that challenges our gen- Grigar, Washington State ject and not the object. However, eral assumptions about narrativ- University in the exhibition, working class ity. Specifically, for three years women were conspicuous by [email protected] Armstrong and Tippett took live absence. images from LiveJournal and combined them with “narrative One sub-text across chapters fragments…dynamically loaded delineates the tensions between into speech and thought bub- traditional spaces held by men bles and randomly displayed,” and those held by women. An- and produced what some have other recurring theme in this new erroneously called a “random found portrayal of middle class comic strip generator.”[2] Actu- women was a challenge to the ally, it is more, which I will get to moral compass of the times: in a moment, but the term does being perceived as prostitutes, help to explain the process in a very simplistic way. The work is deviants, and a danger to social Superman , Batman, Spiderman, still available but, now, draws its moral fabric of the society. The Legion of Superheroes, Ar- images from Flickr. chie––as a child I was a lover The book, which received the of them all and held on to my In preparing for this review, I prestigious 2009 Book Prize vast collection of comics until it revisited the site and watched from the DAAD, is very well re- was sold without my permission as the triptych of panels ran- searched and illustrated. The at a family garage sale while I domly changed one at a time author achieves what she sets was away at college. (For a long or, sometimes, two in close suc- out to argue, offering a concep- time I harbored a grudge for my cession. A black and white close tualization and imagination of a brother for selling my original up of a man with short cropped city through the lens of women. It Batman comic at that sale.) Now, hair and glasses’ temple curl- shows the force of middle class The League of Extraordinary ing around his ear, for exam- women and demonstrates how Gentlemen, Watchmen, Fables ple, had the caption: “He had a small group of women made keeps me faithful to graphically taken a horrified interest in the lasting spatial interventions enhanced books, whether they doings of the court.” The panel and became a socio-political be comics or graphic novels. to its left showed a collage of precursor to the making of Wei- Aficionados like me liken Scott food and stoves with the bubble mar republic. However the au- McCloud to a god for legitimizing stating, “Surely it is the problem comics in the lofty world of aca- of faith!” and its caption below thor points out a paradox in the demic scholarship and believe telling us “but the prostitute had epilogue: “Berlin in the Weimar the women behind New Radio some startling news.” The panel years was identified in the popu- and Performing Arts should be to the right was black with no lar imagination more than ever canonized for promoting the art image, the bubble announcing, with female modernity, but the form with this commission for “The Earth’s splitting!” Watch- idea of the city as woman dif- Grafik Dynamo by Kate Arm- ing the work long enough re- fered vastly from the notion of strong and Michael Tippett. veals that the words produced a women’s city, which had found by Armstrong remain stable, architectural expression in the First, a few words about the finding their way as captions or imperial period (p. 175).” project from which the “book” bubbles while the images them-

45 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 selves constantly change. Thus, Thus, the shift from reflecting Design Thinking: the challenge in “reading” this upon the world to reflecting on Understanding dynamic graphic novel lies in our feelings about a world overly How Designers making sense of the three pan- exposed to human misery lies at els together and individually as the heart of what Grafik Dynamo Think and Work they shift words with random addresses about narrativity, ac- by Nigel Cross images. Where is the story?, cording to Tabbi. The “sublime” one may be fooled into asking. referred to in the essay’s title Berg Publishers, 2011 showed up twice in Armstrong’s 192 pp. Here is where Joseph Tabbi’s captions and bubbles when ISBN: 978-1847886361 essay, “Graphic Sublime: On the Tabbi examined the work. This Art and Designwriting of Kate repetition led him to see it not in Reviewed by Dene Armstrong and Michael Tippett,” the way suggested by Romantic Grigar, Washington State provides some guidance. This poets as the “presence of na- University essay and examples from the ture,” but rather in the context of [email protected] work comprise the book––in violence and techno-culture as reality, an exhibit catalog–– the absence of “what is not said” Nigel Cross, Emeritus Professor published by The Prairie Gal- (author’s emphasis, 24), what of Design Studies at The Open lery, the gallery where the work perhaps we do not want to face. University, has written Design was shown from April 1-June “McCloud’s work is not criticism, Thinking: Understanding How 30, 2008. Tabbi, in discuss- and Armstrong/Tippett’s work… Designers Think and Work, a ing the “habits of attention” we is not narrative,” he says, “[b]ut brilliant little book that contains a use when engaging with digital these works have the virtue of large amount of information. Lit- works (10), reminds us of our letting us know, sensually, what tle is not meant to be a pejorative inability to avoid coherence, it is we’re missing––in an era comment about the quality of the and “the sense of a narrative, that systematically denies the book but rather descriptive of its the impression of history in the development of critical and nar- actual size: a mere 6.25 in. x 7.5 making, [that] persists in what rative experience” (27). in x .5 in. But the information we see” (12). Alluding to Thomas Prof. Cross manages to pack Pynchon, Tabbi tells us that “[t] For those of us invested in media into that small space speaks echnology and information, in art, visual rhetoric, and digital to the very skills he discusses the worlds of Gravity’s Rainbow storytelling, the book, funded about great design: Extremely and Grafik Dynamo, each can by the Andy Warhol Founda- well-organized and compelling- inflict its own violence on the tion for the Visual Arts, is well ly written and argued, Design texture of everyday life, but each worth hunting down for the es- Thinking makes for good reading is also capable of evolving… say and full-color reproduction and will be useful for teaching, [Comics, graphic novels, the of 16 pages of panels from the particularly those “interested… “Funnies”] are ways that peo- live site. Its comic book style develop[ing] their understand- ple learn to live with technologi- presentation and unique way ing of how designers think and cal violence” (15). Clarifying this of referencing sources make it work” (1). statement further, he says: a lively and informative take on this area of media art. It is also The book is divided into eight “Now that technologies facilitate a compelling invitation to visit chapters, each with a subsec- the viewing of atrocities, deaths, the original work, which, mention all noted and numbered in events that occur at every in- tioned earlier, is still available the Table of Contents, making stant worldwide, the call of nar- for viewing. them easy to find. Cross, an rative is no longer to locate such expert in design methodology References events in our own lives. What and epistemology, is interested is required, rather, is a space [1] Armstrong, K. and M. Tippett. in “reveal[ing] and articulat[ing] Grafik Dynamo. Turbulence. http:// where events can be written, not www.turbulence.org/Works/ the apparently mysterious… as commentary or analysis, but dynamo/ (Accessed May 26, cognitive and creative abilities as affective outbursts, capable 2011). of designers” (1). To that end he of combining but only randomly, [2] “Grafik Dynamo.” Poor Mojo employs interview- and experi- never through authorial purpose Newswire. http://www.poormojo. ment-based research methods org/pmjadaily/archives/002836. or intention.” (22) php. (Accessed May 29, 2011). and an interdisciplinary ap-

46 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 proach to design to arrive at broad ‘systems’ approach to the sign structure of a potential new his findings. problem,” “fram[ed] the problem product.” For Cross, a creative in a distinctive and…personal leap is actually “more like build- Chapter 1, “Design Ability,” by way,” and “design[ed] from first ing a ‘creative bridge’ between far the lengthiest chapter of the principles” (75). the problem space and the so- book, lays out underlying princi- lution space” (129) than a leap ples about design thinking and across two unknown territories. details the methods by which he approaches his research in Chapter 8, “Design Expertise,” the area. While artists may not concludes with a summary of be surprised that design is de- Cross’s findings: that design scribed as an “exploratory proc- thinking consists of “multifac- ess” (8) that uses “abductive” eted cognitive skills” and is a reasoning (10) and “aspects “form of natural intelligence in its of emergence” (11) or that it own right.” It is more than prob- requires “external representa- lem solving, he says; rather, it tion” in order to design (12), or requires “intense, reflective in- that “successful designers are teraction with representations of optimists” in the way they can problems and solutions” and “an “turn an event from a crisis to an ability to shift easily and rapidly opportunity” (13), it may surprise between . . . doing and thinking” the engineering students I teach (135-6). Cross also shows that each semester that all design is Chapter 5, “Designing to Use,” “education is not only about the a “social process of interaction introduces experiment-based development of knowledge but and negotiation” (20) and “pro- research methods, looking spe- also about developing ways of ceeds as ‘a reflective conversa- cifically at “design thinking in thinking and acting” (140). We tion with the situation,’”––and action” (79). This method asks learn that mastery takes “sus- that they share these qualities subjects to work through a de- tained involvement” as well as of design thinking with my mul- sign and provide a “verbal ac- “motivation, concentration, and timedia design students. Of in- count . . . of their own cognitive willingness of work hard” (141). terest to artists is the idea that activities” (80). Here Cross fol- research into design thinking lows Victor Scheinman as the “Everyone is capable of design- has resulted in the “growth of engineer designs a device that ing,” Cross tells us (1). For that respect for the inherent, natural will allow a backpack to be car- reason––and the fact that the intelligence that is manifested in ried on a mountain bike. Chapter book provides insights into de- design ability” that is grounded 6, “Designing Together,” contin- sign and is enjoyable to read– in “technical rationality” (29). ues with this method, this time –I recommend it for everyone. with a team of three as they take I, for one, will be using it in my The next two chapters follow on the same design problem as undergraduate multimedia de- through on the interview-based Scheinman was given. Chap- sign course in the fall and add research approach promised in ter 7 follows the organizational it as a resource for my faculty. the first chapter. The first, “De- strategy introduced previously signing to Win,” with the Formula by comparing the design think- Interface Criticism: One racing car designer Gordon ing utilized by the designers fea- Aesthetics Beyond Murray and the second, ”De- tured in Chapters 5 and 6. What signing to Please,” with product emerges from his findings is a Buttons designer (of sewing machines recapitulation of the notion of the by Christian Ulrik Andersen & as well as the front bodywork of “creative leap” (127). Cross sees Soren Pold (eds.) the High Speed Train for British it, instead, as an “accumulat[ion Rail), Kenneth Grange. Chapter of] a lot of prior concepts, exam- Aarhus University Press, 2011 4 provides an analysis of the de- ples and discussion,” a “formu- 295 pp. sign thinking found in the Chap- lation of an ‘apposite’ proposal” ISBN: 978-8779345041 ters 2 and 3, looking at the com- that is, then, “explored and pos- mon features shared by the two sibly reframed” and resulting in Reviewed by Ellen Pearlman men. We see that both Murray “a resolution between the de- [email protected] and Grange, for example, take “a sign requirements and the de-

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Interface Criticism is a well-re- tian dichotomy of the beautiful digital technology as used in searched, timely collection of and the sublime. The very topi- conjunction with performance essays on the theoretical un- cal and relevant idea of software art. Broadhurst analyses digital derpinnings of our attraction to, as artistic material and program- performance from both prag- use of, and reliance on digital ming as an artistic act is dis- matic and theoretical perspec- technologies and their interfac- cussed by Morten Breinbjerg tives. A detailed discussion of a es. Heavy on European philoso- in terms of music composition number of “case studies” helps phy, the book is divided into five and performance. Live coding her explain clearly her premise overlapping sections of explora- is highlighted as a liberating, of the importance of “the ex- tion. The inherent meaning and radical act. In one sense this ploration and investigation into function of signal and code is is true. In another sense un- the physical/virtual interface so dissected and scratched back less you are a musician adept prevalent within the digital” (p. to ancient Greek definitions of at programming you can share 186). familiar terms used (aesthet- the liberation. ics, technology, haptics), and This interface between the pushed forward to contempo- In the chapter on software and physical and virtual is the criti- rary theories concerning code codes a ‚hermeneutics of sus- cal phase space for Broadhurst, software criticism and media picion‚ prevails, looking at how and it underpins her analysis archeology. Section One ex- interfaces function, and what throughout the book. “It is my amines the ‚historical devel- they ultimately hide. The final belief that technology’s most opment of a screen mediated chapter, “Culture and Politics” important contribution to art is public sphere, including video relies heavily on social and the enhancement and recon- art and installations. How we political theory. Though these figuration of an aesthetic crea- perceive the world through input theories are a necessary as- tive potential that consists of and output forms the basis of pect of software analysis and interacting with and reacting to the Section Two, and contains criticism, the deeply pedagogi- a physical body. For, it is within the collections most powerful cal tone and forced analogies these tension-filled (liminal) contribution. Grappling with the make this chapter a tedious spaces of physical and virtual issue of the mediated senses, read, in contrast to the other, interface that opportunities arise Lone Koefoed Hansen’s essay, more upbeat ones. The analysis for new experimental forms and “Interface of the Skin‚” exam- I sorely missed seeing was of practice” (p.194). ines wearable computers as gender and class in accessing the ideal communication con- these advanced technologies, The book has a smattering of duit. It examines the belief in and the issue of first vs. fourth black & white photographs, ultimate scientific methodology world aesthetics. mainly to help the reader visu- as secretly masking a yearning alize the performances Broad- for the numeric to function as a Digital Practices: hurst is discussing. There are covert wish-fulfilling telepathy. Aesthetic and eight chapters, together with Soren Pold’s piece examining an excellent Index and Bibli- cybernetic memory highlights Neuroesthetic ography. the insightful critiques written in Approaches to the 1930s by Walter Benjamin. Performance and Chapter 1 – The Digital: A Pre- Benjamin’s words still resonate Technology liminary View gives a brief, stating, “the mode of human per- useful introduction to digital ception changes historically.” by Susan Broadhurst performance and the issues Because we live in such a re- involved. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011 mediated world of images and sounds, this reasoning leads 232 pp. Chapter 2 – Selective Aesthet- one to contemplate complex ISBN: 978-0230293649 ic Approaches discusses very theories of simulacra, power, briefly, and somewhat super- control, fantasy and cognition. Reviewed by Rob Harle ficially, the theoretical views of [email protected] various philosophers including A chapter is devoted to the in- Merleau-Ponty, Lyotard, Derrida terface and aesthetics of beau- This book is an excellent ad- and Deleuze. This chapter left tiful transparency‚ investigating dition to the rather sparse me completely underwhelmed these ideas as a classical Kan- scholarly literature concerning and did not, in my opinion, add

48 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 much to the rest of the book. digitally underpinned, perform- learnt here, regardless of wheth- ance and interactive art. “It is er we are creating traditional or Chapter 3 – Neuroesthetics, my belief that digital practices, digital art? though necessarily brief, is as experimental artworks and an excellent introduction into performances, both serve as Octopus Time: this nascent discipline. And a critique and have an indirect ef- Bellmer Painting good starting off place for those fect on the social and political...” with great enthusiasm and little “In this sense, the digital does by Herbert Lust knowledge of this subject. what all avant-garde does; it is an experimental extension of the Private W. Supply Gallery, Chapter 4 – Live Performance socio-political and cultural of an Greenwich CT, 2008 and the Digital discusses, in de- epoch” (p. 185), Herein lies the Reviewed by Michael R. tail, three fairly well known art importance of these contempo- (Mike) Mosher , Saginaw pieces: The Jeremiah Project, rary art practices. Valley State University Blue Bloodshot Flowers. Cun- ningham’s Biped. Stelarc’s, Ob- As I mentioned earlier, chap- [email protected] solete Body. ter two does not, in my opinion, add a great deal to the rest Sarane Alexander’s 1978 Riz- Chapter 5 – Digital Sound, New of the book. The first edition zoli book on Hans Bellmer first Media and Interactive Perform- of Digital Practices: Aesthetic introduced a lot of us to the work ance analyses and describes and Neuroesthetic Approaches of this arresting artist (1902-75). three main pieces: Optik (Con- to Performance and Technol- He was a meticulous mid-cen- tact, impulse and electro- ogy was published in 2007 in tury draughtsman, to whom H. acoustic sound). Palindrome hardback and, now, this soft- R. Giger owes much. The me- (Intermedia, col.laboration and cover edition published in 2011 ticulous limning of caressable interaction). Troika Ranch’s (An is available. A lot of electrons curves and lubricious orifices electronic disturbance) . have flowed under the digital is a form of lovemaking, link- bridge since 2007, and we are ing eye, hand and subject on Chapter 6 – Digital Film looks in now, according to many, into the display. By overlapping the some detail at The Matrix Tril- post-digital era and certainly the sweeping, fatty extremities, ogy and the various Star Wars post postmodern. I would have and concavities of the human prequels. Broadhurst reveals liked to have seen in this edition, body, Bellmer’s cut-up and some fascinating, not commonly chapter three expanded consid- remixed women and men, geni- known facts about these films, erably, and chapter two deleted. tals, mouths, legs and furniture, their creators and the technol- Neuroesthetics is a fledgling limning details of sexual memory ogy involved in their creation. field of enquiry and promises then reassembled into smooth, to answer many previously un- sugary, simultaneous and seam- Chapter 7 – Bioart, again three answered questions concerning less pretty Frankenstein mon- works are analysed in fascinat- the making and appreciation of sters of sex. As in the drawings ing detail. Kac’s Transgenic Art. art. I have often wondered why (crafted with words into com- Critical Art Ensemble’s recom- representational and narrative ics) of another great obsessive, binant theatre. De Meneze’s style artwork stand the test of Robert Crumb, seminal gush- Aestheticizing of Evolution. time and are still so popular ers and female orgasms pour Even though I was familiar with world wide, cross-culturally. I forth. Some drawings employ Kac’s work, Broadhurst’s anal- believe Broadhurst answers this textured and drippy decalcoma- ysis of his radical science-art question in her neuroesthetic nia, which suggests sticky, dried transgenic creations broadened investigations. These show that substances, then drawn upon to my understanding considerably. many more areas of the brain depict further couplings or gaz- are activated when we experi- es. Richly rendered in pencil, or Chapter 8 – Conclusion: Digital ence these works than in more black chalk with white highlights, Practices is more or less a sum- abstract or conceptual works: imagery of multiple ménages, mary of the preceding chapters. “Non representational works suckmouths and polysodomies, of art activate fewer areas of poops and coprophagia causes This book goes a long way in the brain than representational one to inevitably ponder Bellm- helping us better understand and narrative art” (pp. 116-117). er’s personal life. One wonders the process of experimental, Perhaps there is a lesson to be how he might have contributed

49 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 to (or, perhaps, forestalled and photo showed Nora Mitrani, yet graph “I Am God” is no longer postponed?) the suicide of his Agnès de la Beaumelle, curator Herbert’s own, but is listed as a companion Unica Zurn. Another of a 2006 Bellmer retrospec- part of the Conrad Lust collec- of his lovers, Nora Mitrani, died tive at the Centre Pompidou in tion. So who is Conrad Lust? A before turning forty. Paris, compared this woman’s son? Brother? Grandson? No anatomy to other photos of Nora relation? As Herbert Lust pro- Bellmer is often numbered, in and determined, in a feat of gy- vides personal anecdotes in his broad surveys, among the twen- naecological art historical inves- commentary, one might expect tieth-century’s photographers, tigation, that it wasn’t her. Lust the work’s disposition to be re- too. The photographs by Bellmer chooses to name the 1946 photo counted. that are most often reproduced “I Am God”, in the tradition of are those of the pubescent fe- Courbet’s similarly focused 1866 The reader can’t help put down male-things he called Dolls. The oil painting of gal parts entitled the engaging publication with a Wexner Center at Ohio State “The Origin of the World”. sneaking suspicion Lust wrote University is presenting a show the book just so he could put “I in 2011 of Bellmer’s work, includ- In his commentary, Herbert Lust Am God” on the cover and en- ing the weird “Half-Doll”, paired compares the image to an oc- joy the subsequent controversy, with the work of Louise Bour- topus, the woman’s eight long daring publications to show it geois, both of whom worked in fingers arrayed above the crea- in their advertising. Bookforum Paris in the 1930s but appar- ture’s “head” composed of the did, which piqued my own in- ently never met. This reviewer rounded pubic region, with its terest, and the book, while not had never before seen a Bellm- open maw in the center. This essential, does inform a bit on a er photograph merely gleaned inspires the book’s title Octo- notable skillful, eccentric, sexy from observed life that wasn’t pus Time, and the image of the and creepy artist. Beyond its sui a construction, like his posed cephalopod recurs in Bellmer’s generis cover image, it’s good to and constructed dolls. In some oeuvre, multi-armed lustbuckets see the Bellmer works on paper cases, the prints were further shoving peppermint sticks, et from the Conrad Lust and Pri- hand-colored or printed in nega- cetera, into their mouths. The vate W. Supply Gallery collective. Outside of these sculptur- reviewer reflected on these as tions in Octopus Time: Bellmer al and photographic bodies of Virtual Reality innovator Jaron Painting. And could Nabokov work, Bellmer privileges draw- Lanier praised the capacity, el- himself come up with a better ing, as I do. I personally tend to egance, and “Glory of Cepha- name for a Hans Bellmer con- think of most photographs as lopods” on a Wisconsin Pub- noisseur than Mr. Lust? unfinished, requiring the gaze of lic Radio interview in March the draftsperson, the drawing- 2011. (http://www.wpr.org/ A Touch of maker, to complete it. My own book/11book.cfm). Blossom: John drawings and paintings usually begin with a collage of photo- Lust contrasts Bellmer’s aquati- Singer Sargent and graphs. Perhaps Bellmer used cally moist depictions of female the Queer Flora of photographs as reference for anatomy with those of the des- Fin-de-Siècle Art drawings as well. iccated Duchamp in his warm and appreciative essay, though by Alison Syme The gyneacological study on the does not really create “a new Pennsylvania State University cover of Octopus Time: Bellm- literary genre, a spoof using art Press, 2010 er Painting, though signed by history to express a world view... 340 pp. the artist (only to sell for a fast despised by all prominent Du- buck?) doesn’t feel to me like champians” (Hey! I think I’m a ISBN: 978-0271036229 a completed Bellmer artwork. Duchampian!) as Lust claims. Reviewed by Michael R. It feels to me like a reference Some ways in which the author (Mike) Mosher, Saginaw Valley photo. The artist was probably enters the art historical story are State University fascinated by this woman’s ex- interesting, but his narrative is posed genitalia and blood-red- marred a couple times by irrel- [email protected] dened fingers. Or simply been evant personal information that curious—Look what she’s doing! might have been better served How queer was John Singer Hold that! SNAP! Early on, au- in back-of-the-book footnotes. Sargent? The painter Jacques thor Herbert Lust believed this One catches that the photo- Émile Blanché, whose social re-

50 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 lations with Sargent were frosty, est skill to appreciate the artist’s traits. She notes the way they once sniped that the superior mastery and painterly panache. hold a cigarette, place hands artist’s sex life “was notorious in Sargent’s “The Daughters of Ed- on fellows’ shoulders, and Sar- Paris, and in Venice, positively win Boit” (1882), where children gent’s depiction of one sketching scandalous. He was a frenzied stand or sit still in the shadows friend lying on his stomach, bot- bugger”. Like the four theories and shifting light of a prosper- toms up, in the grass. She takes of Aubrey Beardsley’s sexual- ous house, may be one of the unhealthy pleasure in using ity—that he died a virgin, that greatest American paintings of terms like “limp-wristed”. Taught he was gay, that he frequented the nineteenth century; in this in grade school not to pick on the hygienic heterosexual broth- book, Alison Syme does more classmate who wanted to come els, that he had an affair with with the portrait trope of the over and play piano for my mom his sister—Sargent may just be brother and sister standing so and sing Elvis’s “Teddy Bear” to interesting enough for his art close they almost become one. me, this reviewer is especially that we continue to speculate irritated by Syme’s recurrent, on his private life. Somehow the Sargent painted the occasional almost sneering, use of “inverts”, dinner company of Robert de male nude, some eroticized in however historically accurate. Montesquieu or Henry James an orientalism of his time that he Black people were called a rude doesn’t mean Sargent was in also mirrored in female figures. term then too, but one wouldn’t bed with them. Or maybe he There was an obvious pleasure, employ it frequently in a biogra- was, but must we titter so, as or camaraderie, in his glancing phy of Sargent’s contemporary Alison Syme does for 340 pages watercolors of Florida workers, Booker T. Washington. of A Touch of Blossom? Tyrolean hikers or British sol- diers bathing nude. Is painting, To illustrate that Sargent’s por- especially figurative painting— trait subject Dr. Pozzi was emi- and nudes—invariably about nent in gynecology in France, sex? A century ago there was we are delivered a gallery of also the sense of the male nude oft-grisly medical illustrations, as “classical”, the athlete or sol- especially those of what look dier. Whatever his personal pre- to be incredibly painful ovarian dilection between the sheets, growths literally dwarfing the John Singer Sargent’s skillful, sufferer’s body. At one point as bravura painting style got him a teenager I reached a degree commissions from President of revulsion reading William Bur- Theodore Roosevelt, “General roughs’ sexual violence against Officers of the Great War” and ephebes, when I realized I was saber-wearing Sir Frank Swet- one; reading Syme at her creepi- tenham, and one imagines the est brought back that feeling, as artist holding his own in con- when Dr. Pozzi’s plush velvet versation with these stalwarts. bathrobe becomes a blood- I’m attentive because I’m a engorged cervix. As the Vien- second-generation Sargentis- Syme’s chapters in A Touch of nese psychoanalyst muttered to ta. As a working-class teenager Blossom discuss nineteenth- an interrogator as imaginatively employed one summer in the century French and English stimulated as Professor Syme, 1920s by Harvard University’s representations of artists as in- sometimes a cigar is just a cigar! Fogg Art Museum, my father sects; men, women or children was responsible for transport- as flowers or even vegetables; This reader is not sure A Touch ing Sargent drawings from cu- brushes and palettes (or lan- of Blossom is a “brilliant inter- rator-collector Paul J. Sachs’ terns and matches) as fertiliz- pretation of Sargent’s work” as residence to the Museum, and ing stamen and pistils. Syme much as erudite fantasies upon developed a lifelong apprecia- catalogs a greenhouse worth it. More a pillow book, a garden tion for the virtuoso artist. A defi- of plants and their meanings of erotic tale-spinning, where ant teenage PoMo and Dadaist to cognoscenti and aesthetes. everything alludes to something myself, I badmouthed Sargent She compares the Art Nouveau carnal. Like late Vladimir Nabok- then, and had to develop and depiction of stems and droop- ov at his ripest, an exotic crackle grow into a certain degree of ing leaves to gentlemen’s hand of sexuality as a thong panty painting knowledge and mod- gestures in various Sargent por- stretched over all subject matter.

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This reviewer is normally a fan of Blossom a striking, weird hot- Part 1 Time, Memory, and of purple prose and grew up on house flower indeed. Consciousness. This section Hunter S. Thompson and Lester presents the six lectures given Bangs, the effulgent rock critic. Zones of Re- in 1995, as follows: 1 – Zones Sometimes the joke’s overex- membering: Time, of Re-membering; 2 – Ancient tended, a frisson of innuendo Greeks and Aboriginal Austral- as a battering ram, or the reader Memory, and (un) ians; 3 – Doing Memory and Do- feels a lack of affection for her Consciousness ing Language; 4 – The Intertwin- subject, only her sniggering. The ing of Language and Memory; text is over-stimulated, abun- by Don Gifford; D. E. Morse 5 – The Sign Stream of Our His- dantly and salaciously bloviat- (ed.) tories; 6 – Memory and the Self ing. As an art history text, it’s Rodopi Amsterdam, 2011 and Art as a Way of Knowing. a bodice-ripper. Or let’s call it 157 pp. an Edwardian gay equivalent, Part 2 Time, Memory, and The a trouser-buttons-ripper. ISBN: 978-9042032590 Unconscious. This section presents a lecture and essay: Reviewed by Rob Harle Despite enumerated reserva- 7 – The Imitation of Dream in tions, there are ways that I like [email protected] Literature; and 8 – A Chip on His this grand and ambitious book. Shoulder or One for the James There aren’t a whole lot of art Reading this book is like taking Joyce Centennial. history titles that are page- a trip down memory lane (pun turners, that make you want to intended). Each chapter is a lec- read what’s going to happen—or ture given by Professor Gifford what outrageous Alison’s going at Massachusetts in 1995. It is to claim—next. The best, though not so much the 16 years since not most historically precise, bi- he gave the lectures, though ography of bravura rock n’ roll much has certainly changed in piano player Jerry Lee Lewis academia since then, but more is Nick Tosches’ Hellfire, and that Gifford was a traditional “old perhaps its time Sargent got school” style scholar. As Donald the same poetic treatment in Morse, the editor of this collec- Dr. Syme’s long, peculiar prose tion of lectures says, “Don Gif- poem. As art history it is as sub- ford was a formidable lecturer jective as Gertrude Stein’s Pi- and a great teacher in the tradi- casso or Guillaume Apollinaire’s The Cubist Painters, however tion of Ralph Waldo Emerson in thoroughly, meticulously docu- that he provoked his listeners mented. Every well-reproduced into learning” (p. 8). The main thrust of Gifford’s Sargent painting here is worth investigation was to explore a look, and some are majestic. The late Don Gifford was incred- memory and how this relates to It’s full of fun Edwardian visual ibly well read and the kind of the complexity of human experi- culture, like seed packets with intellectual who questions eve- ence. He discusses both individ- the faces of silk-hat gentlemen, rything in true Socratic manner. ual and collective memory and sailors (“Heh heh, Beavis, he He was not afraid to challenge suggests that memory is stored almost said ‘seamen’!”) or chil- any so called “established” truth, in the arts, “which in turn provide dren sprouting out of the plants, and throughout these lectures a way of knowing and of nour- or with their own faces replaced he continually sorts the wheat ishing Memory and conscious- by flowers. I enjoyed touring the from the chaff concerning the ness”. Gifford does not discuss conservatory of psychobotanist functioning of memory. He memory from a neuroscience- Alison Syme, bedecked with fine does this with a sense of hu- neuroanatomical approach, it Sargent paintings and other im- mour, which makes the mostly is through the humanities, and agery of the era, as she shows unedited lectures, a pleasure especially literature that he de- off her swollen, oddly-shapen to read. velops what he believes con- sprigs of truth grafted to color- stitutes the nature of memory. ful bunkum. Yet I doubt I am the The book is divided into two first or only one to callA Touch parts: Robert Adolph in his Intro-

52 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 duction “Assaulting ‘Newton’s Fastwürms Introduction by curator Philip Sleep,’” notes that Gifford’s goal Donky@Ninja@ Monk, a love letter, a poem (an “is not to solve the mind-body Witch: A Living appropriation of Bob Dylan’s problem, or define the nature Subterranean Homesick Blues), of consciousness and time, or Retrospective a list of works shown in the ex- show us how the brain works...” hibition and three essays, as by Philip Monk “His first aim, I think, is to show follows. Learning To Be Donky us no single, blinkered explana- The Art Gallery of York by Emelie Chhangur; Props To tion can account for the depth University, 2011 The Fairy People by Jon Davies; and complexity of human ex- 112 pp. Nature In The Network by Sally perience, and in particular its ISBN: 978-0921972600 McKay. The essays are an es- grounding in Memory” (p. 11). He sential attribute of the book as achieves this goal reasonably Reviewed by Rob Harle the whole thing is a little paro- well. After finishing the lectures, chial, in that Fastwürms is very [email protected] I felt as though I had gained a much a Toronto based artists’ great deal of knowledge con- group. Sure they have exhibited cerning literature, history, ro- This book will cast a wonderful outside Canada, but this show manticism (his fundamental spell on your imagination. It is a and many of their colleagues approach), and the complexi- combination of documentation, referred to, are part of the To- ties of human action. However, catalogue and critical discus- ronto art scene. I had to keep reminding myself sion of the living retrospective that this was supposed to be a exhibition at the AGYU (Art Gal- It is a credit to the AGYU and book about memory and con- lery of York University) by the contributors to the book that sciousness, not literature per zany artistic combo, Dai Skuse an outsider, and one from the se. I think this came about for and Kim Kozzi, á la Fastwürms. Antipodes, can gain a good un- two reasons: Firstly, Gifford is a “The AGYU steals, but only with derstanding and appreciation of chronic digresser and wonder- good will and the best of inten- this duo’s radical, DIY artwork! ful story teller, and one tends tions. And it only steals from the They unite “every creature, to get lost in these digressions; best. Mimicking artists’ strate- scrap of cultural detritus, and secondly, his openly stated bias gies, the AGYU is already in on social scene into one harmoni- against science as providing ulti- the anti-establishment game. ous and hedonistic union. The mate answers, which is perhaps Our collaboration with Fast- arena for their aesthetic alchemy true to a certain extent, tends to würms to produce DONKY@ is subcultural style – working leave his overall result wanting. NINJA@WITCH was a highly unusual venture: a hybrid inter- class, youth, stoner, witch, goth, Further on in his Introduction species exchange, so to speak, queer, cat-fancier, pirate, coun- Adolph states, “A major theme that contaminated both the in- try, anarchist; all filtered through of this book is how conscious- stitution and the anti-establish- pop-mediation, camp adoration/ ness is a function of Memory” ment” (p. 25). irony, and an amateur’s loving [my emphasis] (p. 12) Now this hand” (p. 47). assertion is clearly open to fairly Fastwürms was founded in hostile criticism from both scien- 1979 and is the “cultural project, The Würms love animals for their tific and certain spiritual views trademark, and joint authorship own sake, especially cats, but of the nature of consciousness. of Kim Kozzi and Dai Skuse”. then these feline creatures have Gifford does not discuss these This entity is “a rare ‘avatar art- a long connection with witches, at all. For this reason I found ist’, crafted by joint authorship”. which of course is a fundamental the book somewhat disappoint- It is about “multidisciplinary, aspect of Skuse and Kozzi’s art ing. Having said this, I still rec- multimedia artworks that inte- and life. They cast spells wher- ommend the book as a great grate time-based, performance, ever they go, in whatever mate- read for those interested in the and visual art in the context of rials are at hand. Their ethical history of human thought, and immersive installations, social system, or personal manifesto also how human memory, from exchange and event architec- “which brings together the most the earliest times, has become ture principles” (p. 108). radical and compelling elements integrated and enmeshed with of witch and queer cultures is, literature specifically, and the The book is full of colour illus- the witches code of, “do what arts generally. trations and photos and has an you will, harm unto none” (p.47).

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An entertaining, inspiring and and 1960s suggested was ac- rons that was the first to ground radical book about a pair of en- tually embedded in a complex a scientific link between the wet tertaining, inspiring and radical circulation of affects, motiva- brain and the binary logical com- artists. tions, desires, emphases, and puter.) What is intriguing are her investments. Wilson’s book on archival take and the desire to Affect and Artificial affective worlds is not just a cri- address the relations between Intelligence tique of AI for neglecting such affect and computer-based dis- drives and affective tendencies course of artificial intelligence by Elizabeth A. Wilson – but demonstrates through ar- through the early phase of AI. In- chival work and theoretical instead of going the more obvious University of Washington sights that we can do more as route – of claiming that, whereas Press, 2010 cultural theorists. early AI neglected emotions and 200 pp. affects and proposed a narrow ISBN: 978-0295990477 view of what intelligence is, and what was later corrected with Reviewed by Jussi the more embodied, relational Parikka, Winchester School of and dynamic models of learning Art/University of Southampton robotics – Wilson wants to point [email protected] out that affect was already there. Hence, her work is perhaps psy- Giggling. That is something that cho-biographical, but even more you would not expect to be em- so about the environments of phasized in a book about early creation in which relations be- artificial intelligence and cultural tween people, mathematical theory. Instead of just wanting theories, and engineering of to go through the in itself de- such machines was complete- pressive homophobic culture ly filled with various affective that surrounded Alan Turing registers. Wilson emphasizes and probably contributed to this point at the beginning her his suicide, Elizabeth A. Wilson Wilson starts the book with an archival work but that could be wants to paint a different kind epigraph from Bruno Latour even more visible and richer in of a picture of the intertwining and the insistence to think of the actual analysis (as I am sure of affect and research into cul- critique as multiplication. Criti- she did a lot of groundwork with tures of computerized rational- cal theorists should not be materials). ity. Hence, Turing is not seen content to stay on the paranoid only as the unfortunate victim of mode of criticizing of what went Wilson never distinguishes state persecution and enforced wrong – for instance the seem- between affect, emotion, and chemical castration, but she ing lack of embodiment in such feeling, which might lead to wants to emphasize the over- AI discourses, the phallocen- some questions. At times affect flowing positive affect-worlds tric rationality, and homosocial means more or less emotions, that were intimately linked with gender bias – but how to use but at the same time she does Turing’s analytical questioning. material affirmatively (but no hint towards a richer, relational The “positive affects”, such as less critically) to come up with notion of affect arising of rela- Turing’s giggling and delight, novel ideas –that is, something tions – even physical relations are carried over to the analy- more. As such, some of Wilson’s – between people and things. sis that intertwines theory with positions, and underlying meth- It also elaborates affect as an historical material, insights from odological insistence reminds affordance – as more than a his personal life, and his work us not only of Latour but also of categorical “drive”, and as an – and succeeds in this really such material feminists as Karen intensification of our engage- difficult genre of cultural analy- Barad and Rosi Braidotti. ment with the world. As such, sis really well. Hence, the often the book is a great intervention disembodied – and also what Wilson’s readings of the affec- into the continuous debates critics have persistently labeled tive registers of people such as concerning our relations with as narrowly defined boundaries Turing or for instance Walter machines – most recently by – of intelligence that the early Pitts (of the 1940s fame of the such figures as Jaron Lanier and research into AI of the 1950s McCullough-Pitts model of neu- Sherry Turkle in rather pessimis-

54 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 tic tones. What Wilson is saying 19 May – 3 July 2011 questions about the scope and with her elaborated, theoretically Curated by Massimiliano extent of working class struggles refined, and exciting take is that Gioni, Associate Director that do not necessarily trans- we need more introjection, less and Director of Exhibitions, late into desired revolutions. projection. We are already inter- with Gary Carrion-Murayari, How do people live after their mingled with our machines, with Associate Curator voices and relationships to their object-relations, and in affec- Exhibit address: http:// environments have been bru- tive circuits that include not only www.newmuseum.org/ tally repressed? What legends people but machines too. Bruno exhibitions/439 and practices do they conjure Bettelheim’s case study of the to make meaning out of their “robotic boy Joey” analyzed by Reviewed by Aparna existence? And how can digital Wilson (29-30) is a case in point. Sharma , UCLA media enter such contexts pre- [email protected] serving the integrity of the voic- In addition to the chosen case es and experiences repressed studies, for instance the work of New York’s New Museum is by the incessant, onward march “machine-machine” relations of exhibiting internationally ac- of History? “affect” – when affect is under- claimed, Thai filmmaker, Api- stood as triggering relationality chatpong Weerasethakul’s Primitive is set in Thailand’s – would have been a good ad- multi-platform video installation farming village, Nabua that in dition (I am thinking about the Primitive — an ambitious work the 1960-70s was the seat of work of W. Grey Walter and his that raises the links between clashes between the Thai mili- robotic tortoises). In addition, class struggle and memory tary and communist-sympa- when she uses affect as a way through a pronouncedly reflex- thizing farmers. The tensions to think through “intersubjectiv- ive cinematic vocabulary that peaked so high they altered ity” (27) – instead of for instance reinstates early cinema and the demographic profile of the seeing it as the pre-individual classical film theory’s interroga- region. Though Weerasethakul social in the manner as does tions around the moving image enters this community a gen- Brian Massumi – it would have as constituting a representation eration after the clashes here been interesting to elaborate the of ‘reality.’ This is a crucial inter- have subsided, Primitive reso- point a bit. Is affect only between vention in the medium of moving nates with recent confrontations subjects, or constitutive of the image at a time when bounda- between the Thai military and subjectivity itself, already partly ries between fiction and faction, Bangkok’s working classes, swallowed in other people’s and commercial and home movie many of who hail from rural things’ world (as she otherwise are increasingly understood as communities such as Nabua. seems to suggest)? having been dissolved. While in Primitive was conceived during the Western hemisphere as in the research for Uncle Boon- In any case, just like her previ- the neo-liberal mediascapes of mee Who Can Recall Past ous book Psychosomatic, this postcolonial societies, such as Lives (2010) that won the pres- is a great read and engages the in South and Southeast Asia, tigious 2010 Palme d’or Prize reader in a kind of a “draw the this dissolution of boundaries at Cannes. In Primitive Weera- lines between the dots” kind of has translated into celebratory sethakul recruits and follows a practice: The book has a lot of discourses claiming the de- a group of young Nabua men, implicit links to theoretical dis- mocratization of moving image mostly teenagers, to explore and cussions that are going on cur- media and technology; Weera- share how they experience their rently and Affect & Artificial Intel- sethakul’s Primitive problema- landscape and the social and ligence offers a nicely grounded tises dominant and normative political history that has shaped perspective to many of these. visual cultures transported un- it. Primitive includes eight works der the aegis of ‘globalisation.’ — each dwelling on aspects of It presents a site-specific vo- life and activities performed by Apichatpong cabulary (site understood both the work’s characters. On one Weerasethakul: geographically and historically) screen Weerasethakul closely Primitive through which we are emphati- follows the process of building cally alerted to the naivety in a spaceship that will allow its Apichatpong Weerasethakul claims of digital media as demo- travelers to navigate ‘past’ and New Museum cratic. Primitive makes critical ‘future’ — two temporal cate- observations and raises incisive gories that heavily impregnate

55 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 the Nabua community’s present. than an ethnographic preroga- tov’s The Man with the Movie The spaceship is an anchoring tive for the emic or insider view. Camera (1929). At one instance theme that links Primitive’s thinly Many images are accompanied in the game, the ball is kicked to- tied videos together. An Evening by conversations or gestures wards the screen and the screen Shoot sees some young militia that reference the site’s cheq- catches fire. Eventually, it fully practice shooting and killing. In uered political history. These burns and the image of what we Nabua Song we hear an inspir- references are always oblique were seeing on the screen dis- ing folk song calling for liberation and suggestive. On many in- appears. This moment edges and justice. Primitive’s images stances we are witness to long a sensation of violence upon are sensuous as a thoughtful durations of actions such as the viewer. We are pushed from camera dwells on the details lightening, music, sleep, eating, the realm of seeing the repre- of weather, colour and embod- games. These long durations sented representation, back to ied experience, evoking a lush are as punctuated with sponta- the primary representation. Is landscape and people’s relation- neity as they are laden with idle- this a choreographed accident? ship with it. At the same time ness. Cumulatively they allow Is Weerasethakul gesturing the Weerasethakul’s images make us to appreciate how memory death of cinema, positioning it as for demanding viewing. We are permeates the young Nabua coincidental with the contradic- consistently and consciously men’s sense of masculinity. As tions of working class struggles? distanced from what we see. viewers we are constructed to Not literally because the light of This is not merely on account of both witness actions we see, the back projector continues — cultural difference but because and to follow those indirect, peering directly and sharply at of the very cinematic vocabulary shared sentiments — antici- the viewer’s eyes. Moving shad- that Weerasethakul deploys. In pation, anxiety, loss, absence, ows, the shadows of the Nabua some works editing results in idleness, energy — that quietly men who we see on screen — unconventional shot durations yet heavily linger in the air. As remain. that make it uneasy to sustain we navigate between what we attention thereby resisting sco- literally see and the obliquely Cinema is the dance of shad- pophillic pleasure towards this referenced our viewing contract ows. As Primitive resituates the site that easily lends itself to an is pushed out of a comfortable viewer into this most elemen- orientalist visual imaginary. In realm of looking into a position tary feature of the medium, we some images elements such as where we are compelled to ask can understand that the work’s smoke, fire, lightening and its of the images we see, whether title — Primitive, is an acute re- sounds push us into the realm of they are real or imaginary; fiction writing of colonial imperatives; a disorienting fantastical. Many or faction; or both. a rewriting that disassembles images are shot in twilight or the ‘global’ mass mediated visual dark hours of night — thereby Weerasethakul’s cinematic vo- cultures that often support an straining viewers’ identification cabulary is clearly reflexive. orientalist imaginary. It is as if with the profilmic. In I Am Still Exaggerated durations, explicit in Weerasethakul the decon- Breathing, the camera is riot- cutting, distanced tracking shots struction of cinema collapses ous as it follows the young men juxtaposed with handheld cam- into and cannot be performed run and board a lorry on which era — these are some of the without the deconstruction of they sing and dance. Shaky and common techniques we have dominant, colonially-inflected close-up Weerasethakul finely seen in a range of world cinema visual cultures. These are not executes this piece to share in contexts that surface in Primi- two separate projects — one the collective energy of the film’s tive. But Primitive’s reflexivity is the relief imprint of the other. subjects, containing the hand- exceeds, both ontologically and Primitive does not grieve over held camera from slipping into philosophically, the reflexive im- or valorize the working class commonplace, anti-mainstream pulse as understood in classi- disposition. Nabua, its people conventions. cal and political modernist film and their histories are not ob- theory and discourse. In Phan- jectified, ordered or presented Observing the young men toms of Nabua we follow the in any didactic or determinist through a range of activities — group of boys playing football terms of reference. Many post- some foreign, others common, in the night. The ball is on fire. colonial and minoritarian cin- we are positioned to appreci- In the background is a screen ema cultures suffer and fail by ate Nabua and its people on depicting the very scene we are regurgitating the very codes of their own terms. This is more seeing, subtly resonant with Ver- representation that they set out

56 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 to critique. Primitive is a marked classes, the book will be of great the end of Islamic art?” by Barry contrast, a unique formal ap- interest to anyone interested in Flood Finbarr, and the second is proach free from any celebra- art and the ever changing per- “Deep innovation and mere ec- tory or determined notions of spectives scholars bring to the centricity in Islamic art history” local politics and visual aesthet- analysis of art history. In bring- by David Carrier. Read together ics. It concludes claiming that ing together this powerful and in the larger framing context of a people-centered cinema is fascinating collection of chap- the other chapters on the his- as responsive to working class ters in a finely crafted volume tories of canons, limits, origins, consciousness as it is active in (which follows upon a related re-figurations and contestations, deconstructing its own means Routledge volume Art History they illustrate just how dynamic and mechanisms of production. and Its Institutions, 2001), Eliza- and interesting the ever expand- This is tightly in line with Vertov’s beth Mansfield has made a lasting field of art history is today. practice, but in Weerasethakul ingly useful contribution to the the euphoria surrounding post- field. The introduction “Making The first deft chapter is Marlite revolution Moscow that char- art history a profession,” master- Halbertsma’s “The call of the acterized Vertov has been fully ful in its brevity and clarity, defin- canon: why art history cannot replaced by the irreconcilable itively recalibrates our collective do without,” followed by Steven contradictions of postcoloniality. understanding of the discipline. Nelson’s well measured account As one leaves the installation, “Turning green into black, or how one cannot but be reminded of I leaned to live with the canon.” La Sortie des usines Lumière At no point do the chapters be- à Lyon whose focus on work- come obscure, in cases they are ers has appealed generations polemical. Donald Prezioski’s of Marxist film critics. Primitive chapter “Unmaking art history” continues the promise of that is true to his established quest. cinematic instance from 1895 “Remaking art history: working and neither art history nor film wonder in the university’s ru- theory can afford to overlook ins” by Claire Farago provides this work. a pessimistic account of otherwise arguably stable institutions. Making Art History: Anna Chave’s chapter “Figur- A Changing ing the origins of the modern at the fin de siecle: the trope of Discipline and Its the pathetic male” is the most Institutions provocative of all. For the Le- The book consists of four parts: onardo audience, in particular, by Elizabeth C. Mansfield (ed.) “Border patrols: art history as there is an especially interesting Routledge, 2007 identity,” “The subjects of art his- and eminently useful chapter on 288 pp. tory,” “Instituting art history: the art, science and evolution by academy,” and finally “Old mas- Robert Bork. There Bork with ISBN: 978-0415372350 ters, new institutions: art history caution and rigor gently and Reviewed by Jonathan and the museum.” Each section persuasively insists on the dif- Zilberg, University of begins with a cogent introduc- ferences between the work of Plymouth, Transtechnology tion. All of the chapters are high- humanists and scientists and, Research ly compelling works of scholar- thus, the necessary autonomy ship. Focusing on a wide range of the arts and sciences. [email protected] subjects, a great deal of territory and art history is covered Claire Farago calls for more Making Art History is an all- including traditions previously open-interdisciplinary pro- important selection of essays not included when teaching the grams. She advances the no- on the changes that have been canon of Western art history. For tion that disciplines create and taking place in the discipline instance, there are two chapters enforce knowledge as part of and in the institutions in which on Islamic art. The first of these historical political formations of art is exhibited and studied. is the wonderful early chapter nation states and asks: “To what Mandatory reading in graduate “From the Prophet to postmod- extent should we as scholars... and under-graduate art history ernism? New world order and take responsibility for the effects

57 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 of the knowledge we produce? no less Marat and other pathetic history. There Kraynak consid- (p.166). Taking us back to Soc- males, would not at all agree ers how the present rather than rates and Aristotle and swiftly with Chave’s critique. Steve the past is now central to the through aspects of colonialism, Nelson, writing rather more on discipline, whereas traditionally fetishism, and Marxism includ- race than gender, describes how speaking, contemporary art was ing Kant’s heavenly peregrina- for the African-American artists treated separately and by art tions and Zwigli’s theological Renee Green and William Pope, critics. And if by chance you critique of idolatry, she fore- “blackness is a discursive tool have a more classical interest grounds what was formerly in that is disruptive, constructive, in Flemish art, Gregory Clark’s the background. I can think of and deconstructive” (pp. 65). federalist manifesto calls. Ei- few such wide ranging yet short Nelson asks: “What would hap- ther way, over and over again, discussions of hegemony and pen if we paid more attention to whichever way you read it, Mak- art history that are as readable ambivalence in African-Amer- ing Art History is an irresistible as this. The same goes for all of ican visual practices?” (ibid.). collection. the chapters in that they never In answering this question, he Notes get lost in the excess of theory proposes that it would allow for [ 1] See for instance, Barbara and abstruse language so typi- an expanded canon including Pollack’s discussion of the cal in art criticism and critical broader more provocative and work of Mickalene Thomas in “Rhinestone Odalisques”, Art theory, disciplines that often oppositional methodological News, January 2011, pp. 94-99. In impinge heavily on contempo- frameworks. [1] All the chap- terms of modern African women rary art historians’ interpretive ters do so in different ways for artists worthy of inclusion in the expanding canon, see Martin work. As such, this is a very fine different art histories. Kimani “Wangechi Mutu” Juxtapoz contribution not only to art his- November 2008, pp. 70-81 and Simon Njami “Jane Alexander also tory but also to the entire inter- This book will expose the reader in Juxtapoz November 2008, pp. disciplinary project. to a wide range of issues cur- 116-125. More broadly, see Bill Anthes Native Moderns: American rently facing the discipline and Indian Painting, 1940-1960 (2006), Indeed, these wide ranging per- how those issues impinge upon Patrick Frank, ed. Readings spectives, considerations, and all art institutions today. It is the in Latin American Modern Art (2004), Elizabeth Harney In critical sentiments speak well of perfect text for a graduate or Senghor’s Shadow: Art Politics, the vitality of the discipline. They advanced undergraduate intro- and the Avant-Garde in Senegal, 1960-1995 (2004) and Michael return us to canonical founda- duction to art history as a disci- Sullivan Modern Chinese Artists: A tional figures such as Sir Ken- pline. For professionals at large Biographical Dictionary (2006). neth Clark, Clement Greenberg, it will broaden our collective ap- and Steven Freedberg so as to preciation of the field. The only Inside Jokes – situate the present in relation to problem with the book is that Using Humor to ruptures and/or continuities with one keeps wanting to pick it up Reverse-Engineer the past in art historical schol- again. And then, each chapter arship. Nowhere is the tension is so interesting that each time the Mind more pronounced and more po- one struggles to choose which lemical than in Chave’s feminist chapter to read first – Stephen by Matthew M. Hurley, Daniel interpretation that opens up the Melville’s limits or Christopher C. Dennett, and Reginald B. final section on the contesta- Bucklow’s shape shifting, Chris- Adams, Jr. (eds.) tions enervating the discipline. topher Marshall’s high anxiety The MIT Press, 2011 In providing such arc and range, or Eric Rosenberg’s critique of 384 pp. this is in a sense a great survey Freedberg and Greenberg. Or ISBN: 978-0262015820 book. would you turn first to Connor’s (con)test of the attitudes and Reviewed by Edith Every art historian will benefit behaviors of museum and gal- Doove, University of Plymouth from using it as a basic resource lery staff responsible for instal- at once complex but eminently lations? [email protected] readable. It raises searching political, disciplinary, and in- Perhaps, however, you might be- Laughter currently seems to be stitutional questions while not gin again with Janet Kraynak’s at the centre of attention, since throwing out the proverbial baby discussion of the incorporation following Parvulescu’s recent with the bathwater though T. J. of the study of contemporary art book, Laughter – Notes on a Clark and Jacques-Louis David, into the expanded canon of art Passion; Inside Jokes – Using

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Humor to Reverse-Engineer the book represents the “proper ac- somehow is bothersome with Mind is the second book pub- count of laughter” (and amuse- insertions like “in case you won- lished by MIT in a relatively short ment) that “moves beyond pure dered”, and the kind of sloppy time on the topic. phenomenology”. This account quotations mentioned earlier. was first called for more fully by Whereas there are some inevita- Dennett in his Consciousness The most interesting question ble overlaps with Parvulescu’s, Explained (1991, pp. 64-66). this book poses and tries to an- these are obviously very differ- However, there is a significant swer, however, is why humor ent books. Parvelescu concen- deviation from the original call exists in the first place. It ap- trates hers on the actual phe- by Dennett, which was that “[a] pears to be very prominent in nomenon of laughter, relating it proper account of laughter must our lives, and maybe more so to a wide range of subjects like leave out the presumed intrinsic then ever before given the pro- laughing as incantation, the mat- hilarity, the zest, the funniness, fusion of stand up comedy in ter of laughing at, passion, the because their presence would recent times. In order to answer mouth, the last avant-gardes, merely postpone the attempt this and other why questions, woman, reading/listening and to answer the question” (1991, Hurley, Dennett and Adams de- finally the archive of laughter p. 64). Rather confusingly this clare that they want “to provide (see my review in Leonardo is exactly what Hurley, Dennett a preliminary sketch of not just a December 2010, http://www. and Adams do not do in this lat- cognitive model, but an emotion- leonardo.info/reviews/dec2010/ est book. This book looks in- al and computational model of doove_parvulescu.php). side jokes and how humor can humor” (p. 3). Additionally they be used to reverse-engineer want to work “toward a theory the mind. At the same time, it that would allow humor (…) to be delivers inside jokes and uses computed and experienced by humor to reverse-engineer the a nonhuman agent (…) that not mind. It seems obvious that a only can make jokes but that can book that wants to look inside truly be said to have “a sense jokes would present examples of humor” much like the human of these. It is worse if a book sense” (p. 4). In order to do this tries to both explain humor and they argue that humor “depends be funny at the same time. One on thought” requiring that their could argue that Hurley, Dennett “book must sketch a theory of and Adams are happy to take the kind of general intelligence on a risky business, as humor that could support a genuine might be a universal phenom- sense of humor” (p. 5). In the enon, but the appreciation of it, process they introduce some as they indicate themselves, is “key novelties” such as “a new not necessarily so. This leads evolutionary explanation of the Hurley, Dennett and Adams, to some fairly weak jokes at the origin of humor; an ecologically on the other hand, state in their start of the book, a feature that is motivated theory of the emo- preface that they will explain reflected in the title of the book tional component of mirth; and “why humor exists, how it works and unfortunately continued a cognitive theory of humor and in the brain, and why comedy is throughout. laughter” (p. 6). an art” and thus different from science (p. x). While they admit Apart from a thorough study of The question remains what is that theirs “is an unabashedly humor and the working of jokes, humor for? From a biologically eclectic theory, drawing heav- the reader is not only present- determinist position there is a ily on existing work on humor” ed with mostly non-referenced possible, and seemingly logi- (p. 7) their extensive bibliogra- jokes at the beginning of each cal, connection to fitness where phy, however, does not include chapter and section, but, addi- “females use sense of humor Parvelescu, possibly because it tionally, also with a mysterious (in males) as a hard-to-fake ad- was published too late. system of numbered, equally vertisement of intelligence and non-referenced, jokes through- power” (p. 11). But Hurley, Den- The starting point for the book out the book, causing consider- nett and Adams regard humor was Hurley’s dissertation; none- able distraction. There is also an more as a “powerful reward sys- theless for all three authors the overall populist kind of tone that tem” that will keep our “brains

59 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 engaged full time in real-time City Lights, 2011 ciprocal strengths. In this light, (risky) heuristic search, generat- 94 pp. it is best perhaps to describe Al- ing presumptions about what will ISBN: 978-0872865419 exander’s work in terms of anal- be experienced next in every do- ogy, inspired by an insatiably main” (p. 12). It, thus, becomes Reviewed by Allan Graubard lyrical desire to free language clear that humor and laughter [email protected] from the quotidian, along with its are connected to insight and emotional subtexts, yet informed leads to mirth as we crack the Will Alexander is a poet and by current perspectives on any puzzle or, for that matter, the poetic-critical interpreter of the number of topics, from abyssal joke. In a way we all seem to world with a uniquely compelling oceanography to astrophysics. be cast as fulltime detectives, voice, which has finally gained constantly solving problems him the kind of recognition he Compression and Purity, Alex- and delighted when we do so. deserves. On its own, that is ander’s newest volume, speaks Apart from solving problems, enough to interest us in him. At to all this in the 22 poems and we come across automatically the same time, his is a voice texts he populates its pages as we go through daily life, we that Americans in the main have with. And he does so with lar- also enjoy inventing them and avoided, as much for its meta- gess but also as a counter-active jokes are in this sense puzzles, phorical density as for its reach, to it. mathematical problems, or de- including the epic or anti-epic or tective stories. what might resemble one given our current state of culture. From Hurley, Dennett and Adams his Asia & Haiti, a 1995 national have, indeed, managed to write book award nominee, to his re- a puzzling book with an open cent The Sri Lankan Loxodrome end as they freely admit that (New Directions, 2010), he has their research is nowhere near offered us an intensity that we creating a nonhuman agent with cannot mistake for another’s. a sense of humor. Despite the He is his own medium: complex, criticism above on aspects of its transparent, opaque, shifting, structure, Inside Jokes certainly hermetic, poignant, subversive, does deliver a thorough study demanding, intimate, distant of jokes, humor and laughter, and, more than not, all at once. which is worth engaging with. It is rich in its references and I could go on here, but perhaps thought provoking, providing you see my point. Alexander is From the first poem, “The Blood amongst others a phenomenol- not the usual poet or, I should Penguin,” Alexander sharpens ogy of humor and a brief history add, novelist, playwright, artist, this boundary. Here is a visceral of humor theories on which to performer and sometime pianist. image raised from the uncon- build further research. It is just His roots in jazz, the symbol- scious that touches on the sym- a pity in trying to be both funny ists, and surrealists have fed him bolic (and I use this term in its and serious, it falls between two well, and he returns perpetually potential collective sense, as a stools. Admittedly (a sense of) not so much as a source but matter for ritual and ceremony). humor is a personal matter, and certainly as a vector through Yet this bird turned “carnivore” there will be a range of read- the realms he envisions and with vestigial wings for swim- ings of it, but the strategy that revisions. ming rather than for flight, and the authors have adopted can whose “air” is both gaseous and (and in my view does) make Nor is that the end to it. His soluble, draws to it interior/ex- research into the complicated avidity for scientific lexicons, terior squalls that dispense with topic of laughter and jokes more the discoveries that form them, known markers. It is also one complex. and the way he uses them of three poems in the collec- precisely toward poetic ends tion that appear “in character,” Compression & has also opened that juncture making them monologues of Purity where knowledge and sensibility a sort, and all the better for it. couple – as much to avoid the What other poet would speak to by Will Alexander weaknesses that each reveals us, not about, but as, a “Blood distinctly as to engage their re- Penguin,” a drop of “Water on

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New Mars,” or the “Pope at Avi- the constellations once did, the now a highly diverse, interna- gnon”; perhaps an amalgam of myriad connections that tie us tional landscape of art-science the seven Popes who reigned to our human and natural uni- collaborations. Viewing these there in the 14th century: stark verse; the one interpenetrating shows as retrospectives is use- deadly years that saw genocide the other without cease. ful, casting them as it does as (the campaign against the Ca- ‘barometers’, as much for the thars) and massive epidemic Illuminating that dance both as organizations, as for broader (the Black Plague). And of Mars, foreground and background, trends across this landscape. we have the rovers and satel- masked or unmasked, in as In this brief commentary we lites to thank for our new sense out of character is Alexander’s focus on two recent examples of the planet but Alexander to pleasure and method. -- ‘Visceral: The Living Art Ex- thank for his visionary mutation periment’, and ‘Think Art-Act of what we have met anew. As The rest is up to you… Science.’ These emerge from he puts it to begin the poem: two very different entities: Sym- “Being water/I am the voltage of Visceral: The bioticA, the bio-art lab based in rocks/of algid suns in transition/ Living Art the School of Anatomy and Hu- flying across a scape/of bitter man Biology, at the University Martian dioxide.” Experiment of Western Australia, and Swiss artists-in-labs (ail), based at the by1Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr Who, then, is “The Ghost Survi- Institute for Cultural Studies in vor,” this “body by drosera” that Curators Science Gallery, the Arts, at Zurich University of declines to “an invaded mau- Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland the Arts. Looking at their shows, soleum,” no doubt the husks of 28 January 2011 - 25 we gain a sense of their differ- creatures ingested by the gen- February 2011 ing modus operandi, insofar as era with its near 200 species SymbioticA revolves around the Gallery website: http://www. of carnivorous plants? What, development and deployment sciencegallery.com/ for Alexander, is the relation- of their own lab facilities, fore- ship between “…Scorpians and grounding a ‘learning-by-doing,’ Swallows”? Does “The Point- Think Art - Act whilst ail has nurtured a series of less Nether Plow” only allow the Science (Pensar ‘labs as host’ relationships. We farmer to carve “his soil with vol- art – Actuar gain an appreciation for what canic blue seeds” or are their ciència): Swiss has been achieved, but we are other uses that we can invent for artists-in-labs also able to project forward, to it if just for ourselves alone? Is ponder the questions that these the horizon anything other than shows pose for: the artists and by Irène Hediger “…Parallel and Sonar,” an ambi- scientists who develop these ent target for “Alien Personas” Curator Arts Santa Mónica, forms of work; the cultural pro- who exist in us “beyond each Barcelona, Spain [1] ducers and exhibition spaces iota of reason” we might bring 18 December 2010 - 15 May that catalyse these collabora- to their configuration. How does 2011 tions, and develop both exhibi- the “Vibration from the Coast Museum website: http://www. tions and the audiences; as well of India” affect us as the his- artssantamonica.cat/default. as those of us who engage in tory and reality of that country aspx the critique of these forms of compel ever-greater concern? practice. What is it about “...Prana” that Reviewed by Harriet Hawkins, we seize and lose, that ennobles Deborah Dixon and Elizabeth A retrospective trend? and abandons us; this static. Straughan Retrospectives are perennially IGES, University of These are some of the scenes haunted by questions of justi- Aberystwyth, Wales and several of the questions that fication, choice of content and Alexander presents in this vol- [email protected] why now? The answers, in this ume. For those who know his case, lie in the continued prolif- works and those who don’t, his Recent months have witnessed eration of art-science practices, clarities and opacities, with their a series of exhibitions staged by but also the ‘coming of age’ of a internal rhythmic charge, will in- organizations that have played series of renowned, well docu- voke a dynamic that figures, as a crucial role in shaping what is mented, art-science organiza-

61 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 tions. SymbioticA are celebrat- and modes of viewing and expe- in Barcelona. Each is part of a ing their 10th birthday, whilst riencing that are as much a part long trajectory of spaces where Swiss ail are similarly drawing of fine art theory and history. It art and science have found a together the fruits of nearly ten is noteworthy that SymbioticA home together, from the her- years of activity. That both these accompanied their retrospec- bariums of the Renaissance to organizations are housed within tive show with a symposium that the world fairs and expos of the University departments is tell- invited past residents, both art- 18th and 19th centuries, and the ing of the financial regimes that ists and academics (the two of- specialist galleries of the 20th allow for such endeavors, but ten blurred), to engage with the century. What the Science Gal- also of the significant commit- organization and the practices lery and Arts Santa Monica have ment both display to research of its artists, as well as bioart in common is an interest in how agendas and artistic CPD. In ad- more broadly. space performs not as a simple dition, both organizations have backdrop to exhibits, but as a undergone a series of funding Swiss ail’s nine-month residen- meeting place. And so Science cycles, sourcing soft money cy model pairs artists with labs Gallery employs both arts and from a number of artistically and in organizations such as Chuv, science students to narrate such scientifically orientated public- a research hospital in Lausanne, works, whilst in Barcelona the funding entities. With ongoing Switzerland, the Swiss Federal critical commentary provided by shifts in the international funding Institute for Forest, Snow and ail has itself been supplemented terrain for the arts and sciences, Landscape Research, and by a program of workshops by from STEM to STEAM and so CERN. Their end works have the visiting scientists. on, it is interesting to note that status of experiments, or ‘proto- in the UK and US at least there types,’ a sensibility that carries A critical space for art/sci is increasing funding of ‘pure’ over into ail’s curatorial work. research into such entities, as Thus we find each prototype For us, what is interesting about well as their instrumental im- accompanied by videos, with these moments of self-storying pacts; research that enables artists and scientists alike of- is their reflective nature, belying us to map empirical studies of fering commentary on the often any glib rhetoric on the ‘bridging’ art-science onto broader ap- discombobulating progress of of two cultures. We see an effort preciations of interdisciplinar- the residency. These accounts to open out the critical dimen- ity and the changed academic offer up a series of illuminating sions of such practices, as well landscape that is emerging in reflections on what is at times as their end product and display. the wake of the science wars. an intense and emotional medi- What does it mean to open up [2]Such intellectual maturity is tation on translation and mis- the lab to artistic engagement manifest within the exhibitions translation, and on the mutual – philosophically, but also finan- themselves. In ‘Visceral,’ the ex- struggles of hospitality towards cially and politically? How do os- hibition showcases a range of the ‘other’. Contra many written tensibly scientific mediums and work by SymbioticA’s residents, pieces on art/sci per se, this is techniques become enrolled in each exposed to the techniques, not the simple, idealized and art and with what effect? Who protocols and viscerally affec- sometimes saccharine tale of are the intended audience, what tive materialities involved in ‘boundary crossing.’ are their expectations and where bioart. Eschewing long stand- will they be engaged? Such ret- ing ethical concerns that often Emerging spaces of display rospectives tackle all of these produce the interpretive ‘hook’ questions and more. And yet, for the production and analysis In essays now infamous within what remains unresolved – in- of bioart, these works exhibit the art-sci world, CP Snow re- deed largely unremarked upon engagements with the malle- marks that, “there seems then to – is that whilst these art-science ability of materialities (such be no place where the cultures works jostle for critical space as tissues) and technologies, meet.” [4] Turning from metaphor within the pages of new media such that there are no longer any to geography, it is worth noting journals, and even the pages easy answers to the questions of the integral ‘place’ of the ven- of science journals, far less of- what is of the human and what ues themselves within the art/ ten do they enter the spaces of is of the monstrous? [3] Further, sci world. Both these exhibitions art history and theory debates. we find the dominance of dig- find homes in relatively young What such observations give ital media art supplemented by institutions, The Science Gallery us, as critics and researchers, critiques of materials, practices in Dublin, and Arts Santa Monica is pause to question, how it is

62 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 that we should go about fash- dered why I have never looked case, Raines Cohen mounted ioning spaces and modes of cri- at the vibrant art produced here. a large postcard for the exhibi- tique that are adequate too, and I also thought quite a bit about tion inside a locked box. Just cognizant of, the richness of the Cathy Treadaway’s paper, men- before the opening reception, debates engaged by this con- tioned in that review, in which he unlocked the box and placed tinuing set of artistic-scientific she outlined her approach to an iPad inside that was running practices, and the organizations integrating newer technologies a video presentation of his work which support them? into her handcrafted art. To put and photographs throughout the References these thoughts to rest, I decided opening reception. At this point to review the annual East Bay it became clear that the post- [1] This show is currently at the Kunsthalle Luzern, and is touring Pro Arts Exhibition (EBOS) in card was a clever placeholder, to the US later in the year, see; the Bay Area this year. This and the purpose of the locked http://artistsinlabs.ch/ 2-weekend event highlights box was to use it for the video [2] See for example: http:// the work of over 400 artists lo- invitation that he ran during the artscience.arizona.edu/ cated in the San Francisco Bay opening, which was intended to [3] See for example: Area, many of whom open their entice people to visit his space. Dixon, D., Hawkins, H. and Straughan, L. ‘Artists Enter the studios to the public. While per- [I assume that the postcard was Laboratory’ Science, 331, pp. 860; haps not as well known outside returned to the locked box after Dixon, D. (2008) ‘The Blade and the Claw: Science, Art and the of the Bay Area as other locally- the opening reception.] creation of the lab-borne monster.’ based projects such as Burning Social and Cultural Geography, Man, which has achieved global The purpose of the ProArts 9(6): 671-92., C.P. Snow (1953) The Two Cultures. recognition, EBOS does offer gallery space is to help art en- a noteworthy mix of innovative thusiasts devise their visitation [4] http://www.sciencegallery.com/ http://www.artssantamonica.cat/ art, groundbreaking museum plan. I must admit that although default.aspx and gallery exhibitions, live con- I mapped out a plan from the certs, and great food. gallery presentation, once I got East Bay Open going, I found it hard to stay on Studios Preview track. I was lured into spaces Exhibition by posters on the street and comments from artists I met as I visited with them in their Pro Arts Gallery, Oakland, studios and other visitors I en- California countered along the way. I am 3 May – 12 June 2011 not sure if I recommend this approach because I missed stu- East Bay Open dios of interest based on their Studios 2011 gallery pieces. Still, I was glad I took advantage of those who 4 – 5 and 11 – 12 June 2011 tried to draw an audience to their Gallery website: http://www. space because I found some proartsgallery.org/ebos/index. gems this way. php The first day of the four-day Reviewed by Amy Ione , The The focal point of the show is event I traveled around with a Diatrope Institute the ProArts gallery in downtown colleague. We picked as one of Oakland, where each artist can our first stops a building where [email protected] include a small example of his several prominent Bay Area art- or her work. The resulting col- ists (Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer After reviewing the 7th Creativity lage is remarkably strong and Bischoff, William Theophilus and Cognition Conference [1], immediately highlights the tal- Brown, and Paul Wonner) had held in Berkeley in 2009, two ent in the community. Perhaps had their studios there in the thoughts kept reverberating in the most creative contribution 1950s. Together with David my mind as time passed. First, I was one that showed the de- Park, who had a studio in down- thought about the many reviews gree to which art, science, and town Berkeley, Bischoff and Die- I have written about art and technology is now a normal part benkorn founded the Bay Area events in the Bay Area and won- of any exhibition space. In this Figurative style. Moreover, it

63 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 was in this space, in the mid- At first I was surprised that Mc- Benny Alba’s studio/gallery was 1950s, that Diebenkorn created Cucheon’s space was set up perhaps the best mix in terms his famous ”Berkeley Series” to highlight his work and that of combining a number of art- of abstract landscapes in this the “working studio” aspect of ists with a “studio” feel. Benny space. his area was so invisible. But, greets visitors as they walk in, as it turned out, many of the making you feel like a guest in As it turned out, one of the par- folks I visited did not highlight her home. The studio itself, with ticularly robust studios I visited, their working space. This was 11 artists inside, felt quite cohe- Marty McCutcheon’s, is now lo- a bit disappointing. For exam- sive and had the kind of com- cated in this building. McCutch- ple, there were many locations munity feel that was missing at eon’s space was set up to be where artists grouped together the Barnes and Noble site. The a gallery exhibition of his work to increase foot traffic, one of work of Vicky Mei Chen, a print- and was one of the high points the largest being at a former maker, stood out. She produced of the day. The studio consisted Barnes and Noble space that small, hand-made artist books of a large sculpture/installation was transformed into an art fair, (in slipcases) exploring the re- around the walls that was uni- with 43 artists displaying their lationship between urban land- formly whitewashed (though work. This was a mixed bag. In scape and the entities that oc- with bits of unpainted colors some ways the setup made the cupy the space. Another artist of showing through). The all-white “studio” aspect of Open Studio note here was Jennifer Downey, installation was put together with seemed quite remote. Yet, I did a painter whose work centers on found and discarded objects (a find both intriguing work and nature and how humans interact chair, a television, old paint many artists who integrated art, with nature. brushes, etc.) constructed in a science, and technology themes flattened format resembling a into their projects. Although I found that traveling to synthetic cubist painting. While so many studios has its ups and my companion saw shades of Maryly Snow, for example, downs, the ups are more preva- Diebenkorn in the asymmetri- brought to mind that while dig- lent than the downs. There are cal geometry (suggesting some ital art is still a relatively recent also both rewards and challeng- resonance with where the studio phenomenon, artists have used es. Visiting one multiple space space was located), I thought art, science and technology for a environment, with a maze-like more about Louise Nevelson’s long time in various forms (e.g., interior, was annoying because unique assemblages made from printmaking and photography). it was surprisingly difficult to find cast-off wood and other materi- She was quite representative the artists that I wanted to see. als that she, too, transformed of the way artists now mix and Thinking about it later, this lay- into works of art. Like Nevelson’s match, often using printmaking out probably offered the artists work, I think the monochromatic as a technique to create works who worked there more privacy. color added a mysterious quality that offer a commentary on sci- Cluttered locations showed “the that made the work alluring. The entific and mathematical ideas. artist” more but, in some case, installation also incorporated a Briefly, she works with “appro- this meant there was not enough video projection that comple- priated” images, finding ways room for visitors (because the mented the assemblage and to reassemble them and make space was so taken up by the truly elevated the presentation them her own. She had several art). It is harder to visit artists because in the video McCutch- bubble chamber images on dis- who work in spaces that are not eon showed his hands drawing play. Her web page says these shared with others. [Of those I and working. These clips, which are from the Lawrence Berke- visited I particularly liked Bar- were pieced together, were even ley Labs. She also showed her bara Maricle’s, who displayed more fascinating once I realized Art for Physicists portfolio and some mixed media prints that that I could see him create some photocollages, which are quite included old architectural blue- of the whited out pages of text unlike those of David Hockney. prints and other materials.] that were a part of the assem- Whereas he keeps the multiple blage. This juxtaposition brought pieces in the presentation, Snow One of the fun things about the work of William Kentridge to assembles the collage with tape this type of event is that going mind, whose creative practice and then rephotographs it so here and there exposes things includes drawing a bit, shooting that it becomes “whole” again. that are ordinarily invisible. the drawing, and then drawing Ironically, one building with an and shooting some more. Of the places I visited, I thought open studio introduced me to an

64 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 exciting work that was just “sit- show what goes on inside their borders does not mean that peo- ting there” in the lobby. Called working space. It was particu- ple from neighbouring countries “The Tule Wave,” the piece is a larly in the studios of the artists think and live in the same way. large-scale kinetic sculpture by who are using what are often Groys takes the same approach Berkeley-born Reuben Margo- considered more traditional about the Eastern European lin. It consists of a small elec- tools that I realized (from conver- states and, in particular, their tric motor located overhead that sations and their libraries) that contemporary art. He claims that rotates a pulley, which in turn creative people have a knack for their individual identity needs to imparts movement to 241 Da- integrating the old and the new. be acknowledged and that we cron strings. The strings then References should not put them all in one pass through brass grommets ‘block’ in order to easily differ- [1] Leonardo Reviews: posted in a tension grid and descend December 2009 http://www. entiate them from those on the to support 1140 sections of Tule leonardo.info/reviews/dec2009/ Western side of the European Reed and more than 3000 brass everydaycreativity.ione.php Union. However, their experi- beads. I urge readers to visit ence of Communism the Soviet “http://www.reubenmargolin. Contemporary Art type, which is a layer above so- com/waves/Tule/” for an image in Eastern Europe cial and cultural identity, unites of the piece and more informa- and differentiates them from the tion about how it was made. by Nikos Kotsopoulos (ed.) outer world – Communism ideol- Installed at the David Brower Black Dog Publishing, 2010 ogy aimed to erase any traces Center in Berkeley in 2010, it of individuality. Historiography 240 pp. is in a location I walk by daily. finds no place for Communism Yet, I had never been inside and ISBN: 978-1906155841 as such as it relies on concrete had no idea that this extraordi- facts, so Communism is often Reviewed by Florence nary artwork was housed there. perceived as an ideological fa- Martellini With so much attention given to cade intended to camouflage museums, exhibitions and art- [email protected] solid national interests. Many designated spaces, I wonder observers argue that the notion how many similar gems we miss Contemporary Art in Eastern Eu- of Eastern Europe should be as we live our lives. In this case, rope is an insightful compilation forgotten so that Eastern Eu- I find it hard to describe the dy- of Eastern European art made ropean countries can return to namic and overall presence of from the 1960s to the present their individual cultural identi- this hanging work. day. From Russia to Poland and ties. Contemporary Eastern Eu- Romania, and from the Czech ropean artists themselves are While I found the organization Republic to Yugoslavia and East ambivalent about their relation- of the ProArts event extraordi- Germany, it is an attempt to see ship with their Communist past, nary overall, there were a few through the eyes of artists, crit- hence their tendency to solely things that were less successful ics, photographers, and cura- express individual cultural tradi- in my view. The website itself tors the changing realities of the tions and identities and to ignore is a valuable tool in planning eastern side of the European the ground in the Communist one’s itinerary, so I can under- continent. Complemented with a past. This ambivalence tran- stand why many of the artists map, a timeline, and artist biog- spires through their artworks, decided to display multiple im- raphies, the book also features which look utopian and dysto- ages, but several of these links excellent essays from respected pian at the same time. were broken. I also would have writers, which put the selected liked an option to save my itiner- artworks into a socio-historical For example, cohabitation be- ary in the online gallery. Still, all context, in particular, those of tween abstract forms and hu- in all, East Bay Pro Arts Open Boris Groys, Zdenka Badovinac man faces reveals itself as uto- Studio confirmed my sense that and Eda Cuffer who highlight pian and dystopian in the work of art, science, and technology is the dominance of Western art Pavel Pepperstein, which seems quite evident across the board in shaping 20th century art in off-the wall and witty but con- these days. This event, which Russia, Europe and America. tains more serious undertones. mixes well-established masters Ambivalence is also found in with younger artists, highlighted Groys’ essay is key to under- Artur Zmijewski’s work, which many aspects of creativity and standing the notion of ‘Eastern plays with contradictions unre- also allowed many artists to European countries’. Sharing solved. Milica Tomic focuses on

65 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 the intangible issues of iden- experience has been new and is necessary. Eastern European tity, nationality, and ethnicity, quite traumatic to Eastern Eu- artists take also this opportunity which can profoundly affect ropean artists. Groys points to assert strongly their position people’s daily realities. Mircea out that the memory of this as individuals. Cuffer gives an Cantor’s work deals with strange non-commercial mode of art historical insight into the differ- encounters and displacement existence is still fresh in East- ence between Modernism and such as a city recomposed ern Europe and that may consti- avant-garde art movements. within moving mirrors, possi- tute the most obvious specificity The former aimed to ban the old bly to make out at one moment of Eastern European art that is norms and clichés, and the latter and distort the next. The use ideologically charged in a way was an assault on existing social of irony is also a means for art- that Western art is not. These order that give birth to utopian ists to distance themselves from memories have complexity and political ideas, such as National the official ideology and, at the depth that utopian abstractions Socialism, Fascism, and Capi- same time, refer to its almost are lacking. Thus, the globali- talism. She shows how art was forgotten utopian, avant-gardist sation of Eastern European art used by political leaders as a potential. Some artists look at means not only its submission propaganda tool to convey these the Communist past through under the rules of the interna- new ideas in Eastern Europe, the prism of moral accusation. tional art market but also a re- in particular the Soviet Union, Others remobilise the Commu- actualisation of the experiences Western Europe, and America. nist ideology for the critique of of its Socialist past. the present capitalist conditions Ideas and emotions expressed as exemplified by Alexander Ko- in these artworks relate to mem- solapov’s sculpture of Minnie ories, identities issues, and cyni- and Mickey Mouse in a Social cism towards the establishment Realism fashion and portrait as well as hope. These artists of Gorbachev in Warhol style. are all connected directly or in- Adrian Ghenie’s distorted Elvis directly to a Communist Soviet questions the authenticity of im- type regime but their messages ages portraying fame. Vladimir are not un-familiar to us reflect- Dubossarsky’s and Aleksander ing a current trend in global con- Vinogradov’s choice for painting temporary art. However, Eastern as a medium is part of a cal- European contemporary artists culated strategy to reflect on are more assertive in taking the changing state of Russian ideological and political stance society. Boris Mikailov and his towards the establishment and highly realist photographs fo- society as a whole than the cus upon homeless and poverty, Western artists. They seem to criticising the general diffidence Badovinac and Cuffer examine still be on the edge of a Capitalist of the post-Communist world. the dominance of Western art system––a position that allows In this case the artist does not in Modernism during the 20th them to step back from and ob- reflect on the ambivalences of century. More specifically, Ba- serve it more objectively, reas- the utopian politics in that he at- dovinac focuses on the unilat- serting not only their authority tempts to purify it from its histori- eral dialogue at play between as individuals but also upsetting cal distortions. Emotional and Western and Eastern parts of Western European art convic- spiritual transformation born out Europe that only made Eastern tions. As Eda Cuffer explains of this questioning is explored art visible when it fitted within the “…But when different notions of through spatial awareness with frameworks dictated by Western art started getting through the artists such as Miroslaw Balka European and American trends. Western filters forcing a critical and Marina Abramovic. With the current climate show- re-examination of the legitimacy ing a return to localisation, the of long held convictions and in- Despite it being disregarded, the simple model that labels Eastern stitutionalised narratives, when Communist past haunts East- Europe as ‘the other’ no longer the stories coming in from the ern European and Russian art works. Eastern European art tributaries started shifting the practices due to the increasing needs to be looked at as a patch- whole direction and flow of art internationalisation of Eastern work of different states; hence, a thinking, this proved frustrating European art. The art market multilateral dialogue East-West for individuals shaped by labo-

66 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 ratory cultural experiences…” Reviewed by Jonathan in the Meji period to the present Zilberg , University of day study of culture and power Richly illustrated profiles show- Plymouth, Transtechnology in the matrilineal societies of the ing more than 50 leading art- Research Mingangkabau of West Sumatra ists contextualised by experts [email protected] and Naxi in India, the Kurgan on the subject, Contemporary Theory of Marija Gimbutas on Art in Eastern Europe questions These three very different works the European Neolithic Mother and opens a debate about exist- each speak to sex, gender, and Goddess Cults and much more, ing stereotypes associated with patriarchy in different times, these are each wonderful re- Eastern European countries. It places, and cultures, as well sources in their own rights. Each is also an important and reliable as disciplines. Exceptional re- might serve different pedagogi- source of information to any- sources for classes on gender cal purposes: Miller for revisiting one who seeks to understand and power, they provide exam- a classic misogynistic account the ever-increasing presence of ples of how the social history of of gender relations and the Eastern European artists on the gender is variously approached modern history of censorship global contemporary art market. and understood. From the au- and pornography, Marran as a tobiographical insights of Henry penultimate example of what Le Sel de la Miller (1891-1980), driven to writ- constitutes compellingly cogent Semaine: Henry ing by a despair born in his dis- literary scholarship, and Biag- like of American materialism (no gi’s edited collection of widely Miller less his wife) to a unique liter- ranging types of research and ary analysis of sex, drugs, and writing, a rich resource bound by Fernand Seguin murder in Japanese history, and to captivate any undergraduate Icarus Films, 1969/2010 the historical depth and breadth class on gender and power in DVD, 53 min. (French with of patriarchy and matriarchy led historical perspective. subtitles) by women seeking change, they make for an interesting triad. For the vast number of people Distributor’s website: http:// who have read any of Henry Mill- icarusfilms.com er’s work, this interview will be fascinating because of how well Poison Woman: it succeeds in providing an inti- Figuring Female mate appreciation for the man Transgression in and of the autobiographical ba- Modern Japanese sis of his work. The Tropic of Culture Cancer (1934) was his first published book. The second was The Tropic of Capricorn, later by Christine L. Marran came Sexus, Plexus and Nex- University of Minnesota Press, us. But nothing he ever wrote 2007 after the Tropics received the 256 pp. same fame and notoriety. For ISBN: 978-0816647279 Miller, it proved impossible to escape from the expectation The Rule of Mars: of pornographic titillation that They each have powerful inter- most people hoped to find in his Readings on the disciplinary value whether it be writing, something that deeply Origins. History to the study of gender in litera- aggravated him. We learn here and Impact of ture, media, archaeology, myth, that The Tropic of Capricorn was Patriarchy and medicine, or culture, law an autobiographical novel, an and history. From Miller taking expression of despair, a man by Cristina Biaggi (ed.) us back to how his accounts of struggling for freedom, to be the sex lives of modern Ameri- an artist. Likened to Walt Whit- Knowledge, Ideas and Trends, cans in Paris in the 1930’s came man by Karl Shapiro, hailed for 2006 about to Marran on the continu- his “primitive honesty” by Anais 454 pp. ing Japanese fascination with Nin, Miller achieved his freedom ISBN: 978-1879198319 isolated cases of sex and murder through penury. Every genera-

67 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 tion has his kind. In the 1930’s become national obsessions. In balance in the Paleolithic, Ne- young American aspiring artists addition, she relates how and olithic, and Bronze Ages, and and writers gravitated to Paris if why this tradition of the poison while scholars in public policy they could, and there, unchained woman as the ultimate trans- and policy makers in the halls from the constraints of pre-War gressor continued to serve anti- of power especially “the women American society, they experi- authoritarian impulse in Japa- with shoulder pads” will find its mented with the freedom and nese society through the 20th idealism unrealistic, it is a pas- excess that Paris offered the Century. Nowhere does Marran sionate collection and a force- libertine. succumb to the impenetrable ful defense of Gimbutas’ much intellectual pretension of other discredited revolutionary and Here we meet the man in his literary studies as for instance in original work. In any event, it will old age on French television in the tortuous case of Kevin Bell’s be an interesting resource for 1969 reflecting back on his life Ashes Taken for Fire: Aesthetic teaching about gender across in endearing American French, Modernism and the Critique of the disciplines. Because of its very much a Buddhist in his phi- Identity (2007) also from the explicit political dimension, it will losophy of acceptance, in his University of Minnesota Press. inspire endless debate on the selflessness and gratitude, in his Highly sexed notorious women relationship between knowledge anti-establishmentarianism. He who poisoned and murdered and power. felt no shame at all in begging, their lovers, Henry Miller would even going so far as to do so have loved it. So will you. To end, cut short as a lover in the press. In return he would strangled or stabbed in the act, send you a watercolor painting. The Rule of Mars makes for Le Sel de la Semaine, Poison His affable and sensitive nature equally fascinating reading but Women, and The Rule of Mars came to me as a complete sur- of a completely different sort. are each significant and memo- prise. I had not expected such Honoring the memory and work rable contributions to the study a gracious man. I was expecting of the late Marija Gimbutas of of gender and patriarchy. When from his novels a different kind of UCLA and an outcome of the used together, they will make for person, a Picasso-like Minotaur. Second Archeomythology Con- a lively if unlikely triad. Above all, however, one comes ference held in Italy in 2002, it away perhaps with an apprecia- revisits the violent Kurgan trans- Theories of tion for just how much Miller ab- formation of society from matri- International horred literary pretension. Miller archy to patriarchy in the third is a testament to plain speaking millennium B.C. Whether one Politics and and writing, to the immediacy takes a skeptical position or not, Zombies of experience, and necessity the articles are all well worth of passion. This brings us then reading and will add a wonderful by Daniel W. Drezner to Marran. sense of frisson to classes on Princeton University Press, the matriarchy-patriarchy de- 2011 Poison Woman is a phenom- bates in anthropology, archeol- 136 pp. enal book. It has great rel- ogy, and history. Some chapters evance across the disciplines refer to prehistoric cultures and ISBN: 978-0691147833 including medical science, infer value systems from the ar- Reviewed by Anna B.Creagh , law, and history. Focusing on chaeological record, myth, and UCLA famous cases studies of trans- literature, others refer to con- gression in Japan, it provides temporary contexts such as “An- [email protected] detailed accounts of sensa- tigone in Sumatra: Matriarchal tional 19th Century histories of Values in a Patriarchal Context” Daniel Drezner’s latest work the dokufu (poison women) in by Peggy Reeves Sanday, and considers the potential respons- the courts, the press and the others concern the legacy of the es of international governments literature. There, the cases of Amazons and political pathways to the unlikely event of a zom- convicted murderers, such as to taming testosterone toxicity. bie outbreak. Applying well- Night Storm and Demon, Viper, While many archaeologists will known theories of international and Lightning make for riveting be deeply critical of the sense of politics to scenarios posited reading. Marran’s is a work of surety in the hypothetical claims by famous zombie narratives, deft scholarship revealing why made here about prehistoric Drezner explores how different these women and their stories matriarchal cults and gender political ideologies would shape

68 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 the response of their adherents engagement with zombie schol- Many interesting points are to a global zombie crisis. An arship is overstated and pales merely introduced rather than extension of the author’s arti- in comparison to his under- explicated, and one wonders cle Night of the Living Wonks, standing of international poli- why “space constraints” (p. 17) Drezner devotes chapters of tics. Though he references an prevent Drezner from exploring his slim volume to pragmatism impressive number of zombie Marxist or Feminist responses (realpolitik), liberalism, neo- texts, his over-reliance on the (perspectives which have argu- conservativism, bureaucracy, films of George Romero and the ably been the most significant and social construction theory. literature of Max Brooks will be for zombie theorists) in a book He synthesizes examples from frustrating to serious scholars totaling a meager 114 pages zombie literature and film with of zombie history and theory. before references. Similarly, current events and government Drezner tends to gloss the ma- his suggestion that Haiti’s law policies to answer the question, jor themes of their works as the prohibiting zombification some- “what would different theories principles of the entire zombie how indicates that world govern- of international politics predict canon, which serves his purpos- ments are already preparing for would happen if the dead be- es as a political theorist but calls a zombie catastrophe (pp. 5-6) gan to rise from the grave and into question the rigor of his re- is not only misguided but mis- feast upon the living?” (p. 1). search into the zombie phenom- leading and betrays Drezner’s Drezner argues that consider- enon. While readers may chuck- lack of respect for facts about ing such “out-of-the-box” threats le when he suggests that liberals both the history of zombies and as zombie outbreaks helps us would want to create a WZO and that country’s religious and polit- to grapple with what former U.S. demonstrate for zombie rights ical ideology. He is clearly more Secretary of Defense Donald (p. 58), or that neo-cons would concerned with his hypotheses Rumsfield famously referred to likely see zombies as part of a about political ideology than with as the “unknown unknowns” of new axis-of-evil and “invade Iraq understanding the relationship international security. The ulti- again out of force of habit” (p. between zombie narratives and mate “unknown unknown,” the 62), Drezner’s light-hearted tone fears of “unknown unknowns.” zombie, provides a unique plat- and pun-filled prose sometimes While Drezner’s analyses of inform on which to interrogate the overshadow the seriousness of ternational relations theory is fundamental tenets of differing his claims. The tongue-in-cheek thorough and well researched, political ideologies. illustrations similarly cast this he cherry-picks “facts” about tiny tome as somewhat of a nov- zombies from inconsistent elty, belonging alongside other sources to flesh out his pontifi- humorous volumes such as The cations. Surface details and sta- Zombie Survival Guide and The tistics garnered from Wikipedia Zen of Zombie. Still, many politi- substitute for deeper research, cal scientists will find Drezner’s and, for all his scholarly acumen, approach both innovative and he leaves serious academics provocative. This book will pri- wanting more. Drezner’s ap- marily appeal to those with a proach to international politics vested interest in international is thought provoking and timely, relations and a passing interest but the zombie is a gimmick. in the undead. Theories of International Poli- Drezner’s easy prose and sim- tics and Zombies raises some ple explanations will make his interesting questions about the book a favorite among college nature of international relations students, and academics will ap- and answers them in the con- A professor of international poli- preciate his consistent referenc- text of a dystopian fantasy of tics at The Fletcher School of es and bibliography. The sim- global pandemic. Many will en- Law and Diplomacy at Tufts Uni- plicity of the book and the theme joy this quick read for what it versity, Drezner adeptly sum- of zombies will likely make inter- is—an innovative approach to marizes the different theories of national politics less intimidating international relations theory international relations and suc- and more accessible to begin- and a humorous introduction cessfully differentiates between ners. One major flaw of the work, to political ideologies. Those them. Unfortunately, Drezner’s however, is that it feels rushed. hoping for deeper analysis will

69 L|R|Q 1.04 | 2011 be disappointed. power and influence, minor ac- ceeds in its aim to portray the tors at that time destined for complicated process of drafting Paris 1919: Inside playing key roles in the cata- the terms of the ending of The The Peace Talks clysmic changes that would take Great War and how Woodrow place over the coming decades Wilson sought in vain to create That Changed The leading up the World War Two a League of Nations in order to World and beyond. prevent future such conflicts. [1] However when one compares by Paul Cowan the film to the television docu- National Film Board of mentaries based purely on ar- Canada, 2008 chival film, it seems to lack the DVD, 94 min. (French with drama and pathos of the real. subtitles ) With its narration and staged scenes, as well crafted and in- Distributor’s website: http:// formative as they are, the film films.nfb.ca/paris-1919/film. is in my view not particularly php emotionally arresting outside Reviewed by Jonathan of the iconic archival footage. It Zilberg , University of seems much less powerful than Plymouth, Transtechnology the other recent films staging Research re-enactments and combining archival materials so as to re- [email protected] visit signal periods and events in modern British history such Paris 1919 revisits the creation of The principle actors are the as The Queen and The King’s the Treaty of Versailles that end- Americans, the British, the Speech. Briefly by way of com- ed World War One, concluded French represented respectively parison, the former focuses on the Age of Empire, and ushered by President Woodrow Wilson, the changes that have taken in the modern colonial era. An Prime Minister Lloyd George, place in the monarchy over excellent teaching resource for and President George Clem- the course of the 20th Century history classes, it will be particu- enceau. The film is possibly at while the latter focuses on King larly useful in high school and its best towards the end when George the 6th’s ascension and undergraduate classes on the the German government repre- how he overcame his speech history of 20th and 21st century sentatives refuse to accept the impediment - as did Winston conflicts.Paris 1919 revisits how long drawn out treaty bringing Churchill. In all these films, national boundaries and colonial the world to the brink of war yet Paris 1919 included, we learn territories were arbitrarily de- again There stands Woodrow about private turmoil and the fined at the Berlin Conference Wilson resolute and Maynard orchestration and power of ma- of 1885 and tortuously redrawn Keynes’ resigned after strug- jor political and media events in in the aftermath of World War gling to assess the costs of modern history. Regardless of One, laying the basis for future the war, the value of German their relative merits, such films conflict. Moreover, the film pro- assets and thus a reasonable emerging as they are at this vides historical snapshots of sum for reparations minus any time constitute a fin de siècle great relevance today. Consider punitive damages. There we wit- phenomenon as we leave the for instance the Hashemite King ness Lloyd George’s famous last 20th Century behind and move Faisal expressing sympathy for minute flip flop on reparations, into the next – perhaps asking the Zionist cause and accepting and finally the German capitu- ourselves where our predeces- The Balfour Declaration. Con- lation, the signing ceremony on sors have been and where our sider the division of the Otto- that cold winter day in the Palace children might be going. man Empire into multiple mod- of Versailles. ern nations/Arab kingdoms, the In that context such films are unresolved Chinese and Japa- Inspired by Margaret McMillan’s both important and interesting nese hostilities and the Italian- bestseller by the same name, and especially relevant to the German fascist nexus. Then, the film skillfully incorporates younger generations today. there are the various Asian and original materials into the re- Many of them will not have yet African leaders vying for future enactment. It certainly suc- heard Winston Churchill’s World

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War Two speeches. Nor might Modern Middle East by David Fromkin (1989) and Karl Meyer they appreciate the significance The Dust of Empire (2003). Also of the scale of World War One see Eric Hobsbawm “From Peace and its consequences no less to War”, The Age of Empire 1875- 1914, pp. 302-40. █ the significance of the Berlin Conference of 1885. Never- theless, perhaps the sudden eruption of Arab democratic revolutions will spur interest in a film such as Paris 1919. Per- haps current events and such well made resources will prove a boon to high school and college history programs. What better way than combining film and archives to spur an appreciation of history, of the changing fates of monarchies and colonial systems spanning the Age of Em- pire, World Wars, revolutions, independence movements, the hopes and the failures, and the ongoing conflicts predetermined by maps drawn up long ago by competing global powers.

Finally, Paris 1919 is a film about humanity seeking peace and justice against all odds. Along- side similar films turning back the pages of history, it could do much to advance the importance and relevance of the subject of history in higher education today. Notes [1] Recently Margaret McMillan has noted that the final payment of the war bonds for World War I war reparations was completed in December 2010 by the German government (see “The war to end all wars is finally over”, The International Herald Tribune, Monday, December 27, 2010, p. 8). McMillan’s review is especially important to those who will watch and debate the film Paris 1919 for as she writes: “…the payment brought to a close one of the most poisonous chapters of the 20th century. It also, unfortunately, brought back to life an insidious historical myth: that the reparations and other treaty measures were so odious that they made Adolf Hitler’s rise and World War II inevitable.” As regards the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and their historical origins, see A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the