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I V the Geopolitical Aesthetic of Computational Media: Media Arts in the Middle East by Özgün Eylül İşcen Computational

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I V the Geopolitical Aesthetic of Computational Media: Media Arts in the Middle East by Özgün Eylül İşcen Computational The Geopolitical Aesthetic of Computational Media: Media Arts in the Middle East by Özgün Eylül İşcen Computational Media, Arts and Cultures Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Mark B. N. Hansen, Advisor ___________________________ Mark Olson ___________________________ Negar Mottahedeh ___________________________ Pedro Lasch Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Computational Media, Arts and Cultures in the Graduate School of Duke University 2020 i v ABSTRACT The Geopolitical Aesthetic of Computational Media: Media Arts in the Middle East by Özgün Eylül İşcen Computational Media, Arts and Cultures Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Mark B. N. Hansen, Advisor ___________________________ Mark Olson ___________________________ Negar Mottahedeh ___________________________ Pedro Lasch An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Computational Media, Arts and Cultures in the Graduate School of Duke University 2020 i v Copyright by Özgün Eylül İşcen 2020 Abstract Today, humans must rely on technical operations that exceed their perceptual threshold and control. The increasingly complex and abstract, algorithmically mediated operations of global capital have only deepened the gap between the social order as a whole and its lived experience. Yet, Fredric Jameson’s notion of cognitive mapping acts as a model for how we might begin to articulate the relationship between the psychic and social realms, as well as the local and global scales. Jameson’s attentiveness to the conflicting tendencies of capitalist operations is still helpful for us to map the local instantiations of capital’s expanding frontiers – where its differential impacts are felt and negotiated strongly. This dialectical move, unifying and differentiating at once, is crucial for my project of situating the Middle East within the imperial operations of global capital, thereby overcoming its peripherical reading. In contrast to the post-oil spectacles of the Arabian Gulf, such as Dubai, I look at the war-torn and toxic cities that are spreading in the rest of the region, such as Beirut, due to the violent operations of militarized states as well as the ever-growing economic and ecological deterioration. Hence, these cities constitute two sides of the same coin, bounded by more extensive structures of wealth accumulation and class formation in the region underlying the dominance of the Gulf and US imperialism. Consequently, we can unpack the spatial-temporal reconfigurations of global capital from the vantage point of the Middle East, especially along with the entangled trajectories of oil, finance, militarism, logistics, and computation. iv Expanding on Jonathan Beller’s idea of computational capital, I argue that computational media are instrumentalized as an imperial apparatus as and within the matrix of racial capitalism. In other words, computational media are operationalized within a capitalist society that preys on the continuous reproduction of imperial divisions, techniques, institutions, and rights while obscuring their historicity. Thus, we need to bring back the historicity of those forms as well as the totality they are actively part of in the present, including from material conditions (labor) to ethico-legal systems (law). Consequently, Jameson’s cognitive mapping needs to be reconfigured not only due to the shifts in the granularity and scale of capitalist extraction but also due its embeddedness within the histories of modern thought and colonialism. My aim is to revive the utopian project of envisioning alternatives to capitalism while reformulating the image of historicity and globality today. To this end, I examine countervisual practices in Nicholas Mirzoeff’s terms, intervening in the economic, legal, and symbolic systems that animate computational media in the Middle Eastern context, ranging from smart weapons to smart cities. My analyses show that art could allow us some insights about the economic and social structures that govern our immediate and situated experience, whereas media studies could help us to navigate through the convoluted cartographies of computational capital today. As my project demonstrates, there is no privileged position or method of cognitive mapping, which ultimately corresponds to an active negotiation of urban space. Those urban struggles will persist, always exceeding the bounds of our theories. My v project affirms an aesthetic that does not exist yet, not because it is impossible but, rather, it cannot be encapsulated in a formula since it is always already in the process of making on the streets. vi Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................... iv List of Figures ................................................................................................................. x Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ xi Introduction – The Geopolitical Aesthetic of Computational Media ................................. 1 Revisiting Jameson’s Cognitive Mapping ................................................................ 13 Cognitive Mapping as Countervisuality ................................................................... 22 Writing About Media Arts in the Middle East .......................................................... 32 Chapter Outline ....................................................................................................... 43 Chapter One – Cognitive Mapping: Historicity and Globality Reconsidered .................. 48 The Jamesonian Dialectical Twist ............................................................................ 55 Local Universalities ................................................................................................. 60 Theoretical Iterations of Cognitive Mapping ............................................................ 63 Cartographies of Capital ........................................................................................ 65 Extraction in the Expanded Sense .......................................................................... 68 Cultural Materialisms ............................................................................................ 71 The Stack as Multiple Totalities ............................................................................. 74 The Interface as Multiple Frontiers ........................................................................ 79 Computational Capital ........................................................................................... 85 Human-Technical Assemblages ............................................................................. 92 Political Ontologies ............................................................................................... 98 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 105 vii Chapter Two – Calculated Mistakes of Neoliberalism: Smart Weapons and Forensic Aesthetics .................................................................................................................... 111 Militarized Drone Strikes ....................................................................................... 113 Preemptive Logic and Space of Exception ............................................................. 121 Drones as an Apparatus of Racialized State Violence ............................................ 124 The Imperial Entanglements of Verticality and Visuality ....................................... 134 Forensic Architecture: Claiming the Right to Look ................................................ 143 Visualities Countering Militarized States ............................................................... 159 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 164 Chapter Three – Smart Urbanism and Gulf Futurism(s) ............................................... 166 The Geopolitics of the Arabian Gulf ...................................................................... 167 Post-Oil Spectacles ................................................................................................ 169 The Gulf’s Smartness Mandate .............................................................................. 173 Gulf Futurism(s) .................................................................................................... 178 Counter-Futurisms Arising from the Middle East ................................................... 182 The Leaking Subjects ............................................................................................ 196 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 199 Chapter Four – Computational Colonialism and the End of the World ......................... 201 Decolonizing the Terms of the Anthropocene ........................................................ 203 Past Futures of Oil ................................................................................................. 207 Material Speculations ............................................................................................ 210 Condensing
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