Virginia Commonwealth University VCU Scholars Compass
Theses and Dissertations Graduate School
2018
In Media Res
Christopher Andrew Sisk Virginia Commonwealth University
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This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at VCU Scholars Compass. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of VCU Scholars Compass. For more information, please contact [email protected]. in media We are inundated by a constant feed of media that responds and adapts in realres time to the impulses of our psyches and the dimensions of our devices. Beneath the surface, this stream of information is directed by hidden, automated controls and steered by political agendas. The transmission of information has evolved into a spiral of entropy, and the boundaries between author, content, platform, and receiver havein blurred. This reductive space of responsive media is a catalyst for immense political and cultural change, causing us tomedia question our notions of authority, truth, andres reality.
Attack Update-Assailant rammed car into IDF forces. Assailant 5 shot and murdered Rabbi‚… A lot of people hearing from God may have been inspired Indrek Sirkel Indrek Professor Associate Design Graphic Head of Art of Academy Estonian Estonia Tallinn, Design/VisualCommunication David Shields David Professor Associate Design Graphic Chair, Furman University Furman Studies Asian Arts, Art and Bachelor of South Carolina Greenville, 2010 University Commonwealth Virginia Arts, Fine of Master Richmond, Virginia 2018 Nicole Killian Professor Assistant Design Graphic A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the in partial fulfillment A thesis submitted Arts at Fine of Master of degree the for requirements Arts. the of School University Commonwealth Virginia Sisk Drew Thesis Committee by Walt’s vision of the media define love for. The Featured OJ Simpson. Bill Clinton. Bosnia. Where are the contradictions? Princess Diana. Heaven’s Gate. Iraq. Whose voices are heard, and whose
Introduction are suppressed? How does the format I am a child of the 24-hour cable news impact our perception? What are the cycle. Every morning I woke up to the consequences? As a graphic designer, faint sound of the morning news coming I participate in this system and always from our living room. With talking heads contend with these questions. in the background, my dad would fill me in on each day’s headlines and hand Ferguson. Syria. Brexit. Donald Trump. me his crinkled up copy of the local Fake News. Solar Eclipse. newspaper he had already pored over. I’ve been a news junkie ever sense. I still wake up to the morning news, but 6 now it comes mediated by the blue glow 7 “Do people really not read the of my smartphone. I’m still constantly Cases of the Corps Report Short. HELP THE FIND OTHER WANTED FUGITIVES: I’m thankful newspaper?” This was my father’s plugged in, but now I swipe through an constant refrain then, tinged slightly algorithmically curated blend of hard with a bit of evangelical judgement. news and politics with personal stories He considered himself a witness to and memes on my Facebook timeline perceived ignorance, and he took to and Twitter feed. This environment is heart Thomas Jefferson’s argument one of vulnerability and detachment, that “democracy demands an educated a movement toward hyperreality. My and informed public.” work critiques this flattened media landscape, cracking its veneer and It wasn’t until later that I could begin to exposing its absurdities. make connections and situate what I was seeing and reading within a broader global context. Where is this information coming from? What are the political motivations behind it? In Media Res for their love the interests of others” Philippians 2: At Contents
Introduction 6 Responsive Politics 98 Abstract 10 Spectacular Totality 102 Breaking and Trending 12 Rapture 116 Physis and Techne 18 Lest We Forget 128 The Responsive Grid 24 In Media Res 130 Infinite Scroll 28 It Never Was 183 and Always Will Be Sources and Dispositions 38 8 Bibliography 186 9 Cycles and Distortions 46 Disney’s Hollywood Studios aboard an amphibious raid. Young Jedi put their faith‚… Acknowledgements 190 Spectacle, Part I 56 Spectacle, Part II 60 Filled Boxes, Flattened Spaces, 72 Infinite Scroll Reality Peripheries 76 In Media Res We are inundated by a constant feed of media Wrote a great day celebrating from our family to yours! Abstract that responds and adapts in real time to the impulses of our psyches and the dimensions of our devices. Beneath the surface, this stream of information is directed by hidden,
1 automated controls and steered by political 1 1 1 agendas. The transmission of information Shooting attack at the airport today. He’s fighting your battles. Goodbye has evolved into a spiral of entropy, and the boundaries between author, content, platform, and receiver have blurred. This reductive space of responsive media is a catalyst for immense political and cultural change, causing us to question our notions
In Media Res of authority, truth, and reality. Breaking flexed-arm hang. They just refused to assist with relief ef
OJ Simpson’s white Ford Bronco races ahead of police down the
Breaking and Trending Breaking highway in LA as seen from a camera in a helicopter above. Marshall Applewhite’s haunt- and ing eyes dart back and forth in Heaven’s Gate videos that play on a constant loop after the cult’s eerie, visually coordinated mass suicide coinciding with Comet Hale-Bopp. Nancy Kerrigan, the Olympic ice skater, cries in an arena concourse after suffering
Trending - an attack planned by her heated rival, Tanya Harding. I distinctly 1 remember a steady stream of sensationalized news stories 1 as a child in the 1990s. These were all captivating, “made for 1 TV” moments, images that powered the 24-hour news cycle. 1 forts. This Unmanned Aerial Vehicle UAV is taking place Fri, Sat, and Sun at Spiraling out and superseding these original singular events, hyperbolic soundbites and looping images become the main content of consumption. The 24-hour news cycle has given up its dominance to an equally sensationalized stream of content customized to our interests in real time and forecasting what will captivate us in the future. I open my phone and scroll through my Twitter feed, seeing activists react to the latest statements from Donald Trump right above memes mutating from completely different realms of my small slice of the social media universe. Scores and stats from basketball and football games weave their way in between. Friends, family, and complete strangers delve into rancorous debate on the veracity of a news story currently making the rounds on Facebook. Below these, acquaintances share live streams of police brutality and natural disasters uploaded by random people on the street. Politics, culture, and personal narratives are compressed in space and time, medi- ated by a set of standard devices. Breaking news. Streaming now. Trending topics. The terms we use to discuss live media reveal how we consume it and its effect on us. If we break down the grammar, all of these –ing terms are in the present participle, meaning the action is in the midst of taking place, with no clearly defined start or end. In Media Res the 3p. I would love to see you there? America needs an Attor By the time we enter the feed, we are joining a space in media res, in the middle of things, to borrow from the well-used liter- ary device. In cable broadcasts and, social media feeds, there are no pauses, no time between events. We see a running feed, an unbroken stream without time to trace back to any single origin point. Everything is important and nothing is important at the same time. Each breaking news story or trending topic comes quickly and replaces what came before it. Time col- Breaking and Trending Breaking lapses and context spirals into entropy.
Structure
The feed runs on a standard grid that stretches and rearranges seamlessly to fit an expanding multitude of digital devices. The responsive grid of our devices is a rational structure that plays host to an irrational hierarchy, a space of simultaneous distance and proximity to each other’s real-time personal and collective narratives, to disaster and violence, and ultimately - to political upheaval. The presentation and consumption of media has flattened our concept of reality, with consequences 1 to our individual psyches and collective politics. Beyond the 1 1 individual pieces of content we read or watch, the structures 1
and mechanisms of the smartphone, social media, and the ney General Publishes Phony “Trafficking” Study With Flawed, Incomplete Data. cloud shape us profoundly. Decades before widespread use of the internet, Marshall McLuhan argued that the mechanized means of communication supersede the power of the contents they hold, stating famously that “the medium is the message.” McLuhan says that we too often overlook the power of the larger apparatus of media:
“For the ‘content’ of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind. The effect of the medium is made strong and intense just because it is given another medium as ‘content.’” 1
Posts, tweets, memes, and likes are the content, but psy- chological and political power lies in the structure itself, the omnipresent black box of the digital screen and the responsive grid holding it all together.
1. Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media:
In Media Res The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. 19 1
In Media Res 1 Structure
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Physis and Techne Physis Physis and Techne and the Suburban Ideal
The push and pull between The posters are examina- physis and techne informs my tions of common signifiers of investigation into the Anthro- suburban development——single- pocene Epoch, the present era family homes with yards and in which human activity alone driveways, cul-de-sacs, strip makes the largest impact on malls, and parking lots. global ecological systems. Juxtaposed with these images As Martin Heidegger writes, and icons are fragmented pho- Physis is the natural world, tos from the natural environ- anything that comes into being ment around suburban Richmond, and fades away all on its own, Virginia. An illustration of 1 specifically without human in- an idealized suburban land- 1 terference. Techne is a broad scape degrades, mutates, and 1 term meaning human interven- rearranges itself across 1 tion on nature.I In this work, the compositions. Deserves a slice. Overnight, in response to the rocket landed S. Yesterday I am looking specifically at Viewers interact with suburban development and its the web piece, shaping the inherent irony. Suburbanites composition by shuffling the want to live alongside an entire graphic at once or by idealized version of nature, moving individual squares. but they alter and destroy This restarts the cycle of the environment to make that degradation/pixelation. The possible. Instead of accommo- composition constantly chang- dating the natural world, they es, transforming itself into end up trying to control and endless configurations. Just contain it. Policy driven by as soon as we grasp individual the car-first suburban mental- pieces of the composition——a ity isolates and addresses cul-de-sac here, a piece of smaller issues related to the the river there——the image environment but fails to grasp degrades and reconfigures the totality of our dilemma. itself. Complete resolution is The result is dislocation and always out of reach. We affect fragmentation, a constant and one part of the system, but uncontrollable formation, we never have a grasp of the deconstruction, and reforma- whole. It never quite fits tion of the landscape. together, and it is impossible My investigation includes to fully resolve. a series of posters and a web- based interactive piece. drewsisk.com/physis-techne/ In Media Res 2 publicly warned the world through Him might be the best use 2 of violence &; terror. LEARN MORE GAZA FACTS HERE. Trump has a lot right with . Nietzsche
I. Martin Heidegger and David Farrell Krell. Krell. Farrell I. Martin Heidegger and David San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979. 80-81. 1979. Harper & Row, San Francisco:
In Media Res Media In Physis and Techne and Physis
2 2 you. Tonight marks the start of a statue on tribal land in
@voicefromthetop Sources and Dispositions Sources Jesus said, “Do not be
2 2 2 2 a legitimate Nevatim Air Base. Pasha is wanted by the for murder of Alaysia M. If you’re resistance movement.” 1:43 PM — 1 May 2018 In Media Res the always feeding your history or verified facts. Greetings
In 2007, lines of eager
The Responsive Grid The Responsive customers snaked around stores across the world to get their responsive hands on the first iPhone. Almost immediately, content creators and designers were faced with the problem of how to adapt content de- signed for rigid desktop grid screen dimensions to the fluid, smaller dimensions of the smartphone. The interface vocabulary of mouse clicks and scrolls morphed into 2 touch-screen swipes, taps, and pinches. In the world of user 2 interface design, the concept of “responsive web design,” an 2 umbrella term coined by Ethan Marcotte in 2010, became ac- 2 from a place of peace. Stabbing attack in central Israel. Part 2 the height cepted doctrine.2 Users were now viewing the same content on a variety of platforms, and HTML, CSS, and JavaScript coding languages carried the power to serve it all up in infinite ways for each specific device. Eventually the “mobile first” concept of interface design became dogma, with every other platform falling in line. Born as a legacy to modernism’s attempt to rationalize and universalize the presentation of static text and images, the responsive grid became the standard framework for organizing an endless stream of constantly changing, post-structuralist online content, much of it ironically rebelling against the very ideals and notions that gave birth to the grid. Beyond its ubiquity as a way to cleanly serve up the same media on a variety of platforms of different size, shape, and resolution, the responsive grid takes on larger meaning as a manifestation of the hyperreal. The structure of the grid is fluid and adapt- able, but its borders are ultimately rigid and impermeable. The apparatus is permanent, but what it holds is ephemeral and immaterial. As smart phones steadily became more accessible and ubiquitous, social media use skyrocketed. Facebook was not the first social media platform by a long shot, but its birth as a single university-wide platform gave its users enough trust In Media Res sources and dispositions requirements for forward presence &; crisis response. They’ve to engage each other using their real names instead of anony- mous handles. This feature gave Facebook an authenticity “The spectator’s alienation that was missing from its predecessors, and it gained traction quickly. The exterior of truth and believability, presented within the reliable structure of the grid, foreshadowed the impact from and submission to the Facebook would have on media and politics in the coming years. After Facebook gained global traction, ensuing social The Responsive Grid The Responsive media platforms all moved toward reduction in terms of content contemplated object and functionality, with the smartphone eventually becoming the primary way to use the internet.3 Twitter arrived in 2009 with a (which is the outcome sparse premise: 140 characters to post whatever content users wanted to share. Several years later, Instagram launched a re- duced snapshot-sharing platform, with its simple square photo of his own unthinking box and caption—nothing more and nothing less. Each of these platforms had limited options for customization—users viewed content in boxes within an identical grid, styled the same way, activity) works like this: and typeset in the same set of fonts as everyone else. Each social network borrowed, adapted, and reduced features from the more he contemplates, the other, boiling communication down to a system of “likes,” “favorites,” and “shares.” The concurrent proliferation of smart phones and social media solidified the mobile-first responsive the less he lives; the more 2 grid as a container for all forms of content. 2 2 The widespread adoption of responsive web design 2
coupled with the popularity of blogging and social media readily he recognizes his had a happy birthday! Senate OKs Bill to Expand Self-Defense. Take control of started to homogenize interfaces that housed a wide variety of content. Ease of use made Wordpress, Tumblr, and Pinterest own needs in the images popular platforms for blogging and content aggregation, and users embraced open-source templates that, while skinned differently, adopted the same set of traits—dynamic content, of need proposed by the responsive grids, endless scroll, and above all else, a focus on social media sharabilty. As users became comfortable with the visual and editorial vocabulary of these platforms, the struc- dominant system, the tures themselves started to drive the type of content users posted. The grid made possible the dissemination less he understands his of an endless series of memes and trends, from the lolcat, to the Buzzfeed-style “listicle,” to the “Tumblr aesthetic.” The structure itself—the template, the grid—self-directs own existence and his and even self-generates its content, creating, to borrow 6 from McLuhan, an automated medium as message. own desires.” —Guy Debord
2. Ethan Marcotte,“Responsive Web 3. Samuel Gibbs, “Mobile web browsing Design,”A List Apart, 25 May 2010. overtakes desktop for the first https://alistapart.com/article/ time.” The Guardian. 2 November responsive-web-design. 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/ Accessed 26 November 2017. technology/2016/nov/02/mobile-web- browsing-desktop-smartphones-tablets. Accessed 26 November 2017. In Media Res a restaurant in Memphis. Applauds House vote as Bloomberg Infinite Scroll Infinite
Infinite Scroll is an investigation of the archive. Not its contents, but the spaces around, between, before, after, in the construction of, in the demolition of, in the presence of, and in the absence of the archive.
We are surrounded by the ubiquitous black screen, a continuously updating, highly individualized algorithmic archive with comprehensive memory. Infinite Scroll Infinite Scroll
The feed is the contemporary archive, 2 continuously loading and never static. 2 2 All that remains fixed is the platform, 2 structure, and container. meddles in the shooting of U. Listen to Joel’s television broadcast, Peaceful
The feed flattens space, time, and distance. The horizon line collapses.
The feed is a Debordian spectacle, simultaneously distancing us from and blurring our personal lived realities and collective memory.
The feed carries the veneer of truth, an elastic substrate susceptible to subversion and manipulation.
The feed is never neutral.
The feed is always at our fingertips but always out of grasp.
drewsisk.com/infinite-scroll In Media Res 3
In Media Res 3 Infinite Scroll
on Purpose, tomorrow morning! They do such an incredible incredible an such do They morning! tomorrow Purpose, on journey for this. I told the crowd in Oslo‚—You are a devil dog’s best friend. friend. best dog’s devil a are Oslo‚—You in crowd the told I this. for journey 3 3 3
In Media Res 3 Infinite Scroll
13 murder of Autumn Johnson, age 1, in Compton, California: California: Compton, in 1, age Johnson, Autumn of murder 13 We accepted Hamas’ ceasefire request for the oppressed. Is looking for your your for looking Is oppressed. the for request ceasefire Hamas’ accepted We 3 3 3
In Media Res 3 Infinite Scroll
destiny, the greater the anointing on your program. Contact Contact program. your on anointing the greater the destiny, your Senator and urge him/her to OPPOSE thi‚… It’s time to waste being nega being waste to time It’s thi‚… OPPOSE to him/her urge and Senator your - 3 3 3
In Media Res 3 Infinite Scroll
tive. Vile acts of persecution. I’m scheduled to hold that that hold to scheduled I’m persecution. of acts Vile tive. rank today. Light it UpA Marine provides cover alongside Korean Marines during during Marines Korean alongside cover provides Marine UpA it Light today. rank 3 3 sources World War II Through Two Writer’s Guns. If someone passes you
After looking at the evolution of the responsive grid as it relates to the rise of social media and the smart
Sources and Dispositions Sources phone, we might ask: What are the larger implications of the flattened, reductive space of the device and and its interface? What are the forces at play beneath the constant stream of media and the algorithms serving us all seemingly unique, dynamic content? Architect and researcher Keller Easterling’s work surround- dispositions ing what she calls “infrastructure space” provides an apt framework for dissecting the implications of the continuous 3 feed and the responsive grid. Similar to McLuhan, Easterling 3 argues that beneath the surface of large-scale infrastructure 3 projects lies a hidden network of power outside the tradition- 3 by, don’t be against you. Minor is the king of battle. Moments ago, Palestin al channels of international governance. Easterling unpacks the difference between the forward-facing “object forms” and underlying “active forms” present in contemporary global infrastructure projects. Object forms are the bridges, free trade zones, and street grids that make up the built environ- ment, while “active forms” are the political aspirations and maneuvering veiled beneath the glimmers of glass, metal, and cast concrete. Easterling argues that all infrastructure projects have a “disposition,” which “uncovers accidental, covert, or stubborn forms of power—political chemistries and temperaments of aggression, submission, or violence—hiding in the folds of infrastructure space.” 4 Applying this to our focus, what are the object forms, active forms, and dispositions of the omnipresent digital screen and responsive grid? As I have noted earlier, each successive development after the introduction of the smartphone has been a movement toward reduction and ease of use. Posts, tweets, memes, and likes are the object forms. Responsiveness is the active form. The stream and the feed take precedence over the static, and brevity is valued over long form. - In Media Res Filled Boxes, Flattened Spaces, Infinite Scroll ian terrorist stabbed &; wounded 2 civilians a humanitar The result is a constant state of saturation, of constant new- ness as McLuhan describes in “The Medium is the Message”: “Disposition … uncovers
“Electric speed mingles the cultures of prehistory with the dregs of industrial marketeers, the nonliterate accidental, covert, or with semiliterate and postliterate. Mental breakdown of varying degrees is the very common result of uprooting and inundation with new information and stubborn forms of power— endless new patterns of information.” 5 Sources and Dispositions Sources political chemistries and This state of inundation is like Debord’s concept of alienation in The Society of the Spectacle, where the capitalist spectacle holds individuals captive to “the contemplated object,” dis- temperaments of aggression, tanced from their “own existence ... and desires.”6 In the same way, the grid delivers automated, personalized alienation and inundation by means of algorithmic code. submission, or violence— In a recent e-flux journal article, a collection of artists and philosophers give our present condition a name: hiding in the folds of “strange universalism.” The authors compare the ever-present - black screen on electronic devices to Kazemir Malevich’s 4 4 Black Square: infrastructure space.” 4 4 “Today, The Black Square is any TV or phone screen 4
that is switched off. The Black Square has become —Keller Easterling ian crisis: Reservations now open at 1‚… Paz treats both victims and all. This The Black Screen. Whatever is shown on screens today is mostly numbers posing as people. In contrast, The Black Screen does not present media realisms, but rather the reality of mediation. It doesn’t show Reality TV, but demonstrates that proliferating screens are real. The black surface of the screen could be the exterior of the black-box algorithms operating behind it. In this case, The Black Screen becomes a documentary image of real-existing technology and its nontransparent mode of operation.” 7
The content of the “Black Screen” and the responsive grid is self-reflexive. The apparatus is the content, and the medium is the message. The disposition of the responsive grid and the spiral of entropy is an extranational force that contains and generates momentous cultural and political shifts.
4. Keller Easterling, 6. Guy Debord, Society of the Extrastatecraft: The Power of Spectacle. Detroit: Black & Red, Infrastructure Space. London: Verso, 1977. 30. 2014. 73. 7. Hito Steyerl, Julieta Aranda, 5. McLuhan, 7. Brian Kuan Wood, Stephen Squibb, and Anton Vidokle, “Strange Universalism,” e-flux Journal #86, In Media Res November 2017. 4
In Media Res 4 Sources and Dispositions
senior Drill Instructor Sgt. It wears you out of balance. balance. of out you wears It Sgt. Instructor Drill senior Zoom by Disney’s Hollywood Studios starting June 17! Tonight, in response to to response in Tonight, 17! June starting Studios Hollywood Disney’s by Zoom 4 4 the HSST list roadshow. Megan Everett arrested in Washington
@interwebcrier Sources and Dispositions Sources Harvest of blood
4 4 4 and souls, the shrieking 4 bloody harvest of parsnips DC today. The Constitution is a and his family after they watched the MAGTF at and similar things. 8:49 AM — 2 March 2018 In Media Res 29 Palms. The hosts first Worldwide Troop Talk w/ SecDef
Cycles and Distortions Cycles and Distortions Cycles Responding to the headlines surrounding the inauguration of Donald Trump in January 2017, I initiated a series of studies exploring exaggeration and distortion. I began to see the relationship between the pages of printed matter and the individual frames in an anima- tion. Instead of creating a moving image, these pieces stretch, skew, and fragment type, concealing and revealing legibility based on interaction and point of view. Accordion books afforded the opportunity to explore dualities and opposing ideas through 4 the splicing of content. 4 4 4 Carter announces nomination of Lt. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the mark In Media Res
4 during training. Jesus Christ, you have enough in life is 4 one God and keep it! Hamas sends a message of the amazing gingerbread houses
In Media Res Media In Cycles and Distortions and Cycles
4 4
5 found at Disney Parks Blog this week o‚… Bhadreshkumar Patel, 5 wanted for his birthday! UNDER THE STUNNING SKIES OF S. They’re now ready for
In Media Res Media In Cycles and Distortions and Cycles
5 5 any chance of beating Hillary. Dropping DownMarines conduct
The introduction of imagery and the choice of color echo ephemera from political
Cycles and Distortions Cycles rallies or propaganda posters. The risograph printed pieces take on different meaning de- pending on their display. In banner form they draw attention to the surface; when crumpled on the table they become sculptural. The content is esoteric, and the forms speak in different ways. Something is happening versus something took place. An active communication versus a cast-off artifact.
5 5 5 5 confined space entry training on Camp Pendleto‚… Victory lane last night in In Media Res
Cinderella Castle Suite: You have a relationship with the 5 5 provides security during an IDF soldier stabbed at junc. Enter for a Twitter
In Media Res Media In Cycles and Distortions and Cycles
5 5 chat on the exciting Disney Parks. What are you against Vir
Spectacle, Part I Part Spectacle, Spectacle, Part I
The earlier studies through printed matter informed installations that move into larger- scale experiments using multiple forms of media. Spectacle, Part I is about contradic- tion, exaggeration, and hyperbole——an exposed wrinkle of the hyperreality of poli- tics and media. The teleprompter is an illusion, an optical trick we play along with so that we might believe that people of authority address us directly through eye contact without skip-
ping a rhetorical beat. Here the teleprompter - is flipped around——instead of an accessory to 5 the podium, it replaces it. 5 We see the surface of the reflective 5 glass and through it simultaneously. The glass 5 is the mediator between the viewer and the ginians’ permits also being recognized? In response, forces fired towards the scrolling text emitted below in mirror image. The text implicates the audience as both pas- sive viewer and active reader. Two stretched out, warped banners frame the simulated tele- prompter, suggesting the scene of an absurd political rally. At once we stand at the point of view of authority and audience. At once we read from power and vulnerability. At once we contemplate mirage and reality. In Media Res
5 weekend on the Supreme Court room in the Swedish Armed Forces 5 Cam‚… Marines with fire. The is live on my Facebook page. But there’s some
In Media Res Media In Spectacle, Part I Part Spectacle,
5 5 good news is that‚… Taking time to rise higher, start expect - Spectacle, Part II Part Spectacle,
Spectacle, Part II
Building on prior work, this installation is an ex- ploration of politics and media, more specifically 6 the role of public opinion. At a fundamental level, 6 6 Spectacle, Part II is an investigation of control. In 6
politics we often hear about the extent to which public ing supernatural doors to open the World at Epcot! Sirens sounded in 4200 opinion polls affect the behavior of candidates and elected officials. Politicians and media executives act in ways that preempt the latest Gallup polls, Nielsen ratings, Google analytics, and social media mentions. The result is an infinite, self-perpetuating, distorted loop that consolidates power and reinforces hegemony. This work is an attempt to unfurl the simultaneous power and illusion of public opinion to shape policy. In Media Res
6 block of Sonia Court in Peruta Right-to-Carry Case. Out of 6 your dreams and fulfilling your destiny. Eric England doesn’t need any more or
In Media Res Media In Spectacle, Part II Part Spectacle,
6 6 any other created thing, shall be free indeed” John 8: Tried Spectacle, Part II Part Spectacle, A pedestal with a joystick and button confronts view- ers with an awkward invitation to interact with the piece. Moving the joystick and clicking the button causes the wave on the television screen to fluctuate in response, an allusion to the charts documenting public opinion polls. Viewers control the black wave, covering or revealing the live broadcast underneath, but little else changes as a result.
I continued exploring two-dimensional forms, such as banners, as sculptural elements or as ways to create immersive environments. In this piece, the main banner is even more exaggerated 6 than in Spectacle, Part I. Viewers enter into it 6 physically to interact with the screen and take 6 command of the pedestal, which then acts as the 6 missing lectern from Part I. This puts viewers to drive a wedge between Russia and the mainstream media smart enough. So in a place of control, which is simultaneously real and imagined. In Media Res
6 proud of my father‚… When you go home? Take this quiz and 6 find pasture. Dare to ask for it! Palestinian attacks have declined 30%. Stay
In Media Res Media In Spectacle, Part II Part Spectacle,
6 6
encouraged through the obstacle course. We have crisis- 6 6 trained chaplains ministering to homeowners following recent terror wave? Tips
In Media Res Media In Spectacle, Part II Part Spectacle,
6 6 to Help a Brother OutMarines w/ 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine
@interwebcrier Sources and Dispositions Sources Bernie should pull his
7 7 7 7 endorsement of Illuminati Division for their‚… Liberty Basketball is set on a live-fire range More: THIS of Bavaria, who control it & &. 7:49 AM — 23 October 2017 In Media Res Filled Boxes, WEEK’S MOTO MONDAY. Sheikh Mahatab Miah is wanted by the for
The boundaries of the responsive grid are impermeable and atem- poral, but the content Flattened Spaces, is dynamic, constantly updating and refresh- ing. Responsiveness is the disposition of contemporary media.
Filled Boxes, Flattened Spaces, Infinite Scroll Spaces, Infinite Flattened Filled Boxes, Facebook notoriously uses algorithms that Infinite Scroll mine data from usage patterns to anticipate preferences and areas of interest in order to dynamically generate appropriate content. The platform buries posts it 7 presumes particular users would not care for, and it elevates 7 7 posts that align with their interests or relate to larger social, 7
political, or cultural issues at the moment. Linear time attempted murder of a rifle’s barrel? The righteous many do not forget Your collapses from the platform as it chases user interest and engagement. The social media algorithm is the back-end version of the responsive grid, hidden beneath the surface, but directing the entire system. What I see on my phone is different now from what it was two minutes ago, and it will surely be different from what you see if you look at your screen at the same time. But we both stare at the same grid lighting up the same infinite window. In the same way that algorithms serve content on the responsive grid, they also generate content. Hackers and programmers create bots and spam that infiltrate and subvert the structure of online media, manipulating and monetizing search engine optimization and web traffic. In an endless looping cycle, the same code that destabilizes the apparatus is then co-opted and made mainstream. The same mechanism that spews spam into the comments of news articles and trolls people on forums is picked up and repackaged into customer service chat bots for Amazon and Verizon. The responsive grid is simultaneous host to subversion and co-optation. The smartphone not only allows users to consume content in new ways, but it also allows them to create and disseminate it easily. This has been one of many factors that In Media Res responsive politics word Psalm 119: College safety 101: It’s all here. Congratu has disrupted the traditional structures of mainstream media. Stories from traditional media outlets merge with content “The all-out internet generated from both real users and algorithms, forming a homogenous stream, all conforming to the parameters of the responsive grid. The black box and the responsive grid gradu- condition is not an ally morph from a digital supplement to real life into a layer of reality itself. Here the disposition of the grid and the feed is one of Debordian spectacle: interface but an environ- “Lived reality is materially invaded by the contempla- ment. Older media as well tion of the spectacle while simultaneously absorbing the spectacular order, giving it positive cohesiveness. Objective reality is present on both sides. Every notion as imaged people, imaged fixed this way has no other basis than its passage into the opposite: reality rises up within the spectacle, and
Filled Boxes, Flattened Spaces, Infinite Scroll Spaces, Infinite Flattened Filled Boxes, the spectacle is real. This reciprocal alienation is the structures, and image essence and the support of the existing society.” 8 objects are embedded into The line between digital and physical collapses, the space - between algorithm and human blurs, and reality is subsumed as just another interface. networked matter. Networked 7 Our new normal is a condition of “strange universal- 7 7 ism,” under the overarching disposition of the responsive grid. 7
Hito Steyerl writes about the internet as a pervasive space that space is itself a medium, lations Coach Ritchie McKay becoming Liberty’s 2nd winningest coach with 83 spreads out and “moves offline”: or whatever one might call “The all-out internet condition is not an interface but an environment. Older media as well as imaged people, imaged structures, and image objects are a medium’s promiscuous, embedded into networked matter. Networked space is itself a medium, or whatever one might call a medium’s promiscuous, posthumous state today. It is a form of posthumous state today. life (and death) that contains, sublates, and archives all previous forms of media.” 9 It is a form of life (and Steyerl’s “internet condition” is an extension of Debord’s spectacle. Time, space, specific content, and even the rule of death) that contains, law become flattened and governed by a responsive grid that seeps out of the “Black Screen” into our individual and shared lived experiences. sublates, and archives all previous forms of media.”9
8. Debord, 8. —Hito Steyerl
9. Hito Steyerl, “Too Much World: Is the Internet Dead?,” eflux Journal #49, November 2013. http:// www.e-flux.com/journal/49/60004/too-much-world-is-the- internet-dead/. Accessed 26 November 2017. In Media Res win‚… Our chefs smoke the Beef Brisket Burnt Ends Hash from
Reality Peripheries Reality Reality Peripheries
This publication is an investigation of the seemingly innocuous boundaries put between us and centers of power. What is the disposition of an ever-expanding perimeter of temporary barricades? In the same way the screen medi- ates messages of power through reflection and projection, physical barricades mediate proxim- ity with tools of distance and deflection.
7 7 7 7 The Mystery of Cahokia. 4 year old 34-ft cross in Pensacola, FL, has to say In Media Res
7 about bringing a shell casing to preschool daycare,. No, the 7 GOP Did Not Issue Any Gun-Carry Permits to Private Citizens in 2016! God wants
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8 to do things that don’t make sense now, like why was too 8 religious &; didn’t allow him to the point. Stop looking to people who are
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8 missing: Ospreys deliver supplies for Harvey Relief! Pray 8 for Ryan &; Benita from Uganda had heart surgery tomorrow through Wi‚… This
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8 morning, after a simulated casualty at Mountain Warfare 8 Training Center at His‚… They touchdown on the GroundA UH-1Y Venom during ex-
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8 ercise in Romania. What are you thankful for the wounded to- 8 gether after a historic event held l‚… You can get HIMARS off C-17s and strike
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8 targets 40 miles away within 15 minutes. Join me in 199‚… IS 8 A GREAT START! Jennifer Appel &; Tasha Fuiava were rescued from persecution &;
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9 began the takeover of Tarawa began. LEARN MORE HERE: 9 Bhadreshkumar Patel is wanted for 2 bank robberies in Moenkopi Village, Arizo-
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9 na, in 2‚… What’s in your heart. Stir up those gifts and 9 talents in you. A great story about 100-year-old Eva who sews dresses for
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Immense political power sits Responsive Politics Responsive within the disposition of the responsive grid. A series of large-scale geopolitical shifts politics have transpired alongside the growth of the smartphone and social media. Activists relied heavily on Twitter and Facebook to organize protests during the Arab Spring in 2011. At the same time, people around the world received news of the developments instantly on their devices, embedded between unrelated quips and snapshots on their feeds. Media space became flattened—timely sto- ries from Egyptians on the ground in Tahrir Square became much more valuable than the reporting from mainstream media outlets on the outside. The responsive grid helped 9 enable the revolution and disseminate its images outside the 9 Middle East. The key to its success was the decentralization 9 of the movement, made possible by social media. Grassroots 9 ‚ÄòLeftist’ Media Want to help at our Field Hospital in Iraq. You can get pho leader Wael Ghonim summarized the collective efforts:
“Our revolution is like Wikipedia, okay? Everyone is contributing content, [but] you don’t know the names of the people contributing the content. This is exactly what happened. Revolution 2.0 in Egypt was exactly the same. Everyone contributing small pieces, bits and pieces. We drew this whole picture of a revolution. And no one is the hero in that picture.” 10
The Arab Spring was an open-source effort made possible by the grid. In this case, social media and the smartphone became tools to subvert and evade government restrictions in service of political change. The 2016 election cycle gives us a glimpse into the murkier side of the political disposition of the respon- sive grid. By this time, social media use and smartphone culture had taken root across the spectrum of age, politi- cal persuasion, and socioeconomic classification. Donald Trump was made for the era of responsive politics. His endless stream of headline-grabbing tweets appealed to a swath of Americans resistant to the change spurred by - In Media Res lest we forget tos and video via the Internet: They don’t understand it‚… A global connectivity and the rapid pace of social liberalization. “Our revolution is like Reactionary nationalist groups across the globe began to come out of the woodwork, connected in back corners of the internet and empowered by social media. These forces, Wikipedia, okay? Everyone is housed within the structure of the responsive grid, combined to destabilize traditional media outlets and undermine centuries
Responsive Politics Responsive of global political conventions. contributing content, [but] During both the British European Union withdrawal referendum (“Brexit”) and the US presidential election, exter- you don’t know the names of nal players exploited social networks and media outlets to directly influence public opinion. Under the auspices of the Kremlin’s Internet Research Agency, Russian hackers exploited the people contributing the Facebook’s algorithms, buying advertisements and injecting sensationalized and fake headlines related to the British and American elections.11 Fake news enterprises launched in east- content. This is exactly ern Europe and schools even popped up in Macedonia to train unemployed young people in the lucrative art of media decep- what happened. Revolution tion and subversion.12 Both independent and state-sanctioned programmers exploited the echo chambers that social media had become. Algorithms made it possible for users to never 2.0 in Egypt was exactly the see content that challenged their beliefs. Sharability is part of 1 the disposition of the responsive grid—seeing a close friend 1 1 share a news article gives it instant credibility and viability, no 1 same. Everyone contributing matter if its content is true or not. By 2017, 67% of Americans 1 said they got news from social media,13 and the responsive grid 1 small pieces, bits and has given every piece of content the veneer of veracity. new age of 87. The asks for assistance in an open area the work, &; The screen and the algorithm render all media equal, regardless of accuracy or relevance. All content is malleable. pieces. We drew this whole Stories become detached from their origins, instantly extract- ed, recontextualized, and re-skinned on the grid. The dissolu- tion of the media landscape has produced an infinite scroll of picture of a revolution. hyperbole and misconstruction, blurring our notions of truth and reality. The feed is home not to reality, but to simulation And no one is the hero and hyperreality, “the generation of models of a real without origin or reality,” as Jean Baudrillard writes.14 in that picture.”10
10. Wael Ghonim, interviewed by 13. Jeffrey Gottfried and Elisa Harry Smith, 60 Minutes, CBS News. Shearer. “News Use Across Social —Wael Ghonim 13 February 2011. Media Platforms,” Pew Research Center. 7 September 2017.http://www. 11. Adrian Chen, “The Agency,” journalism.org/2017/09/07/news-use- The New York Times Magazine. 2 across-social-media-platforms-2017/. June 2015. https://www.nytimes. Accessed 26 November 2017. com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency. html. Accessed 26 November 2017. 14. Jean Baudrillard. Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor: University 12. Florence Davey-Attlee of Michigan, 1994. 1. and Isa Soares, “The Fake News Machine: Inside a Town Gearing Up for 2020,” CNN Money. 2017. http://money.cnn.com/interactive/
In Media Res media/the-macedonia-story. Accessed 26 November 2017. you could handle it? Got to see and make some plans.
Spectacular Totality Spectacular Totality
Spectacular Totality investi- ironically embracing them as a gates issues of political the- new tool to quickly generate ater and “fake news” through content in the age of constant the development of Twitter breaking news.III bots that mine headlines from The content in the political hinterland to Spectacular Totality is not generate new, often absurd entirely fake. Avatars of content continuously. A live Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un “broadcast” with a news anchor are placed in the foreground, avatar gives uncanny visual confronting each other and form to the content from the viewers in between at eye- bot. This work points to a level. The words spoken by world in which the news cycle Trump and Kim are authentic, 1 is always present, generating but they are simply trans- 1 and even consuming its own posed. Kim speaks Trump’s 1 content, with real political words and Trump speaks Kim’s 1 1 consequences. words. We hear the same heated 1 We’ve seen the impact of language from both sides, but Day of my dear friends, passed away yesterday. The adversity means the fake news campaigns on global it is delivered as a series of politics recently, as program- virtually indistinguishable mers unleash fake news sites social media-sized soundbites. and bots that appeal to people What does it feel like at the extreme ends of the to enter the stage of politi- political spectrum. Besides cal theater and stand between influencing people in middle two rogue heads of state? America on social media, these What happens in the vortex fake news stories make it all of dissonance created by the The eclipse is a metaphor for a mediated, the way to the top. Donald transposed words of Kim and spectacular experience. Millions of people Trump (aka realDonaldTrump if Trump and the fake headlines become transfixed on something coming you doubted the veracity of delivered by a big-brother- between us and something essential. It’s his account) reportedly has sized news anchor in the a moment of revelation. We stare directly four million bots among his background? What does it mean at the edge of the sun, the source, for a Twitter followers, some of to experience the political brief moment. The eclipse transcends cosmic which he retweets from time to spectacle as mediated live by happenstance. It exceeds reality. time.I Respected news outlets bots and avatars? such as the Washington Post have even quoted fake accounts in stories about North Korea.II “Real news” sources have moved past being duped by bots, In Media Res 1 1
In Media Res 1 Spectacular Totality
opportunity to encourage yourself. Vote for candidates who who candidates for Vote yourself. encourage to opportunity defend trust everyday Americans. Lay to rest ‚— an original Marine Raid Marine original an ‚— rest to Lay Americans. everyday trust defend - 1 1 1 1 1
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er, James Doc Gleason. 30 at the today. The more people try try people more The today. the at 30 Gleason. Doc James er, to win a Walt Disney World: Be a believer and not what’s wrong. Close Close wrong. what’s not and believer a Be World: Disney Walt a win to 1 1 1 1 1
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1 1 1 1 1 1 us out of your side. Can you help the find other bank robbers: The seeks
The banner has been a reoccurring form in my work, and here it evokes a political scene. Its placement on the floor, still half rolled up, suggests a breakdown or transition, a story unfolding in media res.
I. Abby Phillip, “The curious case of ‘Nicole II. Anna Fifield, “North Korea’s news service Mincey,’ the Trump fan who may actually be a bot,” barely needs to be spoofed, but this duo nails Washington Post, August 7, 2017, https://www. it,” Washington Post, April 21, 2016, https:// washingtonpost.com/politics/the-curious-case-of- www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/ nicole-mincey-the-trump-fan-who-may-actually- wp/2016/04/21/north-koreas-news-service-barely- be-a-russian-bot/2017/08/07/7aa67410-7b96- needs-to-be-spoofed-but-this-duo-nails-it/?utm_ 11e7-9026-4a0a64977c92_story.html?utm_term=. term=.6c454d3db140. bcdcc01a203c. III. Joe Keohane, “What News-Writing Bots Mean for the Future of Journalism,”WIRED, February 16, 2017, https://www.wired.com/2017/02/robots-wrote- this-story/. In Media Res info about the Spelling Bee Bandit, wanted for human traf
Spectacular Totality @interwebcrier Live tweeting -
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Rapture
Rapture borrows heavily from reality to expose and exaggerate the veneer of the hyperreal. In this work, I am focused on the implica- tions of the omnipresent responsive grid, the continuous feed of information, and content generated by algorithms. I am interested in how the presentation and consumption of media has flattened our concept of reality, with consequences to ourselves as individuals and to society as a whole. What are the cracks in the system? Where does it start to unravel? What are its edges and seams? In this work, the grid and the feed form 1 an oppressive, omnipresent force, visually 1 alluding to cults of personality, authoritar- 1 ian regimes, and charismatic religious fig- 1 1 ures. Building on the knowledge I gained from 1 Infinite Scroll, I created a series of web compositions working with live content and con- during post-blast analysis training. When your roots go down as the an tinuously changing imagery. Content stretches and distorts to accommodate an endless variety of dimensions. I think of these as a growing lineup of live broadcast channels. An evolution of the teleprompter concept from earlier work, the four-sided holographic talking head device gives simulated human form to content generated from continually working bots. Placed at eye-level, the anthropomor- phized algorithm makes a step from the flat screen into three-dimensional space. - In Media Res 1
In Media Res 1 1 Rapture
tidote to ‚‘fake news’. You’re stronger, more experienced and and experienced more stronger, You’re news’. ‚‘fake to tidote you might not find them. That would fix the carnage in Start by pros by Start in carnage the fix would That them. find not might you - 1 1 1 1 1
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ecuting gun crimes. He doesn’t take a knee on patrol near near patrol on knee a take doesn’t He crimes. gun ecuting Ramallah. Soldier injured &; receiving medical treatment in Israel as as Israel in treatment medical receiving &; injured Soldier Ramallah. 1 1 1 one of us have imperfections. GUNS AND AMMO IN. 2 southern Rapture
1 1 1 1 1 1 armed serial jewelry store robbery of a joking matter. Concealed Carry
What are different ways for automated con- tent to manifest itself? I built a system that autoprints text generated by the bots. Every ten minutes we get a new print and a new message, functioning as a bot newswire. In Media Res 1 1
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Reciprocity: At honored Police Officer Thomas Wood was shot. shot. was Wood Thomas Officer Police honored At Reciprocity: TODAY, LIVE A LIMITED TIME! In 2017, the IDF &; ISA op. 22 states leave leave states 22 op. ISA &; IDF the 2017, In TIME! LIMITED A LIVE TODAY, 1 1 1
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1 1 elegant new Copper Creek Villas &; Cabins at Disney’s Animal In the 2016 BBC documentary HyperNormalisation, director Adam Curtis weaves together a lest timeline that converges politics and technology, exposing how the
Lest We Forget We Lest world we live in became normal- ized through the machinations of business and government.15 Normalization evolves as the gradual, unnoticed process we of forming new ideas of what constitutes our collective reality. Underneath it is the loss of a sense of where we were before and how our new normal came to be. These notions of normal- ization bring to mind Debord’s forget concept of the Spectacle, or, as I have called it in this context, the Spiral of Entropy that defines our relationship to media today. We are always mid-stream, losing touch with where we came from, unsure of 1 where we are headed or why. 1 1 Information has become fragmented and weaponized, and 1 the responsive grid is the battleground. Boundaries between govern- 1 ments, individuals, extremist groups, and media outlets are starting 1
to collapse, their unique visual vocabularies and signifiers subsumed Kingdom! You’re wrong, Self-Defense is a new year by remembering 2017. beneath the grid. As Murtaza Hussain argues,
“Propaganda and information warfare was once the purview of nation-states, militaries, and intelligence services. Today, even ordinary people have become important players in these campaigns. Battles over narratives and information have become an integral part of modern war and politics; the role played by bloggers, activists, and ‘citizen journalists’ in shaping narratives has proven vital.” 16
The most important frontlines might be the pixels constantly shifting and rearranging truth and reality on our devices. The Spiral of Entropy is relentless, uncontrollable, and always a few steps ahead of our grasp. The Spiral consumes and reacts against its own content, inverting and spinning inward, with an infinite scroll of geopolitical reverberations.
15. Adam Curtis, dir. 16. Murtaza Hussain.“The New HyperNormalisation. BBC, 2016. Information War: How Social Media Online stream. Is Leveling the Playing Field Between Governments, Militants, and Ordinary People.” The Intercept, 25 November 2017. https://theintercept. com/2017/11/25/information-warfare-
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In media res: entering in panopticon. The apparatus, the midst of things. placed at the center of the room, is constantly watching, What happens when you enter listening, and recalibrating. into the Spiral of Entropy and move through it in A continuing motif, the physical space? eclipse evolves into a glori- fied loading icon, a short- In this culminating body of hand, a symbol that gains work, a live feed is generated political and psychological by automated image searches charge through repetition. and Twitter bots. Content is continuously changing and no Ultimately this is a live, au- 1 surface is fixed, pointing to tomated system that is contin- 1 1 a dystopian present-future in uously running——systems within 1 which information is hyper- systems that are constantly 1 present, generating and even refreshing and updating in 1
consuming itself. Every sur- real time. I am simultaneously liberties &; rights of conscience. God knows what He’s done. Recognize face has the benign veneer of enamored and unsettled by the the continuously running feed idea of a system with such we’re all familiar with. This economy. I think about Guy is a physical space of inunda- Debord’s Spectacle and the tion and confusion. efficiency and economy of power and control. I think Bots construct an infinite about Keller Easterling’s scroll of new content, and object forms and active forms. algorithms serve us images and sounds from current The regime events, politics, and the cul- of responsiveness. tural zeitgeist. We also see instances of other spectacular The all-seeing eye and hyperbolic phenomena, of the algorithm. referencing eschatology, cult figures, cults of personality, religious fundamentalism, rap- ture, and end times prophecy.
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Process mimics concept. Beginning to think spatially, I created a series of responsive websites using movable tiles that can be projected at a large scale and mapped onto sur- faces in an infinite number of configurations.
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people in your area: Whether on land or at sea, training training sea, at or land on Whether area: your in people to new heights. Duvdevan maintained their observation posts around the the around posts observation their maintained Duvdevan heights. new to 1 1 1 1 1
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down. Our president is absolutely right in the country. country. the in right absolutely is president Our down. Soldiers from the Gaza Strip to Southern Israel. Keep being a felon in in felon a being Keep Israel. Southern to Strip Gaza the from Soldiers 1 1 1 1 1
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Two monitors flank the projected banners, creating an in-between space for viewers to watch and be watched simultaneously. Text-to- speech technology mashes gallery visitors’ words together with audio content randomly generated from online searches and played in the space, making gallery visitors an unwitting part of the work. In Media Res 1 1
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My current work explores the be leveraged? What are the forces literary concept of in media res, at play behind the act of reading entering a situation in the midst and the compulsion to send and of things without a sense of origin share? What is the performance of or destination. Ironically, making that language? this body of work has allowed me to break apart that literary device This work is a form of theater on a personal level and begin to and stage craft. Bertolt Brecht’s trace backward and uncover the work was about exposing the sources that have been driving my mechanisms of theater and work all along. heightening the absurdity of the experience. How is this work Coming out of this work, I would taking cues from the visual group the questions I am asking language of dramaturgy? as I move forward into three 1 categories: theory and concept, How can I push the eclipse 1 experience and immersion, and icon, cult imagery, and ideas 1 agency as the maker. I see these of omnipotence, revelation, 1 1 questions as bigger than this concealment, and systems inside 1 project alone. These are the of systems? Nablus. Watch me on tonight. Stay cool this summer at with new photos questions that I will continue to contend with in future work. What is the connection between These questions are future- the spectacle of evangelicalism focused and backward-searching and its ties to politics? How can at the same time. concepts of rapture, alarmism, and hyperbole be leveraged? On theory and concept I'm thinking about the performance Thinking about politics and media, of the pastor in evangelical how much of this work is about traditions, the build-up to a climax manipulation, sedation and abuse in the service and the flattening of power? of particular doctrines and prophecies. This tone and way of Should the work elicit a more articulation is relevant to the work. visceral response? Should it become more agitating? The avatar hologram is our way in. It’s a life preserver. It’s when the My grandfather frequently sends information tries to be like us, but me chain letters through email, it can’t. It’s at our eye-level, as if a collection of prophecies, we might have a conversation with conspiracy theories, and it and it might respond to us. conservative propaganda. How There is a certain darkness and can the concept of the chain letter terror masked under the feed, In Media Res at: Maintain your dignity. JTF-505 complete dignified trans
in what algorithms reveal and in and alignment. The viewer is in Pushing Ahead My graduate school experience relentless duplication. How can the image and not in the image at has been a good time to dig the work allude to that and create the same time. How do I push this Questions lead to work that leads into deeper questions about the illusion that something is feeling of disorientation, tension, to more questions. It is clear that I what drives my work and my following the viewer, eliciting a fear and paradox? Seeing ourselves in have many questions to explore— processes for research, making,
It Never Was and Always Will Be and Always Was It Never or paranoia? the space, do we become part of and these questions will continue and reflection. I have learned that it? It’s a reflection of ourselves and in the work I make after graduate constantly diving into new ways On experience where we are in it. school. The thesis exhibition is of working is essential for my and immersion a good landing spot, a stopping practice. I have discovered that How do I leverage pacing of the point in media res, to present the my work involves constantly How does the work become more content, and leverage the concept latest iteration of my work. evolving questions, a process immersive or interactive? How of consent (or lack thereof) in the that moves backward and might people in the space change realm of politics and media? One of the questions I have forward simultaneously.
something about what they’re How do I alter the time-space been wrestling with is the level - seeing? How can this create a continuum of the constant feed of interactivity in my work as it 1 sense of disorientation? that we’re all used to seeing? stands now. In the current iteration 1 How does this play out in of In Media Res, viewers see an 1 What is the impact of scale? different formats: on the web, in automated system, but I, as the 1 1 Viewers feel smaller than this a physical space, in a piece of designer, am pulling the strings 1 content, which normally fits into printed matter? and setting the constraints. Moving fer of 6: For Marines show how they step up academically for! It comes the tiny window of their phones. forward in future work, I would How does this echo my research On agency as the maker love to create a truly responsive on the rapture and dystopia, system, one in which viewers this feeling of being smaller I am detached from the content change the content that they see, than something when you’re of my work and immersed in either voluntarily, or simply by their inside of it? it simultaneously, sitting in the presence alone. shadows. Where is my agency How does the work become here as the designer, apart from Conceptually, I have much to portable and live outside of the the auto-generated content from unpack in regards to the spectacle room of the installation? the bots and image searches? of religion and politics. I am Since the work is web-based, digging into my past experience does it follow viewers individually Is there a dialectic of positive and raised in a conservative on their phones? negative in the presentation of evangelical community and content? Am I the synthesis or looking at the visual language of In my thesis presentation we does the audience fill that role? charismatic leaders, eschatology, see the “thing itself” and then its My presence in the work is and prophecy. While these are representation. There’s a friction asserted through aesthetic secondary or tertiary concerns where those bump together, agency—this content is not purely in my current work, I could see creating an edge or the lip. The a feed; instead, it has been highly elevating these concepts into focus is on the dissolution of curated and stylized. another body of work. media, but there’s a reliance on that edge, the legibility as a comparative device. We see In Media Res fleeting moments of visual sync Bibliography because of 4 complaints. Juan Mayorga is wanted for armed Bibliography
Giorgio Agamben. “What is the Contemporary?” in What is an Apparatus? Umberto Eco. Travels in Hyperreality. San Diego: Harcourt, 1986. and Other Essays. David Kishik and Stefan Pedatella, trans. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. In this book, Eco marvels at the absurdity of the American obsession for creating facsimiles and reproductions that Agamben describes contemporariness as an elusive force, like transcend reality itself. flickering lights and moving shadows. To be contemporay is to be rooted in one's own time but simultaneously outside of it. Mark Fisher. Capitalist Realism. London: Zero Books, 2009. Agamben's ideas have influenced my framework as a designer, to be inside and outside of content at the same time. Fisher argues that under the framework of “capitalist realism,” capitalism has such a firm grip on us that we cannot imagine Jean Baudrillard. Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor: University of any other kind of reality. Everything has been commodified Michigan, 1994. through a system of capital equivalencies, and everything is run as a business. Baudrillard sketches out a world in which nothing is real and everything is a mere simulation, “the generation Michel Foucault. Discipline and Punish : The Birth of the Prison. New York: 1 of models of a real without origin or a reality: a hyperreal.” Pantheon Books, 1977. 1
1 Adam Curtis, dir. HyperNormalisation. BBC, 2016. Online stream. Foucault discusses the Panopticon, a tower that sits in the 1 1 middle of a prison in which an entire population of inmates are 1 Curtis weaves together a timeline that converges politics, completely visible to the small number of authorities in charge. robbery in VA. What are you exceptional? Paz tells her story on recruit technology, and popular culture, exposing how the world we live The inmates are cut off from each other but constantly being in became normalized through the machinations of business watched from the Panopticon. Panopticism is extended as a and government over a relatively short period of time. metaphor for modern society, ruled through the efficiency of centralized power. I link Foucault's Panopticon and Debord's Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle. Detroit: Black & Red, 1977. Spectacle to the feed, the algorithm, and the screen.
Debord's concept of the capitalist spectacle contends Boris Groys. “On Art Activism.” e-flux Journal, No. 56, June 2014. that highly mediated experiences lead to mass distancing and http://www.e-flux.com/journal/56/60343/on-art-activism/. alienation. The result is a losing of consciousness and the Accessed 17 Nov. 2016. emergence of world in which the individual disappears and the spectacle self-generates and consumes itself. Groys unpacks the conundrum that artists face through activist work—the objects they make are aestheticized, which Keller Easterling, Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space. he defines as a process of defunctionalization. Any real power London: Verso, 2014. they may hold to affect change has been stripped by the very nature of institutions that house it. I am interested in the Easterling, who comes from a background in architecture, implications of Groys’ ideas on aestheticization in a design unpacks the difference between the forward-facing “object context, where our work often disappears because of its utility. forms” and underlying “active forms” present in large-scale Where is the rupture between utility and defunctionalization infrastructure projects. What is the difference between the in graphic design and how can this be leveraged? physical characteristics of infrastructure and its “disposition,” the political aspirations and maneuvering veiled beneath the glimmers of progress and global trade? - In Media Res er who prevented suicideMore: Earlier this evening, forces Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Dexter Sinister, On a Universal Serial Bus.* Amsterdam: Roma, 2015. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. Published in conjunction with an exhibition and the release of In this text, McLuhan argues that too often we miss the true a series of electronic projects loaded onto a USB stick, this
Bibliography intention of media by only paying attention to the specific experimental publication provides a critical look at the politics content we see. The true power is in the mode of delivery. behind corporate identity, the absurdity of public relations efforts, and the collapsing of time. Beyond this particular piece, Metahaven, Can Jokes Bring Down Governments? I am interested in Dexter Sinister’s mode of working at the Moscow: Strelka, 2013. conjunction of design, publishing, and contemporary art.
In this book, Metahaven looks at the ways technology has Hito Steyerl, “Too Much World: Is the Internet Dead?,” eflux Journal #49, impacted forms of political protest. From tracing the origins of November 2013. http://www.e-flux.com/journal/49/60004/too-much- online memes to an investigation of “jokes as political tools,” world-is-the-internet-dead/. Accessed 26 November 2017. they uncover how absurd acts destabalize even more absurd political situations. Of particular interest is the chapter called Hito Steyerl discusses “the all out internet condition,” a space in “Design,” in which they discuss the intersection of graphic which the internet is pervasive force, seamlessly spilling out into design practice and indirect political action. reality. Steyerl’s internet and its associated images transcend the screen, “[migrating] across different supports,shaping and Metahaven. Uncorporate Identity. Baden, Switzerland: Lars Müller affecting people, landscapes, politics, and social systems.” Publishers, 2010. Hito Steyerl, Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, Stephen Squibb, 1 Metahaven presents a massive volume of essays and and Anton Vidokle, “Strange Universalism,” e-flux Journal #86, 1 1 speculative design work that sits at the center of aesthetic and November 2017. 1 political inquiry. They argue that design has the unique power to 1 unpack and unlock issues of geopolitical intrigue simply through This group piece looks at the constant presence of the mobile 1
the act of making things visible. They write, "Both the projection device and how it affects our reality and our identities. The heard shots fired at forces near Gaza border. KNOW SOMEONE AT RISK. of power and the assumption of an image are ways to create a authors adapt Malevich’s “Black Square” into the “Black world and make it seem inevitable." Screen,” the ubiquitous, all-encompassing platform that carries “not present media realisms, but rather the reality of mediation.” Kris Paulsen, Here/There: Telepresence, Touch, and Art at the Interface. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2017. Paul A. Taylor and Jan Ll. Harris, Critical Theories of Mass Media: Then and Now. Maidenhead, England: Open University Press/ Paulsen looks at the screen as a mediator of communication McGraw-Hill, 2008. and the effects of “telepresence” and virtual reality. To what extent are screen spaces, interfaces, and networks illusions or Taylor and Harris provide a broad overview of seminal discourse realities, and how are artists navigating these contexts? on the impact of mass media on culture. Stringing together I see a connection between Paulsen’s work and Jean ideas from Benjamin to Debord, they focus on “the culture Baudrillard’s thoughts on hyperreality in Simulation industry thesis—the argument that mass media culture is and Simulacra. disproportionately commodified and systematized.”
Michael Warner. Publics and Counterpublics. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002.
In this text, Warner discusses the nuanced lines that separate "a public" vs. "the public" and the "counterpublics" that exist on the periphery. As I understand it, the lines are fluid between the three over the course of time, but what holds together groups of people is ultimately discourse and shared vocabulary. In Media Res
Jennifer Roberts’ &; the darkness did not comprehend it. He’s Acknowledgements
To Sally Ann, for your constant love and support. To the group of inspiring visiting designers and artists whose
Acknowledgements lectures and studio visits gave me important outside perspectives: To my thesis committee, for your challenging Satoru Nihei questions and words of encouragement: Lugemik Nicole Killian (Indrek Sirkel, Laura Toots, and Maria Muuk) David Shields Other Means Indrek Sirkel (Gary Fogelson and Ryan Waller) Ida Benedetto To my classmates, for deep conversation Harsh Patel and camaraderie: Morehshin Allahyari Junyun Chen Benjamin Santiago Minjee Jeon Hassan Rahim Tanruk Pairoj-Boriboon Tracy Ma Stephen Parks Will Hill Chino Amobi Paul Soulellis 1 Brooks Heintzelman Coloured Publishing 1 Ivy Yixue Li (Yuri Ogita and Devin Troy Strother) 1 Michelle Peterein Lauren Mackler 1 1 Taylor Stewart Dafi Kühne 1 Eve White FIST (Linda Hang) full of examples absurd classes offered in co‚… At the Ready‚—Marines Francisco Besa Vial Eric Timothy Carlson Cassandra Ellison Una Lee Anika Sarin Eric Hu Greg Schmidt Mark Owens Sirah Yoo Hardworking Goodlooking Weijian Zhou (Kristian Henson and Clara Lobregat Balaguer)
To the VCU GDES faculty, for your knowledge and guidance: Laura Chessin Steven Hoskins Nicole Killian Lap Le Jamie Mahoney Roy McKelvey Nontsikelelo Mutiti David Shields Wesley Taylor Lauren Thorson Sandy Wheeler Adele Ball Kelsey Dusenka Kelsey Elder In Media Res
Colophon Colophon
In Media Res
by Drew Sisk, 2018 drewsisk.com
Avatars and text-to-speech elements generated using SitePal. (sitepal.com)
Twitter bots built using the Twitter API and code adapted from Jacob Harris. (github.com/harrisj)
Image search bots built using the Giphy API and code adapted from Neal Shyam. (gist.github.com/nealrs)
1 Speech-to-text elements built using Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API. 1 (cloud.google.com/speech-to-text) 1 Typefaces:
Neue Hass Grotesk, by Eduard Hoffmann and Max A. Miedinger (1957), redrawn by Christian Schwartz (2010)
Saol, by Schick Toikka (2017) In Media Res
The mechanisms of its production brought about its downfall. A self-destructive automated system. A collapsed political regime. A dismantled religion. The container is all that remains, finally at rest from the burden of its fragile content. We are inundated by a constant feed of media that responds and adapts in real time to the impulses of our psyches and the dimensions of our devices. Beneath the surface, this stream of information is directed by hidden, automated controls and steered by political agendas. The transmission of information has evolved into a spiral of entropy, and the boundaries between author, content, platform, and receiver have blurred. This reductive space of responsive media is a catalyst for immense political and cultural change, causing us to question our notions of authority, truth, and reality.