Thereisamajorproblemideology
What is the mode of ideology and how does it relate to psychoanalysis and the individual? How can we read Zizek’s thesis on ideology in the work of Renzo Martin and Joshua Oppenheimer? How does the symbolic order affect individuals and social groups? How can we reflect on the current mode of capitalism related to ideology?
In his article The sublime object of ideology Zizek presents a shift in the very definition of ideology from Marx and the model of " they do not know it, but they are doing it" to the "they know very well what they are doing, but still, they are doing it" and Sloterdijk's cynical reason. So naivity gives its position to cynicism. And if ideology's dominant mode of functioning is cynical then we should approach a different critique on ideology. He is possibly refering to his way of reading films as documents that offer semantic connections with the concept of ideology.
He also talks about the subject , connecting ideology with psychoanalysis, desire as a driving force, an agent of ideology, pointing out the notion of desire for desire itself.He takes the notion of the Big other from Lacan and somehow relocates it within the individual and not just in the media space or the idea of the fate for example. Zizek writes that for Lacan psychoanalysis “explains how something like reality constitutes itself in the first place. It explains how the dimension of truth emerges in human reality.” The notion of truth is present also in Adorno's approach to ideology as a system “which makes a claim to the truth...a lie which is experienced as truth.”
For Zizek, the time of psychoanalysis is now more than ever. In todays cultural capitalism, “remedies are part of the disease”. This idea is visible in the work of Renzo Martin’s “Enjoy Poverty 3”. His outcome in this project is not only a prove that the individual isnt able to confront with the corporate system. It highlights the idea of remedies beeing part of the problem. The fact that his project a bit later goes corporate is examplary. However, according to Renzo, as long as his activity preserves “the economic benefits of Congo people” and as long as the financial outcomes of “art production and critique go to their (geographical) sources”, that its fine. And in fact, this is his project, he is getting involved in the local economy in a form of cultural imperialism. In other terms, ideology’s mode in Enjoy Poverty seams to be trully expressed in the concept of cynical reason. As Zizek states there is a last attempt to make capitalism work for socialism.
The intersections of Ideology and psychoanalysis that Zizek is into are present in the work of Oppenheimer “the Act of Killing”. Here the main charakters are called to reenact the past within the movie. There is a film within a film. The mode of ideology as “false consiousness” is on. It seams that Oppenheimer choses to play the role of the Big Other towards the gangsters by directing their reenactment. Observing the gangsters its visible that the psychological consequences of ones acts are hidden in plain sight together with ideology. Here its more difficult to see that “they know very well what they are doing but they still are doing it”. The reposition of the gangster in the role of the gangster implies a programmatic dimension of ideology within the inidividual, that also programmatically refeeds it to its group.
The two projects reflect on how ideology functions within the individual and within the group. However they highlight different aspects of it and of Zizeks positions. In Enjoy poverty, Renzo as an individual,unwittingly (I think) reflects on issues of authorship, (but talking about ownership) and cultural capitalism, while in the Act of killing the group of protagonists reflects more on the idea of society and network that is guided by the “symbolic order”. So Oppeheimers work is more about the collective madness, the idea of the sociopaths,while Renzos reflekts more about the individual that exercises cultural imperialism, cynicism and control.
Another major difference between the two projects is the choice of the creator to do a film. In Oppenheims work it seams that he constructed this film, this narrative , including reenanctments and indirect documentation to talk about sociopaths, ideology, systems and groups. He suceeds to expose the automatised function of ideology.Enjoy poverty is not a film. It is a project that engages the author of it to local communities and economies. In its most positive reading I still dont see why Renzo made a film out of it, for me it documents in a very precise way that solutions are part of the problem, and here solutions seam to bring more problems. In addition, media feeds us this solutions in form of “artistic documentaries”. I see Renzos images as a residue of a media culture of shock.
Overall, both films reflect Zizek's ideas on ideology and psychoanalysis and the way he reads Lacan’s big Other.We can see how his notion of desire for desire is applied to Renzo. Lying in the most cultural side of capitalism he is a very nice example of how Zizek approaches the big other, within the individual and reframes it through desire. In the Act of killing though it is interesting to see the way “reality constitutes itself” through language and communication within a community.
But this mode of ideology hiden in plaing sight is still hidden in these images. If, as Terence mk Keena says, reality exists out of language, then Enjoy Poverty, Act of Killing and Zizek ‘s audiovisual products are parts of this (audiovisual) vocabulary. And as again Mc Keena states, language was invented so someone could lie...Which brings as back to Adorno and truth. Based on his definition of ideology we can see how these projects can all become systems that simply make their own claim to the truth.
sources
Slavoj Žižek. How to read Lacan.London : Granta, 2006. Slavoj Žižek. The sublime object of ideology,198*?. Slavoj Žižek. A perverts guide to ideology, 2012. Renzo Martin. Enjoy poverty 3, 2008. Joshua Oppenheimer, The act of killing,2012. Terence Mc Keena, Reality is made of language, accesible here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSQih-hg5QU Renzo Martin Interview, 2010. accessible here http://africasacountry.com/poverty-for-sale/ Collective notes pad.