Synopsis

From XPUB & Lens-Based wiki

Synopsis

Postscript on Societies of Control by Deleuze

A dissection on “the disciplinary man” by Foucault compared to “the man of control” by Deleuze
The disciplinary man:

He passes from one enclosed environment to another first the family, then the school (when no longer in the family) the barracks (when no longer in school),the factory … and the hospital or prison could occur.
He is a man controlled by time rate.
He always starts from zero.
He has been molded by society.
He has a signature and number, /a watchword/ which has labeled him and his position within the mass.
He relies on numbers or fixed rate.
He operates with a machine that involved energy.

The man on control:

He is the person out of the factory: now engage in “the corporation”.
A person in crisis /family crisis, educational,professional furthermore the crisis of the fall of capitalism and the emergence of creditalism.
He is modulated by the society or continuously changed modulation.
A man of control or being controlled - opposed, divided, examined… being infinitely trained.
He has to display himself and his capacity to re–invent or re–adapt himself to the constantly changing environment.
He is stimulated by financial rewards or discouraged by them.
He is a stockholder – a product of capitalism where the main focus is how to sell and market the product in terms of lowering and transforming it, rather than specializing it.
He relies on floating rates, the exchange on the market, currency changes, stocks’ trade.
He operates with another machine of a third type or the computer.
He is online.
He is man on limitless, continuous control / power, who ceased to be an object of surveillance, being watched, tracked or controlled.
He is regulated by a password – a code, which provides an access to a certain information or rejects or bars it.
“He is no longer individual he became dividual”.
He is no “longer man enclosed he is man in debt”.


Better living through reality TV

by Susan Murray, Laurie Ouelette
TV's Constitutions of Citizenship


The chapter six - TV’s constitution of Citizenship is about how Reality Tv has replaced the actual governance and its constitution. Reality TV now molts current government such as households, neighborhoods, workplaces and other social structures, drawing set of rules, strategies, stereotypes how to improve or “teach” the viewer into becoming more efficient part of society – “good”, productive and responsible citizen. The educational and entertainment function of Reality TV has expanded to actual commitment or reinventing viewers' own set of rights and freedoms. Popular TV broadcasting games, related to the subject have been examined and dissected. For instance TV shows as Survivor, The Apprentice and Top Chief could be highlighted as an example of games of group governance. Types of social, behavioral experiments, where players have to share collective sense or taking part of community. Paradoxically only one is about to win the game, the one who become the most “self-actualized” citizen. Meanwhile reality formats such as Wife Swap and Supernanny focus on modifying one’s constitution or set up rules and order in the house and family. This links directly to the contemporary TV attempt of approving technology of the self or the constitution of the self.

Playing TV’s democracy game The chapter seven “Playing TV’s democracy game” highlights different technologies of testing group and self governance. It also rises open – ended questions/parallels about the democracy, democracy function in the society and fairness of the present TV ; is the new contemporary form of TV changed to “more democratic” mode or ? The present TV allows the citizens - viewers to enter and change their own governance. Within the current technological achievements TV has became accessible in a way that the viewer has the right or freedom to create his/hers own content. Such an examples are emerged web-TV initiatives as YouTube, Democracy Player, Current TV, where the main motto is "Broadcast Yourself". The notion of the new form of TV encourages interactivity or active participation of the viewer. Now viewer could choose from multi channels, using the remote control device… empower to vote or even judge for the final outcome of the show.
The counting system and being counted used common methods of examining on viewer’s behavior in comparison with the real voting system of elections.


=== Mapping the invisible_ visible ==+

extract from the book "Open"
by Willem van Weelden

Territorial investigations by Bureau d’etudes[1]

Maps are what prevent us from going in circle. In terms of geographical maps allow us to orient ourselves in the space, resembling the territory. Moreover they allow to move, act, transform and reform the territory. While the organizational maps imply to orient ourselves in social, economic symbolic surroundings. In a time of mass disinformation or moreover manipulation in received information or so called propaganda one easily could be mislead or loose the sense of reality. (Reality as non-experience, reality formed on others’ observation or critical point of view, reality - existed and constantly fed upon the “media reality”) A guide or a map is needed more than ever.
Bureau d’etudes is Parisian conceptual group engaged in creating alternative structure of maps or “maps of visibility”. Maps aims to explore current contemporary political, economic and social structures. Proceeding from considerable amount of researches and studies the artistic duo has drawn visually detailed maps both geographical and organizational, based on wide investigation on the “organization of capitalism” (banks, corporations, stock-markets, labors, governments, etc.) An illustration of such a map could be seen in the map made of city of Dresden in 1995. Since the fall of the Berlin wall the city center has been retransformed by vast growing German banks and numerous commercial signs.
The collective Léonore Bonaccini and Xavier Fourt seize to synthesize and visualize information, which often is invisible for the public the aim is to actualize, alarm the public. However can a map be precise enough to serve as an actual reflection on the current realities? Can a map be objective and understood without obtaining sufficient knowledge of reading the coordinates? Nonetheless considering the lack of statistics or strict analysis, the variety of viewpoints, the subjective matter of the medium or the hypercritic notion of the data itself etc.?