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Thanks for Sharing: Verizon's "Share Everything" Commercial, the Cookie Monster and Social Media

The other day I saw a TV spot that really captured, for me, something important about the mood of our moment.  It's for a new mobile plan offered by Verizon:
 

Though the imagery is surreal, there's something oddly comforting about this commercial.  The shape that descends from the heavens -- a UFO or  halo -- seems to gather the family in a warm, protective embrace.

Jungians would compare the circular shape to an archetype, in this case, a mandala.  Jung felt such symbols suggested "wholeness."  He theorized that images like this appear in people's visions during times of stress and confusion, offering them a sense of safety within such magic circles, and the chance to re-center.

On the most banal level, the data plan Verizon offers here does promise to rid you of a bit of confusion -- that caused by trying to keep track of all the individual mobile plans members of your family (or small business) use.

But you might extend its soothing promise more generally: here is at least one small way to deal with the chaos fast changing technology causes when it comes to everything from our jobs, to our travel, to our medical bills and personal finances.

And then there's the plan's  name: Share Everything.  Despite its obvious meaning in the commercial, it's hard not to imagine a phrase like this used in another context.

What would Share Everything mean, for example, if you saw it on a sign at a protest rally?  Doesn't it sound utopian?  Anti-capitalist, even?  It's as if, in the midst of this innocent commercial, the political unconscious is whispering subversive truths via double-meanings. 

And maybe that's because the whole phenomenon of social media does have a double meaning.  On the one hand, it offers more of the same: products, promotions and cultural cliches.  On the other, it has inspired innovative ways to organize politically, and even creative new forms of radicalism.

Share It (Maybe) with the Cookie Monster

In any case, once my mind ingested this "share" meme, I began to see it everywhere.  A few days later, for example, I came  across it  in yet another riff off Carly Rae Jepson's "Call Me, Maybe."  In this take off, we see the Cookie Monster begging folks in an office to "Share It, Maybe" (meaning, of course, a cookie):
 

What impresses me about this funny video (which asks you to share it) is how ecstatic the office staff looks, literally dancing in the aisles.  It's as if just the act of sharing cookies with each other (and then the Cookie Monster) transforms the stressful world of the "cognitariat" into one of communal joy.  Peace has momentarily been declared in the war of all-against-all.

Share Everything -- or Else!

There's also, though, something potentially disturbing about a phrase like Share Everything.  Grammatically speaking, it's an imperative statement that can be read as a command. 

And the fact of the matter is that since the advent of social media, we are increasingly compelled to share parts of ourselves online.  For some careers, it's expected that candidates have already established a digital footprint before applying.  And then there's the whole ethos of intense self-revelation that's been developing since the birth of confessional poetry in the 60s -- and that's flowered in our time into Reality TV, repentant politicians, and excrutiating tell-all memoirs.

That's why the phrase also bought to mind something I remember reading by that supreme critic of social surveillance, philosopher Michel Foucault:

"I would say that we are forced to produce the truth of power that our society demands, of which it has need, in order to function: we must speak the truth; we are constrained or condemned to confess or discover the truth.  Power never ceases its interrogration, its inquisition, its registration of truth; it institutionalizes, professionalizes and rewards its pursuit.  In the last analysis, we must produce truth as we must produce wealth."

In short, in another context, you might see phrases like Share Eveything as socially manipulative. And in this somewhat paranoid light, I thought of that scene in John Carpenter's masterpiece, They Live, where the subliminal messages that keep everyone in order are revealed to Roddy Piper, with the help of special sunglasses (it's about 1 1/2 minutes into this clip):

 

Of course, our society's propaganda isn't subliminal; it's hidden in plain sight -- so obvious that we deny its effects.

Nevertheless, I find something valuable about TV spots like this one.  And that's the fact that free associating with its words and images helps me think about the deeply contradictory meanings tied up in the new forms of consciousness social media is helping to create.  Thoughts?

Two Takes on Tech: Dodge Journey's "Search Engine" and Jaguar's Machines

Commenting on a recent post on this blog, media critic Joseph Frango made the observation that our culture is becoming increasingly disembodied, as more and more facets of everyday life and commerce take up full-time residence on the web.  Judging from conversations I've overheard at social events lately, a lot of people seem to be thinking the same thing.

It's as if once, to paraphrase Wordsworth, the world was too much with us, now both the world and ourselves have evacuated the premises for cyberspace.  And we miss our bodily selves and the earth they once walked upon.

In this light, I found it amusing how quickly  the field of commodity aesthetics -- i.e., advertising -- was able to pick up on this tremor in the social nervous system.   And, as always, the solution to the vauge angst such qualms produce is found in the products advertised.

Here are two recent car commercials that take on the theme of disembodiment in different ways.  The first is for Dodge (though the version I actually saw didn't have the contest it mentions in it). The second is a new Jaguar XJ spot:
 
 

The Dodge ad, despite all its references to web culture, is really quite traditional.  How many car spots have you seen over the years that promise you that the machine being promoted offers the perfect escape from the civilization that created it?  Or that the car is designed to help you get back in touch with nature?

But what's new about the message here are the metaphors.  This Dodge doesn't contain any ordinary motor, but a search engine, to help you escape the other search engines that enslave you (or, at least, keep you chained to you desk).

Nevertheless, the spot seems haunted by the technical reality it would flee.  If a car is now a search engine, what does that make the terrain it would explore?  Jacque Derrida's deconstructive philosophy once insisted that "there's nothing outside the text"; here, the language of the spot suggests to me that "there's nothing outside the web".  

The beauty of this scenario is that it plays to the desire to have your cake and eat it too.  You still get the comforts of a midsized SUV.  But rather than worry about what price the environment might pay for your pleasure, you are encouraged to think of your Dodge Journey as a way to re-discover that environment's wonder.

Maybe that's why the spot made me think of these lines from a poem by Campbell McGrath:

"Everything yields to the woodsman's axe
but still we are not satisfied.
Now we yearn for the vanished trees!"

Cyborg's Have More Fun

The Jaguar spot also replays elements of classic commercials.  Isn't the personal power it promises a familiar theme in car ads?  But as with Dodge, something new is added when this message is translated into the tech-obsessed language of today.  In fact, you could say the commercial invokes, through its beautiful science fiction film work, a sort of technological sublime, with allusions to everything from Fritz Lang's Metropolis to Apple's iconic 1984 TV commercial.

It does all this to make a point  about how smart the Jag's driving technology has become.  And then it ups the ante to insist that of all the forms of artificial intelligence you meet every day, there's only one brainy enough to meld with not just your mind, but your entire being.

So the point the spot makes is ironic.  For it implies that becoming one with this technology, rather than civilize you even more, will enable you to unleash your inner animal.   This means that the best way to retrieve your authenticity is to become a cyborg.

That's why I find the tag line so evocative.  "How alive are you?" it asks, suggesting, of course, that without this very expensive prosthetic device, you're a mere member of the walking dead.  Or worse, a machine.

You could say that both commercials, then, employ a hair of the dog that bit you logic.  If it's our increasingly technologic civilization that's getting you down, the best cure is more of that civilization in the form of another (and in Jaguar's case, even stronger) dose of its technology.

It's a contradictory logic, to be sure.  But it's one that underpins many of the communications Consumer Culture sends our way.  So much so, that the problem with such a message, rather than its oddness, may be that it's not weird enough to make a real impact.  Thoughts?

 

The Joys of Dystopian Thinking: Max Weber, Andre Gorz and the Film "Skyline"

The other night, I experienced one of those intoxicating moments where what I was reading seemed to provide the exact key I needed to unlock a mysterious, hidden meaning.

In this case, it was the meaning of a movie --  panned as one of year's worst -- which I, of course, had found utterly entrancing.

The movie was Skyline, which I rented on Pay-Per-View.  It's an alien invasion flick -- more or less a pastiche of films like Cloverfield, War of the Worlds and Independence Day, with a dash of The Matrix thrown in.  As Umberto Eco wrote: "Two cliches make us laugh.  A hundred cliches move us."  The trailer offers a taste: 

 

I couldn't put my finger on what moved me about this particular heap of cliches until when,  soon afterwards, I began reading an essay by the late, great social philosopher Andre Gorz.

Gorz was making a case for the continuing relevance of early 20th century sociologist Max Weber:

"Long before the creators of contemporary scientific dystopias," Gorz wrote, "Max Weber thought that bureaucratization and the onward march of machines would progress to the point where society would become a single megamachine which its human cogs 'would be forced to serve, as powerless as the fellah of Ancient Egypt.'"

The bureaucracy, in Weber's mind, I think, wasn't just "big government", as people often interpret the word today, but any massive, highly rationalized organization -- including corporations, institutions,  and (in our time) the entertainment industry itself -- with goals all of its own.  Goals that its "cogs" may not care about, agree with or even understand.

Such "megamachines" gain your support, in theory at least, by offering benefits (cash, jobs, recognition, distraction, etc. ) -- but often "at the cost of deprivation of meaning and freedom."  This all results in "dehumanization."

Gorz' short exposition reframed, for me, many of the "humans vs. machines" Science Fiction films I've seen in the last few years.  (Think of The Matrix!)  In Skyline, though, it seemed to speak to the specific anxieties of indie artists -- particularly filmmakers.

The film opens with Jarrod, an artist of some sort, and his partner, Elaine, at a ritzy party in L.A. They are boho types (I think from Brooklyn) who are impressed, but almost a little taken aback by, the success of Jarrod's best friend, Terry.  It seems Terry's special effects company has made it to the big time in a big, big way.

The party (at Terry's new pad) is stocked with all the accoutrements of L.A. glamour: posh decor, very beautiful, flirty people, booze and presumably all sorts of other decadent highs.

Mid-way through the party, a friend of Terry's congratulates Jarrod for joining the company and deciding to move to L.A.  Elaine is shocked (has Jarrod sold out?) -- and reveals that she's pregnant.  Jarrod assures her that this is the first he's heard of the gig (and that the matter isn't decided).  Soon after they crash -- and that's when the weirdness begins.

Jarrod wakes in the middle of the night to bright lights.  We soon learn these are from aliens in humongous, robotic craft, hovering near the high rise's window.  And it's not only their overwhelming size and force that make them terrifying.  It's the way the draw you in.

It seems the light they shine into your face is incredibly beautiful.  If you stare a moment too long, you get vacuumed into their craft.  Next thing you know, your brains are sucked out and used as a sort of neurological fuel (and the rest of you is cast, headless, into a pile of other victims).  Your mind becomes one with the machine.  Talk about dehumanization...

But Is It All a Dream?

After reading Gorz, I began to wonder if the last two-thirds of this flick were in fact a literal nightmare -- one expressing the artist Jarrod's anxieties about selling out. Isn't one of the cliches about organizational exploitation that you get sucked dry of your ideas (and cast into the heap of fellow burnouts)?

With a little imagination, you can extend this interpretation to the situation of the film's directors, the special effects gurus the Brothers Strause.  Is not an indie outfit like their own always faced with such creative pressures (not to mention battles over who owns "intellectual property") from the big studios they deal with?

But Why Now?

The theme of humanity vs. "the machine" is older than Science Fiction itself.  Why then its almost incessant repetition today?  I guess one quick answer is that we're simply surrounded by more machines and mega organizations than ever.

A friend told me recently, for example, that after resisting Facebook for years, she finally relented. Upon joining, one of her first welcomes was from a friend who quoted Pink Floyd.

He wrote, simply, eloquently: "Welcome to the Machine."  Thoughts? 

 

Existential Pop: Dr Pepper Meets the Incredible Shrinking Man

Lately, I 've found myself amused at a Dr Pepper commercial (originally created, I think, in 2009) set in a self-help group.  It seems the animated characters in the spot meet for support in dealing with a particular social handicap: the world refuses to acknowledge their existence:

 

What caught my eye about this commercial was its comic light touch -- even when alluding to something everyone from therapists, to philosophers, to the great modern writers seem to agree is a serious one: the establishment of a personal sense of "being" -- or, as it's more commonly referred to today, an "identity."

This concern even got translated into a specific form of cultural politics (usually called "identity politics" or "the politics of recognition").  In the 80s and 90s, "identity" movements arose on the liberal side of the spectrum (concerning rights around the issues of gender, ethnicity and sexuality).  Later, this style of politics was mimicked on the Right, often around religious beliefs and traditionalist lifestyles.

Cultural Studies scholar Nancy Fraser analyzes the philosophical roots of this tendency:

"The usual approach to the politics of recognition -- what I call the 'identity model' -- starts from the Hegelian idea that identity is constructed dialogically, through a process of mutual recognition. According to Hegel, recognition designates an ideal reciprocal relation between subjects, in which each sees the other both as its equal and also as separate from it.  This relation is constitutive for subjectivity: one becomes an individual subject only by virtue of recognizing, and being recognized by, another subject.  Recognition from others is thus essential to the development of a sense of self."

As Fraser indicates, a sense of identity is created socially as much as it is internally.  One essential for its establishment is that others take you seriously.

What's comic about the spot is that you see this logic  applied to establishing a brand identity.  The problem the Dr Pepper guy has is signaled by Santa Claus: people think what he stands for (a diet soda with great flavor) is a laughable myth.

Intentionally or not, what this setting also brings to mind is the brand identity issue a soda with a hard-to-categorize taste like Dr Pepper already carries with it.  As the Wiki about Dr Pepper puts it:

"W.W. Clements, a former CEO and president of the Dr Pepper/7-Up Company, described the taste of Dr Pepper as one-of-a-kind, saying "I've always maintained  you cannot tell anyone what Dr Pepper tastes like because it's so different. It's not an apple, it's not an orange, it's not a strawberry, it's not a root beer, it's not even a cola."

For that matter, even where the name "Dr Pepper" comes from is somewhat of a mystery.

In any case, such a lighthearted take on angst about the "question of existence" brought to my mind, by way of contrast, another version of pop-culture existentialism -- this one from a much earlier era...

"The Incredible Shrinking Man" Ponders His Existence

If you're obsessed with classic Science Fiction films like I am, you may be familiar with the story of "The Incredible Shrinking Man."  In the 1957 movie, the hero of this flick runs into a radioactive cloud, while he's out boating.  Soon after, as a side effect, he begins to shrink.

As he gets smaller and smaller, common household creatures -- cats and spiders -- turn into horrific monsters.  But as the movie progresses, he becomes too small for even them to see (or torment). Then his problems grow more philosophical.  As he faces the prospect of becoming as tiny as a molecule, or even an atom, he wonders whether, since living things can no longer recognize him, he even still exists.

Here's the way he resolves his quandary in the closing monologue (which ends "I still exist!"):

 

Whatever Happened to the Age of Anxiety?

In this clip, it's the gaze of God that assures the hero of his continuing identity/existence.  But today, it seems to me, many people look elsewhere for the recognition they need to build their sense of self.

Is not one of the appeals of social media, with all the "friending" it encourages, that it offers a quick, technologic way to make a person feel like somebody?  And, establishing an identity this way is certainly achieved with a lighter touch than in previous eras: a modicum of recognition is just a few clicks away.  No wonder even "identity politics" seems to be fading from the scene.

But I wonder, does this mean the "search for authenticity" will soon be passe?  Any thoughts on this -- or these clips?

 

Can a Car Drive You to the Future? Thoughts on Audi's "Goodnight Moon" TV Commercial

The Audi commercial that's been airing nearly everywhere lately, caught my attention with its portrayal of a sort of class warfare.  Check it out:

 

The "gluttonous", "stuffy", and generally "outdated" people and products (such as the Mercedes at the end) portrayed here, call up the idea of conservative "old money" -- i.e., the entrenched rich, many of whom have inherited their wealth.

Such folks, with the exception of royalty of course, don't seem to get represented much in our media images lately.  Perhaps they seem too inaccessible to provoke interest.  That's why the section in the spot where they, their mansions, poodles and chandeliers still live, seems almost like a dream sequence -- scored to a rewrite of the classic children's book Goodnight Moon.

Of course, the spot isn't addressed to such phantoms (or those who aspire to be them).  It speaks instead to those in the market for a luxury car (this Audi starts around $78,000), who identify with the futuristic appeal of Audi design -- people who demand "inspiration", "illumination", and most of all, today's hottest commodity, "innovation".

Audi's brand image is constructed through such attributes.  It's said to signify "innovative design and technology", and a "progressive" outlook.  As Dan Pankraz, a student of luxury brands sums this up: "Audi is modern." 

And the section of the elite class who might be identified by such characteristics does make the news enough to become objects of emulation. 

The Working Rich

In an essay from the Atlantic titled "The Rise of the New Global Elite", Chrystia Freeland describes this new elite:

"...the rich of today are also different from the rich of yesterday.  Our light-speed, globally connected economy has lead to the rise of a new super-elite that consists, to a notable degree, of first- and second-generation wealth.  Its members are hardworking, highly educated, jet-setting meritocrats who feel they are the deserving winners of a tough, worldwide economic competition -- and many of them, as a result, have an ambivalent attitude toward those of us who didn't succeed so spectacularly."

These folks do, in fact, owe much of their wealth to innovations -- whether they be technological, financial, or "the liberalization of global trade."  Their social life is said to be different as well: 

"The debutante balls and hunts and regattas of yesteryear may not be quite obsolete, but they are headed in that direction.  The real community life of the 21st century plutocracy occurs on the international conference circuit."

My guess is that the demos of the audience that Audi is after are younger than the Mercedes crowd -- the type of folks who would aspire to the values of the new, rather than the old class of elites. 

Accordingly, the spot seems to say, "Don't emulate the snobby old school; not when Audi can drive you to your future."

Where Have We Seen This Before?  Ask Ezra Pound...

I wondered why this spot, despite its praise of all things new, nevertheless felt a little old-fashioned to me.  Then I remembered that playing off the "decadent bourgeois" against the values of modernity is as old as modernism itself.  Ezra Pound's poem, "Les Millwin" (1913), for example, portrays the upper crust "Millwin" clan at the ballet:

The little Millwins attend the Russian Ballet.
The mauve and greenish souls of the little Millwins
Were seen lying along the upper seats
Like so many unused boas.

A few lines later, these indolent folks meet with the vitality of young "Futurists":

With arms exalted, with fore-arms
Crossed in great futuristic X's, the art students
Exulted, they beheld the splendours of Cleopatra.

Pound scholar Christine Froula commented that these lines refer to Italian Futurism, whose "aesthetic exalted speed, motion, the abstract qualities of life in the machine age." (p. 50)  Faced with such an aesthetic, the Millwins are caught, deer-in-the-headlights fashion, and can only look on passively, "With their large and anaemic eyes."

It's worth remembering, though, that despite their "revolutionary vitality" the Italian Futurists, and indeed, Pound himself, ended up endorsing the very old-fashioned values they seemed to criticize: they backed Mussolini -- and his bureaucratic neo-traditionalism (dressed up, of course, in modernist garb).

Cultural critics, such as Jodi Dean, wonder, in fact, if our current crop of techno-futurists will up strengthening -- by renovating and upgrading -- the very order they initially criticized in their cyber-communalist, "information wants to be free" days. (p. 27)

The jury's still out on such a question.  What is fair to say, though, is that using the language of "technical innovation" helps Audi put a more contemporary spin on what's fast becoming, with the age of the electric car looming, a pretty old-fashioned product.

For, even with "13% better fuel efficiency" than its predecessor, it's increasingly difficult to see any gasoline powered car as particularly modern. 

What's So Alien About Artificial Intelligence? Thoughts on AI, Science Fiction and "Consciousness"

Recently I found myself fascinated with a group of articles in Wired Magazine re-examining the theme of Artificial Intelligence.  Enthusiasm about AI, it seems, after a pessimistic "winter', has experienced a renaissance.

The lead piece, by Steven Levy (which offers an enormously useful capsule history of theories about the field) shows that the development of artificial intelligence is proceeding at a faster pace than ever -- but that it comes in a completely different form than was previously imagined.

Gone are the fantasies of the metallic humanoids you saw it movies like I, Robot (itself based on classic science ficton tales from the 40s/50s by Isaac Asimov).  Engineers have given up trying to replicate the human brain (as was thought achievable in the 50s).

But their inability to do so turned out to be a fortunate fault -- for it led to the creation of a rich array of smaller, intelligent machines, each furnished with  "clever algorithms" that enable them to accomplish a limited number of specific tasks:

"Once researchers were freed from the burden of building a whole mind, " Levy writes, "they could construct a rich bestiary of digital fauna, which few would dispute possess something approaching intelligence."

Along the way, "the AI crowd" made a key discovery:

"'The big surprise is that intelligence isn't a unitary thing,'" says Danny Hillis, who cofounded Thinking Machines, a company that made massively parallel supercomputers.  'What we learned is that it's all kinds of different behaviors.'"

Because of the success of these new machines, Levy concludes that we are more dependent on Artificial Intelligence than ever.  We use AI to help us drive, invest, and find answers to nearly everything (via Google), just to name a few of the types of robots who assist us everyday.  Such dependency leads Hillis to conclude, "the computers are in control, and we just live in their world."

And this is a world we don't understand.  Levy tells us that these new machines reason in ways vastly different than human logic.  If anything, their consciousness is more mysterious than the soul searching, existentialist machines imagined (but never realized) during Science Fiction's Golden Age.

Different but Same

I asked myself what I found so intriguing about these ideas, especially seeing as I'm more of a pragmatist than a utopian (or dystopian) when it comes to technology.  At first, I thought it was the cool "otherness" these thinkers achieve when talking about what seem to be mere gadgets.  The vision of AI they propose -- multiple, ubiquitous, alien -- and with a "will of its own", is reminiscent of the founding science fiction narrative of the current technologic sublime: The Matrix.

And then I wondered if what drew me to these ideas was not their alien but familiar quality.  Maybe this is because this tale of alien intelligence replays recent theories of what human consciousness is all about. 

Take the idea, for example, that the minds of the new machines are too strange to comprehend.  In Susan Blackmore's concise introduction to contemporary thinking on "Consciousness", you find out that there is a school of thought, dealing with human and animal consciousness, based around the same assumption. 

Its proponents are labeled "mysterians."  They argue "that we humans are 'cognitively  closed'  with respect to understanding consciousness ... Just as a dog has no hope of being able to read the newspaper, he so happily carries back from the shops." (p. 7-8)

Or the idea of intelligence as multiple rather than unitary.  It turns this is the standard, materialist account of human consciousness as well.  As Blackmore puts it:

"There is no single location from where my decisions are sent out.  Instead, the many different parts of the brain just get on with their own jobs, communicating with each other whenever necessary, and with no central control." (p. 15)

And it's not just in the realm of philosophy such ideas seem familiar.  The arts of our time, both popular and avant-garde, are obsessed with the multiple -- and the "otherness" it supposedly forces one to confront.  And this is not to mention (before the crash at least) the praise heaped upon "de-centralized" approaches to business management and economic policy -- all said to be increasingly necessary in a "multi-centric" world.

All of which is to say, I suppose, that as "otherworldly" as the workings of artificial minds may appear, when it comes to describing them, the influence of worldly, human culture and metaphor is as powerful as that of science.

This may also be why the literature of really great science fiction, rather than being escapist, is the true realism of our time.

For often you need the technology of the future to get a clear look at the now.

 

It's Good to Be Good for Nothing: Thoughts on AI, an Anselm Hollo Poem and the film Never Let Me Go

Just starting Anselm Hollo's fascinating Guests of Space, I came across a poem that captures, with admirable concision, an experience uniquely common to our era:

My first computer:
Poor old workhorse machine
Just an advanced version of the clay tablet
Archaic box, you still work
Humming that hum I found so irritating
22 years ago
                    (used to say "this thing's
                     no smarter than an amoeba")
Waiting for me to write
A word and then another
And another
But I shouldn't have said what I said just then
Because only a few days later
It went from hum to loud groan     And died

As I read it, the poet here starts out by viewing his old machine with bemused affection -- as a projection he is no more able to really empathize with than a microorganism.  And yet, in the end, he finds himself -- by a mildly superstitious reflex if nothing else -- almost thinking twice about such a judgement.

What adds a humorous touch to Hollo's poem for me is the degree of identification I feel with this thought pattern.  According to Jaron Lanier, a pioneer of virtual reality, the "thinking twice" I noticed is a bit of a trend.

He tells us that ever since IBM's Deep Blue beat chess champ Gary Kasparov -- and fueled popular fantasies about Artificial Intelligence -- it's become increasingly difficult to avoid psychologically projecting intellectual and emotional traits onto computers. 

The possibility of now or future AI, Lanier argues, forces us to wonder about how wide to "draw our circle of empathy" -- because we increasingly wonder what separates persons from non-persons.  As in the case of debates about when life begins, "the borders of personhood remain variegated and fuzzy." (p. 39)

Hollo's poem suggests, indirectly, one of the many possible answers to such questions.  What separates the poet from the computer is the simple fact that he, not it, is writing the poem.

Coincidentally, the ability to make art as proof of selfhood is an idea explored directly, if in a much less playful way, in a movie I saw last week: Never Let Me Go.

Arty Clones

The film version of Ishiguro's novel (which I haven't read) portrays a society that "manufactures" clones, as it were, in order to harvest their organs (in early adulthood).  Of course, it seems odd that clones wouldn't be considered fully human -- they're the equivalent of  identical twins, after all.  But what's even weirder is that, during their schooling (in special boarding schools) these supposedly not-fully- human clones are encouraged to be creative; they make art (which is collected and shown in a gallery).

As they mature, some wonder what purpose their art served.  A sort of urban legend springs up among them that there is a chance for clone couples "truly in love" to defer their (organ) "donations" (as they're euphemistically called) for a few years (and enjoy each other).

The clones believe the reason they are told to create is that such artworks allow their wardens to see into their souls -- and to judge whether they are truly in love, or just faking it to escape their unpleasant fates.

What one clone couple discovers, though, is that the art was not to "read" their souls, but to determine if they even had souls or personhood in the first place.  And that no "donation deferrals" were ever granted.

Why Does Making Art Make You Human?

The idea of art-making as proof of humanity is common enough.  But why is this?  I think here again of a point made in Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology."  As Daniel Pinchbeck puts it:

"Technology...is based on an ordering of reality that turns everything -- including people -- into a 'standing reserve,' a resource to be utilized for rationalized ends." (p. 105)

To be "standing reserves" (for fresh organs) is exactly the fate of the clones in the movie.  And this is due not only to (genetic) technology, but to a society so in love with its own rationalizations that it can deny personhood to a segment of its people.

Heidegger saw the arts as a sort of antidote to such tendencies.  He reasoned that paintings and poems valued things and people not only for their uses, but for themselves.   According to this logic, the ability to make things for their own sake, and that are relatively useless for practical ends, is a key trait that separates mere machines from intelligent beings.

This is why when people debate the possibility of AI, they sometimes present examples of computer art.  It may also have something to do with the fact that Hollo's own computer inspires a poem precisely when it breaks down -- and is good for nothing. 

 

The Opposite of Cute: "Mean" Animal Planet Videos

Still thinking of the trained Polar Bear who starred in the Leaf commercial featured in the previous post, I remembered a very different type of "Polar Bear video" that, in its own way, is probably just as popular.  You may recall this one:

As mentioned in the news report, the woman who jumped into the bear infested waters was probably looking for "Knut", who lives at the Berlin Zoo, and is known as "the world's most famous Polar Bear."

Knut's fame is the result of his being the first Polar Bear raised successfully in captivity.  His image, especially as a cub, captivated Germany.  He was the subject of pop songs, appeared on the cover of German Vanity Fair, and there were postage stamps featuring his picture.

Perhaps lulled by the illusion of all these warm and cuddly images, the woman in the video thought it would be safe to try meeting Knut in person.  She was said to be full of joy and laughter as she dove in to take her risky swim.

When Animals Stop Being Polite and Start Being Real

What struck me about this video was not so much its freaky as its stereotypical quality.  Over the past decade or so, a new genre has developed along side of the "domesticated wild" that we see in so much television and film.

You can summarize the tale this other genre tells in a single line: "I thought it was tame, but then it bit me."

This story, no matter how often it is retold, asserts a mesmerizing power.  Think of the air time devoted to the tiger attack on Roy (of Siegfried and Roy).  Or the almost ghoulish obsession people had with the story of the supposedly tame chimp that disfigured Charla Nash.  The genre has even produced its own masterpiece: Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man.
 
There is an entire TV series of documentaries recording this phenomenon: Untamed and Uncut: Animal Planet.  Among the videos on the website for the show right now, you'll find a person attacked by a leopard that was raised by humans; a snake handler bit by one of his cobras; and my personal favorite: "Kangaroo Goes Berserk", starring "Killer Willard", whose script begins like this:

“It’s shocking live TV – an out-of-control kangaroo turns on both of his handlers.  It’s an all-out attack by a powerful animal that can kill with one kick.”

Heidegger and the Kangaroo

Such videos offer a kind of "reality TV" contrast to the over-produced animal cuteness that's caught my attention for the last few posts.  Wondering about the appeal of these wilder versions of Nature, I thought again of Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology."

As I touched on in the last post, in this lecture the philosopher argues that our current use of technology encourages a hyper-utilitarian way of thinking.  It's as if all that matters is that which can be proven useful for some end other than itself.  This not only threatens Nature, but humanity: once people have "served their purpose" they tend to be ignored or eliminated. (And if marked as "undesirable" for the "uses" of a species, an infinitely worse fate awaits them -- as in the early Heidegger's Germany.)

Yet, rather than causing us concern, this state of affairs, according to Heidegger, results in a sort of pompous over-confidence.  As he puts it:

"Meanwhile, man, precisely as the one so threatened, exalts himself and postures as lord of the earth. In this way the illusion comes to prevail that everything man encounters exists only insofar as it is his construct.  This illusion in turn gives rise to one final delusion: it seems as though man everywhere and always encounters only himself." (p. 332)

I wonder if, on an aesthetic level alone, we simply get bored with what such an orientation produces.  If the way we represent Nature often merely reflects back our love for ourselves -- perhaps the monotony of our imagery becomes intolerable.

These animal attack videos at least beak the narcissistic mirror for a brief moment with the "shocking truth" that there is actually something Other than ourselves out there.  In keeping with this, perhaps Untamed and Uncut should revise its website tagline from "Surprisingly Human" to "Surprisingly Non-human." 

The attack videos might also be read as ecological parables.  In the form of the once-confident animal handlers, we see the image of people as "lords of the earth."  In the sudden, almost "out-of-the-blue" animal aggression, the earth answers back -- cutting its supposed "masters" down to size.  Nature almost seems to be saying: "take me for granted at your own peril."

In this light, as goofy and as exploitative as they are, perhaps these videos of "animal revolt" grip us as morality tales.  Translated into an absurd, populist argot, they're likely as close as we're going to get to creating our own version of Aesop's Fables.                

Is Cute the New Cool? Some Car Commercials from Kia

When it comes to cars, a non-driver like myself associates them with the power, speed and sleek design you see in ads -- and the hassles you don't.

That's why I found some TV spots currently running for the Kia Sorento and Soul intriguing.  These cars are portrayed, by contrast, as cute.

This isn't the first time cars have been marketed like this.  The Volkswagen Beetle had a cute look from the beginning of its life in the U.S.  It's been called the automotive version of a smiley face.

But these spots take cuteness one step further.  One is scored to what sounds like neo-soul; the other, hip-hop -- both signs of hipness.  The takeaway I get: not only are these cars cute, but they're cool because they're cute.

When you look into the marketing strategy for both, equating cute with cool makes total sense.  The Sorento ad (which I think ran first during the Superbowl) is designed for young parents.  According to Kia:

"Created by David & Goliath, 'Joyride Dream' speaks to young couples who are entering a new life stage and facing adult responsibilities while still desiring the style, freedom and fun they've always enjoyed."

The animals and toys that, in essence, do their partying for them, are the sorts of objects that signify their new lifestyle.  As new parents, these are the kinds of cute things that would be left in their back seats by their kids.

As the late Stephen Jay Gould suggested, cuteness awakens the innate response to nurture.  The spot is saying: your new, nurturing life can be just as fun as your old partying one, especially if you take the family around in a cute car like a Sorento.

The hamster ads, according to automotive reporter Jim Henry (writing about an earlier spot in the campaign) are designed to appeal to a younger crowd.  The "cool" hamsters in Kias are meant to "stand out" against unhip animals that (in this commercial) are riding in everything from washing machines to cardboard boxes.

From what I've read, smaller, cube-like cars are already considered hip, urban rides.  The cute hamsters add a light-hearted touch to Kia's version of this sort of vehicle: for me, they communicate that these are fun cars -- the perfect wheels to get the party started.

The Science of Cute

Noticing how these ads elicited an inner-smile from the inner-child I've been assured I have, I wondered about what made something cute in the first place.  It turns out there's a whole science of cuteness -- and that the topic has been a hot one for online critics for years.  Gould's observations are a touchpoint for them all.

Gould traced how the figure of Mickey Mouse had, over the years, been transformed -- from a wise guy  rodent with a long, sharp snout -- to a cuddly mouse with big ears, big hands, an oversized head -- and a button-like nose.  Gould said that as Mickey got older in historical years, in terms of what he stood for, he got younger.

What the artists at Disney discovered was something Zoologist Konrad Lorenz constructed a theory about: that the more you made an animal look like a human baby, the cuter it became. 

In this light, it's pretty clear why so many ads pursue cuteness.  As Gary Genosko at Invisible Culture put it, commerce "remakes" bodies in the interest of cuteness to give "everyone a chance to be a kind of nurturer through consumption."

The Triumph of Cuteness

Sentimentality, it's often said, is the other side of cynicism.  So, perhaps the flip side of our cool, ironic culture is unabashed cuteness.

But, speaking impressionistically, it appears to me that cute has been winning out lately.  It almost seems more modern, at least in terms of popular aesthetics, to be cute (in everything from indie music to digital products) than merely cool.

Why might this be?  One possible answer: the digital products that, along with cars, dominate commercial space, especially in their mobile incarnation, are smaller than old time media (TV, movie screens, etc.). And though they don't look like children, they are diminutive and toy-like.  Even grown ups devote a lot of their day to playing games on them.

To sell such experiences, popular culture increasingly encourages regression: it's as if consciousness is being remodeled like Mickey Mouse's image -- to get more childlike.  As one of AT&T's spots (while advertising its digital capabilities to stressed professionals) announces: "Welcome to your fifth birthday, again."

Of course, in the great recession people need to unwind.  But why, I wonder, is it now necessary to think like a little kid to do so?  Thoughts?                 

Human vs. Transhuman (or iPhone vs. Droid) -- Who Wins?

Lately, I've been amazed by the contrast between some recent TV spots for the iPhone and the Android. Check these out:

Directed by Sam Mendes, the "Face Time" commercial for iPhone 4 (selling its video chat feature) offers little surprise for me (except for the possible cameo by Matt Damon signing at the end).  It shows this device as enhancing relationships, between lovers, families, generations -- even between people who can't talk.

In typical Apple fashion, the spot is meant to make technology seem friendly.  Human.  And as familiar as our past.  It's even scored to a nostalgic tune Louis Armstrong  first recorded in the late 20s (don't know the date of the version in the spot).

Fittingly, I've read that this tune was a favorite in the Great Depression, as a sort of morale-boosting, cheer-up song.  (Though the wish-you-were-here look the woman at the end shares with the guy in the army pants also made me think of the WWII era).

The spots for the Droid phones are another story altogether.  The first, shot in a cold, grayish-blue light, reminds me as much of a science fiction dystopia as it does an office setting.  Rather than promising to warm your heart, this phone makes you "an instrument of efficiency" -- perhaps like a BMW.  The second Droid spot reminds me of that scene in Alien, where the creature first attacks and invades a crew member's body. 

And the Droid machine assumes control over the humans (rather than vice versa), transforming them into parts of itself.  When the Borg did something similar in Star Trek, it was supposed to be frightening. Here it's celebrated.

Yet, alienating or not, these spots certainly haven't hurt sales.  During the first and second quarter of 2010, the Droid sold more smart phones than Apple.  Though many chalk up the phone's ascendance to the fact that the iPhone is saddled with AT&T as its carrier, it would appear, for now at least, that resistance to the Droid is futile.

Cyborgs vs. Regular Folks

What's interesting from a cultural aspect about these commercials is that they seem inspired by two views about our relation to technology.  Apple is a great example of technological humanism -- the machine as a cuddly friend, that enhances the joy of warm feelings.

Droid, on the other hand, celebrates its otherness.  It is we who adapt to, and are are transformed by, its power.  This view is often characterized by the term "transhumanism."  Here his how Daniel Pinchbeck, one of the trend's critics, describes it:

"The transhumanists believe our biological limits should be overcome through mechanical means. We are too dense, too cumbersome in our inherited meatsuits, trapped in what John Smart calls 'slowspace.' Immersed in virtual realities or fused with artificial intelligence agents -- or some other technological genie -- we will attain a speedier, snazzier state of being." (p. 104)

Are We All Cyborgs Now?

But what sorts of benefits might be hoped for by those who are bullish on the mating of person with machine?  Way back in the early 90s, Donna Haraway wrote in her prophetic "Cyborg Manifesto" that we were all already "fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short we are cyborgs."

Such a new state of being, brought on by our increasingly deeper relationship with technology, she theorized, could make us at home with "permanently partial identities and contradictory standpoints."  "For us," she wrote, "machines can be prosthetic devices, intimate components, friendly selves." 

This brings to mind transformations in everyday speech I've witnessed.  It used to be when you said someone "was nothing but a robot", you meant the person was unimaginative, stiff and conformist.

Now when you say, perhaps in a work context, "the guy's a machine", it's high praise.  It's a way of indicating speed, productivity, determination -- and grace under pressure.

All of which reminds me of a story the poet Elaine Equi told me about shopping for vitamins in a health food store at the very beginning of the 90s.  Suddenly it seemed nearly all the supplements had become "super" or "mega" formulas with dosages many times over the minimum daily requirement.  "Who would want these?" she asked.

"Oh," a salesperson replied, "those are vitamins for the 90s.  You're going to need them." 

From steroids in sports to plastic surgery in movie stars, a constant source of debate and scandal has been the obsession with self-enhancement to achieve that competitive edge.  In this light, even the most extreme technophilia is no mystery.  Machines and other add-ons are loved for the extra power they promise.

So maybe the Droid spots reinforce something many already feel.  That today, it may not be enough to be just human anymore.