Good Taste

To the question does Hebdidge make a distinction between 'high' and 'popular' culture the answer seems to be 'No'. Having read the article three times I could find no direct evidence of what Hebdidge sees as the difference, assuming that there is one. He does suggest that in World Two the danger is that the "lines that hold these terms apart" will waver and collapse and that the structure is nothing but a house made of cards. Having said this, apart from his desire to keep reminding himself that "this earth is round not flat, that there will never be an end to judgement" I remain unsure what he believes about anything.

For example in seeking to address the second point in the Course material I remain unsure that he is really against the philosophy of "the People of the Post." I assume that he is because he wants to constantly remind himself that the world is round and thus rejects the people of the post standpoint. However I am left wondering why he feels the need to remind himself if he is so sure that the people of the post are wrong. Does this not suggest that at a minimum there is a possibility that the people of the post have got it right and that his rejection is more a gut feeling that he would not want to live in such a  flat world than a rational assessment of the arguments offered? His tone of despair in the short paragraph "To stare into the blank, flat Face is to look into a world where your actual presence is unnecessary, where nothing adds up to much anything any more, where you live to be alive..." suggests only that he has looked and rejected it as being too scary.

However he does argue that the people of the post have set out  to undermine the differences that are said to exist between good/bad, legitimate/illegitimate and style/substance. He sees this attack as a project of the Post: to replace representation by an anti-system. For Hebdidge the consequences of this assault on representation are first that the world outside the text ( he assumes that such a world exists) disappears followed by the signified leaving us in a world of empty signifiers. His doom laden prophecy is,to use his own words, "No meaning. No classes. No history. Just a ceaseless procession of simulacra."

Popular culture is everything that is left after we have decided what is high culture. At the extremes say such things as TV reality shows, soaps and other activities that are designed to attract the largest audiences by finding the lowest common denominator and at the other end the appearance of Placido Domingo at Covent Garden it is easy to distinguish between the two. However as we move further up or down the scale it is much more difficult until there seems to be a boundary across which some activities move from 'low' to 'high (e.g Shakespeare plays were originally seen as low culture but are now seen as being high) and vice versa. It is probably fair to say that if an activity is adopted by the mass media appearing on Sky or BBC1 then it will be seen as being part of the popular culture whilst if it is only shown and talked about on the minority art channels then it will acquire high status.

High culture has its high priest(ess) in Opera particularly the government subsidised opera as performed at Covent Garden. It could be accused of elitism that is ensured by the high ticket prices that are charged excluding many who might wish to attend. I am reminded of the BBC programme 'Yes Minister' where the possibility of reducing the government subsidy shocks the permanent secretary Sir Humphrey who rallies the Civil Service to ensure that the subsidy remains. Needless to say he was a regular attender. The reality is equally bizarre when £50m of Lottery Money was used to re-furbish the Opera House despite it offering 'culture' to a very small percentage of the population. High culture is defined by those who have the financial means and the leisure time to attend and use their contacts to ensure that they are part of the favoured view. Ballet has a similar relationship again with the masses.

Subsidised art galleries and museums are provided for the education of the masses who it is felt should be exposed to high culture so that in some strange way they will come to appreciate its superiority over the popular culture by which they are surrounded. Of course what happens is the general population react adversely to being treated as lesser beings by those who claim to be their superiors and reject the effort seeing it as patronising and boring. In many ways it is counter productive even if there is any validity in the argument that some artistic activities are superior to others.

It seems that the best way to decide what is 'high culture' is to look to those artistic activities that receive government subsidies (sourced from general taxation) in order to survive and where such subsidies are justified by people who could well afford the price of attending.

I am not sure that the developments in the media, the arts and culture really have a major influence on whether the First or Second world is in the ascendant. Not least you have to accept that the concept of 'round' and 'flat' has any validity. We are asked by Hebidge to imagine two worlds that are at war. He describes the main constituent element of each of these worlds as he sees them. They are constructed by him presumably for the sake of the argument he wishes to offer. Whether deliberately or otherwise he chooses the terms 'round' and 'flat' that  already suggests to the reader that the second world is in some way the province of those people that fear that if they walk far enough they will fall of the edge of the world and are generally seen at the best as slightly bonkers and at worst stark staring mad. It is not a world occupied by 'normal' people. We are led to believe World Two is inferior before he has presented any real argument to show that it is.

He makes clear that his desire is to keep the faith that the world in which he lives is 'round' and presumably better. How he knows that this is the case is not made clear and it could be said that the world he thinks he lives in is an illusion created by him so that he feels comfortable in his skin.

There is no inherent element in his argument that means that World Two is inevitably 'flat'. Indeed I would argue that it is as round as World One or as flat as World One. Rejection of a something called 'reality'  that is supposedly out there does not necessarily imply the type of world described by Hebidge. To argue that there is no 'reality' other than that created by the individual mind is merely pointing out that we all see the world in a different way. For example if I use the word 'tree' (signifier) in conversation without selecting a specific tree then those around me will have a different image of 'tree' (signified) based on their experience. Some may coincide but we cannot know that and indeed it is possible that the image held by one person resembles no tree known to the others (for a slightly ridiculous example think 'shoe tree!). If I point to an object and say 'tree' (assume that it is something that can be included in the classification 'tree' there remains the fact that all of the audience will see something different albeit only slightly. Some will see the whole of the tree whilst others will concentrate on the specific. The effects of nature and nurture will impact on their interpretation of what they are seeing. In short everyone (or almost everyone) will have created a different 'tree'. What is seen as 'reality' is different for us all so it can be argued that there is no reality only illusion. For me the world still remains round and full of exciting possibilities even if I accept that I construct my own world .

Popular culture is largely associated with the commercial market whether it be in fashion items such as the latest jeans from Levi's (that probably shows my age as they may no longer be the fashion item that the youth of today aspires too) and the latest handbags, television in all its forms but particularly the output that is targeted at the largest audience possible, activities such as the various music festivals held in the open air and apparently made special by the amount of mud and possibly the willingness of a broad range of the population to join together in protest. Although the latter may seem to be non-commercial the stories that it offers to the news media and how it is reported is driven by commercial imperatives that in the case of newspapers is to increase the readership so that advertisers will (have to ) pay more that in turn will feed back into the commercial world of selling. Popular culture is forever evolving with what is fashionable today becoming 'old hat' tomorrow. Indeed to be recognised as the latest thing is to condemn that particular activity to being no longer desirable.

High culture is more resilient to change in part because its disciples are a relatively small group who have a vested interest (their need to belong to an 'elite' group) in maintaining the status quo. Opera; Classical Music as offered by the world's leading orchestras in purpose built concert halls; Art as displayed in Art Galleries and/or highly priced art sales points; Drama by the recognised (now, although possibly not when they were alive) dramatists such as Shakespeare, Chekov and Ibsen;  and Ballet as offered by National Ballet Companies such as Sadler Wells. Cynically one could suggest that reference to the amount of taxpayers money they receive is a clue to whether something is seen as high culture.

Largely due to the financial problems that such organisations face they are forced to, at least, acknowledge the existence of a 'popular' audience and so make efforts to find a niche in popular culture through such things as orchestral renditions of popular music. Attempts are made to engage schoolchildren in high culture through special events that rely upon the use of high culture such as music having been used in such things as adverts that children can recognise and see as part of their world. There will always be attempts, both well meaning and simply commercial, to move down market to reach a larger audience but one has to accept that this is seen as a means for ensuring the continuing existence of something that is definitely not 'pop'.

On the opposite side I once owned a CD that consisted of recordings of classical music that had been used as the background music to commercials. The cover claimed that such use had made them 'popular' and well known. Yet, presumably, they had been used as backing for commercials because they were popular and well known by a larger audience.

The Course material says 'We need to ask "Who is to decide what is good taste in the first place"' I am left wondering why. History suggests that what is todays popular culture may one day become high culture and the reverse can also be true. It is not a fixed entity and at the margins is highly fluid. The deciders during a time of limited mass communication are entirely different from those in a world where mass communication dominates our lives in a very real way. We do not need to decide. I personally think that Damien Hirst's work is an abomination but I accept that there are others who think the opposite. Should I care - only if they are using my money to buy his works. The world, whether 'round' or 'flat' is big enough for us all to live in relative harmony irrespective of our views of what constitutes good or bad taste even if those terms do not actually have any meaning.

Separation Perfected

I first came across the term 'weltanschauung' whilst studying human activity systems. There is no satisfactory translation into english although 'world view' is commonly used. However it is much more than this as it relates to a concept that is difficult to describe in simple terms. In my studies it was applied to the underlying reason(s) why a particular human activity system behaved as it did rather than its overtly stated purpose. It was an attempt to draw together a series of interlinked philosophies that together explained the actual behaviour usually of a company or an organisation. For example most Chief Constables of Police would argue that their Force is their to protect the public. However if one examines their behaviour in depth their 'weltanschauung' could be argued to be that they sees themselves under siege from a hostile and wrong-minded public that can only be controlled by greater and greater restraint and violent methods and that only they know what is 'good' for society.

Debord seems to use the term spectacle to suggest that we live an illusion that is sustained by the output of the mass media and other communication systems that are controlled by 'others'. One is left wondering if the 'others' are also part of the illusion and that there is no 'reality' that is hidden from us and that all is illusion or spectacle. It is impossible to argue successfully against such a view of the world because the easy response is that the opponent to this view is already subject to the spectacle. Like all such arguments  you either accept or reject it as being correct. There are no arguments that can be offered that support or deny the statement.

I am not sure why we need to be told that the work was first published in French in trying to assess whether the passage of time has confirmed or contradicted Debord's view. Does it matter what language it was written in to reach such a decision? There is no way of answering the question in any meaningful way because again you can either accept or reject the basic premis. If you accept then the spectacle exists throughout time because we have no way of breaking from the illusory world we occupy. If you reject then the question has no meaning.

Presumably Debord would argue that our view of the world is controlled and that we can only see the world in the way that is allowed to us by whoever is doing the controlling. We cannot conceive of the idea that what we are seeing is in some way propaganda because there is no such thing in a controlled world. Reality is what we are told it is and nothing else exists.

I can't make sense of the final question. I think I understand the term 'reification' in that it is viewing something that is abstract as in some sense being 'real' i.e. it in some way exists in a 'concrete' form. I am not sure how 'extreme reification' differs. Are there various levels of reification? I find myself at a loss for words.

Situationist International

I am always struck by the tendency of revolutionaries whether from the left or the right to write their theses in almost unintelligible language. Reading the material produced by the Situationist International is like entering a world where the inhabitants use the same words in the structure of their language as I do but ascribe different meanings through uncommon use or combination. In itself this cannot be said to be wrong as providing there is a consistency of use then meaning can be established in the same way as in any language. It just makes a real understanding of what is being said very difficult if not impossible because you can never be certain that you have managed to find the underlying meaning in the discourse you have just read.

Of course such a criticism can be made against the jargon filled world of most 'specialisms' that are part of our everyday life. It is as though there is a need for the 'in-group' to create a language structure that makes life difficult for new entrants. It is also a very good way to quickly identify the non-group member and thus strengthen the feeling of belonging that is so necessary to ensure cohesion of the group through time. The history of Situationist International is marked by the exclusion of groups who attempted to introduce a different 'language' (explanation or ideology) that in some way challenged the purity of the original thinking even where it would seem to have been a legitimate development. It would seem that the desire to remain true to its beginnings reduced the number of members to the point where it was no longer viable as a group.

The group was the result of the joining of two artistic groups that later became dominated by a group of political theorists and agitators. The artistic group, that had about 6 members, broke away from this politically minded faction and were subsequently excluded. They set up a second Situationist International working with a group (Gruppe Spur) who had also been excluded and were now an independent group and their artistic work is known through their graffiti in Copenhagen and the decapitation of the Little Mermaid statue.

Given that there seems to have been only one or two original members left at the final demise it is difficult to discover what the underlying philosophical force was that drove the group. Guy Debord the author of "The Society of the Spectacle" (which is the subject of the next 'in your blog') published the book in 1967 in the same year that one of his fellow members, Raoul Vaneigem, published "The Revolution of Everyday Life". This book was written to present the SI's theories to a wider audience and   from the few extracts that I have read is easier to read. The different approaches of the two books (Debord the clinical theorist; Vaneigem describing the feelings) is said to have provided those involved in the uprising of 1968 in Paris with both a theoretical base and an understanding of the frustrations they felt at the society they of which they were part but felt alienated from.

We are asked to consider the  possible impact the approach to art of the Situationist International had or has had on  art generally. The Situationist International used the term 'Detournement' (usually translated as 'diversion' in English) to distinguish their form of art although they denied that there was such a thing stating that "there is no Situationist art, only Situationist uses of art." It is always difficult, if not impossible, to judge the impact any one movement has upon anything else although it is probably a reasonable conclusion that such use of art would make others think about the use that art is put to in our society.

Visual Culture - Barbarous taste

We are asked to consider the statement by Bourdieu that "in conferring upon photography a guarantee of realism, society is merely confirming itself in the tautological certainty that an image of the real which is true to its representation of objectivity is really objective".  We have to presume that the translation is an objective rendition of the original and not, as one would suspect given the clumsiness of the statement, a best guess.

A tautology generally refers to a statement where the words repeat elements of the meaning already given. Often used in a pejorative sense to describe statements that are said to be true simply because the same statement is repeated twice in the argument. However the fact that someone uses a tautological argument does not make that argument false - it could equally be true there is just no way of deciding from the statement itself. There is a further use of the term in logic where a statement is always true when it takes the value true for all combinations of values of its components. I presume that Bourdieu was using it in the first way in the above statement based solely on the context.

The more that I read this statement the less sure that it has any meaning at all. It seems to say something profound but on closer examination this is not the case.  It is difficult to agree or disagree with the statement because it has no meaning. Bourdieu offers no reasoning for his statement nor what he means by 'society' and on what basis he ascribes such beliefs to that 'society'. More importantly he appears to assume that there is a 'real' that is capable of being photographed and perhaps this is the fatal flaw in what he says. There is no 'real' that would be universally accepted even if it exists because we interpret the information being provided to our senses in a unique way. The way that I see a scene is different from how my companion sees that scene although we may use the same or similar words such as 'building' or 'tree' in our discussion of what is before us. What we cannot discuss is the subtleties of colour and light that reflect from the objects.

The more specific we become the less likely that we will agree even assuming the scene remains unchanged throughout our discussion. If we are looking at the Sacre Coeur in Paris it is highly probable, given its size, that we will view it a bit at a time and create within our mind a whole picture. What we notice and see as important to the whole picture and therefore retain will depend very much on our individuality and pre-conditioning. If we have previously been told of the many vendors that offer their wares we are more inclined to see and include them. Whereas our partner who has been told of the figures that surround the structure or the difficulties of creating the overall shape will pay particular attention to those elements. Both views may be 'true' to that individual but are they true to some objective reality that exists separate from or senses?  I would suggest that there is no objective 'real' out there and that what we 'see' only exists in our minds.

If this is the case then how can a mechanical object such as camera capture an image? In one sense it does not capture an image what it captures is varying amounts of light and stores them on some medium such as film or a digital sensor. Even this capture is proscribed by the designers of the camera and the capturing medium. There are severe limitations imposed by the technical constraints of the materials available and so the engineers have to settle on a compromise that they hope will produce an image that is acceptable to a large number of people. The compromises continue when the captured light levels are transferred from the storage medium onto a system that is viewable by a human being. Again best guesses are made and although modern technology offers a wider range of choices than say glass plate negatives there are still limitations.

Once a viewable image is created then we return to the same situation that existed between the real time viewer and the object that he/she was looking at. We interpret what we see. A photograph is no more than coloured or monochrome dots on a piece of paper or a computer screen. It is incapable of conveying meaning. What we 'see' is once again an individual reaction and interpretation. We are not seeing something that is objectively 'real' and indeed I would argue that there is no such 'real' object.

The early belief that photography in some way was 'real' was because of its relatively instant capture of a moment in time, the lack of any noticeable interpretation by an artist and the seeming consistency between photographs of the same object at different times. Our greater awareness of the limitations of photography and the more overt interpretation of any scene both within the camera and any subsequent creation of a viewable image now means that the most common reaction is to assume that in some way the image is 'false'. Of course if there is no reality then there can be no falsity.

Visual studies 1 - Tutors Response to Assignment 1

Received my tutors response to my submission on assignment 1. Generally positive but faced the usual problem of the difference between the brief and the tutor's view of what is 'implicit'. Hopefully it will not prove a major problem in the future.

Found the annotation of my submission a positive help as it was easy to link the tutor's remarks/comments to the actual passage.

Beginning work on 2nd module.