The Postmodern malleability of the body and the identity

“When one proceeds to the core of the human, 
both the animal and the machine emerge into the discussion”

(MAZIS, “Approaching Humans, Animals, Machines”, 2008:6)

In Postmodernism, the body is easily transformed. One can change gender through crossdressing or surgery, race through changing skin tone and using colored lenses, and appearance and shape through liposuction, plastic surgery, prosthetics…This malleability is in contrast to the image of the body in modernity, in which the body was perceived to be boundaried, stable, and fixed. Therefore, the postmodern concepts include the integration of technologies into bodies, the creation of Cyborg bodies, the metaphors of fragmentation and malleability, and the idea of the body as a genetic map of DNA. All of these concepts have consequences for the relationship between the body and the identity. Through several examples, I will explain how these concepts are used for artistic, scientific and humanitarian purposes. 

In “Humans, Animals and Machines”, Mazis points out that a “Cyborg being -our sense of incorporating tools, and becoming interwoven with machines within us, about us, and within the messes of how we have organized the world -has always existed- it is just becoming more literal and extravagant”. 

The fluid postmodern body and identity is explored by the French artist Orlan. Her work is a series of cosmetic surgeries made to her own body and performed with plastic surgeons in art galleries. In them, aspects of the face were combined with facial features taken from popular paintings in order to create a kind if hybrid anti-model that breaks the ideals and norms such as beauty and natural.

On the other hand, morphing digital techniques are used to make statements about universal humanity and the mixing of races. For example, the cover of TIME from 1993 shows a computer-generated composition of racial types, which is 15% Anglo-Saxon, 17.5% Middle/Eastern, 17.5% African, 7.5% Asian, 35% Southern European, 7.5% Hispanic. TIME’s composition embraces a multicultural future society, but also one that is idealized in a version of young woman beauty. As, Evelynn M. Hammonds argues “New race technologies” reinforce old centuries stereotypes of racial difference.  Indeed, “The New Face of America” cover story enacts both a fear of racial mixing and a fantastic construction of a generic woman of color.

Nancy Burson goes beyond the use of morphing with artistic purposes. She developed computer sofware to make portrait images of how individuals will look like years after the photos were taken. This technique is still used for locating missing persons and for criminal identification. Also, Burson’s “HumanRace Machine” project (2000) allowed participants to visualize themselves in different races, move beyond the difference and arrive at “sameness”.

To sum up, with these examples one can see that the concepts that feature the postmodern body and identity, such as Cyborg, have guided not only inventions and experiments of artists, but also scientific and humanitarian purposes that make connections between humans. 

REFERENCES:

Evelynn M. Hammonds, "New technologies of Race", in Processed Lives: Gender and Technology in Everyday Life (1997), ed. Jennifer Terry and melodie Calvert, New York: Routledge, pp 113-20 

Time, "The New Face of America", 2 (Fall 1993)

Jessica Walker, "Only Screen Deep: Racial Morphing". Web (20/05/13): http://www.jessicawalker.net/screendeep.htm

Marita Sturken/ Lisa Cartwright, Practices of Looking. An introduction to Visual Culture (2009), ed. OXFORD University Press, Second Edition, New York, pp 326-81

Glen A. Mazis ‘Approaching Humans, Animals and Machines', in: Humans, Animals, Machines: Blurring Boundaries (2008), Albany: State University of New York Press, pp 1-19 

Foursquare: the city by and for the citizens

“You have to allow yourself to be developed by the developments”.  This sentence from Arjen Mulder preludes the movement from the “Post-position” (or post-modern attitude of seeing the changes from outside) to a “Trans-attitude”. So, what is Transurbanism? How can we define a Digital City? With the example of Foursquare, I will explain how Digital Cities engage citizens in building new experiences, meanings and images of the city. These new cities are made by and for the citizens.

According to Mulder, “What was once a place, the city, has now become a brand, a logo, a townscape which itself consists of clusters of brands and logos (…) The city is a collection of activities instead of a material structure”. Indeed, Foursquare strengthens the capitalist system watching the city as a product and the user as a productive consumer. So, how can we seen it as a tool for citizens’ appropriation?

In my case, when I open Foursquare, what I see is Nijmegen, the place where I am, and its main districts and streets. I can also see marks for the thirty more popular places. However, I can choose to see a completely different Nijmegen, a city covered with food establishments, night life, art or shops, or a Nijmegen full of friends conversing and meeting. But, what is more important, I can build my own Nijmegen tagging my location, documenting my places, adding my photos and leaving my experiences.

The Digital City is then built egocentrically around the citizen. It is conceived as a “micro-space” instead of a big unknown map of monuments and districts. Map-makers and urban designers have been key actors in the building of empires, economies and identities. They have determined how people move and via which routes. But with mobile mapping these hierarchies that have built the city are dissipating and are being replaced by the desire of  “amateurs mappers” to have deeper conversations about what spaces mean to them. Indeed, multiple users work together on the same map presenting diverse narratives around particular locations. They share tips and report complaints and recommendations. 

Therefore, the main point of Foursquare is not that it helps us exploring and discovering the city suggesting things to do, places to eat or what to see, but rather it has a decisive role to play in motivating and empowering citizens. Consequently, Foursquare contributes to the shift from representative cartography to performative cartography blurring the line between mapping practices and lived experiences. With Foursquare, the city is not a product anymore, but a landscape where experiences are written. This is the Transurbanism mentioned by Mulder: “A design process in which the highly informed character is used as a design resource by that environment itself”.

To sum up, the virtual world replaces the physical world allowing us to live in the Jameson's term “hyperrealities”, such as Foursquare, where we can participate through leaving our virtually marks, creating new understandings and images, seeking out new lines and possibilities and interrogating the fixed structures and hierarchies that have built the city. With Foursquare, users look around with another vision and they behave in a different way feeling more engaged with the environment, with their friends and with the whole community of Foursquare. They map out a different city and meanwhile they change themselves.

 REFERENCES:

• De Certeau, M. The Practice of Everyday Life. Chapter VII: Walking in the City (1984) University of California Press, Berkeley.

• Harvey, D. THE RIGHT TO THE CITY (Sep-Oct 2008) New Left Review 53. Web 19/05/13 (http://newleftreview.org/II/53/david-harvey-the-right-to-the-city)

• Wilmott, C. Cartographic city: mobile mapping as a contemporary urban practice (28 Dec 2012) A Journal of Entertainment Media (ISSN:1447-4905). Web 19/05/13  (http://refractory.unimelb.edu.au/2012/12/28/wilmott/)

• IBM Corporation. Smarter cities (2012) United Kingdom. Web 19/05/13 (http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/global/files/uk__uk_en__none__file1__488kb.pdf)

•  Sassen, S. “Reading the City in a Global Age”, in: Scott McQuire, Meredith Martin & Sabine Niederer (eds.) Urban Screens Reader (2009) Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, pp. 29-44.

•  Mulder, A. “TransUrbanism”, in: Joke Brouwer, Arjen Mulder & Laura Martz (eds.) TransUrbanism (2002) Rotterdam: V2_Publishing / NAi Publishers, pp.5-13. Web 19/05/13  (http://v2.nl/archive/articles/intro-transurbanism)

Transmedia Storytelling: intelligent narratives or intelligent marketing? The case of LOST.

Henri Jenkins defends the emergence of a new kind of narrative (the transmedia storytelling) and the subsequent new experiences in the era of the convergence culture and the collective intelligence. The author explains the creation of complex fictional worlds, which can sustain multiple interrelated characters and their stories, and these worlds do not fix in a unique medium. He defends also the creation of the “synergy” narrations in which every term makes a needed contribution to the whole. This method introduces an active audience that must establish links among the fragments, travel in the diverse media and collaborate with their speculations to achieve the understanding of the story.

Infographic of LOST characters created by Martin Krzywinski

But, as Jason Mittell points out, the 90s phenomena of Narrative Complexity relishes in the pleasures of being manipulated successfully: “While fan cultures have long demonstrated intense engagement in storyworlds, policing backstory consistency, character unity, and internal logic, programs focus this detailed dissection onto complex questions of plot and events” (Mittell, 2006:38). Why does it happen?

To some critics as Henrik Örnebring, the transmedia storytelling is more about an “intelligent marketing” than an “intelligent storytelling”. Jenkins himself asserts that a media conglomerate has the aim to spread its brand across as many different media platforms as possible. In the same lines, for expanding the franchise around the world, the introduction of universal values or multicultural references turns out to be essential, as we can see with the stained glass in the last chapter of LOST.

Örnebring argues that transmedia storytelling is more hierarchical than the horizontal model described by Jenkins. It almost always involves an identifiable central text and a series of satellite texts that provide marketing for it. Indeed, TV shows are often the dominant text, not just because they can earn more money than other media, but also because they involve the longest commitment for the consumer (more than comics, blogs, videogames…). 

LOST is a clear example of expanding a world through several media and encouraging the productions of consumers. It is the case of transmedia storytelling, but also of intelligent marketing. Damon Lindelof and Carleton Cuse, the producers of LOST, decided to offer fans more insights into Lost’s mythology through alternate reality games (The Lost Experience and Find 815), mobisodes, novels, and a videogame. Some of the mysteries of LOST were revealed through the alternate reality games as the meaning of DHARMA, and through some inspirations from fans (watch this found coincidence between The Simpsons and LOST!). However, when the TV series (the central text) ended millions of fans were disappointed because a huge amount of expected answers were not solved. Indeed, a limit must exist in which it would be impossible to continue the franchise, add secondary texts or characters, and understand completely the references and meanings. Where this limit stands should be explored more carefully in the future. 

To sum up, transmedia storytelling is more hierarchical than Jenkins suggests, but also it much more than pure marketing. In Mittell´s words, “LOST is unclassifiable as science fiction, paranormal mystery, or religious allegory, all constructed by an elaborated narrational structure far more complex than anything seen before in America TV” (Mittell, 2006:39). Therefore, we must recognize in LOST (as in Matrix, Star trek and Harry Potter) the attempt not only for expanding a brand in multiple media and in the mouth of everyone, but also the creative success of these challenging narratives, as well as the effort for engaging consumers in the production of information, interpretation and discussions.

So, if you still are looking for the answers of LOST, maybe the next video contains all of them.

 

And, remember that the journey of exploring the narratives and bonding with social communities is always more rewarding than the end.


REFERENCES

 Mittell, Jason. “Narrative Complexity in Contemporary American Television”, in: The Velvet Light Trap 8 (Fall 2006), pp. 29-40.

 Jenkins, Henry.  “Transmedia Storytelling 101”, in: Confessions of an Aca-Fan: The Offical Weblog of Henry Jenkins, March 22, 2007.

Örnebring, Henrik. “Alternate reality gaming and convergence culture: The case of

Alias.” International Journal of Cultural Studies. 10.4 (2007): 445-462.

Smith, Aaron. “Transmedia Storytelling in Television 2.0. A discussable version of Aaron Smith’s thesis for Middlebury College”, Spring 2009