Interfaces, Medien, Bildung: container (Meyer)
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page 83: container
3.1.1: "Columbus discovers Spain" or maybe: whose swimming pool is this actually about?[2]
Let's imagine the world were blue (085 Container: Blue). Everything, absolutely everything in the wold were blue (085 Container: Blue). Let's say Ives-Klein-Blue.
Unexpected possibilities would arise for video-artists experimenting with blue-screens.
By means of this thought-experiment [3], the meaning of the word medium can be clarified: If everything
were blue (085 Container: Blue), the colour blue (085 Container: Blue)wouldn't be important anymore. The abstract idea of colour would belong
to the field of transcendence, because it immanently wouldn't make any sense at all. We wouldn't know
at all what blue (085 Container: Blue) means. If we were to live in a big cave (099 Caves), tied to poles and could only see the shadows of
things, which some random sophists carried in front of torch-lights behind our backs, we wouldn't know
anything about the sun; we wouldn’t know anything about these things, and most of all: We wouldn't know
what a cave is. The same is true for the colour blue (085 Container: Blue). And it applies to the medium if we look at it as a
Behälter* (container) of possibilities. If everything were blue (085 Container: Blue), it wouldn't be useful at all to know what blue (085 Container: Blue)is or what colour is, because this knowledge is useless for distinction. There would be no useful distinction for the nature of colour. The knowledge on the medium - the colour, the cave - would only increase its complexity - instead of decreasing it.
Educators have made this experience - at least since Plato. But actually it existed since Genesis. The knowledge
about good and evil [4] - i.e. the power of distinction - was bought in exchange for getting kicked out of paradise
and meant a massive increase in complexity.
page 85: blue
The sky has always been blue to Truman Burbank (The Truman Show). There was always a friendly sun shining from a Florida-blue sky for the little town of Seahaven. Until the day that Sirius fell from the sky in front of Truman Burbank's house. (Sirius is the brightest star in the sky and belongs to one of the closest stars to earth being only 8.7 light years away.) But Burbank is not just any name. It's the name of a northern suburb of LA, known as a location for film and TV production. Therefore, Truman is also not a “true man”. And therefore, Sirius above Seahaven is not a star either. Truman Burbank learned that the fallen object from the sky was supposed to be a star because of a sticker attached to the theatre-beamer that read: “Sirius (9canis major)”. Truman knew nothing of this difference until Sirius fell from the sky and crashed in front of his house. That's when he began to ponder.
3.1.2: Truman Show, Screenshot. (Anthropos means “the one looking up”. Tru(e)man Burbank looking doubtful into the blue sky of Florida that has just lost a star.)
The plot of the Truman Show can be summarized in 5 short words: “Guy lives live on TV.”[1] Truman has been adopted by a film production company already as an Embryo. His birth - live on TV - started the biggest and most successful soap-opera in history. An artificial island - Seahaven - was built as a gigantic film studio with artificial climate, sun and weather. “The only building that can be see from outer space next to the Chinese wall”. Thousands of hidden cameras broadcast the life of the innocent star whose parents, friends and fellow citizens all function as actors 24 hours per day. The show is being produced, controlled and dramatically set up by Christof, whose character varies between father, creator and media producer. The movie starts with the technical mishap of the fallen beamer. The “story” describes the self-enlightenment of Truman and amounts in a heartbreaking scene of his attempt to free himself, which consequently stands for the end of the Truman Show: Truman finds the exit out of his prison and denounces his super-father (Übervater*) Christof. Sapere aude! That is the message. One could assume....
page 86: blue - enlightenment
3.1.3: Start-icon of Netscape Navigator. --Marta litke 17:18, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
One can look at the Truman Show as a socio-critical examination of "media society" or as a more or less entertaining persiflage on the filmmaking industry which renders the pink and happy Hollywood productions ridiculous and flat. One could also look at it from a European culturally pessimistic narrow-minded perspective and criticize the characterization of the unexplored deeeply emotional father-son relationship [1], which supposedly could have been more elaborated etc. ...but that's not what this is about. The term medium is being used in a broader sense here. Of course it might be about media in the sense of machines but it's also the artificial world Truman lives in that is a medium. To him it's obviously a Behälter* (container) of possibilities. This becomes even clearer in the final sequence when Truman has basically seen through the game: He takes off in a boat - maybe not just coincidentally named "Santa Maria" (Columbus, Virgin Mother).
3.1.4: Truman Burbank has a firm grip on the steering wheel after the storm. See also the imagery being used to embody the newness of the "New Media" (3.1.3). The Truman Show might suggest that there are totally arbitrary hopes being raised here.
Seemingly having overcome all obstacles (like the thunder storm Christof had created as his last attempt to warn him), he now is in power as navigator of his own destiny, of his self. The exit of the subject out of his immaturity seems to be a success: congratulations on graduating!
3.1.5: Perforation of the medium at the beginning of modern times.
page 87: blue - walls
3.1.6: Truman Show, the jib boom of the Santa Maria is just about to hit the border of the medium.
Trumans emancipatory sailing trip comes to a stop: it's not that easy. The borders of the medium are real. The jib boom of the boat bangs against the blue 085 Container: Blue sky. To be more precise, it pierces the sky near the horizon, in a way perforating the medium. Of course that had to happen. The viewer knew that Truman's world was really only some kind of TV studio that naturally must have walls... somewhere. But it would be an interesting idea to think that Mark Tansey's "Triumph over Mastery" influenced the following still: After colliding with the wall, Truman Burbank looks at the wall in disbelief: the end of the world! He runs to the bow of the boat, pauses for a moment in astonishment, then reaches out - slowly and very carefully - for the border.
3.1.7: Truman Show: Blue
The detail of the camera shots reveal the quality of the production: In this scene one can only see the gradual approximation of the hand and its shadow in front of a blue 085 Container: Blue background that's otherwise without any dimensions. This touch, the hand reaching out for its shadow reminds of the oft-quoted detail in Michelangelo's fresco in the Sistine Chapel. It symbolizes a similar experience of a border. A shadow can only be visible against the backdrop of something.
"Haah?! ...Aaah", Truman exclaims in the moment of touching. It is almost like the releasing moan after an orgasm. Pazzini[1] writes: "Immediacy only exists in orgasm and death". Then the music begins. --Marta litke 20:07, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
3.1.8: Mark Tansey: "Triumph over Mastery"
3.1.9: Michelangelo: "The Creation of Adam"
page 89: black
"Many astronomical problems can be explored during the eclipse of the sun.This includes the size and the consistence of the corona of the sun and the diffraction of light waves that come close to the sun thanks to its gravitation (see relativity). Due to the high luminosity of the solar disc and the elucidation of the earth's atmosphere caused by the sun it is only possible to study the corona during a solar eclipse".[1]
In the summer of 1999 the media seemed to be occupied with mainly one massive spectacle which in Germany was called "SoFi99" (SOnnenFInsternis*): a total solar eclipse would cover Europe on August 11th 1999. This "cosmic event of the century" didn't only concern mystics and astrologists but most of all TV producers and entrepreneurs in the field of tourism. Live-broadcasting was mandatory on all channels. The ZDF - one of Germany's state-owned public channels - dedicated a whole day to this. Several days and even weeks before the event there were special reports and leading articles on the subject. "Sun festivals" were organized in the southern part of Germany- one could buy T-Shirts and Coffee mugs bearing the black sun. Even the usually laid-back ARD - Germany's first state-owned public channel - broadcasted a special production, a so-called "focal point", right after the evening news. The last special "focal point" production covered Princess Diana's death.
Naturally, we don't feel the agitation and fear an event like that must have triggered in former times. Everything is under control now. Nowadays the solar eclipse is almost like a symbol for enlightenment, for triumph over superstition. Already in 1504 Columbus was able to render the original inhabitants of Jamaica cooperative by - in their eyes: magically - predicting a lunar eclipse. This illustrated the prominence of the occidental culture. "Tintin" as well wasn't only occupied with solving thievery and other crimes : In "Prisoners of the Sun" the detective in knickerbockers can escape getting burnt at the stake by an Inca tribe. He simply demands that the day of execution be the day of a solar eclipse.
page 89: black - triumph of reason
3.1.11: In the field of "new media" the search engine lycos has adopted the myth of the mastery of the sun as its own. By means of the world-wide-web (and lycos!) the dark and magical times seem conquered once again and a new century - why be so stingy? - a new "millennium of light" is imminent. Hooray!
Over 150 years ago, the Austrian painter, poet and writer Adalbert Stifter described a euphoria of a different kind: "There are things one knows about since 50 years, and in the 51st year one is amazed at the gravity and formidableness of its Inhalt* (content). That’s how I felt about the total solar eclipse we observed in the early morning on July 8th 1842 in Vienna with the most favourable sky. Since I know how to present the matter on paper via drawing or calculation, and since I knew at what time the moon would give way to the sun ,and the earth would cut a piece off its conical shadow, which in turn would draw a black stripe on the globe due to the progressive motion of the moon and the axial rotation of the earth, so that in different places at different times it would look like as if a black disc moved over the sun, which takes away from it more and more, until there remains only a sickle, which finally disappears as well - on earth it becomes more and more gloomy, until in the end the sunlight reappears und grows, and the light on earth little by little rises again to a full day - I knew all of this beforehand, in fact I knew it that well, I thought I could've described a total solar eclipse in advance so accurately as if I had already seen it. But now that it really happened [...] and [I] caught sight of the occurrence with my own eyes, sure enough something totally different happened; things I would've never imagined, neither waking nor dreaming, that no one thinks of who hasn't seen the miracle. Never in my whole life was I so shaken to the core, so appalled by shiver and grandeur like during these two minutes, it was as if God had spoken a distinct word and I had conceived it".[1] Triumph of reason: the event takes place accurate to the second. "In the scripture of His stars" God has promised this, "our fathers have learned to decipher this scripture [...]; we, the late grandchildren, direct our eyes and periscopes towards the sun at the intended second, and behold: there it is". Copernicus, Galilei, Newton were right, Descartes won: Reason has recalculated the mechanics of God's heavens and enticed it. But then: "We had fared much worse than expected. We had seen the world dead. We froze bitterly. I think the coldness increased once the light was gone".[2] Stifter thought he'd heard God's distinct word. What might God have told him? When Truman Burbank opened the door on the horizon pressing down a handle labeled "exit", he heard his own name: "Truman?!"
page 91: black - gods word
While Truman climbed up the Jacobs Ladder to exit the Truman show, Christof - hidden in the control center of the moon - hurriedly opened a channel to communicate with him. An image that might as well have been painted by Mark Tansey or Réné Magritte (if Truman had worn a bowler) for that matter.
3.1.12: The Truman Show: Jacob´s ladder to the exit
One has to look at this movie as surrealistic: Moses before he climbs Sinai? Jesus prancing across the sea of Genezareth? Why is Christof called Christof? The Greek origin of the name means: "Carrying Christ". Saint Christophorus carried the whole world impersonated by young Jesus over the river.
Did Peter Weir and Andrew Niccol read Freud? In "Mass Psychology and Ego-Analysis" he quotes an old joke which opens up a whole new dimension. It's quite different from the interpretation of Truman and Christof as a deeply emotional father-son-relationship:
"Christophorus carried Christ Christ carried the whole world Say, where did Christophorus place his foot back then?"(1)
This is about possibilities, in this case im-possibilities...
page 92: black - medium? message?
3.1.13: Truman Show: God’s laptop, Truman has found the exit; Christof’s perspective.
Climbing up the last steps of the ladder Truman recognizes the door. As he opens the door he can hear the voice of his master: "Truman?! You can speak. I can hear you."
In the elevated control centre Christof’s voice sounds very near and trustworthy, but from Truman's perspective Christof's voice sounds deep and mighty. "Who are you?" Truman asks the voice coming from the sky. "I'm the creator…" Christof replies with a little pause to then continues with the trivial truth: "…of a TV-show that brings hope and joy to a million people and inspires them." End of metaphor.
3.1.14: Truman’s perspective, "as if God had spoken a distinct word and I had conceived it".
Regarding the solar eclipse in 1842, Adalbert Stifter thought to have heard the following: "I am [JHWH] – it is not because of these bodies and this occurrence that I am, no, but because in this very moment your shivering heart is telling you this, and because this heart feels grand despite the shiver".(1)
page 92: black - televisiondarkness
I have watched the “solar eclipse 99” on TV. The amount of clouds was estimated at about 85 % in Hamburg. That’s not enough for the light to become even crepuscular. Not enough for exalted emotions. No God has talked to me. Not even as I stayed in the garden with the children wearing the recommended safety glasses.
But also in Stuttgart people were disappointed, too many clouds. However, several television channels had sent their camera teams to different places. They had to produce a whole day of broadcasting. Obviously the Bilder* (images) on TV were very good: The diamond-light, the corona in slow motion and then everything again at a glance and fast motion. I have it on video and I can see it backwards if I want to - but the solar eclipse on TV is not the same as the real thing. No shudder, the “aaaaahs” and “ooooohs” of the gathered crowd seemed like the automated laughter used to improve the punch line in American comedy shows.
I’ve asked myself what would’ve needed to happen to produce an emotion that is comparable to the one occurring with a solar eclipse: A televisiondarkness. Just to switch off the TV wouldn’t be the same. That would be a trivial night (with the stand-by light as the moon). The black sun is missing. Also the visual noise during interferences can’t quite compare. What would be analogue to the diamond-light of the corona?
If there was nothing at all on TV, that would be the same: No Bild* (image), just a black channel. But it must be clear that the TV is on. The whole equipment is operating, everything is tuned in right and there is no Bild* (image) at all, that would be comparable.
page 93: black - off
This is about authority. About authorship. The missing Bild* (image), the blackness. When a movie starts a Bild* (image) is expected.
Then there is a voice. The voice over coming out of nowhere, represents nowhere. Most notably, this voice over cannot be assigned to anyone. Who is she? Which part will she play? What is being played here anyway?
She is just a narrator, noninvolved, but professionally articulating in "distinct words." She only reports, passes on what someone else said, wrote, saw. The moment the title of the movie appears foreshadows this notion: All of a sudden the concept is clear. Black leader, voice over, indirect speech.
Who is the other one, the absentee? The one who is fort* (gone). Just like the Bild* (image). It's strange, the Bild* (image) - the Bild* (image) - is being shown after all, it's da* (there), just for a moment it was da* (there). But still, somehow absent - being away (ab-wesend*)! That's it: It's missing.
page 93: black - sunless
Chris Markers movie SANS SOLEIL starts with darkness. No Bild* (image), just black leader.
The fact that the TV[1] is on, that the film already started is being clarified by a narrator: "The first image he told me about was of three children on a road in Iceland, in 1965."
It's a woman's voice. She sounds cold, somewhat distant, objectifying.
A little bit later appears the Bild* (image) of three children in Norwegian sweaters running over a green meadow. Then, black leader again. "He said that for him it was the image of happiness and also that he had tried several times to link it to other images ..." Briefly, very briefly the Bild* (image) of a combat aircraft on an aircraft carrier appears. The indirect speech of the narrator adopts a strange twist, the voice says: " ... but it never worked."
The Bild* (image) fades, black leader. Why? Why didn't it work? (It just worked). "He wrote me: one day I'll have to put it all alone at the beginning of a film with a long piece of black leader; if they don't see happiness in the picture, at least they'll see the black." Then, an on-screen text pays tribute to the French filmmaker Anatole Dauman: "Anatole Dauman propose(s)", and the title: sunless, first in Russian - this is due to Mussorgsky's eponymous Cycle of Songs - then in English, then French: "SANS SOLEIL".
In the professional jargon of filmmakers "sans soleil" also means black leader.
page 94: black - the name of the sun
This Bild* (image) - this absence - obtains a name, a commentary. Its subtitle is: "sunless". And that's an explanation. Maybe this commentary is similar to the corona of the sun during a solar eclipse. If one couldn't see the corona one couldn't see anything at all. No sun, most of all no "black sun". The sun would not be missing, it would simply not exist.
And still: "To us, a sun is not quite a sun unless it's radiant, and a spring not quite a spring unless it is limpid. Here to place adjectives would be so rude as leaving price tags on purchases".[1]
But in this case the name of the sun is mentioned while it doesn't shine: An empty wall, a black hole, right in the middle of the movie theatre. The Bilder* (images) are fort* (gone) . Everything is operable and switched on, only the Bilder* (images) are missing. That can happen. But the Bild* (image) that arises out of this is unusual - to say the least. It's the state of emergency, tendentially related to the original meaning of the black sun, before it was explained to us, before it was clarified - Oh, I see, it's only the moon that moves in-between ... that's why there is no light ...
page 95: yellow
Derrida sends postcards. It's always the same. At least the front side. It shows Socrate and Plato. One seems to be writing, the other dictating. Or is it the other way around? Bild* (image) or text? What is a comment and what is being commented on? Is this about the sun or its rays?
On one postcard he wrote: "The reason I prefer postcards is that you don't know which side is the front or back, here or there, near or distant, Plato or Socrates, recto or verso. More importantly even, the image or the text, and in the text the message or the caption or the address".[1] The image is from a fortune-telling book of the 13th century. In the library of Oxford it’s being sold on a postcard. Derrida bought a whole box of them.
Derrida's collection of postcards was published under the title: "The postcard. From Socrates to Freud and beyond. 1st delivery: Envois/mailings". The subject is about mailings, about "things being sent" (Geschicktes), about "post".
If you take a look at Chris Marker's work, there is a cameraman who sends out Bilder* (images) he collected all over the world - mainly in Japan and Africa. They are always commented. In the film, his comments - his letters, thoughts, observations, opinions - are always narrated via voice over.
page 95: yellow - media competance
I began reading the postcards right in the middle of the book on page 76; I had received a reference [1[. (And I'm still right in the middle of it, the text doesn't allow anything else.)
It was confusing. He writes to "D." (in the German translation), over and over to "D.". Who could this be? He himself, Derrida? Does he write to himself, is it some kind of diary? Or maybe "D." is another author I should know?
He refers to Heidegger as "Martin" for example: "Would Martin be satisfied with this?"[2] -You have to be an insider to understand this … The difficulties already began earlier. When I opened the book for the first time - I was searching for page 76 - there was no page 76. After page 75 followed 78. The sheets of the book were not cut off. Obviously there had been a manufacturing error in the bookbindery ... After my anger wore off a little I wanted to browse through the second edition I had bought at the same time: "2.nd Delivery: Speculations about/on Freud". But here as well the same phenomenon occurred; the sheets of the book were not cut off. I carried the books back to the bookstore in order to reclaim. The trader took the first book back and began to apologize telling me that this would happen every now and then. As I showed him the second edition he was surprised: "This is the way it’s supposed to be", he said to me. He went on to tell me a story of an old cult of bibliomaniacs which reminded me of the old blind Jorge in the film "The Name of the Rose" based on the book of Umberto Ecco: Jorge put poison on the pages of antique authors' books, which didn't render them unreadable but confounded the tradition of the collected knowledge.
It reminded me also of the black sun, the sun that doesn't shine. And of SANS SOLEIL.
So, this is the way it's supposed to be – besides a lamp you need a razor blade for Derrida's postcards. Cool! Even hermetical. That's yet another way to illustrate the character of a medium: "if you don't see happiness in the picture, at least you'll see the black…" (Or the hole between page 75 and 78).
page 96: yellow - love letter
Derrida's postcard of November 17th, 1979 (and it's always better to read the blurb first!) begins like this:
"You were reading a somewhat loveletter, the last in history. But you have not yet received it. Yes, its lack or excess of adress prepars it to fall into all hands: a post card, an open letter in which the secret appears, but indecipherably. You can take it or pass it off, for example as a message from Socrates to Freud.
What does a post card want to say to you? On what conditions is it possible? Its destination traverses you, you no longer know who you are. At the very instant when from its adress it interpellates you, you , uniquely, instead or reaching you it divides you or sets you aside, occasionally overlooks you. And you love and you do not love, it makes of you what you wish, it takes you, it takes you, it leaves you."[1]
page 96: yellow - working hypothesis
Derrida wrote – as I believe, as I insinuate for the time being – to me. "D." (in the German translation), that means "Du", "Dich", "Dir" ("You", "Your", "Yourself").
I couldn't help but notice that he addressed me sometimes with "my beloved". I noticed it, assentingly. Considering the antique customs this could also mean "my pupil", for example. I also noticed that one time (as far as I can see on page 71) he addresses me with the name "Diotima". Once Socrates had received a postcard from Diotima that somehow ended up in Plato's hands. But this postcard passed through so many hands that it belongs into the realm of mystery … possible?
I regard Derrida's postcards as an open letter - due to "its lack or excess of address ". Therefore he wrote to me, meaning to everybody. "D.", he said, you are the addressee. He's talking to me. The way he does that - so cryptical, hermetical, seducing me - makes me become intimate with him, like an accomplice. "Hey, you (whispering)! Wanna have some golden watches? Drugs? Girls?"
We both know the meaning of these uncut sheets between pages 75 and 78, the others go to reclaim. (Thanks to my bookseller!) I read these postcards as if they were media theory. As a theory of the Geschick* (mailing/fortune).
