Page 45 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 45
changing the mind
As opposed to printed materials of previous centuries, the representa-
tions of global culture are devising a visual field where, above all, the mov-
ing images are decidedly determining a range of modes of perception.
Today’s media, the digital interactive ones included, are representing a
changed and changing reality marked by an expansion of culture, which
is driven by the strong artistic production. Museums and galleries, among
other “traditional” institutions, are turning into laboratories of a contin-
uous production of variations of meanings and interpretations, some-
times broadening the public’s view on culture and sometimes confining
it to some mystified canonical signification of whatever they are present-
ing. However, these institutions are no more (if they ever were) “neutral”
places of exhibitions of works of art, but they are, as Mieke Bal would say,
agents of exposures, not so much of artists and their work as such; much
more however, of how they expose someone’s conceptualised view of art or
cultural goods. Artists “outside” these institutions became an extinct spe-
cies. In the view of this institutionalised world, culture is actually the re-
ality. Of course, there are many sophisticated and critical reflections upon
this culture, such as Jameson’s theory of reification or explanatory attempts
by many authors, who make use of the notion of the simulacrum. All these
reflections help us to come to terms with the complexities of social real-
ity, which is highly saturated with multiple images, representations, and
all kinds of other messages. Moreover, this is happening on a level that is
comprehended as “global”. Never before has the international exchange of
goods been so “culturalised”. This includes not only material goods, but
also the nomadism of so-called “spiritual” ones in a very broad spectrum
of cultures, spaces and times. In a phantasmal universe icons are produced
to feed any individual imagination almost anywhere in the world. These
icons support a stream of individual identifications with celebrities, with
their patterns of behaviour and their performances of life-styles on a global
level. The Freudian unconscious has never before been turned “inside out”
to such an extent. The Babylon of the 21st century is a global stage, where
an immense plurality comes forth. What is perceived in many texts in the
field of cultural analysis as the colonial look is being increasingly dislocat-
ed, although far from being erased. However, inevitably the plurality comes
forth only to be reduced in its scope. Abstractions and common denomi-
nators are absorbing it, as different particular representations in unity with
interpretations are being selected and deselected, according to a self-gener-
ating rule of “recognisability”. Still, one may observe that the global market
43
As opposed to printed materials of previous centuries, the representa-
tions of global culture are devising a visual field where, above all, the mov-
ing images are decidedly determining a range of modes of perception.
Today’s media, the digital interactive ones included, are representing a
changed and changing reality marked by an expansion of culture, which
is driven by the strong artistic production. Museums and galleries, among
other “traditional” institutions, are turning into laboratories of a contin-
uous production of variations of meanings and interpretations, some-
times broadening the public’s view on culture and sometimes confining
it to some mystified canonical signification of whatever they are present-
ing. However, these institutions are no more (if they ever were) “neutral”
places of exhibitions of works of art, but they are, as Mieke Bal would say,
agents of exposures, not so much of artists and their work as such; much
more however, of how they expose someone’s conceptualised view of art or
cultural goods. Artists “outside” these institutions became an extinct spe-
cies. In the view of this institutionalised world, culture is actually the re-
ality. Of course, there are many sophisticated and critical reflections upon
this culture, such as Jameson’s theory of reification or explanatory attempts
by many authors, who make use of the notion of the simulacrum. All these
reflections help us to come to terms with the complexities of social real-
ity, which is highly saturated with multiple images, representations, and
all kinds of other messages. Moreover, this is happening on a level that is
comprehended as “global”. Never before has the international exchange of
goods been so “culturalised”. This includes not only material goods, but
also the nomadism of so-called “spiritual” ones in a very broad spectrum
of cultures, spaces and times. In a phantasmal universe icons are produced
to feed any individual imagination almost anywhere in the world. These
icons support a stream of individual identifications with celebrities, with
their patterns of behaviour and their performances of life-styles on a global
level. The Freudian unconscious has never before been turned “inside out”
to such an extent. The Babylon of the 21st century is a global stage, where
an immense plurality comes forth. What is perceived in many texts in the
field of cultural analysis as the colonial look is being increasingly dislocat-
ed, although far from being erased. However, inevitably the plurality comes
forth only to be reduced in its scope. Abstractions and common denomi-
nators are absorbing it, as different particular representations in unity with
interpretations are being selected and deselected, according to a self-gener-
ating rule of “recognisability”. Still, one may observe that the global market
43
