Performatism

What is Performatism?

Performatism was a term coined by German-American Slavist Raoul Eshelman in 2000 and refers to one concept of post-postmodernism. It attempts to show that works in a new epoch are constructed to bring about a unified, aesthetically mediated experience of transcendence.

Performatism does this by creating 'closed works of art that force viewers to identify simple, opaque characters and experience beauty, love, belief and transcendence under artificial conditions.'

Eshelman defines performatism as:

"An epoch in which a unified concept of sign and strategies of closure have begun to compete directly with - and displace - the split concept of sign and the strategies of boundary transgression typical of postmodernism."

He applied this model to literature, film, architecture, philosophy and art and suggests four features of performatism:

1. Semiotic mode of performatism requires things to be integrated into the concept of sign.
2. Aesthetic device to performatism is double framing - the fit between the outer frame (work itself) and the inner frame (an ostensive scene).
3. Human performative characters consolidate their position by appearing opaque to the world around them.
4. Theist mode - time and space are framed so that subjects have a chance to orient themselves around them and transcend in some way.

My understanding of the concept is that it moves on from the ideas of post-modernism - which sees 'art' as undermined by narrative or visual devices to create uncertainty about the status of the work and how it is received. Instead, performatism looks at 'art' (in the literal sense as well as buildings, film, literature)from the outside and considers the wider context of its form and position.

Derrida suggests that discussion of 'intrinsic aesthetic value depends on that value being set off from the extraneous context around it.' By this, I think the idea is that the text itself and the wider context come together to determine a response without having pre-determined 'idea' in mind.

Key theorists:

Raoul Eshelman
Jacques Derrida


Reading list:

Derrida: "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" (1966)
Eshelman: "Performatism, Or The End of Postmodernism" (2008)
Gans: "Signs of Paradox. Irony, Resentment and Other Mimetic Structures" (1997)
Hutcheon: "A poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction" (1988)
Culler: "On Deconstruction - Theory and Criticism after Structuralism" (1982)
Epstein: "Russian Postmodernism: New Perspectives on Late Soviet and Post-Soviet Culture" in Slavic Literature, Culture and Society; Vol. 3 (1999)

I still don’t know what ‘postmodernism’ is

This weeks’ reading – ‘Postmodernism and The Other Side’ by Dick Hebdige – was tough going. Again, I found myself taking relatively few points away from pages and pages of text laced with long words and even longer sentences. And my conclusion – I still don’t really understand ‘postmodernism’.

But that’s ok because neither does Hebdige – and he wrote the thing! What I did manage to siphon from the reading was that the term ‘postmodernism’ is problematic because it is ‘stretched across disciplines.’ People use it to refer to so many aspects of life such as describing the decor of a room, the design of a building or a TV commercial – so it seems very difficult to pin down exactly what it means.

Hebdige questions ‘periodisation’, saying that ‘to talk of ‘post’ is to talk of the past’, and so where exactly ‘postmodernism’ fits in our history is another puzzling debate. In our struggle to work out ‘postmodernism’, it appears we will probably never crack it because ‘modernism’ itself is undefined so how are we supposed to decipher the ‘post’ if we can’t even suss out the ‘modern?’

Three negotiations are highlighted by Hebdige in terms of distinguishing ‘postmodernism’:

• Against Totalisation
• Against Teleology
• Against Utopia
(I really don’t understand the words – they just sound important!)

My final observations of the reading lie in Marxism. It appears that Hebdige refers to many early Marxist thoughts and ideas and his own ideas on ‘postmodernism’ seem to be a continuation of some Marxist lines.

I find myself agreeing with Hebdige (on the points I understood anyway) because my lack of understanding ‘postmodernism’ clearly shows it’s such an ambiguous term and one that is hard to pin down to a simple thought. And I believe that until we can define ‘modernism’ we are unable to work out what ‘postmodernism’ is, who or what it refers to, and when exactly, in time, it took place.

Useful/interesting quotes:

A Marxism of whatever kind could never move back from or go beyond ‘modernity’ in the very terms in which it is defined...

Hegemony is a precarious, ‘moving equilibrium’ (Gramsci) achieved through the orchestration of conflicting and competing forces by more or less unstable, more or less temporary alliances of class fractions.

It becomes more and more difficult...to specify exactly what it is that ‘postmodernism’ is supposed to refer to as the term gets stretched in all directions...

A smidgen of Stuart Hall on popular culture

Hall's 'Notes on deconstructing 'The Popular'' focuses on the topic of popular culture; addressing the issues of movements and periodisations linked to popular culture and discussing the problems with definitions of both terms.

Main points (there are lots) argued include:

1. Culture changes in periods but so do people, who are reformed and transformed.
2. Historical changes influencing popular culture such as revolutions, capitalism and changes to press.
3. Definitions of 'popular culture'and the 'problems' with these definitions.
4. There is no fixed category of culture, therefore there is no fixed subject to attach it to 'the people'.
5. Popular culture is about stuggle; for and against the powerful and something which evokes consent and resistant in different amounts.
6.Problem with 'tradition' in popular culture - its vital but meaning changes over time (e.g. the swastika)

Hall combines a historical reflection/critique of ideas on popular culture with his own definitions and thoughts, and then analyses and challenges the cocncepts by highlighting the problems with each of the terms. I think this was a really useful method because although he argued his points well, he remains critical that no definition is infinate and that problems can be found in all studies of popular culture.

Hall's conclusions argue that the term 'popular culture' is and has always been problematic and that there are many other 'factors' which contribute to its definition such as audience, traditions and class. He believes that popular culture is where 'struggle for and against a culture of the powerful is engaged'.

I find myself agreeing with much of what Hall discusses in the article; based mainly on the fact that I found it very difficult to pin a definition on the term 'culture' to begin with (and still do to be honest). I think he is right that there are many contributing relations such as 'the people', historical changes and traditions; which add to and also provide problems when trying to define what popular culture is. I agree that popular culture is about struggle; some people will readily accept what the 'masses' do and others will disregard things that don't 'fit in' with their own interests/ideas.

Several quotes I found useful within the reading because they summarise Hall's main points well and show how the definition of popular culture is difficult to close down:

"The study of popular culture keeps shifting between these two, quite unacceptable poles: pure 'autonomy' or total encapsulation."

"There is a continuous and necessary uneven and unequal struggle, by the dominant culture, constantly to disorganise and reorganise popular culture; to enclose and confine its definitions and forms within a more inclusive range of dominant forms. There are points of resistance; there are also moments of supersession. This is the dialectic of cultural struggle."

"Culture is not already permanently inscribed with the conditions of a class before that struggle begins. The struggle consists in the success or failure to give 'the cultursl' a socialist accent."

Frankfurt School-style critique of the consumer magazine industry

I have chosen the 'glossy-weekly' magazine industry as the basis of this critique, inspired by the ideas and 'thoughts' of the Frankfurt School scholars Adorno and Horkheimer.I feel that this is one strand of the media industry that demonstrates how mass-produced cultural products are standardized and leave little choice for the reader.

The nature of the women's magazine industry is centred around providing all the latest celebrity gossip, 'real-life' trash, latest fashion and offering reams of useless 'agony-aunt-style' relationship advice. The agenda of every single one of the 20+ weekly mags is to encourage women to buy them and buy into the celeb/lifestyle culture by thinking they have to keep up with the gossip and latest trends.

Adorno and Horkheimer's beliefs that mass-produced culture is standardized can clearly be applied to the 'weekly-mag' market. The shelves of magazines each week are filled with exactly the same stories - all claiming that their's is the exclusive. Take Katie Price - her latest marriage to Alex Reid was splashed over all the mags that week and it's the same for every other celeb drama. They're all talking about Cheryl Cole, Brad and Angelina, who's pregnant this week, who's split up, who's getting it on etc etc etc. If you covered up the name on every cover, you'd never tell which was which - they're all soooooooo similar.

The idea of pseudo individulisation - cultural products made to give the user the impression of choice, when really there is none - can also be applied to the magazine industry. Just count the number of weekly women's mags on the shelf - clearly there is plenty of choice. But is there really? If they're all talking about the same thing and thrusting the same 'must-buys' under your nose, then where's the choice?

The Frankfurt School shared concerns that the 'masses are oppressed through culture' and that cultural products are 'perpetuating false conciousness'. I think these thoughts can be applied to women's mags because the sheer volume of standardized magazines could quite realistically lead readers to accept that this is our culture - everyone's interested in celebs and lifestyle - and that's the way it is.

Benjamin's suggestion that individual reactions to mass products are pre-determined also rings true. We're lead to believe that we must keep up with the latest fashion and celeb gossip else we won't fit in with the rest of society. It's sad but its true - women's mags have their own agenda and ladies, we're falling for it!

Hmmmmm......point proven, I think.

'Sweetness and light' (in the eyes of Arnold)

So, up until last night, I was really struggling to find a media text which I thought offered the 'sweetness and light' that Matthew Arnold - school inspector, minor poet and critic of cultural decline - talked of. Arnold argued that culture is 'the best that is thought or said' and culture improves us and is the key to education.

So, very uninspired at that point, I visited the cinema to see the much-anticipated Clint Eastwood epic Invictus - starring Morgan Freeman as the incredible social and political champion Nelson Mandela.

It took little more than 10 minutes of the film for the penny to drop. The film takes the very essence of cultural and social divide in South Africa and tells the incredible story of one man - oppressed by white South African culture for more than 30 years - and his mission to build bridges and unite the country through its passion for rugby.

So, why does it offer me 'sweetness and light?' Well, I think it can offer all those who see the film an insight into the terrible ways in which cultures can divide a nation and how we should be more accepting of differences in social and political beliefs.

Several moments within the film gave me reason to think 'yes, that is the best that is thought or said'. Mandela utters the words 'I am the master of my faith, I am the captain of my soul' - he sees the wrong committed during the apartheid but he fails to let his own pain and suffering stand in the way of making a change to a whole nation, divided for so long by different cultures.

The film communicates many values which I think make it such a great example of Arnold's 'sweetness and light'.

Forgiveness - Mandela is so openly forgiving of the people who kept him captive for nearly 30 years because of his skin colour and background. I think this is the most valuable lesson we can learn.

Acceptance and tolerance - of other people and their beliefs; race, skin colour and social background should not blur our perceptions of those around us.

Determination and courage - to succeed in our aims in life and overcome the biggest of boundaries to fulfil what we truly believe in.

I certainly came away from the film inspired by the story of such an important figure in democracy, human rights and social reform and I hope that everyone who sees it takes away valuable lessons that Mandela has preached his entire life.

What's cheap and sentimental? The tabloids of course!

Stepping into the shoes of the famous elitist F.R. Leavis, the following analysis will completely rip apart a media text which I think the man himself would do if he was still with us! The question: choose a media text that you think Leavis would consider cheap, sentimental and appealing to base emotions. The answer: tabliod newspapers.

So, why do I (and why would Leavis)consider tabloids to be cheap? Well the obvious answer is they are literally - 20p for the Daily Star, 30p for The Sun - compared to The Times/Guardian (90p-£1). But their content is cheap - rumour-led, celeb-based, paparazzi-style gossip. And that's exactly the point - it's all just gossip (look at so-and-so falling out of London club drunk, another cheating footballer gets found out), who cares? (Except for the few million who buy tabloids daily, obviously.)

The pages and pages of celeb gossip and novelty human interest pieces appeal to the very base emotions Leavis describes. A bit of humour, a snigger at the Page 3 air-head's boobs and a sneer at anything else with a hint of serious-news-issue about it. In the eyes of Leavis, it's a paper for the working class, the unruly 'masses' that he feared were a threat to 'culture'.

So, onto the values of the tabloid paper (this shouldn't take long). 'Great literature has values we all recognise and share, and that makes them great' (Leavis). Well, in that case, I'd say that tabloids aren't great literature as I'm struggling to see the values that I share with The Sun. Does it even have any values? It shows commitment to appeal to the supposed values of it's readers - a light take on life, something to brighten up their day. But actual values - I'm stuck!

If I was Leavis, I would say that tabloid newspapers uphold the 'values' of the middle-aged, working class male (whatever they are!) with an interest in sport, women and a dislike of politics. They provide no educational material (no chance of making the 'canon' then) and have no place in middle-class society. They appeal to the populace, who have no air of culture about them whatsoever!

Sufficiently ripped apart I think!

A spot of reading

F.R. Leavis, in Mass Civilisation and Minority Culture, argues that only a small minority of society are able to appreciate ‘culture’ (art and literature) and offer first-hand judgment, in any period. This minority are depended on to keep the traditions of culture going in the modern day:

“Upon them depend the implicit standards that order the finer living of an age, the sense that this is worth more than that, this rather than that is the direction in which we go...”

Leavis refers to ‘culture’ as language, something he believes the art of fine living depends upon. Culture today is at crisis, he believes. ‘The Machine’ has changed society and it is argued that this transformation will inevitably cause harm to the ‘traditional’ standards of living. The suggestion that we are becoming ‘Americanised’ is exemplified by the Press – mass-produced and standardised and film culture – ‘illusions of actual life’.

Turning to literature, Leavis argues that the benchmark for ‘cultured people’ is not as high as it used to be:

‘...the average cultivated person of a century ago was a very much more competent reader than his modern representative.’

The plight of culture is ultimately blurred. Distinctions and dividing lines (between classes/high and low culture) have merged and the boundaries are no longer set in stone. The prospect of culture, then, is ‘very dark’, as standardisation sweeps across the world. Leavis accepts that a ‘mass culture’ might be better than its predecessor but sees the ‘utterly new’ as a fruitless alternative. So, what are we to do? ‘Keep open our communications with the future’.