#seminaarikannu

Samuel Weber’s open lectures: Aalto / Taik, Hämeentie 153 C, Helsinki, 8th floor, lecture hall, 10–12am

Tuesday 13 Dec: “Aesthetics, Media and Terror—Clouds”
Thursday 15 Dec: “Money is Time”
Friday 16 Dec: “On the Singularity of Poetic Knowledge”

The introduction in Finnish explains that the lecture will be based on the movie The Triumph of the Will by Leni Riefenstal, pictures related with the New York WTC terror attacks and themes around unconstructing identities seen through being and acting as a conscious subject and relationship and connections between the terrorism and the western world based on the before mentioned thinking scheme

• Leni Riefenstal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leni_Rie...
• "Triumph of the Will (German: Triumph des Willens) is a propaganda film made by Leni Riefenstahl. It chronicles the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, which was attended by more than 700,000 Nazi supporters. The film contains excerpts from speeches given by various Nazi leaders at the Congress, including portions of speeches by Adolf Hitler, interspersed with footage of massed party members. Hitler commissioned the film and served as an unofficial executive producer; his name appears in the opening titles. The overriding theme of the film is the return of Germany as a great power, with Hitler as the True German Leader who will bring glory to the nation. - Triumph of the Will was released in 1935 and rapidly became one of the best-known examples of propaganda in film history. Riefenstahl's techniques, such as moving cameras, the use of long focus lenses to create a distorted perspective, aerial photography, and revolutionary approach to the use of music and cinematography, have earned Triumph recognition as one of the greatest films in history. Riefenstahl won several awards, not only in Germany but also in the United States, France, Sweden, and other countries. The film was popular in the Third Reich and elsewhere, and has continued to influence movies, documentaries, and commercials to this day." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_...

When browsing Samuel Weber yesterday, this idea started to form questions re. today's lecture: "Television overcomes spatial distance with a sense of simultaneity.Television takes place in taking the place of the body..." Experimenting: Essays with Samuel Weber

• Does this same happen when entering social virtual networks?
• Does our experiences with the TV limit our perceptions re. what everything we can do with the social tools?
• How do we perceive us as conscious subjects?
• What kind of unlearning and development phases related with the above mentioned perception belong to our life cycle? How does our competence and capacity to understand, manage and utilize this process affect our performance

We begin by reading "Quotes for Lecture "Clouds" - here's the first:

When something unpleasant has happened to the subject or when he himself has done something that has significance for his neurosis, he interpolates an interval during which nothing further must happen - during which he must perceive nothing and do nothing. ... The experience is not forgotten, but, instead, it is deprived or its affect, and its associative connections are suppressed or interrupted so that it remains as though isolated. (Freud)

• today's speech is based on a paper / presentation given recently in Hungary - the topic there being "Aesthetics and Terror"
• Weber's background is textual - "in writing..." - he currently very much focuses on visual, imaginary expression
• ...the end (conclusion) of this talk is a beginning of something we do not no of yet... ...an incomplete fragmentary and experimental nature will be strongly present
• the terror today will be discussed here, in a particular place and will not try to construct a universal truth
• the visuals of the 9/11 have expressed a paradigmatic aesthetization - they have been used to transmit the political targets and aspects of the 'the war against terror' within and through the media
• the "political aestetization" testifies the culture of fear - parallel with the 'war against terror'

• our feelings e.g. of isolation are always also connected with physical, bodily reactions

• Freud uses "ich" - I in stead of the "ego"

• only by coming together one can hold apart
• not a matter of touching only; not always active, intransitive - also passive and ambivalent, the role of the subject and object can vary

An extract of the 4th Freud quote: ...in the normal course of things, the I has a great deal of isolating work to do in its function of directing the current of thought.

• for the above mentioned process, the I must locate a goal in a safe context
• the (cognitive) process requires concentration, focusing, tranquilizing
• spatial, temporal and situated elements exist - in space and in time
• the notion of form and figure is essential - the aesthetic experience

• in the Christian theology the human body is both a field for an ultimate suffering and the salvational potential - the resurrection through suffering
• the human body - when described in secular contexts, usually tacitly still keeps the sacred dimension and perceptions
• therefore (in the American culture), the human body currently is described more as an intelligent design than a product of an alienatory process
• returning to the notion of form and figure the above is an example of how very old and deep cultural / religious perceptions are present in e.g. media often understood as secular or marketing oriented only
• the terrorist actions can build necessary passages through the above mentioned (tacit) heritages and perceptions of the dynamics between the death as a punishment (for sin) and the salvation

We are now watching extracts from the mentioned Leni Riefenstal's movie (can be found in youtube) - the extreme hype / fanaticism reminds of similar scenes broadcasted from some Islamic states later on

Samuel Weber continues:
- the pompous music of the film has been carefully chosen and edited to affect to the images being formed through the spectator's brain
- the film begins with a couple of seconds of black screen
- throughout the film, the attempts to strongly affect through both visible and invisible matters is remarkable
- the target was to move the viewers, therefore the film is full of movement (flying, marching - the camera keeps moving...)

- the notion of the 'thousand-year-reich' is not explicitly mentioned at all - all elements: e.g. the black screens, gothic fonts and the way scenes are cut / bound with each other; it becomes visually written in stone
- Heidegger and the word 'gestalt' is mentioned for further thinking

- the film emphasizes an individual messianic figure as the messenger of salvation - what the nazis needed was the militarization of the masses; them to become a uniform and uniformed mass => a uniform, massive gestalt
- the Christian heritage was transformed from its origins to serve thinking and actions happening here and now, on earth, starting from the day Hitler became the head of state
- an airplane is used both as the symbol of technological progression and power
- cloud scenes and town scenes filmed from the air have been carefully chosen to force the viewer's thoughts toward the overwhelming pompousness of the new reich
- process of gestaltung, shaping, happens simultaneously within individuals and collectives

- all the above explains the aesthetization of politics process
- "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" by Walter Benjamin is mentioned for further thinking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work...

Our quote #5 is by Walter Benjamin - extracts: The increasing proletarianization of people today and the increasing formation of masses are two sides of one and the same occurrence. ... All effiorts to aestheticize politics culminate in one point: war.

Samuel Weber mentions relations / dynamics between
- the process of memorization
- the way we express ourselves through our birth, nature, race...
- we have a built-in way to express our identities - political aesthetization focuses on affecting this process; putting it out of balance

"Why should the war be the beginning and the end of the aesthetization of politics" - we are now watching the end scene of Riefenstal's film.

Our quote #6 is by Walter benjamin: In the great parades, the monsterous meetings, in mass events of sports or in war, which today are all performed to be recorded by the camera, the mass looks itself in the face.

Samuel Weber mentions war as an ultimate way of political self-expression:
- a war legitimates killing
- it can therefore be thought that in a way, a war forms a sacrificial moment of rebirth

"'Lebensraum' became an expression expanding toward including 'lebenszeit'."

In his concluding remark, Samuel Weber shows this picture - ideas related with the political aesthetization process in concern:

• there is a real enemy that can be named, located and destroyed - mainly through military actions
• the uniform gestalt is called when people (are made to) feel that they are not more safe in their homes
• beliefs, feeling of moral superiority and the efficacy of isolation are crucial elements
• when death and destruction affects others, "we" are safe (as long as we remain / are kept) isolated
• political aesthetization becomes visible within media in form of pictures that can be consumed while eating breakfast - isolated, frozen moments somewhere very distant from us
• a call for an immediate safety prohibits reflections of what really happens / is going on
• the most popular (edited) 9/11 videos - as Riefenstal's film - include massive movement, clouds, pompous blocks of buildings...

Samuel Weber’s open lectures: Aalto / Taik, Hämeentie 153 C, Helsinki, 8th floor, lecture hall, 10–12am

Tuesday 13 Dec: “Aesthetics, Media and Terror—Clouds”
Thursday 15 Dec: “Money is Time”
Friday 16 Dec: “On the Singularity of Poetic Knowledge”

Quote #1 for today's lecture: Remember, that credit is money. If a man lets his money lie in my hands after it is due, he gives me the interest, or as much I can make of it during that time. This amounts to a considerable sum, where a man has good and large credit...

Today's lecture is based on two papers / speeches - one form 2008 related with the newly begun recession and one from last September related with the credit crises

Time is both productive and destructive - it can give or take. It is not linear... To waste time is to waste money. - This idea was made popular by Benjamin Franklin

• buying and selling - exchange, even without money being involved - takes time
• money can be converted into time
• money as a medium of exchange is focusing on future

• money returns as the same - the same returns as more of itself
• money expands as profit - we are living within an economy of self when maximizing profit is a target both for individuals and communities

• Weber mentions Calvinism for further thinking - themes related with morality, mortality, sinfulness and resurrection
• separating / understanding real and virtual (money) is mentioned already in Benjamin Franklin's texts
• efforts of making more money mean efforts of reproducing the self

Quote #5: Beware of thinking all your own what you posses, and of living accordingly. 'Tis a mistake that many People who have Credit fall into. To prevent this keep an exact Account for some Time of both your Expences and your Incomes [...] You will discover how wonderfully small trifling Expences mount up to large Sums [...]

• giving credit aims at reaching control over the other individual or community - expressing power
• control over money means attempts to have control over time - it's related with affecting to / controlling what people trust / have faith on

For further thinking: Paul Krugman's articles http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion...

Quote #8: Whatever it touched, its Midas-hand turned into something significant. Transformations of all sorts were its element; and their schematism was allegory. The less this passion is confined to the Baroque period, the more it is able to reveal the Baroque dimension in later phenomena.

• controlling time (through controlling money) aims at expanding the self
• sustainable and renewable (within the existing ecosystem) are relatively new terms
• current computerized global capitalism resembles largely the way spiritual power has been used through theology during recent centuries

For further thinking: Philosophy of self http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosop...

Mimesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimesis

Impression management http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressi...

Quote #9: Saint Theresa has a hallucination in which she sees how Madonna places roses on her bed; she recounts this to her confessor. "I don't see any," he replies." To which she responds: "The Madonna brought the for me." In this sense, the ostentatiously acknowledged subjectivity becomes a formal guarantee of the miracle, because it announces the divine action itself. (Benjamin)

• modern secular political sovereignity largely resembles how spiritual power has been used through Catholic theology - the religion of consumption: the more you spend, the more you save; the more you save, the more you are saved
• the greater the debt, the greater the redemption - salvation

As a conclusion: "Consumption saves. Consumption requires credit. Globally."
"Capitalism itself is a religion."
"Capitalism follows principles of Christianity through creating a global feeling of quilt."
"Public debt is meant to save private properties." - this was written in 2008; today the situation is much more complicated

For further thinking: Keynesian economics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesia...

Through reformation the collective message of salvation was transformed into more individual - self-consumption means self-salvation; money is time. - The benefits of the current financial crisis could be that we would change our perception of time - to stop focusing on instant ready solutions only.

The current economic theology is strongly based on the culture of fear.

There are less and less quick fixes or what we Finns call "kikka kuutonen". The euro crisis and the debt dilemma will be with us until 2020 and most probably get worse. We should apply for political refuges status in China. Freedom and democracy is an expensive luxury.

Samuel Weber’s open lectures: Aalto / Taik, Hämeentie 153 C, Helsinki, 8th floor, lecture hall, 10–12am

Tuesday 13 Dec: “Aesthetics, Media and Terror—Clouds”
Thursday 15 Dec: “Money is Time”
Friday 16 Dec: “On the Singularity of Poetic Knowledge”

Today's quote #1: That the signified is originarily and essentially (...) trace, that it is always already in the position of signifier, is that apparently innocent proposition within which the metaphysics of the logos, of presence and consciousness, must reflect upon writing as its death and its resource.

Samuel Weber: "Today's lecture begins to move toward a direction, where I might have some experience and expertise... - Tomorrow's talk will be one more step closer... There's a path sketched out there."

Literature studies have significantly expanded outside the traditional core and essence, poetry, toward narrative fiction. Theatre / drama has moved ahead of poetry in research interests in general. - Therefore it needs to be reconsidered what distinguishes literature from all other human activity. The meaning of market driven factors has grown in the U.S. - it's constantly monitored, what draws students.

Literary studies and literature are not the same thing. Knowledge in literature studies has a different nature than within most other disciplines - the knowledge remains singular and situational. Within most other disciplines the value of the knowledge is measured through how it transcends through generalization. - More important than what within the knowledge of literature studies is how. Interdependence between what it signified and the process of signification itself is essential. The process is iterative, ongoing. It moves both closer and away of the core interest. The process does not head toward a closure.

Benjamin and Derrida are mentioned for further thinking

Hermeneutic circle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneu...

Quote #2: Even in non-linguistic cases values of any kind seem to be governed by a paradoxical principle. Values always involve: 1. Something dissimilar that can be exchanged for the item whose value is under consideration, and 2. Similar things that can be compared with the item whose value is under consideration.

Quote #3: The enlivening principle in the mind [...] which sets the mind's powers into purposive movement, i.e. into play that feeds on itself and itself strengthens its forces. Now I maintain that this principle is nothing other than the power to present aesthetic ideas, by which I mean that kind of imaginative idea that provides much to think about without any definite thought, i.e. concept, being adequate to it, and hence which no language can entirely attain or make understandable.

The iterative process, not heading toward a closure, remains unpredictable - the more closely you look at a word, the more remotely it looks back. The reader is a receiver, but so is the text. "Weak reading" ignores the signifying process of the text.

Kant is mentioned for further thinking

"Signifying as a Scaffold for Literary Interpretation: The Pedagogical Implications of an African American Discourse Genre" http://is.gd/S4iFcp

Quote #4: In a word, the aesthetic idea is a presentation of the imagination associated with a given concept and is connected, when there is free use of the imagination, with such a multiplicity of partial presentations that no expression that designates a definite concept can be found, and that therefore that makes us add to a concept the thoughts of much that is ineffable, but the feeling of which quickens our cognitive powers and connects language, as mere letter, to spirit.

Quote #5: To put the concept of Singularity into further perspective, let's explore the history of the word itself. "Singularity" is an English word meaning a unique event with, well, singular implications. The word was adopted by mathematicians to denote a value that transcends any finite limitation, such as the explosion of magnitude that results when dividing a constant by number that gets closer and closer to zero.

Ambiguity can offer a different, not necessarily cognitive (rather within the field of feelings) approach to the signifying process (undcidebility by Derrida) - denaming.

Summary of Reflective Judgment Levels http://web.missouri.edu/~woodph/rjsta...

Quote #6: The ever-accelerating progress of technology ... gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue.

Quote #7: How does our use of "singularity" in human history compare to its use in physics? The word was borrowed from mathematics by physics, which has always shown a penchant for anthropomorfic terms ... In physics, "singularity" theoretically refers to a point of zero size with infinite density of mass and therefore infinite density, and indeed quantum mechanics disallows infinite values.

The signifying process must be contextualized (in time and place) to exclude any ongoing, continuing elements. (Situational) feelings are not only internal, personal or active or passive. Thinking feels possibilities rather that cognizes options - the sense of self.

The Singularity Is Near http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sing...

The process of reading or measuring transforms the target being read or measured. <= therefore the way / perspectives of entering the hermeneutic circle are more crucial than when quitting it.

Samuel Weber continues lecturing tomorrow on the pattern of the law of calculus formed within poetry.

...this is what I was writing when running out of battery. - Adding still some interesting thinking patterns formed by the questions raised by the audience

Measures taken
Hölderlin and the politics of rhythm

Joint Research Day organized by The Figures of Touch research project in cooperation with Theatre Academy of Helsinki

Esa Kirkkopelto begins: How can rhythm become politically meaningful? - This research day seeks aspects of the interconnectedness of this question.
.
..as an initial thought... our perception of rhythm heavily limits proceeding with innovations - we get stuck at the phase of wanting exact answers of the schedule of exact results; the rhythm of (un)projects

Friedrich Hölderlin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedric...

"We become measureless when we loose the rhythm."

...does this explain why unlearning and all undoing in general (read: changing our attitudes towards how we conduct our culture bound and tact habits forward - to the next version of the organization scheme, to the next generation etc.) is so slow, confusing and tiring. The old rhythm is gone. Still we put our utmost effort to remain and keep everything within the old value scheme.

Esa Kirkkopelto concludes: We have inside us capability to continuously loose the rhythm and (re)perceive it again. It's up to us to iteratively reconsider the ways of how we measure the rhythm. - This is the message Hölderlin wanted to send to us. How are our current capacities of putting his thinking into practice?

Samuel Weber: Gibt es auf Erden ein Maas? - Encountering Feeling

...do we control the rhythm of our projects through measuring or feeling the feelings the process wakes up?

Quote #1: Such (a one) shall not be entrusted to my hearth
Nor share with me his delusion my knowing.
Who put such a thing to work.

Quote #2: Because the Political is based on the technical-historical certainty of all action, the "Political" becomes distinguished by being unconditionally unquestionable. The unquestionableness of the "political" and its totality belong together. The ground for this connection and its continuance does not depend, as naive minds would have it, upon the contingent willfulness of dictators, but rather is founded in the metaphysical essence of modern reality itself. ... For the Greeks πολις is what is eminently questionable. For modern consciousness the "political" is what is necessarily and unconditionally unquestionable.

Quote #3: The Greek poetry is in itself ambiguous because what is to be poetized is in the truth of its essence ambiguous. For our present understanding, to be sure, we must search for detours and first of all identify a single univocal meaning in order to use this as a point of departure for a more originary understanding.

Quote #4: This sounds like a message of hopelessness and despair. And yet it names something else and points toward something else, provided that we live poetically on this earth and experience the poetized in its appearing and its provenance, which in turn means to bear and to suffer it rather than to compel and to scrutinize it. If we attempt only to posit and to impose measure forcefully on our own, it becomes measureless and disintegrates, is null and void. If we remain merely thoughtless and without the alertness of a discerning intimation, then once again no measure will show up. If however we are strong enough to think, then it can be sufficient for us to think about the truth of poetry and its poeticized (if) only from a distance -- which is to say barely -- in order to be suddenly struck by it.

Quote #5: A dream it becomes, if One
Seeks to steal up to it and punishes him, who
Seeks to equal it by force.
Often it surprises him,
Who has barely just given it a thought

Metaphysics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphys...
What Is Metaphysics? http://www.whatismetaphysics.com/

Quote #6: Such Remarks are always only an adjunct. It can happen that much of what is remarked is brought from outside and is not "contained in" the poetry. The remarks then are not taken from the poetry (and) by no means achieve the status of .. an "explication". At the risk of missing the truth of Hölderlinian poetry these remarks give only certain markings, signs to be remarked, holding-points for sensing. Because these remarks are only an adjunct, the poetry itself must above all and constantly be first and present.

Quote #7: One has, among humans, above all with each thing, to be attentive to the fact that it is something, i.e. that is recognizable in the means of its appearing, that the manner in which it is conditioned, can be defined and taught. For this reason poetry requires particularly sure and characteristic principles and limits.

Quote #8: Is there a measure on earth? There is none. Namely the thunder is never limited by the worlds of the Creator: Even a flower is beautiful, because it blooms in the sun. The eye often finds being in life that could be called even more beautiful than flowers. Oh! how well do I know that! For to bloom and bleed on figure and heart and then no longer to be, does that please God? (...)

" In "Poetically Man Dwells," Heidegger argues that poetic dwelling is not to be confused with the "dwelling conditions" of the human being..." http://is.gd/xp6pQ9

Tragic transport is namely actually empty, and the mowt unbound. Therefore in the rhythmic sequence of representations, wherein the transport exposes itself, what is necessary is what in prosody is called "caesura", the pure word, the counter-rhythmic interruption, in order to encounter the wrenching change of representations, at its height, so that it is no longer the change of representation that appears but rather the representation itself.

I mistook you not.
And secretly, as you lay dreaming, left I
At midday departing for you a friend's sign,
The mouth's flowers and you spoke alone,
But the fullness of the golden words you sent also
Blessed one! with the current and they swell inexhaustibly
Into the countries all.

• There is no measure, because there is no one earth. There are multiple worlds created by the Creator
• Therefore the measure is different for each and every one. It can be encountered and is disappearing simultaneously.
• The measures on earth can never be directly touched - only (and essentially!) encountered. <= this is very purifying thinking for an engineer like me

The new doctor's dissertation of Perttu Salovaara approaches the philosophical practice of leadership (and engineering): From leader-centricity toward leadership - a hermeneutic narrative approach http://acta.uta.fi/teos.php?id=100003...

• to everything we perceive rationally, with sense, belongs also three additional dimension: feelings, bodily reactions and our personal way of expressing thinking and action through art
• to be able to utilize measures and measuring - all the above four dimensions must be produced, encouraged, perceived / understood and gradually collaboratively and connectively transformed <= this is what in this dissertation is called weak leadership - we can't reach good performance, innovations etc. when / if we try to force results through rational activities / procedures / measures only

Weber concludes: the world currently heavily transforms through the transformation of communication made possible by the digital media - we can send out our thoughts from completely different singularities / situationalities / isolation than before.

Nikolaus Müller-Scholl begins: Walter Benjamin said that the wonderful thing of translating is possibilities to misunderstandings...

His topic is: "On the politics if interruption - Brecht, Holderlin and the intervention of the real"

Müller-Schöll, Nikolaus: "...just an invented word" http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journa...

Bertolt Brecht http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertolt_...

Müller-Scholl emphasizes Brecht's perspectives of ...rather than writing a theater play, in stead renewing the whole related process

Tragedy with a Purpose: Bertolt Brecht's "Antigone" http://www.jstor.org/pss/1124792

Never-Ending War; Brecht Adaptation Feels Way Too Relevant For Comfort http://www2.citypaper.com/arts/story....

Three Antigone Plays http://sydney.edu.au/arts/performance...

Sophocles' Antigone http://classics.uc.edu/~johnson/trage...

Notes on Bertolt Brecht http://www.superfluitiesredux.com/200...

Samuel Weber: Benjamin's Abilities http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.ph...

‘Singularization (Again)’ (Review of Samuel Weber’s "Benjamin’s -abilities") http://kingston.academia.edu/MatthewC...

Concluding... when a word is translated / transformed into language it always gets a form. When measuring matters expressed in writing / speaking the measuring process is depending on how we perceive the before mentioned form of language / translation. The translation / interpretation always anchors the process into the contexts where the language raises from.

@ConnectIrmeli You've great stuff here. About rhythm: the Mersy beat made Beatles. Soap operas are popular because they follow a rhythm. Airlines and trains arrive and depart with a rhythm we learn to remember. Daily blogging and tweeting follows a rhythm. Our work and holidays follow a certain rhythm. It's true that if we escape from the rhythm of normal behavior, it's very difficult to avoid a mental chaos. The hearthbeat of a mother is where we've been trained to follow a certain rythm. That goes for all species.