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La Société du Spectacle today

January 2012

Edito Guy Debord’s views on his society have changed. they have expanded online.

From TV characters infiltrating your digital friendships to real people branding the rebirth of Error, our society remains quite a spectacle. Exuberant, artificial, it keeps on blossoming with new ideas that blur even more the bondaries between what is real and what is not.

If you listen to wise men like Burton Kramer, you may find ways to gather all your thoughts and energy to create sense. Obviously.

But it sure takes some time and wisedom, because the Obvious is not the Apparent. If the light highlights the truth the source of light is not the source of truth.

Looking at the younger generations, I always wander how they smartly and smoothly succeed to fit in. What are the landmarks of reality for them ? Where does it start, where does it end ?

Here are some pages about what triggered me online in January 2012.

«Boredom is always counter-revolutionary.

Always.»

Guy Debord.

Table Of Content 1. The Real Life Of TV Show Charaters ...!

4

2. Design is ...!

8

3. The Future Is Already In The Classroom ...!

12

4. How To Fit In ...!

16

5. Virtual Traveling Experiences ...!

20

6. Error Is a Fundamental Human Condition ...!

24

2. 1. The Real Life Of TV Show Charaters ...

The Real Life Of TV Show Characters

Jess, aka Zooey Deschannel, the New Girl main character, has a life on Twitter. See @ItsJessTweets. Which is different from the official @NewGirlOnFox. It is quite a brilliant viral idea to have the character tweet and interact with the fans/ followers in-between two episodes.

Zooey, the actriss, has a real life too ; she sings, play, read, love, laugh. On her blog you can get a glimpse of her universe. As writes FastCompany, she is getting into the web series business. She’s serving as creative consultant on season two of The Single Life, a show created and coproduced by Digital Broadcasting Group (DBG) and Real Mom Productions. The series will “live and breathe on HelloGiggles.com,” a website Deschanel cofounded with Sophia Rossi and Molly McAleer, DBG’s CEO Chris Young tells Fast Company. The deal swells DBG’s long roster of original web video content, while nudging Deschanel into a growing coterie of Hollywood starlets who moonlight as entrepreneurs.

In the end, «la Société du spectacle» reaches the age of internet, blurring even more the boundary between reality and fiction, using real people social network to embed fictional characters’ life event within our real story posts.

On her HelloGiggles page, she wisingly posted her roomate’s video : Schmitt started to do similar things online, like this YouTUBE video «Schmitt is looking for love online». If you know the TV show and the character dreams about women, it will make you laugh. If you don’t, I bet you’ll miss the point of this video.

«Schmitt is looking for love online»

In the end, «la Société du spectacle» reaches the age of internet, blurring even more the boundary between reality and fiction, using real people social network to embed fictional characters’ life event within our real story posts.

1.bis The Real Life is ...

http://www.blog-ericssonfrance.com/2012/01/observatoire-consumerlab-ericssoncomment-les-adolescents-communiquent-ils-et-socialisent-ils-aujourdhui/

2. Design is ...

“Design is a substitute for any other kind of religion.�

It maybe sounds easy, but I always like this kind of soft teaching, coming from wise people, in charge of what they are speaking about. For them, it is just a form of life blogging, tweeting what they feel about the way they daily behave, the way they perform. Until it becomes as easy as breathing. It takes ages before everything they do, they say or write become so brightly aobvious. Ages before becoming a model.

“Design is how you think, how you see, how you act, what you buy, what you own, what you surround yourself with, what you listen to.

What you don’t listen to. What you watch, what you don’t watch.

So design for me is a kind of way of life, and perhaps a substitute for any other kind of religion.”

Burton Kramer in A BRIEF HISTORY OF,

by GREG DURRELL

Burton Kramer Identities is an important and comprehensive book on the work of a leading Canadian designer, educator and painter, who practiced for over 50 years.

Kramer began his design career in the New York office of Will Burtin and went on to work at Geigy under Gottfried Honegger.

In 1961, he moved to Zurich, Switzerland, as Chief Designer at the E. Halpern Agency, where he created award-winning work.

In 1965, Kramer moved to Toronto to work on graphics and signage for Expo 67. In 1967, he founded Kramer Design Associates, creating identity programs for the Royal Ontario Museum, Ontario Educational Television and in 1974, his wellknown logo and identity program for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

His logos and corporate identity work have been published in numerous books and journals worldwide. In 1999, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from ArtsToronto; in 2002, the Province of Ontario awarded him the Order of Ontario for his cultural contributions; and in 2003, the Ontario College of Art & Design granted him an honorary doctorate, D.Des. Since about 2001, Kramer’s focus has shifted from design to painting. His abstract, geometry-based, lyrical, colorist paintings have been shown regularly in galleries in Europe, Mexico, Colombia, the USA and Canada.

2.bis Design is ...

The HAND.WRITTEN.LETTER.PROJECT was after a conversation about how personal a letter can be: a fact that is currently drowning in a tide of depersonalisation, with junk mail and automated correspondence. Read more on http://www.handwrittenletterproject.com/

3. The Future Is Already In The Classroom ...

The Already The

Future Is In Classroom

Here is a quick sneak at the Future of #Education, as Steve Jobs and Bill Gate would see it : «Jobs asked some questions about education, and Gates sketched out his vision of what schools in the future would be like, with students watching lectures and video lessons on their own while using the classroom time for discussions and problem solving.

They agreed that computers had, so far, made surprisingly little impact on schools—far less than on other realms of society such as media.»

Extract from The Official Biography Of Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson.

«Otherwise, as Dylan says, if you’re not busy being born, you’re busy dying.»

Steve Jobs’s biography by Walter Isaacson

As we were eating lunch today with Noriko, a colleague of mine, we discussed about the different ways to envision education in US (where she studied and lived), in France and in Japan. In US, since the first school years, the classroom time is definitly a core moment of self expression exercice, dialogue and discussion. In MBA, Noriko explained to me that she even had a grade for «class participation».

In France or Japan, it sounds like the other way around ; the class time is a moment to listen to the teacher, ask questions and understand what the lesson is about. At home, you’ll go and exercice to make sure that you got the idea.

In such a context, even though this vision of the classroom looks alike the first ‘colleges’ in Europe middle age, I’m not sure that the Jobs and Gate’s vision of education would fit outside US, both from a student perspective and from a teacher perspective. Or at least it may take a while before it could be implemented, before the role and expectations of each stakeholder are clarified.

The other thing that may sound more obvious, and worldwide wise, is that educational classroom time and material must provide spectacle.

«If it stimulates curiosity, you’ve got the spark for learning.»

Marjory Sardino, Chief Executive at Pearson

«If it stimulates curiosity, you’ve got the spark for learning.»

Marjory Sardino, Chief Executive at Pearson

Any spectacle that may impact the curiosity of students is a must have. Sure. But Spectacular matter doesn’t only lay in interactive material.

Having this enticing material included in the Job and Gate’s vision may lead to an autonomous learning path. But then - and just look at the screenshot from the Apple video - what would be the difference between this and home schooling.

It looks amazing to learn by yourself, but who wants to learn by oneself?

According to me, the main aspect of spectacular aspect is when it leads to think that the best part remains in front of us; learning doesn’t have to be fun to be worthwhile, it has to be structuring the thinking in order to envision one’s development.

«Otherwise, as Dylan says, if you’re not busy being born, you’re busy dying.»

Steve Jobs’s biography by Walter Isaacson Or as Philippe Lemoine explained it in his closing speech of Lift 11, quoting ... ..., «The origine is not always behind us. The origin is not only where we come from, a fixed and determined point we have to deal with. The origin may be in front of us.».

In 1958, Anna Harendt wrote about US modern education system ; her bright conclusion was that the main difference with the earlier education systems is that the adults, in all level of the society, had given up taking their responsabilities.

They say they are not responsible for where we are now, neither for where we are heading to.

Responsability is shared on all of us, even the one that aren’t born yet. So is a national debt.

A school system is meant as much to lead the yonger generation to take part in the society economical life as to take an opportunityto be part of the history of mankind.

Either enter the market, either enter the mankind.

The discussion in the classroom should only focuss on this spectacular question.

4. How To Fit In ...

How To Fit In

«I am trying to cross the sense of private and public, and also now and past by taking bath in old style Japanese bathtub and stepping into photography by myself. You can see I take bath anywhere, It means the place you are seeing my works and also the place you are at now are not off-site.

The place where you are has possibilities to be the scene of my works.

You are not spectator, but party of my work, art. I want to be a part of art with you all.» Interview in Dudemag

Mariko Sakaguchi’s work reminds me a bit of Michel Gondry’s TOKYO piece ; what is the place that fits you the best. Or how to be part of other people’s lives without having to fit in according to the protocol. By doing so, Mariko Sakaguchi succeeds to make anyone part of her art and, therefore, being part of something higher than themselves.

Generously, she is offering some space in her artwork for anyone. And ne need to adapt to fit in, just come as you are.

4.bis How To Fit In ...

http://shareable.net/blog/a-collaborative-workspace-must-be-built-from-collaboration

5. Virtual Traveling Experiences ...

Virtual Traveling Experienc

es

Since I’ve discovered Martin Parr’s work 10 years ago, like any other people working in design or creative area, I’ve a sort of admiration for vintage clichés showing dead end leisure situation.

With the development of internet virtual worlds, the traveling experience may now take place within your own living room.

Everywhere in the world is pinpointed online. The world is closed.

“When wishes are out of reach, simulation is taking over our leisure time and our holidays. Imaginary worlds are created, often under massive technological exertion, in order to offer us experience as reproducible merchandise. Although the quality of these adventures on demand sometimes proves to be rather dubious, the boom does shed light on one thing: the yearnings and dreams underlying people’s daily lives.”

This is how Jens Lindworsky describe Reiner Reidler’s work.

As a matter of fact, I’m soon going to be part of this : next March, I’ll leave for a 6 months trip around the world.

Of course I’m aiming to go off the beaten paths, escaping the simulacres and reaching out the reality as it is. But I do know up front that it will be an impossible task.

On the other hand, all my friends have asked me to write a blog during these 6 months ; they will experience my travel as a virtual experience, reading my stories. Will they believe me when I’ll tell them it is for real ? Or is it ?

5.bis Virtual Traveling Experiences ...

“Canadian man passes US border using his iPad”

by Ben Quinn, for The Guardian A Canadian man who realised that he had left his passport at home as he approached the US border managed to cross over by using his Apple iPad. In a novel deployment of the tablet that may have come as a surprise even to the late Steve Jobs, Martin Reisch said that a mildly annoyed US border officer made an exception after he was handed the iPad displaying a scanned copy of the forgotten passport.

«Tourism, human circulation considered as consumption is fundamentally nothing more than the leisure of going to see what has become banal.»

Guy Debord

6. Error Is a Fundamental Human Condition ...

Error Is a Human Con Capitalist

Fundamental dition In The World

NAI Publishers says: Should artists be activists? Is activist art one of an artist’s primary responsibilities or a pointless sideshow on the fringes of serious politics? The philosopher, writer and art historian Lieven de Cauter, Ruben de Roo and Karel Vanhaesebrouck explore this theme in collaboration with other thinkers and doers in his new book Art and Activism in the Age of Globalization.

In a time of globalization, populism, hypercapitalism, migration, War on Terror, and global warming, artistic engagement is vital. Art and Activism in the Age of Globalization takes the measure of contemporary activist art.

What is the role of art and activism in the polarized, populist society of the spectacle? Art & Activism examines both the criticism of engagement as a mere pose and the need for cultural activism in today’s society. Urban activism and activism by anonymous networks are also investigated. Special attention is devoted to the effects of the War on Terror on activism in practice. The book concludes with a theoretical framework for contemporary activism and an impassioned plea for genuinely political art.

The book ends with the most honest plea: to burn the book (or burn your brain) because subversion (or subversivity) can be undermined by essays, books, intellectual jargon and 'radical' theories.

«The International Errorist is a global movement of artist-activists who use dark humor, absurdity, and theater to organize symbolic street actions that claim “error” as a fundamental human condition in the capitalist world.

The movement was founded in 2005 by the Buenos Aires-based collective Etcétera in protest of George W. Bush and the Summits of the Americas, and has subsequently expanded with members in Latin America, Mexico, Europe, Canada, the United States, and Japan. For the 11th Istanbul Biennial, Etcétera created Errorist Kabaret (2009), a surreal tableau in which viewers actively commingled with life-sized cutouts of iconic historical figures of the International Errorist movement.»

At the age of Internet «hacking way» - to quote Mark Zuckerberg - these errorist folks are playing with the opportunity of error as a hacking tool. If the Anonymous represent another intentional way of hacking, the errorist are there only to raise the question and not to protest for anything particular.

The «société du spectacle» today is based on activist art.

6.bis Error Is a Fundamental Human Condition ...

Credits Cover :

Steve Cohen, Chandelier

P.4-5 :

Zooey Deschannel, by Breezy Baldwin (Flickr user)

P.8-9-10 :

Burton Kramer, by Greg Durell

P.11 :

THE HAND.WRITTEN.LETTER.PROJECT

P.12-13-14 :

Apple in Education

P.16-17-18 :

Ariko Sakaguchi

P.20-21 :

Reiner Riedler

P.22 :

Jenny Brial, Globe Baster.nl, The Future Was Here

P.23 :

Martin Reisch, in an article from The Guardian

P.24-25 :

Errorist

ÂŤIn societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.Âť Guy Debord

Š Marc Chtaigner @marcchataigner