Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 23:46:56 +0000
Subject: HAB: Habermas London's Exploding Cinema
From: "Stefan Szczelkun" <stefan-AT-szczelkun.greatxscape.net>


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Ok Gary,

You might be interested in the work of Theo Van Leeuwen. In his book
'Speech Music Sound' (1999) he describes the whole soundscape as an
integrated communications medium. The range goes from the highly
codified to the highly improvised which holds out its meaning through
pragmatic association both to experience and to provenance. Following
Murray Schaffer any sound is typically heard as 'figure' in the
foreground, and then 'ground' in the intermediate and as 'field' in
the background. This mix has then to exist (Witgensteinally) within a
dynamic historical and social setting.
VL suggests that any codified language has to renew itself by
periodically returning to a level of prelinguistic experiental play.
And that this dynamic relation is essential if communicative action
is not to ossify.
In a previous book with Gunther Kress, (1996) 'Reading images: the
grammar of visual design' he extricates the codified nature of the
visual field which is not dependent on any verbal deliverance.
These practical semiotic approaches seem more funky than those
Habermas was working with in TCA.
My angle on cultures role in democracy goes back to Raymond William's
idea that: "Its basic element is its effort at total qualitative
assessment" (1958)

The Exploding Cinema hails early cinema and even musichall (Burlesque
to USers). It doesn't review the short films it shows, which are
procured by open invitation, and there is no archive of them or
formal discussion. The whole event is 'oral' and 'amateur' in spite
of the university educations and high level of commitment of the
participants. It pays for itself from entrance charges to its events
and the freely given labour of the collective and in this way it is
free from patronage.
It seems like a model of a forum which is relatively outside of
systemic constraints but appears to be lacking, in terms of TCA, in
sufficient validity determinations. Or at least these occur invisibly
in the throng of the audience's reactions (who are also drinking and
eating). But perhaps this lack of formal validity determining ritual
is down to the lack of esteem that such an event is held in. Its lack
of legitimating position.

This lack of esteem also undermines all everyday discourse as being
on the plain rather than the high ground of discourse. Without
legitimation perhaps nobody bothers to take the case  of the validity
of any statement (eg short video) too far or perhaps the validity
filters of oral culture are not yet described. But can high/literary
theory be used to legitimate 'low'/non literary culture?

And can TCA be developed to frame such informal non-verbal diffuse
cultural media of consensus formation. From another recent thread,
Gary I think it is...
"Accordingly, the issue of the articulability of the lifeworld is
different for the performer and the scientist. Earlier, I had been
thinking about the situation of the performer, which can grow to
understand quite a bit about the Background. Again, its quite the
issue how much can be understood *in general*, i.e., about the
lifeworld as a whole"
I'm not sure exactly what performer means here but it does seem to me
that this may cross over with my own subjects. (even if it is another
plane of discourse.) I would like to hear what is a performer? and
what is the nature of that understanding?
On the discussion of MEANING. I go with the meaning is a dynamic
normative abstraction. But not only in language in the literary
sense. Blue doesn't have much meaning but it has a lot of
associations. Then whilst seeing blue, hear a church bell and between
the two fields of associations are a whole range of poetic
possiblities which may only be brought into focus by a contextual
manipulation. These extremely ephemeral meanings can then be held, by
as it were magnetic forces, and brought into a sequence by the
performer. No words. But the kind of resounding meaningful insight
that an aesthetic experience is capable of.

PS 1. I got a round-a-bout reply from Allan Antliff from University
of Alberta who has written a book called 'Anarchist Modernism',
(2001) Univ of Chicago Press, which I assume includes a discussion of
Habermas.  He has also situated Habermas in an anarchist context in
the collection 'Nietzsche and Anarchism' edited by John Moore, to be
published by Autonomedia.
2. Thanks Ken for the reference to Marie Fleming's 'Emancipation and
Illusion'





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