Image
In “What is an Image,” W.J.T. Mitchell states that “images are not just a particular kind of sign, but something like an actor on the historical stage, a presence or character endowed with legendary status, a history that parallels and participates in the stories we tell ourselves about our own evolution as creatures ‘made in the image’ of a creator, to creatures who make themselves and their world in their own image” (9). The way we view and understand an image is not static. They are shaped by the historical context surrounding when we view the image. In The Civil Contract of Photography, Ariella Azoulay states that “different people, in different places, can simultaneously use a black box to manufacture an image of their encounters: not an image of them, but of the encounter itself” (92). Images prior to photography were staged and made to show a person. Photography allowed images to portray an interaction. This type of image transformed the way that humans interact with each other and how images are viewed. Both uses of “image” work in tandem to illustrate how human interaction and historical context complexify separating our own ideas from images. During our final plenary session, my classmate asked how it is possible to separate your own perspectives from a creator’s original intentions. Dr. Bory’s response was that once a book, article, photo, art piece, or performance is published, that work is now subject to those individual and community perspectives. The “image” of all works is changed by human perspective and history.
Status Quo
In Patel and Moore’s A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, the term “status quo” is used to illustrate the state before a disruption. In the introduction it states “peasant demands for tax relief and the restoration of customary rights were calls that feudalism’s rulers could not tolerate. If Europe’s crowns, banks and aristocracies could not suffer such demands, neither could they restore the status quo ante, despite their best efforts” (13). This perception of “status quo” is further developed in Rawls’ Theory of Justice which states “The original position is, one might say, the appropriate initial status quo, and thus the fundamental agreements reached within it are fair” (721). Rawls argues that his original position is the most substantial and correct form of affairs. In Sered’s Until We Reckon, it states “We are acknowledging that the risk associated with the status quo is not one we can continue to assume, so we choose something different, not out of innovation or bravery or curiosity, but out of responsibility…” (59). This use paints the status quo as something to escape, not something to maintain.
Semiotics
During Dr. Bory’s Plenary on April 23rd, she defined reductive semiotics as “the study of meaning making through signs and symbols.” She applied this definition to Susan Leigh Foster’s “Choreographies of Protest” to illustrate how signs and symbols allow bodies to make meaning. Foster states “a signature form of demonstration, especially in the earlier years of ACT UP, die-ins featured bodies moving from vertical standing to horizontal lying, occasionally exaggerating the fall with flare and angst, more often transiting pragmatically onto the ground” (403). Protestors in the ACT UP movement were able to portray the devastating effects of AIDs through semiotics. Bodies lying on the ground were symbols of the death caused by lack of AIDs medication. Another way that semiotics has been used in Humes is through Dr. Corso-Esquival’s art lectures. On March 17th, Dr. Corso-Esquival shared Emma Sulkowiez’s Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight). A student at Columbia University protested her discontent with the institution’s handling of her sexual assault by carrying a 50 lb. dorm mattress everywhere she went on campus. This endurance protest used semiotics by using the mattress as a symbol of her sexual assault and the institution’s lack of action.
Private
The question “Is privacy expected at all times?” fueled Dr. Lipsker’s section discussion around United States v. Jones, specifically in relation to privacy at Davidson College. One of my section peers brought up how wealth directly influences access to privacy. Triple bed dorm rooms used to be cheaper than a double or single. This shows that privacy is often something that is purchased. The wealthier you are, the more you can access privacy. In Dr. In Corso-Esquival’s section, we discussed the same question about privacy expectations but in relation to data, surveillance, and social media in Brayne’s Predict and Surveil. Bryane states that “we must find ways to curb institutions’ craving for data, because that hunger too often outpaces our understanding of the intended and unintended consequences of a data binge” (16). Industry desires for data have implications for misuse of private, sensitive information.
Algorithm
Brayne’s Predict and Surveil states “algorithm has both a technical and nontechnical meaning. An algorithm is technically a formally specified set of instructions used to analyze data and automate decisions. People often analogize algorithms to a recipe. Today, however, people tend to use the term ‘algorithm’ to connote a more general process by which computers make automated, predictive decisions about a dataset “(3). Brayne then states that “algorithms do not transcend the social, but are shaped by the social world in which they are created and used” (4). This definition creates implications for algorithms to be used for unjust purposes. People in preexisting social, organizational, and institutional contexts decide what data to analyze, about whom, and for what purpose. Algorithms also play a role in maintaining societal order or as a use of punishment. In “Docile Bodies,” Foucault states “these methods, which made possible the meticulous control of the operations of the body, which assured the constant subjection of its forces and imposed upon them a relation of docility-utility, might have been called ‘disciplines’ (137). The strict algorithms that promote productivity also function as methods of control.
Satyagraha
Dr. Wills defined “satyagraha” in the context of the Montgomery Bus Boycotts on February 3rd. Satyagraha is the form of passive resistance created by Gandhi in India. Martin Luther King Jr. learned of this protest method, and encouraged those in the Civil Rights movement to do the same. Dr. Wills stated that satyagraha means truth – or love – force, where resistance seeks to win the understanding of the opponent, not humiliate them. “The March 2” illustrates how activists in the Montgomery Bus Boycotts embodied satyagraha even in response to massive physical and spiritual violence from opponents. usan Leigh Foster illustrates a similar passive resistance in “Choreographies of Protest.” Foster analyzes the 1960s lunch counter sit-ins, the ACT UP die-ins, and the World Trade Organization meeting protests in Seattle as non-violent resistance. Foster states “all three moments, however, shared a recalcitrant physicality that refuses to comply with the bodies of those in positions of authority. And all three implemented a tactics of non-violent direct action for which bodies rehearsed specific procedures of non-cooperation” (396). These three movements connect back to Gandhi’s Satyagraha by balancing non-violence and resistance to formulate understanding from the opponent.
Policing
In Predict and Surveil, Brayne states that “policing the digital traces of everyday life is now a routine, if inconsistent, element of contemporary law enforcement, because we have collectively provided unprecedented opportunities for surveillance” (2). She uses the term policing to describe a “preventive” form of surveillance that has been created by big data. Foucault describes a different form of surveillance in Discipline and Punish. When describing the Panopticon, he states “this enclosed, segmented space, observed at every point, in which the individuals are inserted in a fixed place, in which the slightest movements are supervised, in which all events are recorded, in which an uninterrupted work of writing links the centre and the periphery, in which power is exercised without division, according to a continuous hierarchical figure” (197). This surveillance is happening all the time. In a similar way to how Brayne describes big data surveillance, everything is being documented. Foucault adds to the idea of policing by describing how this impeding surveillance forms both preventive policing and punishment.
Hegemony
In Patel and Moore’s A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, Hegemony it states “the ordering and reordering of society through cheap things has always been preceded by both force and suasion, coercion, and consent. To maintain hegemony is, as Antonio Gramsci observed, to recruit and maintain forces from across sovereignty in a block that is able to continuously outmaneuver its rivals” (28). Hegemony is power. Dr. Lipsker expanded on this definition of hegemony in plenary on March 5th by stating that hegemony plays a crucial role in understanding where you’re positioned in the structure of power. Hegemony makes us less aware of the power structures that govern our lives, and gets us to accept those structures of power as “common sense” when they don’t necessarily need to be that way. This definition of hegemony as dominant influence and power aligns with Dr. Bory’s concerns about the use of the terms “human nature” or “natural.” The ideologies behind what is “natural” often considers only one privileged perceptive. In the case of Brenda Dixon Gottschild’s “Digging the Africanist Presence,” Europeanist ideology serves as the dominating power that appropriates Africanist culture. Although Africanist culture is applied to much of daily life, its recognition as a dominant influence is minimal.
Works Cited
Azoulay, Ariella. “The Civil Contract of Photography.” (2021)
Brayne, Sarah. Predict and Surveil: Data, discretion, and the future of policing. Oxford University Press, 2021.
Emma Sulkowicz, Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight), 2014-2015, endurance performance with 50 lb dorm mattress, Columbia University, New York
Foucoult, Michel. “Discipline and Punish.” A. Sheridan, Tr., Paris, FR, Gallimard (1975).
Foster, Susan Leigh. “Choreographies of protest.” Theatre Journal 55.3 (2003): 395-412.
Gottschild, Brenda Dixon. “Digging the Africanist presence in American performance: Dance and other contexts.” (1996).
John Rawls. “A theory of justice.” (1971).
Mitchell, William JT. “What is an Image?.” New literary history 15.3 (1984): 503-537.
Patel, Raj, and Jason W. Moore. A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things : A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet, University of California Press, 2017
Sered, Danielle. Until we Reckon: Violence, mass incarceration, and a road to repair. The New Press, 2019.
