blogos

It’s about the process, not the result… the journey, not the destination…

… even though a satisfying outcome would still be ideal.

Ithaca

When you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon — do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not set them up before you.

Pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy
you will enter ports seen for the first time;
stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensual perfumes of all kinds,

as many sensual perfumes as you can; visit many Egyptian cities, to learn and learn from scholars.

Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.

Without her you would have never set out on the road.

She has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.

Wise as you have become, with so much experience,

you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.

Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)

chronologically inaccurate

Was trying to squeeze this in with some earlier posts but couldn’t successfully pull it off, so I’m just placing it here – suspended. It hypothetically fits everywhere, yet cannot practically be placed anywhere.

Visual triggers —>  bound to cultural myths, historical baggage, national identity, politics etc  < —

In researching my disaster, I inevitably came across images of what I now consider cliched, overused, misappropriated and, frankly,  bordering on kitschy. I am referring to images of classical Greek structures such as the Parthenon, whose rendering into a mass produced image (among other commodity forms) has now become similar to a tacky souvenir that ignorant tourists eagerly purchase in the midst of some kind of spiritual cultural consumption. Those images, to me, no longer bear any “real” connection to the past… they are merely attractors to the easily seduced and the easily misled.

I was therefore cautious in using the meander because its use can often become tacky. I did not want my logo to turn into a condensed equivalent of this tacky Greek house:

In any case, I feel as though an obligatory analysis (ala Macnab) is in order, so as to justify the image/shape I chose to extract from the montage/collage/ pastiche of images that has been created in my mind with the help of the Google image search engine.

Instead of choosing the most typical shapes characteristic of the three prevalent architectural styles in Ancient Greece (Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian order), I chose to focus on the meander-like shape that is perhaps a fusion of principles extracted from all of the aforementioned orders and -at the same time- a creative departure from all these styles and their functionality. The meander-like shape emerges from some recurrent shape/image-concepts in this blog, such as the labyrinth and the hypertext metaphors.

What is interesting about the meander is that it has made the leap from architecture (originally: Greek and Roman, e.g. used in temples) to art – from function and form, to aesthetics and conceptual design. Nowadays, the Key design is not only used in modern Greek design (sometimes to a fault, as in, for example, Greek restaurants in America), but also in products of other cultures (e.g. Mexican buildings).

Commonly, the meander symbolizes unity and infinity, or infinite potential.

Ironically (or, fittingly), a random snapshot of a meander reminded me of the swastika symbol. Not the spiritual and religious usage of the swastika, but the stigmatized version that is loaded with fascist overtones.

Of course, the meander-turned-swastika could be related to many aspects of the disaster, such as in relation  to concepts of anarchy, education, democracy, freedom, cultural myths, and progress.

In terms of my logo design, I wanted to transform and appropriate the meandering shape so as to touch on its classical undertones, but also transcend its overbearing significance.  However, with this transformation, some unexpected associations emerged that were unintended and beyond my control (see my aforementioned swastika symbolism).

In Decoding Design, Maggie Macnab cites the example of the swastika to illustrate how “subtle alterations [in design] can be used to influence belief and reconstitute the common meaning of a symbol.” She then goes on to mention how the positive associations of the swastika became overwhelmed by the propagandist appropriation of the symbol by the Third Reich. Despite Macnab’s assertion that an appropriated symbol can overcome its original meaning once it becomes redesigned and recontextualized (and, inevitably, de/repoliticized), I do not think the swastika can ever fully move beyond the negative signification it gained post 1920s.  These associations will continue to overwhelm the swastika symbol – at least for the Western imagination –  and no amount of amount of de/reconstruction and manipulation can help it surpass the baggage it is automatically associated with.

I am aware of this unspoken stipulation, and using it productively to stimulate my logo’s evolutionary progress and the branding of my disaster.

Μηδέν άγαν * Παν μέτρον άριστον **

*Nothing in excess
* *Everything in moderation

Louis Vuitton – Cyprus style (inside joke, only Cypriots might get it). A fusion of nostalgia and “progress”. A status symbol juxtaposed with a stereotype. That’s all that can be said with words and images. You have to be part of the culture to get it… and even maybe laugh at it if you have an appropriate degree of cultural detachment at the same time.

Please Read:

http://grhomeboy.wordpress.com/2008/03/21/nicosias-ledra-street-opening-would-shatter-symbol-of-division/

Nontruths

Myth as a nontruth (but not untruth) “still protects the bygone which will have no effect, at least for those (all of us) who, being alive, seem to recognize only the active power of the present” (Blanchot).

[1] Turks fire shots at British soldiers – no injuries

[2] Cypriot police are closing in on killers of Solomou and Isaac

[3] Rauf Denktash reportedly was present at Cyprus’ latest violent incident

[4] Turkish doctors are cooperating with torturers, according to British newspaper “The Observer”

[5] Arrest warrants issued against Turks

[6] Warrants of arrest issued for the murder of Solomos Solomou

[7] State Department protests shooting against British soldiers by Turkish troops

[8] International warrants for the arrest of six suspects in the killing of Greek-Cypriot Tasos Isaac were issued by the Greek-Cypriot police

[9] Arrest warrants issued for murder of Tassos Isaac

An Obligatory Post

Blanchot Vs. Barthes: (Non)Dialectic battle, Round 1 Warmup

Bathes sees myth as a specific kind of speech. “…Myth is a system of communication, that is a message. This allows one to perceive that myth cannot possibly be an object, a concept, or an idea; it is a mode of signification, a form”.  For Barth, myth’s function is “to empty reality: it is, literally, a ceaseless flowing out, a haemorrhage, or perhaps an evaporation, in short a perceptible absence.” (Barthes, Mythologies, 1973)

It is unfortunate (for Barthes) that even his choice of words (e.g. “literally”, “reality”, “perceptible”)  points to the inherent contradictions in his argument.

On the other hand, Blanchot directs our attention away from signs and signifiers by introducing the concept of the mythical or hyperbolic cancer. On the surface, cancer signifies symbolizes “the refusal to respond.” But more than this, “it destroys the very idea of a program, blurring the exchange and the message: it wrecks the possibility of reducing everything to the equivalent of signs.” According to Blanchot, this kind of cancer is “one of the rare ways to dislocate the system, to disarticulate… the universal programming and signifying power.” (The Writing of the Disaster, 1980)

But, the experience economy attempts to make the cancer relevant by manipulating its mythical nature. The cancer may not signify within the system, but it is made to exist through the system by cancer’s very attempt to dislocate it. The system validates the cancer, out of fear that the cancer will dislocate it … or out of denial that this cancer has already dislocated it.

>> Jump to Walls for the Match, and take this with you:

Media Reports: Arsonists torched two cars outside a Greek consulate in southwestern France yesterday, scrawling slogans in support of the youth riots gripping Athens, according to an account by the Associated Press. Police found graffiti on a wall opposite the consulate, and on a nearby garage door, reading “Support for the fires in Greece,” “Insurrection Everywhere” and “The Coming Insurrection.”

walls

Mythical or Hyperbolic Cancer: Repetition with a difference:

” … here is a cell that doesn’t hear the command, that develops lawlessly, in a way that could be called anarchic.” More so, this cancer “destroys the very idea of a program, blurring the exchange and the message…

Cancer, from this perspective, is a political phenomenon*, one of the rare ways to dislocate the system, to disarticulate, through proliferation and disorder, the universal programming and signifying power…

Something we cannot understand maliciously neutralizes the authority of a master knowledge.” (Blanchot).

* If mythical cancer is a political phenomenon, then Bathes’ assertion that “myth is depoliticized speech” is flawed (even though he offers a broader understanding of the word “political”,  as the network of human relations and their influence in creating the social order).  Ding, Ding, Ding! >>  Round 1 winner: Blanchot >>

Anarchy NOW

Anarchists, like the disaster, are situated outside the experience economy. Like some aspects of the disaster, anarchists place themselves inside the experience economy only to destroy it.  The fact that anarchists remain powerless against (and within) the experience economy makes them more determined to find their power outside of it. However, they usually end up becoming part of the experience economy by their very opposition towards it.

Anarchists = otherness. Their/ Our obsession with others.

Example & Application: the Greek Riots

The defacement of public property in large Greek cities such as Athens and Thessaloniki has impacted tourism, a contributing aspect to the experience economy >>> The anarchists have been integrated into the experience economy model through the commodification of their acts: for instance, millions of photographs of the riots and of public property damages have been circulating around the world.  The riots and their aftermath turned the world’s attention to Greece and Europe in general. The apocalyptic overtones attached to the disaster by various global media outlets have placed Greece at the center of it all, only to ultimately decentralize it.

Profit/ credit= e.g. international exposure, profile, capital  ## #

Debit= e.g. impact on: tourism, government, education labor…

Corporate media tend to ignore anarchists, or try to minimize their impact.  The fact that corporate media outlets have been forced to detail the anarchist involvement in these and other struggles in Greece attests to the significance of anarchist activity. Leftists attempt to portray the events in Greece as a general uprising of  “the people,” and this is not inaccurate, since countless “normal” people have participated. However, from the vantage point of anarchist supporters and those intimidated by anarchists, it is the anarchists that have instigated the riots and have remained the most influential force within the “movement”.

From one perspective, the anarchists – and “anarchy” in its abstract form – function as a political scapegoat. A scapegoat that is used to let the government almost entirely off the hook. A scapegoat that does not point to what is wrong with the System, but serves the purpose [to some] of placing blame outside the system and displacing the flaws outside the system.

If only it were so simple.

Democracy is dead. Long live democracy.

Athens, Greece (2009). Wall outside the Greek parliament. Riot police officer standing next to the wall. The slogan on the wall was written by anarchists protesters that joined hundreds of migrants to demonstrate against police violence and demand more liberal immigration laws.

British popgroup Pet Shop Boys used QR-code for the artwork of their download-only single Integral in 2007. The videoclip for the song also features QR-code. When the codes are scanned correctly, users are directed to petshopboys.co.uk, and web pages about the British national identity card plans, respectively. ***

Users with a camera phone equipped with the correct reader software can scan the image of the QR Code causing the phone’s browser to launch and redirect to the programmed URL. This act of linking from physical world objects is known as a hardlink or physical world hyperlinks. Users can also generate and print their own QR Code for others to scan and use by visiting one of several free QR Code generating sites.  (Wiki)

Cavafy Revisited

The didactic aspect to Cavafy’ s poetry is hard to ignore. Perhaps because my teachers insisted so much on it. Perhaps because my mother is a philologist and taught me to appreciate this kind of creativity. Perhaps because Cavafy is a national icon and, like a myth, he functions didactically through his work.

This poem is meant to pass on the wisdom of an older and wiser poet to the Greek youth. For Cavafy, a destructive ignorance is embedded in the convictions of youth.

The poet’s words are meant to be taken as an oracle. The clarity in Cavafy’s instructions seems to make his prophecy different to the cryptic prophecies given by Oracles. But, like the Oracle’s prophecies,  foresight of the [self-repeating] future does not prepare us for the disaster, for the disaster is time-less.

In a sense, Cavafy’s words cancel themselves out in the face of the disaster and render him just as powerless as the youth he is trying to educate.

Catalysts

Narrativizing disasters = fictionalizing history = historicizing fiction.

Any account of the disaster attempts to impose coherence and mastery over random or unpredictable “events”.  Myths provide us with ready-made adaptable narratives that resonate within culture at large, and can therefore be applied to any disaster. Myths attempt to bring the disaster – an intangible presence/ absence that escapes cultural logic – inside the culture so as to render it comprehensible and, ultimately, [retrospectively] predictable. As Steven Biel asserts, myths are welcomed by culture because they locate “a disturbing event within routine structures of understanding.”

Although not immediately obvious, the typical structure of myths is based on – and forged through – catalysts. Any myth can be traced back to a  catalyst(s) that not only stimulates the (re)creation/ (re)cycling of the myth itself, but also provides myth-makers with a tangible starting point on which they can elaborate their myth.

An iceberg. A bomb. A plane. A boy.

With this in mind, I turn myself to the identifiable catalyst (or even scapegoat) that is thought to have triggered the Greek Riots: Alexandros Grigoropoulos.

15 year old Alexandros is dead. The only thing certain about his dead is that he is dead.

Alexandros was shot by a policeman.

Alexandros was accidentally killed.

Alexandros provoked his death.

Alexandros is a political scapegoat.

Alexandros’ murderer is a social scapegoat.

Alexandros ……………………………….

This is where most related narratives begin.

“We construct a narrative for ourselves, and that’s the thread we follow from one day to the next. People who disintegrate as personalities are the ones who lose that thread.”  Paul Auster