Medium Singularity

There's a concept in transhumanist theory called the singularity. The best definition I've come across for it is the point where any reasonable predictions of the future become largely moot because we have either developed transhuman intelligences (something like the human computers from Frank Herbert's Dune) or because we've developed some sort of artificial intelligence. This is the point where all bets are off.

I'm particularly interested in the prediction point. What if we apply the concept of the singularity to smaller areas? What would a singularity look like if it was essentially limited to a single medium?

Well, I think painting might be a field that has already hit its singularity. Consider it a medium singularity--the point where everything we could possibly do with painting while still remaining painting has been explored. Central to this idea is the assumption that media have tools, and these tools can be discovered, related, and used in different combinations. This means that a medium singularity is a little different from a technological singularity, but it still remains a point where the playingfield is effectively totally altered simply because there can no longer be a quest for new ways of expressing things with the medium. An alternate descriptive title could be "art at the end of time."

What makes it a singularity is the fact that once all the tools have been explored there is no way of predicting a future, because all the past is totally open. Once there is nothing left to discover, what emerges is an infinite range of expression and, by extension, boundless freedom.

It's a weird paradox of creativity. Restrictions really do breed creativity. Ever build something with a highly limited number of legos? Then you probably know what I'm talking about: often you arrive at some really interesting solutions when you're limited in what you can do. And what greater limitation can there be but the limitation that you can't do anything totally new? How do you express yourself individually when you can't come up with a totally new mode of expression?

But let's get back to painting. What is painting's point of medium singularity, and why am I so sure we've hit it?

I would pinpoint it somewhere in the mid 1900s with three basic movements. One is the randomized, pseudo-mystical abstract expressionism of Pollack:

Aaah Aaah AaahCH

One is the barren geometries and explorations of subtle color of Ad Reinhardt:

If you're having trouble seeing it, try tilting your computer screen.

And one is the oppressive and fallow ultrarealism of Edward Hopper:

This looks like a cheerful place, no?

These three artists to me stand out as exemplifying the deathknell of innovation in painting. Pollack and Reinhardt (and some of the incredible Russian Constructionist painters before him) pushed abstraction to its ultimate limit, one by embracing absolute chaos and the other by embracing absolute control and subtlety. Hopper, on the other hand, pushes realism to its limits, turning everything into a kind of totally constricted still life, all strangely flat and dry. Hell, Reinhardt actually considered his paintings to be the artistic end of the line, the last paintings possible. Arrogant to be sure, but looking at his abyssal black images one can't help but sense that maybe the medium has gone as far as it can. These three schools of thought pushed painting to its absolute outer limits.

And since then... well, what's really been done in painting that's innovative? We might make some room for Jasper Johns and his paintings of things like targets and flags, since they play around with the semantics of the medium (is it a flag or a painting and so on and so forth) but a lot of what he does is innovative because he uses techniques of sculpture in addition to his techniques of painting:



Cool stuff, but not strictly just painting anymore. And a lot of his other paintings are quite strongly influenced stylistically by Pollack and the expressionists, and influenced thematically by Duchamp and the dadaists. His stuff is brilliant, but a lot of the time it's not really that new, per se.

Johns is probably one of the first post-singularity painters. He's now branching out into other mixed media because, well, a lot of the techniques in paint are pretty well figured out. And when he does go into straight painting he plays around with subject matter that wouldn't typically make its way into paint--itself not necessarily an innovation (compare his typography work to people like the futurists, cubists, and vorticicicsts goddammit I can never, ever remember how to spell that movement) but still a clever way of finding something new to say with techniques innovated by others.

But perhaps I am unfairly judging this medium through hindsight. What if we compare this to an emerging medium?

Well, in comics there are still a few ideas that have yet to be really fully explored. Grant Morrison's layered panels in We3 have yet to be really explored, and there's plenty of space yet to explore with layouts and the building and breaking of patterns in the construction of panels. There's quite a bit of stuff coming out of late that strikes me as new and innovative, whether it be the blended east/west sensibilities of works like Scott Pilgrim or I Kill Giants, or the weird, claustrophobic collaged narrative/image effects of the truly mindbending Duncan the Wonder Dog (look them up, seriously. Torrent them if you can, then buy them). So, this is an area where I think there's quite a bit of room for exploration.

And what about games? Well, there, too, people are already talking about what to explore next, and how to push technology, style, and things like storytelling. There's all sorts of places that we can go in that medium, as Extra Credits and their fellow critics are almost constantly point out these days.

So, I honestly don't think this is just a historical perspective that ignores future possibilities. In fact, I would say it's the opposite: it's a historical perspective that revels in future possibilities. We've got essentially a wide open field now stylistically, and it doesn't surprise me at all when artists show up using totally bizarre mixes of styles. There are so many possibilities that I don't think anyone can really predict where painting will go. We now have--in no small part because of the Internet, one of the potential tools of the technological singularity--an entire history of art at our fingertips. We've created essentially a giant superhuman art historian online, and all bets are off as to where we're going to go from here. It's an exciting time to follow painting because nothing new is possible.

So everything is.

Of course...

I could be totally wrong:



Sorry for the missed week. It's already a hellish semester, and it's only just begun. Your homework for this week is: prove me wrong. You know I'm talking crap, I know I'm talking crap, so let's get out there and prove it.

As always, feel free to leave comments, complaints, or, best of all, your own interpretations, or e-mail me at keeperofmanynames@gmail.com . And, if you like what you've read here, share it on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Reddit, Equestria Daily, Xanga, Netscape, or whatever else you crazy kids are using to surf the blogoblag these days.

Gaga Intermission: Pop.Sci.Fi Part II

If you want to really understand music videos, sci fi pop videos are a great place to start. They already, after all, have an established genre they're working in that we can compare to other media. We understand science fiction tropes and we understand pop music tropes, so we can stat with a strong foundation and, from there, pick apart just why certain videos work.

And, occasionally, why certain videos stride into the territory of the staggeringly brilliant.

To pick apart some of this, I'm going to delve into what are probably two of the most interesting videos in this genre out right now, Nero's "Promises" and... alright, hold the laughter till the end, people, please... Katy Perry's "ET." Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's time for me to aesthetically critique a Katy Perry video. [downs the entire wine glass] Let's get this show moving, shall we?



Check out this video by Nero. This video is doing a lot of what we saw in WoRG1: we've got the predominantly white surroundings, we've got a dystopia where technology is used to subjugate and cut people off from love, and we've got a female lead that rebels against the society. We can also see its relationship to some of the works in Tuesday's article, going all the way back to Orgy's "Stitches." It's a great aesthetic that here, as in those other videos, is used to wonderful stylistic effect. The overwhelming whiteness of the scenery perfectly reinforces the sterilized atmosphere and, unlike in "Bad Romance," this sterility is never disrupted. It's all black, white, and blue.

The band they're dancing to is Kraftwerk Orange.

What's interesting, actually, is how completely opposed the two visions in "Promises" and "Bad Romance" are. Gaga's is flashy. It ends with her torching the bed of her buyer with a flamethrower bra--the sterility is destroyed. The dancing is spasmodic and extremely overstated. The cuts between individual shots are extremely rapid and often jump back and forth in time and space. In Nero's video, on the other hand, everything is drawn back and extremely understated. But it is no less powerful and, in some ways, is even more emotionally gripping.

There's only three real movements here plus intro and conclusion--the introduction at the beginning, the first scene where we see the taking of the pills and the fact that the main character isn't taking her meds, the second scene where we see the dance, and the tragic, 1984 style finale, where the pathetically brief romance shatters and our rebel is made to understand that She Loves Big Brother. When you put the last audio clip, "It's so... beautiful", what you have is not just the perfect five part PSSA essay (shout out to my American standardized test bullshit hommies!) but also a very simple rising action, short climax, and even shorter denouement. This is a far cry from the jumbled stories of Bad Romance and Alejandro, and by limiting the structure of the story so much each element stands out crystal clear, not hidden under the jumble of interesting visuals that Gaga is so fond of. So, one thing that we can learn here is that music videos have incredible stylistic freedom, but that means that their creators have to use the style consciously to reinforce whatever the video is saying.

Then, of course, there's the incredible power that comes from the tension during the climax. Rewatch that scene where our rebel hero and her ten-minute boyfriend dance. It's so slow, and so controlled, and so undramatic compared to Gaga's dance style... but every single fucking nerve is on edge, you can see their bodies quivering, you can sense the tension in the air. It's incredibly sensual, incredibly sexy, and incredibly heartbreaking if you know what's coming. It's the perfect setup for the silent anguished cry that we see as the two are ripped apart.

The dancing in this sequence serves as a good example of the distillation of Gaga's (and, consequentially, Pop's) use of traditional music video qualities in order to set up a science fiction story. As my lovely girlfriend Sara pointed out to me, the style of the dancing is very strongly tied to the individual characters. As a dancer, she noticed that the figures in the background are using smooth, controlled motions at every point. Yeah, sure, great, who cares, right? That's obvious. Well, maybe not quite as obvious as you might think. Look at that little movement they do as they move their hands upward and then back down. It's a very smooth movement. Now, even though our main characters are dancing together in a similarly slow and smooth way--which, again, really adds to the tension of the moment--their movements are not uniformly smooth. There's a slight accent on that hand flip, and that's what tells us, consciously or not, that these two are different. It's incredible how subtly this works in our minds, but it's undeniable that they stand out from the other dancers, even though they aren't doing the crazy gyrations that the main character was doing a few moments before.

Walk Like An Egyptian?

Now, of course, music videos have always used dancing, and often used dancing for quite effective storytelling purposes. "Thriller" is probably the best example of this. But I think what sets this apart is the fact that the dancing is really quite subtle, understated, and ultimately there to serve a story purpose. The dancing makes sense from a narrative perspective while also serving as a perfect way of showing the sudden growth in emotion in the two characters, with their very human dancing style subtly played off of the very inhuman dancing of the other drugged dystopians.

It's a good example, therefore, of how important dance is to music videos, and also how powerful it can be when integrated into the narrative of the video. For a sillier example of this, check out LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem," a great example of a video that explicitly plays with horror movie tropes. And, there's the chaotic dancing at the end of Katy Perry's "Firework" that expresses so effectively the vibrant message of the video as a whole. ... Alright, ladies and gentlemen, I said that last sentence with a straight face. Let's see how the rest of the article goes.



Since I've already tipped my hat here to the fact that this article is going to critically engage Katy Perry, an artist not known for the profundity of her work, let me just get my two great blasphemies out of the way right up front here.

I think ET is a stunning video and a stunning song.

I also think that Kanye West really bungles the whole thing up.

Now that you've presumably splattered your whiskey all over the monitor here, let me explain in a bit more detail.

Perry's piece sets itself up, in a way, for a harder struggle than Nero's piece. She's not putting together a narrative, really. It's much more of a tonal work that uses lots of different images to create a particular thematic response. To my mind, that's a bit harder, because it's very easy for that to come across as pretentious or a cop-out. But Perry largely succeeds for a few reasons.

Her images, for one thing, are interesting. They verge on the territory of the surreal, actually, in the traditional sense: they seem to come more from the unconscious mind than from any real desire to depict The World of Tomorrow. The recurring image of the deer getting eaten by a... cheetah, I think that is... certainly works in this way, especially since she ends up with deer legs at the end. This kind of thing doesn't really make sense literally, but she's building a system of symbols here, not a narrative.

Furthermore, she's similarly using style to reinforce her theme. If there's one overriding idea that the song and video center upon it is this idea of an attraction and obsession that moves beyond human terms into something truly fantastic. This is an interesting contrast to Nero's video, where the music was used to help explore a science fiction concept. Here, the science fiction and music are both used to explore a metaphor.

As a consequence, the style is much more lush and exaggerated than the toned down minimalism of Nero or Orgy. If we want to go back to our predecessors again (although, judging by the mediocre pageviews of my last article, no, "we" really don't even if "I" do) this video has a lot more in common with "Blue" and "Larger Than Life." Hell, it's theme even is similar to "Larger than Life," although it expresses that theme in a far, far more effective way than that video does. 1 The colors are vibrant, the movements fluid and full of strange shapeshifting, and the creators of the video have really gone out of their way to emphasize the strangeness of virtually everything that's happening.

"Lady Gaga? Never heard of her."

The video as a whole really expresses the kind of celestial, transhuman passion that Perry is trying to express.

Which is why Kanye is able to so fully fuck everything up.

Really, his sections are a disaster. Is the rap good? Oh, sure. Is the style good? Well, alright, I guess, although it's nowhere near as interesting as the other sections--one of its great flaws and possibly an indication that the director was just not that interested in jamming Kanye in. Is he flying around in Sputnik? Yes. Yes he is. And I've really got to hand it to whoever came up with that idea... that's just hilarious.

Sputnik.

But it does. not. fit. the theme.

Remember how I said earlier that this video sets itself up for a harder struggle because it relies so heavily upon symbolism and theme? Well, this is the problem with that manifested. Kanye's bits just stick out like a sore thumb because they really are all about the idea of Kanye fucking aliens, whereas the whole rest of the video is driving toward an idea of a sexual, sure, but also celestial encounter. Perry is off touching greatness, and Kanye is off touching... himself? Maybe. He certainly seems to spend every available moment stroking his ego, at the very least, in a way that totally intrudes upon the song and makes it all about him.

So, what can we learn from this? Well, what this tells us is that what makes sense as a musical choice (although I'm still not sold on the idea that this musical choice made sense to begin with) might not make sense in the context of the music video. The people who created this set out to portray a particular theme, and they really succeeded.

Kanye should have been jettisoned (Jetsoned?) in order to keep that theme intact.

Because, Kanye, I know you think you're super sexy, and I'mma let you finish, but...

[drool]

This is one of the sexiest guys of all time.

And he doesn't interrupt the theme to rap about it.

At any rate, what we have here is two very different but very effective ways of treating sci fi content in music videos. Both are indebted to their predecessors (it's pretty obvious that Perry is cribbing notes furiously from Lady Gaga--at least she's copying from the best, I suppose) and each expands on the tradition in quite different ways. There's a lot that one could work with here, between the use of style and setting, the use of dance, how the musical choices impact the video, and so on. There's probably much more than I can fully analyze here.

So, rather than gush on further about these videos, let me just leave you with this gem of a performance from will.i.am, which brings us full circle, back to where we began so many words and years ago, with those dancing robots in "Larger than Life":



Because beyond anything else, pop sci fi is about the movie and the music and how powerful and awesome the two are when used together.

Here, let's get some Reader Involvement. Your homework for this week is: find another science fiction music video, and post it in the comments section with your analysis. You've got the tools, let's see what you can do. I suspect that you, too, will find that will.i.am is a genius. Or something. As always, feel free to leave comments, complaints, or, best of all, your own interpretations, or e-mail me at keeperofmanynames@gmail.com . And, if you like what you've read here, share it on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Reddit, Equestria Daily, Xanga, Netscape, or whatever else you crazy kids are using to surf the blogoblag these days.

1 It's worth remembering, though, what I said in the last article: The Backstreet Boys are more interested in coolness here than theme, so it's probably unfair to compare the two.

Ways of Reading Gaga Intermission Chapter--Pop.Sci.Fi Part I

Pop music has a weird relationship to science fiction. Pop, as a genre, sometimes touches on sci fi themes, but I would argue that it's really only recently that pop has fully embraced the stripped down industrial aesthetic of more modern science fiction, as opposed to the more over the top Space Opera aesthetic.

If you've been following this blog for a while, you can guess at just who caused the big shift.

Reading the title might also help.

For your convenience, here's the first three articles in my Ways of Reading Gaga series. Call it the first trilogy perhaps. They're worth looking over before reading this one, if only because it's been a while since I wrote the first one. It's not really a prerequisite, though, I don't think.

While you're doing that, I'm going to go ahead and brush up on some of the precursors to the modern aesthetic that sci fi pop videos are working with. The precursors largely fall into two camps: Pop Positive Space Operas and Industrial Cynical Cyberpunk. Let's check them out:

SPACE POP OPERA POSITIVE

There are two obvious precursors to sci fi in pop. They come out of the 90s, and they're perfect example of the spirit of optimism and fun that characterizes these early modern pop forays into science fiction.

One is the video for "Larger than Life" from The Backstreet Boys:



And the other is Eiffel 65's dance hit "Blue (Da Ba De)," which you'll have to watch at this finely crafted link because the uploader is apparently prone to paranoid delusions. No, sir, allowing embedding will not get you sued. Uploading the video to youtube, though, might. Excuse my deep sigh of aggravation.

Anyway.

These are fun videos. I mean, you can tell that the stars are just having a blast with what they're doing. In particular, "Larger than Life" is totally ridiculous and nonsensical. It runs on an almost Michael Bay-level Rule of Cool. I imagine the creative process for the video revolved around statements like, "Wouldn't it be totally rad if I was, like, a robot? And there were a bunch of robots dancing with me? Rad." Or however the kids talked in the 90s. I think the video ultimately works, though, because they're perfectly comfortable pushing it over the top and running with the craziness of it, what with the space battles and dancing and that robot with the tv screen head.

Similarly, Eiffel 65's "Blue" is also basically just a fun, self-consciously silly video, what with the bandmembers shooting lightening out of their hands and so forth. But the content of the video also nicely encapsulates the era's optimism. Note the key idea in the lyrics: the song's protagonist is living in a blue world because "he ain't got nobody to listen to." In short, he's living a sad life because he doesn't have music. This is the reason why the blue aliens in the video kidnap one of the musicians: they need music. (This is the point where you go "B'awww.") The video ends happily with Eiffel 65 returning to the alien planet to perform, and music is used to bring the two cultures together.

The message of the videos and their accompanying songs, then, is that music has power. It's a force that is truly larger than life. And, what's more, its fun as well, a thing to lift your spirits. This makes the space opera aesthetics perfect. They hearken back to a kind of science fiction driven more by camp and overblown heroics than the kind of dark drama of perhaps more "hard core" sci-fi.

It also strikes me as an excellent summation of the 90s as a whole, at least in the dominant culture here in America. The ideology is ultimately one of optimism, excess, a promise of a triumphant future free of cold war fears.

Of course, every civilization has its discontents...

INDUSTRIAL CYNICAL CYBERPUNK

On the other side of the spectrum, huddled out of the mainstream and picking away at the fascade of hopefulness presented elsewhere in culture, was a whole world of alternative and industrial music, roiling and full of teen angst and disaffection.

The prime example of this, coming at the end of the 90s, is the industrial band Orgy with their video "Stitches":



What a contrast. And what an interesting precursor to "Bad Romance," no? What we've got here, ladies and gentlemen, is an unabashedly science fiction-influenced deconstructive music video. The setting is decidedly cyberpunk, meaning that it's influenced by the grungy, grim meathook future of hackers, corporate hegemony, and technological ubiquity championed by authors William Gibson and, later, Neil Stephenson. 1 Furthermore, we already see some of the stylistic elements that Gaga will use later in her videos: stark whites and blacks, machine cleanliness, and, above all, reference to the conventions of the music video as an art.

Let me just transcribe a bit of the text present on the translucent museum walls:

"This video contains everything every other video has had or will have in the future. Only - this video will never exist as a completed film."

That's right, the museum walls contain an explanation of the setup for the video we're watching. It's mindboggling modernist self-reference at its absolute finest. And, what's more, the video largely consists of satirical analysis of more typical videos. Consider the random flashing lights which we see working but never see actually lighting the band. Or consider the shaky camera work, simulated for the rather unimpressed observer by the hydraulic platform.

And, of course, there's the Obligatory Female. Those shots are probably the best, and most deconstructive, of the video. It is clear that the fetishized woman is there not for any artistic or narrative purpose but because she is, well, "obligatory." These decisions are made solely because someone feels that they are required for this sort of video. And ultimately it's all about commodification and the transformation of the band into a simple object to be bought or sold. I don't think it's a coincidence that the shot of the director's fee, displayed in what seem to be rather large bills, comes directly before the Obligatory Female shot and the wonderful pan shot that moves from the standing woman to the CD single, allowing both the single and the woman to be labeled with the same word: "product." Not all that different from Gaga's Bath Haus, when you think about it.

Interestingly, both this video and the ones above are self-effacing, but in strikingly different ways. The first simply do not take themselves overly seriously and embrace a sense of silliness. The second plays the band members up as less intelligent, with their vague, stumbling requests for more strobe lights and so on. This is, of course, tinged heavily with irony, as the video oozes cleverness. It is clearly not the product of a feeble mind. So, the self-effacement here is actually directed outward at the bands that Orgy is parodying with their deconstruction. Harsh, guys. Harsh.

Pop.Sci.Fi IN THE AUGHTS

The post-Gaga world is largely a synthesis of the two approaches, or at least a far more complex and diverse field of science fiction storytelling than was perhaps previously possible. To some extent this can be explained by the fundamental change in mood between the optimistic 90s and early Aughts and the current late Aughts and early Teens sense of a crazy, unstable world.

In minor form, we can see this in videos like Niki Minaj's Fly or Britney Spears's (herself a pop star of the 90s) Till The World Ends. Let's pick some of those apart to see the changes that have taken place:



Nicki Minaj's video is interesting because it is, in many ways, clearly a follower of the industrial science fiction aesthetic that Gaga uses in Bad Romance and Alejandro. There is the burnt out, dystopian wasteland, the strange outfits, the emphasis on strong black/white contrasts, the strange outfits, the military undertones, and seriously, do all the sane fashionistas die in WWIII? Those are clearly Gaga-influenced clothes, at the very least.

What's interesting is that this video does not have the same kind of narrative or thematic complexity that Gaga's videos do. Whereas Bad Romance is a deconstruction of music videos that also examines binary oppositions of love and destruction, and Alejandro sets up a complex portrait of a dystopian warlord, Minaj's video generally focuses upon a more accessible theme of triumph over adversity. Not a bad theme, but the simplicity of the theme, and the symbolism at the end of the video of the plants growing through the rubble, seems at odds with the complexity of the set pieces and the sense of a narrative waiting just around the corner.

In a way, then, the video is almost a return to the 90s pop model, in that it ditches narrative and complex themes in favor of a broad overall message. This, to me, makes the video somewhat less interesting. It has none of the fun of "Larger than Life" but none of the fascinating complexity of "Stitches." And yeah, it hearkens back to the optimistic outlook of the 90s videos, but only in an almost self-deceptive way, and certainly not in a way that seems particularly original. I'm not sure that its style is enough to carry it. This is particularly interesting to me because it highlights the fact that a fairly good song (I do like Minaj's rapping) doesn't translate necessarily to a strong video.

The exact opposite force is at work in the next video:



This is a pretty generic song. It's not even on the level, really, of her earlier work, and the lyrics are pretty insipid, but the video... ah, now the video works. In fact, it actually works in a very clever way. Its aesthetics are drawn from the modern obsession with dystopian collapse and Mad Max-esque freak styles, of course.

Lord Humongous can be seen in the background of one shot, according to rumor

The really wild thing about this is that the apocalyptic imagery is used as a means of justifying the 90s-style hedonistic glee. If the world is falling apart, we might as well party. It's not exactly a productive message, sure, but it certainly fits the zeitgeist. Even though the message is problematic, I can't deny that the song and the video work perfectly to express it.

I just glanced over at the television and saw a commercial for some sort of lobotomized reality TV show and, quite frankly, I'm beginning to wonder if ol' Britney isn't right about the end of Western Civilization...



It's ok, though, because will.i.am has a plan. He's going to fly into space and commune with Mick Jagger (RIP), which will allow him to become the Star Child.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, wrapping things up neatly is will.i.am's masterpiece of what the fuck T.H.E. The song title itself is amazing for its recursive value: THE becomes THE Hardest Ever becomes THE Hardest Ever Hardest Ever, and so on, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. And the video itself is... well...

It's hard (aha ha ha) to know where to begin with this video, honestly. Perhaps the best place to start would be with the TV Trope known as Beyond The Impossible (note: it's now been renamed Serial Escalation, and Beyond The Impossible means something else. I would humbly offer the suggestion that this sucks/is bullshit. Therefore, I'm just going to go ahead and use the old definition). Taken from the anime Gurren Laggan, the term refers to media that constantly escalates some aspect of itself till you can't quite believe what you're seeing anymore. And THE sure does that, with its steadily more powerful and more ridiculous means of transportation. What's interesting, for our purposes, is that it steadily escalates the ridiculousness in a way that draws on science fiction. What's really wild, in my opinion, is the way it drives back away from the stark blacks and whites of modern science fiction music videos and eventually gets to a kind of explosive absurdity that rivals anything from the 90s. 2

will.i.am: channeler of the cosmic genius. This is the single goofiest graphic I've ever produced.

And in the process, it parodies, almost shot for shot in some places, the end of 2001 A Space Odyssey.

Sweet gibbering balls.

I mean, really, the implications of this are staggering. This video binds together both of the other contemporary videos, and finally explains the reason why the mummified remains of Mick Jagger (RIP) have, in the past year, become such a powerful icon. Mick Jagger (RIP) is the alien monolith! Sensing the end of the previous stage of human evolution, and the collapse of traditional civilization (as seen in Britney's video) with the advent of what I've decided to copyright as "the hard men" (as seen in Minaj and will.i.am's videos) The Jaggerlith has come to bring us into the next stage of development!

And with the guest appearances from both J-Lo AND the Jaggerlith, it would not be wrong to say that the video...

...is full of stars.



So, what we've seen, broadly speaking, is two trends in science fiction videos that periodically merge together to form strange hybrid creatures: one focused upon dystopian or deconstructive concerns, the other focused upon fun and a continual push toward an un-self-conscious state of ridiculousness. Lady Gaga seems to be the central focal point of the recent merge and resplintering of the two strands, but who knows where things will go from here.

I have some guesses, though.

Tune in Saturday for the second part of this two part series within a so far six part series, where I delve a bit more deeply into two particularly interesting contemporary videos, including one that is quite possibly my favorite music video of all time.

And maybe by then I'll have figured out why J-Lo is also inside the monolith...

This started as a one part article. Just like Ways of Reading Gaga in general, actually... As always, feel free to leave comments, complaints, or, best of all, your own interpretations, or e-mail me at keeperofmanynames@gmail.com . And, if you like what you've read here, share it on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Reddit, Equestria Daily, Xanga, Netscape, or whatever else you crazy kids are using to surf the blogoblag these days.

1 One might argue that this science fiction genre somewhere lost track of the word fiction... Other, far better authors than I have noted how Gibson and Stephenson both now find the present day a suitable setting for their novels. I leave it to you to ponder those implications.

2 All credit goes to my girlfriend, Sara the Bibliothecary, for noticing the color changes.

Nested Closets

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm absolutely mortified to follow up such an unexpectedly popular column with such a short spacefiller of a column. It can't be helped, though. I'm currently slogging miserably through the mire of Grad School Applications, I have typhoid fever, and a crocodile ate my webmaster. So, for today you get the chair back. We'll be starting out next week with another big installment of Ways of Reading Gaga, though, so hopefully that will make up for it somewhat.

Anyway.

I'm pansexual. Sometimes I also identify as genderqueer, just because, you know, what the hell why not, right? And sometimes this makes life rather difficult.

But not how you think.

See, the real problem isn't bullies or beatings or trying to figure out what my gender identity is (there's a reason I settled on pan and genderqueer: it gives me the freest range of expression from moment to moment of any identity, allowing me to be very fluid). No, the real problem is the stereotypes. See, people stereotype minorities quite a bit, if you hadn't noticed, and we're constantly having to battle against those stereotypes. And this battle is particularly hard for me. Because, you see, I'm stereotypical as hell.


There's a lot of stereotypes about bisexuals and pansexuals, for example, that pertain to promiscuity. This comes partly from the idea of the party bisexual--people are bisexual largely for attention, often (in the case of women) attention from straight men. In this version of the stereotype, bisexuals are really just easy, not necessarily attracted to the opposite sex. It also probably comes in part from a common mind glitch that argues one can only be bisexual if one is dating someone of each sex. 1 In this version, bisexuals don't actually even exist because your sexual orientation is determined by who you are dating. If you are dating someone, you are a sexuality that corresponds to attraction to that person. If you look at other people and feel attracted to them while in a relationship... well... again, you're just hiding your intrinsically slutty nature behind a more acceptable label. Because, after all, people in real relationships are never attracted to people outside the relationship.

This set of stereotypes also, you may have already noticed, intersects with a general antipathy toward polyamory. Polyamory is, at best, often associated over here in America with mormonism and, at worst, is totally written off as a perverse, deviant, and dirty lifestyle. So, the idea that someone could show attraction to multiple people is rather inconceivable.


The result of this is that certain forms of bisexual expression become forms of political expression as well. That's a bit of a weird, Ivory Tower style statement, so let me try to unpack it a little.

There's not a lot of room for someone that openly identifies as pansexual or bisexal to come out as basically naturally poly as well. To out myself publicly as an example, this puts me in a bit of a bind. See, even though I don't practice polyamory per se (my lovely girlfriend would be a bit irate, I think) I still express my affection for people in a very physical way, and I do tend to become very emotionally close with friends in ways that can be--and have been--interpreted as romantic. Here's where the conflict becomes political as well as personal. I want to put forth a semi-respectable face 2 because I'm aware of the political nature of anything that I do which might reinforce stereotypes about my fellow pan and bi people. At the same time I don't particularly want to police my actions constantly. This is essentially the second closet. There are closets within closets here, and just coming out as bi or pan, in and of itself, is but the first step. Is it enough to come out verbally and say that I'm pansexual, or will I only be satisfied with being able to express myself fully, despite my awareness that it might reinforce harmful stereotypes that other pansexuals are trying to combat?

It's the same bind that plagues bisexuals who realize that, whoops, they're actually straight or gay after all. This is problematic because it reinforces the obnoxious stereotype common in both the gay and straight communities that bisexuals simply don't exist. I've already talked a bit about where that comes from, but it's worth pointing out that, yes, the gay community is just as prone to this stereotype as the rest of the world. Bisexuals, in this model, are just in a confused transition phase before they figure out what they really are. If you're someone conscious of how obnoxious those stereotypes are, it's a little awkward, I imagine, to suddenly find yourself unexpectedly exemplifying the common image, especially if you've personally argued against the idea in the past.

This is obviously not a problem on the scale of actual assaults against queer folk or the loss of work, political or social respect, and so on that comes with being openly queer. Really, let me stress that this is a totally minor issue compared with what I know other people go through, and I'm aware that it probably sounds quite whiny compared to, you know, real person problems. That's totally fair. However, it strikes me as a problem worth considering. Our identities are unavoidably political, and it might be impossible to completely shed the tendency of people to choose individuals to represent whole, diverse groups. I hesitate even to bring the topic up, though, simply because I don't have any easy answers, or even suggested answers. It's a problem I'm still sorting out for myself, and I welcome any input in the comments. How do you navigate stereotypes in your life?

My personal quandary might be particularly politically relevant simply because one of the arguments against gay marriage is that if gays start marrying then the evil, evil polygamy will be quick to follow.

Perhaps the most honest reply, to this thought as to all the others described here, simply has to be, "Well, yes. And there's nothing wrong with that."


Hello to all the new readers from last article. Normal, media-related posting shall resume Tuesday. Hope you're enjoying your stay! As always, feel free to leave comments, complaints, or, best of all, your own interpretations, or e-mail me at keeperofmanynames@gmail.com . And, if you like what you've read here, share it on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Reddit, Equestria Daily, Xanga, Netscape, or whatever else you crazy kids are using to surf the blogoblag these days.

1 Because all single people are fundamentally asexual, you see.

2 Stop laughing you ghastly creature, I can be respectable when I want to! I'm just covered in lichen right now because I'm wading through the Bog of Eternal Letter of Recommendation Requests!

My Little Feminist: Cartoons are Magic

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic has done more for the cause of feminism than anything else in the last ten years.

Wait, no, hold on, let me say that again, because I doubt the absurdity of that statement has really sunk in.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic has done more for the cause of feminism than any writer, artist, theorist, activist, or anything or anyone else in the Last. Ten. Years.

I sure hope somebody was shocked by that, because otherwise this is going to be a really freaking boring article. In fact, I'm really hoping your keyboard is covered in coffee that just spewed forth from your mouth in shock. Listen, I've had a trying day and I'm feeling vindictive. But let me go ahead and put my money where my mouth is. And by money I mean overblown prose, because I'm not made of cash.

Let's rewind to some of the basic causes of feminism. Generally speaking, feminism in its modern incarnation is largely concerned with both the physical realities of inequality--whether it be the physical reality of violence or the monetary reality of the continuous economic disenfranchisement of women--and the cultural and psychological impact that our patriarchal, heteronormative society has upon both women and men. Lately there've been quite a number of truly worthy movements--from the slutwalks to the outpouring of support for Planned Parenthood--adding strength to the existing campaigns against violence and inequality. It's tough at times, what with the newsosphere largely proclaiming Mission Accomplished, 1 but generally the movement has continued to make progress in the world.

There's one cause that feminists have never really managed to achieve, though. One victory that has ever eluded us.

And that is the cause of making girl stuff cool, too. In particular, the cause of making girl stuff cool without simply reinforcing particular gender roles for women. After all, it's difficult to say, "Cooking can be really fun," when there are people seemingly crouched by (in? under?) the eves ready to bellow, "...Because women belong in the kitchen!"

I think this comes largely from the priorities of the early modern movement. There's always been a sense running through feminist rhetoric of "everything you can do we can do too" or, hell, better even, maybe. And that's a great, important rhetoric to have when your whole argument is that women and men should be equal. But the problem with that--and this is, let me make clear, in no way a criticism of the feminist movement so much as it is an observation of a fundamental rhetorical limitation--is that it reinforces the idea that what everyone should be aspiring to is boy things.

Then, of course, there's the fact that a lot of stuff marketed towards boys just has traditionally been, well, cooler, and often better put together. Do not ask me why this is the case. But for whatever reason, there just isn't a crossover market for a lot of stuff targeted for girls, even though there is a weird unexpected crossover market for boy's media. (And marketed in a rather patronizing way, as TV Tropes points out.) Hell, look at the dumb toy commercial shows of the 80s and 90s. A lot of the boy's shows, despite being toy commercials, are still remembered fondly. This nostalgia has provided us with the modern horror of Michael Bay movies. But I'm really struggling to remember any girl's shows from the period, partly because I honestly didn't watch a lot of TV but partly because, well, girl stuff just wasn't particularly interesting for the most part. 2

This is the point where I'm floundering a bit because I'm honestly not a historian of cartoons. But either way, the prevailing wisdom has been that girl's stuff can't be cross marketed. And that prevailing wisdom has collided with the rhetorical feminist strategy of "we are worthy of boy stuff too" to lead to a devaluation (if it ever had value in the first place--a lot of "women's work" has been devalued since the Industrial Revolution moved certain types of work outside the home into factories) of Stuff For Girls.

Enter My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. This show, due to its large tertiary demographic, has succeeded in breaking out of its demographic box and existing as a cross-appreciated, albeit not explicitly cross-marketed, work. This, to me, is hugely revolutionary for a number of reasons.

For one thing, it means that girl stuff isn't inherently stupid to a lot of the guys that like the show. I suspect rather strongly that, by extension, girls might seem a little less inherently stupid too, which is always a good thing. But this strikes me as an important step towards greater acceptance of boys liking "girly" things. It is becoming quite a bit more acceptable for girls to do things like wear boy clothes (although even girl pants tend to be weird lobotomized versions... ever noticed how hard it is to find women's clothes with pockets? Yeah) but for a guy to wear a skirt? Probably not going to go over too well. This makes sense from the Anything You Can Do rhetorical environment: after all, guys have the cool stuff; it makes sense that girls would want to get in on the action. What My Little Pony suggests is that it's ok for guys to get in on the girl stuff as well.

Furthermore, the show provides a great range of female characters for people to follow and empathize with, from the tomboyish Rainbow Dash to the fashion-obsessed artiste Rarity to the quiet friend to all the little animals Fluttershy. And despite the fact that Fluttershy is clearly the best, they all get fairly equal time in the show and their characters and motivations are all complex and well fleshed out.

This means that there is no default way of performing femininity or masculinity in the show. There are just a whole bunch of different characters. Kinda like (this is the part where I blow your mind) real life, huh? And since there is no judgment placed upon the personality types and interests the characters represent (despite their periodic personality conflicts) the viewer isn't pushed to like or empathize with one over another. I ended up empathizing most strongly with the members of the cast that display either "feminine" or introverted characteristics (or both): the bookish workaholic Twilight Sparkle, the nervous and somewhat agoraphobic Fluttershy, and the obsessive aesthete and fashionista Rarity.

In fact, the characters could perhaps be seen as fitting together on a scale that looks something like this:

We Call It... THE PONY WHEEL!

Interestingly, I think you could probably use the same positionings to generate another of oppositions: the order of Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy vs the chaos of Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash, Practicality vs Ornament, and so on. A lot of the more conflicting relationships tend to be on opposite sides of the chart, interestingly enough. However, as I said before, the different aspects here are not privileged over one another. There is, despite Twilight's seemingly central role, no single protagonist.

This is perhaps the greatest key to the whole project, and the final thing that makes it so revolutionary. What this show argues, simply by existing, is that girls deserve well designed media, too. Lauren Faust, the show's mastermind and one of a few individuals now virtually deified, 3 realized that if she made a damn good show, other people outside the original demographic would watch it. I have to wonder how much of this was planned in advance. However intentional it is, it sure does make a clear point that it's much, much easier to say that girl stuff is cool, too when the girl stuff is actually cool, too.

All of this means that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic has done something few other things have managed in American culture. It's made it ok to like being a girl, no matter who you are.

And that is truly something magic.

I wrote this article while listening to "Bitches" by Mindless Self Indulgence on repeat, at 11PM. My life is strange. As always, feel free to leave comments, complaints, or, best of all, your own interpretations, or e-mail me at keeperofmanynames@gmail.com . And, if you like what you've read here, share it on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Xanga, Netscape, or whatever else you crazy kids are using to surf the blogoblag these days.


1 We tend to prematurely declare things finished here in America. My European readers may, in fact, quote me on that, in any context.

2 The only one that's really bubbling up in my mind is Totally Spies. I can still remember their idiotic valley girl affectations. Excuse me while I go lobotomize myself with a spoon, y'all. What-evar.

3 Literally virtually deified, actually.


UPDATE ON 1/12:

This has hit Reddit, thanks to my good friend and guest contributor Ian McDevitt. Hello Reddit! I've been reading the commentary there and have a few responses to all of your input:

1. Yup, I am, in fact, a guy. I do wear skirts, though.
2. Those of you pointing out that I don't delve into the plots much are exactly correct. That was, to some extent, a conscious decision on my part. I wanted to explore this topic from a perspective that I hadn't really seen anywhere else. This is the reasoning behind focusing on the roles in the show rather than the actions: sure, all the ponies can defeat dragons and David Bowie-referencing cavedwellers, but what interests me is the roles they play. Contrast with the aforementioned Totally Spies--a godawful show, to be sure, but problematic not just in its terrible writing and hideously oversaturated colors but also in the roles the characters take.
   
   They are all the same character.
   
   Now, if I was analyzing their actions alone from a feminist perspective, in a way the show is good. It's girls kicking ass! Cool! But the problem is, not only do they all kick ass in exactly the same way, their everyday life is also identical. There is very little way of determining a favorite based on distinct personalities because they all share the same interests, the same speech pattern, the same clothing style, and so on.
   
   The difference with My Little Pony is that the characters all have distinct interests and personalities that can be easily summarized (they're iconic in personality as well as being, as I've pointed out before, iconic in color) while not coming across as stereotypical.
   
   So, one of the revolutionary qualities, to me, is the fact that A. it's popular and B. it has a varied set of personalities that are all presented as equally valid forms of femininity.
3. On the other hand, the action in the show is great. Like I said earlier, there's a reason why it was so appealing: it's really well put together, barring a few episodes here and there. So, yes, I'm probably going to have to do another article eventually about the narrative structure. Will it be what people are asking for on Reddit? Mmm, probably not, since I tend to have a super structuralist approach to art. I like delving beneath the skin to the bones of what holds stuff together. But for what it's worth, People Of Reddit, I agree with you: this article is just the start, and I do need to explore these ideas in more detail. I frankly was not expecting to have so many people find it in such a short amount of time.
   
   Nice to have you here, though, and I hope to see you around in the future!

UPDATE ON 1/13:

I said this in the comments as well, but I don't want people to miss it.

Thanks to everyone who read the article, and especially thanks to those of you who took the time to leave a comment. I really appreciate it, even if I didn't reply directly to you. It's great to know that there are so many other intelligent people out there on the Blogoblag.

Big wag of my finger, though, to that guy on the Ctrl Alt Del forum who thought this article made no sense because, and I quote, "I really do think that most people watch my little pony ironically for a laugh."

Oh well. You can't win 'em all.

And you folks are the best.

Hope you stick around for a while. I'll be revisiting this topic eventually, I'm sure...

Capstone Works: Building A Dream Or Nightmare

There are a few qualities that make particular artists an absolute joy to study. One such quality is continuity between works. Not just a stylistic continuity, but a kind of visual game where the artist reuses symbols, characters, ideas, and even other works as a way of commenting upon their past and their future. I suspect that most of the artists that we consider among the absolute greats quote themselves, in one way or another, and rework the same ideas in different ways. This strikes me as something that an engaged (and an engaging) artist does; self reflection is just an essential part of the process of creation. What's particularly interesting is that this phenomenon is not limited to just one medium, but appears in, as far as I can tell, every medium of expression, ever. Whether it's The Beatles sampling their old music, Ingres repainting whole collections of his nudes into one single erotic fantasy scene, Kurt Vonnegut or Osamu Tezuka including the same cast of characters and archetypes across their novels and comics, or even the constant presence in Final Fantasy games of chocobos, moogles, Biggs and Wedge, and Cid, the impulse to self-reference seems to be nearly universal.

Sometimes an artist will take that to the next level, though, and create a kind of capstone work that summarizes all of the rest of their career and philosophy. These kind of works often draw very consciously upon other pieces in order to construct a kind of mirror that reflects upon the previous material and portal that shows a way into the future for the artist... or, in the case of some artists, a tombstone that signifies the end of their career.

I would like to do a multi-part article series similar to my Ways of Reading Gaga (and possibly overlapping as well--have you seen the video for Marry the Night yet?) exploring some of these keystone pieces and what they tell us about the artists in question, the process of creating art, and why the creation of such works is important.

To start things off, I'm going to delve into a few painters that work with these kind of key pieces as a way of introducing the idea. From there... well, we shall see where things progress from there.

INGRES AND SENSUAL FANTASY

Let's start things out with something a bit spicy, just to keep everyone paying attention. I'm talking about the capstone work of Ingres, his Turkish Bath.



Remember, folks, this article doesn't need my NSFW image tag because this is Fine Art and therefore nothing like the dirty, dirty smut that I was talking about last week!

Anyway.

What are the qualities of this work? Well, note for one thing how Ingres distorts the bodies. There's a lot of stuff going on in this picture, and little of it is anatomically correct. Of course, Ingres does this quite consciously, relying upon his understanding of anatomy to support these complex and often erotically charged warpings of female flesh. Problematic? Oh, absolutely. But it's undeniably virtuosic as well.

Ingres also quite happily warps perspective, just as Vincent and Cezanne do nearly a century later. Look at that lying figure on the left. Now look back at the group of figures on the right. This just isn't working right at all. They would have to be hovering in the air with the space tilting weirdly to make their large scale work with the lying figure's angle. Everything is tilting in a totally impossible way. It's subtle enough that it isn't immediately apparent, but it's undeniable as well: the picture just doesn't work.

The point of all this is to create an erotic dream landscape. Remember how in Inception the spaces can be warped in strange ways while still seeming fundamentally realistic? Yeah, that's what Ingres is trying for here. He's interested in realism only as far as it allows him to create his dream world. The driving impetus for this was probably, of course, the horror of the Napoleonic wars. Ingres's works represent a flight of fancy away from a harsh world. The subject matter reinforces this: he chooses to depict a Turkish bath, embracing an orientalist notion of free Eastern sexuality and sensuality that allows for an escape from European drudgery. He isn't interested in accurate depictions of the Turkish culture so much as he's interested in an idealized fantasy of that culture.

Alright, so now you know what's going on in the painting besides "Implied Lesbian Orgies Are Hot." What makes this a capstone work?

Well, for one thing, it summarizes Ingres's career and ideals. Check out his Grand Odalisque, for example:



We've got the same kind of distortions here as in his other work, the same charged eroticism, and the same desire to create a fantasy landscape. What's more, Ingres actually straight up quotes some of his previous works to make this painting. Check out his Grand Bather:



Yep, she's the one playing the instrument in the center of the bath house picture. He's taken the same basic pose and altered it to fit the new piece. Laziness? Probably not. After all, it's not just a time saving device but also a clever way of highlighting the fact that these works are just illusions. They aren't real at all, but the product of Ingres's oversexed imagination.

Ingres's Turkish Bath therefore reveals his conscious interaction with his previous work. He is reflecting upon his philosophy and his previous paintings and creating a culminating work that cranks the qualities of his previous works up to 11. It's a brilliant summary of the trajectory of his career toward this fantasy world and the creation of a dream landscape in opposition to the harsh realities of Napoleonic Europe. And the quoting of figures says that the elements of the dream are under Ingres's control.

GOYA'S BLACK PAINTINGS

Stared at Ingres long enough? Yes? Feeling all warm and fuzzy inside? I bet you're hoping we're going to move on to another nice, pleasant set of paintings, aren't you?

TOO BAD!



On the opposite end of the spectrum from Ingres is Francisco Goya with his absolutely horrifying, absolutely brilliant Black Paintings. Like Ingres, Goya painted these at the end of his life and they are, in many ways, a distillation and commentary upon his life and philosophy. These are an interesting example of the kind of capstone works that I'm discussing because they don't borrow from existing works in quite the same way that Ingres and some of the other artists I might discuss later on do. Rather, they largely concern themselves with a summary of Goya's perception of humanity after witnessing the brutality visited by Napoleon upon his native Spain, and the ruinous rise of unworthy monarchs after the restoration of independence. He does so by similarly descending into a world of dream, but his is the nightmare to Ingres's sexy fantasy.

Consider "Saturn," above. I put the name in quotes because it's a little uncertain as to just what Goya was depicting. The name, after all, came later from art historians, in a move that strikes me as an attempt to bring what is an otherwise horrifyingly incomprehensible scene into at least somewhat more manageable mythic terms. The anatomy of the titan in the picture flows weirdly and he devours the body of the smaller figure with a manic sort of self horror. Look into those staring eyes and the raised eyebrows: the figure is clearly mad, but he also seems consumed by gut-wrenching terror. That's right, this being that devours humans whole, that has the strength to actually put indentations in the back of his prey (look closely at the way the fingers dig in...) is scared of something.

It reminds me somewhat of that iconic bug-eyed madman Peter Lorre in Fritz Lang's "M":



The most unnerving part of Lorre's monologue there is the quick set of shots of crowdmembers nodding in empathy. Not to stray too far off topic, but this is actually a perfect encapsulation of Goya's horror: the idea that this endlessly pursuing inner beast lurks within countless people, perhaps even all of us.

Although "Saturn" is phantasmagorical in nature, this kind of monstrous horror is a theme that Goya considered quite often in his life. His two major print series--the Capriccios and the Disasters of War--show all sorts of crazy scenes of horror and destruction. Some, from the Disasters of War series, are more down to earth, although they retain the Saw-style torture porn focus of "Saturn". And others from the Capriccios are just... well...



Yeah. 1

So, the Black Paintings, in their dark depictions of humanity:



and in their phantasmagorical qualities:



serve as representations and summaries of Goya's career. I think perhaps the ultimate keystone of the series is this large piece:



Look at the way the giants float impossibly, defying gravity in their throes of horror over the dwarfed human riders. Note also the fact that Goya here is, in fact, returning to an old theme. Those soldiers down at the bottom? They're not directly quoted, but it's hard not to see them as corresponding to the soldiers in his Third of May:



The massacre of innocent civilians that Goya so abhorred and protested after the end of the Napoleonic Wars has grown in his mind and become a war of impossible giants, overshadowing all. The real horrors of war have twisted and become something deeper, more primordial, an impossible, incomprehensible force that dwells in everything.

There has been some recent doubt as to whether these works are, in fact, Goya's. I frankly can't say; I'm not a Goya scholar, although I do love his work. I honestly don't know that it matters, though. If these were not Goya's original works, they were the works of someone close to him, and they stand just as strongly as a summary of his ideas and style. They are still, ultimately, capstones upon Goya's work and process, and if they are the work of another, clearly they are the work of someone who thought long and hard about how to pay homage to the master.

WHY CAPSTONES?

What these works show is that a capstone work can be a keystone to a body of works. Yes, the switching of terminology in this article was deliberate.2 A piece that summarizes an artist's career can also serve as a nexus point that ties the other works together into a cohesive philosophy, or recontextualizes them in a way that adds new perspectives. Next time perhaps I'll delve into some artists of other media that more explicitly borrow from their past work in order to create this kind of commentary, but for now I'll leave you to contemplate Goya and Ingres and the way that capstones can be used to construct an entire philosophical facade.

Whether it is a construction of erotic imagination or a construction of unrelenting nightmare is all up to the artist that puts that last stone in place.

As always, feel free to leave comments, complaints, or, best of all, your own interpretations, or e-mail me at keeperofmanynames@gmail.com . And, if you like what you've read here, share it on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Xanga, Netscape, or whatever else you crazy kids are using to surf the blogoblag these days.

1 Incidentally, I was originally going to include one of the Disasters of War prints there. I ultimately decided that they were just a bit too gruesome to subject someone to without warning. Some of them are significantly worse than even Saturn up there.

2 Although it only became deliberate as I was writing that sentence. Whoops, looks like this crap is ad-libbed after all.

Sing In The New Year: Helium Vola and Why We Study History

Fur Euch, Die Ihr Liebt is a fascinating little album. Well, alright, maybe not so little: it's a double album full of expansive songs based on, for the most part, medieval lyrics. The band behind the album, Helium Vola, works in a style they describe as "electro-medieval," a blend of choral harmonies, Gregorian rumblings, and synth and drum machine settings that blend together in what perhaps would be best described as a tapestry of sound. 1 And this album is built around an incredible concept:

Love.

Oh, alright, fine, this isn't exactly something new. People have been writing songs about love for millenia, and most albums are probably arguably about love. But that's actually exactly the point upon which Helium Vola's work revolves: contemplations about love are universal. This album isn't quite like other albums about love because it's actually a kind of metacommentary about our understanding of love through time.

It's as though Helium Vola traipsed into a pub one day, walked up to the grizzled old entity History and said, "Hoy, vat du yu tink of love?" (They're German, by the way.) And History turned to Helium Vola with a baleful glare, hacked a few times, lit its pipe, and began to reminisce. And slowly, slowly but surely, other denizens of the pub started to put their two cents in.

Is this sounding familiar yet?

See, this here pub/library/state of the art media center that we're in, complete with the crazy back room, Abraxis the Hideous Armchair Rat, and Lord Humongous over there, represents what us academic, pretentious types like to call "discourse." In my own weird way, I'm trying to give you, the reader, a concrete visualization of the conversations we have about things like media, art, philosophy, and history. The way we do that is by sharing our voices in the pub.



So, what Helium Vola is collectively doing is going out to the pub and collecting a record of the chatting going on. They're engaged in something perhaps comparable to what we scholars call "Historiography," which is essentially a historical analysis of other people's histories. Which is, of course, dizzyingly recursive, but try to stick with me here. Historiography is when you take a look at what other people have written about history and show how our understanding of history itself changes over time. What Helium Vola has done here is treat love songs in the same way. Their songs on this album are meta-lovesongs in that they analyze how our understanding of love echoes through history.

The first half of this two-disc album analyzes love from the perspective of its presence. Interestingly, these songs have a quite diverse tone to them, ranging from the overtly lustful (to the point of being almost self-parodying) Friendly Fire to the longing Blow Northerne Wynd, to the absolutely triumphant Ecce Gratum.

Now, these songs are not in a language I speak, for the most part, or in a language that, well, anyone speaks. A lot of the lyrics are in medieval dialects of German and French, Latin, and Provencal. And yet, the music effectively conveys the emotion of the song. Compare Blow, Northerne Wynd to Ecce Gratum:




We can puzzle out--through some familiar words, perhaps, or the tone of the music--a sense of meaning from these songs and the range of love experiences to which they speak. The implicit argument made here is that these lyrics, despite dating back to medieval times, are relevant to our own experiences.

This is one exceptionally powerful reason for studying the past and our interpretation of events. Interacting with this old material in new ways allows us to connect to our distant cultural ancestors. This is connected, arguably, to the point I made a few days about Christmas: one of the reasons for telling stories of the past, or telling stories drawn from the past, is that it affords us the opportunity to experience and share empathy. And, what's more, it demonstrates that art can resonate despite a lack of direct understanding. Remember how I called Ecce Gratum triumphant? Check out the translated lyrics:

Behold, the welcome and desirable Spring brings back joys. The brightly coloured meadow is in flower. The sun brightens everything. Now let sorrows depart! Summer returns, now the rage of Winter retires.

Now hail, snow and the rest turn to water and flow away. Winter flees and already Spring sucks at the breasts of Summer. He bears an unhappy heart who neither lives nor plays under Summer's right hand.

They who strive to enjoy the reward of Cupid rejoice and take pleasure in honey sweetness. Let us be at the command of Venus, glorying and rejoicing to be the equals of Paris.

The first half of the album is thus based around the traditional theme of love, its trials, its loss, its joy, and so on, and the lyrics are largely matched to the style and tone of the music itself, making the ideas accessible across time and language. The message is ultimately one of unified experience and empathy.

The second half of the album takes that theme and violently expresses exactly why this artistic process is so desperately important. You see, the second half of the album is about the absence of love and empathy, and its results. The music of this half is far more jarring, electronic, and often very strange. Check out the wavering tones of Maylab, for example:



Interestingly, though, although the songs remain largely unified in their darker tone, occasionally the music and the lyrics are juxtaposed together to create a scathingly bitter commentary on the moral abyss that is modern free market capitalism. Consider the mournful and solemn Quan Lo Pet, for example:



The song is soft and sounds almost requiem-esque, a mourning song for England, perhaps. The first, and most obvious, contrast is thus the difference between good old Maggie Thatcher's victorious crowing and the apprehensive but almost resigned tone of the vocalist. The second juxtaposition only becomes apparent if you understand the actual lyrics, which are dedicated to lambasting a less than perfect mistress. So, the song as a whole is a somewhat humorous but ultimately quite grim political invective against the rampant greed of Thatcher's ideology.

Perhaps the most powerful moment of the album, however, comes three songs near the end of the second disc. Come Talore, what can probably be seen as the intro track of the group, doesn't seem to be readily available online, but the other two are:




It's hard for me to truly express how overwhelming I find this. For those of you who don't know, Moorsoldaten is a concentration camp song, 2 and probably the single ultimate historical example of just what a systematic abandonment of empathy and love can do to a civilization. What I find so stunning about this arrangement is that the fade from the wrenching and forceful Darkness, Darkness to the plodding Moorsoldaten creates a sense of personal anguish paralleling historical suffering. TO round it all off with something a little more lighthearted, Helium Vola conclude the album with a song from the Spanish Civil War. Wheeee.

The second half thus makes a second argument for why we study history: to try and contextualize or understand atrocity and cruelty. Perhaps, through art, through music, and through taking the time to listen to the voices of the past, we can avoid the horror and suffering chronicled here. The old saw is true: we study history so that, with luck, we can avoid repeating it.

The first half of the album is thus a setup for the crushing second half, and the second half is thus an argument for why the emotions and experiences of the first half are so fundamental and essential to our humanity. It's a perfectly matched whole, and probably one of my favorite albums of all time. Perhaps the most powerful aspect of this is the presence of the opening song--A Voi Che Amate/Preghiera--at the beginning of both discs. The contrast between the two versions--one warm, the other foreboding--shows how the two albums are two sides of the same coin, and it takes only a recontextualization of material to highlight the complexities inherent to the art. This is ultimately perhaps the greatest message of Fur Euch Die Ihr Liebt. There are common threads in all the music, whether it be the presence of love in the first half or its absence in the second, and although the forms are stunningly diverse, they are all unified by common experience.

This, to me, is why we study history. For all its sufferings and traumas, for all its dark lessons, we can always put that first disc back in and be reminded of the fundamental shared notions of love, lust, friendship, and devotion which echo to us down the centuries.

History--and discourse--is a pub. But it's also a library, and a club, and a place by the fire where you can sit in your favorite chair, swirl your drink, and mutter "bullshit." And this experience is enriched by the presence of more voices, even if they do steal your chair like the unruly vikings they are. Helium Vola has sought to expand the voices by studying history and discovering the deep cultural and artistic value in the past. This is why we study history: to bring those older voices back into the conversation, even if they're just playing on the jukebox in the corner or the Victrola machine that the one-eyed bar tender keeps behind the bar. I have sought, on the other side of things, to make the pub more accessible to people that might not've strayed into its warm confines otherwise and engaged in the conversation. This is why I study history: so that I can understand it well enough to teach it to others, so they can pass on the knowledge and bring others into the pub.

Ultimately it's all about sharing that common understanding of the world. And, hell, we can extend the metaphor to all the other strange stuff I babble about on here. In a way, this can be seen as just a broad argument for why academia exists, and why I want more people to understand the Liberal Arts.

So, ladies and gentlemen, as we ring in the new year, I want to tip my hat to history, and to historiography, and to Helium Vola. It's been nearly half a year since I embarked on this strange adventure, and I'm quite pleased with where Storming the Ivory Tower has gone. For the next few months, at least, I'm going to be cutting back on the posts somewhat. Three articles of this length per week is doable, but it's burning me out at an alarming rate, so I'm going to see how twice a week feels for a while. We'll see how things progress from there.

Otherwise, though, thank you, all of you, for coming along with me for this bizarre experiment. It's been a blast so far, and I can't wait to see where it goes.

As always, feel free to leave comments, complaints, or, best of all, your own interpretations, or e-mail me at keeperofmanynames@gmail.com . And, if you like what you've read here, share it on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Xanga, Netscape, or whatever else you crazy kids are using to surf the blogoblag these days.

1 Get it? Tapestry? Ha ha ha ha.

2 But not a Jewish one, as I initially thought and have since corrected. Check the comments for Red Metal Geek's comments on my error.