Journal articles: 'Contemporary, journals, mass, precursor' – Grafiati (2025)

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ABSTRACT Statement of problem: Modern polyamide ‘flexible’ denture base materials have increased in popularity for use in removable partial dentures in the last several years. The introduction of these newer products warrants investigation of their relative potential to develop fungal biofilms. Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential of three denture base materials to support fungal biofilm formation. Materials and methods Specimens of two ‘flexible’ nylon type materials and one traditional heat processed, methyl methacrylate resin material were studied (both polished and unpolished surfaces). The specimens were coated with saliva and evaluated for fungal (Candida albicans) biofilm formation. The fungal biofilm mass formed on denture substrates were evaluated by dry weight analysis and by determining the number of viable fungal cells in the biofilm by MTT viability assay. Alteration in fungal metabolic function following the treatment of the biofilm C. albicans with nystatin and fluconazole was determined by XTT assay. Results In general, the unpolished surfaces of the denture disks favored the fungal biofilm, the most being on polyamide specimen, Valplast. Significantly, less biofilm was formed on Duraflex and Lucitone surfaces. Biofim on C. albicans was also found to be resistant to antifungal agents. As compared to freshly incubated (grown) planktonic cells, biofilm fungal cells required significantly higher concentrations of nystatin and fluconazole in order to obtain 50% reduction in metabolic activity. Conclusion This study demonstrated the differences in denture materials to support fungal biofilm formation, and also difference between polished and unpolished denture material surfaces. The results demonstrated that one of the polyamide materials (duraflex) had lesser potential to biofilm formation than the others. Clinical significance Unfavorable tissue responses can ensue from the presence of fungal biofilms on dental prosthetics. Resistance to biofilm formation is a factor for dental materials in their selection and usage. This study helps to quantify, evaluate and compare biofilm formation on polished and unpolished surfaces of three commonly used denture base materials. The results of this study helped to identify materials, which may, therefore, be better indicated in clinical applications. Evaluations for the newer denture base materials, specific to these testing methods, appear to be novel in the scientific literature. How to cite this article Jain V, Babu J, Ahuja S, Wicks R, Garcia-Godoy F. Comparison of Fungal Biofilm Formation on Three Contemporary Denture Base Materials. Int J Experiment Dent Sci 2015;4(2):104-108.

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The mass media and the data processing system are the technologies of our modern society, being born simultaneously and developing simultaneously. I am going back to the invention of photography and the PC’s precursor, continuing with the birth of cinema, to finally arrive at the modern computer, the one that blends all the information and transforms it into numeric data. Among the main influences of the contemporary performance, we find the experiments led by the modernist avant-garde at the beginning of the 20th century – futurism, constructivism, expressionism, dadaism and surrealism – while the first of these movements, the futurism, holds a central position in the contemporary performance’s downward. At the end of the 20th century, computer technologies have become more and more present in theatre, dance and performance, thus shaping new dramatic forms, new types of spectacle and interactive performances. How are the new media technologies changing our visual language and what new aesthetic resources do we find as a result?

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ABSTRACT The presence of Jupiter is crucial to the architecture of the Solar system and models underline this to be a generic feature of planetary systems. We find the detection of the difference between the position and motion recorded by the contemporary astrometric satellite Gaia and its precursor Hipparcos can be used to discover Jupiter-like planets. We illustrate how observations of the nearby star ϵ Indi A giving astrometric and radial velocity data can be used to independently find the orbit of its suspected companion. The radial velocity and astrometric data provide complementary detections which allow for a much stronger solution than either technique would provide individually. We quantify ϵ Indi A b as the closest Jupiter-like exoplanet with a mass of 3 MJup on a slightly eccentric orbit with an orbital period of 45 yr. While other long-period exoplanets have been discovered, ϵ Indi A b provides a well-constrained mass and along with the well-studied brown dwarf binary in orbit around ϵ Indi A means that the system provides a benchmark case for our understanding of the formation of gas giant planets and brown dwarfs.

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This paper briefly historicizes English language mail services, postal reform, and the inauguration of global delivery systems for material mails in order to outline the origins of junk mail and discursive excess in network concepts and systems. These historical developments not only made mail services affordable to common people, but also created the conditions necessary for inexpensive, rapid delivery---and dumping---of bulk advertising and circulars (the precursor of spam email) throughout the literate field of personal correspondences. From a contemporary perspective, electronic mail alters conventions that have evolved through epistolary practices. Situated on a background of a formal, dialogical ethos of personal answerability among a distributed public, mass mail makes global populations the object rather than a dialogical subject of literate relations, with consequential changes to social and cultural habits and attitudes toward personal correspondence. To conclude this paper explores global dynamics of digital correspondence that place unanswerability at the core of twenty-first century dialogical relations.

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ABSTRACT This article addresses the perils of miscommunication and the beginnings of informed consent in a landmark United States common law, Schloendorff vs Society of New York Hospital. For a century, Schloendorff has been understood as a case of surgery performed without consent on an anesthetized patient after a pelvic mass was discovered. This case illustrates the clinical ethical errors that occur when physicians fail to communicate with each other and with their patient. To support this interpretation, we review the original medical and surgical records, letters of key participants in the case, and the trial court record. Ms Schloendorff actually lost her legal case. Indeed, her surgery might not have been performed at all had her clinicians known, communicated, documented, and reaffirmed what the patient actually wanted. This new interpretation of Schloendorff is important for contemporary obstetric and gynecologic care, because it documents the perils of the medical errors of implicit consent, delegating the obtaining of consent, and miscommunication among clinicians. From the perspective of the lessons taught by Schloendorff, the modern culture of patient safety and quality that has come to define excellent obstetric and gynecologic care, including ultrasound, should be understood as a powerful preventive measure against the clinical ethical perils of miscommunication that reduce the quality of patient care and unnecessarily compromise professional obstetric and gynecologic ultrasound. How to cite this article Chervenak FA, McCullough LB, Chervenak J. Perils of Miscommunication: The Beginnings of Informed Consent. Donald School J Ultrasound Obstet Gynecol 2016;10(2):125-130.

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Typhus in occupied Lviv between 1941 and 1944 (on the basis of Gazeta Lwowska and Lwiwśki wisti) One of the diseases that provoked widespread fear during the Second World War was typhus. Memory of the mass deaths it had caused during the previous conflict produced well-grounded fears among front-line soldiers and civilians (despite the existence of innoculations, which were hard to obtains). On the basis of two contemporary journals, this article demonstrates the course of the disease in the realia of occupied Lwiw, the presentation of the issue in the press, and methods of combatting the epidemic. Despite fears, death from typhus in occupied Lwiw was relatively small, which can probably be explained both by measures adopted and the functioning in that city of an institution producing an effective vaccine. The exception was the Jewish ghetto, where, as a result of deliberate Nazi policies, the disease caused an enormous number of deaths. Typhus was also an important element in Nazi propaganda, which is also reflected in the columns of the Lwiw press.

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Today, immersive technologies—like virtual reality—are celebrated as natural empathy machines, capable of fostering meaningful cross-cultural understanding. I interrogate this assumption through my case study of an early twentieth-century immersive, interactive ride: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1903). The elaborate travel simulation and multisensorial, live-action scenes that followed offered millions of visitors a thrilling glimpse of the electrified future promised by American imperialism. Through 20,000 Leagues, audiences climbed aboard a simulated submarine and traveled to the Arctic (a massive refrigerated warehouse on Coney Island at the height of summer, featuring live polar bears and “authentic” Native Alaskans). Though perhaps experienced simply as entertainment, the ride was a potent pedagogical tool; the amusement introduced visitors to the thrill of “discovery” first-hand while erasing the violence of colonialism. The impact of this ride, and others like it, was profound, contributing to mass support for imperial wars abroad and racial segregation at home. Drawing lessons from my case study, I argue that the early ride was a precursor to twenty-first-century immersive worlds. My work centers on the pressing need to reconnect immersive technology to its historical context or risk reinscribing the imperial gaze into contemporary experiences. To move toward this goal, I offer fellow makers and scholars terminology to articulate the manifestations of the medium’s colonial inheritance, critical questions to guide a more equitable cultural production process, and a contemporary case study of VR film, Traveling While Black (2019), directed by Roger Ross Williams, who is already engaged in this critical work.

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Erik Satie (1866–1925) was a colourful and intriguing artist in the world of Parisian avant-garde. In the turbulent times of the early 20th century he created the concept of musique d’ameublement (‘furniture music’) – a vision of music that did not require attentive listening because it was supposed to play an extravagant role (as it was perceived in that period) of an acoustic background accompanying all everyday events. A change in recording and sound reproduction techniques in the 20th century that led to the ubiquity of music in the contemporary world seems to confirm that Satie’s ‘furniture music’ can be treated as a prophetic idea. However, the problem of how the concept of musique d’ameublement should be interpreted still remains ambiguous. The main aim of the present paper is to discuss the two contrary ways of the interpretation of ‘furniture music’. The first approach assumes that Satie can be treated as ‘the progenitor’ of muzak – a musical genre initially associated with the activities of Muzak company and then gradually identified with any background music provided on a mass scale to the public space. The second approach is an attempt to interpret the concept of musique d’ameublement in a completely different way – as an expression of opposition to an increasingly mechanized Western world dominated by progress and technology, where the role of music boils down only to the function of the acoustic background. Therefore, Satie becomes one of the precursors of the actions taken by the opponents of muzak (e. g. pipedown movements), who seek to eliminate the imposed background music from the public space. The reconstruction of musique d’ameublement (basing, inter alia, on selected source materials) is treated as a starting point for the discussion that leads to the acoustic ecology perspective.

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A new generation of healthcare operations management (HOM) scholars is studying timely healthcare topics (e.g., organization design, design of delivery, and organ transplantation) using contemporary methodological tools (e.g., econometrics, information economics, and queuing games). A distinguishing feature of this stream of work is that it explicitly incorporates behavior, incentive, and policy considerations arising from the entanglements across multiple entities that make up the complex healthcare ecosystem. This focus is a departure from an earlier generation of research that primarily centered on optimizing given operations of a single entity. This paper provides an introduction to this burgeoning field and maps out research opportunities. We start with identifying key entities of healthcare delivery, financing, innovation, and policymaking, illustrating them on a healthcare ecosystem map (HEM). Next, we explore the HOM literature examining the interactions among various entities in the HEM. We then develop a taxonomy for the recent HOM literature (published in Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Management Science, and Operations Research between 2013 and 2017), provide a tool-thrust graph mapping methodological tools with research thrusts, and situate the HOM literature in context by connecting it with perspectives from medical journals and mass media. We close with a reference to technological innovations that have the potential to transform the healthcare ecosystem in future decades.

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Many critics of photorealism relied on the concept of nostalgia to dismiss the movement, finding in these apparently photographically accurate paintings representations of a simple past which seemed to disregard the complicated problems of the day. These critics, speaking within the constraints of a period when nostalgia experienced wider appeal than usual, offered what has become one of the accepted, and simplistic, interpretations of photorealism. Disenchanted by an apparently sentimental art popularized in mass-media photospreads and even business journals, critics of photorealism depended on a negative sense of nostalgia to dismiss these paintings as expressions of ineffective longings. However, Fredric Jameson's recent articulation of the utopian content in nostalgic yearnings affords the paradigm an affirmative element. Building on Jameson's model, I argue that Robert Bechtle's family paintings, taken as a group, display nostalgic desires for the secure families of the past even as they engage with contemporary popular and media-sustained perceptions of the breakdown of the family. In mediating conflicting or dissonant cultural pressures and desires, Bechtle's works at times display an ambivalent position toward the family as they echo fifties values for family unity while they capture seventies dissatisfactions with family tensions. Precisely because “the family” inspired controversy during the late 1960s and 1970s, it also became the site of nostalgic longings, as many Americans found images evocative of older domestic norms comforting. The family also serves as the hinge linking the present and past in Bechtle's works, displaying what I call the temporal density of nostalgia.

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ABSTRACT Endogenous retroviruses present in the human genome provide a rich record of ancient infections. All presently recognized elements, including the youngest and most intact proviruses of the human endogenous retrovirus K(HML-2) [HERV-K(HML-2)] family, have suffered postinsertional mutations during their time of chromosomal residence, and genes encoding the envelope glycoprotein (Env) have not been spared these mutations. In this study, we have, for the first time, reconstituted an authentic Env of a HERV-K(HML-2) provirus by back mutation of putative postinsertional amino acid changes of the protein encoded by HERV-K113. Aided by codon-optimized expression, we demonstrate that the reconstituted Env regained its ability to be incorporated into retroviral particles and to mediate entry. The original ancient HERV-K113 Env was synthesized as a moderately glycosylated gp95 precursor protein cleaved into surface and transmembrane (TM) subunits. Of the nine N-linked oligosaccharides, four are part of the TM subunit, contributing 15 kDa to its apparent molecular mass of 41 kDa. The carbohydrates, as well as the cytoplasmic tail, are critical for efficient intracellular trafficking, processing, stability, and particle incorporation. Whereas deletions of the carboxy-terminal 6 residues completely abrogated cleavage and virion association, more extensive truncations slightly enhanced incorporation but dramatically increased the ability to mediate entry of pseudotyped lentiviruses. Although the first HERV-K(HML-2) elements infected human ancestors about 30 million years ago, our findings indicate that their glycoproteins are in most respects remarkably similar to those of classical contemporary retroviruses and can still mediate efficient entry into mammalian cells.

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IntroductionObesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) are growing global health concerns associated with significant morbidity, mortality and healthcare expenditures. Due to histories of colonisation and contemporary marginalisation, Canada’s Indigenous populations are disproportionately burdened by obesity, T2DM and many other chronic illnesses. Culturally appropriate research on experiences and outcomes of Indigenous patients undergoing bariatric surgery in Canada is scarce. This qualitative study protocol will use a decolonising approach guided by an Indigenous Elder to explore the perspectives and experiences of urban Indigenous Manitobans with respect to T2DM, obesity and bariatric surgery. This knowledge will guide the development and implementation of culturally sensitive bariatric care.Methods and analysisSequential sharing circles (SSCs) and semistructured conversational interviews that have been purposefully designed to be culturally relevant with the guidance of an Indigenous Elder and advisory group (IAG) will be carried out in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Indigenous adults who are obese (body mass index >35 kg/m2), have T2DM and live in an urban centre will be recruited. Three groups will be investigated: (1) those who have had bariatric surgery; (2) those on the wait list for bariatric surgery and (3) those not associated with a bariatric surgery programme. Each group of 10–12 participants will be guided through a semistructured script led by an Indigenous Elder. Elder-facilitated conversational interviews will also be completed following the SSCs. All content will be audio recorded and transcribed. Thematic analysis will be used to identify emerging patterns using a constructive grounded theory approach.Ethics and disseminationThis study has received ethical approval from the University of Manitoba Health Research Ethics Board. Findings will inform the development and implementation of culturally sensitive programmes at Manitoba’s Centre for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery. Results will be disseminated in peer-reviewed scientific journals, at obesity and Indigenous health conferences, and knowledge sharing ceremonies.

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Objetivo: Analizar el conocimiento en materia de investigación arqueológica en el Norte Chico del Perú con respecto al ritual religioso del Vichama Raymi de Paramonga. Métodos: Análisis de investigaciones publicadas en revistas científicas especializadas en la temática. Se centró el análisis y desarrollo, en el conocimiento en los últimos años, en materia de investigación arqueológica en el Norte Chico del Perú, cruce de información con datos antropológicos, ritos contemporáneos y fuentes de la cultura viva. Resultados: Descubrimiento definitivo sobre el cultivo y consumo masivo de maíz, camote, pepinos, guayabas y cientos de plantas domesticadas en el Arcaico Tardío de cinco mil años en Caballete y Huaricanga del Valle Fortaleza de Paramonga define que la sociedad de los inicios de la civilización andina fue agraria y no pesquera. Conclusiones: La forma del poder del Ritual ambientalista para el manejo social se expresó en las fiesta-festines de rituales del poder ambiental conocidos como los Vichama Raymis, las fiestas del origen de la abundancia de la agricultura, los alimentos y sanaciones de la Civilización Milenaria de Paramonga en donde el manejo de guerras psicosociales positivo a través del discurso de los sacerdotes o chamanes utilizó el tacú tacú o mistura de la pachamanca como dieta masiva-religiosa para estimular el intercambio la fuerza de trabajo colaborativo. Objective: To analyze the knowledge in archaeological research in the Norte Chico of Peru with respect to the religious ritual of the Vichama Raymi de Paramonga. Methods: Analysis of research published in specialized scientific journals on the subject. The analysis and development focused on the knowledge in recent years, in the field of archaeological research in the Norte Chico of Peru, crossing of information with anthropological data, contemporary rites and sources of living culture. Results: Definitive discovery about the cultivation and mass consumption of corn, sweet potato, cucumbers, guavas and hundreds of domesticated plants in the Late Archaic of five thousand years in Caballete and Huaricanga del Valle Fortaleza de Paramonga defines that the society of the beginnings of civilization Andean was agrarian and not fishing. Conclusions: The form of the power of the environmentalist Ritual for social management was expressed in the festivals-festivals of rituals of environmental power known as the Vichama Raymis, the festivals of the origin of the abundance of agriculture, food and healings of the Millennial Civilization of Paramonga where the positive management of psychosocial wars through the discourse of the priests or shamans used the tacú tacú or mixture of the pachamanca as a mass-religious diet to stimulate the exchange of the collaborative workforce.

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The issue of the creative heritage of writers of the Russian abroad has been studied by many domestic and foreign scientists, but the problem of their works existence in the library special collections is not studied enough. The work objective is to present the specificity of acquisition of major Russian (Soviet) library with publications of authors-immigrants, to reveal general and specific principles of collection formation and preservation inherent for special depositories based on the analysis of documents storing in the Center for Contemporary Documentation, the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI). The methodological basis is a set of principles and approaches of historical, cultural and bibliologic nature. After the October Revolution a large number of creative intelligentsia left Russia (philosophers, writers, artists). The first wave of Russian emigration that began in 1918 was a mass and lengthy process. Among the famous writers there emigrated: I. Bunin, I. Shmelev, A. Averchenko, K. Balmont, Z. Gippius, B. Zaitsev, A. Kuprin, A. Remizov, I. Severyanin, A. Tolstoy, Teffi, Sasha Chrernyi, M. Tsvetaeva, M. Aldanov, G. Adamovich, G. Ivanov, V. Khodasevich. At the end of the World War II, the second wave of emigration began, which was no longer as mass as the first. Most of the writers and poets emigrated to Germany and the United States. The most famous among the representatives of the second wave are poets: I. Elagin, D. Klenovski, V. Yurasov, V. Morshen, V. Chinnov. The third wave of emigration started in “Khrushchev ottepel” time. A. Solzhenitsyn’s works were prohibited for publication, сriminal cases were brought against Y. Daniel and A. Sinyavsky, I. Brodsky was convicted for slothfulness, exiled to remote places. Later, V. Aksenov, V. Voinovich, V. Maksimov and others were forced to leave the USSR. Writes-emigrants stayed a great number of works created and published off the frames of Soviet census, which allow preserving historical facts for future generations The literature of the Russian emigration has always occupied a significant place in the libraries' stocks of special storage. The Russian abroad literature divides into three periods corresponding to three waves in the history of Russian emigration: 1918 – early 1940s – the first wave; mid 1940– 1950s – the second wave; late 1960s – early 1980s – the third wave. The collection of literature of the Russian Diaspora of the Russian State Library contains works of the authors of all waves of emigration. In total, over 700 thousand of documents are stored here. In the library of the Russian Academy of Sciences, works of Russian writers and scientists published after 1917 are stores in the reading room of the Russian Diaspora collection. There are significant collections in the Russian National Library – white guard newspapers and journals of the Civil war, literature of foreign centers of the Russian emigration of the 1920–1930s, as well as some works of writers of the emigration first wave. These specific library departments formed and preserved a huge literature collection of the Russian Diaspora of the XX century. Thanks to them, scientists, researchers and intellectuals had the opportunity to get acquainted with the literature of emigrant writers.

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Introduction and objective. Despite a high complete remission (CR) rate obtained with frontline therapy most adults with T-ALL eventually relapse. Although promising therapies are emerging, salvage options for T-ALL are currently limited. Little is known about outcome of patients (pts) with relapsed T-ALL (R T-ALL) treated with contemporary MRD-oriented trials. Our goal was to analyze the outcome of pts with R T-ALL included in two successive MRD-oriented trials (ALL-AR-03 and ALL-HR-11) from the Spanish PETHEMA Group. Methods. Retrospective study of R T-ALL adults diagnosed between 2003 and 2019 and included in the protocols ALL-AR-03 (NCT00853008) and ALL-HR-11 (NCT01540812). The clinical characteristics at baseline and at relapse, salvage therapies and outcomes (CR and OS) were analyzed and a study of prognostic factors for OS was performed. Results Forty-nine patients were identified (ALL-AR-03 [n=27], ALL-HR-11 [n=22]). Median age (range) at diagnosis was 29 (16-58) yrs, 38 males (78%), CNS involvement 6 (12%), mediastinal mass 30 (61%), WBC count 40.8 x109/L (0.6-351.0), early T-cell precursor 11 (23%), pre-T 8 (16%), cortical 16 (33%), mature 9 (18%), T unspecified 5 (10%). Post-induction-1 MRD level ≥0.1%: 14/42 (33%), ≥0.01%: 17/39 (44%). Nine pts (18%) required 2nd induction therapy (resistant disease after induction-1 [n=5], MRD≥0.1% after induction-1 [n=4]). Allogeneic HSCT in CR1: 8 pts. Interval CR1-relapse: 11.2 [0.1-36.7] months. Relapse was located in BM (n=20, 41%), BM+extramedullary (n=16, 33%) and extramedullary (n=13, 26%). CNS at relapse was involved in 18 pts (37%, isolated in 8 cases). Median number of rescue lineages was 2 (range 1-5). The most frequent first salvage schedules were FLAG-Ida (n=24, 49%), HyperCVAD (n=8, 16%) and nelarabine (n=4, 8%) (other schedules in 13 pts). Second CR was attained in 21/48 pts (44%). The patients with poor morphologic and/or poor MRD response after Induction-1 in first line therapy (n=9) did not respond to first salvage therapy (0/9 vs. 21/39, p=0.003). AlloHSCT was performed in 19 pts (15 in CR2) (HLA-identical sibling: 9, URD: 9, haploidentical: 1, myeloablative conditioning: 16). Thirty-nine pts died (progression: 27, toxicity of rescue regimens: 7, TRM: 5) and 9/10 alive patients were submitted to HSCT (the remaining is on rescue therapy). Median OS (95%CI) was 6.1 (4.9-7.2) months, 5yr OS probability 21% (9%-33%) (Figure 1). By multivariable analysis, only the CR after first salvage regimen emerged as favorable prognostic factor for OS (HR 3.110, 95%CI: 1.579-6.124) (Figure 2). Conclusion. This study shows poor outcome of adults with R T-ALL, with CR to first salvage therapy of 44% and a median OS of 6 months. Poor early response to first line therapy correlated with poor response to salvage-1. The only independent predictor for better survival was CR to first salvage regimen. This study highlights the unmet need for novel effective therapies for T-ALL. Supported in part by grant 2017 SGR288 (GRC) Generalitat de Catalunya and "La Caixa" Foundation; ISCIII (PI19/01828), co-funded by ERDF/ESF, "A way to make Europe"/"Investing in your future". Disclosures Ribera: Pfizer, Amgen, Ariad, Novartis: Consultancy, Speakers Bureau; Pfizer, Amgen: Research Funding. Barba:Amgen, Celgene, Gilead, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Novartis, Pfizer, Shire: Consultancy; Amgen, Celgene, Novartis, Pfizer: Speakers Bureau. Tormo:Celgene: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Pfizer: Honoraria; Novartis: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Janssen: Honoraria; MSD: Honoraria; Daiichi Sankyo: Honoraria; Servier: Honoraria; Roche: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Astellas: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees. Sanchez:Abbvie: Other: travel grants; Amgem: Other: travel grants; Janssen: Other: travel grants; Celgene: Other: travel grants; Roche: Other: travel grants. Giménez Conca:AbbVie: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau.

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A different name than English literature, ‘Anglo-Indian Literature’, was given to the body of literature in English that emerged on account of the British interaction with India unlike the case with their interaction with America or Australia or New Zealand. Even the Indians’ contributions (translations as well as creative pieces in English) were classed under the caption ‘Anglo-Indian’ initially but later a different name, ‘Indo-Anglian’, was conceived for the growing variety and volume of writings in English by the Indians. However, unlike the former the latter has not found a favour with the compilers of English dictionaries. With the passage of time the fine line of demarcation drawn on the basis of subject matter and author’s point of view has disappeared and currently even Anglo-Indians’ writings are classed as ‘Indo-Anglian’. Besides contemplating on various connotations of the term ‘Indo-Anglian’ the article discusses the related issues such as: the etymology of the term, fixing the name of its coiner and the date of its first use. In contrast to the opinions of the historians and critics like K R S Iyengar, G P Sarma, M K Naik, Daniela Rogobete, Sachidananda Mohanty, Dilip Chatterjee and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak it has been brought to light that the term ‘Indo-Anglian’ was first used in 1880 by James Payn to refer to the Indians’ writings in English rather pejoratively. However, Iyengar used it in a positive sense though he himself gave it up soon. The reasons for the wide acceptance of the term, sometimes also for the authors of the sub-continent, by the members of academia all over the world, despite its rejection by Sahitya Akademi (the national body of letters in India), have also been contemplated on. References Alphonso-Karkala, John B. (1970). Indo-English Literature in the Nineteenth Century, Mysore: Literary Half-yearly, University of Mysore, University of Mysore Press. Amanuddin, Syed. (2016 [1990]). “Don’t Call Me Indo-Anglian”. C. D. Narasimhaiah (Ed.), An Anthology of Commonwealth Poetry. Bengaluru: Trinity Press. B A (Compiler). (1883). Indo-Anglian Literature. Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Co. PDF. Retrieved from: https://books.google.co.in/books?id=rByZ2RcSBTMC&pg=PA1&source= gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false ---. (1887). “Indo-Anglian Literature”. 2nd Issue. Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Co. PDF. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/60238178 Basham, A L. (1981[1954]). The Wonder That Was India: A Survey of the History and Culture of the Indian Sub-Continent before the Coming of the Muslims. Indian Rpt, Calcutta: Rupa. PDF. Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/TheWonderThatWasIndiaByALBasham Bhushan, V N. (1945). The Peacock Lute. Bomaby: Padma Publications Ltd. Bhushan, V N. (1945). The Moving Finger. Bomaby: Padma Publications Ltd. Boria, Cavellay. (1807). “Account of the Jains, Collected from a Priest of this Sect; at Mudgeri: Translated by Cavelly Boria, Brahmen; for Major C. Mackenzie”. Asiatick Researches: Or Transactions of the Society; Instituted In Bengal, For Enquiring Into The History And Antiquities, the Arts, Sciences, and Literature, of Asia, 9, 244-286. PDF. Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.104510 Chamber’s Twentieth Century Dictionary [The]. (1971). Bombay et al: Allied Publishers. Print. Chatterjee, Dilip Kumar. (1989). Cousins and Sri Aurobindo: A Study in Literary Influence, Journal of South Asian Literature, 24(1), 114-123. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/ stable/40873985. Chattopadhyay, Dilip Kumar. (1988). A Study of the Works of James Henry Cousins (1873-1956) in the Light of the Theosophical Movement in India and the West. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Burdwan: The University of Burdwan. PDF. 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Abstract:

RESUMENLa historia del cristianismo no se entiende sin el complejo fenómeno mariano. El culto mariano ha afianzado la construcción de identidades colectivas, pero también individuales. La figura de la Virgen María estableció un modelo de conducta desde cada contexto histórico-cultural, remarcando especialmente los ideales de maternidad y virginidad. Dentro del imaginario católico, la Europa contemporánea ha estado marcada por la formación de una cultura aparicionista que se ha generadoa partir de diversas apariciones marianas que han establecido un canon y un marco de interpretación que ha alimentado las guerras culturales entre secularismo y catolicismo.PALABRAS CLAVE: catolicismo, Virgen María, cultura aparicionista, Lourdes, guerras culturales.ABSTRACTThe history of Christianity cannot be understood without the complex Marian phenomenon. Marian devotion has reinforced the construction of collective, but also of individual identities. The figure of the Virgin Mary established a model of conduct through each historical-cultural context, emphasizing in particular the ideals of maternity and virginity. Within the Catholic imaginary, contemporary Europe has been marked by the formation of an apparitionist culture generated by various Marian apparitions that have established a canon and a framework of interpretation that has fuelled the cultural wars between secularism and Catholicism.KEY WORDS: Catholicism, Virgin Mary, apparicionist culture, Lourdes, culture wars. BIBLIOGRAFÍAAlbert Llorca, M., “Les apparitions et leur histoire”, Archives de Sciences Sociales des religions, 116 (2001), pp. 53-66.Albert, J.-P. y Rozenberg G., “Des expériences du surnaturel”, Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions, 145 (2009), pp. 9-14.Amanat A. y Bernhardsson, M. T. (eds.), Imagining the End. Visions of Apocalypsis from the Ancient Middle East to Modern America, London and New York, I. B. Tauris, 2002.Angelier, F. y Langlois, C. 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Abstract:

Abstract Appendiceal malakoplakia masquerading as a cecal mass is uniquely rare. The presence of an infiltrate of granular eosinophilic macrophages containing Michaelis–Gutmann bodies on histopathology is pathognomonic of malakoplakia. Cutaneous, gastrointestinal and most commonly urogenital malakoplakia is reported in association with an immunocompromised state, infectious, inflammatory and neoplastic processes. Presentation varies from microscopic disease to plaques, nodules, polypoid lesions and small masses. However, a cecal mass postea proven appendiceal malakoplakia deserves special attention. We could not find similar case reports in the English literature. The pathogenesis of malakoplakia is poorly understood, and it is unclear if it is a harbinger of malignancy, a precursor lesion or an inflammatory marker. In the setting of a dominant appendiceal mass, post-treatment endoscopic and tumor marker surveillance is paramount but, however, undefined in contemporary literature.

Abstract:

Data becomes something of a mirror in which people see themselves reflected. (Sorapure 270)In a 2014 essay for The New Yorker, the humourist David Sedaris recounts an obsession spurred by the purchase of a Fitbit, a wearable activity-tracker that sends a celebratory “tingle” to his wrist every 10, 000 steps. He starts “stepping out” modestly but is soon working hard, steadily improving on the manufacturer’s recommended baseline. “But why?” asks Sedaris’ partner Hugh: “Why isn’t twelve thousand enough?” “Because,” I told him, “my Fitbit thinks I can do better” (n.p.).The record of daily, incidental activity that the Fitbit collects and visualises is important to Sedaris as a record of his (increasing) bodily fitness but it is also evidence in another way, a testament to virtue and a correlate of self-improvement: “The tingle feels so good,” Sedaris says, “not just as a sensation but also as a mark of accomplishment” (n.p.). Improvement is presented as both traceable and quantifiable; data and self are inextricably, though also ironically, linked. With his Fitbit, Sedaris accesses new and precise degrees of bodily information and he connects himself to a visible community of wearers. At first, Sedaris is smug and optimistic; by the time he begins “rambling” compulsively, however, and achieving his “first sixty-thousand-step day,” he has also had an epiphany: “I staggered home with my flashlight knowing that I’d advance to sixty-five thousand, and that there will be no end to it until my feet snap off at the ankles. Then it’ll just be my jagged bones stabbing into the soft ground” (n.p.). When the device finally “dies,” Sedaris experiences an immediate feeling of freedom; within five hours he has “ordered a replacement, express delivery” (n.p.).In their book Self-Tracking, Gina Neff and Dawn Nafus note that both digital technology and a turn to biomedicalisation in the broader culture have amplified the capacity and reach of quantification practices in everyday life. Wearable activity trackers, of which the Fitbit is arguably the most iconic, offer individuals the ability to track minute or previously imperceptible permutations of bodily sensation within an everyday and non-medical context. It is a technological capacity, however, thoroughly embedded in a mobilising rhetoric of “health,” a term which itself has “become a loaded word, not merely a description of a bodily state but also a euphemism for what the speaker believes is desirable” (Neff and Nafus 19). The Fitbit measures movement, but it also signals something about the wearer’s identity that is framed, in the device’s marketing at least, in positive and desirable terms as an indication of character, as a highly desirable aspect of self.In a recent discussion of new forms of online life writing, Madeline Sorapure argues that acts of interpretation and representation in relation to biometric data are “something very similar to autobiographical practice. As in autobiography, subject and object, measurer and measured, are collapsed” (270). In its capacity to track and document over time and its affective role in forming a particular experience of self, the Fitbit bears a formal resemblance to autobiographical practice and specifically to modes of serial self-representation like diaries, journals, or almanacs. The discursive context is crucial here too. Early self-trackers use the pre-formatted almanac diary or calendar to better organise their time and to account for expenditure or gain. The pocket calendar was an innovation that had mass-market appeal and its rapid circulation in the early twentieth century directly shaped diary and account-keeping habits amongst historical populations, and to this day (McCarthy). Such forms are not simply passive repositories but bear cultural ideology. As popular templates for practices of accounting, self-documentation, and affecting, pocket calendars shape what content an individual across their individual day or week is coaxed to attend to or record, and effects what might then be relegated “marginal” or less consequential in relation.How do the technological affordances of the Fitbit similarly coax and shape self-knowledge or ideas of value and worth in relation to personal experience? What kinds of formal and discursive and resonance might there be drawn between wearable personal devices like the Fitbit and historical forms of tracking self-experience, like the diary? Is a Fitbit a diary? In this discussion, I consider pre-formatted diaries, like the almanac or pocket calendar, as discursive and technological precursors or adjuncts to wearable personal trackers like the Fitbit and I explore some assertions around the kinds of subject that digital forms and modes of self-tracking and personal data might then seem to coax or imagine.Tracking SelvesSelf-tracking is a human activity, one far more interesting than the gadgets that have made it easier and far more widespread. (Neff and Nafus 2)In 1726, at the age of 20, the inventor and polymath Benjamin Franklin recorded in his journal the inception of a plan to improve his character. In a chart created to track goals of virtue and progress in character, “black marks” are literal and symbolic, denoting when he has failed to live up to his expectations—two black marks represent a particularly bad effort (Rettberg 438). At age 79, Franklin was still tracking his progress when he wrote about the project in his Autobiography:It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. (89)Franklin’s desire to document and chronicle the self-conscious development of his character drives his interest in the form. He was as an almanac devotee and an innovative publisher of the form, which gained immense popularity at this time. Franklin added blank pages to the almanacs he helped produce in the mid eighteenth century and this addition expanded the possibilities for the kinds of data that might be recorded, particularly personal and anecdotal material. The innovation also earned the publishers a good deal more money (McCarthy 49). The mass production of printed almanacs thus had a profound effect on how individuals engaged in various kinds of daily and temporal and social regulation and documentation, including of the self:At the same time as it kept readers aware of the outside world, the almanac could also direct them to the state of their own being. Almanacs were all about regulation, inside and out. Almanacs displayed a regulated universe governed by the laws of planetary motion, by the church calendar, by the zodiac. It seemed natural, then, that some readers might turn to an almanac to regulate themselves. What better way to do that than in a text that already possessed its own system? All one had to do was insert one’s own data in that printed form, like connecting the dots. (McCarthy 53)Mass-market forms that engender habits of accounting are also cultural templates: pre-formatted journals are systems for private documentation that reflect broader cultural and social ideologies. Rebecca Connor observes that historical gender assumptions in relation to time “well-spent” are frequently visible in eighteenth-century mass-market journals explicitly aimed at women, which tended to allocate more space for “social” engagements versus, for example, financial accounting (18).In the twenty-first century, technologies like the Fitbit promise access to data in relation to personal experience but they also reveal dominant cultural and social attitudes to bodies and selves. Deborah Lupton argues that self-tracking as a phenomenon is essentially connected to specific ideological imperatives: “Underlying many accounts of self-tracking is a barely hidden discourse of morality, which takes the form of championing those who take action to improve themselves” (74). Within these influential discourses, acts of self-tracking, no less than Franklin’s virtue chart, acquire significance as moral activities and as the outward sign of good character.Neither self-tracking nor the ideology of virtue that underwrites it are new phenomena. In their cultural study of weight measurement devices, Kate Crawford, Jessa Lingl, and Tero Karpii have explored how both weight scales and wearable devices “emphasize self-knowledge and control through external measurements” (479). Similarly, Lupton has noted that, the “metrics” generated by personal self-tracking devices are “invested with significance” because “data visualisation” is “viewed as more credible and accurate by participants than the ‘subjective’ assessments of their bodily sensations” ("Personal Data" 345).In various historical cultures, objectivity about one’s self is seen as a desire (if not a fact) in relation to conscious self-examination; externalisation, through written or oral confession, is both a virtue and a discipline. While diary writing is, particularly in popular culture, often derided as an overly subjective and narcissistic mode, the diary is also framed within contexts of therapy, or spiritual development, as a possible methodology for self-improvement. For Puritans, though, the act was also understood to entail risks; recording one’s thoughts into a written journal could enable the individual to see patterns or faults in everyday behaviour, and so to identify and rectify habits of mind holding back personal spiritual development. In the twentieth century, “how-to write a diary” self-help guidebooks remediate the discourse of self-knowledge as self-improvement, and promised to refine the method, advising adherents on the kinds of writing practices that might best circumvent problems of individual bias or subjectivity (a claim of an ever-more objective methodology that reverberates to the current moment). Invariably, the more “unconscious” the diary writing practice, the greater the assumed potential for “objective” knowledge (Cardell 34).Contemporary practices of self-tracking extend the prioritisation of external, objective measurement in relation to documenting personal experience. Crawford, Lingel, and Karppi observe that “the discourse around wearable devices gives the impression of radical new technology offering precise and unambiguous physical assessment: devices that reflect back the ‘real’ state of the body” (480). The technology, of course, is not new but it is “improved.” The ideal of a better, more accurate (because externalised and so auditable by the community) self-knowledge sought by Puritans in their journals, or by Benjamin Franklin in his charts and almanacs, resurfaces in the contemporary context, in which wearables like the Fitbit assume powerful discursive status in relation to ideals of truth and objectivity and where the individual is decentred from the position of as “the most authoritative source of data about themselves” (Crawford, Lingel, and Karppi 479).Data SelvesWhat kind of selves do people develop in relation to the technology they use to record or visualise their experience? “There is no doubt,” writes Jill Walker Rettberg, in Seeing Our Selves through Technology, “that people develop ‘affective ties’ to the data they track, just as diaries, blogs, photo albums and other material archives are meaningful to those who keep them” (87). That the data is numerical, or digital, does not lessen this connection:Apps which allow us to see our data allow us to see ourselves. We look at our data doubles as we gazed into the mirror as teenagers wondering who we were and who we might be. We look at our data in much the same way as you might flick through your selfies to find the one that shows you the way you want to be seen. (Rettberg 87)Crucially, Rettberg sees data as both affective and agential and she observes that data can also be edited and shaped by the individual. Some of this practice is deliberate, taking the form of an engagement with narrative as a “story” of self that underpins the practice of writing autobiography, for example. However, the representation of self can also be more oblique. “The first writing” says Rettberg, “was developed not to record words and sentences but to keep accounts. Arguably, recording quantities of grain or other valuables can be a form of self-representation, or at least representation of what belongs to the self” (10).Like log-books or field notebooks, like calendars or almanacs—prosaic forms of daily sequential recording that are understood to prioritise information capture over self-reflection—the Fitbit is usually presented as a method for accruing and representing personal data. In contemporary digital culture, “data” is a complex and fraught term and recent debates around “big data,” which describes the capacity of machines to make connections and perform calculations that a human might not necessarily notice or be able to perform, has crystallised this. What Melissa Gregg calls the power and “spectacle” of data is an ideological pivot in digital cultures of the twenty-first century, one that turns in conjunction to discourses of evidence and authority that emerge in relation to the visual: “sharing the same root as ‘evidence,’ vision is the word that aligns truth and knowledge in different historical moments” (3).For autobiography scholars exploring how formal modes of capture might also be genres, or how a Fitbit might coax a narrative of self, these questions are formative. Sorapure says: Information graphics that visually represent personal data; collaboratively constructed and template-based self-representations in social media and networking sites; the non-narrative nature of aggregated life writing: in these and other new practices we see selves emerging and being represented through interactions with technologies. (271)In the twenty-first century, self-quantification and tracking technologies like the Fitbit are ever more present in individual spheres of everyday activity. These devices prompt behaviour, affect self-knowledge, and signal identity: I am a fit person, or trying to be, or was. A Fitbit cannot record how it feels to spend 34 minutes in the “peak zone,” but it can prompt recollection, it is a mnemonic, and it provides an account of time spent, how, and by whom. Is a Fitbit a diary? The diary in the twenty-first century is already vastly different to many of its formal historical counterparts, yet there are discursive resonances. The Fitbit is a diary if we think of a diary as a chronological record of data, which it can be. However, contemporary uses of the diary, just like their historical antecedents, are also far more diverse and complex than this.Crucially, the Fitbit, like the diary, signals identity in relation to experience and so it reflects various and shifting cultural values or anxieties over what is worth measuring or documenting, and conversely, over what is not. “The private diary,” as Lejeune asserts, is a way of life: “the text itself is a mere by-product, a residue” (31). Historical diary keeping practices unfold from and emerge within cultures that position self-expression and its documentation of this as a means to self-improvement. Seeing the Fitbit within this tradition draws attention to the discursive ideology behind self-tracking as a personal practice that nonetheless positions itself in relation to cultural norms and to ideals (such as health, or fitness, or conscientiousness, or goodness).ConclusionWhat kind of self-representation is produced by practices of self-quantification, where personal data is amassed continuously and contiguously to individual experience? The legacy of centuries of historical diary-practice has been evident to various scholars exploring the cultures of self-tracking that are evolving in response to wearable technologies like the Fitbit. In her book length study of self-tracking cultures, The Quantified Self, Lupton observes that “self-tracking tools” are inevitably “biographical and personal” and that “contemporary self-tracking tools and records are the latter-day versions of the paper diary or journal, photo album, keepsake and memento box or personal dossier” (73). While, in Self-Tracking, Neff and Nafus argue that new technologies “intersect with the way that people have self-tracked for centuries like keeping diaries or logs. The growth of these digital traces raises new questions about this old practice” (2).What does it mean to think of wearable technology like Fitbits in relation to diaries, and what are the implications of such a conception? Privacy settings allow the Fitbit to comply with popular stereotypes of diaries that exist in popular culture; that is, as a locked or secret record. However, in the case of wearable technology the content is in the form of data. While data often poses as neutral and objective information, seeing this instead as diaristic can draw valuable attention to dominant cultural ideals that shape value in relation to self and technology in the twenty-first century. Crucially, “while self-knowledge may be the rhetoric of wearable device advertising, it is just as much a technology of being known by others” (Crawford, Lingel, and Karppi 493-494).Is my Fitbit a diary? It tracks my body’s movements and gestures and reports them to the conscious self. It stores chronologically accumulated data over time. It enables self-reflection and the visualisation of a set of daily habits, and it may produce or coax new behaviour. Diaries have long performed this function: tracking, recording and, documenting for making sense of later, on reflection, or after enough time has passed. Contemporary advances in technology related to self-tracking and personal data collection make possible a new range of previously unimaginable information in relation to individual experience. However, the diary’s cultural status as a “confessional” form intersects with exigencies around “health” and “self-improvement” that corporations producing devices like Fitbit promote to their customers in ways that will demand further attention.ReferencesCardell, Kylie. Dear World: Contemporary Uses of the Diary. Wisconsin UP, 2014.Connor, Rebecca Elisabeth. Women, Accounting and Narrative: Keeping Books in Eighteenth-Century England. London: Routledge, 2011.Crawford, Kate, Jessa Lingel, and Tero Karppi. “Our Metrics, Ourselves: A Hundred Years of Self-Tracking From the Weight Scale to the Wrist Wearable Device.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 18.4-5 (2015): 470-96.Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: The Complete Illustrated History. Minneapolis: MN Voyageur Press, 2016.Gregg, Melissa. “Inside the Data Spectacle.” Television & New Media 16.1 (2014): 1-15.Lejeune, Philippe. On Diary. Eds. Jeremy D. Popkin and Julie Rak. Trans. Katherine Durnin. Honolulu: U of Hawai’i P, 2009.Lupton, Deborah. “Personal Data Practices in the Age of Lively Data.” Digital Sociologies. Eds. Jessie Daniels, Tressie McMillan Cottom, and Karen Gregory. Bristol: Policy P, 2016. 339-54.———. The Quantified Self. Cambridge: Polity, 2016.McCarthy, Molly A. The Accidental Diarist: A History of the Daily Planner in America. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2013.Neff, Gina, and Dawn Nafus. Self-Tracking. Cambridge: The MIT P, 2016.Rettberg, Jill Walker. Seeing Our Selves through Technology: How We Use Selfies, Blogs and Wearable Technology to Shape Ourselves. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.———. “Self-Representation in Social Media.” The Sage Handbook of Social Media, Eds. Jean Burgess, Alice E. Marwick, and Thomas Poell. London: Sage, 2017. 429-43.Sedaris, David. “Stepping Out.” The New Yorker 30 Jun. 2014. 18 Apr. 2018 <https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/30/stepping-out-3>.Sorapure, Madeleine. “Autobiography Scholarship 2.0?: Understanding New Forms of Online Life Writing.” Biography 38.2 (2015): 267-72.

Abstract:

Contemporary global security realities have identified the pervasive mass media terror continuum in the form of display of graphic images and somewhat persuasive impacts of the mass media as used by terror organizations across the world. This work is therefore an explorative analytical narrative of the impacts of the mass media in the promotion and consolidation of terrorist ideologies and rationalization of terrorist activities. Generally, the work has made an objective modest attempt to review the nature and dynamics of global mass media and relationship between some of the fallouts of the impacts of the mass media in the spread and sustainability of global extremist and terrorist ideologies. This narrative is derivable from different international scholars and national governments based on sustained empirical researches in different countries of the world. Consequently, this work adopted extensively the historical and explorative approach that relied on secondary sources comprising books, journals and reports that were logically arranged and evaluated through content analysis in tandem with social science research enterprise. The work, therefore, established glaring intrinsic and extrinsic correlation between the impacts of the mass media and terrorism in the world and ultimately offered useful recommendations accordingly to stem this scourge.

Abstract:

Bestsellers, defined by the high sales numbers they achieve and the hype they generate, are success stories that periodically galvanise the contemporary book industry. Most publishers actively seek to produce bestsellers, using a range of strategies. Contemporary bestsellers, particularly from peripheral markets and by debut authors, are produced through the strategic joining of two co-existing modes of capitalism: conglomerate capitalism and platform capitalism. This article analyses the publication pathways and reception of two debut bestsellers by Australian authors: Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites and Heather Morris’ The Tattooist of Auschwitz. To analyse these case study titles, we constructed publishing histories, collected five media reviews for each book from reputable publications and literary journals, and scraped the top 100 reviews on Goodreads. These case studies show how the particular textual qualities of each book, highlighted in publishers’ marketing material, shape the media and reader reception of each book, and the mechanisms and strategic alliances with traditional institutional and platform networks at work in producing success in post-digital book culture. Bestsellers show the logics and systems of an industry in flux, and the strategies that can support a debut work to reach a mass audience.

Abstract:

The plausibility of a ‘celebrity-artist’ is met with scepticism, suspicion and/or outright disdain amongst those who guard the traditions surrounding the exclusionary world of ‘High Art’. As a construct unique to the advent of media culture, the vapid and transient nature associated with contemporary celebrity negates the high-minded notion of genius retrospectively applied to a ‘hero-artist’ such as Michelangelo or Rembrandt. (Chris Rojek’s categories are useful in illustrating this difference. While the celebrity of earlier artists was based on talent, and thus, ‘achieved celebrity’, current media-generated celebrity, or what Rojek terms ‘celetoid’, is transient and artificially generated.) For media-celebrity is an immediately accessible veneer, a stopgap in our moments of boredom, and a point of ‘other’ against which we situate our desires, not expected to provide anything more or less significant than mass-entertainment. This contradicts or otherwise undermines the anticipation that Art express the ‘profound’, possess ‘essence’ if not ‘beauty’, or be part of the politically-motivated avant-garde. The two-dimensional world of ‘media-ted culture’ (a term I use to describe the manner in which the media mediates culture, as opposed to mass culture which presupposes a top-down construction of culture denying the free-play of signs and free-will of cultural consumption), with its attribute capitalist underpinnings, complicates the depth and emancipatory potential of Art, and, by extension, appears to threaten the entire elitist infrastructure of the Artworld by association to or blending with ‘mass culture’. In addition to a general malaise fuelled by the troublesome notion of a ‘Culture Industry’, these ideological Artworld constants maintain their position in the post-postmodern Nineties as the curmudgeonly core of criticism, particularly that scripted within the realm of the ‘popular’ media, aimed at contemporary art and its celebrity occupants. In his text Art and Celebrity, John Walker discusses the career trajectory of British-born artist Damien Hirst remarking that some critics “regard him as a frivolous clown whose showmanship robs art of its dignity” and further, “think his work has contributed to the dumbing down, coarsening and vulgarisation of British culture” (Walker 247). The relationship of the character of the artist to the form of his artworks, I will assert, is not an organic occurrence but a media-ted one. As an artist whose media-persona appeared to be driven by fame and the excesses and lifestyle it afforded, and who created work which seemed to reflect a rather disinterested, dispirited and dismissive attitude similar to that persona, Hirst finds himself in the conundrum of having become an artist whose financial success and art historical dilemma is his relationship to those self-same processes he utilized to achieve success at the start of his career. I will briefly sketch the mechanisms which led to Hirst’s definition within the purview of the popular, and follow by suggesting an art historical repositioning of his work. Damien Hirst currently enjoys a peaceful, rural existence as the third highest-paid British artist alive today, having sky-rocketed to success in the Nineties as the ‘founder’ of the loose-knit group known as ‘young British art’. A product of the can-do attitude associated with Thatcherism and encouraged by his teachers, particularly the American-born Conceptualist Michael Craig-Martin, Hirst actively participated within the endorsement of his works and those of his London-based Goldsmith College classmates. Freeze, his first attempt at curation, has taken on mythic status in defining the group, and its professional gloss — particularly within its marketing strategy — is viewed as the precursor to an artistic disposition far more interested in fame and fortune, than form. (For a full discussion of Freeze, from a particularly Marxist perspective, see Stallabrass. His rebranding of ‘young British art’ into ‘High Art Lite’ sums up his position quite precisely. For a more light-hearted approach, see Collings.) As he progressed in his career during the early Nineties, and in conjunction with the promotional savvy of his dealer Jay Jopling, Hirst received frequent mention in specialist and popular media alike, quickly becoming known as young British art’s enfant-terrible. His lewd public behaviour, when collapsed as a single performance with his Art, was construed as a media-friendly spectacle which actively sought to attract the voyeuristic gaze of popular culture. This ploy appeared to work. Due to the familiarity granted by extensive media coverage, his images were subsequently co-opted within a number of marketplaces, ranging from film to advertising. For the first time in Britain an unusual cultural twist placed the world of High Art, embodied within the media-ted-performance-installation piece ‘Damien Hirst’, squarely within the realm of everyday experience. The ubiquity of his forms prompted friend/author Gordon Burn to pronounce that Britain was now under the influence of “a new intangible poetry becoming part of modern life” (Burn 10), or, in other words, had entered ‘Hirstworld’. Although the collapsing of work and artist within the realm of ‘modern life’ has art historical precedents, most obviously within the oeuvre of Andy Warhol, Hirst created a juxtaposition within his personality which largely undermined notions of what constituted the ‘Artist’. In contrast with Warhol’s eclectic ‘artsy’ public persona, Hirst presented himself as an average ‘Northern lad’: rowdy, temperamental, beer-swilling. His antics were part of the common cultural vernacular and when viewed in conjunction with the supposed media-friendly nature of his works, as Rosie Millard reflects, “Even if they hated it, people felt like they could have an opinion, because they understood what was going on” (Millard 21). Yet what did the public really understand, and how did they come to understand it? While a higher than normal attendance at the Sensation exhibit was regarded as an indicator of the success of young British art, the vast majority of the non-specialist audience commenting on these works based their assessment and interpretation of them on the exposure granted them by the mass media. The media-tion of yBa, particularly in the flagrant reporting of the artists’ statements and antics, flattened complexities or intertextual meanings into a by-line, which was meant to capture the imagination of a new audience for contemporary art in an easily consumable form. Although specialist criticism predictably ran the gambit, popular criticism was quite often disparaging or otherwise derogatory, and almost always took a biographical approach to describing the objects. Thus, what the public appeared to ‘understand’ was related much more to the hype and celebrity surrounding the artists, particularly the main protagonist Hirst, than of any issue related to form, appreciation or the history of art. Even more detrimentally, this conflation of art with biography led to many misunderstandings related to form, particularly in the assumption of its intention as ‘shock-art’ (as in Sister Wendy’s statement – see Wroe). An editorial letter printed in The Times points to this problem: “I am sure I am speaking for the general public when I say that these exhibits are not challenging, not clever, not funny and certainly not art” (Taylor 5; italics are mine). Outside of the media attention it garnered, young British art was as incomprehensible to its public as contemporary Art ever had been, even if the personalities of the artists and their motifs were easily recognizable. The notoriously fickle British were suspect of the equation: shark in formaldehyde = art. As Andrew Graham-Dixon notes, “They distrust the modern artist for old-fashioned puritanical reasons, being suspicious of any work of art which appears, to them, to have involved little work. They also suspect modern art of trying to fool them with a spurious jiggery-pokery” (Graham-Dixon 202). And perhaps more significantly, a class system which remained highly stratified continued to be firmly in place in the Nineties and was intensely critical regarding the allotment of government funds. (A well-documented incidence of this is the public outcry that occurred after the Tate purchased a work by Carl Andrew consisting solely of a line of firebrick.) The only thing that seemed shocking to the public was the promotion of the decadent young British artists with their spurious forms and high-fashion lifestyle. Exposure to the allegory of yBa led to the over-riding sentiment: ‘I could make that too, now give me my fame!’ (Incidences of this were rampant in the papers, i.e. members of the ‘working-class’ were shown displaying fish and chips in the gallery, other papers suggested ways to make-your-own Hirst; for one example, see Independent.) Not only did media-ted biography influence public opinion, but it infiltrated specialist art writing as well. Creating a direct link between biography and subject, Burn conflates objects which could be read as expressing an element of alienation with Hirst’s ‘predicament’ as a celebrity figure: “Celebrity is about control and distance; it is about adding space to the space that inevitably exists between human beings and remaining apart from the flock” (Burn 10; clearly co-opting Hirst’s vitrine sculpture of a lamb caught in mid-leap Away From The Flock to highlight this sentiment.) This sort of psychoanalytical approach edges, at best, slightly out of the realm of persona and into that of the personal. Either type of reading is regarded by Julian Stallabrass as possible only because of an intentional ambiguity on the part of the artist which allows the art object to posture as Art. For instance, Hirst provides sweeping generalizations regarding his objects, often associating them to the ‘grand narratives’ of life and death, and is at times even contradictory, employing a vague multi-referentiality which Stallabrass feels heightens the sense of ‘something important going on’. (Stallabrass suggests this is accomplished by utilizing theory without either acknowledgement or political/emancipatory intent in order to provide an illusion of sophistication. Hirst thus presents ‘The Death of the Author’, an art which appears to speak to intertextuality, only to make effectual use of it.) While Stallabrass’s own critique of yBa also conflates the persona of the artist with the artworks, he feels the media-tion of the artists has worked in their favour: “…behaviour and object-making together, fosters a feeling that it must be authentic because of its intimate link with the artist’s self, no matter how sham that self may be” (Stallabrass 247). The success of yBa is, therefore, based on a mythology regarding the persona of the artist, and a misreading of works that are otherwise “[a] combination of Hammer-style schlock and high-art minimalist rigour” (Stallabrass 26). Both of these critiques point to the central issue in an assessment of yBa (and a perennial problem for contemporary art in general): the possibilities of interpretation. In yBa in particular, interpretation has become a problem based on the conflation of the persona of the artist with their works, which I would attest is part of a larger problem regarding the confusion surrounding the relationship between the aesthetic and the spectacle, and the difficulties each term represents in popular and academic discourse alike. In the instance of Damien Hirst, the outcome of this confusion is an inability to accurately historicize the objects which comprise his oeuvre, additionally denying its aesthetic potential and dismissing the climate in which it was created. Unarguably, Hirst’s art contemplates the experience of life: as a cultural phenomenon in its contemplation of spectacular society, and as a tenuous state of embodiment, of the conditions in which we experience a state of ‘alive’. His objects (as signs or texts) provide a means to consider the dynamics in which human beings experience aesthetics, as well as providing an experience of that experience: systems which emphasize the sentient experience of phenomenology. The significance of the legacy of Hirst’s art (and of yBa generally) has already begun to be written in relation to its interaction with the media: as “conceptual work in visually accessible and spectacular form” (Stallabrass 4). While it would be disingenuous to suggest that Hirst has not capitalized or intentionally pandered to the media attention he received, it would be equally naïve to presume that his effort is purely a charade, or a mass-manipulation. The conflation of a media-ted biography with form negates the more significant aspects of Hirst’s work and its various dialogues with visual culture, the viewers in that culture and otherwise, and the history of visual objects, while simultaneously undermining the relative value of the image within contemporary society generally by association to capitalism and art-as-production. Perhaps there is a middle-ground between the Death of the Author, and Obsession with the Author? In reconsidering the aesthetic as a dialectical and culturally-bound sentient response resulting from interaction with an art object and experienced beyond the constraints of the beautiful, the importance of the first-hand interaction with art returns, shifting would-be viewers away from the water-cooler and back to the wonder of the art-experience in its many spectacular guises. References Burn, Gordon. “Hirstworld.” The Guardian 31 Aug. 1996: 10. Collings, Matthew. Blimey! From Bohemia to Britpop: The London Artworld from Francis Bacon to Damien Hirst. London: 21 Publishing Ltd., 1997. Graham-Dixon, Andrew. A History of British Art. Los Angeles: U of California P, 202. The Independent. “Review: Damien Hirst: DIY for Enthusiasts.” 18 Sep. 1997: 9. Millard, Rosie. The Tastemakers: UK Art Now. London: Thames and Hudson, 2001. Rojek, Chris. Celebrity. London: Reaktion Books, 2001. Stallabrass, Julian. High Art Lite. London: Verso, 1999. Taylor, Grace. “Unpleasant Sensation.” Magazine Letter. The Times 27 Sep. 1997: 5. Walker, John A. Art and Celebrity. London: Pluto Press, 2003. Wroe, Martin. “Sister Wendy Puts Boot into Damien.” The Guardian 12 May 1996. Citation reference for this article MLA Style LeBlanc, Carrie. "Stop Press!: Sister Wendy Refers to the Work of Celebrity-Artist Damien Hirst as 'Gossip Shock-Horror Art'!." M/C Journal 7.5 (2004). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/13-leblanc.php>. APA Style LeBlanc, C. (Nov. 2004) "Stop Press!: Sister Wendy Refers to the Work of Celebrity-Artist Damien Hirst as 'Gossip Shock-Horror Art'!," M/C Journal, 7(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/13-leblanc.php>.

Abstract:

Background and Objective: Angiotensinogen (AGT) is the unique precursor of the renin angiotensin system. Our previous studies demonstrated that inhibition of AGT markedly reduced development of atherosclerosis and ablated body weight gain induced by a saturated fat-enriched diet. In addition to high fat intake, high carbohydrate consumption is an important component of contemporary diets. The purpose of this study was to determine whether AGT inhibition prevented atherosclerosis and obesity in LDL receptor -/- mice fed a high carbohydrate diet. Methods and Results: Eight week old male LDL receptor -/- mice were randomized to receive either control or AGT antisense oligonucleotides (ASO; 50 mg/kg/week intraperitoneal injection; N = 10 mice/group). Feeding a high carbohydrate diet was initiated after 6 weeks of ASO injection, and maintained for 12 weeks with continuous ASO injection. AGT-ASO administration profoundly reduced plasma AGT concentrations (Control vs AGT ASO: 3582 ± 117 vs 227 ± 15 ng/ml; P<0.001). High carbohydrate diet feeding resulted in profound increases of plasma cholesterol concentrations in both groups. Atherosclerotic lesions in aortic arches were measured using an en face method after termination. AGT inhibition led to significant decreases (P<0.001) in percentage lesion areas of aortic arches. Prior to high carbohydrate diet feeding, there was no difference of body weight between the two groups (Control vs AGT ASO: 26.6 ± 0.6 vs 25.9 ± 0.7 g; P=0.4). Although high carbohydrate diet only increased body weight modestly, mice injected with AGT ASO had less increases of body weight compared to mice injected with control ASO (Control vs AGT ASO: 28.5 ± 0.6 vs 26.8 ± 0.6 g; P<0.05). Echo MRI analyses demonstrated that the lower body weight in mice administered AGT ASO was attributed to less fat mass gain, whereas lean mass was comparable between the two groups. Additionally, AGT inhibition resulted in lower blood hemoglobin A1c (5.5 ± 0.1 vs 5.1 ± 0.1%; P=0.005). Conclusions: AGT inhibition reduces high carbohydrate diet-induced atherosclerosis and body weight gain.

Abstract:

The ideas put forth here do not fit perfectly or entirely into the genre and form of what has established itself as the scholarly journal article. What is put forth, instead, is a juxtaposition of lines of thinking about the scholarly and popular in publishing, past, present and future. As such it may indeed be quite appropriate to the occasion and the questions raised in the call for papers for this special issue of M/C Journal. The ideas put forth here are intended as pieces of an ever-changing puzzle of the making public of scholarship, which, I hope, may in some way fit with both the work of others in this special issue and in the discourse more broadly. The first line of thinking presented takes the form of an historical overview of publishing as context to consider a second line of thinking about the current status and future of publishing. The historical context serves as reminder (and cause for celebration) that publishing has not yet perished, contrary to continued doomsday sooth-saying that has come with each new medium since the advent of print. Instead, publishing has continued to transform and it is precisely the transformation of print, print culture and reading publics that are the focus of this article, in particular, in relation to the question of the boundaries between the scholarly and the popular. What follows is a juxtaposition that is part of an investigation in progress. Presented first, therefore, is a mapping of shifts in print culture from the time of Gutenberg to the twentieth century; second, is a contemporary snapshot of the editorial mandates of more than one hundred member journals of the Canadian Association of Learned Journals (CALJ). What such juxtaposition is able to reveal is open to interpretation, of course. And indeed, as I proceed in my investigation of publishing past, present and future, my interpretations are many. The juxtaposition raises a number of issues: of communities of readers and the cultures of reading publics; of privileged and marginalised texts (as well as their authors and their readers); of access and reach (whether in terms of what is quantifiable or in a much more subtle but equally important sense). In Canada, at present, these issues are also intertwined with changes to research funding policies and some attention is given at the end of this article to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada and its recent/current shift in funding policy. Curiously, current shifts in funding policies, considered alongside an historical overview of publishing, would suggest that although publishing continues to transform, at the same time, as they say, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Republics of Letters and Ghosts in Machines Republics of Letters that formed after the advent of the printing press can be conjured up as distant and almost mythical communities of elite literates, ghosts almost lost in a Gutenberg galaxy that today encompasses (and is embodied in) schools, bookshelves, and digital archives in many places across the globe. Conjuring up ghosts of histories past seems always to reveal ironies, and indeed some of the most interesting ironies of the Gutenberg galaxy involve McLuhanesque reversals or, if not full reversals, then in the least some notably sharp turns. There is a need to define some boundaries (and terms) in the framing of the tracing that follows. Given that the time frame in question spans more than five hundred years (from the advent of Gutenberg’s printing press in the fifteenth century to the turn of the 21st century), the tracing must necessarily be done in broad strokes. With regard to what is meant by the “making public of scholarship” in this paper, by “making public” I refer to accounts historians have given in their attempts to reconstruct a history of what was published either in the periodical press or in books. With regard to scholarship (and the making public of it), as with many things in the history of publishing (or any history), this means different things in different times and in different places. The changing meanings of what can be termed “scholarship” and where and how it historically has been made public are the cornerstones on which this article (and a history of the making public of scholarship) turn. The structure of this paper is loosely chronological and is limited to the print cultures and reading publics in France, Britain, and what would eventually be called the US and Canada, and what follows here is an overview of changes in how scholarly and popular texts and publics are variously defined over the course of history. The Construction of Reading Publics and Print Culture In any consideration of “print culture” and reading publics, historical or contemporary, there are two guiding principles that historians suggest should be kept in mind, and, though these may seem self-evident, they are worth stating explicitly (perhaps precisely because they seem self-evident). The first is a reminder from Adrian Johns that “the very identity of print itself has had to be made” (2 italics in original). Just as the identity of print cultures are made, similarly, a history of reading publics and their identities are made, by looking to and interpreting such variables as numbers and genres of titles published and circulated, dates and locations of collections, and information on readers’ experiences of texts. Elizabeth Eisenstein offers a reminder of the “widely varying circumstances” (92) of the print revolution and an explicit acknowledgement of such circumstances provides the second, seemingly self-evident guiding principle: that the construction of reading publics and print culture must not only be understood as constructed, but also that such constructions ought not be understood as uniform. The purpose of the reconstructions of print cultures and reading publics presented here, therefore, is not to arrive at final conclusions, but rather to identify patterns that prove useful in better understanding the current status (and possible future) of publishing. The Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries—Boom, then Busted by State and Church In search of what could be termed “scholarship” following the mid-fifteenth century boom of the early days of print, given the ecclesiastical and state censorship in Britain and France and the popularity of religious texts of the 15th and 16th centuries, arguably the closest to “scholarship” that we can come is through the influence of the Italian Renaissance and the revival and translation (into Latin, and to a far lesser extent, vernacular languages) of the classics and indeed the influence of the Italian Renaissance on the “print revolution” is widely recognised by historians. Historians also recognise, however, that it was not long until “the supply of unpublished texts dried up…[yet for authors] to sell the fruits of their intellect—was not yet common practice before the late 16th century” (Febvre and Martin 160). Although this reference is to the book trade in France, in Britain, and in the regions to become the US and Canada, reading of “pious texts” was similarly predominant in the early days of print. Yet, the humanist shift throughout the 16th century is evidenced by titles produced in Paris in the first century of print: in 1501, in a total of 88 works, 53 can be categorised as religious, with 25 categorised as Latin, Greek, or Humanist authors; as compared to titles produced in 1549, in a total of 332 titles, 56 can be categorised as religious with 204 categorised as Latin, Greek, or Humanist authors (Febvre and Martin 264). The Seventeenth Century—Changes in the Political and Print Landscape In the 17th century, printers discovered that their chances of profitability (and survival) could be improved by targeting and developing a popular readership through the periodical press (its very periodicity and relative low cost both contributed to its accessibility by popular publics) in Europe as well as in North America. It is worthwhile to note, however, that “to the end of the seventeenth century, both literacy and leisure were virtually confined to scholars and ‘gentlemen’” (Steinberg 119) particularly where books were concerned and although literacy rates were still low, through the “exceptionally literate villager” there formed “hearing publics” who would have printed texts read to them (Eisenstein 93). For the literate members of the public interested not only in improving their social positions through learning, but also with intellectual (or spiritual or existential) curiosity piqued by forbidden books, it is not surprising that Descartes “wrote in French to a ‘lay audience … open to new ideas’” (Jacob 41). The 17th century also saw the publication of the first scholarly journals. There is a tension that becomes evident in the seventeenth century that can be seen as a tension characteristic of print culture, past and present: on the one hand, the housing of scholarship in scholarly journals as a genre distinct from the genre of the popular periodicals can be interpreted as a continued pattern of (elitist) divide in publics (as seen earlier between the oral and the written word, between Latin and the vernacular, between classic texts and popular texts); while, on the other hand, some thinkers/scholars of the day had an interest in reaching a wider audience, as printers always had, which led to the construction and fragmentation of audiences (whether the printer’s market for his goods or the scholar’s marketplace of ideas). The Eighteenth Century—Republics of Letters Become Concrete and Visible The 18th century saw ever-increasing literacy rates, early copyright legislation (Statute of Anne in 1709), improved printing technology, and ironically (or perhaps on the contrary, quite predictably) severe censorship that in effect led to an increased demand for forbidden books and a vibrant and international underground book trade (Darnton and Roche 138). Alongside a growing book trade, “the pulpit was ultimately displaced by the periodical press” (Eisenstein 94), which had become an “established institution” (Steinberg 125). One history of the periodical press in France finds that the number of periodicals (to remain in publication for three or more years) available to the reading public in 1745 numbered 15, whereas in 1785 this increased to 82 (Censer 7). With regard to scholarly periodicals, another study shows that between 1790 and 1800 there were 640 scientific-technological periodicals being published in Europe (Kronick 1961). Across the Atlantic, earlier difficulties in cultivating intellectual life—such as haphazard transatlantic exchange and limited institutions for learning—began to give way to a “republic of letters” that was “visible and concrete” (Hall 417). The Nineteenth Century—A Second Boom and the Rise of the Periodical Press By the turn of the 19th century, visible and concrete republics of letters become evident on both sides of the Atlantic in the boom in book publishing and in the periodical press, scholarly and popular. State and church controls on printing/publishing had given way to the press as the “fourth estate” or a free press as powerful force. The legislation of public education brought increased literacy rates among members of successive generations. One study of literacy rates in Britain, for example, shows that in the period from 1840–1870 literacy rates increased by 35–70 per cent; then from 1870–1900, literacy increased by 78–261 per cent (Mitch 76). Further, with the growth and changes in universities, “history, languages and literature and, above all, the sciences, became an established part of higher education for the first time,” which translated into growing markets for book publishers (Feather 117). Similarly the periodical press reached ever-increasing and numerous reading publics: one estimate of the increase finds the publication of nine hundred journals in 1800 jumping to almost sixty thousand in 1901 (Brodman, cited in Kronick 127). Further, the important role of the periodical press in developing communities of readers was recognised by publishers, editors and authors of the time, something equally recognised by present-day historians describing the “generic mélange of the periodical … [that] particularly lent itself to the interpenetration of language and ideas…[and] the verbal and conceptual interconnectedness of science, politics, theology, and literature” (Dawson, Noakes and Topham 30). Scientists recognised popular periodicals as “important platforms for addressing a non-specialist but culturally powerful public … [they were seen as public] performances [that] fulfilled important functions in making the claims of science heard among the ruling élite” (Dawson et al. 11). By contrast, however, the scholarly journals of the time, while also increasing in number, were becoming increasingly specialised along the same disciplinary boundaries being established in the universities, fulfilling a very different function of forming scholarly and discipline-specific discourse communities through public (published) performances of a very different nature. The Twentieth Century—The Tension Between Niche Publics and Mass Publics The long-existing tension in print culture between the differentiation of reading publics on the one hand, and the reach to ever-expanding reading publics on the other, in the twentieth century becomes a tension between what have been termed “niche-marketing” and “mass marketing,” between niche publics and mass publics. What this meant for the making public of scholarship was that the divides between discipline-specific discourse communities (and their corresponding genres) became more firmly established and yet, within each discipline, there was further fragmentation and specialisation. The niche-mass tension also meant that although in earlier print culture, “the lines of demarcation between men of science, men of letters, and scientific popularizers were far from clear, and were constantly being renegotiated” (Dawson et al 28), with the increasing professionalisation of academic work (and careers), lines of demarcation became firmly drawn between scholarly and popular titles and authors, as well as readers, who were described as “men of science,” as “educated men,” or as “casual observers” (Klancher 90). The question remains, however, as one historian of science asks, “To whom did the reading public go in order to learn about the ultimate meaning of modern science, the professionals or the popularizers?” (Lightman 191). By whom and for whom, where and how scholarship has historically been made public, are questions worthy of consideration if contemporary scholars are to better understand the current status (and possible future) for the making public of scholarship. A Snapshot of Scholarly Journals in Canada and Current Changes in Funding Policies The here and now of scholarly journal publishing in Canada (a growing, but relatively modest scholarly journal community, compared to the number of scholarly journals published in Europe and the US) serves as an interesting microcosm through which to consider how scholarly journal publishing has evolved since the early days of print. What follows here is an overview of the membership of the Canadian Association of Learned Journals (CALJ), in particular: (1) their target readers as identifiable from their editorial mandates; (2) their print/online/open-access policies; and (3) their publishers (all information gathered from the CALJ website, http://www.calj-acrs.ca/). Analysis of the collected data for the 100 member journals of CALJ (English, French and bilingual journals) with available information on the CALJ website is presented in Table 1 (below). A few observations are noteworthy: (1) in terms of readers, although all 100 journals identify a scholarly audience as their target readership, more than 40% of the journal also identify practitioners, policy-makers, or general readers as members of their target audience; (2) more than 25% of the journals publish online as well as or instead of print editions; and (3) almost all journals are published either by a Canadian university or, in one case, a college (60%) or a scholarly or professional society (31%). Table 1: Target Readership, Publishing Model and Publishers, CALJ Members (N=100) Journals with identifiable scholarly target readership 100 Journals with other identifiable target readership: practitioner 35 Journals with other identifiable target readership: general readers 18 Journals with other identifiable target readership: policy-makers/government 10 Total journals with identifiable target readership other than scholarly 43 Journals publishing in print only 56 Journals publishing in print and online 24 Journals publishing in print, online and open access 16 Journals publishing online only and open access 4 Journals published through a Canadian university press, faculty or department 60 Journals published by a scholarly or professional society 31 Journals published by a research institute 5 Journals published by the private sector 4 In the context of the historical overview presented earlier, this data raises a number of questions. The number of journals with target audiences either within or beyond the academy raises issues akin to the situation in the early days of print, when published works were primarily in Latin, with only 22 per cent in vernacular languages (Febvre and Martin 256), thereby strongly limiting access and reach to diverse audiences until the 17th century when Latin declined as the international language (Febvre and Martin 275) and there is a parallel to scholarly journal publishing and their changing readership(s). Diversity in audiences gradually developed in the early days of print, as Febvre and Martin (263) show by comparing the number of churchmen and lawyers with library collections in Paris: from 1480–1500 one lawyer and 24 churchmen had library collections, compared to 1551–1600, when 71 lawyers and 21 churchmen had library collections. Although the distinctions between present-day target audiences of Canadian scholarly journals (shown in Table 1, above) and 16th-century churchmen or lawyers no doubt are considerable, again there is a parallel with regard to changes in reading audiences. Similarly, the 18th-century increase in literacy rates, education, and technological advances finds a parallel in contemporary questions of computer literacy and access to scholarship (see Willinsky, “How,” Access, “Altering,” and If Only). Print culture historians and historians of science, as noted above, recognise that historically, while scholarly periodicals have increasingly specialised and popular periodicals have served as “important platforms for addressing a non-specialist but culturally powerful public…[and] fulfill[ing] important functions in making the claims of science heard among the ruling élite” (Dawson 11), there is adrift in current policies changes (and in the CALJ data above) a blurring of boundaries that harkens back to earlier days of print culture. As Adrian John reminded us earlier, “the very identity of print itself has had to be made” (2, italics in original) and the same applies to identities or cultures of print and the members of that culture: namely, the readers, the audience. The identities of the readers of scholarship are being made and re-made, as editorial mandates extend the scope of journals beyond strict, academic disciplinary boundaries and as increasing numbers of journals publish online (and open access). In Canada, changes in scholarly journal funding by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada (as well as changes in SSHRC funding for research more generally) place increasing focus on impact factors (an international trend) as well as increased attention on the public benefits and value of social sciences and humanities research and scholarship (see SSHRC 2004, 2005, 2006). There is much debate in the scholarly community in Canada about the implications and possibilities of the direction of the changing funding policies, not least among members of the scholarly journal community. As noted in the table above, most scholarly journal publishers in Canada are independently published, which brings advantages of autonomy but also the disadvantage of very limited budgets and there is a great deal of concern about the future of the journals, about their survival amidst the current changes. Although the future is uncertain, it is perhaps worthwhile to be reminded once again that contrary to doomsday sooth-saying that has come time and time again, publishing has not perished, but rather it has continued to transform. I am inclined against making normative statements about what the future of publishing should be, but, looking at the accounts historians have given of the past and looking at the current publishing community I have come to know in my work in publishing, I am confident that the resourcefulness and commitment of the publishing community shall prevail and, indeed, there appears to be a good deal of promise in the transformation of scholarly journals in the ways they reach their audiences and in what reaches those audiences. Perhaps, as is suggested by the Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing (CCSP), the future is one of “inventing publishing.” References Canadian Association of Learned Journals. Member Database. 10 June 2008 ‹http://www.calj-acrs.ca/>. Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing. 10 June 2008. ‹http://www.ccsp.sfu.ca/>. Censer, Jack. The French Press in the Age of Enlightenment. London: Routledge, 1994. Darnton, Robert, Estienne Roche. Revolution in Print: The Press in France, 1775–1800. Berkeley: U of California P, 1989. Dawson, Gowan, Richard Noakes, and Jonathan Topham. Introduction. Science in the Nineteenth-century Periodical: Reading the Magazine of Nature. Ed. Geoffrey Cantor, Gowan Dawson, Richard Noakes, and Jonathan Topham. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. 1–37. Eisenstein, Elizabeth. The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1983 Feather, John. A History of British Publishing. New York: Routledge, 2006. Febvre, Lucien, and Henri-Jean Martin. The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing 1450–1800. London: N.L.B., 1979. Jacob, Margaret. Scientific Culture and the Making of the Industrial West. New York: Oxford UP, 1997. Johns, Adrian. The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1998. Hall, David, and Hugh Armory. The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. Klancher, Jon. The Making of English Reading Audiences. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1987. Kronick, David. A History of Scientific and Technical Periodicals: The Origins and Development of the Scientific and Technological Press, 1665–1790. New York: Scarecrow Press, 1961. ---. "Devant le deluge" and Other Essays on Early Modern Scientific Communication. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2004. Lightman, Bernard. Victorian Science in Context. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1997. Mitch, David. The Rise of Popular Literacy in Victorian England: The Influence of Private choice and Public Policy. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1991. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Granting Council to Knowledge Council: Renewing the Social Sciences and Humanities in Canada, Volume 1, 2004. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Granting Council to Knowledge Council: Renewing the Social Sciences and Humanities in Canada, Volume 3, 2005. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Moving Forward As a Knowledge Council: Canada’s Place in a Competitive World. 2006. Steinberg, Sigfrid. Five Hundred Years of Printing. London: Oak Knoll Press, 1996. Willinsky, John. “How to be More of a Public Intellectual by Making your Intellectual Work More Public.” Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy 3.1 (2006): 92–95. ---. The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. ---. “Altering the Material Conditions of Access to the Humanities.” Ed. Peter Trifonas and Michael Peters. Deconstructing Derrida: Tasks for the New Humanities. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. 118–36. ---. If Only We Knew: Increasing the Public Value of Social-Science Research. New York: Routledge, 2000.

Abstract:

Russell Belk,in an amazing 1995 essay on consumption (where 22 of the 38 pages are references, demonstrating hyper-consumption in action), argues that the 1990s heralded a new understanding of consumer behaviour. In the shifting paradigm identified by Belk, the analytical focus of consumer behaviour research became translated from 'Economic/Psychological' to 'Sociological/Anthropological', and from a 'Focus on buying' to a 'Focus on consuming' (61). This made intuitive sense in a world of postmodern marketing (Brown), and it re-enforced an idea that had been put forward by Dallas Smythe that audiences are sold to advertisers . The value of an audience lies in its potential to consume, and Virginia Nightingale subsequently explored this dynamic in her argument that consumption is work: "It is because of the relationship between advertising and television that watching television is work. Watching television is a leisure activity in the pursuit of which viewers are asked to lose themselves, to blur the distinctions between reality and fantasy. They are asked to forget that watching television is also work, to see television advertisements not as a continual reminder of the work of purchasing, but as entertainment. They are asked to believe that what they see on television is what they want to see, specially selected to please them." (33-4) Nightingale had previously argued that consumption in the domestic context was not only work, but quintessentially women'swork: Commercial television is an integral part of the modern shopping world. In this age of image advertising, it is from television that the meanings of brands are learned. If women learned to shop in the nineteenth century, they had to be taught to shop for others in the twentieth. The unpredictable woman of the nineteenth century had to be transformed into predictable, programmable 'Mum' one hundred years later. The branding of food commodities and the establishment of television as an efficient system of brand information assisted a change in the mode of address of the shopping world to women purchasers. In the cut-price world of the 50s and 60s seduction was out and value was in. In a shopping world of comparable brands, Mum has to learn not only the meaning, the lifestyle connotations of branded products from television advertising, but their meanings for the members of the family destined to consume her purchases (33). This way of looking at the world although illuminating begged the question as to an appropriate definition of work. Why did watching television seem so much less like work than, say, typing an article, or working as a waiter? Staying alive breathing, metabolising requires work at some level; what differentiates the 'going to work' side of working: and how does this relate to a consumer society which (as Belk identifies) increasingly involves an emphasis upon consumption rather than production? Greg Hearn, Tom Mandeville and David Anthony estimate that "consumption now accounts for about 60 per cent of GDP ... mass communication, advertising and the consumer economy form a nexus that is centrally implicated in the operation of Western societies" (104). They go on to argue that the "central assertion of postmodern views of consumption is that social identity can be interpreted as a function of consumption" (106). Citing Lunt and Livingstone, Hearn et al. suggest that "fuelled by their ability to modify and process the building blocks of identity (images, visual codes, phrases and ideas), our current mass media, via identity construction, have expanded consumption in advanced industrial societies" (107). Identity construction, however, is a given of existence it is impossible to live without some kind of identity, and impossible to adopt an identity in a vacuum, with no relationship to the social world in which the individual lives. Given that identity-construction is a necessity of existence, and will also necessarily reflect an individual's social practices and their consumption characteristics, can it be seen as 'work'? (And, if not, why not?) One way this problem can be investigated is through changes in work patterns in contemporary societies. Among the most dramatic socio-economic developments of the past two generations has been the changing role of women in the workforce. Some women still in employment are members of the generation which, as recently as the 1960s, were obliged to surrender their jobs upon marriage. Many were subsequently re-employed on a casual basis, but others were unable to resume a career of any sort given that they now had 'family responsibilities' (even if that 'family responsibility' was their spouse alone). The reason behind the compulsory female resignations was the patriarchal view that it was the husband's role to provide financially for his wife. For a married woman to hold a job was akin to double dipping the job was there to support a woman who had no husband to support her; or for a man with a wife (and sometimes other family) to provide for. When women successfully campaigned against this discriminatory practice, and later in favour of equal pay for equal work, the ultimate result was that the real wages of men fell. Two-income families do not earn twice a 'living' wage; they earn a living wage between them. The advent of equal pay for women means that only a small proportion of women (or men) have the choice of making domestic and community-based unwaged labour the focus of their daily life, without the effect of this choice being a much smaller financial engagement in consumer society. The gender dimension to money-earning remains considerable, even in this age of equal opportunity legislation. In particular, the 'wages for housework' campaign has been all but lost over the past thirty years. Further, although it is now unlawful for women to receive less money than their male counterparts for equal work, women's average pay continues to lag significantly behind that of men (WEL). This is one way of demonstrating that traditional women's work tends to be less well paid than men's work. Nursing, teaching and office work all remain low-paid compared with executive occupations, although compulsory post-schooling study requirements might be higher in the female areas. And it is commonplace to note that in traditionally female occupations (like primary school teaching) although males might be out-numbered 5:1 it tends to be a man who gets promoted. (Less a case of the glass ceiling: more a case of the invisible escalator.) In capitalist societies, the original source of monetary wealth lies in power the power to control labour/work for the profit of an individual other than the labourer. This is a hangover from feudal agrarianism, and a precursor to the information age (Bell). In all human society, power confers advantage, including the capacity to direct the work of others. While this was true of the feudal lord, the merchant prince and the early industrialist, it achieved its purest form with the introduction of monetary rewards for labour. Frederic Jameson (77) comments that: "technology may well serve as adequate shorthand to designate that enormous properly human and anti-natural power of dead human labour stored up in our machinery, an alienated power, what Sartre calls the counterfinality of the practico-inert, which turns back on and against us in unrecognizable forms and seems to constitute the massive dystopian horizon of our collective as well as our individual praxis." What Jameson says of technology in general would be equally true of the particular technology of money. Accumulated capital, and its constituent parts of coins, notes, currencies and data sets represents 'dead human labour', in the sense of work expended in the past in the production of goods and services. It is this stored human labour which buys the carrots, or the magazine subscription, and which represents an exchange for the time and energy that would have been required to grow the carrots, or produce the magazine. Similarly, the income paid to the carrot-grower, the journalist, the designer and the advertiser represents to them a distilled recompense for their work. Arguably, the energy that produced the labour for which one is paid is 'dead' energy controlled by another and exchanged for money. At an individual level, the roles played in the personaeof a person earning money, or a person spending money (a common indication of consumption) are very different: with the role of the person earning money much more circumscribed. Joshua Meyrowitz (29-31) spends some time in explaining Goffman's analysis of the roles of the waiter, using metaphors from drama of front/back region/stage: Waiters for example are in a front region when they serve people in a restaurant dining room. In the front region waiters are usually polite and respectful. Their appearance and manner is one of cleanliness and efficiency. They do not enter into the dinner conversations of restaurant patrons. They do not comment on their customers' eating habits or table manners. They rarely, if ever, eat while in the sight of patrons. When waiters step from the dining room into the kitchen, however, they suddenly cross a line between the onstage and backstage areas. In the kitchen waiters are in an area which is hidden from the audience and they share this area with others who perform the same or similar roles vis-a-vis the audience. Here, then, waiters may make remarks to each other about the 'strange behaviour of the people at table seven', they may imitate a customer, or give advice to a 'rookie' on methods of getting big tips. In the kitchen food may be handled and discussed with somewhat less respect than in the dining room, and waiters may 'get out of costume' or sit in a sloppy position with their feet up on a counter... We expect to be treated differently in a restaurant than in a doctor's office. We expect the doctor to appear confident, concerned, patient and professional and slightly superior. We expect a waitress to be efficient, respectful and nonintrusive. And we demand these differences in 'character' even if the waitress is a student earning her way through medical school. This analysis indicates that where behaviour is related to money where a person is paid to fulfil a role; the production of the goods or services the behaviour is more constrained and circumscribed by the expectations of the employer/consumer. The behaviour of people who are paying for a service, whose intention is to consume, is the least constrained. It may be that Kerry Packer has awful table manners, but few restauranteurs would fail to be pleased to see him walking through their door. At the level of the individual producer/consumer in consumer societies, money is seen to exert decisive control in the lives of workers. Is it possible to think of a better, less obviously coercive way to get people into cars, and onto freeways and clocking into the office on such a regular, reliable basis: other than their being paid to do so? American academic Camille Paglia does not think so: "Capitalism, whatever its problems, remains the most efficient economic mechanism yet devised to bring the highest quality of life to the greatest number... Because I have studied the past, I know that, in America and under capitalism, I am the freest woman in history" (Menand 27). Paglia obviously considers herself sufficiently well paid. Since access to money limits access to goods, to some experiences and to travel, money is a potent incentive to behave in a way that is rewarded by society. Even so, not everyone is able to exhibit the work behaviour that social systems are most inclined to reward. The stresses of unemployment lie in its curtailing of options; in its implications for health, housing, leisure, and educational opportunities; and in the fact that the need to get more money monopolises the time of the unemployed. The old adage 'time is money' is only partly true. In some respects the two share an inverse relationship: 'free' time is inversely related to money. For the vast majority of the population, the opportunity to convert work/labour into money significantly limits the time available in which to enjoy consuming the rewards for their labours. When people have 'free' time, it is frequently because the opportunity to earn money by the production of goods and services is absent. Consequently possible consumption activities are also severely limited. There are no hard and fast rules in Jameson's late capitalist society, but the general case might be that we are paid to produce goods, services and information through our controlled work, while consumption is generally constructed as a voluntary activity. It is partly that voluntariness which implicates consumption in identity construction, makes it an expression of individual difference, and renders it potentially pleasurable. Arguably, however, the voluntary nature of consumption together with the impossibility of notconsuming prevents it from being categorised unambiguously as 'work'. The relationship of work to money helps explain why it may be work to watch television, but it's a different kind of work from that performed at the Coles check-out. Identity-construction may be a major consumer project using raw materials provided by the mass media, but it is not work we're paid to do. No-one else is prepared to use their stored labour to recompense us for our everyday work as non-professional television viewers, or for our project of self-individuation as expressed through the production of our personal identity. References Belk, Russell. "Studies in the New Consumer Behaviour." Acknowledging Consumption: A Review of New Studies. Ed. D. Miller. London: Routledge, 1995. 58-95. Bell, Daniel. The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society. Rev. ed. New York: Basic Books, 1999. Brown, Stephen. Postmodern Marketing. London: Routledge, 1995. Goffman, Erving. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organisation of Experience. New York: Harper and Row, 1974. Hearn, Greg, Tom Mandeville and David Anthony. The Communication Superhighway: Social and Economic Change in the Digital Age. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1997. Jameson, Frederic. "Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism." New Left Review146 (1984): 53-92. Lunt, Peter, and Sonia Livingstone. Mass Consumption and Personal Identity: Everyday Economic Experience. Milton Keynes: Open UP, 1992. Menand, Louis. "Sexual Politics with Snap, Crackle and Pure Paglian Pop." The Australian3 Feb. 1993: 27. Meyrowitz, Joshua. No Sense of Place. New York: Oxford UP, 1995. Nightingale, Virginia. "Women as Audiences." Television and Women's Culture: The Politics of the Popular. Ed. M.-E. Brown. Sydney: Currency Press, 1990. 25-36. Smythe, Dallas. Dependency Road. New Jersey: Ablex, 1981. WEL. 12 Nov. 2001 <http://www.wel.org.au/policy/00pol1.htm>. Links http://www.wlu.ca/~wwwpress/jrls/cjc/BackIssues/17.4/melody.html http://www.onemoreweb.com/soapbox/paglia.html http://www.wel.org.au/policy/00pol1.htm http://www.business.utah.edu/~mktrwb/ http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/jameson/ Citation reference for this article MLA Style Green, Lelia. "The Work of Consumption: Why Aren't We Paid?" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 4.5 (2001). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0111/Green.xml >. Chicago Style Green, Lelia, "The Work of Consumption: Why Aren't We Paid?" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 4, no. 5 (2001), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0111/Green.xml > ([your date of access]). APA Style Green, Lelia. (2001) The Work of Consumption: Why Aren't We Paid?. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 4(5). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0111/Green.xml > ([your date of access]).

Abstract:

As the science fictional years come upon us -- 1999, 2000, 2001 -- there is a sense that this is the future, and nothing much has changed. Indeed, the future has turned out to be pretty much like the past, but with Tamagotchis and Karaoke. Beyond Darko Suvin's adoption of the term "novum" and the souls sold to the demons of postmodernism, the criticism of science fiction remains more or less the same as it did thirty years ago, except that it is now often written by people who have only read Neuromancer. It is high time that this critical apparatus was shaken up. The various techniques and devices in the arsenal of the contemporary science-fiction writer need to be explored anew. In The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, Clute and Grant introduced a series of terms, such as "polder" and "instauration", which they made use of in their analyses of the fantastic mode1. It is hoped that the terms I introduce gain similar currency. In the limited space I have available, I can only explore the terminology of plot. The key to the popular fictional genres, both visual and literary, is that they are defined by a certain sense of familiarity with the material, a familiar engendered by repetition with difference. Even within this overall scheme of generic recognition, there is a stage further when a plot is borrowed entire from another work. It is clearly easy for a writer to borrow a plot from someone else, as it is known that it already works, has already pleased readers and rations out the degree of originality in a genre which depends upon originality. For example, Dan Simmons's Hyperion has a series of characters telling each other stories to pass the time on a journey: obviously this is Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. But in addition to that it is a gathering together of disparate characters, who are going to go and visit this wonderful, strange being, to ask for their deepest desires. As I read this, I began to wonder whether one of them wanted a brain and one of them wanted a heart and one of them wanted courage and one of them wanted to go back to Kansas. This is of course the structure of The Wizard of Oz. Hyperion is thus Canterbury Tales meets Wizard of Oz sung to the tune of Keats, and is therefore hailed as being startlingly original. At the end of Hyperion, as the characters go off to see the Wizard, one character bursts into song: 'What's that song you're singing to Rachel?' The scholar forced a grin and scratched his short beard. 'It's from an ancient flat film...' 'But who is the wizard?' asked Colonel Kassad... 'And what is Oz?' asked Lamia. 'And just who is off to see this wizard?' (Hyperion 500-1) In order to avoid charges of plagiarism, Simmons reveals his sources, or, to be more charitable, acknowledges the intertextual borrowing which he has been engaged in. Another plot which gets used again and again is in cyberpunk, where the non-spatial realm of cyberspace stands in for the realm of the dead, the Underworld, and an analogue for Orpheus is sent to rescue a version of Eurydice: a female is kidnapped by a god of the Underworld, and a male hero has to rescue her, only to be trapped behind himself. This is the plot which underlies Vurt, Snow Crash, and one of the less obvious cyberpunk classics, Mythago Wood. The titular wood is a realm whose interior dimensions do not match the exterior's, rather like cyberspace. The main character's entry into the wood to rescue his brother and mother / sister-in-law / lover strikes a suitable note of incest, and the beings encountered there are mythic archetypes. As Pollen was to make clear, the Underworld is the realm of the collective unconscious, the realm of Story, Myth and Archetype2. The great trilogy of the 1990s, Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy, borrows the structure of The Lord of the Rings. In Fellowship of the Ring a group of disparate characters come together and set off on a mission, there's a great calamity following a betrayal and they are all scattered. In the next volume, The Two Towers, the scattered characters wander around aimlessly, not really achieving anything, and there's a couple of battles or revolutions. Finally in The Return of the King there are last climatic battles, councils of peace, characters die of old age and there's a sense of loss, that the world has been changed, but for the next generation. Compare this to the structure of Robinson's epic: in Red Mars a group of disparate characters (the First Hundred) come together and set off on a mission to Mars, there's a great calamity following a betrayal and they are all scattered. In Green Mars the scattered characters wander around aimlessly, not really achieving anything, and there's a couple of battles or revolutions. Blue Mars depicts a final climatic battle, councils of peace, characters die of old age -- as does the reader -- and there's a sense of loss, that the world has been changed, but for the next generation. (Curiously Kim Stanley Robinson next work, Antarctica, was a reworking of Blue Mars, but without the Mars, a feature it also shares with Lord of the Rings.) Repetition in narratives happens with entire works, but also within narratives. These are known as Cookie Dough Plots. Home-made cookies are made by using cutters which produce the same shape again and again from dough. In the same way, narratives can be constructed from a series of broadly similar events which are repeated ad infinitum. A recent example of this is Dan Simmons's Endymion (1996), where the entire plot is organised around the two poles of: 'We're being chased' and 'Phew, we've escaped'. This fills up over four hundred pages. The Ping Pong Plot is one where two plotlines interconnect and are told alternatively: two sets of characters are involved in two separate storylines, where the action is occurring simultaneously and the author cuts between the two. William Gibson does this a lot in his fiction, with increasing numbers of character sets. Strangely enough, great science fiction of twenty or thirty years ago was around two hundred pages in length, and great science fiction of today is around the four hundred page mark. It's twice the size of an old novel. Most of these novels use the Ping Pong Plot, with events alternating between two sets of characters who usually, but not always, meet up by page four hundred. They might as well be in separate novels. In fact what we appear to have in today's great science fiction, is two novels. As no-one would pay $50 for a two hundred page novel, they get two for the price of one, shuffled in accordance to the rules of Ping Pong. In Jovah's Angel, by Sharon Shinn, there are two sets of characters: the first plot is an angel looking for her mortal beloved soul mate or perfect man and the second is a man wandering around. And reading it, the reader thinks, 'Ooh, I wonder who her perfect man is going to be? Ooh, there's another 390 pages to find out.' The novel is an example of the Ping Pong Cookie Dough Plot variant, where the chase-escape-chase format is enlivened by switching -- Ping-Ponging -- between the chaser and the chased. In Jovah's Angel, by Sharon Shinn, there are two sets of characters: the first plot is an angel looking for her mortal beloved soul mate or perfect man and the second is a man wandering around. And reading it, the reader thinks, 'Ooh, I wonder who her perfect man is going to be? Ooh, there's another 390 pages to find out.' The novel is an example of the Ping Pong Cookie Dough Plot variant, where the chase-escape-chase format is enlivened by switching -- Ping-Ponging -- between the chaser and the chased. Perhaps the most significant example of this Timeslip Ping Pong in recent years is Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow (1996), where the action alternates between the account of the preparation for the voyage and the voyage itself and the account of the aftermath of the voyage. There's the before of events and the after of events, moving towards the discovery of the dark secret at the heart of the tale. It doesn't quite keep up the Ping Pong, as some chapters slip into the past or the future, and the Pings are not sufficiently distinguishable from the Pongs. In the past, series of novellas or novels used a variation on the Timeslip Ping Pong Plot, where the events and resolution of one story sets up the problem for the next. Rather than a series of sequels, what often happened was a number of sequels and prequels, until the final, ultimate and closing Prelude. (In a sense this is what Jack Womack is doing in his Dryco sequence). One variation on this should be known -- after E.E. 'Doc' Smith's novels -- as the My-Ultimate-Weapon-Is-More-Ultimate-Than-Yours-Is Sequence. In every Lensman novel there is an Ultimate Weapon, a weapon too dreadful to use, which they use after all, since they have it around, cluttering up the place. Fortunately for the sequence, the UW can be countered by the Ultimate Strategic Defense Initiative (or USDI) which is much more ultimate, and an even more UW. By the time you get to the eighth novel in the sequence, the UW of the first book ought to be renamed the Antipenultimate Antipenultimate Antipenultimate Antipenultimate Antipenultimate Antipenultimate Penultimate Ultimate Weapon. The preceding terminology covers the major versions of narratives used within contemporary science fiction, narratives which it seems likely will dominate the next century of science fiction. Similarly the same sorts of settings, which I hope to explore elsewhere, will dominate: in particular the rainy city, post-holocaust and the next five minutes (although the pre-millennial tension setting is clearly now obsolete). Footnotes A "polder" is a realm which is deliberately maintained as separate and distinct from the outside world (Clute 772-3). "Instauration fantasies" are those where "the real world is transformed" (Clute 501). For cyberpunk and the underworld narrative see Joan Gordon, "Yin and Yang Duke It Out", in Storming the Reality Studio: A Casebook of Postmodern Science Fiction, ed. Larry McCaffery (Durham and London: Duke UP, 1991). For a longer exploration of Mythago Wood see my article in Vector 192 (March/April 1997): 4, and my "Journeys beyond Being: The Cyberpunk-Flavoured Novels of Jeff Noon", Novel Turns: The Novel in Europe Now, ed. by John Gatt-Rutter (forthcoming). The term "cyberpunk-flavoured" is one I coined for a discussion of the works of Jeff Noon: the novels share a number of characteristics of cyberpunk, whilst not necessarily being unproblematically cyberpunk. A tradition of works which have a realm analogous to cyberspace, or a realm which serves a comparative narrative need, could be identified; Borges's use of the term "precursor" might be useful here to characterise such a tradition, although as Mythago Wood is more or less contemporary with Neuromancer it cannot properly be a precursor. The cyberspatial realm of the Vurt feather is something between an interior mental landscape and a computer game; the wood realm of Mythago Wood is somewhere between an interior mental landscape which can be simulated / created / entered with the use of electrical stimulation on the brain and a secondary world. References Clute, John, and John Grant, eds. The Encyclopedia of Fantasy. London: Orbit: 1997 Citation reference for this article MLA style: Andrew M. Butler. "Towards a Language for Science Fiction Studies: Narratives." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.9 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/0001/sf.php>. Chicago style: Andrew M. Butler, "Towards a Language for Science Fiction Studies: Narratives," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 9 (2000), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/0001/sf.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Andrew M. Butler. (2000) Towards a language for science fiction studies: narratives. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(9). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/0001/sf.php> ([your date of access]).

Abstract:

‘Artists are replicants who have found the secret of their obsolescence.’ (Brian Massumi) The critical reception to British writer Iain Sinclair’s most recent novel Dining on Stones (or, the Middle Ground) frequently focused on the British writer’s predilection for intertextual quotation and allusion, and more specifically, on his proclivity for integrating material from his own backlist. A survey of Dining on Stones reveals the following textual duplication: an entire short story, “View from My Window”, which was published in 2003; excerpts from a 2002 collection of poetry and prose, White Goods; material from his 1999 collaboration with artist Rachel Lichtenstein, Rodinsky’s Room; a paragraph lifted from Dark Lanthorns: Rodinsky’s A to Z, also from 1999; and scenes from 1971’s The Kodak Mantra Diaries. Moreover, the name of the narrator, Andrew Norton, is copied from an earlier Sinclair work, Slow Chocolate Autopsy. Of the six aforementioned inter-texts, only Rodinsky’s Room has had wide commercial release. The remainder are small press publications, often limited edition, difficult to find and read, which leads to the charge that Sinclair is relying on the inaccessibility of earlier texts to obscure his acts of autoplagiarism in the mass market Dining on Stones. Whatever Sinclair’s motives, his textual methodology locates a point of departure for an interrogation of textual doubling within the context of late era capitalism. At first approximation, Dining on Stones appears to belong to a postmodern literature which treats a text’s confluence, or dissonance of innumerable signifiers and systems of signification as axiomatic and intra-textually draws attention to this circumstance. Thematically, the heteroglot narrative of Dining on Stones frequently returns to the duplication of textual material. The book’s primary narrator is haunted by doubles, not least because Andrew Norton periodically functions as a textual doppelganger for Sinclair. Norton’s biography constitutes a cut-up of episodes copied from Sinclair’s personal history and experience as it is presented in his non-fiction and quasi-autobiographical poetry and prose like Lights Out for the Territory and London Orbital. Like his creator, Norton is ontologically troubled by a fetch, or two, who may or may not be the products of his writer’s imagination. He claims that someone is ‘stealing my material. He impersonated me with a flair I couldn’t hope to equal, this thief. Trickster.’ (218) A ‘disturbing’ encounter with ‘Grays’, an uncannily familiar short story by another writer Marina Fountain, reveals a second textual poacher copying Norton’s work. She hadn’t written it without help, obviously. The tone was masculine, sure of itself, its pretensions; grammatically suspect, lexicologically challenged, topographically slapdash. A slash-and-burn stylist. But haunted: by missing fathers – Bram Stoker, S. Freud and Joseph Conrad. Clunky hints… about writing and stalking, literary bloodsucking, gender, disguise. … But it was the Conrad aspect that pricked me. Fountain had somehow got wind of my researched (incomplete, unpublished) essay on Conrad in Hackney. Her exaggerated prose, its shotgun sarcasm, jump-cuts, psychotic syntax, was an offensive parody of a manner of composition I’d left behind. (167) When ‘Grays’ is later reprinted in full in the novel (141-65), it is a renamed double of a previous Sinclair piece, ‘In Train for the Estuary’ (Sinclair, White Goods, 57-75). This doubling is replicated with another Sinclair story ‘View from My Window’ also being attributed to Fountain (313-341). Neither the style, nor the content of Sinclair’s previous works have been discarded: they have been reproduced and incorporated in Dining on Stones’ retrospective of Sinclair’s earlier work. Thus, Norton’s review of Fountain’s writing as ‘a manner of composition I’d left behind’ doubles as Sinclair’s self-conscious recognition of the text as an artefact produced from diverse inter-texts – including his own. In contrast to Sinclair’s dialogic doubling, Fountain’s double is of a monologic disposition. It is mechanical ‘echopraxis,’ a neologism coined in Dining on Stones which is defined as the ‘mindless repetition of another person’s moves and gestures.’ (192) Its mercenary dimension, enacted without regard for the integrity of the inter-text, is underscored with the epithet ‘slash-and-burn stylist.’ The monologic double possesses the text, drains it of its vitality. It entails necrosis, mortification. Fountain’s appropriation of Norton’s story is close to Fredric Jameson’s characterisation of pastiche which, he says, shuts down communication between texts (202). For Jameson, pastiche is the exemplary postmodern literary ‘style’. It is inert, static, a textual aporia. Jameson’s verdict is harsh: pastiche is cannibalism, text devouring text with an appetite that corresponds to the cupidity of consumer culture. Textual cannibalism vanquishes dialogism. It is the negation of the textual Other because cannibalism is only possible when the Other no longer exists. So how does Sinclair distinguish his doubling of his own text from Fountain’s monologic doubling as it is depicted in the novel’s narrative? A clue can be detected in one of the stories stolen by Fountain. ‘In Train for the Estuary’ is a re-writing of Dracula, and takes its cue from Karl Marx’s famous analogy between capitalism and vampirism: ‘capital is dead labour, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.’ (342) Sinclair’s vampire doubles as an academic (or is it the other way round?) who obsessively and compulsively stalks her quarry/object of study, Joseph Conrad. First, she had learnt Polish. Then she tracked down the letters and initiated the slow, painstaking, much-revised process of translation. She travelled. Validated herself. Being alone in an unknown city, visiting libraries, enduring and enjoying bureaucratic obfuscation, sitting in bars, going to the cinema, allowed her to try on a new identity. She initiated correspondence with people she never met. She lied. She stole from Conrad. (Sinclair, White Goods, 58) The woman’s identity is leeched from the work of Conrad. Sinclair describes unethical activity in appropriating text: lying, stealing, sucking the blood from the corpus of Conrad. A compulsive need to maintain the ‘validation’ of this poached identity emerges, manifesting itself as addiction. The addict is an extreme embodiment of the (ir)rationality of consumption: consumed by the need to consume. The woman’s lust for text is commensurate with the twin desires—blood and real estate—of her precursor, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Sinclair’s narrative of addiction doubles as a meta-critique on the compulsive desire to reproduce text and image that characterizes postmodern textualities as well as the apparatuses that produce them. The textual doubling in Dining on Stones, which is published by the multinational Penguin, seems to enact a reterritorialisation of a deterritorialised minor literature. However, Sinclair’s allegorical rewriting of the vampire legend and its subsequent inclusion in the mainstream novel’s narrative, reveal that capitalism’s doubles are simulacra in the Aristotelian sense because they are copies for which there is no original. The ostensible ‘original’ is the product of different material conditions and thus cannot be duplicated by the machinery of capitalism. The capitalist reproduction of text produced within an alternative cultural economy is an uncanny double (with an infinite capacity to be doubled over and over again) whose existence, like that of Sinclair’s academic in White Goods, is parasitical. The capitalist simulacrum necessitates that the original be destroyed, or at the very least, theorised out of existence so that restrictions based on its own premise of individual property rights can be circumvented. Postmodernism’s attendant theory is an over-determined repetition of poststructuralist tenets such as the instability of texts, the polysemous signifier and the impossibility of self as empirical subject. Images and meaning are no longer anchored, and free to be reproduced. Paradoxically, this proliferation of signification has the effect of constricting the originary text, compressing it under the burden of competing meanings, so that it is almost undetectable. Writes Brian Massumi (doubling Jean Baudrillard), ‘postmodernism stutters. In the absence of any gravitational pull to ground them, images accelerate and tend to run together. They become interchangeable. Any term can be substituted for any other: utter indetermination.’ The postmodern project’s effacement of the centred subject and the self has as its consequence, according to Jameson, a ‘waning of affect’ which is superseded ‘by a peculiar kind of euphoria.’ (200) The euphoria to which Jameson refers is not that of the poststructuralist textasy. Instead, it is postmodernism’s return to the idealism of Hegelian dialects, a euphoria achieved from the fusion of contradictions. Postmodernism’s doubles are a utopian attempt to synthesize antinomy and unity in a simultaneity that assimilates the fragmentation of modernity and the modern subject, with the cohesion of the commodity and its closed system of cultural logic. As such, the postmodern double is a rejection of modernist engagements with technical reproducibility. Modernism’s literary assemblages are, in Victor Shlovsky’s words, the laying bare of the device, an exposition of the seams through techniques such as collage, bricolage and montage. These linguistic (and at times visual) conjunctures of disparate elements do not attempt to elide material and thematic disjuncture. As Walter Benjamin stresses, this type of textual methodology has the potential, through the disruption of spatial and temporal logic and the creation of anachrony, to rupture the linear representations and formations of order favoured by capitalist political economies (Benjamin, ‘On the concept of history’). Postmodernism, which doubles (following Jameson’s formulation) as the cultural logic of late capitalism, reiterates that texts can be undone, and then reassembled, rearticulated anew, rendered useful to a commodity culture over and over again. Consequently, postmodernism’s copies are analogous, at the level of cultural production, to capitalism’s ceaseless appropriation of discourse, practice, and production. This is the alchemical project of capitalism. It strives to transform everything that it has doubled into the gold of the commodity. The inherent dangers of unrestrained reproduction are for Jameson exemplified in the treatment of Van Gogh’s Pair of Shoes (1885): If this copiously reproduced image is not to sink to the level of sheer decoration, it requires us to reconstruct some initial situation out of which the finished work emerges. Unless that situation—which has vanished into the past—is somehow mentally restored, the painting will remain an inert object, a reified end-product, and be unable to be grasped as a symbolic act in its own right, as praxis and as production. (194) Jameson’s reading of Van Gogh’s shoes reminds us of the fate of Alberto Korda’s 1960 photograph of revolutionary Che Guevara. Appropriated by the media, inscribed on T-shirts, mugs, even door mats, Che’s portrait is an emblem of the degradation Jameson describes. Like Van Gogh’s painting, Korda’s photograph was once a ‘symbolic act in its own right, as praxis and as production,’ saturated with the potential and spirit of revolution. Over time, the iconic image has leaked meaning. The signifying chain that anchored it to its original significance is broken each time it is reproduced and decontextualised through the process of commodification, until Che’s image is unrecognisable, a mere ornament. Refuting Benjamin’s concerns in ‘The Work of Art in its Age of Technical Reproducibility’ postmodern theory argues that technologies enabling reproducibility have led to a democratisation of text and textual production, and by extension, have liberated the multitude from a hierarchy of value that privileges the singular. Mass reproduction and the accompanying pressure for texts to be accessible results in altered attitudes regarding the preservation of intellectual property rights and ‘fair use’. In an economy of signs where use-value has become synonymous with exchange-value, then the text which has no exchange value due to it being ‘freely’ available—‘free’ in its double sense, as something exempt from restriction, or cost—can be copied without economic or ethical restraint, without permission. The quotation marks can be scrapped. According to postmodern logic, the double is a transposition with a legitimacy equalling, even rivalling the original. Clearly, Jameson’s lament that postmodernism represents ‘the end of the distinctive individual brushstroke (as symbolized by the emergent primacy of mechanical reproduction)’ cannot escape an association with elitism because technical reproducibility indubitably enables greater access. However, the utility of technologies of reproduction to the capitalist empire of structures and signs cannot be underestimated. It enables the ceaseless reproduction of ideologemes inscribed with the logic of capitalism; in other words, it enables capitalism to reproduce itself relentlessly. Postmodern cultural production is self-aware; it acknowledges its role as commodity and reproduces the ideology of the commodity form in its material form. In this manner, it functions as an ideologeme. Sinclair’s doubles cannot be understood according to the schema of postmodernism because he subverts postmodernism’s political and aesthetic symbiosis with capitalism. Moreover, the double in Sinclair travels beyond rehearsing a self-conscious hyphology (Barthes, 39). He defies postmodernism’s occultation of the author through his reiteration of the author’s authority over their own work. In contrast to the reductive manner postmodern texts duplicate other texts, Sinclair’s texts propose a typology of the double which advocates a dialogic duplication. Sinclair’s doubling refuses postmodernism’s return to the idealism of Hegelian dialects, and its synthesis of contradictions in the service of its unified material and aesthetic program: the commodification of literature. Consequently, Dining on Stones’ textual doubling is a critique of the epistemic shift to the monologic double which Jameson claims typifies a large portion of contemporary textual duplication. References Barthes, Roland. “Theory of the Text.” Untying the Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader. Ed. Robert Young. Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981. Benjamin, Walter. “On the Concept of History.” Selected Writings: Volume 4, 1938-1940. Trans. by Edmund Jephcott. Eds. Michael W.Jennings & Howard Eiland. Cambridge, Mass. & London, England: Belknap Press, 2003. ––– . “The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproducibility.” Selected Writings: Volume 3, 1935-1938. Trans. by Edmund Jephcott. Eds. Michael W.Jennings & Howard Eiland. Cambridge, Mass. & London, England: Belknap Press, 2003. Jameson, Fredric. “Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.” The Jameson Reader. Eds. Michael Hardt and Kathi Weeks. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000. Massumi, Brian. “Realer than Real: The Simulacrum According to Deleuze and Guattari.” 12 May 2005. http://www.anu.edu.au/HRC/first_and_last/works/realer.htm>. Marx, Karl. Capital, Volume 1. Trans. by Ben Fowkes. Vintage Books edition. New York: Random House, 1976. Sinclair, Iain. Dark Lanthorns: Rodinsky’s A-Z. ––– . Dining on Stones. London: Hamish Hamilton, 2004. ––– . Lights Out for the Territory. London: Granta 1997. ––– . London Orbital. London: Granta, 2002. ––– . Rodinsky’s Room. London: Granta, 1998. ––– . View from My Window. Tonbridge: Worple Press, 2003. ––– . White Goods. Uppingham: Goldmark, 2002. Sinclair, Iain, and Dave McKean. Slow Chocolate Autopsy. London: Phoenix, 1997. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Seale, Kirsten. "Doubling: Capitalism and Textual Duplication." M/C Journal 8.3 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0507/08-seale.php>. APA Style Seale, K. (Jul. 2005) "Doubling: Capitalism and Textual Duplication," M/C Journal, 8(3). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0507/08-seale.php>.

Abstract:

Imagine this historical scene, if you will. It is 1892, and you are up in the gallery at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Sydney, taking in an English burlesque. The people around you have just found out that Alice Leamar will not be performing her famed turn in Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay tonight, a high-kicking Can-Canesque number, very much the dance du jour. Your fellow audience members are none too pleased about this – they are shouting, and stamping the heels of their boots so loudly the whole theatre resounds with the noise. Most people in the expensive seats below look up in the direction of the gallery with a familiar blend of fear and loathing. The rough ‘gods’ up there are nearly always restless, more this time than usual. The uproar fulfils its purpose, though, because tomorrow night, Leamar’s act will be reinstated: the ‘gods’ will have their way (Bulletin, 1 October 1892). Another scene now, this time at the Newtown Bridge Theatre in Sydney, shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. A comedian is trying a new routine for the crowd, but no one seems much impressed so far. A few discontented rumbles begin at first – ‘I want to go home’, says one wag, and then another – and soon these gain momentum, so that almost everyone is caught up in an ecstasy of roisterous abuse. A burly ‘chucker out’ appears, trying to eject some of the loudest hecklers, and a fully-fledged punch-up ensues (Djubal 19, 23; Cheshire 86). Eventually, one or two men are made to leave – but so too is the hapless comedian, evicted by derisive howls from the stage. The scenes I have just described show that audience interaction was a key feature in late-nineteenth century popular theatre, and in some cases even persisted into the following century. Obviously, there was no formal voting mechanism used during these performances à la contemporary shows like Idol. But rowdy practises amounted to a kind of audience ‘vote’ nonetheless, through which people decided those entertainers they wanted to see and those they emphatically did not. In this paper, I intend to use these bald parallels between Victorian audience practices and new-millennium viewer-voting to investigate claims about the links between democracy and plebiscitary entertainment. The rise of voting for pleasure in televised contests and online polls is widely attended by debate about democracy (e.g. Andrejevic; Coleman; Hartley, “Reality”). The most hyped commentary on this count evokes a teleological assumption – that western history is inexorably moving towards direct democracy. This view becomes hard to sustain when we consider the extent to which the direct expression of audience views was a feature of Victorian popular entertainment, and that these participatory practices were largely suppressed by the turn of the twentieth century. Old audience practices also allow us to question some of the uses of the term ‘direct democracy’ in new media commentary. Descriptions of voting for pleasure as part of a growth towards direct democracy are often made to celebrate rather than investigate plebiscitary forms. They elide the fact that direct democracy is a vexed political ideal. And they limit our discussion of voting for leisure and fun. Ultimately, arguing back and forth about whether viewer-voting is democratic stops us from more interesting explorations of this emerging cultural phenomenon. ‘To a degree that would be unimaginable to theatregoers today’, says historian Robert Allen, ‘early nineteenth-century audiences controlled what went on at the theatre’. The so-called ‘shirt-sleeve’ crowd in the cheapest seats of theatrical venues were habitually given to hissing, shouting, and even throwing objects in order to evict performers during the course of a show. The control exerted by the peanut-chomping gallery was certainly apparent in the mid-century burlesques Allen writes about (55). It was also apparent in minstrel, variety and music hall productions until around the turn of the century. Audience members in the galleries of variety theatres and music halls regularly engaged in the pleasure of voicing their aesthetic preferences. Sometimes comic interjectors from among them even drew more laughs than the performers on stage. ‘We went there not as spectators but as performers’, as an English music-hall habitué put it (Bailey 154). In more downmarket venues such as Sydney’s Newtown Bridge Theatre, these participatory practices continued into the early 1900s. Boisterous audience practices came under sustained attack in the late-Victorian era. A series of measures were taken by authorities, theatre managers and social commentators to wrest the control of popular performances from those in theatre pits and galleries. These included restricting the sale of alcohol in theatre venues, employing brawn in the form of ‘chuckers out’, and darkening auditoriums, so that only the stage was illuminated and the audience thus de-emphasised (Allen 51–61; Bailey 157–68; Waterhouse 127, 138–43). They also included a relentless public critique of those engaging in heckling behaviours, thus displaying their ‘littleness of mind’ (Age, 6 Sep. 1876). The intensity of attacks on rowdy audience participation suggests that symbolic factors were at play in late-Victorian attempts to enforce decorous conduct at the theatre. The last half of the century was, after all, an era of intense debate about the qualities necessary for democratic citizenship. The suffrage was being dramatically expanded during this time, so that it encompassed the vast majority of white men – and by the early twentieth century, many white women as well. In Australia, the prelude to federation also involved debate about the type of democracy to be adopted. Should it be republican? Should it enfranchise all men and women; all people, or only white ones? At stake in these debates were the characteristics and subjectivities one needed to possess before being deemed capable of enfranchisement. To be worthy of the vote, as of other democratic privileges, one needed to be what Toby Miller has called a ‘well-tempered’ subject at the turn of the twentieth century (Miller; Joyce 4). One needed to be carefully deliberative and self-watching, to avoid being ‘savage’, ‘uncivilised’, emotive – all qualities which riotous audience members (like black people and women) were thought not to possess (Lake). This is why the growing respectability of popular theatre is so often considered a key feature of the modernisation of popular culture. Civil and respectful audience behaviours went hand in hand with liberal-democratic concepts of the well-tempered citizen. Working-class culture in late nineteenth-century England has famously (and notoriously) been described as a ‘culture of consolation’: an escapist desire for fun based on a fatalistic acceptance of under-privilege and social discrimination (Jones). This idea does not do justice to the range of hopes and efforts to create a better society among workingpeople at the time. But it still captures the motivation behind most unruly audience behaviours: a gleeful kind of resistance or ‘culture jamming’ which viewed disruption and uproar as ends in themselves, without the hope that they would be productive of improved social conditions. Whether or not theatrical rowdiness served a solely consolatory purpose for the shirt-sleeve crowd, it certainly evoked a sharp fear of disorderly exuberance in mainstream society. Anxieties about violent working-class uprisings leading to the institution of mob rule were a characteristic of the late-nineteenth century, often making their way into fiction (Brantlinger). Roisterous behaviours in popular theatres resonated with the concerns expressed in works such as Caesar’s Column (Donnelly), feeding on a long association between the theatre and misrule. These fears obviously stand in stark contrast to the ebullient commentary surrounding interactive entertainment today. Over-oxygenated rhetoric about the democratic potential of cyberspace was of course a feature of new media commentary at the beginning of the 1990s (for a critique of such rhetoric see Meikle 33–42; Grossman). Current helium-giddy claims about digital technologies as ‘democratising’ reprise this cyberhype (Andrejevic 12–15, 23–8; Jenkins and Thornburn). One recent example of upbeat talk about plebiscitary formats as direct democracy is John Hartley’s contribution to the edited collection, Politicotainment (Hartley, “Reality”). There are now a range of TV shows and online formats, he says, which offer audiences the opportunity to directly express their views. The development of these entertainment forms are part of a movement towards a ‘direct open network’ in global media culture (3). They are also part of a macro historical shift: a movement ‘down the value chain of meaning’ which has taken place over the past few centuries (Hartley, “Value Chain”). Hartley’s notion of a ‘value chain of meaning’ is an application of business analysis to media and cultural studies. In business, a value chain is what links the producer/originator, via commodity/distribution, to the consumer. In the same way, Hartley says, one might speak of a symbolic value chain moving from an author/producer, via the text, to the audience/consumer. Much of western history may indeed be understood as a movement along this chain. In pre-modern times, meaning resided in the author. The Divine Author, God, was regarded as the source of all meaning. In the modern period, ‘after Milton and Johnson’, meaning was located in texts. Experts observed the properties of a text or other object, and by this means discovered its meaning. In ‘the contemporary period’, however – the period roughly following the Second World War – meaning has overwhelming come to be located with audiences or consumers (Hartley, “Value Chain” 131–35). It is in this context, Hartley tells us, that the plebiscite is coming to the fore. As a means of allowing audiences to directly represent their own choices, the plebiscite is part of a new paradigm taking shape, as global culture moves away from the modern epoch and its text-dominated paradigm (Hartley, “Reality” 1–3). Talk of a symbolic value chain is a self-conscious example of the logic of business/cultural partnership currently circulating in neo-liberal discourse. It is also an example of a teleological understanding of history, through which the past few centuries are presented as part of a linear progression towards direct democracy. This teleology works well with the up-tempo talk of television as ‘democratainment’ in Hartley’s earlier work (Hartley, Uses of Television). Western history is essentially a triumphant progression, he implies, from the Dark Ages, to representative democracy, to the enlightened and direct ‘consumer democracy’ unfolding around us today (Hartley, “Reality” 47). Teleological assumptions are always suspect from an historical point of view. For a start, casting the modern period as one in which meaning resided overwhelmingly in the text fails to consider the culture of popular performance flourishing before the twentieth century. Popular theatrical forms were far more significant to ordinary people of the nineteenth century than the notions of empirical or textual analysis cultivated in elite circles. Burlesques, minstrel-shows, music hall and variety productions all took a playful approach to their texts, altering their tone and content in line with audience expectations (Chevalier 40). Before the commercialisation of popular theatre in the late-nineteenth century, many theatricals also worked in a relatively open-ended way. At concert saloons or ‘free-and-easies’ (pubs where musical performances were offered), amateur singers volunteered their services, stepping out from the audience to perform an act or two and then disappearing into it again (Joyce 206). As a precursor to TV talent contests and ‘open mic’ comedy sessions today, many theatrical managers held amateur nights in which would-be professionals tried their luck before a restless crowd, with a contract awarded to performers drawing the loudest applause (Watson 5). Each of these considerations challenge the view that open participatory networks are the expression of an historical process through which meaning has only recently come to reside with audiences and consumers. Another reason for suspecting teleological notions about democracy is that it proceeds as if Foucauldian analysis did not exist. Characterising history as a process of democratisation tends to equate democracy with openness and freedom in an uncritical way. It glosses over the fact that representative democracy involved the repression of directly participatory practices and unruly social groups. More pertinently, it ignores critiques of direct democracy. Even if there are positive aspects to the re-emergence of participatory practices among audiences today, there are still real problems with direct democracy as a political ideal. It would be fairly easy to make the case that rowdy Victorian audiences engaged in ‘direct democratic’ practices during the course of a variety show or burlesque. The ‘gods’ in Victorian galleries exulted in expressing their preferences: evicting lack-lustre comics and demanding more of other performers. It would also be easy to valorise these practices as examples of the kind of culture-jamming I referred to earlier – as forms of resistance to the tyranny of well-tempered citizenship gaining sway at the time. Given the often hysterical attacks directed at unruly audiences, there is an obvious satisfaction to be had from observing the reinstatement of Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay at Her Majesty’s Theatre, or in the pleasure that working-class audiences derived from ‘calling the tune’. The same kind of satisfaction is not to be had, however, when observing direct democracy in action on YouTube, or during a season of Dancing with the Stars, or some other kind of plebiscitary TV. The expression of audience preferences in this context hardly carries the subversive connotations of informal evictions during a late-Victorian music-hall show. Viewer-voting today is indeed dominated by a rhetoric of partnership which centres on audience participation, rather than a notion of opposition between producers and audiences (Jenkins). The terrain of plebiscitary entertainment is very different now from the terrain of popular culture described by Stuart Hall in the 1980s – let alone as it stood in the 1890s, during Alice Leamar’s tour. Most commentary on plebiscitary TV avoids talk of ‘cultural struggle’ (Hall 235) and instead adopts a language of collaboration and of people ‘having a ball’ (Neville; Hartley, “Reality” 3). The extent to which contemporary plebiscites are managed by what Hartley calls the ‘plebiscitary industries’ evokes one of the most powerful criticisms made against direct democracy. That is, it evokes the view that direct democracy allows commercial interests to set the terms of public participation in decision-making, and thus to influence its outcomes (Barber 36; Moore 55–56). There is obviously big money to be made from plebiscitary TV. The advertising blitz which takes place during viewer-voting programs, and the vote-rigging scandals so often surrounding them make this clear. These considerations highlight the fact that public involvement in a plebiscitary process is not something to make a song and dance about unless broad involvement first takes place in deciding the issues open for determination by plebiscite, and the way in which these issues are framed. In the absence of this kind of broad participation, engagement in plebiscitary forms serves a solely consolatory function, offering the pleasures of viewer-voting as a substitute for substantive involvement in cultural creation and political change. Another critique sometimes made against direct democracy is that it makes an easy vehicle for prejudice (Barber 36–7). This was certainly the case in Victorian theatres, where it was common for Anglo gallery-members to heckle female and non-white performers in an intimidatory way. A group of American vaudeville performers called the Cherry Sisters certainly experienced this phenomenon in the early 1900s. The Cherry Sisters were defiantly unglamorous middle-aged women in a period when female performers were increasingly expected to display scantily-clad youthful figures on stage. As a consequence, they were embroiled in a number of near-riots in which male audience members hurled abuse and heavy objects from the galleries, and in some cases chased them into the street to physically assault them there (Pittinger 76–77). Such incidents give us a glimpse of the dark face of direct democracy. In some cases, the direct expression of popular views becomes an attack on diversity, leading to the kind of violent mêlée experienced either by the Cherry Sisters or the Middle Eastern people attacked on Sydney’s Cronulla Beach at the end of 2005. ‘Democracy’ is always an obviously politically loaded term when used in debates about new media. It is frequently used to imply that particular cultural or technological forms are inherently liberatory and inclusive. As Graeme Turner points out, reality TV has been celebrated as ‘democratic’ in this way. Only rarely, however, is there an attempt to argue why this is the case – to show how viewer-voting formats actually serve a democratic agenda. It was for this reason that Turner argued that the inclusion of ordinary people on reality TV should be understood as demotic rather than democratic (Turner, Understanding Celebrity 82–5; Turner, “Mass Production”). Ultimately, however, it is immaterial whether one uses the term ‘demotic’ or ‘direct democratic’ to describe the growth of plebiscitary entertainment. What is important is that we avoid making inflated claims about the direct expression of audience views, using the term ‘democratic’ to give an unduly celebratory spin to the political complexities involved. People may indeed be having a ball as they take part in online polls or choose what they want to watch on YouTube or shout at the TV during an episode of Idol. The ‘participatory enthusiasm’ that fans feel watching a show like Big Brother may also have lessons for those interested in making parliamentary process more responsive to people’s interests and needs (Coleman 458). But the development of plebiscitary forms is not inherently democratic in the sense that Turner suggests the term should be used – that is, it does not of itself serve a liberatory or socially inclusive agenda. Nor does it lead to substantive participation in cultural and political processes. In the end, it seems to me that we need to move beyond the discussion of plebiscitary entertainment in terms of democracy. The whole concept of democracy as the yardstick against which new media should be measured is highly problematic. Not only is direct democracy a vexed political ideal to start off with – it also leads commentators to take predictable positions when debating its relationship to new technologies and cultural forms. Some turn to hype, others to critique, and the result often appears as a mere restatement of the commentators’ political inclinations rather than a useful investigation of the developments at hand. Some of the most intriguing aspects of plebiscitary entertainments are left unexplored if we remain preoccupied with democracy. One might well investigate the re-introduction of studio audiences and participatory audience practices, for example, as a nostalgia for the interactivity experienced in live theatres such as the Newtown Bridge in the early twentieth century. It certainly seems to me that a retro impulse informs some of the developments in televised stand-up comedy in recent years. This was obviously the case for Paul McDermott’s The Side Show on Australian television in 2007, with its nod to the late-Victorian or early twentieth-century fairground and its live-theatrical vibe. More relevantly here, it also seems to be the case for American viewer-voting programs such as Last Comic Standing and the Comedy Channel’s Open Mic Fight. Further, reviews of programs such as Idol sometimes emphasise the emotional engagement arising out of their combination of viewer-voting and live performance as a harking-back to the good old days when entertainment was about being real (Neville). One misses this nostalgia associated with plebiscitary entertainments if bound to a teleological assumption that they form part of an ineluctable progression towards the New and the Free. Perhaps, then, it is time to pay more attention to the historical roots of viewer-voting formats, to think about the way that new media is sometimes about a re-invention of the old, trying to escape the recurrent back-and-forthing of debate about their relationship to progress and democracy. References Allen, Robert C. Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture .Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Andrejevic, Mark. Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2004. Bailey, Peter. Leisure and Class in Victorian England: Rational Recreation and the Contest for Control, 1830–1885. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978. Barber, Benjamin R. Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. ———. “Which Technology and Which Democracy?” Democracy and New Media. Eds. Henry Jenkins and David Thorburn. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003. 33–48. Brantlinger, Patrick, Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830–1914. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1988. Cheshire, D. F. Music Hall in Britain. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1974. Chevalier, Albert. Before I Forget: The Autobiography of a Chevalier d’Industrie. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1901. Coleman, Stephen. “How the Other Half Votes: Big Brother Viewers and the 2005 General Election”. International Journal of Cultural Studies 9.4 (2006): 457–79. Djubal, Clay. “From Minstrel Tenor to Vaudeville Showman: Harry Clay, ‘A Friend of the Australian Performer’”. Australasian Drama Studies 34 (April 1999): 10–24. Donnelly, Ignatius. Caesar’s Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century. London: Sampson Low, Marston and Co., 1891. Grossman, Lawrence. The Electronic Republic: Reshaping Democracy in the Information Age. New York: Penguin, 1995. Hall, Stuart. “Notes on Deconstructing the ‘Popular’”. People’s History and Socialist Theory. Ed. Raphael Samuel. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981. 227–49. Hartley, John, The Uses of Television. London: Routledge, 1999. ———. “‘Reality’ and the Plebiscite”. Politoctainment: Television’s Take on the Real. Ed. Kristina Riegert. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2006. http://www.cci.edu.au/hartley/downloads/Plebiscite%20(Riegert%20chapter) %20revised%20FINAL%20%5BFeb%2014%5D.pdf. ———. “The ‘Value-Chain of Meaning’ and the New Economy”. International Journal of Cultural Studies 7.1 (2004): 129–41. Jenkins, Henry. “The Cultural Logic of Media Convergence”. International Journal of Cultural Studies 7.1 (2004): 33–43. ———, and David Thornburn. “Introduction: The Digital Revolution, the Informed Citizen, and the Culture of Democracy”. Democracy and New Media. Eds. Henry Jenkins and David Thorburn. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003. 1–20. Jones, Gareth Stedman. ‘Working-Class Culture and Working-Class Politics in London, 1870-1900: Notes on the Remaking of a Working Class’. Languages of Class: Studies in English Working-Class History, 1832–1982. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. 179–238. Joyce, Patrick. The Rule of Freedom: Liberalism and the Modern City. London: Verso, 2003. Lake, Marilyn. “White Man’s Country: The Trans-National History of a National Project”. Australian Historical Studies 122 ( 2003): 346–63. Meikle, Graham. Future Active: Media Activism and the Internet. London: Routledge, 2002. Miller, Toby. The Well-Tempered Self: Citizenship, Culture and the Postmodern Subject. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1993. Moore, Richard K. “Democracy and Cyberspace”. Digital Democracy: Discourse and Decision Making in the Information Age. Eds. Barry Hague and Brian D. Loader. London and New York: Routledge, 1999. 39–59. Neville, Richard. “Crass, Corny, But Still a Woodstock Moment for a New Generation”. Sydney Morning Herald, 23 November 2004. Pittinger, Peach R. “The Cherry Sisters in Early Vaudeville: Performing a Failed Femininity”. Theatre History Studies 24 (2004): 73–97. Turner, Graeme. Understanding Celebrity. London: Sage, 2004. ———. “The Mass Production of Celebrity: ‘Celetoids’, Reality TV and the ‘Demotic Turn’”. International Journal of Cultural Studies 9.2 (2006): 153–165. Waterhouse, Richard. From Minstrel Show to Vaudeville: The Australian Popular Stage, 1788–1914. Sydney: New South Wales University Press, 1990. Watson, Bobby. Fifty Years Behind the Scenes. Sydney: Slater, 1924. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Bellanta, Melissa. "Voting for Pleasure, Or a View from a Victorian Theatre Gallery." M/C Journal 10.6/11.1 (2008). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/02-bellanta.php>. APA Style Bellanta, M. (Apr. 2008) "Voting for Pleasure, Or a View from a Victorian Theatre Gallery," M/C Journal, 10(6)/11(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/02-bellanta.php>.

Abstract:

In the past two decades a number of new disciplines (cultural studies, media studies, gender studies, women's studies, etc.) have established themselves within the academy. They have often been developed from an overtly radical political stance and set out to challenge entrenched ways of thinking about the world and the society we live in. They transgress academic norms by bringing under academic scrutiny things (film, popular music, computer games, etc.) that, in the past, would have been seen as unimportant and unworthy of critical attention. Basically, these new disciplines have provided a space in which to take popular culture seriously in a way that was difficult, if not impossible, within more traditional academic disciplines. By doing so they have also opened up the more traditional disciplines so that musicologists, for example, can now write about Led Zeppelin (Headlam) and professors of philosophy and of English can write learned works about Madonna (Bordo, Kaplan). They have breached academic defences, let popular culture in, made it both acceptable and respectable as a subject of study. As these new disciplines mature, however, it is time for those of us working and studying within them to ask ourselves just what 'taking popular culture seriously' really means. We must be careful not to simply rest on our laurels and presume that work within these disciplines is somehow inherently transgressive. Sometimes our work is not as challenging as we might like to think, but rather it serves to reinforce some boundaries as it undermines others. I want to address this idea here by using as an example the study of pop music, as this is where my research interests lie, but I am sure that what I have to say applies to other areas of popular culture and its critique too. In the bad old days before these new disciplines came along culture was thought of in terms of a simple binary division between 'high art' and 'mass culture'. 'High art' was work produced by an artist who, by dictionary definition, is 'someone who displays in his [sic] work qualities such as sensibility and imagination' (Collins). Its appeal was to an educated elite who could appreciate the depth and complexity of the work, and who could actively engage with the music they were listening to. Mass music, commonly called 'pop', was work produced commercially for profit, performed by artistes rather than artists, entertainers rather than creators. Its appeal was thought to be restricted to those who could be duped into buying it; who, by implication at least, lacked the knowledge and the intelligence to do anything more than passively consume the products of the culture industry (see, for example, Adorno, Gans). High art was about quality, and was differentiated in terms of quality; mass culture referred only to quantity, how many units people could be persuaded to buy. 1960s TV programmes such as Britain's Juke Box Jury, which asked of each record 'will it be a hit or a miss?' rather than 'is it good or bad?', epitomised this. 'Hit or miss?' was a question that had no relevance to high art but was all that could be asked about 'pop'. High art was seen to have meaning, mass culture merely had effects; high art appealed to a distinguished elite of cultured individuals, mass culture to the masses, the people, undistinguished and indistinguishable. One of the earliest tasks for cultural studies and the other new disciplines was to criticise this simple binary opposition that depicted ordinary people as mindless dupes and their tastes as no taste at all. Writers such as Dick Hebdige, and others working at the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in the 1970s (e.g. Hall and Jefferson), showed that certain groups of young people actively produced meaning from the products of popular culture. They were not simply a passively duped audience. Others discussed the influence of art on popular music and the way in which "pop musicians apply 'high art' skills and identities to a mass cultural form" (Frith and Horne 2). This work blends well with post-modern theories of the breakdown of distinctions between the high and the mass. Here we have 'mass' audiences behaving as if they were listening to high art, 'mass' musicians behaving as if they were making high art. This work is given further credibility by writers such as Peterson and Bryson who argue that society's 'elite' no longer enjoys art music to the exclusion of everything else. Those high status, high income individuals who in the past would have looked down on mass produced work now enjoy 'lowbrow' music like rock or hip hop as well as opera and classical symphonies. Not only are 'mass' audiences behaving as if they were enjoying art but elites are starting to behave as if they were part of the mass. All the work that I have mentioned is very important and played a necessary part in the development of the study of popular music. It clearly demonstrates that the high art/mass culture divide is nowhere near as clear-cut as was often presumed. The main problem with it, however, is that it all challenges the high/mass binary on an empirical level. It says that popular music isn't simply the opposite of art music because some pop musicians bring high art values to their work. It argues that the audience for commercially produced music does not simply consist of cultural dupes because some actively create meanings from commercial products, or that some are part of the cultural elite, 'highbrow' audience. Nowhere does it challenge the value system on which the high/mass divide depends; a value system whereby imaginative, demanding, intelligent music is thought to be somehow better, more worthy, more valuable than music that simply has a catchy tune and is fun to sing along to. A value system that also implies that those who listen to imaginative, demanding, intelligent music are somehow better, more worthy, more valuable people than those who do not. When we say that some music, some parts of the audience are not 'mass' we are saying that the rest are. We are drawing the same lines just in a different place; we are constructing a high popular music/mass popular music divide that is essentially the same as the high art/mass culture divide. This worries me for a number of reasons, far too many to go into in the space allowed. I want to concentrate, therefore, on two, related problems. Firstly it mirrors the same sort of distinctions that are made in music journalism and music subcultures where, for example, Chuck D complains that most hip-hop nowadays is simply hip-pop (Touch magazine) and journalist Burhan Wazir argues that drum and bass is too intelligent for the general public to appreciate (The Observer). Surely we, as radical academics, should be critiquing this sort of attitude,not implicitly supporting it! And we do support it every time we write an article that talks about the artistic and/or political importance of a genre of pop music, or a pop music video, everytime we write about some of the audience in a way that implies they are better than the rest because of the musical choices they have made. Secondly it limits the sort of music that academics are concerned with. What seems to have happened is that when academics get their hands on popular culture they have to treat it as if it were 'high art'. They/we make judgements based on the artistic integrity of the performer, on the 'sensibility and imagination' that they bring to their product. And the popular culture that gets discussed is only that which can be discussed as if it were high art. Work that doesn't make any claims to artistic integrity is ignored. Try looking through cultural studies, media studies, gender studies journals and books for articles about 'boy band' pop or the Spice Girls, or for that matter serious academic work on Phil Collins or Céline Dion; work that is highly popular but has no artistic pretensions. You'll find almost nothing. You will, however, find loads about 'intelligent', 'artistic' music; Madonna's transgressive play with sex and gender imagery (e.g. Schwichtenberg), dance culture's artistic and political importance (e.g. Hemment, Hesmondhalgh), hip-hop's post-modern Blackness (e.g. Potter, Rose) etc.,etc. Many of these articles will draw explicit distinctions between the people they are talking about, the music they are talking about, and commercial 'mass' music. Drew Hemment, for example, is critical of the "growth of corporate clubs, corporate magazines and corporate house dance labels" (Hemment 38), and Russell Potter talks about hip-hop that has been "commodified by the music industry, 'made safe' ... for the masses" (Potter 108). Both set up distinctions between commercial music and 'art' music that would do credit to the strictest mass culture theorist. In the past two or three decades the challenge to academic orthodoxy by disciplines such as cultural studies, media studies, gender studies and women's studies has had an effect. The world, and the academy, are now very different places to what they once were. Treating commercial music as if it were art is no longer enough. If these new disciplines are to maintain a radical edge we must continue to push at the limits of the acceptable and bring into question how the boundaries of the acceptable are defined and justified. We need to be exploring ways of undermining the whole concept of cultural elites. It isn't radical to simply replace one elite with another. References Adorno, T. Prisms. London: Spearman, 1967. Bordo, S. "'Material Girl': The Effacements of Postmodern Culture". The Madonna Connection. Ed. C. Schwichtenberg. Boulder: Westview, 1993. Bryson, B. "'Anything But Heavy Metal': Symbolic Exclusion and Musical Dislikes". American Sociological Review 61 (1996): 884-899. Collins English Dictionary. London: Collins, 1991. Frith, S., and H. Horne. Art into Pop. London: Routledge, 1987. Gans, H. Popular Culture and High Culture: An Analysis and Evaluation of Taste. New York: Basic Books, 1974. Hall, S., and T. Jefferson, eds. Resistance through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain. London: Hutchinson, 1976. Headlam, D. "Does the Song Remain the Same? Questions of Authorship and Identification in the Music of Led Zeppelin." Concert Music, Rock, and Jazz since 1945: Essays and Analytical Studies. Eds. E. W. Marvin and R. Hermann. New York: U of Rochester P, 1995. 313-363. Hebdige, D. Subculture: the Meaning of Style. London: Routledge, 1979. Hemment, D. "e is for Ekstasis". New Formations 31 (1997): 23-38. Hesmondhalgh, D. "The Cultural Politics of Dance Music." Soundings 5 (1997). Kaplan, E. A. "Madonna Politics: Perversion, Repression, or Subversion? or Masks and/as Master-y." The Madonna Connection. Ed. C. Schwichtenberg. Boulder: Westview, 1993. Peterson, R. "Understanding Audience Segmentation: From Elite and Mass to Omnivore and Univore". Poetics 2 (1992): 243-258. Potter, R. Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the Politics of Postmodernism. New York: U of New York P, 1995. Rose T. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Hanover: UP of New England, 1994. Schwichtenberg, C., ed. The Madonna Connection. Boulder: Westview, 1993. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Diane Railton. "Justify My Love: Popular Culture and the Academy." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.4 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/love.php>. Chicago style: Diane Railton, "Justify My Love: Popular Culture and the Academy," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 4 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/love.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Diane Railton. (1999) Justify my love: popular culture and the academy. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(4). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/love.php> ([your date of access]).

Abstract:

Imagine this historical scene, if you will. It is 1892, and you are up in the gallery at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Sydney, taking in an English burlesque. The people around you have just found out that Alice Leamar will not be performing her famed turn in Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay tonight, a high-kicking Can-Canesque number, very much the dance du jour. Your fellow audience members are none too pleased about this – they are shouting, and stamping the heels of their boots so loudly the whole theatre resounds with the noise. Most people in the expensive seats below look up in the direction of the gallery with a familiar blend of fear and loathing. The rough ‘gods’ up there are nearly always restless, more this time than usual. The uproar fulfils its purpose, though, because tomorrow night, Leamar’s act will be reinstated: the ‘gods’ will have their way (Bulletin, 1 October 1892). Another scene now, this time at the Newtown Bridge Theatre in Sydney, shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. A comedian is trying a new routine for the crowd, but no one seems much impressed so far. A few discontented rumbles begin at first – ‘I want to go home’, says one wag, and then another – and soon these gain momentum, so that almost everyone is caught up in an ecstasy of roisterous abuse. A burly ‘chucker out’ appears, trying to eject some of the loudest hecklers, and a fully-fledged punch-up ensues (Djubal 19, 23; Cheshire 86). Eventually, one or two men are made to leave – but so too is the hapless comedian, evicted by derisive howls from the stage. The scenes I have just described show that audience interaction was a key feature in late-nineteenth century popular theatre, and in some cases even persisted into the following century. Obviously, there was no formal voting mechanism used during these performances à la contemporary shows like Idol. But rowdy practises amounted to a kind of audience ‘vote’ nonetheless, through which people decided those entertainers they wanted to see and those they emphatically did not. In this paper, I intend to use these bald parallels between Victorian audience practices and new-millennium viewer-voting to investigate claims about the links between democracy and plebiscitary entertainment. The rise of voting for pleasure in televised contests and online polls is widely attended by debate about democracy (e.g. Andrejevic; Coleman; Hartley, “Reality”). The most hyped commentary on this count evokes a teleological assumption – that western history is inexorably moving towards direct democracy. This view becomes hard to sustain when we consider the extent to which the direct expression of audience views was a feature of Victorian popular entertainment, and that these participatory practices were largely suppressed by the turn of the twentieth century. Old audience practices also allow us to question some of the uses of the term ‘direct democracy’ in new media commentary. Descriptions of voting for pleasure as part of a growth towards direct democracy are often made to celebrate rather than investigate plebiscitary forms. They elide the fact that direct democracy is a vexed political ideal. And they limit our discussion of voting for leisure and fun. Ultimately, arguing back and forth about whether viewer-voting is democratic stops us from more interesting explorations of this emerging cultural phenomenon. ‘To a degree that would be unimaginable to theatregoers today’, says historian Robert Allen, ‘early nineteenth-century audiences controlled what went on at the theatre’. The so-called ‘shirt-sleeve’ crowd in the cheapest seats of theatrical venues were habitually given to hissing, shouting, and even throwing objects in order to evict performers during the course of a show. The control exerted by the peanut-chomping gallery was certainly apparent in the mid-century burlesques Allen writes about (55). It was also apparent in minstrel, variety and music hall productions until around the turn of the century. Audience members in the galleries of variety theatres and music halls regularly engaged in the pleasure of voicing their aesthetic preferences. Sometimes comic interjectors from among them even drew more laughs than the performers on stage. ‘We went there not as spectators but as performers’, as an English music-hall habitué put it (Bailey 154). In more downmarket venues such as Sydney’s Newtown Bridge Theatre, these participatory practices continued into the early 1900s. Boisterous audience practices came under sustained attack in the late-Victorian era. A series of measures were taken by authorities, theatre managers and social commentators to wrest the control of popular performances from those in theatre pits and galleries. These included restricting the sale of alcohol in theatre venues, employing brawn in the form of ‘chuckers out’, and darkening auditoriums, so that only the stage was illuminated and the audience thus de-emphasised (Allen 51–61; Bailey 157–68; Waterhouse 127, 138–43). They also included a relentless public critique of those engaging in heckling behaviours, thus displaying their ‘littleness of mind’ (Age, 6 Sep. 1876). The intensity of attacks on rowdy audience participation suggests that symbolic factors were at play in late-Victorian attempts to enforce decorous conduct at the theatre. The last half of the century was, after all, an era of intense debate about the qualities necessary for democratic citizenship. The suffrage was being dramatically expanded during this time, so that it encompassed the vast majority of white men – and by the early twentieth century, many white women as well. In Australia, the prelude to federation also involved debate about the type of democracy to be adopted. Should it be republican? Should it enfranchise all men and women; all people, or only white ones? At stake in these debates were the characteristics and subjectivities one needed to possess before being deemed capable of enfranchisement. To be worthy of the vote, as of other democratic privileges, one needed to be what Toby Miller has called a ‘well-tempered’ subject at the turn of the twentieth century (Miller; Joyce 4). One needed to be carefully deliberative and self-watching, to avoid being ‘savage’, ‘uncivilised’, emotive – all qualities which riotous audience members (like black people and women) were thought not to possess (Lake). This is why the growing respectability of popular theatre is so often considered a key feature of the modernisation of popular culture. Civil and respectful audience behaviours went hand in hand with liberal-democratic concepts of the well-tempered citizen. Working-class culture in late nineteenth-century England has famously (and notoriously) been described as a ‘culture of consolation’: an escapist desire for fun based on a fatalistic acceptance of under-privilege and social discrimination (Jones). This idea does not do justice to the range of hopes and efforts to create a better society among workingpeople at the time. But it still captures the motivation behind most unruly audience behaviours: a gleeful kind of resistance or ‘culture jamming’ which viewed disruption and uproar as ends in themselves, without the hope that they would be productive of improved social conditions. Whether or not theatrical rowdiness served a solely consolatory purpose for the shirt-sleeve crowd, it certainly evoked a sharp fear of disorderly exuberance in mainstream society. Anxieties about violent working-class uprisings leading to the institution of mob rule were a characteristic of the late-nineteenth century, often making their way into fiction (Brantlinger). Roisterous behaviours in popular theatres resonated with the concerns expressed in works such as Caesar’s Column (Donnelly), feeding on a long association between the theatre and misrule. These fears obviously stand in stark contrast to the ebullient commentary surrounding interactive entertainment today. Over-oxygenated rhetoric about the democratic potential of cyberspace was of course a feature of new media commentary at the beginning of the 1990s (for a critique of such rhetoric see Meikle 33–42; Grossman). Current helium-giddy claims about digital technologies as ‘democratising’ reprise this cyberhype (Andrejevic 12–15, 23–8; Jenkins and Thornburn). One recent example of upbeat talk about plebiscitary formats as direct democracy is John Hartley’s contribution to the edited collection, Politicotainment (Hartley, “Reality”). There are now a range of TV shows and online formats, he says, which offer audiences the opportunity to directly express their views. The development of these entertainment forms are part of a movement towards a ‘direct open network’ in global media culture (3). They are also part of a macro historical shift: a movement ‘down the value chain of meaning’ which has taken place over the past few centuries (Hartley, “Value Chain”). Hartley’s notion of a ‘value chain of meaning’ is an application of business analysis to media and cultural studies. In business, a value chain is what links the producer/originator, via commodity/distribution, to the consumer. In the same way, Hartley says, one might speak of a symbolic value chain moving from an author/producer, via the text, to the audience/consumer. Much of western history may indeed be understood as a movement along this chain. In pre-modern times, meaning resided in the author. The Divine Author, God, was regarded as the source of all meaning. In the modern period, ‘after Milton and Johnson’, meaning was located in texts. Experts observed the properties of a text or other object, and by this means discovered its meaning. In ‘the contemporary period’, however – the period roughly following the Second World War – meaning has overwhelming come to be located with audiences or consumers (Hartley, “Value Chain” 131–35). It is in this context, Hartley tells us, that the plebiscite is coming to the fore. As a means of allowing audiences to directly represent their own choices, the plebiscite is part of a new paradigm taking shape, as global culture moves away from the modern epoch and its text-dominated paradigm (Hartley, “Reality” 1–3). Talk of a symbolic value chain is a self-conscious example of the logic of business/cultural partnership currently circulating in neo-liberal discourse. It is also an example of a teleological understanding of history, through which the past few centuries are presented as part of a linear progression towards direct democracy. This teleology works well with the up-tempo talk of television as ‘democratainment’ in Hartley’s earlier work (Hartley, Uses of Television). Western history is essentially a triumphant progression, he implies, from the Dark Ages, to representative democracy, to the enlightened and direct ‘consumer democracy’ unfolding around us today (Hartley, “Reality” 47). Teleological assumptions are always suspect from an historical point of view. For a start, casting the modern period as one in which meaning resided overwhelmingly in the text fails to consider the culture of popular performance flourishing before the twentieth century. Popular theatrical forms were far more significant to ordinary people of the nineteenth century than the notions of empirical or textual analysis cultivated in elite circles. Burlesques, minstrel-shows, music hall and variety productions all took a playful approach to their texts, altering their tone and content in line with audience expectations (Chevalier 40). Before the commercialisation of popular theatre in the late-nineteenth century, many theatricals also worked in a relatively open-ended way. At concert saloons or ‘free-and-easies’ (pubs where musical performances were offered), amateur singers volunteered their services, stepping out from the audience to perform an act or two and then disappearing into it again (Joyce 206). As a precursor to TV talent contests and ‘open mic’ comedy sessions today, many theatrical managers held amateur nights in which would-be professionals tried their luck before a restless crowd, with a contract awarded to performers drawing the loudest applause (Watson 5). Each of these considerations challenge the view that open participatory networks are the expression of an historical process through which meaning has only recently come to reside with audiences and consumers. Another reason for suspecting teleological notions about democracy is that it proceeds as if Foucauldian analysis did not exist. Characterising history as a process of democratisation tends to equate democracy with openness and freedom in an uncritical way. It glosses over the fact that representative democracy involved the repression of directly participatory practices and unruly social groups. More pertinently, it ignores critiques of direct democracy. Even if there are positive aspects to the re-emergence of participatory practices among audiences today, there are still real problems with direct democracy as a political ideal. It would be fairly easy to make the case that rowdy Victorian audiences engaged in ‘direct democratic’ practices during the course of a variety show or burlesque. The ‘gods’ in Victorian galleries exulted in expressing their preferences: evicting lack-lustre comics and demanding more of other performers. It would also be easy to valorise these practices as examples of the kind of culture-jamming I referred to earlier – as forms of resistance to the tyranny of well-tempered citizenship gaining sway at the time. Given the often hysterical attacks directed at unruly audiences, there is an obvious satisfaction to be had from observing the reinstatement of Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay at Her Majesty’s Theatre, or in the pleasure that working-class audiences derived from ‘calling the tune’. The same kind of satisfaction is not to be had, however, when observing direct democracy in action on YouTube, or during a season of Dancing with the Stars, or some other kind of plebiscitary TV. The expression of audience preferences in this context hardly carries the subversive connotations of informal evictions during a late-Victorian music-hall show. Viewer-voting today is indeed dominated by a rhetoric of partnership which centres on audience participation, rather than a notion of opposition between producers and audiences (Jenkins). The terrain of plebiscitary entertainment is very different now from the terrain of popular culture described by Stuart Hall in the 1980s – let alone as it stood in the 1890s, during Alice Leamar’s tour. Most commentary on plebiscitary TV avoids talk of ‘cultural struggle’ (Hall 235) and instead adopts a language of collaboration and of people ‘having a ball’ (Neville; Hartley, “Reality” 3). The extent to which contemporary plebiscites are managed by what Hartley calls the ‘plebiscitary industries’ evokes one of the most powerful criticisms made against direct democracy. That is, it evokes the view that direct democracy allows commercial interests to set the terms of public participation in decision-making, and thus to influence its outcomes (Barber 36; Moore 55–56). There is obviously big money to be made from plebiscitary TV. The advertising blitz which takes place during viewer-voting programs, and the vote-rigging scandals so often surrounding them make this clear. These considerations highlight the fact that public involvement in a plebiscitary process is not something to make a song and dance about unless broad involvement first takes place in deciding the issues open for determination by plebiscite, and the way in which these issues are framed. In the absence of this kind of broad participation, engagement in plebiscitary forms serves a solely consolatory function, offering the pleasures of viewer-voting as a substitute for substantive involvement in cultural creation and political change. Another critique sometimes made against direct democracy is that it makes an easy vehicle for prejudice (Barber 36–7). This was certainly the case in Victorian theatres, where it was common for Anglo gallery-members to heckle female and non-white performers in an intimidatory way. A group of American vaudeville performers called the Cherry Sisters certainly experienced this phenomenon in the early 1900s. The Cherry Sisters were defiantly unglamorous middle-aged women in a period when female performers were increasingly expected to display scantily-clad youthful figures on stage. As a consequence, they were embroiled in a number of near-riots in which male audience members hurled abuse and heavy objects from the galleries, and in some cases chased them into the street to physically assault them there (Pittinger 76–77). Such incidents give us a glimpse of the dark face of direct democracy. In some cases, the direct expression of popular views becomes an attack on diversity, leading to the kind of violent mêlée experienced either by the Cherry Sisters or the Middle Eastern people attacked on Sydney’s Cronulla Beach at the end of 2005. ‘Democracy’ is always an obviously politically loaded term when used in debates about new media. It is frequently used to imply that particular cultural or technological forms are inherently liberatory and inclusive. As Graeme Turner points out, reality TV has been celebrated as ‘democratic’ in this way. Only rarely, however, is there an attempt to argue why this is the case – to show how viewer-voting formats actually serve a democratic agenda. It was for this reason that Turner argued that the inclusion of ordinary people on reality TV should be understood as demotic rather than democratic (Turner, Understanding Celebrity 82–5; Turner, “Mass Production”). Ultimately, however, it is immaterial whether one uses the term ‘demotic’ or ‘direct democratic’ to describe the growth of plebiscitary entertainment. What is important is that we avoid making inflated claims about the direct expression of audience views, using the term ‘democratic’ to give an unduly celebratory spin to the political complexities involved. People may indeed be having a ball as they take part in online polls or choose what they want to watch on YouTube or shout at the TV during an episode of Idol. The ‘participatory enthusiasm’ that fans feel watching a show like Big Brother may also have lessons for those interested in making parliamentary process more responsive to people’s interests and needs (Coleman 458). But the development of plebiscitary forms is not inherently democratic in the sense that Turner suggests the term should be used – that is, it does not of itself serve a liberatory or socially inclusive agenda. Nor does it lead to substantive participation in cultural and political processes. In the end, it seems to me that we need to move beyond the discussion of plebiscitary entertainment in terms of democracy. The whole concept of democracy as the yardstick against which new media should be measured is highly problematic. Not only is direct democracy a vexed political ideal to start off with – it also leads commentators to take predictable positions when debating its relationship to new technologies and cultural forms. Some turn to hype, others to critique, and the result often appears as a mere restatement of the commentators’ political inclinations rather than a useful investigation of the developments at hand. Some of the most intriguing aspects of plebiscitary entertainments are left unexplored if we remain preoccupied with democracy. One might well investigate the re-introduction of studio audiences and participatory audience practices, for example, as a nostalgia for the interactivity experienced in live theatres such as the Newtown Bridge in the early twentieth century. It certainly seems to me that a retro impulse informs some of the developments in televised stand-up comedy in recent years. This was obviously the case for Paul McDermott’s The Side Show on Australian television in 2007, with its nod to the late-Victorian or early twentieth-century fairground and its live-theatrical vibe. More relevantly here, it also seems to be the case for American viewer-voting programs such as Last Comic Standing and the Comedy Channel’s Open Mic Fight. Further, reviews of programs such as Idol sometimes emphasise the emotional engagement arising out of their combination of viewer-voting and live performance as a harking-back to the good old days when entertainment was about being real (Neville). One misses this nostalgia associated with plebiscitary entertainments if bound to a teleological assumption that they form part of an ineluctable progression towards the New and the Free. Perhaps, then, it is time to pay more attention to the historical roots of viewer-voting formats, to think about the way that new media is sometimes about a re-invention of the old, trying to escape the recurrent back-and-forthing of debate about their relationship to progress and democracy. References Allen, Robert C. Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture .Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Andrejevic, Mark. Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2004. Bailey, Peter. Leisure and Class in Victorian England: Rational Recreation and the Contest for Control, 1830–1885. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978. Barber, Benjamin R. Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. ———. “Which Technology and Which Democracy?” Democracy and New Media. Eds. Henry Jenkins and David Thorburn. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003. 33–48. Brantlinger, Patrick, Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830–1914. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1988. Cheshire, D. F. Music Hall in Britain. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1974. Chevalier, Albert. Before I Forget: The Autobiography of a Chevalier d’Industrie. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1901. Coleman, Stephen. “How the Other Half Votes: Big Brother Viewers and the 2005 General Election”. International Journal of Cultural Studies 9.4 (2006): 457–79. Djubal, Clay. “From Minstrel Tenor to Vaudeville Showman: Harry Clay, ‘A Friend of the Australian Performer’”. Australasian Drama Studies 34 (April 1999): 10–24. Donnelly, Ignatius. Caesar’s Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century. London: Sampson Low, Marston and Co., 1891. Grossman, Lawrence. The Electronic Republic: Reshaping Democracy in the Information Age. New York: Penguin, 1995. Hall, Stuart. “Notes on Deconstructing the ‘Popular’”. People’s History and Socialist Theory. Ed. Raphael Samuel. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981. 227–49. Hartley, John, The Uses of Television. London: Routledge, 1999. ———. “‘Reality’ and the Plebiscite”. Politoctainment: Television’s Take on the Real. Ed. Kristina Riegert. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2006. http://www.cci.edu.au/hartley/downloads/Plebiscite%20(Riegert%20chapter) %20revised%20FINAL%20%5BFeb%2014%5D.pdf. ———. “The ‘Value-Chain of Meaning’ and the New Economy”. International Journal of Cultural Studies 7.1 (2004): 129–41. Jenkins, Henry. “The Cultural Logic of Media Convergence”. International Journal of Cultural Studies 7.1 (2004): 33–43. ———, and David Thornburn. “Introduction: The Digital Revolution, the Informed Citizen, and the Culture of Democracy”. Democracy and New Media. Eds. Henry Jenkins and David Thorburn. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003. 1–20. Jones, Gareth Stedman. ‘Working-Class Culture and Working-Class Politics in London, 1870-1900: Notes on the Remaking of a Working Class’. Languages of Class: Studies in English Working-Class History, 1832–1982. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. 179–238. Joyce, Patrick. The Rule of Freedom: Liberalism and the Modern City. London: Verso, 2003. Lake, Marilyn. “White Man’s Country: The Trans-National History of a National Project”. Australian Historical Studies 122 ( 2003): 346–63. Meikle, Graham. Future Active: Media Activism and the Internet. London: Routledge, 2002. Miller, Toby. The Well-Tempered Self: Citizenship, Culture and the Postmodern Subject. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1993. Moore, Richard K. “Democracy and Cyberspace”. Digital Democracy: Discourse and Decision Making in the Information Age. Eds. Barry Hague and Brian D. Loader. London and New York: Routledge, 1999. 39–59. Neville, Richard. “Crass, Corny, But Still a Woodstock Moment for a New Generation”. Sydney Morning Herald, 23 November 2004. Pittinger, Peach R. “The Cherry Sisters in Early Vaudeville: Performing a Failed Femininity”. Theatre History Studies 24 (2004): 73–97. Turner, Graeme. Understanding Celebrity. London: Sage, 2004. ———. “The Mass Production of Celebrity: ‘Celetoids’, Reality TV and the ‘Demotic Turn’”. International Journal of Cultural Studies 9.2 (2006): 153–165. Waterhouse, Richard. From Minstrel Show to Vaudeville: The Australian Popular Stage, 1788–1914. Sydney: New South Wales University Press, 1990. Watson, Bobby. Fifty Years Behind the Scenes. Sydney: Slater, 1924.

Abstract:

The Harry Potter (HP) Fan Fiction (FF) phenomenon offers an opportunity to explore the nature of fame and the work of fans (including the second author, a participant observer) in creating and circulating cultural products within fan communities. Matt Hills comments (xi) that “fandom is not simply a ‘thing’ that can be picked over analytically. It is also always performative; by which I mean that it is an identity which is (dis-)claimed, and which performs cultural work”. This paper explores the cultural work of fandom in relation to FF and fame. The global HP phenomenon – in which FF lists are a small part – has made creator J K Rowling richer than the Queen of England, according to the 2003 ‘Sunday Times Rich List’. The books (five so far) and the films (three) continue to accelerate the growth in Rowling’s fortune, which quadrupled from 2001-3: an incredible success for an author unknown before the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in 1997. Even the on-screen HP lead actor, Daniel Radcliffe, is now Britain’s second wealthiest teenager (after England’s Prince Harry). There are other globally successful books, such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the Narnia collection, but neither of these series has experienced the momentum of the HP rise to fame. (See Endnote for an indication of the scale of fan involvement with HP FF, compared with Lord of the Rings.) Contemporary ‘Fame’ has been critically defined in relation to the western mass media’s requirement for ‘entertaining’ content, and the production and circulation of celebrity as opposed to ‘hard news’(Turner, Bonner and Marshall). The current perception is that an army of publicists and spin doctors are usually necessary, but not sufficient, to create and nurture global fame. Yet the HP phenomenon started out with no greater publicity investment than that garnered by any other promising first novelist: and given the status of HP as children’s publishing, it was probably less hyped than equivalent adult-audience publications. So are there particular characteristics of HP and his creator that predisposed the series and its author to become famous? And how does the fame status relate to fans’ incorporation of these cultural materials into their lives? Accepting that it is no more possible to predict the future fame of an author or (fictional) character than it is to predict the future financial success of a book, film or album, there is a range of features of the HP phenomenon that, in hindsight, helped accelerate the fame momentum, creating what has become in hindsight an unparalleled global media property. J K Rowling’s personal story – in the hands of her publicity machine – itself constituted a magical myth: the struggling single mother writing away (in longhand) in a Scottish café, snatching odd moments to construct the first book while her infant daughter slept. (Comparatively little attention was paid by the marketers to the author’s professional training and status as a teacher, or to Rowling’s own admission that the first book, and the outline for the series, took five years to write.) Rowling’s name itself, with no self-evident gender attribution, was also indicative of ambiguity and mystery. The back-story to HP, therefore, became one of a quintessentially romantic endeavour – the struggle to write against the odds. Publicity relating to the ‘starving in a garret’ background is not sufficient to explain the HP/Rowling grip on the popular imagination, however. Instead it is arguable that the growth of HP fame and fandom is directly related to the growth of the Internet and to the middle class readers’ Internet access. If the production of celebrity is a major project of the conventional mass media, the HP phenomenon is a harbinger of the hyper-fame that can be generated through the combined efforts of the mass media and online fan communities. The implication of this – evident in new online viral marketing techniques (Kirby), is that publicists need to pique cyber-interest as well as work with the mass media in the construction of celebrity. As the cheer-leaders for online viral marketing make the argument, the technique “provides the missing link between the [bottom-up] word-of-mouth approach and the top-down, advertainment approach”. Which is not to say that the initial HP success was a function of online viral marketing: rather, the marketers learned their trade by analysing the magnifier impact that the online fan communities had upon the exponential growth of the HP phenomenon. This cyber-impact is based both on enhanced connectivity – the bottom-up, word-of-mouth dynamic, and on the individual’s need to assume an identity (albeit fluid) to participate effectively in online community. Critiquing the notion that the computer is an identity machine, Streeter focuses upon (649) “identities that people have brought to computers from the culture at large”. He does not deal in any depth with FF, but suggests (651) that “what the Internet is and will come to be, then, is partly a matter of who we expect to be when we sit down to use it”. What happens when fans sit down to use the Internet, and is there a particular reason why the Internet should be of importance to the rise and rise of HP fame? From the point of view of one of us, HP was born at more or less the same time as she was. Eleven years old in the first book, published in 1997, Potter’s putative birth year might be set in 1986 – in line with many of the original HP readership, and the publisher’s target market. At the point that this cohort was first spellbound by Potter, 1998-9, they were also on the brink of discovering the Internet. In Australia and many western nations, over half of (two-parent) families with school-aged children were online by the end of 2000 (ABS). Potter would notionally have been 14: his fans a little younger but well primed for the ‘teeny-bopper’ years. Arguably, the only thing more famous than HP for that age-group, at that time, was the Internet itself. As knowledge of the Internet grew stories about it constituted both news and entertainment and circulated widely in the mass media: the uncertainty concerning new media, and their impact upon existing social structures, has – over time – precipitated a succession of moral panics … Established commercial media are not noted for their generosity to competitors, and it is unsurprising that many of the moral panics circulating about pornography on the Net, Internet stalking, Web addiction, hate sites etc are promulgated in the older media. (Green xxvii) Although the mass media may have successfully scared the impressionable, the Internet was not solely constructed as a site of moral panic. Prior to the general pervasiveness of the Internet in domestic space, P. David Marshall discusses multiple constructions of the computer – seen by parents as an educational tool which could help future-proof their children; but which their children were more like to conceptualise as a games machine, or (this was the greater fear) use for hacking. As the computer was to become a site for the battle ground between education, entertainment and power, so too the Internet was poised to be colonised by teenagers for a variety of purposes their parents would have preferred to prevent: chat, pornography, game-playing (among others). Fan communities thrive on the power of the individual fan to project themselves and their fan identity as part of an ongoing conversation. Further, in constructing the reasons behind what has happened in the HP narrative, and in speculating what is to come, fans are presenting themselves as identities with whom others might agree (positive affirmation) or disagree (offering the chance for engagement through exchange). The genuinely insightful fans, who apparently predict the plots before they’re published, may even be credited in their communities with inspiring J K Rowling’s muse. (The FF mythology is that J K Rowling dare not look at the FF sites in case she finds herself influenced.) Nancy Baym, commenting on a soap opera fan Usenet group (Usenet was an early 1990s precursor to discussion groups) notes that: The viewers’ relationship with characters, the viewers’ understanding of socioemotional experience, and soap opera’s narrative structure, in which moments of maximal suspense are always followed by temporal gaps, work together to ensure that fans will use the gaps during and between shows to discuss with one another possible outcomes and possible interpretations of what has been seen. (143) In HP terms the The Philosopher’s Stone constructed a fan knowledge that J K Rowling’s project entailed at least seven books (one for each year at Hogwarts School) and this offered plentiful opportunities to speculate upon the future direction and evolution of the HP characters. With each speculation, each posting, the individual fan can refine and extend their identity as a member of the FF community. The temporal gaps between the books and the films – coupled with the expanding possibilities of Internet communication – mean that fans can feel both creative and connected while circulating the cultural materials derived from their engagement with the HP ‘canon’. Canon is used to describe the HP oeuvre as approved by Rowling, her publishers, and her copyright assignees (for example, Warner Bros). In contrast, ‘fanon’ is the name used by fans to refer the body of work that results from their creative/subversive interactions with the core texts, such as “slash” (homo-erotic/romance) fiction. Differentiation between the two terms acknowledges the likelihood that J K Rowling or her assignees might not approve of fanon. The constructed identities of fans who deal solely with canon differ significantly from those who are engaged in fanon. The implicit (romantic) or explicit (full-action descriptions) sexualisation of HP FF is part of a complex identity play on behalf of both the writers and readers of FF. Further, given that the online communities are often nurtured and enriched by offline face to face exchanges with other participants, what an individual is prepared to read or not to read, or write or not write, says as much about that person’s public persona as does another’s overt consumption of pornography; or diet of art house films, in contrast to someone else’s enthusiasm for Friends. Hearn, Mandeville and Anthony argue that a “central assertion of postmodern views of consumption is that social identity can be interpreted as a function of consumption” (106), and few would disagree with them: herein lies the power of the brand. Noting that consumer culture centrally focuses upon harnessing ‘the desire to desire’, Streeter’s work (654, on the opening up of Internet connectivity) suggests a continuum from ‘desire provoked’; through anticipation, ‘excitement based on what people imagined would happen’; to a sense of ‘possibility’. All this was made more tantalising in terms of the ‘unpredictability’ of how cyberspace would eventually resolve itself (657). Thus a progression is posited from desire through to the thrill of comparing future possibilities with eventual outcomes. These forces clearly influence the HP FF phenomenon, where a section of HP fans have become impatient with the pace of the ‘official’/canon HP text. J K Rowling’s writing has slowed down to the point that Harry’s initial readership has overtaken him by several years. He’s about to enter his sixth year (of seven) at secondary school – his erstwhile-contemporaries have already left school or are about to graduate to University. HP is yet to have ‘a relationship’: his fans are engaged in some well-informed speculation as to a range of sexual possibilities which would likely take J K Rowling some light years from her marketers’ core readership. So the story is progressing more slowly than many fans would choose and with less spice than many would like (from the evidence of the web, at least). As indicated in the Endnote, the productivity of the fans, as they ‘fill in the gaps’ while waiting for the official narrative to resume, is prodigious. It may be that as the fans outstrip HP in their own social and emotional development they find his reactions in later books increasingly unbelievable, and/or out of character with the HP they felt they knew. Thus they develop an alternative ‘Harry’ in fanon. Some FF authors identify in advance which books they accept as canon, and which they have decided to ignore. For example, popular FF author Midnight Blue gives the setting of her evolving FF The Mirror of Maybe as “after Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and as an alternative to the events detailed in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, [this] is a Slash story involving Harry Potter and Severus Snape”. Some fans, tired of waiting for Rowling to get Harry grown up, ‘are doin’ it for themselves’. Alternatively, it may be that as they get older the first groups of HP fans are unwilling to relinquish their investment in the HP phenomenon, but are equally unwilling to align themselves uncritically with the anodyne story of the canon. Harry Potter, as Warner Bros licensed him, may be OK for pre-teens, but less cool for the older adolescent. The range of identities that can be constructed using the many online HP FF genres, however, permits wide scope for FF members to identify with dissident constructions of the HP narrative and helps to add to the momentum with which his fame increases. Latterly there is evidence that custodians of canon may be making subtle overtures to creators of fanon. Here, the viral marketers have a particular challenge – to embrace the huge market represented by fanon, while not disturbing those whose HP fandom is based upon the purity of canon. Some elements of fanon feel their discourses have been recognised within the evolving approved narrative . This sense within the fan community – that the holders of the canon have complimented them through an intertextual reference – is much prized and builds the momentum of the fame engagement (as has been demonstrated by Watson, with respect to the band ‘phish’). Specifically, Harry/Draco slash fans have delighted in the hint of a blown kiss from Draco Malfoy to Harry (as Draco sends Harry an origami bird/graffiti message in a Defence against the Dark Arts Class in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) as an acknowledgement of their cultural contribution to the development of the HP phenomenon. Streeter credits Raymond’s essay ‘The Cathedral and the Bazaar’ as offering a model for the incorporation of voluntary labour into the marketplace. Although Streeter’s example concerns the Open Source movement, derived from hacker culture, it has parallels with the prodigious creativity (and productivity) of the HP FF communities. Discussing the decision by Netscape to throw open the source code of its software in 1998, allowing those who use it to modify and improve it, Streeter comments that (659) “the core trope is to portray Linux-style software development like a bazaar, a real-life competitive marketplace”. The bazaar features a world of competing, yet complementary, small traders each displaying their skills and their wares for evaluation in terms of the product on offer. In contrast, “Microsoft-style software production is portrayed as hierarchical and centralised – and thus inefficient – like a cathedral”. Raymond identifies “ego satisfaction and reputation among other [peers]” as a specific socio-emotional benefit for volunteer participants (in Open Source development), going on to note: “Voluntary cultures that work this way are not actually uncommon [… for example] science fiction fandom, which unlike hackerdom has long explicitly recognized ‘egoboo’ (ego-boosting, or the enhancement of one’s reputation among other fans) as the basic drive behind volunteer activity”. This may also be a prime mover for FF engagement. Where fans have outgrown the anodyne canon they get added value through using the raw materials of the HP stories to construct fanon: establishing and building individual identities and communities through HP consumption practices in parallel with, but different from, those deemed acceptable for younger, more innocent, fans. The fame implicit in HP fandom is not only that of HP, the HP lead actor Daniel Radcliffe and HP’s creator J K Rowling; for some fans the famed ‘state or quality of being widely honoured and acclaimed’ can be realised through their participation in online fan culture – fans become famous and recognised within their own community for the quality of their work and the generosity of their sharing with others. The cultural capital circulated on the FF sites is both canon and fanon, a matter of some anxiety for the corporations that typically buy into and foster these mega-media products. As Jim Ward, Vice-President of Marketing for Lucasfilm comments about Star Wars fans (cited in Murray 11): “We love our fans. We want them to have fun. But if in fact someone is using our characters to create a story unto itself, that’s not in the spirit of what we think fandom is about. Fandom is about celebrating the story the way it is.” Slash fans would beg to differ, and for many FF readers and writers, the joy of engagement, and a significant engine for the growth of HP fame, is partly located in the creativity offered for readers and writers to fill in the gaps. Endnote HP FF ranges from posts on general FF sites (such as fanfiction.net >> books, where HP has 147,067 stories [on 4,490 pages of hotlinks] posted, compared with its nearest ‘rival’ Lord of the rings: with 33,189 FF stories). General FF sites exclude adult content, much of which is corralled into 18+ FF sites, such as Restrictedsection.org, set up when core material was expelled from general sites. As an example of one adult site, the Potter Slash Archive is selective (unlike fanfiction.net, for example) which means that only stories liked by the site team are displayed. Authors submitting work are asked to abide by a list of ‘compulsory parameters’, but ‘warnings’ fall under the category of ‘optional parameters’: “Please put a warning if your story contains content that may be offensive to some authors [sic], such as m/m sex, graphic sex or violence, violent sex, character death, major angst, BDSM, non-con (rape) etc”. Adult-content FF readers/writers embrace a range of unexpected genres – such as Twincest (incest within either of the two sets of twin characters in HP) and Weasleycest (incest within the Weasley clan) – in addition to mainstream romance/homo-erotica pairings, such as that between Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. (NB: within the time frame 16 August – 4 October, Harry Potter FF writers had posted an additional 9,196 stories on the fanfiction.net site alone.) References ABS. 8147.0 Use of the Internet by Householders, Australia. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/ e8ae5488b598839cca25682000131612/ ae8e67619446db22ca2568a9001393f8!OpenDocument, 2001, 2001>. Baym, Nancy. “The Emergence of Community in Computer-Mediated Communication.” CyberSociety: Computer-Mediated Communication and Community. Ed. S. Jones. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995. 138-63. Blue, Midnight. “The Mirror of Maybe.” http://www.greyblue.net/MidnightBlue/Mirror/default.htm>. Coates, Laura. “Muggle Kids Battle for Domain Name Rights. Irish Computer. http://www.irishcomputer.com/domaingame2.html>. Fanfiction.net. “Category: Books” http://www.fanfiction.net/cat/202/>. Green, Lelia. Technoculture: From Alphabet to Cybersex. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. Hearn, Greg, Tom Mandeville and David Anthony. The Communication Superhighway: Social and Economic Change in the Digital Age. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1997. Hills, Matt. Fan Cultures. London: Routledge, 2002. Houghton Mifflin. “Potlatch.” Encyclopedia of North American Indians. http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/naind/html/ na_030900_potlatch.htm>. Kirby, Justin. “Brand Papers: Getting the Bug.” Brand Strategy July-August 2004. http://www.dmc.co.uk/pdf/BrandStrategy07-0804.pdf>. Marshall, P. David. “Technophobia: Video Games, Computer Hacks and Cybernetics.” Media International Australia 85 (Nov. 1997): 70-8. Murray, Simone. “Celebrating the Story the Way It Is: Cultural Studies, Corporate Media and the Contested Utility of Fandom.” Continuum 18.1 (2004): 7-25. Raymond, Eric S. The Cathedral and the Bazaar. 2000. http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ar01s11.html>. Streeter, Thomas. The Romantic Self and the Politics of Internet Commercialization. Cultural Studies 17.5 (2003): 648-68. Turner, Graeme, Frances Bonner, and P. David Marshall. Fame Games: The Production of Celebrity in Australia. Melbourne: Cambridge UP. Watson, Nessim. “Why We Argue about Virtual Community: A Case Study of the Phish.net Fan Community.” Virtual Culture: Identity and Communication in Cybersociety. Ed. Steven G. Jones. London: Sage, 1997. 102-32. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Green, Lelia, and Carmen Guinery. "Harry Potter and the Fan Fiction Phenomenon." M/C Journal 7.5 (2004). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/14-green.php>. APA Style Green, L., and C. Guinery. (Nov. 2004) "Harry Potter and the Fan Fiction Phenomenon," M/C Journal, 7(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/14-green.php>.

Abstract:

IntroductionThis paper argues that the industrial contexts of re-imagining, or transforming, literary icons deploy the promotional strategies that are associated with what are usually seen as lesser, or purely commercial, genres. Promotional paratexts (Genette Paratexts; Gray; Hills) reveal transformations of content that position audiences to receive them as creative innovations, superior in many senses to their literary precursors due to the distinctive expertise of creative professionals. This interpretation leverages Matt Hills’ argument that certain kinds of “quality” screened drama are discursively framed as possessing the cultural capital associated with auterist cinema, despite their participation in the marketing logics of media franchising (Johnson). Adaptation theorist Linda Hutcheon proposes that when audiences receive literary adaptations, their pleasure inheres in a mixture of “repetition and difference”, “familiarity and novelty” (114). The difference can take many forms, but may be framed as guaranteed by the “distinction”, or—in Bourdieu’s terms—the cultural capital, of talented individuals and companies. Gerard Genette (Palimpsests) argued that “proximations” or updatings of classic literature involve acknowledging historical shifts in ideological norms as well as aesthetic techniques and tastes. When literary brands are made over using different media, there are economic lures to participation in currently fashionable technologies, as well as current political values. Linda Hutcheon also underlines the pragmatic constraints on the re-imagining of literary brands. “Expensive collaborative art forms” (87) such as films and large stage productions look for safe bets, seeking properties that have the potential to increase the audience for their franchise. Thus the marketplace influences both production and the experience of audiences. While this paper does not attempt a thoroughgoing analysis of audience reception appropriate to a fan studies approach, it borrows concepts from Matt Hills’s theorisation of marketing communication associated with screen “makeovers”. It shows that literary fiction and cinematic texts associated with celebrated authors or auteurist producer-directors share branding discourses characteristic of contemporary consumer culture. Strategies include marketing “reveals” of transformed content (Hills 319). Transformed content is presented not only as demonstrating originality and novelty; these promotional paratexts also perform displays of cultural capital on the part of production teams or of auteurist creatives (321). Case Study 1: Steven Spielberg, The Adventures of Tintin (2011) The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn is itself an adaptation of a literary brand that reimagines earlier transmedia genres. According to Spielberg’s biographer, the Tintin series of bandes dessinée (comics or graphic novels) by Belgian artist Hergé (Georges Remi), has affinities with “boys’ adventure yarns” referencing and paying homage to the “silent filmmaking and the movie serials of the 1930s and ‘40s” (McBride 530). The three comics adapted by Spielberg belong to the more escapist and less “political” phase of Hergé’s career (531). As a fast-paced action movie, building to a dramatic and spectacular closure, the major plot lines of Spielberg’s film centre on Tintin’s search for clues to the secret of a model ship he buys at a street market. Teaming up with an alcoholic sea captain, Tintin solves the mystery while bullying Captain Haddock into regaining his sobriety, his family seat, and his eagerness to partner in further heroic adventures. Spielberg’s industry stature allowed him the autonomy to combine the commercial motivations of contemporary “tentpole” cinema adaptations with aspirations towards personal reputation as an auteurist director. Many of the promotional paratexts associated with the film stress the aesthetic distinction of the director’s practice alongside the blockbuster spectacle of an action film. Reinventing the Literary Brand as FranchiseComic books constitute the “mother lode of franchises” (Balio 26) in a industry that has become increasingly global and risk-adverse (see also Burke). The fan base for comic book movies is substantial and studios pre-promote their investments at events such as the four-day Comic-Con festival held annually in San Diego (Balio 26). Described as “tentpole” films, these adaptations—often of superhero genres—are considered conservative investments by the Hollywood studios because they “constitute media events; […] lend themselves to promotional tie-ins”; are “easy sells in world markets and […] have the ability to spin off sequels to create a franchise” (Balio 26). However, Spielberg chose to adapt a brand little known in the primary market (the US), thus lacking the huge fan-based to which pre-release promotional paratexts might normally be targeted. While this might seem a risky undertaking, it does reflect “changed industry realities” that seek to leverage important international markets (McBride 531). As a producer Spielberg pursued his own strategies to minimise economic risk while allowing him creative choices. This facilitated the pursuit of professional reputation alongside commercial success. The dual release of both War Horse and Tintin exemplify the director-producer’s career practice of bracketing an “entertainment” film with a “more serious work” (McBride 530). The Adventures of Tintin was promoted largely as technical tour de force and spectacle. Conversely War Horse—also adapted from a children’s text—was conceived as a heritage/nostalgia film, marked with the attention to period detail and lyric cinematography of what Matt Hills describes as “aestheticized fiction”. Nevertheless, promotional paratexts stress the discourse of auteurist transformation even in the case of the designedly more commercial Tintin film, as I discuss further below. These pre-release promotions emphasise Spielberg’s “painterly” directorial hand, as well as the professional partnership with Peter Jackson that enabled cutting edge innovation in animation. As McBride explains, the “dual release of the two films in the US was an unusual marketing move” seemingly designed to “showcase Spielberg’s artistic versatility” (McBride 530).Promotional Paratexts and Pre-Recruitment of FansAs Jonathan Gray and Jason Mittell have explained, marketing paratexts predate screen adaptations (Gray; Mittell). As part of the commercial logic of franchise development, selective release of information about a literary brand’s transformation are designed to bring fans of the “original,” or of genre communities such as fantasy or comics audiences, on board with the adaptation. Analysing Steven Moffat’s revelations about the process of adapting and creating a modern TV series from Conan Doyle’s canon (Sherlock), Matt Hills draws attention to the focus on the literary, rather than the many screen reinventions. Moffat’s focus on his childhood passion for the Holmes stories thus grounds the team’s adaptation in a period prior to any “knowledge of rival adaptations […] and any detailed awareness of canon” (326). Spielberg (unlike Jackson) denied any such childhood affective investment, claiming to have been unaware of the similarities between Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and the Tintin series until alerted by a French reviewer of Raiders (McBride 530). In discussing the paradoxical fidelity of his and Jackson’s reimagining of Tintin, Spielberg performed homage to the literary brand while emphasising the aesthetic limitations within the canon of prior adaptations:‘We want Tintin’s adventures to have the reality of a live-action film’, Spielberg explained during preproduction, ‘and yet Peter and I felt that shooting them in a traditional live-action format would simply not honor the distinctive look of the characters and world that Hergé created. Hergé’s characters have been reborn as living beings, expressing emotion and a soul that goes far beyond anything we’ve been able to create with computer-animated characters.’ (McBride 531)In these “reveals”, the discourse positions Spielberg and Jackson as both fans and auteurs, demonstrating affective investment in Hergé’s concepts and world-building while displaying the ingenuity of the partners as cinematic innovators.The Branded Reveal of Transformed ContentAccording to Hills, “quality TV drama” no less than “makeover TV,” is subject to branding practices such as the “reveal” of innovations attributed to creative professionals. Marketing paratexts discursively frame the “professional and creative distinction” of the teams that share and expand the narrative universe of the show’s screen or literary precursors (319–20). Distinction here refers to the cultural capital of the creative teams, as well as to the essential differences between what adaptation theorists refer to as the “hypotext” (source/original) and “hypertext” (adaptation) (Genette Paratexts; Hutcheon). The adaptation’s individualism is fore-grounded, as are the rights of creative teams to inherit, transform, and add richness to the textual universe of the precursor texts. Spielberg denied the “anxiety of influence” (Bloom) linking Tintin and Raiders, though he is reported to have enthusiastically acknowledged the similarities once alerted to them. Nevertheless, Spielberg first optioned Hergé’s series only two years later (1983). Paratexts “reveal” Hergé’s passing of the mantle from author to director, quoting his: “ ‘Yes, I think this guy can make this film. Of course it will not be my Tintin, but it can be a great Tintin’” (McBride 531).Promotional reveals in preproduction show both Spielberg and Jackson performing mutually admiring displays of distinction. Much of this is focused on the choice of motion capture animation, involving attachment of motion sensors to an actor’s body during performance, permitting mapping of realistic motion onto the animated figure. While Spielberg paid tribute to Jackson’s industry pre-eminence in this technical field, the discourse also underlines Spielberg’s own status as auteur. He claimed that Tintin allowed him to feel more like a painter than any prior film. Jackson also underlines the theme of direct imaginative control:The process of operating the small motion-capture virtual camera […] enabled Spielberg to return to the simplicity and fluidity of his 8mm amateur films […] [The small motion-capture camera] enabled Spielberg to put himself literally in the spaces occupied by the actors […] He could walk around with them […] and improvise movements for a film Jackson said they decided should have a handheld feel as much as possible […] All the production was from the imagination right to the computer. (McBride 532)Along with cinematic innovation, pre-release promotions thus rehearse the imaginative pre-eminence of Spielberg’s vision, alongside Jackson and his WETA company’s fantasy credentials, their reputation for meticulous detail, and their innovation in the use of performance capture in live-action features. This rehearsal of professional capital showcases the difference and superiority of The Adventures of Tintin to previous animated adaptations.Case Study 2: Andrew Motion: Silver, Return to Treasure Island (2012)At first glance, literary fiction would seem to be a far-cry from the commercial logics of tentpole cinema. The first work of pure fiction by a former Poet Laureate of Great Britain, updating a children’s classic, Silver: Return to Treasure Island signals itself as an exemplar of quality fiction. Yet the commercial logics of the publishing industry, no less than other media franchises, routinise practices such as author interviews at bookshop visits and festivals, generating paratexts that serve its promotional cycle. Motion’s choice of this classic for adaptation is a step further towards a popular readership than his poetry—or the memoirs, literary criticism, or creative non-fiction (“fabricated” or speculative biographies) (see Mars-Jones)—that constitute his earlier prose output. Treasure Island’s cultural status as boy’s adventure, its exotic setting, its dramatic characters long available in the public domain through earlier screen adaptations, make it a shrewd choice for appropriation in the niche market of literary fiction. Michael Cathcart’s introduction to his ABC Radio National interview with the author hones in on this:Treasure Island is one of those books that you feel as if you’ve read, event if you haven’t. Long John Silver, young Jim Hawkins, Blind Pew, Israel Hands […], these are people who stalk our collective unconscious, and they’re back. (Cathcart)Motion agrees with Cathcart that Treasure Island constitutes literary and common cultural heritage. In both interviews I analyse in the discussion here, Motion states that he “absorbed” the book, “almost by osmosis” as a child, yet returned to it with the mature, critical, evaluative appreciation of the young adult and budding poet (Darragh 27). Stevenson’s original is a “bloody good book”; the implication is that it would not otherwise have met the standards of a literary doyen, possessing a deep knowledge of, and affect for, the canon of English literature. Commercial Logic and Cultural UpdatingSilver is an unauthorised sequel—in Genette’s taxonomy, a “continuation”. However, in promotional interviews on the book and broadcast circuit, Motion claimed a kind of license from the practice of Stevenson, a fellow writer. Stevenson himself notes that a significant portion of the “bar silver” remained on the island, leaving room for a sequel to be generated. In Silver, Jim, the son of Stevenson’s Jim Hawkins, and Natty, daughter of Long John Silver and the “woman of colour”, take off to complete and confront the consequences of their parents’ adventures. In interviews, Motion identifies structural gaps in the precursor text that are discursively positioned to demand completion from, in effect, Stevenson’s literary heir: [Stevenson] was a person who was interested in sequels himself, indeed he wrote a sequel to Kidnapped [which is] proof he was interested in these things. (Cathcart)He does leave lots of doors and windows open at the end of Treasure Island […] perhaps most bewitchingly for me, as the Hispaniola sails away, they leave behind three maroons. So what happened to them? (Darragh)These promotional paratexts drop references to Great Expectations, Heart of Darkness, Lord of the Flies, Wild Sargasso Sea, the plays of Shakespeare and Tom Stoppard, the poetry of Auden and John Clare, and Stevenson’s own “self-conscious” sources: Defoe, Marryat. Discursively, they evidence “double coding” (Hills) as both homage for the canon and the literary “brand” of Stevenson’s popular original, while implicated in the commercial logic of the book industry’s marketing practices.Displays of DistinctionMotion’s interview with Sarah Darragh, for the National Association of Teachers of English, performs the role of man of letters; Motion “professes” and embodies the expertise to speak authoritatively on literature, its criticism, and its teaching. Literature in general, and Silver in particular, he claims, is not “just polemic”, that is “not how it works”, but it does has the ability to recruit readers to moral perspectives, to convey “ new ideas[s] of the self.” Silver’s distinction from Treasure Island lies in its ability to position “deep” readers to develop what is often labelled “theory of mind” (Wolf and Barzillai): “what good literature does, whether you know it or not, is to allow you to be someone else for a bit,” giving us “imaginative projection into another person’s experience” (Darragh 29). A discourse of difference and superiority is also associated with the transformed “brand.” Motion is emphatic that Silver is not a children’s book—“I wouldn’t know how to do that” (Darragh 28)—a “lesser” genre in canonical hierarchies. It is a writerly and morally purposeful fiction, “haunted” by greats of the canon and grounded in expertise in philosophical and literary heritage. In addition, he stresses the embedded seriousness of his reinvention: it is “about how to be a modern person and about greed and imperialism” (Darragh 27), as well as a deliberatively transformed artefact:The road to literary damnation is […] paved with bad sequels and prequels, and the reason that they fail […] is that they take the original on at its own game too precisely […] so I thought, casting my mind around those that work [such as] Tom Stoppard’s play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead […] or Jean Rhys’ wonderful novel Wide Sargasso Sea which is about the first Mrs Rochester in Jane Eyre […] that if I took a big step away from the original book I would solve this problem of competing with something I was likely to lose in competition with and to create something that was a sort of homage […] towards it, but that stood at a significant distance from it […]. (Cathcart) Motion thus rehearses homage and humility, while implicitly defending the transformative imagination of his “sequel” against the practice of lesser, failed, clonings.Motion’s narrative expansion of Stevenson’s fictional universe is an example of “overwriting continuity” established by his predecessor, and thus allowing him to make “meaningful claims to creative and professional distinction” while demonstrating his own “creative viewpoint” (Hills 320). The novel boldly recapitulates incidental details, settings, and dramatic embedded character-narrations from Treasure Island. Distinctively, though, its opening sequence is a paean to romantic sensibility in the tradition of Wordsworth’s The Prelude (1799–1850).The Branded Reveal of Transformed ContentSilver’s paratexts discursively construct its transformation and, by implication, improvement, from Stevenson’s original. Motion reveals the sequel’s change of zeitgeist, its ideological complexity and proximity to contemporary environmental and postcolonial values. These are represented through the superior perspective of romanticism and the scientific lens on the natural world:Treasure Island is a pre-Enlightenment story, it is pre-French Revolution, it’s the bad old world […] where people have a different ideas of democracy […] Also […] Jim is beginning to be aware of nature in a new way […] [The romantic poet, John Clare] was publishing in the 1820s but a child in the early 1800s, I rather had him in mind for Jim as somebody who was seeing the world in the same sort of way […] paying attention to the little things in nature, and feeling a sort of kinship with the natural world that we of course want to put an environmental spin on these days, but [at] the beginning of the 1800s was a new and important thing, a romantic preoccupation. (Cathcart)Motion’s allusion to Wild Sargasso Sea discursively appropriates Rhys’s feminist and postcolonial reimagination of Rochester’s creole wife, to validate his portrayal of Long John Silver’s wife, the “woman of colour.” As Christian Moraru has shown, this rewriting of race is part of a book industry trend in contemporary American adaptations of nineteenth-century texts. Interviews position readers of Silver to receive the novel in terms of increased moral complexity, sharing its awareness of the evils of slavery and violence silenced in prior adaptations.Two streams of influence [come] out of Treasure Island […] one is Pirates of the Caribbean and all that jolly jape type stuff, pirates who are essentially comic [or pantomime] characters […] And the other stream, which is the other face of Long John Silver in the original is a real menace […] What we are talking about is Somalia. Piracy is essentially a profoundly serious and repellent thing […]. (Cathcart)Motion’s transformation of Treasure Island, thus, improves on Stevenson by taking some of the menace that is “latent in the original”, yet downplayed by the genre reinvented as “jolly jape” or “gorefest.” In contrast, Silver is “a book about serious things” (Cathcart), about “greed and imperialism” and “how to be a modern person,” ideologically reconstructed as “philosophical history” by a consummate man of letters (Darragh).ConclusionWhen iconic literary brands are reimagined across media, genres and modes, creative professionals frequently need to balance various affective and commercial investments in the precursor text or property. Updatings of classic texts require interpretation and the negotiation of subtle changes in values that have occurred since the creation of the “original.” Producers in risk-averse industries such as screen and publishing media practice a certain pragmatism to ensure that fans’ nostalgia for a popular brand is not too violently scandalised, while taking care to reproduce currently popular technologies and generic conventions in the interest of maximising audience. As my analysis shows, promotional circuits associated with “quality” fiction and cinema mirror the commercial logics associated with less valorised genres. Promotional paratexts reveal transformations of content that position audiences to receive them as creative innovations, superior in many senses to their literary precursors due to the distinctive expertise of creative professionals. Paying lip-service the sophisticated reading practices of contemporary fans of both cinema and literary fiction, their discourse shows the conflicting impulses to homage, critique, originality, and recruitment of audiences.ReferencesBalio, Tino. Hollywood in the New Millennium. London: Palgrave Macmillan/British Film Institute, 2013.Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997.Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Trans. Richard Nice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1987. Burke, Liam. The Comic Book Film Adaptation: Exploring Modern Hollywood's Leading Genre. Jackson, MS: UP of Mississippi, 2015. Cathcart, Michael (Interviewer). Andrew Motion's Silver: Return to Treasure Island. 2013. Transcript of Radio Interview. Prod. Kate Evans. 26 Jan. 2013. 10 Apr. 2013 ‹http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/booksplus/silver/4293244#transcript›.Darragh, Sarah. "In Conversation with Andrew Motion." NATE Classroom 17 (2012): 27–30.Genette, Gérard. Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree. Lincoln, NE: U of Nebraska P, 1997. ———. Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997. Gray, Jonathan. Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts. New York: New York UP, 2010.Hills, Matt. "Rebranding Dr Who and Reimagining Sherlock: 'Quality' Television as 'Makeover TV Drama'." International Journal of Cultural Studies 18.3 (2015): 317–31.Johnson, Derek. Media Franchising: Creative License and Collaboration in the Culture Industries. Postmillennial Pop. New York: New York UP, 2013.Mars-Jones, Adam. "A Thin Slice of Cake." The Guardian, 16 Feb. 2003. 5 Oct. 2015 ‹http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/feb/16/andrewmotion.fiction›.McBride, Joseph. Steven Spielberg: A Biography. 3rd ed. London: Faber & Faber, 2012.Mittell, Jason. Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling. New York: New York UP, 2015.Moraru, Christian. Rewriting: Postmodern Narrative and Cultural Critique in the Age of Cloning. Herndon, VA: State U of New York P, 2001. Motion, Andrew. Silver: Return to Treasure Island. London: Jonathan Cape, 2012.Raiders of the Lost Ark. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Paramount/Columbia Pictures, 1981.Wolf, Maryanne, and Mirit Barzillai. "The Importance of Deep Reading." Educational Leadership. March (2009): 32–36.Wordsworth, William. The Prelude, or, Growth of a Poet's Mind: An Autobiographical Poem. London: Edward Moxon, 1850.

Abstract:

In a recent "Arts & Leisure" feature in a national Canadian newspaper, The Globe and Mail (5 June 1999), music critic Robert Everett-Green muses on the invention by the pop music industry of Andrea Bocelli as an opera singer: "call him an airborne virus or a gift from God ... . He is the voice you are most likely to hear while waiting for a double latte." The pop sentimentality industry fast-tracked Bocelli (a pop singer who "sounds" operatic) and created a global entertainment product. In a masterful stroke of high pop spectacle, the holy trinity of musical melodrama joined together -- Bocelli and Céline Dion gush out David Foster's "The Prayer", the theme for the movie Quest for Camelot -- to create an exquisite pop moment. The massive reach of the mainstream; the resonant power of vocal turgidity and excess; the pop diva who never met a song she couldn't oversing -- this is the pop often neglected in critical forays into the nature of the popular that search for the active and the participatory dimensions of popular culture. Yet pop both plunders and perpetuates popular culture; it contains and dramatises the social possibilities of popular culture, and at the same time, spreads out like a great theme park of trivia. Let's pick through the trash. If nothing else, the contemplation of the "question" of pop is an enterprise which often begins with the issue of redemption for popular culture. Even the cultural populist wrestles with the anxiety that much of what we understand as "pop" in culture constitutes the detritus, the ephemera, a repository of the trivialities of society in all of its contemporary moments. The best critical insights into the nature and substance of popular culture (studies in cultural geography and perspectives on history and collective memory, for examples), recognise that what they are considering, describing, and analysing in the spaces and experiences of the popular is at the very least deeply and irrevocably contradictory. The cool, renegade, and enormously creative cultural excursions and general messing about of turntablism and drum'n'bass, for examples, are democratic, active, even "heroic" by some critical discourses, where, say, the maudlin "pop diva" is forgettable at best, and unworthy of an analytical encounter at worst. There is a haziness to the concept of "pop", and more broadly, "popular", and the definitional defiance among the numerous and varied theorists of this energetic practice and/or genre of cultural form and production produces a rather decentred, if not indeterminate object of study. Bill Readings's critique of Cultural Studies offers the relevance of analogy here. Readings notes the "second moment" in the progress of Cultural Studies (around 1990), and the publication of a number of works at the time "that seem to mark the acquisition of professional disciplinarity of Cultural Studies". His excavation of these works reveals a characteristic theoretical element or two -- the suspicion of "the exclusionary force of certain boundaries: female/male, north/south, center/margin, high culture/low culture, western/other, heterosexual/homosexual" (97) -- and some of the authoritative antecedents of these theories against exclusion (Williams, Foucault, Gramsci, Hall, and others). Yet he notes that the striking characteristic of Cultural Studies is the thinness or even absence of theoretical definition or specificity -- "how little it needs to determine its object. Which does not mean that a lot of theorising doesn't go on in its name, only that such efforts are not undertaken in a way that secures the relation of an observer to a determinate set of phenomena or an autonomous object" (97). There is then, a frustration in providing an account of what it means to "do" Cultural Studies, or, more glaringly, what exactly the promised political interventions of Cultural Studies are in the context of hazy objects, floating themes, and sketchy "projects", all of which are products of the declared refusal by Cultural Studies to submit to definitional constraints. Pop suffers from a similar indeterminacy in its object of study, but interestingly because its tends to be over-defined rather than under-defined. Figuring out the object of study in pop is not unlike attempting to parse the object(s) of study in Cultural Studies -- a frustration ultimately, but for very different reasons. Pop is a universe of "anything and everything", and incomprehensible not because it is conceptually challenging (like a universe), but because its geography stretches across so much cultural space. In critiques, pop takes on the torque of the critic, a necessary strategy to somehow delimit its space, and make it graspable, if not meaningful. Encounters with pop (as in "pop art" and "PoMo pop") mine for signs of life among the trash, and have come up with a heartbeat or two on occasion. This geography of trash is in need of some attention. For conceptual guidance in this task, or at least for some respite from the arguments about the "projects" and "interventions" of pop and popular culture, I turn to Don DeLillo's seminal critique of media, consumerism, and the bizarre dislocations and bewildering drift of contemporary social life in his 1985 novel, White Noise (a book that should be required reading for undergraduate courses in media and communication). Murray Jay Suskind, an ex-sports writer and émigré from New York City has come to University-on-the-Hill in Blacksmith, somewhere in middle America, and has assumed his position as visiting lecturer in the Department of American Environments. He becomes a kind of participant-observer and quasi-family member in the household of Jack Gladney, the narrator of the novel and Chairman of the Department of Hitler Studies at the university -- a field he invented in 1968. Murray expresses his desire to establish an "Elvis Presley power base in the department of American Environments", to "do for Elvis" what Jack has "done for Hitler". Murray is engaged in a debate with his students on the true substance and significance of television, and the media-saturated Gladney household serves as a laboratory. Murray argues that the medium is a "primal force in the American home ... a myth being born right there in our living room". Murray elaborates in a conversation with Jack: You have to learn to look. You have to open yourself to the data. TV offers incredible amounts of psychic data. It opens up ancient memories of world birth, its welcomes us into the grid, the network of little buzzing dots that make up the picture pattern. There is light, there is sound. I ask my students, "What more do you want? Look at the wealth of data concealed in the grid, in the bright packaging, the jingles, the slice-of-life commercials, the products hurtling out of the darkness, the coded messages and endless repetitions, like chants, like mantras. 'Coke is it, Coke is it, Coke is it.' The medium practically overflows with sacred formulas if we can remember how to respond innocently and get past our irritation, weariness and disgust. (51) His students disagree -- television for them is "worse than junk mail", it is "the death throes of human consciousness". Murray, however, finds vindication in the Gladney home where the children live lives of total consumer/television immersion to the extent that they eat, think, speak, and dream according to all things televisual and all things commercial. Jack and his wife Babette are fearful of TV, its "narcotic undertow and eerie diseased brain-sucking power", and Babette has developed a strategy to "de-glamorise" television for the good of the family by instituting a family ritual of watching television en masse every Friday night. Mostly numbed or bored, the family occasionally engages in the strangely pleasurable and thoroughly grotesque activity of watching catastrophes: "we were otherwise silent, watching houses slide into the ocean, whole villages crackle and ignite in a mass of advance lava". The family found itself wishing for more with each disaster on the screen, something more sensational, "something bigger, grander, more sweeping" (64). The popular life as depicted by DeLillo is gripping in its familiarity. It is a life that unfolds around and within the television screen; a life that unfolds beside chemical dump sites and industrial waste zones, where toxic fallout produces glorious sunsets as well as fruit that is bright and burnished and always appears to be in season; a life that unfolds in supermarkets and malls where shopping is automatic, somnambulant, and strangely comforting; a life grounded in, structured by, and rationalised within consumerism, media, and omnipresent technological forces that produce everything from dark and insidious pharmaceuticals to an airborne toxic cloud; a life in which families are fragmented and destroyed by the very institutions and pastimes (Disney World and shopping) that declare and promote the support of families and their "values". There is a refrain that emerges like some unconscious ritual chant in the novel, a refrain that has no context or exposition, and that moves through and around the dialogue and the text like a persistent advertising jingle that refuses to quit one's head: Dacron, Orlon, Lycra, Spandex Mastercard, Visa, American Express Leaded, Unleaded, Superunleaded And when children dream, they dream in the consumer-unconscious. Jack hears his child mumbling something in her sleep, and leans closer to hear. She says, "Toyota Celica". The utterance transports Jack, an utterance that was "beautiful and mysterious, gold-shot with looming wonder. It was like the name of an ancient power in the sky, tablet-carved in cuneiform" (155). The brand name has come to have sacred resonance, supreme, transcendent, the stuff of dreams. This is a fiction about suffocating distractedly under the sheer weighty banality of popular trash. It offers a portrait of all of us deep in the commercial media swamp, flailing about in the flotsam and jetsam of all things commercial and popular. DeLillo's narrative moves towards its dark conclusion as the malevolent force of the toxic cloud brings the certainty of death in uncertain ways. The apocalyptic moment is evidenced by the sudden rearrangement of goods on the supermarket shelves. "Older shoppers" panic: "they walk in a fragmented trance, stop and go, clusters of well-dressed figures frozen in the aisles, trying to figure out the pattern, discern the underlying logic, trying to remember where they'd seen the Cream of Wheat" (325). DeLillo's version of life as we know offers some compelling signposts. Mainstream trash -- much of pop, if you will -- is toxic at many turns, and if not a great cloud, then infinitely more than a mere inflection. We desire that which we despise, and herein is the power of pop as a concept, a way of offering a critical trajectory. In a reflection on Pop Art, Roy Lichtenstein once remarked that "What characterises Pop is mainly its use of what is despised" (qtd. in Barthes 22). The pop impulse in art has always suggested a useful ambivalence for addressing the contradictions of life in the maelstrom -- the artist as interventionist/renegade and as commercial hack/celebrity; artful plundering and artless reproduction; the simultaneity of the provocation and the tedium of art in the pop mode; the knowable faux finish of the commercial good look of things and falseness as the raw material of cultural production; bad taste and cool cultural assaults. Pop in art has been accused of constituting a kind of slick cultural finish over cheap particle board. Still, there is a modicum of subversive power in the reversal of values in Pop Art (and in its precursors and its legacies) -- the common, the vulgar, the garish, the boring, the mass produced, the consumable, the pure commodity, all reworked to reveal their common, vulgar, garish, boring, massified, consumable, commodity nature. There have been impressive pop stylistic aggressions carried out against the constipation of high tastes, immutable standards, seriousness, and the ideologies of artistic and cultural legitimacy. Yet at times pop has been blunted by its very self-conscious edge as it engaged in self-congratulations for its irony, pith, and hipness. For some critics, pop in art suffers the malady of most style statements in the postmodern plague -- statements with no convictions since such statements are served up in quotation marks; and a life in quotation marks is no life at all. Pop declares that it is the progeny of commercial technique, marketplaces, advertising, and the commodity environments of junk; and if it didn't exactly spring from the mall, it has come to reside there now between the fountain and the food fair. At its worst, pop appears to be a vaporescent activity, but this perspective neglects some fine and very active pop moments. Pop excursions are important because they can open up creative and critical responses to popular culture. There is pop practice that rises well above empty irony and the business of oversinging (as in some current and brilliant cut-ups and constructed sounds in performance that not only have emotional substance, but are also danceable). Sometimes, out of the trash heap of pop, there are spaces in which popular culture is regenerated. And it is only in this relationship to popular culture that pop matters. References Barthes, Roland. "That Old Thing Called Art." Post-Pop Art. Ed. Paul Taylor. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1989. DeLillo, Don. White Noise. New York: Viking, 1985. Readings, Bill. The University in Ruins Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1996. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Martin Laba. "Picking through the Trash." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.4 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/trash.php>. Chicago style: Martin Laba, "Picking through the Trash," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 4 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/trash.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Martin Laba. (1999) Picking through the trash. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(4). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9906/trash.php> ([your date of access]).

Abstract:

By the 12th century, coffee was extensively cultivated in Yemen, and qawha and cahveh, hot beverages made from roast and ground coffee beans, became popular in the Islamic world over the next 300 years. Commercial production of coffee outside Yemen started in Sri Lanka in the 1660s, Java in the 1700s, and Latin America in 1715, and this production has associations with histories of colonial expansion and slavery. Introduced to Europe in the 17th century, coffee was described by Robert Burton in the section of his 1628 Anatomy of Melancholy devoted to medicines as “an intoxicant, a euphoric, a social and physical stimulant, and a digestive aid” (quoted in Weinberg and Bealer xii). Today, more than 400 billion cups of coffee are consumed each year. Coffee is also an ingredient in a series of iconic dishes such as tiramisu and, with chocolate, makes up the classic mocha mix. Coffee production is widespread in tropical and sub-tropical countries and it is the second largest traded world commodity; second only to oil and petroleum. The World Bank estimates that more than 500 million people throughout the world depend on coffee for their livelihoods, and 25 million of these are coffee farmers. Unfortunately, these farmers typically live and work in substandard conditions and receive only a small percentage of the final price that their coffee is sold for. The majority of coffee farmers are women and they face additional challenges, frequently suffering from abuse, neglect, and poverty, and unable to gain economic, social, or political power in either their family’s coffee businesses or their communities. Some farm coffee under enslaved or indentured conditions, although Fair Trade regimes are offering some lessening of inequalities. At the opposite end of the scale, a small, but growing, number of high-end producers market gourmet sustainable coffee from small-scale, environmentally-aware farming operations. For many in the West today, however, coffee is not about the facts of its production; coffee is all about consumption, and is now interwoven into our contemporary cultural and social habits. Caffeine, found in the leaves, seeds, and fruit of the coffee tree, is an addictive psychoactive substance, but has overcome resistance and disapproval around the world and is now unregulated and freely available, without licence. Our gastronomic sophistication is reflected in which coffee, brewing method, and location of consumption is chosen; our fast-paced lifestyles in the range of coffee-to-go options we have; and our capitalist orientation in the business opportunities this popularity has offered to small entrepreneurs and multinational franchise chains alike. Cafés and the meeting, mingling, discussions, and relaxing that occur there while drinking coffee, are a contemporary topic of reflection and scholarship, as are the similarities and differences between the contemporary café and its earlier incarnations, including, of course, the Enlightenment coffee house. As may be expected from a commodity which has such a place in our lives, coffee is represented in many ways in the media—including in advertising, movies, novels, poetry, songs and, of course, in culinary writing, including cookbooks, magazines, and newspapers. There are specialist journals and popular serials dedicated to expounding and exploring the fine grain detail of its production and consumption, and food historians have written multiple biographies of coffee’s place in our world. So ubiquitous, indeed, is coffee, that as a named colour, it popularly features in fashion, interior design, home wares, and other products. This issue of M/C Journal invited contributors to consider coffee from any relevant angle that makes a contribution to our understanding of coffee and its place in culture and/or the media, and the result is a valuable array of illuminating articles from a diverse range of perspectives. It is for this reason that we chose an image of coffee cherries for the front cover of this issue. Co-editor Jill Adams has worked in the coffee industry for over ten years and has a superb collection of coffee images that ranges from farmers in Papua New Guinea to artfully shot compositions of antique coffee brewing equipment. In making our choice, however, we felt that Spencer Franks’s image of ripe coffee cherries at the Skybury Coffee Plantation in Far North Queensland, Australia, encapsulates the “fruitful” nature of the response to our call for articles for this issue. While most are familiar, moreover, with the dark, glossy appearance and other sensual qualities of roasted coffee beans, fewer have any occasion to contemplate just how lovely the coffee tree is as a plant. Each author has utilised the idea of “coffee” as a powerful springboard into a fascinating range of areas, showing just how inseparable coffee is from so many parts of our daily lives—even scholarly enquiry. In our first feature article, Susie Khamis profiles and interrogates the Nespresso brand, and how it points to the growing individualisation of coffee consumption, whereby the social aspect of cafés gives way to a more self-centred consumer experience. This feature valuably contrasts the way Starbucks has marketed itself as a social hub with the Nespresso boutique experience—which as Khamis explains—is not a café, but rather a club, a trademarked, branded space, predicated on highly knowledgeable and, therefore, privileged patrons. Coffee drinking is also associated with both sobriety and hangover cures, with cigarettes, late nights, and music. Our second feature, by Jon Stewart, looks at how coffee has become interwoven into our lives and imaginations through the music that we listen to—from jazz to blues to musical theatre numbers. It examines the influence of coffee as subject for performers and songwriters in three areas: coffee and courtship rituals, the stimulating effects of caffeine, and the politics of coffee consumption, claiming that coffee carries a cultural and musicological significance comparable to that of other drugs and ubiquitous consumer goods that are often more readily associated with popular music. Diana Noyce looks at the short-lived temperance movement in Australia, the opulent architecture of the coffee palaces built in that era, what was actually drunk in them, and their fates as the temperance movement passed into history. Emma Felton lyrically investigates how “going for a coffee” is less about coffee and more about how we connect with others in a mobile world, when flexible work hours are increasingly the norm and more people are living alone than any other period in history. Felton also introducess a theme that other writers also engage with: that the café also plays a role in the development of civil discourse and civility, and plays an important role in the development of cosmopolitan civil societies. Ireland-based Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire surveys Dublin—that tea drinking city—and both the history of coffee houses and the enduring coffee culture it possesses; a coffee culture that seems well assured through a remarkable win for Ireland in the 2008 World Barista Championships. China has also always been strongly associated with tea drinking but Adel Wang introduces readers to the emerging, and unique, café and coffee culture of that country, as well as some of the proprietors who are bringing about this cultural change. Australia, also once a significant consumer of tea, shifted to a preference for coffee over a twenty year period that began with the arrival of American Servicemen in Australia during World War II. Jill Adams looks at the rise of coffee during that time, and the efforts made by the tea industry to halt its market growth. These strong links between tea and coffee are reflected in Duncan Barnes, Danielle Fusco, and Lelia Green’s thought-provoking study of how coffee is marketed in Bangladesh, another tea drinking country. Ray Oldenberg’s influential concept of the “third place” is referred to by many authors in this collection, but Anthony McCosker and Rowan Wilken focus on this idea. By using a study of how Polish composer, Krzysztof Penderecki, worked in his local café from 9 in the morning to noon each day, this article explores the interrelationship of café space, communication, creativity, and materialism. Donna Lee Brien brings us back to the domestic space with her article on how the popular media of cookery books and magazines portray how coffee was used in Australian cooking at mid-century, in the process, tracing how tiramisu triumphed over the trifle. By exploring the currently fashionable practice of “direct trade” between roasters and coffee growers Sophie Sunderland offers a fresh perspective on coffee production by powerfully arguing that feeling (“affect”) is central to the way in which coffee is produced, represented and consumed in Western mass culture. Sunderland thus brings the issue full circle and back to Khamis’s discussion, for there is much feeling mobilised in the marketing of Nespresso. We would like to thank all the contributors and our generous and erudite peer reviewers for their work in the process of putting together this issue. We would also like to specially thank Spencer Franks for permission to use his image of coffee cherries as our cover image. We would lastly like to thank you the general editors of M/C Journal for selecting this theme for the journal this year.References Oldenburg, Ray, ed. Celebrating the Third Place: Inspiring Stories about the “Great Good Places” At the Heart of Our Communities. New York: Marlowe & Company 2001.Weinberg, Bennett Alan, and Bonnie K Bealer. The World of Caffeine. New York and London: Routledge, 2001.

Abstract:

Unlike some current discourse on automediality, this essay eschews most of the analysis concerning the adoption or modification of avatars to deliberately enhance, extend or distort the self. Rather than the automedial enabling of alternative, virtual selves modified by playful, confronting or disarming avatars we concentrate instead on emerging efforts to present the self in hyper-realist, interactive modes. In doing so we ask, what is the relationship between traumatic forms of automediation and the affective impact on and response of the audience? We argue that, while on the one hand there are promising avenues for valuable individual and social engagements with traumatic forms of automediation, there is an overwhelming predominance of suffering as a theme in such virtual depictions, comingled with uncritically asserted promises of empathy, which are problematic as the technology assumes greater mainstream uptake.As Smith and Watson note, embodiment is always a “translation” where the body is “dematerialized” in virtual representation (“Virtually” 78). Past scholarship has analysed the capacity of immersive realms, such as Second Life or online games, to highlight how users can modify their avatars in often spectacular, non-human forms. Critics of this mode of automediality note that users can adopt virtually any persona they like (racial, religious, gendered and sexual, human, animal or hybrid, and of any age), behaving as “identity tourists” while occupying virtual space or inhabiting online communities (Nakamura). Furthermore, recent work by Jaron Lanier, a key figure from the 1980s period of early Virtual Reality (VR) technology, has also explored so-called “homuncular flexibility” which describes the capacity for humans to seemingly adapt automatically to the control mechanisms of an avatar with multiple legs, other non-human appendages, or for two users to work in tandem to control a single avatar (Won et. al.). But this article is concerned less with these single or multi-player online environments and the associated concerns over modifying interactive identities. We are principally interested in other automedial modes where the “auto” of autobiography is automated via Artificial Intelligences (AIs) to convincingly mimic human discourse as narrated life-histories.We draw from case studies promoted by the 2017 season of ABC television’s flagship science program, Catalyst, which opened with semi-regular host and biological engineer Dr Jordan Nguyen, proclaiming in earnest, almost religious fervour: “I want to do something that has long been a dream. I want to create a copy of a human. An avatar. And it will have a life of its own in virtual reality.” As the camera followed Nguyen’s rapid pacing across real space he extolled: “Virtual reality, virtual human, they push the limits of the imagination and help us explore the impossible […] I want to create a virtual copy of a person. A digital addition to the family, using technology we have now.”The troubling implications of such rhetoric were stark and the next third of the program did little to allay such techno-scientific misgivings. Directed and produced by David Symonds, with Nguyen credited as co-developer and presenter, the episode “Meet the Avatars” immediately introduced scenarios where “volunteers” entered a pop-up inner city virtual lab, to experience VR for the first time. The volunteers were shown on screen subjected to a range of experimental VR environments designed to elicit fear and/or adverse and disorienting responses such as vertigo, while the presenter and researchers from Sydney University constantly smirked and laughed at their participants’ discomfort. We can only wonder what the ethics process was for both the ABC and university researchers involved in these broadcast experiments. There is little doubt that the participant/s experienced discomfort, if not distress, and that was televised to a national audience. Presenter Nguyen was also shown misleading volunteers on their way to the VR lab, when one asked “You’re not going to chuck us out of a virtual plane are you?” to which Nguyen replied “I don't know what we’re going to do yet,” when it was next shown that they immediately underwent pre-programmed VR exposure scenarios, including a fear of falling exercise from atop a city skyscraper.The sweat-inducing and heart rate-racing exposures to virtual plank walks high above a cityscape, or seeing subjects haptically viewing spiders crawl across their outstretched virtual hands, all elicited predictable responses, showcased as carnivalesque entertainment for the viewing audience. As we will see, this kind of trivialising of a virtual environment’s capacity for immersion belies the serious use of the technology in a range of treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (see Rizzo and Koenig; Rothbaum, Rizzo and Difede).Figure 1: Nguyen and researchers enjoying themselves as their volunteers undergo VR exposure Defining AutomedialityIn their pioneering 2008 work, Automedialität: Subjektkonstitution in Schrift, Bild und neuen Medien, Jörg Dünne and Christian Moser coined the term “automediality” to problematise the production, application and distribution of autobiographic modes across various media and genres—from literary texts to audiovisual media and from traditional expression to inter/transmedia and remediated formats. The concept of automediality was deployed to counter the conventional critical exclusion of analysis of the materiality/technology used for an autobiographical purpose (Gernalzick). Dünne and Moser proffered a concept of automediality that rejects the binary division of (a) self-expression determining the mediated form or (b) (self)subjectivity being solely produced through the mediating technology. Hence, automediality has been traditionally applied to literary constructs such as autobiography and life-writing, but is now expanding into the digital domain and other “paratextual sites” (Maguire).As Nadja Gernalzick suggests, automediality should “encourage and demand not only a systematics and taxonomy of the constitution of the self in respectively genre-specific ways, but particularly also in medium-specific ways” (227). Emma Maguire has offered a succinct working definition that builds on this requirement to signal the automedial universally, noting it operates asa way of studying auto/biographical texts (of a variety of forms) that take into account how the effects of media shape the kinds of selves that can be represented, and which understands the self not as a preexisting subject that might be distilled into story form but as an entity that is brought into being through the processes of mediation.Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson point to automediality as a methodology, and in doing so emphasize how the telling or mediation of a life actually shapes the kind of story that can be told autobiographically. They state “media cannot simply be conceptualized as ‘tools’ for presenting a preexisting, essential self […] Media technologies do not just transparently present the self. They constitute and expand it” (Smith and Watson “Virtually Me” 77).This distinction is vital for understanding how automediality might be applied to self-expression in virtual domains, including the holographic avatar dreams of Nguyen throughout Catalyst. Although addressing this distinction in relation to online websites, following P. David Marshall’s description of “the proliferation of the public self”, Maguire notes:The same integration of digital spaces and platforms into daily life that is prompting the development of new tools in autobiography studies […] has also given rise to the field of persona studies, which addresses the ways in which individuals engage in practices of self-presentation in order to form commoditised identities that circulate in affective communities.For Maguire, these automedial works operate textually “to construct the authorial self or persona”.An extension to this digital, authorial construction is apparent in the exponential uptake of screen mediated prosumer generated content, whether online or theatrical (Miller). According to Gernalzick, unlike fictional drama films, screen autobiographies more directly enable “experiential temporalities”. Based on Mary Anne Doane’s promotion of the “indexicality” of film/screen representations to connote the real, Gernalzick suggests that despite semiotic theories of the index problematising realism as an index as representation, the film medium is still commonly comprehended as the “imprint of time itself”:Film and the spectator of film are said to be in a continuous present. Because the viewer is aware, however, that the images experienced in or even as presence have been made in the past, the temporality of the so-called filmic present is always ambiguous” (230).When expressed as indexical, automedial works, the intrinsic audio-visual capacities of film and video (as media) far surpass the temporal limitations of print and writing (Gernalzick, 228). One extreme example can be found in an emergent trend of “performance crime” murder and torture videos live-streamed or broadcast after the fact using mobile phone cameras and FaceBook (Bender). In essence, the political economy of the automedial ecology is important to understand in the overall context of self expression and the governance of content exhibition, access, distribution and—where relevant—interaction.So what are the implications for automedial works that employ virtual interfaces and how does this evolving medium inform both the expressive autobiographical mode and audiences subjectivities?Case StudyThe Catalyst program described above strove to shed new light on the potential for emerging technology to capture and create virtual avatars from living participants who (self-)generate autobiographical narratives interactively. Once past the initial gee-wiz journalistic evangelism of VR, the episode turned towards host Nguyen’s stated goal—using contemporary technology to create an autonomous virtual human clone. Nguyen laments that if he could create only one such avatar, his primary choice would be that of his grandfather who died when Nguyen was two years old—a desire rendered impossible. The awkward humour of the plank walk scenario sequence soon gives way as the enthusiastic Nguyen is surprised by his family’s discomfort with the idea of digitally recreating his grandfather.Nguyen next visits a Southern California digital media lab to experience the process by which 3D virtual human avatars are created. Inside a domed array of lights and cameras, in less than one second a life-size 3D avatar is recorded via 6,000 LEDs illuminating his face in 20 different combinations, with eight cameras capturing the exposures from multiple angles, all in ultra high definition. Called the Light Stage (Debevec), it is the same technology used to create a life size, virtual holocaust survivor, Pinchas Gutter (Ziv).We see Nguyen encountering a life-size, high-resolution 2D screen version of Gutter’s avatar. Standing before a microphone, Nguyen asks a series of questions about Gutter’s wartime experiences and life in the concentration camps. The responses are naturalistic and authentic, as are the pauses between questions. The high definition 4K screen is photo-realist but much more convincing in-situ (as an artifact of the Catalyst video camera recording, in some close-ups horizontal lines of transmission appear). According to the project’s curator, David Traum, the real Pinchas Gutter was recorded in 3D as a virtual holograph. He spent 25 hours providing 1,600 responses to a broad range of questions that the curator maintained covered “a lot of what people want to say” (Catalyst).Figure 2: The Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan presented an installation of New Dimensions in Testimony, featuring Pinchas Gutter and Eva SchlossIt is here that the intersection between VR and auto/biography hybridise in complex and potentially difficult ways. It is where the concept of automediality may offer insight into this rapidly emerging phenomenon of creating interactive, hyperreal versions of our selves using VR. These hyperreal VR personae can be questioned and respond in real-time, where interrogators interact either as casual conversers or determined interrogators.The impact on visitors is sobering and palpable. As Nguyen relates at the end of his session, “I just want to give him a hug”. The demonstrable capacity for this avatar to engender a high degree of empathy from its automedial testimony is clear, although as we indicate below, it could simply indicate increased levels of emotion.Regardless, an ongoing concern amongst witnesses, scholars and cultural curators of memorials and museums dedicated to preserving the history of mass violence, and its associated trauma, is that once the lived experience and testimony of survivors passes with that generation the impact of the testimony diminishes (Broderick). New media modes of preserving and promulgating such knowledge in perpetuity are certainly worthy of embracing. As Stephen Smith, the executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation suggests, the technology could extendto people who have survived cancer or catastrophic hurricanes […] from the experiences of soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder or survivors of sexual abuse, to those of presidents or great teachers. Imagine if a slave could have told her story to her grandchildren? (Ziv)Yet questions remain as to the veracity of these recorded personae. The avatars are created according to a specific agenda and the autobiographical content controlled for explicit editorial purposes. It is unclear what and why material has been excluded. If, for example, during the recorded questioning, the virtual holocaust survivor became mute at recollecting a traumatic memory, cried or sobbed uncontrollably—all natural, understandable and authentic responses given the nature of the testimony—should these genuine and spontaneous emotions be included along with various behavioural ticks such as scratching, shifting about in the seat and other naturalistic movements, to engender a more profound realism?The generation of the photorealist, mimetic avatar—remaining as an interactive persona long after the corporeal, authorial being is gone—reinforces Baudrillard’s concept of simulacra, where a clone exists devoid of its original entity and unable to challenge its automedial discourse. And what if some unscrupulous hacker managed to corrupt and subvert Gutter’s AI so that it responded antithetically to its purpose, by denying the holocaust ever happened? The ethical dilemmas of such a paradigm were explored in the dystopian 2013 film, The Congress, where Robyn Wright plays herself (and her avatar), as an out of work actor who sells off the rights to her digital self. A movie studio exploits her screen persona in perpetuity, enabling audiences to “become” and inhabit her avatar in virtual space while she is limited in the real world from undertaking certain actions due to copyright infringement. The inability of Wright to control her mimetic avatar’s discourse or action means the assumed automedial agency of her virtual self as an immortal, interactive being remains ontologically perplexing.Figure 3: Robyn Wright undergoing a full body photogrammetry to create her VR avatar in The Congress (2013)The various virtual exposures/experiences paraded throughout Catalyst’s “Meet the Avatars” paradoxically recorded and broadcast a range of troubling emotional responses to such immersion. Many participant responses suggest great caution and sensitivity be undertaken before plunging headlong into the new gold rush mentality of virtual reality, augmented reality, and AI affordances. Catalyst depicted their program subjects often responding in discomfort and distress, with some visibly overwhelmed by their encounters and left crying. There is some irony that presenter Ngyuen was himself relying on the conventions of 2D linear television journalism throughout, adopting face-to-camera address in (unconscious) automedial style to excitedly promote the assumed socio-cultural boon such automedial VR avatars will generate.Challenging AuthenticityThere are numerous ethical considerations surrounding the potential for AIs to expand beyond automedial (self-)expression towards photorealist avatars interacting outside of their pre-recorded content. When such systems evolve it may be neigh impossible to discern on screen whether the person you are conversing with is authentic or an indistinguishable, virtual doppelganger. In the future, a variant on the Turning Test may be needed to challenge and identify such hyperreal simulacra. We may be witnessing the precursor to such a dilemma playing out in the arena of audio-only podcasts, with some public intellectuals such as Sam Harris already discussing the legal and ethical problems from technology that can create audio from typed text that convincingly replicate the actual voice of a person by sampling approximately 30 minutes of their original speech (Harris). Such audio manipulation technology will soon be available to anybody with the motivation and relatively minor level of technological ability in order to assume an identity and masquerade as automediated dialogue. However, for the moment, the ability to convincingly alter a real-time computer generated video image of a person remains at the level of scientific innovation.Also of significance is the extent to which the audience reactions to such automediated expressions are indeed empathetic or simply part of the broader range of affective responses that also include direct sympathy as well as emotions such as admiration, surprise, pity, disgust and contempt (see Plantinga). There remains much rhetorical hype surrounding VR as the “ultimate empathy machine” (Milk). Yet the current use of the term “empathy” in VR, AI and automedial forms of communication seems to be principally focused on the capacity for the user-viewer to ameliorate negatively perceived emotions and experiences, whether traumatic or phobic.When considering comments about authenticity here, it is important to be aware of the occasional slippage of technological terminology into the mainstream. For example, the psychological literature does emphasise that patients respond strongly to virtual scenarios, events, and details that appear to be “authentic” (Pertaub, Slater, and Barker). Authentic in this instance implies a resemblance to a corresponding scenario/activity in the real world. This is not simply another word for photorealism, but rather it describes for instance the experimental design of one study in which virtual (AI) audience members in a virtual seminar room designed to treat public speaking anxiety were designed to exhibit “random autonomous behaviours in real-time, such as twitches, blinks, and nods, designed to encourage the illusion of life” (Kwon, Powell and Chalmers 980). The virtual humans in this study are regarded as having greater authenticity than an earlier project on social anxiety (North, North, and Coble) which did not have much visual complexity but did incorporate researcher-triggered audio clips of audience members “laughing, making comments, encouraging the speaker to speak louder or more clearly” (Kwon, Powell, and Chalmers 980). The small movements, randomly cued rather than according to a recognisable pattern, are described by the researchers as creating a sense of authenticity in the VR environment as they seem to correspond to the sorts of random minor movements that actual human audiences in a seminar can be expected to make.Nonetheless, nobody should regard an interaction with these AIs, or the avatar of Gutter, as in any way an encounter with a real person. Rather, the characteristics above function to create a disarming effect and enable the real person-viewer to willingly suspend their disbelief and enter into a pseudo-relationship with the AI; not as if it is an actual relationship, but as if it is a simulation of an actual relationship (USC). Lucy Suchman and colleagues invoke these ideas in an analysis of a YouTube video of some apparently humiliating human interactions with the MIT created AI-robot Mertz. Their analysis contends that, while it may appear on first glance that the humans’ mocking exchange with Mertz are mean-spirited, there is clearly a playfulness and willingness to engage with a form of AI that is essentially continuous with “long-standing assumptions about communication as information processing, and in the robot’s performance evidence for the limits to the mechanical reproduction of interaction as we know it through computational processes” (Suchman, Roberts, and Hird).Thus, it will be important for future work in the area of automediated testimony to consider the extent to which audiences are willing to suspend disbelief and treat the recounted traumatic experience with appropriate gravitas. These questions deserve attention, and not the kind of hype displayed by the current iteration of techno-evangelism. Indeed, some of this resurgent hype has come under scrutiny. From the perspective of VR-based tourism, Janna Thompson has recently argued that “it will never be a substitute for encounters with the real thing” (Thompson). Alyssa K. Loh, for instance, also argues that many of the negatively themed virtual experiences—such as those that drop the viewer into a scene of domestic violence or the location of a terrorist bomb attack—function not to put you in the position of the actual victim but in the position of the general category of domestic violence victim, or bomb attack victim, thus “deindividuating trauma” (Loh).Future work in this area should consider actual audience responses and rely upon mixed-methods research approaches to audience analysis. In an era of alt.truth and Cambridge Analytics personality profiling from social media interaction, automediated communication in the virtual guise of AIs demands further study.ReferencesAnon. “New Dimensions in Testimony.” Museum of Jewish Heritage. 15 Dec. 2017. 19 Apr. 2018 <http://mjhnyc.org/exhibitions/new-dimensions-in-testimony/>.Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “Meet The Avatars.” Catalyst, 15 Aug. 2017.Baudrillard, Jean. “Simulacra and Simulations.” Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings. Ed. Mark Poster. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1988. 166-184.Bender, Stuart Marshall. Legacies of the Degraded Image in Violent Digital Media. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.Broderick, Mick. “Topographies of Trauma, Dark Tourism and World Heritage: Hiroshima’s Genbaku Dome.” Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific. 24 Apr. 2010. 14 Apr. 2018 <http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue24/broderick.htm>.Debevec, Paul. “The Light Stages and Their Applications to Photoreal Digital Actors.” SIGGRAPH Asia. 2012.Doane, Mary Ann. The Emergence of Cinematic Time: Modernity, Contingency, the Archive. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2002.Dünne, Jörg, and Christian Moser. “Allgemeine Einleitung: Automedialität”. Automedialität: Subjektkonstitution in Schrift, Bild und neuen Medien. Eds. Jörg Dünne and Christian Moser. München: Wilhelm Fink, 2008. 7-16.Harris, Sam. “Waking Up with Sam Harris #64 – Ask Me Anything.” YouTube, 16 Feb. 2017. 16 Mar. 2018 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMTuquaAC4w>.Kwon, Joung Huem, John Powell, and Alan Chalmers. “How Level of Realism Influences Anxiety in Virtual Reality Environments for a Job Interview.” International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 71.10 (2013): 978-87.Loh, Alyssa K. "I Feel You." Artforum, Nov. 2017. 10 Apr. 2018 <https://www.artforum.com/print/201709/alyssa-k-loh-on-virtual-reality-and-empathy-71781>.Marshall, P. David. “Persona Studies: Mapping the Proliferation of the Public Self.” Journalism 15.2 (2014): 153-170.Mathews, Karen. “Exhibit Allows Virtual ‘Interviews’ with Holocaust Survivors.” Phys.org Science X Network, 15 Dec. 2017. 18 Apr. 2018 <https://phys.org/news/2017-09-virtual-holocaust-survivors.html>.Maguire, Emma. “Home, About, Shop, Contact: Constructing an Authorial Persona via the Author Website” M/C Journal 17.9 (2014).Miller, Ken. More than Fifteen Minutes of Fame: The Evolution of Screen Performance. Unpublished PhD Thesis. Murdoch University. 2009.Milk, Chris. “Ted: How Virtual Reality Can Create the Ultimate Empathy Machine.” TED Conferences, LLC. 16 Mar. 2015. <https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_milk_how_virtual_reality_can_create_the_ultimate_empathy_machine>.Nakamura, Lisa. “Cyberrace.” Identity Technologies: Constructing the Self Online. Eds. Anna Poletti and Julie Rak. Madison, Wisconsin: U of Wisconsin P, 2014. 42-54.North, Max M., Sarah M. North, and Joseph R Coble. "Effectiveness of Virtual Environment Desensitization in the Treatment of Agoraphobia." International Journal of Virtual Reality 1.2 (1995): 25-34.Pertaub, David-Paul, Mel Slater, and Chris Barker. “An Experiment on Public Speaking Anxiety in Response to Three Different Types of Virtual Audience.” Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 11.1 (2002): 68-78.Plantinga, Carl. "Emotion and Affect." The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film. Eds. Paisley Livingstone and Carl Plantinga. New York: Routledge, 2009. 86-96.Rizzo, A.A., and Sebastian Koenig. “Is Clinical Virtual Reality Ready for Primetime?” Neuropsychology 31.8 (2017): 877-99.Rothbaum, Barbara O., Albert “Skip” Rizzo, and JoAnne Difede. "Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy for Combat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1208.1 (2010): 126-32.Smith, Sidonie, and Julia Watson. Reading Autobiography: A Guide to Interpreting Life Narratives. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2010.———. “Virtually Me: A Toolbox about Online Self-Presentation.” Identity Technologies: Constructing the Self Online. Eds. Anna Poletti and Julie Rak. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 2014. 70-95.Suchman, Lucy, Celia Roberts, and Myra J. Hird. "Subject Objects." Feminist Theory 12.2 (2011): 119-45.Thompson, Janna. "Why Virtual Reality Cannot Match the Real Thing." The Conversation, 14 Mar. 2018. 10 Apr. 2018 <http://theconversation.com/why-virtual-reality-cannot-match-the-real-thing-92035>.USC. "Skip Rizzo on Medical Virtual Reality: USC Global Conference 2014." YouTube, 28 Oct. 2014. 2 Apr. 2018 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdFge2XgDa8>.Won, Andrea Stevenson, Jeremy Bailenson, Jimmy Lee, and Jaron Lanier. "Homuncular Flexibility in Virtual Reality." Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 20.3 (2015): 241-59.Ziv, Stan. “How Technology Is Keeping Holocaust Survivor Stories Alive Forever”. Newsweek, 18 Oct. 2017. 19 Apr. 2018 <http://www.newsweek.com/2017/10/27/how-technology-keeping-holocaust-survivor-stories-alive-forever-687946.html>.

Abstract:

“...children’s play seems to become more and more a product of the educational and cultural orientation of parents...” — Stephen Kline, The Making of Children’s Culture We live in a world saturated by design and through design artefacts, one can glean unique insights into a culture's values and norms. In fact, some academics, such as British media and film theorist Ben Highmore, see the two areas so inextricably intertwined as to suggest a wholesale “re-branding of the cultural sciences as design studies” (14). Too often, however, everyday objects are marginalised or overlooked as objects of scholarly attention. The field of material culture studies seeks to change that by focussing on the quotidian object and its ability to reveal much about the time, place, and culture in which it was designed and used. This article takes on one such object, a mid-century children's toy tea set, whose humble journey from 1968 Sears catalogue to 2014 thrift shop—and subsequently this author’s basement—reveals complex rhetorical messages communicated both visually and verbally. As material culture studies theorist Jules Prown notes, the field’s foundation is laid upon the understanding “that objects made ... by man reflect, consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly, the beliefs of individuals who made, commissioned, purchased or used them, and by extension the beliefs of the larger society to which they belonged” (1-2). In this case, the objects’ material and aesthetic characteristics can be shown to reflect some of the pervasive stereotypes and gender roles of the mid-century and trace some of the prevailing tastes of the American middle class of that era, or perhaps more accurately the type of design that came to represent good taste and a modern aesthetic for that audience. A wealth of research exists on the function of toys and play in learning about the world and even the role of toy selection in early sex-typing, socialisation, and personal identity of children (Teglasi). This particular research area isn’t the focus of this article; however, one aspect that is directly relevant and will be addressed is the notion of adult role-playing among children and the role of toys in communicating certain adult practices or values to the child—what sociologist David Oswell calls “the dedifferentiation of childhood and adulthood” (200). Neither is the focus of this article the practice nor indeed the ethicality of marketing to children. Relevant to this particular example I suggest, is as a product utilising messaging aimed not at children but at adults, appealing to certain parents’ interest in nurturing within their child a perceived era and class-appropriate sense of taste. This was fuelled in large part by the curatorial pursuits of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, coupled with an interest and investment in raising their children in a design-forward household and a desire for toys that reflected that priority; in essence, parents wishing to raise modern children. Following Prown’s model of material culture analysis, the tea set is examined in three stages, through description, deduction and speculation with each stage building on the previous one. Figure 1: Porcelain Toy Tea Set. Description The tea set consists of twenty-six pieces that allows service for six. Six cups, saucers, and plates; a tall carafe with spout, handle and lid; a smaller vessel with a spout and handle; a small round bowl with a lid; a larger oval bowl with a lid, and a coordinated oval platter. The cups are just under two inches tall and two inches in diameter. The largest piece, the platter is roughly six inches by four inches. The pieces are made of a ceramic material white in colour and glossy in texture and are very lightweight. The rim or edge of each piece is decorated with a motif of three straight lines in two different shades of blue and in different thicknesses, interspersed with a set of three black wiggly lines. Figure 2: Porcelain Toy Tea Set Box. The set is packaged for retail purposes and the original box appears to be fully intact. The packaging of an object carries artefactual evidence just as important as what it contains that falls into the category of a “‘para-artefact’ … paraphernalia that accompanies the product (labels, packaging, instructions etc.), all of which contribute to a product’s discourse” (Folkmann and Jensen 83). The graphics on the box are colourful, featuring similar shades of teal blue as found on the objects, with the addition of orange and a silver sticker featuring the logo of the American retailer Sears. The cover features an illustration of the objects on an orange tabletop. The most prominent text that confirms that the toy is a “Porcelain Toy Tea Set” is in an organic, almost psychedelic style that mimics both popular graphics of this era—especially album art and concert posters—as well as the organic curves of steam that emanate from the illustrated teapot’s spout. Additional messages appear on the box, in particular “Contemporary DESIGN” and “handsome, clean-line styling for modern little hostesses”. Along the edges of the box lid, a detail of the decorative motif is reproduced somewhat abstracted from what actually appears on the ceramic objects. Figure 3: Sears’s Christmas Wishbook Catalogue, page 574 (1968). Sears, Roebuck and Co. (Sears) is well-known for its over one-hundred-year history of producing printed merchandise catalogues. The catalogue is another important para-artefact to consider in analysing the objects. The tea set first appeared in the 1968 Sears Christmas Wishbook. There is no date or copyright on the box, so only its inclusion in the catalogue allows the set to be accurately dated. It also allows us to understand how the set was originally marketed. Deduction In the deduction phase, we focus on the sensory aesthetic and functional interactive qualities of the various components of the set. In terms of its function, it is critical that we situate the objects in their original use context, play. The light weight of the objects and thinness of the ceramic material lends the objects a delicate, if not fragile, feeling which indicates that this set is not for rough use. Toy historian Lorraine May Punchard differentiates between toy tea sets “meant to be used by little girls, having parties for their friends and practising the social graces of the times” and smaller sets or doll dishes “made for little girls to have parties with their dolls, or for their dolls to have parties among themselves” (7). Similar sets sold by Sears feature images of girls using the sets with both human playmates and dolls. The quantity allowing service for six invites multiple users to join the party. The packaging makes clear that these toy tea sets were intended for imaginary play only, rendering them non-functional through an all-capitals caution declaiming “IMPORTANT: Do not use near heat”. The walls and handles of the cups are so thin one can imagine that they would quickly become dangerous if filled with a hot liquid. Nevertheless, the lid of the oval bowl has a tan stain or watermark which suggests actual use. The box is broken up by pink cardboard partitions dividing it into segments sized for each item in the set. Interestingly even the small squares of unfinished corrugated cardboard used as cushioning between each stacked plate have survived. The evidence of careful re-packing indicates that great care was taken in keeping the objects safe. It may suggest that even though the set was used, the children or perhaps the parents, considered the set as something to care for and conserve for the future. Flaws in the glaze and applique of the design motif can be found on several pieces in the set and offer some insight as to the technique used in producing these items. Errors such as the design being perfectly evenly spaced but crooked in its alignment to the rim, or pieces of the design becoming detached or accidentally folded over and overlapping itself could only be the result of a print transfer technique popularised with decorative china of the Victorian era, a technique which lends itself to mass production and lower cost when compared to hand decoration. Speculation In the speculation stage, we can consider the external evidence and begin a more rigorous investigation of the messaging, iconography, and possible meanings of the material artefact. Aspects of the set allow a number of useful observations about the role of such an object in its own time and context. Sociologists observe the role of toys as embodiments of particular types of parental messages and values (Cross 292) and note how particularly in the twentieth century “children’s play seems to become more and more a product of the educational and cultural orientation of parents” (Kline 96). Throughout history children’s toys often reflected a miniaturised version of the adult world allowing children to role-play as imagined adult-selves. Kristina Ranalli explored parallels between the practice of drinking tea and the play-acting of the child’s tea party, particularly in the nineteenth century, as a gendered ritual of gentility; a method of socialisation and education, and an opportunity for exploratory and even transgressive play by “spontaneously creating mini-societies with rules of their own” (20). Such toys and objects were available through the Sears mail-order catalogue from the very beginning at the end of the nineteenth century (McGuire). Propelled by the post-war boom of suburban development and homeownership—that generation’s manifestation of the American Dream—concern with home décor and design was elevated among the American mainstream to a degree never before seen. There was a hunger for new, streamlined, efficient, modernist living. In his essay titled “Domesticating Modernity”, historian Jeffrey L. Meikle notes that many early modernist designers found that perhaps the most potent way to “‘domesticate’ modernism and make it more familiar was to miniaturise it; for example, to shrink the skyscraper and put it into the home as furniture or tableware” (143). Dr Timothy Blade, curator of the 1985 exhibition of girls’ toys at the University of Minnesota’s Goldstein Gallery—now the Goldstein Museum of Design—described in his introduction “a miniaturised world with little props which duplicate, however rudely, the larger world of adults” (5). Noting the power of such toys to reflect adult values of their time, Blade continues: “the microcosm of the child’s world, remarkably furnished by the miniaturised props of their parents’ world, holds many direct and implied messages about the society which brought it into being” (9). In large part, the mid-century Sears catalogues capture the spirit of an era when, as collector Thomas Holland observes, “little girls were still primarily being offered only the options of glamour, beauty and parenthood as the stuff of their fantasies” (175). Holland notes that “the Wishbooks of the fifties [and, I would add, the sixties] assumed most girls would follow in their mother’s footsteps to become full-time housewives and mommies” (1). Blade grouped toys into three categories: cooking, cleaning, and sewing. A tea set could arguably be considered part of the cooking category, but closer examination of the language used in marketing this object—“little hostesses”, et cetera—suggests an emphasis not on cooking but on serving or entertaining. This particular category was not prevalent in the era examined by Blade, but the cultural shifts of the mid-twentieth century, particularly the rapid popularisation of a suburban lifestyle, may have led to the use of entertaining as an additional distinct category of role play in the process of learning to become a “proper” homemaker. Sears and other retailers offered a wide variety of styles of toy tea sets during this era. Blade and numerous other sources observe that children’s toy furniture and appliances tended to reflect the style and aesthetic qualities of their contemporary parallels in the adult world, the better to associate the child’s objects to its adult equivalent. The toy tea set’s packaging trumpets messages intended to appeal to modernist values and identity including “Contemporary Design” and “handsome, clean-line styling for modern little hostesses”. The use of this coded marketing language, aimed particularly at parents, can be traced back several decades. In 1928 a group of American industrial and textile designers established the American Designers' Gallery in New York, in part to encourage American designers to innovate and adopt new styles such as those seen in the L’ Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes (1925) in Paris, the exposition that sparked international interest in the Art Deco or Art Moderne aesthetic. One of the gallery founders, Ilonka Karasz, a Hungarian-American industrial and textile designer who had studied in Austria and was influenced by the Wiener Werkstätte in Vienna, publicised her new style of nursery furnishings as “designed for the very modern American child” (Brown 80). Sears itself was no stranger to the appeal of such language. The term “contemporary design” was ubiquitous in catalogue copy of the nineteen-fifties and sixties, used to describe everything from draperies (1959) and bedspreads (1961) to spice racks (1964) and the Lady Kenmore portable dishwasher (1961). An emphasis on the role of design in one’s life and surroundings can be traced back to efforts by MoMA. The museum’s interest in modern design hearkens back almost to the institution’s inception, particularly in relation to industrial design and the aestheticisation of everyday objects (Marshall). Through exhibitions and in partnership with mass-market magazines, department stores and manufacturer showrooms, MoMA curators evangelised the importance of “good design” a term that can be found in use as early as 1942. What Is Good Design? followed the pattern of prior exhibitions such as What Is Modern Painting? and situated modern design at the centre of exhibitions that toured the United States in the first half of the nineteen-fifties. To MoMA and its partners, “good design” signified the narrow identification of proper taste in furniture, home decor and accessories; effectively, the establishment of a design canon. The viewpoints enshrined in these exhibitions and partnerships were highly influential on the nation’s perception of taste for decades to come, as the trickle-down effect reached a much broader segment of consumers than those that directly experienced the museum or its exhibitions (Lawrence.) This was evident not only at high-end shops such as Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s. Even mass-market retailers sought out well-known figures of modernist design to contribute to their offerings. Sears, for example, commissioned noted modernist designer and ceramicist Russel Wright to produce a variety of serving ware and decor items exclusively for the company. Notably for this study, he was also commissioned to create a toy tea set for children. The 1957 Wishbook touts the set as “especially created to delight modern little misses”. Within its Good Design series, MoMA exhibitions celebrated numerous prominent Nordic designers who were exploring simplified forms and new material technologies. In the 1968 Wishbook, the retailer describes the Porcelain Toy Tea Set as “Danish-inspired china for young moderns”. The reference to Danish design is certainly compatible with the modernist appeal; after the explosion in popularity of Danish furniture design, the term “Danish Modern” was commonly used in the nineteen-fifties and sixties as shorthand for pan-Scandinavian or Nordic design, or more broadly for any modern furniture design regardless of origin that exhibited similar characteristics. In subsequent decades the notion of a monolithic Scandinavian-Nordic design aesthetic or movement has been debunked as primarily an economically motivated marketing ploy (Olivarez et al.; Fallan). In the United States, the term “Danish Modern” became so commonly misused that the Danish Society for Arts and Crafts called upon the American Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to legally restrict the use of the labels “Danish” and “Danish Modern” to companies genuinely originating in Denmark. Coincidentally the FTC ruled on this in 1968, noting “that ‘Danish Modern’ carries certain meanings, and... that consumers might prefer goods that are identified with a foreign culture” (Hansen 451). In the case of the Porcelain Toy Tea Set examined here, Sears was not claiming that the design was “Danish” but rather “Danish-inspired”. One must wonder, was this another coded marketing ploy to communicate a sense of “Good Design” to potential customers? An examination of the formal qualities of the set’s components, particularly the simplified geometric forms and the handle style of the cups, confirms that it is unlike a traditional—say, Victorian-style—tea set. Punchard observes that during this era some American tea sets were actually being modelled on coffee services rather than traditional tea services (148). A visual comparison of other sets sold by Sears in the same year reveals a variety of cup and pot shapes—with some similar to the set in question—while others exhibit more traditional teapot and cup shapes. Coffee culture was historically prominent in Nordic cultures so there is at least a passing reference to that aspect of Nordic—if not specifically Danish—influence in the design. But what of the decorative motif? Simple curved lines were certainly prominent in Danish furniture and architecture of this era, and occasionally found in combination with straight lines, but no connection back to any specific Danish motif could be found even after consultation with experts in the field from the Museum of Danish America and the Vesterheim National Norwegian-American Museum (personal correspondence). However, knowing that the average American consumer of this era—even the design-savvy among them—consumed Scandinavian design without distinguishing between the various nations, a possible explanation could be contained in the promotion of Finnish textiles at the time. In the decade prior to the manufacture of the tea set a major design tendency began to emerge in the United States, triggered by the geometric design motifs of the Finnish textile and apparel company Marimekko. Marimekko products were introduced to the American market in 1959 via the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based retailer Design Research (DR) and quickly exploded in popularity particularly after would-be First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy appeared in national media wearing Marimekko dresses during the 1960 presidential campaign and on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine. (Thompson and Lange). The company’s styling soon came to epitomise a new youth aesthetic of the early nineteen sixties in the United States, a softer and more casual predecessor to the London “mod” influence. During this time multiple patterns were released that brought a sense of whimsy and a more human touch to classic mechanical patterns and stripes. The patterns Piccolo (1953), Helmipitsi (1959), and Varvunraita (1959), all designed by Vuokko Eskolin-Nurmesniemi offered varying motifs of parallel straight lines. Maija Isola's Silkkikuikka (1961) pattern—said to be inspired by the plumage of the Great Crested Grebe—combined parallel serpentine lines with straight and angled lines, available in a variety of colours. These and other geometrically inspired patterns quickly inundated apparel and decor markets. DR built a vastly expanded Cambridge flagship store and opened new locations in New York in 1961 and 1964, and in San Francisco in 1965 fuelled in no small part by the fact that they remained the exclusive outlet for Marimekko in the United States. It is clear that Marimekko’s approach to pattern influenced designers and manufacturers across industries. Design historian Lesley Jackson demonstrates that Marimekko designs influenced or were emulated by numerous other companies across Scandinavia and beyond (72-78). The company’s influence grew to such an extent that some described it as a “conquest of the international market” (Hedqvist and Tarschys 150). Subsequent design-forward retailers such as IKEA and Crate and Barrel continue to look to Marimekko even today for modern design inspiration. In 2016 the mass-market retailer Target formed a design partnership with Marimekko to offer an expansive limited-edition line in their stores, numbering over two hundred items. So, despite the “Danish” misnomer, it is quite conceivable that designers working for or commissioned by Sears in 1968 may have taken their aesthetic cues from Marimekko’s booming work, demonstrating a clear understanding of the contemporary high design aesthetic of the time and coding the marketing rhetoric accordingly even if incorrectly. Conclusion The Sears catalogue plays a unique role in capturing cross-sections of American culture not only as a sales tool but also in Holland’s words as “a beautifully illustrated diary of America, it’s [sic] people and the way we thought about things” (1). Applying a rhetorical and material culture analysis to the catalogue and the objects within it provides a unique glimpse into the roles these objects played in mediating relationships, transmitting values and embodying social practices, tastes and beliefs of mid-century American consumers. Adult consumers familiar with the characteristics of the culture of “Good Design” potentially could have made a connection between the simplified geometric forms of the components of the toy tea set and say the work of modernist tableware designers such as Kaj Franck, or between the set’s graphic pattern and the modernist motifs of Marimekko and its imitators. But for a much broader segment of the population with a less direct understanding of modernist aesthetics, those connections may not have been immediately apparent. The rhetorical messaging behind the objects’ packaging and marketing used class and taste signifiers such as modern, contemporary and “Danish” to reinforce this connection to effect an emotional and aspirational appeal. These messages were coded to position the set as an effective transmitter of modernist values and to target parents with the ambition to create “appropriately modern” environments for their children. References Ancestry.com. “Historic Catalogs of Sears, Roebuck and Co., 1896–1993.” <http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=1670>. Baker Furniture Inc. “Design Legacy: Our Story.” n.d. <http://www.bakerfurniture.com/design-story/ legacy-of-quality/design-legacy/>. Blade, Timothy Trent. “Introduction.” Child’s Play, Woman’s Work: An Exhibition of Miniature Toy Appliances: June 12, 1985–September 29, 1985. St. Paul: Goldstein Gallery, U Minnesota, 1985. Brown, Ashley. “Ilonka Karasz: Rediscovering a Modernist Pioneer.” Studies in the Decorative Arts 8.1 (2000-1): 69–91. Cross, Gary. “Gendered Futures/Gendered Fantasies: Toys as Representatives of Changing Childhood.” American Journal of Semiotics 12.1 (1995): 289–310. Dolansky, Fanny. “Playing with Gender: Girls, Dolls, and Adult Ideals in the Roman World.” Classical Antiquity 31.2 (2012): 256–92. Fallan, Kjetil. Scandinavian Design: Alternative Histories. Berg, 2012. Folkmann, Mads Nygaard, and Hans-Christian Jensen. “Subjectivity in Self-Historicization: Design and Mediation of a ‘New Danish Modern’ Living Room Set.” Design and Culture 7.1 (2015): 65–84. Hansen, Per H. “Networks, Narratives, and New Markets: The Rise and Decline of Danish Modern Furniture Design, 1930–1970.” The Business History Review 80.3 (2006): 449–83. Hedqvist, Hedvig, and Rebecka Tarschys. “Thoughts on the International Reception of Marimekko.” Marimekko: Fabrics, Fashions, Architecture. Ed. Marianne Aav. Bard. 2003. 149–71. Highmore, Ben. The Design Culture Reader. Routledge, 2008. Holland, Thomas W. Girls’ Toys of the Fifties and Sixties: Memorable Catalog Pages from the Legendary Sears Christmas Wishbooks, 1950-1969. Windmill, 1997. Hucal, Sarah. "Scandi Crush Saga: How Scandinavian Design Took over the World." Curbed, 23 Mar. 2016. <http://www.curbed.com/2016/3/23/11286010/scandinavian-design-arne-jacobsen-alvar-aalto-muuto-artek>. Jackson, Lesley. “Textile Patterns in an International Context: Precursors, Contemporaries, and Successors.” Marimekko: Fabrics, Fashions, Architecture. Ed. Marianne Aav. Bard. 2003. 44–83. Kline, Stephen. “The Making of Children’s Culture.” The Children’s Culture Reader. Ed. Henry Jenkins. New York: NYU P, 1998. 95–109. Lawrence, Sidney. “Declaration of Function: Documents from the Museum of Modern Art’s Design Crusade, 1933-1950.” Design Issues 2.1 (1985): 65–77. Marshall, Jennifer Jane. Machine Art 1934. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2012. McGuire, Sheila. “Playing House: Sex-Roles and the Child’s World.” Child’s Play, Woman’s Work: An Exhibition of Miniature Toy Appliances : June 12, 1985–September 29, 1985. St. Paul: Goldstein Gallery, U Minnesota, 1985. Meikel, Jeffrey L. “Domesticating Modernity: Ambivalence and Appropriation, 1920–1940.” Designing Modernity; the Arts of Reform and Persuasion. Ed. Wendy Kaplan. Thames & Hudson, 1995. 143–68. O’Brien, Marion, and Aletha C. Huston. “Development of Sex-Typed Play Behavior in Toddlers.” Developmental Psychology, 21.5 (1985): 866–71. Olivarez, Jennifer Komar, Jukka Savolainen, and Juulia Kauste. Finland: Designed Environments. Minneapolis Institute of Arts and Nordic Heritage Museum, 2014. Oswell, David. The Agency of Children: From Family to Global Human Rights. Cambridge UP, 2013. Prown, Jules David. “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method.” Winterthur Portfolio 17.1 (1982): 1–19. Punchard, Lorraine May. Child’s Play: Play Dishes, Kitchen Items, Furniture, Accessories. Punchard, 1982. Ranalli, Kristina. An Act Apart: Tea-Drinking, Play and Ritual. Master's thesis. U Delaware, 2013. Sears Corporate Archives. “What Is a Sears Modern Home?” n.d. <http://www.searsarchives.com/homes/index.htm>. "Target Announces New Design Partnership with Marimekko: It’s Finnish, Target Style." Target, 2 Mar. 2016. <http://corporate.target.com/article/2016/03/marimekko-for-target>. Teglasi, Hedwig. “Children’s Choices of and Value Judgments about Sex-Typed Toys and Occupations.” Journal of Vocational Behavior 18.2 (1981): 184–95. Thompson, Jane, and Alexandra Lange. Design Research: The Store That Brought Modern Living to American Homes. Chronicle, 2010.

Abstract:

Introduction: Brutal?The word “brutal” has associations with cruelty, inhumanity, and aggression. Within the field of architecture, however, the term “Brutalism” refers to a post-World War II Modernist style, deriving from the French phrase betón brut, which means raw concrete (Clement 18). Core traits of Brutalism include functionalist design, daring geometry, overbearing scale, and the blatant exposure of structural materials, chiefly concrete and steel (Meades 1).The emergence of Brutalism coincided with chronic housing shortages in European countries ravaged by World War II (Power 5) and government-sponsored slum clearance in the UK (Power 190; Baker). Brutalism’s promise to accommodate an astonishing number of civilians within a minimal area through high-rise configurations and elevated walkways was alluring to architects and city planners (High Rise Dreams). Concrete was the material of choice due to its affordability, durability, and versatility; it also allowed buildings to be erected quickly (Allen and Iano 622).The Brutalist style was used for cultural centres, such as the Perth Concert Hall in Western Australia, educational institutions such as the Yale School of Architecture, and government buildings such as the Secretariat Building in Chandigarh, India. However, as pioneering Brutalist architect Alison Smithson explained, the style achieved full expression by “thinking on a much bigger scale somehow than if you only got [sic] one house to do” (Smithson and Smithson, Conversation 40). Brutalism, therefore, lent itself to the design of large residential complexes. It was consequently used worldwide for public housing developments, that is, residences built by a government authority with the aim of providing affordable housing. Notable examples include the Western City Gate in Belgrade, Serbia, and Habitat 67 in Montreal, Canada.Brutalist architecture polarised opinion and continues to do so to this day. On the one hand, protected cultural heritage status has been awarded to some Brutalist buildings (Carter; Glancey) and the style remains extremely influential, for example in the recent award-winning work of architect Zaha Hadid (Niesewand). On the other hand, the public housing projects associated with Brutalism are widely perceived as failures (The Great British Housing Disaster). Many Brutalist objects currently at risk of demolition are social housing estates, such as the Smithsons’ Robin Hood Gardens in London, UK. Whether the blame for the demise of such housing developments lies with architects, inhabitants, or local government has been widely debated. In the UK and USA, local authorities had relocated families of predominantly lower socio-economic status into the newly completed developments, but were unable or unwilling to finance subsequent maintenance and security costs (Hanley 115; R. Carroll; The Pruitt-Igoe Myth). Consequently, the residents became fearful of criminal activity in staircases and corridors that lacked “defensible space” (Newman 9), which undermined a vision of “streets in the sky” (Moran 615).In spite of its later problems, Brutalism’s architects had intended to develop a style that expressed 1950s contemporary living in an authentic manner. To them, this meant exposing building materials in their “raw” state and creating an aesthetic for an age of science, machine mass production, and consumerism (Stadler 264; 267; Smithson and Smithson, But Today 44). Corporeal sensations did not feature in this “machine” aesthetic (Dalrymple). Exceptionally, acclaimed Brutalist architect Ernö Goldfinger discussed how “visual sensation,” “sound and touch with smell,” and “the physical touch of the walls of a narrow passage” contributed to “sensations of space” within architecture (Goldfinger 48). However, the effects of residing within Brutalist objects may not have quite conformed to predictions, since Goldfinger moved out of his Brutalist construction, Balfron Tower, after two months, to live in a terraced house (Hanley 112).An abstract perspective that favours theorisation over subjective experiences characterises discourse on Brutalist social housing developments to this day (Singh). There are limited data on the everyday lived experience of residents of Brutalist social housing estates, both then and now (for exceptions, see Hanley; The Pruitt-Igoe Myth; Cooper et al.).Yet, our bodily interaction with the objects around us shapes our lived experience. On a broader physical scale, this includes the structures within which we live and work. The importance of the interaction between architecture and embodied being is increasingly recognised. Today, architecture is described in corporeal terms—for example, as a “skin” that surrounds and protects its human inhabitants (Manan and Smith 37; Armstrong 77). Biological processes are also inspiring new architectural approaches, such as synthetic building materials with life-like biochemical properties (Armstrong 79), and structures that exhibit emergent behaviour in response to human presence, like a living system (Biloria 76).In this article, we employ an autoethnographic perspective to explore the corporeal effects of Brutalist buildings, thereby revealing a new dimension to the anthropological significance of these controversial structures. We trace how they shape the physicality of the bodies interacting within them. Our approach is one step towards considering the historically under-appreciated subjective, corporeal experience elicited in interaction with Brutalist objects.Method: An Autoethnographic ApproachAutoethnography is a form of self-narrative research that connects the researcher’s personal experience to wider cultural understandings (Ellis 31; Johnson). It can be analytical (Anderson 374) or emotionally evocative (Denzin 426).We investigated two Brutalist residential estates in London, UK:(i) The Barbican Estate: This was devised to redevelop London’s severely bombed post-WWII Cripplegate area, combining private residences for middle class professionals with an assortment of amenities including a concert hall, library, conservatory, and school. It was designed by architects Chamberlin, Powell, and Bon. Opened in 1982, the Estate polarised opinion on its aesthetic qualities but has enjoyed success with residents and visitors. The development now comprises extremely expensive housing (Brophy). It was Grade II-listed in 2001 (Glancey), indicating a status of architectural preservation that restricts alterations to significant buildings.(ii) Trellick Tower: This was built to replace dilapidated 19th-century housing in the North Kensington area. It was designed by Hungarian-born architect Ernő Goldfinger to be a social housing development and was completed in 1972. During the 1980s and 1990s, it became known as the “Tower of Terror” due to its high level of crime (Hanley 113). Nevertheless, Trellick Tower was granted Grade II listed status in 1998 (Carter), and subsequent improvements have increased its desirability as a residence (R. Carroll).We explored the grounds, communal spaces, and one dwelling within each structure, independently recording our corporeal impressions and sensations in detailed notes, which formed the basis of longhand journals written afterwards. Our analysis was developed through co-constructed autoethnographic reflection (emerald and Carpenter 748).For reasons of space, one full journal entry is presented for each Brutalist structure, with an excerpt from each remaining journal presented in the subsequent analysis. To identify quotations from our journals, we use the codes R- and N- to refer to RB’s and NC’s journals, respectively; we use -B and -T to refer to the Barbican Estate and Trellick Tower, respectively.The Barbican Estate: Autoethnographic JournalAn intricate concrete world emerges almost without warning from the throng of glass office blocks and commercial buildings that make up the City of London's Square Mile. The Barbican Estate comprises a multitude of low-rise buildings, a glass conservatory, and three enormous high-rise towers. Each modular building component is finished in the same coarse concrete with burnished brick underfoot, whilst the entire structure is elevated above ground level by enormous concrete stilts. Plants hang from residential balconies over glimmering pools in a manner evocative of concrete Hanging Gardens of Babylon.Figure 1. Barbican Estate Figure 2. Cromwell Tower from below, Barbican Estate. Figure 3: The stairwell, Cromwell Tower, Barbican Estate. Figure 4. Lift button pods, Cromwell Tower, Barbican Estate.R’s journalMy first footsteps upon the Barbican Estate are elevated two storeys above the street below, and already an eerie calm settles on me. The noise of traffic and the bustle of pedestrians have seemingly been left far behind, and a path of polished brown brick has replaced the paving slabs of the city's pavement. I am made more aware of the sound of my shoes upon the ground as I take each step through the serenity.Running my hands along the walkway's concrete sides as we proceed further into the estate I feel its coarseness, and look up to imagine the same sensation touching the uppermost balcony of the towers. As we travel, the cold nature and relentless employ of concrete takes over and quickly becomes the norm.Our route takes us through the Barbican's central Arts building and into the Conservatory, a space full of plant-life and water features. The noise of rushing water comes as a shock, and I'm reminded just how hauntingly peaceful the atmosphere of the outside estate has been. As we leave the conservatory, the hush returns and we follow another walkway, this time allowing a balcony-like view over the edge of the estate. I'm quickly absorbed by a sensation I can liken only to peering down at the ground from a concrete cloud as we observe the pedestrians and traffic below.Turning back, we follow the walkways and begin our approach to Cromwell Tower, a jagged structure scraping the sky ahead of us and growing menacingly larger with every step. The estate has up till now seemed devoid of wind, but even so a cold begins to prickle my neck and I increase my speed toward the door.A high-ceilinged foyer greets us as we enter and continue to the lifts. As we push the button and wait, I am suddenly aware that carpet has replaced bricks beneath my feet. A homely sensation spreads, my breathing slows, and for a brief moment I begin to relax.We travel at heart-racing speed upwards to the 32nd floor to observe the view from the Tower's fire escape stairwell. A brief glance over the stair's railing as we enter reveals over 30 storeys of stair casing in a hard-edged, triangular configuration. My mind reels, I take a second glance and fail once again to achieve focus on the speck of ground at the bottom far below. After appreciating the eastward view from the adjacent window that encompasses almost the entirety of Central London, we make our way to a 23rd floor apartment.Entering the dwelling, we explore from room to room before reaching the balcony of the apartment's main living space. Looking sheepishly from the ledge, nothing short of a genuine concrete fortress stretches out beneath us in all directions. The spirit and commotion of London as I know it seems yet more distant as we gaze at the now miniaturized buildings. An impression of self-satisfied confidence dawns on me. The fortress where we stand offers security, elevation, sanctuary and I'm furnished with the power to view London's chaos at such a distance that it's almost silent.As we leave the apartment, I am shadowed by the same inherent air of tranquillity, pressing yet another futuristic lift access button, plummeting silently back towards the ground, and padding across the foyer's soft carpet to pursue our exit route through the estate's sky-suspended walkways, back to the bustle of regular London civilization.Trellick Tower: Autoethnographic JournalThe concrete majesty of Trellick Tower is visible from Westbourne Park, the nearest Tube station. The Tower dominates the skyline, soaring above its neighbouring estate, cafes, and shops. As one nears the Tower, the south face becomes visible, revealing the suspended corridors that join the service tower to the main body of flats. Light of all shades and colours pours from its tightly stacked dwellings, which stretch up into the sky. Figure 5. Trellick Tower, South face. Figure 6. Balcony in a 27th-floor flat, Trellick Tower.N’s journalOutside the tower, I sense danger and experience a heightened sense of awareness. A thorny frame of metal poles holds up the tower’s facade, each pole poised as if to slip down and impale me as I enter the building.At first, the tower is too big for comprehension; the scale is unnatural, gigantic. I feel small and quite squashable in comparison. Swathes of unmarked concrete surround the tower, walls that are just too high to see over. Who or what are they hiding? I feel uncertain about what is around me.It takes some time to reach the 27th floor, even though the lift only stops on every 3rd floor. I feel the forces of acceleration exert their pressure on me as we rise. The lift is very quiet.Looking through the windows on the 27th-floor walkway that connects the lift tower to the main building, I realise how high up I am. I can see fog. The city moves and modulates beneath me. It is so far away, and I can’t reach it. I’m suspended, isolated, cut off in the air, as if floating in space.The buildings underneath appear tiny in comparison to me, but I know I’m tiny compared to this building. It’s a dichotomy, an internal tension, and feels quite unreal.The sound of the wind in the corridors is a constant whine.In the flat, the large kitchen window above the sink opens directly onto the narrow, low-ceilinged corridor, on the other side of which, through a second window, I again see London far beneath. People pass by here to reach their front doors, moving so close to the kitchen window that you could touch them while you’re washing up, if it weren’t for the glass. Eye contact is possible with a neighbour, or a stranger. I am close to that which I’m normally separated from, but at the same time I’m far from what I could normally access.On the balcony, I have a strong sensation of vertigo. We are so high up that we cannot be seen by the city and we cannot see others. I feel physically cut off from the world and realise that I’m dependent on the lift or endlessly spiralling stairs to reach it again.Materials: sharp edges, rough concrete, is abrasive to my skin, not warm or welcoming. Sharp little stones are embedded in some places. I mind not to brush close against them.Behind the tower is a mysterious dark maze of sharp turns that I can’t see around, and dark, narrow walkways that confine me to straight movements on sloping ramps.“Relentless Employ of Concrete:” Body versus Stone and HeightThe “relentless employ of concrete” (R-B) in the Barbican Estate and Trellick Tower determined our physical interactions with these Brutalist objects. Our attention was first directed towards texture: rough, abrasive, sharp, frictive. Raw concrete’s potential to damage skin, should one fall or brush too hard against it, made our bodies vulnerable. Simultaneously, the ubiquitous grey colour and the constant cold anaesthetised our senses.As we continued to explore, the constant presence of concrete, metal gratings, wire, and reinforced glass affected our real and imagined corporeal potentialities. Bodies are powerless against these materials, such that, in these buildings, you can only go where you are allowed to go by design, and there are no other options.Conversely, the strength of concrete also has a corporeal manifestation through a sense of increased physical security. To R, standing within the “concrete fortress” of the Barbican Estate, the object offered “security, elevation, sanctuary,” and even “power” (R-B).The heights of the Barbican’s towers (123 metres) and Trellick Tower (93 metres) were physically overwhelming when first encountered. We both felt that these menacing, jagged towers dominated our bodies.Excerpt from R’s journal (Trellick Tower)Gaining access to the apartment, we begin to explore from room to room. As we proceed through to the main living area we spot the balcony and I am suddenly aware that, in a short space of time, I had abandoned the knowledge that some 26 floors lay below me. My balance is again shaken and I dig my heels into the laminate flooring, as if to achieve some imaginary extra purchase.What are the consequences of extreme height on the body? Certainly, there is the possibility of a lethal fall and those with vertigo or who fear heights would feel uncomfortable. We discovered that height also affects physical instantiation in many other ways, both empowering and destabilising.Distance from ground-level bustle contributed to a profound silence and sense of calm. Areas of intermediate height, such as elevated communal walkways, enhanced our sensory abilities by granting the advantage of observation from above.Extreme heights, however, limited our ability to sense the outside world, placing objects beyond our range of visual focus, and setting up a “bizarre segregation” (R-T) between our physical presence and that of the rest of the world. Height also limited potentialities of movement: no longer self-sufficient, we depended on a working lift to regain access to the ground and the rest of the city. In the lift itself, our bodies passively endured a cycle of opposing forces as we plummeted up or down numerous storeys in mere seconds.At both locations, N noticed how extreme height altered her relative body size: for example, “London looks really small. I have become huge compared to the tiny city” (N-B). As such, the building’s lift could be likened to a cake or potion from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. This illustrates how the heuristics that we use to discern visual perspective and object size, which are determined by the environment in which we live (Segall et al.), can be undermined by the unusual scales and distances found in Brutalist structures.Excerpt from N’s journal (Barbican Estate)Warning: These buildings give you AFTER-EFFECTS. On the way home, the size of other buildings seems tiny, perspectives feel strange; all the scales seem to have been re-scaled. I had to become re-used to the sensation of travelling on public trains, after travelling in the tower lifts.We both experienced perceptual after-effects from the disproportional perspectives of Brutalist spaces. Brutalist structures thus have the power to affect physical sensations even when the body is no longer in direct interaction with them!“Challenge to Privacy:” Intersubjective Ideals in Brutalist DesignAs embodied beings, our corporeal manifestations are the primary transducers of our interactions with other people, who in turn contribute to our own body schema construction (Joas). Architects of Brutalist habitats aimed to create residential utopias, but we found that the impact of their designs on intersubjective corporeality were often incoherent and contradictory. Brutalist structures positioned us at two extremes in relation to the bodies of others, forcing either an uncomfortable intersection of personal space or, conversely, excessive separation.The confined spaces of the lifts, and ubiquitous narrow, low-ceilinged corridors produced uncomfortable overlaps in the personal space of the individuals present. We were fascinated by the design of the flat in Trellick Tower, where the large kitchen window opened out directly onto the narrow 27th-floor corridor, as described in N’s journal. This enforced a physical “challenge to privacy” (R-T), although the original aim may have been to promote a sense of community in the “streets in the sky” (Moran 615). The inter-slotting of hundreds of flats in Trellick Tower led to “a multitude of different cooking aromas from neighbouring flats” (R-T) and hence a direct sensing of the closeness of other people’s corporeal activities, such as eating.By contrast, enormous heights and scales constantly placed other people out of sight, out of hearing, and out of reach. Sharp-angled walkways and blind alleys rendered other bodies invisible even when they were near. In the Barbican Estate, huge concrete columns, behind which one could hide, instilled a sense of unease.We also considered the intersubjective interaction between the Brutalist architect-designer and the inhabitant. The elements of futuristic design—such as the “spaceship”-like pods for lift buttons in Cromwell Tower (N-B)—reconstruct the inhabitant’s physicality as alien relative to the Brutalist building, and by extension, to the city that commissioned it.ReflectionsThe strength of the autoethnographic approach is also its limitation (Chang 54); it is an individual’s subjective perspective, and as such we cannot experience or represent the full range of corporeal effects of Brutalist designs. Corporeal experience is informed by myriad factors, including age, body size, and ability or disability. Since we only visited these structures, rather than lived in them, we could have experienced heightened sensations that would become normalised through familiarity over time. Class dynamics, including previous residences and, importantly, the amount of choice that one has over where one lives, would also affect this experience. For a full perspective, further data on the everyday lived experiences of residents from a range of different backgrounds are necessary.R’s reflectionDespite researching Brutalist architecture for years, I was unprepared for the true corporeal experience of exploring these buildings. Reading back through my journals, I'm struck by an evident conflict between stylistic admiration and physical uneasiness. I feel I have gained a sympathetic perspective on the notion of residing in the structures day-to-day.Nevertheless, analysing Brutalist objects through a corporeal perspective helped to further our understanding of the experience of living within them in a way that abstract thought could never have done. Our reflections also emphasise the tension between the physical and the psychological, whereby corporeal struggle intertwines with an abstract, aesthetic admiration of the Brutalist objects.N’s reflectionIt was a wonderful experience to explore these extraordinary buildings with an inward focus on my own physical sensations and an outward focus on my body’s interaction with others. On re-reading my journals, I was surprised by the negativity that pervaded my descriptions. How does physical discomfort and alienation translate into cognitive pleasure, or delight?ConclusionBrutalist objects shape corporeality in fundamental and sometimes contradictory ways. The range of visual and somatosensory experiences is narrowed by the ubiquitous use of raw concrete and metal. Materials that damage skin combine with lethal heights to emphasise corporeal vulnerability. The body’s movements and sensations of the external world are alternately limited or extended by extreme heights and scales, which also dominate the human frame and undermine normal heuristics of perception. Simultaneously, the structures endow a sense of physical stability, security, and even power. By positioning multiple corporealities in extremes of overlap or segregation, Brutalist objects constitute a unique challenge to both physical privacy and intersubjective potentiality.Recognising these effects on embodied being enhances our current understanding of the impact of Brutalist residences on corporeal sensation. This can inform the future design of residential estates. Our autoethnographic findings are also in line with the suggestion that Brutalist structures can be “appreciated as challenging, enlivening environments” exactly because they demand “physical and perceptual exertion” (Sroat). 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Abstract:

Obsolescence is most frequently talked about in relation to the history of technology. A still-common way of understanding modernity is as a linear succession of emerging technologies which supersede existing ones, and which are themselves, in time, made redundant. The cycle of novelty and obsolescence underpins a narrative including episodes of human invention, mastery and eventual technological failure. Nevertheless, it makes technologies themselves the subjects of history, rather than the human beings whose choices frame their contingent births, shapings, adoptions and uses. Many have pointed out the extent to which this simplifies history, but this has made precious little impact, if the way in which many writers treat digital communications technologies is any guide. Professional new media evangelists, including media and cultural theorists who subscribe to what Turner describes as an entrenched “digital orthodoxy”, are nowadays wont to describing mass media – including all broadcast and print media – as “heritage” media. This neat rhetorical trick confirms all remaining manifestations and uses of such media as remnants of the past in the present, as curiosities, even perhaps as impediments to the “imaginary futures” (Barbrook) regularly projected onto new technologies. On the other hand, similar assumptions underlie narratives of decline and decay which attach themselves to new media technologies. Thus we can understand laments for the lost qualities (and quality) of old media from writers such as Andrew Keen, which themselves shape self-interested pronouncements about the decadence of the new communications environment from the highest echelons of established media (Hartigan). A history of scholarship from media historians has worked to try to nuance the contours of this oldest of modern stories, and to complicate the relationship between modernity, technological obsolescence, and social reality. Brian Winston’s work has shown how messy the business of invention and adoption is. Caroline Marvyn’s book When Old Technologies Were New showed how durable are the terms in which we are invited to link new technologies with progress. Lisa Gitelman’s Always Already New shows how complexly interweaved our understanding of media history is with our own media use. Collections like New Media, 1740-1915 and Residual Media have offered a number of theoretical critiques and case-studies which show the contemporary persistence of old media, and the recurrence of simplifying, totalising rhetorics of media history. More specifically, work like Sterne’s shows how contemplating obsolescence can give us a way of thinking about the downside of media change in terms of the problem of ecological damage in the form of e-waste. Most importantly for us, though, are those who use the category of obsolescence as a way of understanding that in the forward march of modernity, there are losers as well as winners. Watkins links technological obsolescence with the production of certain people, certain segments of the population as obsolescent. For him, obsolescent people can be understood as engaged in a “useless survival”, and are linked with obsolete technologies. David Simon, the creator of the television series The Wire, which richly depicted the “useless survival” of the city of Baltimore and its civic institutions, recently put this same position bluntly, linking obsolescence with class and race in contemporary America: these really are the excess people in America, we – our economy doesn't need them. We don't need ten or 15 percent of our population. And certainly the ones that are undereducated, that have been ill served by the inner city school system, that have been unprepared for the technocracy of the modern economy... The people most affected by this are black and brown and poor. It's the abandoned inner cores of our urban areas. And we don't, as we said before, economically, we don't need those people. The American economy doesn't need them. So, as long as they stay in their ghettos, and they only kill each other, we're willing to pay a police presence to keep them out of our America. (Moyers) Five series of The Wire showed the incapacity of police, labour unions, the school system, civic government and newspapers in serving those people who Zygmunt Bauman calls “human waste”, those who are “redundant” in the new economy. The decline of manufacturing industries, rapid advances in the capacity of communication technologies, and the troubled business models of “old media” have advantaged those with the skills and capacity to become “network capitalists” (Bradwell & Reeves) in the information era, but they have turned whole cities into what Bauman calls “waste yards”, wherein industries, social infrastructures and entire neighbourhoods are antiquated, surplus to requirements. In The Wire, those who are shown to benefit most readily from the collapse of these economic and social forces, from the improvements in networked communications, and the globalisation of trade are those who sell the drugs which have turned Baltimore’s inner city into a free-fire zone. Obsolescence, then, is a category which allows us to think about the destruction, or “useless persistence”, of the people, patterns of life and territories which are imbricated with those technologies which are seen as being past their prime. It allows us to think about the power that accrues to “early adopters” as against those who are forced to “make do” with older technologies, and how that power is often implicated in already-existing patterns of social disadvantage – how it maps onto existing class structures, or the horizontal inequalities of geography. But we can also think of the ways in which obsolete technologies are recuperated and celebrated, whether by resistant consumers or “fans” of a particular technology, or by the process whereby yesterday's trash is historicised and aestheticisied by collectors, curators and scholars. We also might reflect on our own practice as academics. To what extent are our traditional patterns of work lubricated and enhanced by digital processes, or are they themselves artefacts of the past. This issue of M/C Journal offers some specific meditations on the theme of obsolescence. The first three pieces think reflexively about the processes by which academics are credentialised and published. In our first feature, John Hartley wonders whether the passing of the traditional, paper scholarly journal as the main means for academic publication and community-building might not irrevocably change and even damage collegiality, and the way in which we understand our fields. Kate Bowles replies to Hartley in a piece which originated as a peer review of his paper, and which is published here at the request of both authors. For Bowles, Hartley’s focus on e-publishing and the obsolescence of paper journals is potentially a distraction – the real concern is the way in which bureaucratic rationality threatens to push organic forms of collegial behaviour into the dustbin of history. Donna Lee Brien argues that the traditional PhD may be obsolete, and it must change to reflect the needs of students, new models of learning, and the employment marketplace. The second group of articles asks questions about the inevitability of obsolescence, and case-studies of users pushing back against the obsolescence of favoured machines. In our second feature, Greg Shapley offers an expansive critique of the most fundamental recent narrative of obsolescence, which relies on the dichotomy of the analogue and the digital, and the supplanting of one by the other. Shapley complicates our history by relating the odd story of the fax machine. Peter Thomas shows how Super 8 cannot be approached simply, lazily as a fetishised object of nostalgia. He shows how Super 8 continues in use as a specialised filmmaking stock, but that its most crucial textural characteristics have been lost in the transition from widespread amateur use to professional applications. Huh and Ackerman discuss the determined resistance by users of the HP200LX PDA device to the discontinuation of the device. Our third set of articles rethink approaches to a technological field in which cycles of novelty and obsolescent are notoriously swift and prominent – computer games. James Newman unleashes an impassioned polemic regarding the need to preserve and archive “obsolete” games as an element of Britain’s and the world’s cultural heritage. Thompson, McAllister and Ruggill use their own efforts at curation and preservation as the starting point for a theoretical meditation on the relationships between nostalgia, collection and obsolescence. Chris Moore asks whether new methods of digital distribution might ameliorate one of the more pernicious side-effects of the games industry’s relentless focus on novelty – e-waste. He looks at the online distribution platform Steam as a venue where both hardware and software obsolescence may be countered and complicated by weightless distribution and the “long tail” effect. While acknowledging continuing concerns with Steam – for example concerns about user privacy – Moore wonders whether online distribution might make the more wasteful aspects of structured obsolescence, well, obsolete. Together, these articles make a contribution to a reorientation that’s already underway in media and cultural studies. It’s arguable that cultural and media studies perennial fetishisation of “youth”, subcultural and the new have been intensified by the shift to a focus on new media technologies. Perhaps this has been at the expense of a focus on the old, the ordinary, and what happened the day before yesterday. (Driscoll and Gregg) A focus on obsolescence allows us to count the complex costs of our perennial impulse to novelty. It allows us to think through the series of revaluations that technologies typically undergo as they pass from being the newest thing, to junk, to collectable. It helps us to think about the relationships between technology use and the social position of users. We present this as the first step in our own effort to bring a greater focus to the issues thrown up when we think about the obsolete. We hope you will enjoy this issue when it’s new, and not discard it lightly when the next one comes along. References Acland, Charles, ed. Residual Media. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. Barbrook, Richard. Imaginary Futures: From Thinking Machines to the Global Village. London: Pluto, 2007. Bauman, Zygmunt. Wasted Lives: Modernity and its Outcasts. London: John Wiley and Sons, 2003. Bradwell, Peter, and Richard Reeves. Network Citizens: Power and Responsibility at Work. London: Demos, 2009. Driscoll, Catherine, and Melissa Gregg. “The YouTube Generation: Moral Panic, Youth Culture and Internet Studies” in Usha Rodrigues (ed) Youth and Media in the Asia-Pacific Region. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press. 2008. Gitelman, Lisa. Always Already New: Media, History and the Data of Culture. Boston: MIT Press. Hartigan, John. “John Hartigan address to the National Press Club.” news.com.au. 9 July 2009 ‹http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25718006-661,00.html›. Keen, Andrew. The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture. New York: Doubleday, 2007. Marvin, Carolyn. When Old Technologies Were New: Rethinking Electric Communication in the Nineteenth Century. Oxford: OUP, 1990. Moyers, Bill. “David Simon: Transcript.” Bill Moyers Journal. 9 July 2009 ‹http://www.pbs.org/cove-media/http/PBS_CP_Bill_Moyers/58/1000/transcript1.html›. Sterne, Jonathan. “Out With the Trash: On the Future of New Media.” Residual Media. Ed Charles Acland. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. Turner, Graeme. “Television and the Nation: Does This Matter Anymore?” Television Studies After TV. Ed Graeme Turner and Jinna Tay. London and New York: Routledge, 2009. Watkins, Evan. Throwaways: Work, Culture and Consumer Education. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993. Winston, Brian. Media, Technology and Society: A History: From the Telegraph to the Internet. New York and London: Routledge, 1998.

Abstract:

The spotlight is on the stand up comic. Huge roars of laughter fill the comedy club, as the stand up comic struts his stuff. The audience lap it up. They drink pint after pint of beer, while reinforcing each other's laughter response, in this feel-good-factor-event. Here, the in-house clan is affiliated to the lord of belly bursting laughter! Eager participants of the above stand up comedy club scenerio are certainly "sophisticated" members of these social laughter occasions. We enjoy being active participants of these types of pleasurable community occasions! I first took an interest in humour research study when I first began writing comedy scripts and plays. It was while I was completing a MSc in Appplied Behavioural Sciences I found that only a limited number of social research projects on humour had been published. After discussions with my tutors, I undertook my research thesis on an interpretive study of contemporary stand up comedy. I'd already completed several short research modules to help me build up my skills in academic study in research design and methodology. At first I didn't have any specific questions about the field of stand up comedy, as I wanted to enter the field with an open and inquisitive mind. I took an ethnographic approach. The questions and answers would "emerge" as the project progressed. I completed an extensive literature review reading all recently published humour research in journals and book publications, plus Phd theses in the UK and elsewhere. I first examined the three "Classical" theories of humour: Superiority; Psychic Relief; and Incongruity, (although there are many other less significant theories). The first two theories are seen as universal theories of humour but there is little evidence to show that humour is universal; rather it is culturally relative within differing social contexts. I found Oliver Double's (1997) book and Phd thesis to be relevant to my study. Double believes the incongruity theory is key to understanding humour, in that stand up comedians rely on effective joketelling and sustaining the audience's faith. As my literature review progressed I began to see a clear split between the theories that argue humour is caused by innate urges, instincts or physiological processes, as opposed to those theories that see humour as a cultural product. By the time I'd completed my study of stand up comedy and analysed all the data collected throughout the research process, I took the the latter argument to be more relevant to common experiences of both comic and comic audience. Although there are many ways of studying humour, much depends on the researcher's main interest; theoretical standpoint; research methods and design. I decided to research humour in a live comedy situation rather than research jokes. I took the view that comedy is an interactional resource, as Michael Mulkay (1988) has noted in his humour research publications. What I mean by this term is that humour functions and is constructed to produce and reproduce certain desirable, socio-cultural effects within social in-groups. Although humour and social group laughter has psychological and anatomical factors that have been identified by behavioural-cognitivists and neuroscientists alike, these studies don't offer much insight into the social interactions, implicit within the joking relationship between comic teller and audience. Likewise, I felt that a study of the semantics, discourse and language is limited, in relation to humour. As these studies seperate humour from real world time, the methods that these disciplines use were not f use in collecting data in the field. I began by listing several comedy clubs in my immediate area. Six comedy clubs were listed within the county that I reside. I selected these comedy clubs for a number of reasons - some practical, other reasons weres based on the numbers of people attending and the differing types of comedians on the comic circuit. I made frequent visits and my primary research method was using "direct observations" of the interactions and cultural exchanges occurring. I used some of the ethnographic methods used by Le Compte and Schensul (1999) to aid data collection. Fieldnotes were analysed for themes and then index coded to delineate the forms of stand up comedy that show both variability and repetiton. Semi-structured interviews took place with several audience members after the shows, eliciting responses about the acts. Notes were taken. After several site visits, a clear pattern of recurring behaviours, especially the purposeful targeting of audience members by each stand up comic emerged. Several stand up comedians, coaches and tutors were also interviewed. Traditionally, ethnographic study use only qualitative research methods but Le Compte and Schensul (1999) apply quantitative methods as well. To measure the amount of variability and repetition of these behaviour patterns, I decided to complete a content analysis of a wide range of stand up comedy videos and cds (50 items in total). Eventually I was able to identify and categorise four specific patterns of comic behaviour or what I termed "Joking Repertoires". I'II briefly discuss these in turn. The first joking repertoire I discovered is the BUILDING RAPPORT repertoire. Here the comic's strategy is to work on the audience's expectations in a mischevious manner. The comic directly targets several audience members in turn throughout his or her act. The comic make fun of the member's dress, accent, laugh, to name but a few characteristics. The audience accepts this direct "piss taking" as a legitimate rule of engagement. The strategy develops and builds a comic audience. An experience and skilled comic compere will use this repertoire to establish a contract between performer and audience. The audience expects and demands this implicit contract. They have paid to be entertained, even at the risk of being humiliated themselves. Of course some audience members want to be picked out and made fun of, as they purposely dress up for the part. Others less confident hide in the darkest corners of the club, out of the comic's gaze. The SPONTENEITY repertoire involves the comic using timing, control and delivery of the comic material in a spontenious manner. For example, during a performance an audience member's mobile phone may ring and stop the comic in his or her tracks. Comics will use these moments to their advantage. Audiences enjoy the unexpected and thrive on the skill of performers who are wellprepared with clever one-liners. They appear to be improvised but they are well thought-out, prior to the performance. Any breach of convention by the comic actor is rewarded with enthusiastic laughter and applause. The third repertoire is the DIRECT PUT DOWN. This is a more aggressive strategy for targeting individuals or group members of the audience. On my field studies of the comedy clubs, this repertoire was used extensively by all or most of the comics. The comic's aim in using direct put downs is to diffuse situations of heckling and regain control of their act. Audience's are usually wise to these put downs and will reward comedians who use cleverly worked out put downs. But audiences can also become quickly critical of the comic who over use or abuse audience members with overly cruel put downs. Much depends on whether or not there is a prevailing hostile atmosphere in the club. The CONFRONTATIONAL repertoire is the fourth category I delineated from my research findings. Here the comic purposely targets a large section of the audience or specific members of society; for example, the Establishment. The comic may take the role of devil's advocate and irritate the hell out of the audience over contentious issues. He or she might want to get the audience to take sides or be completely against what is being stated by the comic. The confrontational comic aims to gain SHOCK VALUE out of the material. Lenny Bruce (2000) and Bill Hicks (1992) were the forerunners of this kind of confrontational humour. Much copied later by UK performers in the 1980s Margaret Thatcher period. This repertoire appears to attract hostile audiences, as the more confrontational the comic, the more hostile the audience reciprocates. The above four joking repertoires can't cover every aspect of the stand up comedy experience. What it does show though is a clear pattern of social group interaction between comic and audience, in the creation of social group laughter. I did find that there are of course exceptions to these four delineated categories; where for example the surrealist humour of say Eddie Izzard (1997), breaks social convention, without targeting anyone or thing in particular. On studying stand up comedy at live events, I discovered different aspects of humour. First, as Provine (1996), a neuroscientist says: "Laughter is not about jokes but about social relations." Second, that the joking relationship relies on the performer establishing a contract of MAKE BELIEVE with the audience, using a number of performance strategies. Third, the contract includes cultural and economic exchanges by all parties and creates specific cultural niches or insider groups. Fourth, these exchanges encourage consumption and reinforcement of both permissive and prescriptive humour. Permissive humour tends towards alternative comedy, which in the UK historically aimed to be politically correct, yet antagonistic to the joke. Prescriptive humour functions as "applied humour". For example, it's function is always to target outsiders. Commonly used by traditionalist comedians, who "tell" ageist,disablist, homophobic, sexist, racist jokes. To my own surprise I found my research of stand up comedy here in the UK to uncover a great deal of prescriptive humour, currently being practiced in the so-called alternative stand up comedy circuit. I found similar prescriptive "targeting" on the pre-recorded videos and Cds of USA stand up acts that I undertook a content analysis of. My conclusions of this study show that stand up comedy appears to function to encompass and perpetuate an array of socialisation practices, circulating within specific cultural domains in the UK and possibily elsewhere. Some of these socialisation practices appear on the surface to be merely "pleasurable" social group occasions but they can also be interpereted as oppressive and discriminatory towards outsider groups, whatever their age, disability, gender, ethnicity or sex. From a more personal experience, I experienced alienation while visiting these clubs. I found it difficult to remain an "objective" researcher, whilst trying to be an active audience member. I seemed to laugh less at the stand up acts, at each subsequent site visit. This wasn't because I'd lost my "sense of humour", but because I became acutely aware (and disappointed) in the fact that joking relationships hasn't really moved on from traditional methods of targeting someone to "get a (cheap) laugh". Today's contemporary stand up comedy and the popular rise of the stand up comedy club, reveals a prescriptive humour, manufactured, delivered and received as an integral part of our mass cultural consumption. Works Cited Berger, P.L. Redeeming Laughter: The Comic Dimension of Human Experience. New York: SUNY P. 1997. Bruce, Lenny. Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Mind: The Rise and Reckless Fall Of Lenny Bruce. Enlightenment: Chrome Dreams CD. 2000. Double, O.J.. Stand Up! On Being a Comedian. London: Methuen. 1997 Hicks, Bill. Relentless. Recorded at the Laff Stop; Austin, Texas USA: Rykodisc. 1992. Izzard, Eddie. Glorious. London: Laughing Stock CD. 1997. Mulkay, M.J.. On Humour: Its Place in Modern Society. Oxford: Polity P. 1998. Holmes, B. "Titter ye not..." New Scientist, (17th April), 1996: 2-3. Links http://www.chinwag.co/uk-comedy.html http://www.comedyonline.co.uk http://www.humorlinks.co/lnks/Academic http://www.ahahaha.co.uk/virginmirth/humour/html Citation reference for this article MLA Style Lloyd, Robert V. "Sitting Targets and the Joking Relationships" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0311/8-lloyd-sitting-targets.php>. APA Style Lloyd, R. (2003, Nov 10). Sitting Targets and the Joking Relationships. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 6, <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0311/8-lloyd-sitting-targets.php>

Abstract:

At one point in Victor Hugo’s novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the archdeacon, Claude Frollo, looked up from a book on his table to the edifice of the gothic cathedral, visible from his canon’s cell in the cloister of Notre Dame: “Alas!” he said, “this will kill that” (146). Frollo’s lament, that the book would destroy the edifice, captures the medieval cleric’s anxiety about the way in which Gutenberg’s print technology would become the new universal means for recording and communicating humanity’s ideas and artistic expression, replacing the grand monuments of architecture, human engineering, and craftsmanship. For Hugo, architecture was “the great handwriting of humankind” (149). The cathedral as the material outcome of human technology was being replaced by the first great machine—the printing press. At this point in the third millennium, some people undoubtedly have similar anxieties to Frollo: is it now the book’s turn to be destroyed by yet another great machine? The inclusion of “post print” in our title is not intended to sound the death knell of the book. Rather, we contend that despite the enduring value of print, digital publishing is “present and active” and is changing the way in which research, particularly in the humanities, is being undertaken. Our approach has three related parts. First, we consider how digital technologies are changing the way in which content is constructed, customised, modified, disseminated, and accessed within a global, distributed network. This section argues that the transition from print to electronic or digital publishing means both losses and gains, particularly with respect to shifts in our approaches to textuality, information, and innovative publishing. Second, we discuss the Children’s Literature Digital Resources (CLDR) project, with which we are involved. This case study of a digitising initiative opens out the transformative possibilities and challenges of digital publishing and e-scholarship for research communities. Third, we reflect on technology’s capacity to bring about major changes in the light of the theoretical and practical issues that have arisen from our discussion. I. Digitising in a “post-print age” We are living in an era that is commonly referred to as “the late age of print” (see Kho) or the “post-print age” (see Gunkel). According to Aarseth, we have reached a point whereby nearly all of our public and personal media have become more or less digital (37). As Kho notes, web newspapers are not only becoming increasingly more popular, but they are also making rather than losing money, and paper-based newspapers are finding it difficult to recruit new readers from the younger generations (37). Not only can such online-only publications update format, content, and structure more economically than print-based publications, but their wide distribution network, speed, and flexibility attract advertising revenue. Hype and hyperbole aside, publishers are not so much discarding their legacy of print, but recognising the folly of not embracing innovative technologies that can add value by presenting information in ways that satisfy users’ needs for content to-go or for edutainment. As Kho notes: “no longer able to satisfy customer demand by producing print-only products, or even by enabling online access to semi-static content, established publishers are embracing new models for publishing, web-style” (42). Advocates of online publishing contend that the major benefits of online publishing over print technology are that it is faster, more economical, and more interactive. However, as Hovav and Gray caution, “e-publishing also involves risks, hidden costs, and trade-offs” (79). The specific focus for these authors is e-journal publishing and they contend that while cost reduction is in editing, production and distribution, if the journal is not open access, then costs relating to storage and bandwith will be transferred to the user. If we put economics aside for the moment, the transition from print to electronic text (e-text), especially with electronic literary works, brings additional considerations, particularly in their ability to make available different reading strategies to print, such as “animation, rollovers, screen design, navigation strategies, and so on” (Hayles 38). Transition from print to e-text In his book, Writing Space, David Bolter follows Victor Hugo’s lead, but does not ask if print technology will be destroyed. Rather, he argues that “the idea and ideal of the book will change: print will no longer define the organization and presentation of knowledge, as it has for the past five centuries” (2). As Hayles noted above, one significant indicator of this change, which is a consequence of the shift from analogue to digital, is the addition of graphical, audio, visual, sonic, and kinetic elements to the written word. A significant consequence of this transition is the reinvention of the book in a networked environment. Unlike the printed book, the networked book is not bound by space and time. Rather, it is an evolving entity within an ecology of readers, authors, and texts. The Web 2.0 platform has enabled more experimentation with blending of digital technology and traditional writing, particularly in the use of blogs, which have spawned blogwriting and the wikinovel. Siva Vaidhyanathan’s The Googlization of Everything: How One Company is Disrupting Culture, Commerce and Community … and Why We Should Worry is a wikinovel or blog book that was produced over a series of weeks with contributions from other bloggers (see: http://www.sivacracy.net/). Penguin Books, in collaboration with a media company, “Six Stories to Start,” have developed six stories—“We Tell Stories,” which involve different forms of interactivity from users through blog entries, Twitter text messages, an interactive google map, and other features. For example, the story titled “Fairy Tales” allows users to customise the story using their own choice of names for characters and descriptions of character traits. Each story is loosely based on a classic story and links take users to synopses of these original stories and their authors and to online purchase of the texts through the Penguin Books sales website. These examples of digital stories are a small part of the digital environment, which exploits computer and online technologies’ capacity to be interactive and immersive. As Janet Murray notes, the interactive qualities of digital environments are characterised by their procedural and participatory abilities, while their immersive qualities are characterised by their spatial and encyclopedic dimensions (71–89). These immersive and interactive qualities highlight different ways of reading texts, which entail different embodied and cognitive functions from those that reading print texts requires. As Hayles argues: the advent of electronic textuality presents us with an unparalleled opportunity to reformulate fundamental ideas about texts and, in the process, to see print as well as electronic texts with fresh eyes (89–90). The transition to e-text also highlights how digitality is changing all aspects of everyday life both inside and outside the academy. Online teaching and e-research Another aspect of the commercial arm of publishing that is impacting on academe and other organisations is the digitising and indexing of print content for niche distribution. Kho offers the example of the Mark Logic Corporation, which uses its XML content platform to repurpose content, create new content, and distribute this content through multiple portals. As the promotional website video for Mark Logic explains, academics can use this service to customise their own textbooks for students by including only articles and book chapters that are relevant to their subject. These are then organised, bound, and distributed by Mark Logic for sale to students at a cost that is generally cheaper than most textbooks. A further example of how print and digital materials can form an integrated, customised source for teachers and students is eFictions (Trimmer, Jennings, & Patterson). eFictions was one of the first print and online short story anthologies that teachers of literature could customise to their own needs. Produced as both a print text collection and a website, eFictions offers popular short stories in English by well-known traditional and contemporary writers from the US, Australia, New Zealand, UK, and Europe, with summaries, notes on literary features, author biographies, and, in one instance, a YouTube movie of the story. In using the eFictions website, teachers can build a customised anthology of traditional and innovative stories to suit their teaching preferences. These examples provide useful indicators of how content is constructed, customised, modified, disseminated, and accessed within a distributed network. However, the question remains as to how to measure their impact and outcomes within teaching and learning communities. As Harley suggests in her study on the use and users of digital resources in the humanities and social sciences, several factors warrant attention, such as personal teaching style, philosophy, and specific disciplinary requirements. However, in terms of understanding the benefits of digital resources for teaching and learning, Harley notes that few providers in her sample had developed any plans to evaluate use and users in a systematic way. In addition to the problems raised in Harley’s study, another relates to how researchers can be supported to take full advantage of digital technologies for e-research. The transformation brought about by information and communication technologies extends and broadens the impact of research, by making its outputs more discoverable and usable by other researchers, and its benefits more available to industry, governments, and the wider community. Traditional repositories of knowledge and information, such as libraries, are juggling the space demands of books and computer hardware alongside increasing reader demand for anywhere, anytime, anyplace access to information. Researchers’ expectations about online access to journals, eprints, bibliographic data, and the views of others through wikis, blogs, and associated social and information networking sites such as YouTube compete with the traditional expectations of the institutions that fund libraries for paper-based archives and book repositories. While university libraries are finding it increasingly difficult to purchase all hardcover books relevant to numerous and varied disciplines, a significant proportion of their budgets goes towards digital repositories (e.g., STORS), indexes, and other resources, such as full-text electronic specialised and multidisciplinary journal databases (e.g., Project Muse and Proquest); electronic serials; e-books; and specialised information sources through fast (online) document delivery services. An area that is becoming increasingly significant for those working in the humanities is the digitising of historical and cultural texts. II. Bringing back the dead: The CLDR project The CLDR project is led by researchers and librarians at the Queensland University of Technology, in collaboration with Deakin University, University of Sydney, and members of the AustLit team at The University of Queensland. The CLDR project is a “Research Community” of the electronic bibliographic database AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource, which is working towards the goal of providing a complete bibliographic record of the nation’s literature. AustLit offers users with a single entry point to enhanced scholarly resources on Australian writers, their works, and other aspects of Australian literary culture and activities. AustLit and its Research Communities are supported by grants from the Australian Research Council and financial and in-kind contributions from a consortium of Australian universities, and by other external funding sources such as the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy. Like other more extensive digitisation projects, such as Project Gutenberg and the Rosetta Project, the CLDR project aims to provide a centralised access point for digital surrogates of early published works of Australian children’s literature, with access pathways to existing resources. The first stage of the CLDR project is to provide access to digitised, full-text, out-of-copyright Australian children’s literature from European settlement to 1945, with selected digitised critical works relevant to the field. Texts comprise a range of genres, including poetry, drama, and narrative for young readers and picture books, songs, and rhymes for infants. Currently, a selection of 75 e-texts and digital scans of original texts from Project Gutenberg and Internet Archive have been linked to the Children’s Literature Research Community. By the end of 2009, the CLDR will have digitised approximately 1000 literary texts and a significant number of critical works. Stage II and subsequent development will involve digitisation of selected texts from 1945 onwards. A precursor to the CLDR project has been undertaken by Deakin University in collaboration with the State Library of Victoria, whereby a digital bibliographic index comprising Victorian School Readers has been completed with plans for full-text digital surrogates of a selection of these texts. These texts provide valuable insights into citizenship, identity, and values formation from the 1930s onwards. At the time of writing, the CLDR is at an early stage of development. An extensive survey of out-of-copyright texts has been completed and the digitisation of these resources is about to commence. The project plans to make rich content searchable, allowing scholars from children’s literature studies and education to benefit from the many advantages of online scholarship. What digital publishing and associated digital archives, electronic texts, hypermedia, and so forth foreground is the fact that writers, readers, publishers, programmers, designers, critics, booksellers, teachers, and copyright laws operate within a context that is highly mediated by technology. In his article on large-scale digitisation projects carried out by Cornell and University of Michigan with the Making of America collection of 19th-century American serials and monographs, Hirtle notes that when special collections’ materials are available via the Web, with appropriate metadata and software, then they can “increase use of the material, contribute to new forms of research, and attract new users to the material” (44). Furthermore, Hirtle contends that despite the poor ergonomics associated with most electronic displays and e-book readers, “people will, when given the opportunity, consult an electronic text over the print original” (46). If this preference is universally accurate, especially for researchers and students, then it follows that not only will the preference for electronic surrogates of original material increase, but preference for other kinds of electronic texts will also increase. It is with this preference for electronic resources in mind that we approached the field of children’s literature in Australia and asked questions about how future generations of researchers would prefer to work. If electronic texts become the reference of choice for primary as well as secondary sources, then it seems sensible to assume that researchers would prefer to sit at the end of the keyboard than to travel considerable distances at considerable cost to access paper-based print texts in distant libraries and archives. We considered the best means for providing access to digitised primary and secondary, full text material, and digital pathways to existing online resources, particularly an extensive indexing and bibliographic database. Prior to the commencement of the CLDR project, AustLit had already indexed an extensive number of children’s literature. Challenges and dilemmas The CLDR project, even in its early stages of development, has encountered a number of challenges and dilemmas that centre on access, copyright, economic capital, and practical aspects of digitisation, and sustainability. These issues have relevance for digital publishing and e-research. A decision is yet to be made as to whether the digital texts in CLDR will be available on open or closed/tolled access. The preference is for open access. As Hayles argues, copyright is more than a legal basis for intellectual property, as it also entails ideas about authorship, creativity, and the work as an “immaterial mental construct” that goes “beyond the paper, binding, or ink” (144). Seeking copyright permission is therefore only part of the issue. Determining how the item will be accessed is a further matter, particularly as future technologies may impact upon how a digital item is used. In the case of e-journals, the issue of copyright payment structures are evolving towards a collective licensing system, pay-per-view, and other combinations of print and electronic subscription (see Hovav and Gray). For research purposes, digitisation of items for CLDR is not simply a scan and deliver process. Rather it is one that needs to ensure that the best quality is provided and that the item is both accessible and usable by researchers, and sustainable for future researchers. Sustainability is an important consideration and provides a challenge for institutions that host projects such as CLDR. Therefore, items need to be scanned to a high quality and this requires an expensive scanner and personnel costs. Files need to be in a variety of formats for preservation purposes and so that they may be manipulated to be useable in different technologies (for example, Archival Tiff, Tiff, Jpeg, PDF, HTML). Hovav and Gray warn that when technology becomes obsolete, then content becomes unreadable unless backward integration is maintained. The CLDR items will be annotatable given AustLit’s NeAt funded project: Aus-e-Lit. The Aus-e-Lit project will extend and enhance the existing AustLit web portal with data integration and search services, empirical reporting services, collaborative annotation services, and compound object authoring, editing, and publishing services. For users to be able to get the most out of a digital item, it needs to be searchable, either through double keying or OCR (optimal character recognition). The value of CLDR’s contribution The value of the CLDR project lies in its goal to provide a comprehensive, searchable body of texts (fictional and critical) to researchers across the humanities and social sciences. Other projects seem to be intent on putting up as many items as possible to be considered as a first resort for online texts. CLDR is more specific and is not interested in simply generating a presence on the Web. Rather, it is research driven both in its design and implementation, and in its focussed outcomes of assisting academics and students primarily in their e-research endeavours. To this end, we have concentrated on the following: an extensive survey of appropriate texts; best models for file location, distribution, and use; and high standards of digitising protocols. These issues that relate to data storage, digitisation, collections, management, and end-users of data are aligned with the “Development of an Australian Research Data Strategy” outlined in An Australian e-Research Strategy and Implementation Framework (2006). CLDR is not designed to simply replicate resources, as it has a distinct focus, audience, and research potential. In addition, it looks at resources that may be forgotten or are no longer available in reproduction by current publishing companies. Thus, the aim of CLDR is to preserve both the time and a period of Australian history and literary culture. It will also provide users with an accessible repository of rare and early texts written for children. III. Future directions It is now commonplace to recognize that the Web’s role as information provider has changed over the past decade. New forms of “collective intelligence” or “distributed cognition” (Oblinger and Lombardi) are emerging within and outside formal research communities. Technology’s capacity to initiate major cultural, social, educational, economic, political and commercial shifts has conditioned us to expect the “next big thing.” We have learnt to adapt swiftly to the many challenges that online technologies have presented, and we have reaped the benefits. As the examples in this discussion have highlighted, the changes in online publishing and digitisation have provided many material, network, pedagogical, and research possibilities: we teach online units providing students with access to e-journals, e-books, and customized archives of digitised materials; we communicate via various online technologies; we attend virtual conferences; and we participate in e-research through a global, digital network. In other words, technology is deeply engrained in our everyday lives. In returning to Frollo’s concern that the book would destroy architecture, Umberto Eco offers a placatory note: “in the history of culture it has never happened that something has simply killed something else. Something has profoundly changed something else” (n. pag.). Eco’s point has relevance to our discussion of digital publishing. The transition from print to digital necessitates a profound change that impacts on the ways we read, write, and research. As we have illustrated with our case study of the CLDR project, the move to creating digitised texts of print literature needs to be considered within a dynamic network of multiple causalities, emergent technological processes, and complex negotiations through which digital texts are created, stored, disseminated, and used. Technological changes in just the past five years have, in many ways, created an expectation in the minds of people that the future is no longer some distant time from the present. Rather, as our title suggests, the future is both present and active. References Aarseth, Espen. “How we became Postdigital: From Cyberstudies to Game Studies.” Critical Cyber-culture Studies. Ed. David Silver and Adrienne Massanari. New York: New York UP, 2006. 37–46. An Australian e-Research Strategy and Implementation Framework: Final Report of the e-Research Coordinating Committee. Commonwealth of Australia, 2006. Bolter, Jay David. Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1991. Eco, Umberto. “The Future of the Book.” 1994. 3 June 2008 ‹http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_future_of_book.html>. Gunkel, David. J. “What's the Matter with Books?” Configurations 11.3 (2003): 277–303. Harley, Diane. “Use and Users of Digital Resources: A Focus on Undergraduate Education in the Humanities and Social Sciences.” Research and Occasional Papers Series. Berkeley: University of California. Centre for Studies in Higher Education. 12 June 2008 ‹http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_future_of_book.html>. Hayles, N. Katherine. My Mother was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2005. Hirtle, Peter B. “The Impact of Digitization on Special Collections in Libraries.” Libraries & Culture 37.1 (2002): 42–52. Hovav, Anat and Paul Gray. “Managing Academic E-journals.” Communications of the ACM 47.4 (2004): 79–82. Hugo, Victor. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Notre-Dame de Paris). Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth editions, 1993. Kho, Nancy D. “The Medium Gets the Message: Post-Print Publishing Models.” EContent 30.6 (2007): 42–48. Oblinger, Diana and Marilyn Lombardi. “Common Knowledge: Openness in Higher Education.” Opening up Education: The Collective Advancement of Education Through Open Technology, Open Content and Open Knowledge. Ed. Toru Liyoshi and M. S. Vijay Kumar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007. 389–400. Murray, Janet H. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001. Trimmer, Joseph F., Wade Jennings, and Annette Patterson. eFictions. New York: Harcourt, 2001.

Abstract:

"Interactivity implies two agencies in conversation, playfully and spontaneously developing a mutual discourse" -- Sandy Stone (11) I. On Interactivity The difference between interactivity as it is performed across the page and the screen, maintains Sandy Stone, is that virtual texts and virtual communities can embody a play ethic (14). Inserted like a mutation into the corporate genome, play ruptures the encyclopaedic desire to follow seamless links to a buried 'meaning' and draws us back to the surface, back into real-time conversation with the machine. Hypertext theorists see this as a tactic of resistance to homogenisation. As we move across a hypertextual reading space, we produce the text in this unfolding now, choosing pathways which form a map in the space of our own memories: where we have been, where we are, where we might yet be. Play is occupying oneself with diversions. II. Space, Time and Composition Reading in time, we create the text in the space of our own memories. Hypertext theorists maintain that the choices we make around every corner, the spontaneity and contingency involved in these choices, are the bringing into being of a (constantly replaced) electronic palimpsest, a virtual geography. The dislocation which occurs as we engage in nodal leaps draws us back to the surface, rupturing our experience of the narrative and bringing us into a blissful experience of possibility. III. War against the Line There is the danger, on the one hand, of being subsumed by the passive subject position demanded by infotainment culture and the desire it encourages to seek the satisfaction of closure by following seamless links to a buried 'meaning'. On the other hand, we risk losing efficiency and control over the unfolding interaction by entering into an exchange which disorientates us with infinite potential. We cannot wildly destratify. The questions we ask must seek to keep the conversation open. In order to establish a new discursive territory within which to understand this relationship, we should view the interface not simply as a transparency which enables interaction with the machine as 'other', but as a text, a finely-wrought behavioural map which "exists at the intersection of political and ideological boundary lands" (Selfe & Selfe 1). As we write, so are we written by the linguistic contact zones of this terrain. Hypertext is thus a process involving the active translation of modes of being into possible becomings across the interface. The geographic 'space' we translate into a hypertext "is imaginational... . We momentarily extend the linear reading act into a third dimension when we travel a link" (Tolva 4). A literal spatial representation would break from the realm of hypertext and become a virtual reality. Thus, the geographic aspect is not inherent to the system itself but is partially translated into the geometry of the medium via our experience and perception (the 'map'), a process describing our 'line of flight' as we evolve in space. Directional flows between time and its traditional subordination to space in representation implode across the present-tense of the screen and time literally surfaces. Our experience of the constantly-replaced electronic palimpsest is one of temporal surrender: "we give in to time, we give way to time, we give in with time"(Joyce 219). In other words, the subject of hypertext subverts the traditional hierarchy and writes for space, producing the 'terrain' in the unfolding now in the Deleuzian sense, not in space as desired by the State. Johnson-Eilola aligns the experience of hypertext with the Deleuzian War Machine, a way of describing the speed and range of virtual movement created when the animal body splices into the realm of technology and opens an active plane of conflict.. The War Machine was invented by the nomads -- it operates by continual deterritorialisation in a tension-limit with State science, what we might call the command-control drive associated with geometric, dynamic thought and the sedentary culture of the Line. It "exemplifies" the avant-garde mentality that hypertext theorists have been associating with the electronic writing space (Moulthrop, "No War Machine" 1). Playing outside. The State desires an end to the resistance to totalisation promulgated by contingent thought and its thermodynamic relationship to space: the speed which assumes a probabilistic, vortical motion, actually drawing smooth space itself. The war machine is thus an open system opposed to classical mechanics via its grounding in active contingencies and spatio-temporal production. The nomad reads and writes for space, creating the temporal text in the space of her own memory, giving way to time and allowing existent points to lapse before the trajectory of flight. Nomad thought is not dependent on any given theory of relationship with the medium, but works via disruption and (re)distribution, the gaps, stutterings and gasp-like expressions experienced when we enter into conversation with the hypertext. The danger is that the war machine might be appropriated by the State, at which point this light-speed communication becomes of the utmost importance in the war against space and time. As speed and efficient retrieval replace real-space across the instantaneity and immediacy of the terminal, the present-time sensory faculties of the individual are marginalised as incidental and she becomes "the virtual equivalent of the well-equipped invalid" (Virilio 5). In other words, as the frame of real-space and present-time disappears, the text of the reader/writer becomes "sutured" into the discourse of the State, the only goal to gain "complete speed, to cover territory in order for the State to subdivide and hold it through force, legislation or consent" (Virilio, qtd. in Johnson-Eilola). This is when the predetermined geometry of hypertext becomes explicit. The progressive subsumption (or "suturing") of the multiple, nomadic self into the discourse of the computer occurs when "the terms of the narrative are heightened, as each 'node' in the hypertext points outwards to other nodes [and] readers must compulsively follow links to arrive at the 'promised plenitude' at the other end of the link" (Johnson-Eilola 391). When we no longer reflect on the frame and move towards complete speed and efficiency, when we stop playing on the surface and no longer concern ourselves with diversion, the war machine has been appropriated by the State. In this case, there is no revolutionary 'outside' to confront in interaction, as all has been marshalled towards closure. Keeping the conversation open means continuously reflecting on the frame. We cannot wildly destratify and lose control entirely by moving in perpetual bewilderment, but we can see the incompleteness of the story, recognising the importance of local gaps and spaces. We can work with the idea that the "dyad of smooth/striated represents not a dialectic but a continuum" (Moulthrop, "Rhizome" 317) that can be turned more complex in its course. Contingency and play reside in the intermezzo, the "dangerous edges, fleeting, attempting to write across the boundaries between in-control and out-of-control" (Johnson-Eilola 393). The war machine exists as at once process and product, the translation between smooth-striated moving in potentia: the nomadic consciousness can recognise this process and live flux as reality itself, or consistency. In sum, we avoid subsumption and appropriation by holding open the function of the text as process in our theorising, in our teaching, in our reading and writing across the hypertextual environment. We can either view hypertext as a tool or product which lends itself to efficient, functional use (to organise information, to control and consume in an encyclopaedic fashion), or we can view it as a process which lends itself to nomadic thought and resistance to totalisation in syncopated flows, in cybernetic fits and starts. This is our much-needed rhetoric of activity. IV. An Alternative Story No matter their theoretical articulation, such claims made for hypertext are fundamentally concerned with escaping the logocentric geometry of regulated time and space. Recent explorations deploying the Deleuzian smooth/striated continuum make explicit the fact that the enemy in this literary 'war' has never been the Line or linearity per se, but "the nonlinear perspective of geometry; not the prison-house of time but the fiction of transcendence implied by the indifferent epistemological stance toward time" (Rosenberg 276). Although the rhizome, the war machine, the cyborg and the nomad differ in their particularities and composition, they all explicitly play on the dislocated, time-irreversible processes of chaos theory, thermodynamics and associated 'liberatory' topological perspectives. Rosenberg's essay makes what I consider to be a very disruptive point: hypertext merely simulates the 'smooth', contingent thought seen to be antithetical to regulated space-time and precise causality due to its fundamental investment in a regulated, controlled and (pre)determined geometry. Such a deceptively smooth landscape is technonarcissistic in that its apparent multiplicity actually prescribes to a totality of command-control. Hypertext theorists have borrowed the terms 'multilinear', 'nonlinear' and 'contingency' from physics to articulate hypertext's resistance to the dominant determinist episteme, a framework exemplified by the term 'dynamics', opposing it to "the irreversible laws characteristic of statistical approximations that govern complex events, exemplified by the term, 'thermodynamics'" (Rosenberg 269). This resistance to the time-reversible, non-contingent and totalised worldview has its ideological origins in the work of the avant-garde. Hypertext theorists are fixated with quasi-hypertextual works that were precursors to the more 'explicitly' revolutionary texts in the electronic writing space. In the works of the avant-garde, contingency is associated with creative freedom and subversive, organic logic. It is obsessively celebrated by the likes of Pynchon, Joyce, Duchamp and Cage. Hypertext theorists have reasoned from this that 'nonlinear' or 'multilinear' access to information is isomorphic with such playful freedom and its contingent, associative leaps. Theorists align this nonsequential reasoning with a certain rogue logic: the 'fluid nature of thought itself' exemplified by the explicitly geographic relationship to space-time of the Deleuzian rhizome and the notion of contingent, probabilistic 'becomings'. Hypertext participates fully in the spatio-temporal dialectic of the avant-garde. As Moulthrop observes, the problem with this is that from a topological perspective, 'linear' and 'multilinear' are identical: "lines are still lines, logos and not nomos, even when they are embedded in a hypertextual matrix" ("Rhizome" 310). The spatio-temporal dislocations which enable contingent thought and 'subversive' logic are simply not sustained through the reading/writing experience. Hypertextual links are not only reversible in time and space, but trace a detached path through functional code, each new node comprising a carefully articulated behavioural 'grammar' that the reader adjusts to. To assume that by following 'links' and engaging in disruptive nodal leaps a reader night be resisting the framework of regulated space-time and determinism is "to ignore how, once the dislocation occurs, a normalcy emerges ... as the hypertext reader acclimates to the new geometry or new sequence of lexias" (Rosenberg 283). Moreover, the searchpath maps which earlier theorists had sensed were antithetical to smooth space actually exemplify the element of transcendent control readers have over the text as a whole. "A reader who can freeze the text, a reader who is aware of a Home button, a reader who can gain an instant, transcendent perspective of the reading experience, domesticates contingencies" (Rosenberg 275). The visual and behavioural grammar of hypertext is one of transcendent control and determined response. Lines are still lines -- regulated, causal and not contingent -- even when they are 'constructed' by an empowered reader. Hypertext is thus invested (at least in part) in a framework of regularity, control and precise function. It is inextricably a part of State apparatus. The problem with this is that the War Machine, which best exemplifies the avant-garde's insurgency against sedentary culture, must be exterior to the State apparatus and its regulated grid at all times. "If we acknowledge this line of critique (which I think we must), then we must seriously reconsider any claims about hypertext fiction as War Machine, or indeed as anything en avant" (Moulthrop, "No War Machine" 5). Although hypertext is not revolutionary, it would be the goal of any avant-garde use of hypertext to find a way to sustain the experience of dislocation that would indicate liberation from the hegemony of geometry. I would like to begin to sketch the possibility of 'contingent interaction' through the dislocations inherent to alternative interfaces later in this story. For the time being, however, we must reassess all our liberation claims. If linearity and multilinearity are identical in terms of geometric relations to space-time, "why should they be any different in terms of ideology", asks Moulthrop ("Rhizome" 310). V. On Interactivity Given Rosenberg's critique against any inherently revolutionary qualities, we must acknowledge that hypermedia "marks not a terminus but a transition," Moulthrop writes ("Rhizome" 317). As a medium of exchange it is neither smooth nor striated, sophist nor socratic, 'work' nor 'text': it is undergoing an increasingly complex phase transition between such states. This landscape also gives rise to stray flows and intensities, 'Unspecified Enemies' which exist at the dangerous fissures and edges. We must accept that we will never escape the system, but we are presented with opportunities to rock the sedentary order from within. As a group of emerging electronic artists see it, the dis-articulation of the point'n'click interface is where interaction becomes reflection on the frame in fits and starts. "We believe that the computer, like everything else, is composed in conflict," explain the editors of electronic magazine I/O/D. "If we are locked in with the military and with Disney, they are locked in not just with us, but with every other stray will-to-power" (Fuller, Interview 2). Along with Adelaide-based group Mindflux, these artists produce hypertext interfaces that involve sensory apparatus and navigational skills that have been marginalised as incidental in the disabling interactive technologies of mainstream multimedia. Sound, movement, proprioception, an element of randomness and assorted other sensory circuits become central to the navigational experience. By enlisting marginalised senses, "we are not proposing to formulate a new paradigm of multimedial correctness," stresses Fuller, "but simply exploring the possibility of more complicated feedback arrangements between the user and the machine" (Fuller, qtd. in Barnet 48). The reader must encounter the 'lexias' contained in the system via the stray flows, intensities, movements, stratas and organs that are not proper to the system but shift across the interface and the surface of her body. In Fuller's electronic magazine, the reader is called upon to converse with the technology outside of the domesticated circuits of sight, dislocating the rigorous hierarchy of feedback devices which privilege the sight-machine and disable contingent interaction in a technonarcissistic fashion. The written information is mapped across a 'fuzzy' sound-based interface, sensitive at every moment to the smallest movements of the reader's fingers on the keys and mouse: the screen itself is black, its swarm of links and hotspots dead to the eye. The reader's movements produce different bleeps and beats, each new track opening different entrances and exits through the information in dependence upon the fluctuating pitch and tempo of her music. Without the aid of searchpaths and bright links, she must move in a state of perpetual readjustment to the technology, attuned not to the information stored behind the interface, but to the real-time sounds her movements produce. What we are calling play, Fuller explains, "is the difference between something that has a fixed grammar on the one hand and something that is continually and openly inventing its own logic on the other" (Fuller & Pope 4). The electronic writing space is not inherently liberatory, and the perpetual process of playing with process across the interface works to widen the 'fissures across the imperium' only for a moment. According to Fuller and Joyce, the 'process of playing with process' simply means complicating the feedback arrangements between the user's body and the machine. "We need to find a way of reading sensually ... rather than, as the interactive artist Graham Weinbren puts it, descending 'into the pit of so-called multimedia, with its scenes of unpleasant 'hotspots,' and 'menus' [that] leaves no room for the possibility of a loss of self, of desire in relation to the unfolding'" remarks Joyce (11). Interactivity which calls upon a mind folded everywhere within the body dislocates the encyclopaedic organisation of data that "preserves a point of privilege from where the eye can frame objects" by enlisting itinerant, diffuse desires in an extended period of readjustment to technology (Fuller & Pope 3). There are no pre-ordained or privileged feedback circuits as the body is seen to comprise a myriad possible elements or fragments of a desiring-machine with the potential to disrupt the flow, to proliferate. Mainstream multimedia's desire for 'informational hygiene' would have us transcend this embodied flux and bureaucratise the body into organs. Information is fed through the circuits of sight in a Pavlovian field of buttons and bright links: interactivity is misconceived as choice-making, when 'response' is a more appropriate concept. When the diffuse desire which thrives on disruption and alternative paradigms is written out in favour of informational hygiene, speed and efficient retrieval replace embodied conversation. "Disembodied [interaction] of this kind is always a con... . The entropic, troublesome flesh that is sloughed off in these fantasies of strongly male essentialism is interwoven with the dynamics of self-processing cognition and intentionality. We see computers as embodied culture, hardwired epistemology" (Fuller 2). Avant-garde hypertext deepens the subjective experience of the human-computer interface: it inscribes itself across the diffuse, disruptive desires of the flesh. Alternative interfaces are not an ideological overhaul enabled by the realm of technê, but a space for localised break-outs across the body. Bifurcations are enacted on the micro level by desiring-machines, across an interface which seeks to dislocate intentionality in conjunction with the marginalised sensory apparatus of the reader, drawing other minds, other organs into localised conversation with command-control. "The user learns kinesthetically and proprioceptively that the boundaries of self are defined less by the skin than by the [local] feedback loops connecting body and simulation in a techno-bio-integrated circuit" (Hayles 72). She oscillates between communication and control, play and restraint: not a nomad but a "human Deserter assuming the most diverse forms" (ATP, 422). VI. Desire Working from across the territory we have covered, we might say that electronic interaction 'liberates' us from neither the Line nor the flesh: at its most experimental, it is nothing less than reading embodied. References Barnet, Belinda. "Storming the Interface: Mindvirus, I/O/D and Deceptive Interaction." Artlink: Australian Contemporary Art Quarterly 17:4 (1997). Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism & Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1987. Fuller, Matt and Simon Pope. "Warning: This Computer Has Multiple Personality Disorder." 1993. 11 Dec. 1998 <http://www.altx.com/wordbombs/popefuller.php>. ---, eds. I/O/D2. Undated. 11 Dec. 1998 <http://www.pHreak.co.uk/i_o_d/>. Hayles, Katherine N. "Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifiers" October Magazine 66 (Fall 1993): 69-91. Johnson-Eilola, Johndan. "Control and the Cyborg: Writing and Being Written in Hypertext." Journal of Advanced Composition 13:2 (1993): 381-99. Joyce, Michael. Of Two Minds: Hypertext, Pedagogy and Poetics. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1995. Moulthrop, Stuart. "No War Machine." 1997. 11 Dec. 1998 <http://raven.ubalt.edu/staff/moulthrop/essays/war_machine.php>. ---. "Rhizome and Resistance: Hypertext and the Dreams of a New Culture." Hyper/Text/Theory. Ed. George P. Landow. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1994. 299-319. Rosenberg, Martin E. "Physics and Hypertext: Liberation and Complicity in Art and Pedagogy." Hyper/Text/Theory. Ed. George Landow. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1994. 268-298. Selfe, Cynthia L., and Richard J. Selfe. "The Politics of the Interface: Power and Its Exercise in Electronic Contact Zones." College Composition and Communication 45.4: 480-504. Stone, Allucquére Roseanne. The War of Desire and Technology. London: MIT Press, 1996. Tolva, John. "Ut Pictura Hyperpoesis: Spatial Form, Visuality, and the Digital Word." 1993. 11 Dec. 1998 <http://www.cs.unc.edu/~barman/HT96/P43/pictura.htm>. Virilio, Paul. "The Third Interval: A Critical Transition." Rethinking Technologies. Ed. Verena Conley. London: U of Minnesota P, 1993. 3-12. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Belinda Barnet. "In the Garden of Forking Paths: Contingency, Interactivity and Play in Hypertext." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1.5 (1998). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9812/garden.php>. Chicago style: Belinda Barnet, "In the Garden of Forking Paths: Contingency, Interactivity and Play in Hypertext," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1, no. 5 (1998), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9812/garden.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Belinda Barnet. (1998) In the garden of forking paths: contingency, interactivity and play in hypertext. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1(5). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9812/garden.php> ([your date of access]).

Abstract:

IntroductionCoffee, as a stimulant, and the spaces in which it is has been consumed, have long played a vital role in fostering communication, creativity, and sociality. This article explores the interrelationship of café space, communication, creativity, and materialism. In developing these themes, this article is structured in two parts. The first looks back to the coffee houses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to give a historical context to the contemporary role of the café as a key site of creativity through its facilitation of social interaction, communication and information exchange. The second explores the continuation of the link between cafés, communication and creativity, through an instance from the mid-twentieth century where this process becomes individualised and is tied more intrinsically to the material surroundings of the café itself. From this, we argue that in order to understand the connection between café space and creativity, it is valuable to consider the rich polymorphic material and aesthetic composition of cafés. The Social Life of Coffee: London’s Coffee Houses While the social consumption of coffee has a long history, here we restrict our focus to a discussion of the London coffee houses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It was during the seventeenth century that the vogue of these coffee houses reached its zenith when they operated as a vibrant site of mercantile activity, as well as cultural and political exchange (Cowan; Lillywhite; Ellis). Many of these coffee houses were situated close to the places where politicians, merchants, and other significant people congregated and did business, near government buildings such as Parliament, as well as courts, ports and other travel route hubs (Lillywhite 17). A great deal of information was shared within these spaces and, as a result, the coffee house became a key venue for communication, especially the reading and distribution of print and scribal publications (Cowan 85). At this time, “no coffee house worth its name” would be without a ready selection of newspapers for its patrons (Cowan 173). By working to twenty-four hour diurnal cycles and heightening the sense of repetition and regularity, coffee houses also played a crucial role in routinising news as a form of daily consumption alongside other forms of habitual consumption (including that of coffee drinking). In Cowan’s words, “restoration coffee houses soon became known as places ‘dasht with diurnals and books of news’” (172). Among these was the short-lived but nonetheless infamous social gossip publication, The Tatler (1709-10), which was strongly associated with the London coffee houses and, despite its short publication life, offers great insight into the social life and scandals of the time. The coffee house became, in short, “the primary social space in which ‘news’ was both produced and consumed” (Cowan 172). The proprietors of coffee houses were quick to exploit this situation by dealing in “news mongering” and developing their own news publications to supplement their incomes (172). They sometimes printed news, commentary and gossip that other publishers were not willing to print. However, as their reputation as news providers grew, so did the pressure on coffee houses to meet the high cost of continually acquiring or producing journals (Cowan 173; Ellis 185-206). In addition to the provision of news, coffee houses were vital sites for other forms of communication. For example, coffee houses were key venues where “one might deposit and receive one’s mail” (Cowan 175), and the Penny Post used coffeehouses as vital pick-up and delivery centres (Lillywhite 17). As Cowan explains, “Many correspondents [including Jonathan Swift] used a coffeehouse as a convenient place to write their letters as well as to send them” (176). This service was apparently provided gratis for regular patrons, but coffee house owners were less happy to provide this for their more infrequent customers (Cowan 176). London’s coffee houses functioned, in short, as notable sites of sociality that bundled together drinking coffee with news provision and postal and other services to attract customers (Cowan; Ellis). Key to the success of the London coffee house of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was the figure of the virtuoso habitué (Cowan 105)—an urbane individual of the middle or upper classes who was skilled in social intercourse, skills that were honed through participation in the highly ritualised and refined forms of interpersonal communication, such as visiting the stately homes of that time. In contrast to such private visits, the coffee house provided a less formalised and more spontaneous space of sociality, but where established social skills were distinctly advantageous. A striking example of the figure of the virtuoso habitué is the philosopher, architect and scientist Robert Hooke (1635-1703). Hooke, by all accounts, used the opportunities provided by his regular visits to coffee houses “to draw on the knowledge of a wide variety of individuals, from servants and skilled laborers to aristocrats, as well as to share and display novel scientific instruments” (Cowan 105) in order to explore and develop his virtuoso interests. The coffee house also served Hooke as a place to debate philosophy with cliques of “like-minded virtuosi” and thus formed the “premier locale” through which he could “fulfil his own view of himself as a virtuoso, as a man of business, [and] as a man at the centre of intellectual life in the city” (Cowan 105-06). For Hooke, the coffee house was a space for serious work, and he was known to complain when “little philosophical work” was accomplished (105-06). Sociality operates in this example as a form of creative performance, demonstrating individual skill, and is tied to other forms of creative output. Patronage of a coffee house involved hearing and passing on gossip as news, but also entailed skill in philosophical debate and other intellectual pursuits. It should also be noted that the complex role of the coffee house as a locus of communication, sociality, and creativity was repeated elsewhere. During the 1600s in Egypt (and elsewhere in the Middle East), for example, coffee houses served as sites of intensive literary activity as well as the locations for discussions of art, sciences and literature, not to mention also of gambling and drug use (Hattox 101). While the popularity of coffee houses had declined in London by the 1800s, café culture was flowering elsewhere in mainland Europe. In the late 1870s in Paris, Edgar Degas and Edward Manet documented the rich café life of the city in their drawings and paintings (Ellis 216). Meanwhile, in Vienna, “the kaffeehaus offered another evocative model of urban and artistic modernity” (Ellis 217; see also Bollerey 44-81). Serving wine and dinners as well as coffee and pastries, the kaffeehaus was, like cafés elsewhere in Europe, a mecca for writers, artists and intellectuals. The Café Royal in London survived into the twentieth century, mainly through the patronage of European expatriates and local intellectuals such as Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound, T. S. Elliot, and Henri Bergson (Ellis 220). This pattern of patronage within specific and more isolated cafés was repeated in famous gatherings of literary identities elsewhere in Europe throughout the twentieth century. From this historical perspective, a picture emerges of how the social functions of the coffee house and its successors, the espresso bar and modern café, have shifted over the course of their histories (Bollerey 44-81). In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the coffee house was an important location for vibrant social interaction and the consumption and distribution of various forms of communication such as gossip, news, and letters. However, in the years of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the café was more commonly a site for more restricted social interaction between discrete groups. Studies of cafés and creativity during this era focus on cafés as “factories of literature, inciters to art, and breeding places for new ideas” (Fitch, The Grand 18). Central in these accounts are bohemian artists, their associated social circles, and their preferred cafés de bohème (for detailed discussion, see Wilson; Fitch, Paris Café; Brooker; Grafe and Bollerey 4-41). As much of this literature on café culture details, by the early twentieth century, cafés emerge as places that enable individuals to carve out a space for sociality and creativity which was not possible elsewhere in the modern metropolis. Writing on the modern metropolis, Simmel suggests that the concentration of people and things in cities “stimulate[s] the nervous system of the individual” to such an extent that it prompts a kind of self-preservation that he terms a “blasé attitude” (415). This is a form of “reserve”, he writes, which “grants to the individual a [certain] kind and an amount of personal freedom” that was hitherto unknown (416). Cafés arguably form a key site in feeding this dynamic insofar as they facilitate self-protectionism—Fitch’s “pool of privacy” (The Grand 22)—and, at the same time, produce a sense of individual freedom in Simmel’s sense of the term. That is to say, from the early-to-mid twentieth century, cafés have become complex settings in terms of the relationships they enable or constrain between living in public, privacy, intimacy, and cultural practice. (See Haine for a detailed discussion of how this plays out in relation to working class engagement with Paris cafés, and Wilson as well as White on other cultural contexts, such as Japan.) Threaded throughout this history is a clear celebration of the individual artist as a kind of virtuoso habitué of the contemporary café. Café Jama Michalika The following historical moment, drawn from a powerful point in the mid-twentieth century, illustrates this last stage in the evolution of the relationship between café space, communication, and creativity. This particular historical moment concerns the renowned Polish composer and conductor Krzysztof Penderecki, who is most well-known for his avant-garde piece Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima (1960), his Polymorphia (1961), and St Luke Passion (1963-66), all of which entailed new compositional and notation techniques. Poland, along with other European countries devastated by the Second World War, underwent significant rebuilding after the war, also investing heavily in the arts, musical education, new concert halls, and conservatoria (Monastra). In the immediate post-war period, Poland and Polish culture was under the strong ideological influence exerted by the Soviet Union. However, as Thomas notes, within a year of Stalin’s death in 1953, “there were flickering signs of moderation in Polish culture” (83). With respect to musical creativity, a key turning point was the Warsaw Autumn Music Festival of 1956. “The driving force” behind the first festival (which was to become an annual event), was Polish “composers’ overwhelming sense of cultural isolation and their wish to break the provincial nature of Polish music” at that time (Thomas 85). Penderecki was one of a younger generation of composers who participated in, and benefited from, these early festivals, making his first appearance in 1959 with his composition Strophes, and successive appearances with Dimensions of Time and Silence in 1960, and Threnody in 1961 (Thomas 90). Penderecki married in the 1950s and had a child in 1955. This, in combination with the fact that his wife was a pianist and needed to practice daily, restricted Penderecki’s ability to work in their small Krakow apartment. Nor could he find space at the music school which was free from the intrusion of the sound of other instruments. Instead, he frequented the café Jama Michalika off the central square of Krakow, where he worked most days between nine in the morning and noon, when he would leave as a pianist began to play. Penderecki states that because of the small space of the café table, he had to “invent [a] special kind of notation which allowed me to write the piece which was for 52 instruments, like Threnody, on one small piece of paper” (Krzysztof Penderecki, 2000). In this, Penderecki created a completely new set of notation symbols, which assisted him in graphically representing tone clustering (Robinson 6) while, in his score for Polymorphia, he implemented “novel graphic notation, comparable with medical temperature charts, or oscillograms” (Schwinger 29) to represent in the most compact way possible the dense layering of sounds and vocal elements that is developed in this particular piece. This historical account is valuable because it contributes to discussions on individual creativity that both depends on, and occurs within, the material space of the café. This relationship is explored in Walter Benjamin’s essay “Polyclinic”, where he develops an extended analogy between the writer and the café and the surgeon and his instruments. As Cohen summarises, “Benjamin constructs the field of writerly operation both in medical terms and as a space dear to Parisian intellectuals, as an operating table that is also the marble-topped table of a café” (179). At this time, the space of the café itself thus becomes a vital site for individual cultural production, putting the artist in touch with the social life of the city, as many accounts of writers and artists in the cafés of Paris, Prague, Vienna, and elsewhere in Europe attest. “The attraction of the café for the writer”, Fitch argues, “is that seeming tension between the intimate circle of privacy in a comfortable room, on the one hand, and the flow of (perhaps usable) information all around on the other” (The Grand 11). Penderecki talks about searching for a sound while composing in café Jama Michalika and, hearing the noise of a passing tram, subsequently incorporated it into his famous composition, Threnody (Krzysztof Penderecki, 2000). There is an indirect connection here with the attractions of the seventeenth century coffee houses in London, where news writers drew much of their gossip and news from the talk within the coffee houses. However, the shift is to a more isolated, individualistic habitué. Nonetheless, the aesthetic composition of the café space remains essential to the creative productivity described by Penderecki. A concept that can be used to describe this method of composition is contained within one of Penderecki’s best-known pieces, Polymorphia (1961). The term “polymorphia” refers not to the form of the music itself (which is actually quite conventionally structured) but rather to the multiple blending of sounds. Schwinger defines polymorphia as “many formedness […] which applies not […] to the form of the piece, but to the broadly deployed scale of sound, [the] exchange and simultaneous penetration of sound and noise, the contrast and interflow of soft and hard sounds” (131). This description also reflects the rich material context of the café space as Penderecki describes its role in shaping (both enabling and constraining) his creative output. Creativity, Technology, Materialism The materiality of the café—including the table itself for Penderecki—is crucial in understanding the relationship between the forms of creative output and the material conditions of the spaces that enable them. In Penderecki’s case, to understand the origins of the score and even his innovative forms of musical notation as artefacts of communication, we need to understand the material conditions under which they were created. As a fixture of twentieth and twenty-first century urban environments, the café mediates the private within the public in a way that offers the contemporary virtuoso habitué a rich, polymorphic sensory experience. In a discussion of the indivisibility of sensation and its resistance to language, writer Anna Gibbs describes these rich experiential qualities: sitting by the window in a café watching the busy streetscape with the warmth of the morning sun on my back, I smell the delicious aroma of coffee and simultaneously feel its warmth in my mouth, taste it, and can tell the choice of bean as I listen idly to the chatter in the café around me and all these things blend into my experience of “being in the café” (201). Gibbs’s point is that the world of the café is highly synaesthetic and infused with sensual interconnections. The din of the café with its white noise of conversation and overlaying sounds of often carefully chosen music illustrates the extension of taste beyond the flavour of the coffee on the palate. In this way, the café space provides the infrastructure for a type of creative output that, in Gibbs’s case, facilitates her explanation of expression and affect. The individualised virtuoso habitué, as characterised by Penderecki’s work within café Jama Michalika, simply describes one (celebrated) form of the material conditions of communication and creativity. An essential factor in creative cultural output is contained in the ways in which material conditions such as these come to be organised. As Elizabeth Grosz expresses it: Art is the regulation and organisation of its materials—paint, canvas, concrete, steel, marble, words, sounds, bodily movements, indeed any materials—according to self-imposed constraints, the creation of forms through which these materials come to generate and intensify sensation and thus directly impact living bodies, organs, nervous systems (4). Materialist and medium-oriented theories of media and communication have emphasised the impact of physical constraints and enablers on the forms produced. McLuhan, for example, famously argued that the typewriter brought writing, speech, and publication into closer association, one effect of which was the tighter regulation of spelling and grammar, a pressure toward precision and uniformity that saw a jump in the sales of dictionaries (279). In the poetry of E. E. Cummings, McLuhan sees the typewriter as enabling a patterned layout of text that functions as “a musical score for choral speech” (278). In the same way, the café in Penderecki’s recollections both constrains his ability to compose freely (a creative activity that normally requires ample flat surface), but also facilitates the invention of a new language for composition, one able to accommodate the small space of the café table. Recent studies that have sought to materialise language and communication point to its physicality and the embodied forms through which communication occurs. As Packer and Crofts Wiley explain, “infrastructure, space, technology, and the body become the focus, a move that situates communication and culture within a physical, corporeal landscape” (3). The confined and often crowded space of the café and its individual tables shape the form of productive output in Penderecki’s case. Targeting these material constraints and enablers in her discussion of art, creativity and territoriality, Grosz describes the “architectural force of framing” as liberating “the qualities of objects or events that come to constitute the substance, the matter, of the art-work” (11). More broadly, the design features of the café, the form and layout of the tables and the space made available for individual habitation, the din of the social encounters, and even the stimulating influences on the body of the coffee served there, can be seen to act as enablers of communication and creativity. Conclusion The historical examples examined above indicate a material link between cafés and communication. They also suggest a relationship between materialism and creativity, as well as the roots of the romantic association—or mythos—of cafés as a key source of cultural life as they offer a “shared place of composition” and an “environment for creative work” (Fitch, The Grand 11). We have detailed one example pertaining to European coffee consumption, cafés and creativity. While we believe Penderecki’s case is valuable in terms of what it can tell us about forms of communication and creativity, clearly other cultural and historical contexts may reveal additional insights—as may be found in the cases of Middle Eastern cafés (Hattox) or the North American diner (Hurley), and in contemporary developments such as the café as a source of free WiFi and the commodification associated with global coffee chains. Penderecki’s example, we suggest, also sheds light on a longer history of creativity and cultural production that intersects with contemporary work practices in city spaces as well as conceptualisations of the individual’s place within complex urban spaces. References Benjamin, Walter. “Polyclinic” in “One-Way Street.” One-Way Street and Other Writings. Trans. Edmund Jephcott and Kingsley Shorter. London: Verso, 1998: 88-9. Bollerey, Franziska. “Setting the Stage for Modernity: The Cosmos of the Coffee House.” Cafés and Bars: The Architecture of Public Display. Eds. Christoph Grafe and Franziska Bollerey. New York: Routledge, 2007. 44-81. Brooker, Peter. Bohemia in London: The Social Scene of Early Modernism. Houndmills, Hamps.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Cohen, Margaret. Profane Illumination: Walter Benjamin and the Paris of Surrealist Revolution. Berkeley: U of California P, 1995. Cowan, Brian. The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse. New Haven: Yale UP, 2005. Ellis, Markman. The Coffee House: A Cultural History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2004. Fitch, Noël Riley. Paris Café: The Sélect Crowd. Brooklyn: Soft Skull Press, 2007. -----. The Grand Literary Cafés of Europe. London: New Holland Publishers (UK), 2006. Gibbs, Anna. “After Affect: Sympathy, Synchrony, and Mimetic Communication.” The Affect Theory Reader. Eds. Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Siegworth. Durham: Duke University Press, 2010. 186-205. Grafe, Christoph, and Franziska Bollerey. “Introduction: Cafés and Bars—Places for Sociability.” Cafés and Bars: The Architecture of Public Display. Eds. Christoph Grafe and Franziska Bollerey. New York: Routledge, 2007. 4-41. Grosz, Elizabeth. Chaos, Territory, Art: Deleuze and the Framing of the Earth. New York: Columbia UP, 2008. Haine, W. Scott. The World of the Paris Café. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1996. Hattox, Ralph S. Coffee and Coffeehouses: The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East. Seattle: U of Washington P, 1985. Hurley, Andrew. Diners, Bowling Alleys and Trailer Parks: Chasing the American Dream in the Postwar Consumer Culture. New York: Basic Books, 2001. Krzysztof Penderecki. Dir. Andreas Missler-Morell. Spektrum TV production and Telewizja Polska S.A. Oddzial W Krakowie for RM Associates and ZDF in cooperation with ARTE, 2000. Lillywhite, Bryant. London Coffee Houses: A Reference Book of Coffee Houses of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Centuries. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1963. McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. London: Abacus, 1974. Monastra, Peggy. “Krzysztof Penderecki’s Polymorphia and Fluorescence.” Moldenhauer Archives, [US] Library of Congress. 12 Jan. 2012 ‹http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/moldenhauer/2428143.pdf› Packer, Jeremy, and Stephen B. Crofts Wiley. “Introduction: The Materiality of Communication.” Communication Matters: Materialist Approaches to Media, Mobility and Networks. New York, Routledge, 2012. 3-16. Robinson, R. Krzysztof Penderecki: A Guide to His Works. Princeton, NJ: Prestige Publications, 1983. Schwinger, Wolfram. Krzysztof Penderecki: His Life and Work. Encounters, Biography and Musical Commentary. London: Schott, 1979. Simmel, Georg. The Sociology of Georg Simmel. Ed. and trans. Kurt H. Wolff. Glencoe, IL: The Free P, 1960. Thomas, Adrian. Polish Music since Szymanowski. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005. White, Merry I. Coffee Life in Japan. Berkeley: U of California P, 2012. Wilson, Elizabeth. “The Bohemianization of Mass Culture.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 2.1 (1999): 11-32.

Abstract:

IntroductionSydney’s Garden Palace was a magnificent building with a grandeur that dominated the skyline, stretching from the site of the current State Library of New South Wales to the building that now houses the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. The Palace captivated society from its opening in 1879. This article outlines the building of one of Sydney’s early structural icons and how, despite being destroyed by fire after three short years in 1882, it had an enormous impact on the burgeoning colonial community of New South Wales, thus building a physical structure, pride and a suite of memories.Design and ConstructionIn February 1878, the Colonial Secretary’s Office announced that “it is intended to hold under the supervision of the Agricultural Society of New South Wales an international Exhibition in Sydney in August 1879” (Official Record ix). By December the same year it had become clear that the Agricultural Society lacked the resources to complete the project and control passed to the state government. Colonial Architect James Barnet was directed to prepare “plans for a building suitable for an international exhibition, proposed to be built in the Inner Domain” (Official Record xx). Within three days he had submitted a set of drawings for approval. From this point on there was a great sense of urgency to complete the building in less than 10 months for the exhibition opening the following September.The successful contractor was John Young, a highly experienced building contractor who had worked on the Crystal Palace for the 1851 London International Exhibition and locally on the General Post Office and Exhibition Building at Prince Alfred Park (Kent 6). Young was confident, procuring electric lights from London so that work could be carried out 24 hours a day, to ensure that the building was delivered on time. The structure was built, as detailed in the Colonial Record (1881), using over 1 million metres of timber, 2.5 million bricks and 220 tonnes of galvanised corrugated iron. Remarkably the building was designed as a temporary structure to house the Exhibition. At the end of the Exhibition the building was not dismantled as originally planned and was instead repurposed for government office space and served to house, among other things, records and objects of historical significance. Ultimately the provisional building materials used for the Garden Palace were more suited to a temporary structure, in contrast with those used for the more permanent structures built at the same time which are still standing today.The building was an architectural and engineering wonder set in a cathedral-like cruciform design, showcasing a stained-glass skylight in the largest dome in the southern hemisphere (64 metres high and 30 metres in diameter). The total floor space of the exhibition building was three and half hectares, and the area occupied by the Garden Palace and related buildings—including the Fine Arts Gallery, Agricultural Hall, Machinery Hall and 10 restaurants and places of refreshment—was an astounding 14 hectares (Official Record xxxvi). To put the scale of the Garden Palace into contemporary perspective it was approximately twice the size of the Queen Victoria Building that stands on Sydney’s George Street today.Several innovative features set the building apart from other Sydney structures of the day. The rainwater downpipes were enclosed in hollow columns of pine along the aisles, ventilation was provided through the floors and louvered windows (Official Record xxi) while a Whittier’s Steam Elevator enabled visitors to ascend the north tower and take in the harbour views (“Among the Machinery” 70-71). The building dominated the Sydney skyline, serving as a visual anchor point that welcomed visitors arriving in the city by boat:one of the first objects that met our view as, after 12 o’clock, we proceeded up Port Jackson, was the shell of the Exhibition Building which is so rapidly rising on the Domain, and which next September, is to dazzle the eyes of the world with its splendours. (“A ‘Bohemian’s’ Holiday Notes” 2)The DomeThe dome of the Garden Palace was directly above the intersection of the nave and transept and rested on a drum, approximately 30 metres in diameter. The drum featured 36 oval windows which flooded the space below with light. The dome was made of wood covered with corrugated galvanised iron featuring 12 large lattice ribs and 24 smaller ribs bound together with purlins of wood strengthened with iron. At the top of the dome was a lantern and stained glass skylight designed by Messrs. Lyon and Cottier. It was light blue, powdered with golden stars with wooden ribs in red, buff and gold (Notes 6). The painting and decorating of the dome commenced just one month before the exhibition was due to open. The dome was the sixth largest dome in the world at the time. During construction, contractor Mr Young allowed visitors be lifted in a cage to view the building’s progress.During the construction of the Lantern which surmounts the Dome of the Exhibition, visitors have been permitted, through the courtesy of Mr. Young, to ascend in the cage conveying materials for work. This cage is lifted by a single cable, which was constructed specially of picked Manilla hemp, for hoisting into position the heavy timbers used in the construction. The sensation whilst ascending is a most novel one, and must resemble that experienced in ballooning. To see the building sinking slowly beneath you as you successively reach the levels of the galleries, and the roofs of the transept and aisles is an experience never to be forgotten, and it seems a pity that no provision can be made for visitors, on paying a small fee, going up to the dome. (“View from the Lantern of the Dome Exhibition” 8)The ExhibitionInternational Exhibitions presented the opportunity for countries to express their national identities and demonstrate their economic and technological achievements. They allowed countries to showcase the very best examples of contemporary art, handicrafts and the latest technologies particularly in manufacturing (Pont and Proudfoot 231).The Sydney International Exhibition was the ninth International Exhibition and the colony’s first, and was responsible for bringing the world to Sydney at a time when the colony was prosperous and full of potential. The Exhibition—opening on 17 September 1879 and closing on 20 April 1880—had an enormous impact on the community, it boosted the economy and was the catalyst for improving the city’s infrastructure. It was a great source of civic pride.Image 1: The International Exhibition Sydney, 1879-1880, supplement to the Illustrated Sydney News Jan. 1880. Image credit: Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (call no.: DL X8/3)This bird’s eye view of the Garden Palace shows how impressive the main structure was and how much of the Gardens and Domain were occupied by ancillary buildings for the Exhibition. Based on an original drawing by John Thomas Richardson, chief engraver at the Illustrated Sydney News, this lithograph features a key identifying buildings including the Art Gallery, Machinery Hall, and Agricultural Hall. Pens and sheds for livestock can also be seen. The parade ground was used throughout the Exhibition for displays of animals. The first notable display was the International Show of Sheep featuring Australian, French and English sheep; not surprisingly the shearing demonstrations proved to be particularly popular with the community.Approximately 34 countries and their colonies participated in the Exhibition, displaying the very best examples of technology, industry and art laid out in densely packed courts (Barnet n.p.). There were approximately 14,000 exhibits (Official Record c) which included displays of Bohemian glass, tapestries, fine porcelain, fabrics, pyramids of gold, metals, minerals, wood carvings, watches, ethnographic specimens, and heavy machinery. Image 2: “Meet Me under the Dome.” Illustrated Sydney News 1 Nov. 1879: 4. Official records cite that between 19,853 and 24,000 visitors attended the Exhibition on the opening day of 17 September 1879, and over 1.1 million people visited during its seven months of operation. Sizeable numbers considering the population of the colony, at the time, was just over 700,000 (New South Wales Census).The Exhibition helped to create a sense of place and community and was a popular destination for visitors. On crowded days the base of the dome became a favourite meeting place for visitors, so much so that “meet me under the dome” became a common expression in Sydney during the Exhibition (Official Record lxxxiii).Attendance was steady and continuous throughout the course of the Exhibition and, despite exceeding the predicted cost by almost four times, the Exhibition was deemed a resounding success. The Executive Commissioner Mr P.A. Jennings remarked at the closing ceremony:this great undertaking […] marks perhaps the most important epoch that has occurred in our history. In holding this exhibition we have entered into a new arena and a race of progress among the nations of the earth, and have placed ourselves in kindly competition with the most ancient States of the old and new world. (Official Record ciii)Initially the cost of admission was set at 5 shillings and later dropped to 1 shilling. Season tickets for the Exhibition were also available for £3 3s which entitled the holder to unlimited entry during all hours of general admission. Throughout the Exhibition, season ticket holders accounted for 76,278 admissions. The Exhibition boosted the economy and encouraged authorities to improve the city’s services and facilities which helped to build a sense of community as well as pride in the achievement of such a fantastic structure. A steam-powered tramway was installed to transport exhibition-goers around the city, after the Exhibition, the tramway network was expanded and by 1905–1906 the trams were converted to electric traction (Freestone 32).After the exhibition closed, the imposing Garden Palace building was used as office space and storage for various government departments.An Icon DestroyedIn the early hours of 22 September 1882 tragedy struck when the Palace was engulfed by fire (“Destruction of the Garden Palace” 7). The building – and all its contents – destroyed.Image 3: Burning of the Garden Palace from Eaglesfield, Darlinghurst, sketched at 5.55am, Sep 22/82. Image credit: Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (call no.: SSV/137) Many accounts and illustrations of the Garden Palace fire can be found in contemporary newspapers and artworks. A rudimentary drawing by an unknown artist held by the State Library of New South Wales appears to have been created as the Palace was burning. The precise time and location is recorded on the painting, suggesting it was painted from Eaglesfield, a school on Darlinghurst Road. It purveys a sense of immediacy giving some insight into the chaos and heat of the tragedy. A French artist living in Sydney, Lucien Henry, was among those who attempted to capture the fire. His assistant, G.H. Aurousseau, described the event in the Technical Gazette in 1912:Mister Henry went out onto the balcony and watched until the Great Dome toppled in; it was then early morning; he went back to his studio procured a canvas, sat down and painted the whole scene in a most realistic manner, showing the fig trees in the Domain, the flames rising through the towers, the dome falling in and the reflected light of the flames all around. (Technical Gazette 33-35)The painting Henry produced is not the watercolour held by the State Library of New South Wales, however it is interesting to see how people were moved to document the destruction of such an iconic building in the city’s history.What Was Destroyed?The NSW Legislative Assembly debate of 26 September 1882, together with newspapers of the day, documented what was lost in the fire. The Garden Palace housed the foundation collection of the Technological and Sanitary Museum (the precursor to the Powerhouse Museum, now the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences), due to open on 1 December 1882. This collection included significant ethnological specimens such as Australian Indigenous artefacts, many of which were acquired from the Sydney International Exhibition. The Art Society of New South Wales had hung 300 paintings in preparation for their annual art exhibition due to open on 2 October of that year, all of these paintings consumed by fire.The Records of the Crown Lands Occupation Office were lost along with the 1881 Census (though the summary survived). Numerous railway surveys were lost, as were: £7,000 worth of statues, between 20,000 and 30,000 plants and the holdings of the Linnean Society offices and museum housed on the ground floor. The Eastern Suburbs Brass Band performed the day before at the opening of the Eastern Suburbs Horticultural Society Flower show; all the instruments were stored in the Garden Palace and were destroyed. Several Government Departments also lost significant records, including the: Fisheries Office; Mining Department; Harbour and Rivers Department; and, as mentioned, the Census Department.The fire was so ferocious that the windows in the terraces along Macquarie Street cracked with the heat and sheets of corrugated iron were blown as far away as Elizabeth Bay. How Did The Fire Start?No one knows how the fire started on that fateful September morning, and despite an official enquiry no explanation was ever delivered. One theory blamed the wealthy residents of Macquarie Street, disgruntled at losing their harbour views. Another was that it was burnt to destroy records stored in the basement of the building that contained embarrassing details about the convict heritage of many distinguished families. Margaret Lyon, daughter of the Garden Palace decorator John Lyon, wrote in her diary:a gentleman who says a boy told him when he was putting out the domain lights, that he saw a man jump out of the window and immediately after observed smoke, they are advertising for the boy […]. Everyone seems to agree on his point that it has been done on purpose – Today a safe has been found with diamonds, sapphires and emeralds, there were also some papers in it but they were considerably charred. The statue of her majesty or at least what remains of it, for it is completely ruined – the census papers were also ruined, they were ready almost to be sent to the printers, the work of 30 men for 14 months. Valuable government documents, railway and other plans all gone. (MLMSS 1381/Box 1/Item 2) There are many eyewitness accounts of the fire that day. From nightwatchman Mr Frederick Kirchen and his replacement Mr John McKnight, to an emotional description by 14-year-old student Ethel Pockley. Although there were conflicting accounts as to where the fire may have started, it seems likely that the fire started in the basement with flames rising around the statue of Queen Victoria, situated directly under the dome. The coroner did not make a conclusive finding on the cause of the fire but was scathing of the lack of diligence by the authorities in housing such important items in a building that was not well-secured a was a potential fire hazard.Building a ReputationA number of safes were known to have been in the building storing valuables and records. One such safe, a fireproof safe manufactured by Milner and Son of Liverpool, was in the southern corner of the building near the southern tower. The contents of this safe were unscathed in contrast with the contents of other safes, the contents of which were destroyed. The Milner safe was a little discoloured and blistered on the outside but otherwise intact. “The contents included three ledgers, or journals, a few memoranda and a plan of the exhibition”—the glue was slightly melted—the plan was a little discoloured and a few loose papers were a little charred but overall the contents were “sound and unhurt”—what better advertising could one ask for! (“The Garden Palace Fire” 5).barrangal dyara (skin and bones): Rebuilding CommunityThe positive developments for Sydney and the colony that stemmed from the building and its exhibition, such as public transport and community spirit, grew and took new forms. Yet, in the years since 1882 the memory of the Garden Palace and its disaster faded from the consciousness of the Sydney community. The great loss felt by Indigenous communities went unresolved.Image 4: barrangal dyara (skin and bones). Image credit: Sarah Morley.In September 2016 artist Jonathan Jones presented barrangal dyara (skin and bones), a large scale sculptural installation on the site of the Garden Palace Building in Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden. The installation was Jones’s response to the immense loss felt throughout Australia with the destruction of countless Aboriginal objects in the fire. The installation featured thousands of bleached white shields made of gypsum that were laid out to show the footprint of the Garden Palace and represent the rubble left after the fire.Based on four typical designs from Aboriginal nations of the south-east, these shields not only raise the chalky bones of the building, but speak to the thousands of shields that would have had cultural presence in this landscape over generations. (Pike 33)ConclusionSydney’s Garden Palace was a stunning addition to the skyline of colonial Sydney. A massive undertaking, the Palace opened, to great acclaim, in 1879 and its effect on the community of Sydney and indeed the colony of New South Wales was sizeable. There were brief discussions, just after the fire, about rebuilding this great structure in a more permanent fashion for the centenary Exhibition in 1888 (“[From Our Own Correspondents] New South Wales” 5). Ultimately, it was decided that this achievement of the colony of New South Wales would be recorded in history, gifting a legacy of national pride and positivity on the one hand, but on the other an example of the destructive colonial impact on Indigenous communities. For many Sydney-siders today this history is as obscured as the original foundations of the physical building. What we build—iconic structures, civic pride, a sense of community—require maintenance and remembering. References“Among the Machinery.” The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser 10 Jan. 1880: 70-71.Aurousseau, G.H. “Lucien Henry: First Lecturer in Art at the Sydney Technical College.” Technical Gazette 2.III (1912): 33-35.Barnet, James. International Exhibition, Sydney, 1880: References to the Plans Showing the Space and Position Occupied by the Various Exhibits in the Garden Palace. Sydney: Colonial Architect’s Office, 1880.“A ‘Bohemian’s’ Holiday Notes.” The Singleton Argus and Upper Hunter General Advocate 23 Apr. 1879: 2.Census Department. New South Wales Census. 1881. 3 Mar. 2017 <http://hccda.ada.edu.au/pages/NSW-1881-census-02_vi>. “Destruction of the Garden Palace.” Sydney Morning Herald 23 Sep. 1882: 7.Freestone, Robert. “Space Society and Urban Reform.” Colonial City, Global City, Sydney’s International Exhibition 1879. Eds. Peter Proudfoot, Roslyn Maguire, and Robert Freestone. Darlinghurst, NSW: Crossing P, 2000. 15-33.“[From Our Own Correspondents] New South Wales.” The Age (Melbourne, Vic.) 30 Sep. 1882: 5.“The Garden Palace Fire.” Sydney Morning Herald 25 Sep. 1882: 5.Illustrated Sydney News and New South Wales Agriculturalist and Grazier 1 Nov. 1879: 4.“International Exhibition.” Australian Town and Country Journal 15 Feb. 1879: 11.Kent, H.C. “Reminiscences of Building Methods in the Seventies under John Young. Lecture.” Architecture: An Australian Magazine of Architecture and the Arts Nov. (1924): 5-13.Lyon, Margaret. Unpublished Manuscript Diary. MLMSS 1381/Box 1/Item 2.New South Wales, Legislative Assembly. Debates 22 Sep. 1882: 542-56.Notes on the Sydney International Exhibition of 1879. Melbourne: Government Printer, 1881.Official Record of the Sydney International Exhibition 1879. Sydney: Government Printer, 1881.Pike, Emma. “barrangal dyara (skin and bones).” Jonathan Jones: barrangal dyara (skin and bones). Eds. Ross Gibson, Jonathan Jones, and Genevieve O’Callaghan. Balmain: Kaldor Public Arts Project, 2016.Pont, Graham, and Peter Proudfoot. “The Technological Movement and the Garden Palace.” Colonial City, Global City, Sydney’s International Exhibition 1879. Eds. Peter Proudfoot, Roslyn Maguire, and Robert Freestone. Darlinghurst, NSW: Crossing Press, 2000. 239-249.“View from the Lantern of the Dome of the Exhibition.” Illustrated Sydney News and New South Wales Agriculturalist and Grazier 9 Aug. 1879: 8.

Abstract:

Introduction In The X-Files episode “Humbug”, agents Scully and Mulder travel to Florida to investigate a series of murders taking place in a community of sideshow performers, or freaks. At the episode’s end, one character, a self-made freak and human blockhead, muses on the future of the freak community:twenty-first century genetic engineering will not only eradicate the Siamese twins and the alligator-skinned people, but you’re going to be hard-pressed to find a slight overbite or a not-so-high cheek bone … . Nature abhors normality. It can’t go very long without creating a mutant. (“Humbug”) Freaks, he says, are there to remind people of the necessity of mutations. His observation that genetic engineering will eradicate anomalies of nature accurately illustrates the gradual shift that society was witnessing in the late twentieth century away from the anomalous freak and toward surgical perfection. Yet this desire for perfection, which has manifested itself in often severe surgical deformities, has seen a shift in what constitutes the freak for a contemporary audience, turning what was once an anomaly into a mass-produced creation. While the freaks of the nineteenth and early twentieth century were born with facial or anatomical deformities that warranted their place in the sideshow performance (bearded ladies, midgets, faints, lobster men, alligator-skinned people, etc.), freaks of the twenty-first century can be seen as something created by a plastic surgeon, a shift which undermines the very understanding of freak ontology. As Katherine Dunne put it: “a true freak cannot be made. A true freak must be born” (28). In her discussion of the monstrous body, Linda Williams writes that “the monster’s body is perceived as freakish in its possession of too much or too little” (63). This may have included a missing or additional limb, distorted sizes and heights, and anatomical growths. John Merrick, or the “Elephant Man” (fig. 1), as he was famously known, perfectly embodied this sense of excess that is vital to what people perceive as the monstrous body. In his discussion of freaks and the freakshow, Robert Bogdan notes that promotional posters exaggerated the already-deformed nature of freaks by emphasising certain physical anomalies and turning them into mythological creatures: “male exhibits with poorly formed arms were billed as ‘The Seal Man’; with poorly formed legs, ‘the Frog Man’; with excesses of hair, ‘The Lion Man’ or ‘Dog Boy’” (100). Figure 1: John Merrick (the Elephant Man) <https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/193584483966192229/>.The freak’s anomalous nature made them valuable, financially but also culturally: “in many ways, the concept of ‘freak,’ is an anomaly in current social scientific thinking about demonstrable human variation. During its prime the freak show was a place where human deviance was valuable, and in that sense valued” (Bogdan 268). Many freaks were presented as “human wonders”, while “their claims to fame were quite commonplace” (Bogdan 200). Indeed, Bogdan argues that “while highly aggrandized exhibits really were full of grandeur, with respectable freaks the mundane was exploited as amazing and ordinary people were made into human wonders” (200). Lucian Gomoll similarly writes that freakshows “directed judgement away from the audience and onto the performers, assuring observers of their own unmarked normalcy” (“Objects of Dis/Order” 205).The anomalous nature of the freak therefore promoted the safety of normality at the same time as it purported to showcase the brilliance of the extraordinary. While the freaks themselves were normal, intelligent people, the freakshow served as a vehicle to gaze at oneself with a sense of relief. As much as many freakshows attempt to dismantle notions of normality, they serve to emphasise empathy, not envy. The anomalous freak is never an envied body; the particular dimensions of the freakshow mean that it is the viewer who is to be envied, and the freak who is to be pitied. From Freakshow to SideshowIn nineteenth-century freakshows, exploitation was rife; as Alison Piepmeier explains, “many of the so-called Aztecs, Pinheads, and What Is Its?”, were, in fact, “mentally disabled people dressed in wild costumes and forced to perform” (53). As a result, “freakishness often implied loss of control over one’s self and one’s destiny” (53). P.T. Barnum profited from his exploitation of freaks, while many freaks themselves also benefited from being exhibited. As Jessica Williams writes, “many freak show performers were well paid, self-sufficient, and enjoyed what they did” (69). Bogdan similarly pointed out that “some [freaks] were exploited, it is true, but in the culture of the amusement world, most human oddities were accepted as showmen. They were congratulated for parlaying into an occupation [that], in another context, might have been a burden” (268). Americans of all classes, Anissa Janine Wardi argues, enjoyed engaging in the spectacle of the freak. She writes that “it is not serendipitous that the golden age of the freak show coincided with the building of America’s colonial empire” (518). Indeed, the “exploration of the non-Western world, coupled with the transatlantic slave trade, provided the backdrop for America’s imperialist gaze, with the native ‘other’ appearing not merely in the arena of popular entertainment, but particularly in scientific and medical communities” (518). Despite the accusations levelled against Barnum, his freakshows were seen as educational and therefore beneficial to both the public and the scientific community, who, thanks to Barnum, directly benefited from the commercialisation of and rising public interest in the freak. Discussing “western conventions of viewing exotic others”, Lucian Gomoll writes that “the freak and the ‘normal’ subject produced each other in a relationship of uneven reciprocity” (“Feminist Pleasures” 129). He writes that Barnum “encouraged onlookers to define their own identities in contrast to those on display, as not disabled, not animalistic, not androgynous, not monstrous and so on”. By the twentieth century, he writes, “shows like Barnum’s were banned from public spaces as repugnant and intolerable, and forced to migrate to the margins” (129).Gomoll commends the Freakatorium, a museum curated by the late sword swallower Johnny Fox, as “demonstrating and commemorating the resourcefulness and talents of those pushed to the social margins” (“Objects of Dis/Order” 207). Gomoll writes that Fox did not merely see freaks as curiosities in the way that Barnum did. Instead, Fox provided a dignified memorial that celebrated the uniqueness of each freak. Fox’s museum displays, he writes, are “respectable spaces devoted to the lives of amazing people, which foster potential empathy from the viewers – a stark contrast to nineteenth-century freakshows” (205). Fox himself described the necessity of the Freakatorium in the wake of the sideshow: New York needs a place where people can come see the history of freakdom. People that were born with deformities that were still amazing and sensitive people and they allowed themselves to be viewed and exhibited. They made a good living off doing that. Those people were to be commended for their courageousness and bravery for standing in front of people. (Hartzman)Fox also described the manner in which the sideshow circuit was banned over time:then sideshows went out because some little girl was offended because she thought the only place she could work was the sideshow. Her mother thought it was disgraceful that people exhibited themselves so she started calling the governor and state’s attorney trying to get sideshows banned. I think it was Florida or South Carolina. It started happening in other states. They said no exhibiting human anomalies. These people who had been working in sideshows for years had their livelihood taken away from them. What now, they’re supposed to go be institutionalized? (Hartzman) Elizabeth Stephens argues that a shift occurred in the early twentieth century, and that by the late ‘30s “people with physical anomalies had been transformed in the cultural imagination from human oddities or monsters to sick people requiring diagnoses and medical intervention” (Stephens). Bogdan noted that by the 1930s, “the meaning of being different changed in American society. Scientific medicine had undermined the mystery of certain forms of human variation, and the exotic and aggrandized modes had lost their flamboyant attractiveness” (274). So-called freaks became seen as diseased bodies who “were now in the province of physicians, not the general public” (274). Indeed, scientific interest transformed the freak into a medical curiosity, contributing to the waning popularity of freakshows. Ironically, although the freaks declined in popularity as they moved into the medical community, medicine would prove to be the domain of a new kind of freak in the ensuing years. The Manufactured Freak As the freakshow declined in popularity, mainstream culture found other subjects whose appearance provoked curiosity, awe, and revulsion. Although plastic surgery is associated with the mid-to-late twentieth century and beyond, it has a long history in the medical practice. In A History of Plastic Surgery, Paolo Santoni-Rugiu and Philip J. Sykes note that “operations for the sole purpose of improving appearances came on the scene in 1906” (322). Charles C. Miller was one of the earliest pioneers of plastic surgery; Santoni-Rugiu and Sykes write that “he never disguised the fact that his ambition was to do Featural Surgery, correcting imperfections that from a medical point of view were not considered to be deformities” (302). This attitude would fundamentally transform notions of the “normal” body. In the context of cosmetic surgery, it is the normal body that becomes manipulated in order to produce something which, despite intentions, proves undoubtedly freakish. Although men certainly engage in plastic surgery (notably Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff) the twenty-first century surgical freak is synonymous with women. Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs points out the different expectations levelled against men and women with respect to ageing and plastic surgery. While men, she says, “are closely scrutinised for attempting to hide signs of ageing, particularly hair loss”, women, in contrast, “are routinely maligned if they fail to hide the signs of ageing” (363). She observes that while popular culture may accept the ageing man, the ageing woman is less embraced by society. Consequently, women are encouraged—by the media, their fans, and by social norms around beauty—to engage in surgical manipulation, but in such a way as to make their enhancements appear seamless. Women who have successful plastic surgery—in the sense that their ageing is well-hidden—are accepted as having successfully manipulated their faces so as to appear flawless, while those whose surgical exploits are excessive or turn out badly become decidedly freakish. One of the most infamous plastic surgery cases is that of Jocelyn Wildenstein, also known as “catwoman”. Born Jocelynnys Dayannys da Silva Bezerra Périsset in 1940, Wildenstein met billionaire art dealer Alec N. Wildenstein whom she married in the late 1970s. After discovering her husband was being unfaithful, Wildenstein purportedly turned to cosmetic surgery in order to sculpt her face to resemble a cat, her husband’s favourite animal. Ironically but not surprisingly, her husband purportedly screamed in terror when he saw his wife’s revamped face for the first time. And although their relationship ended in divorce, Wildenstein, dubbed “the Bride of Wildenstein”, continued to visit her plastic surgeon, and her face became progressively more distorted over the years (Figure 2). Figure 2: Jocelyn Wildenstein over the years <https://i.redd.it/vhh3yp6tgki31.jpg>. The exaggerated and freakish contours of Wildenstein’s face would undoubtedly remind viewers of the anatomical exaggerations seen in traditional freaks. Yet she does not belong to the world of the nineteenth century freak. Her deformities are self-inflicted in an attempt to fulfil certain mainstream beauty ideals to exaggerated lengths. Like many women, Wildenstein has repeatedly denied ever having received plastic surgery, claiming that her face is natural, while professing admiration for Brigitte Bardot, her beauty idol. Such denial has made her the target of further criticism, since women are not only expected to conceal the signs of ageing successfully but are also ironically expected to be honest and transparent about having had work done to their faces and bodies, particularly when it is obvious. The role that denial plays not just in Wildenstein’s case, but in plastic surgery cases more broadly, constitutes a “desirability of naturalness” (122), according to Debra Gimlin. There is, she argues, an “aesthetic preference for (surgically enhanced) ‘naturalness’” (122), a desire that sits between the natural body and the freak. This kind of appearance promotes more of an uncanny naturalness that removes signs of ageing but without being excessive; as opposed to women whose use of plastic surgery is obvious (and deemed excessive according to Williams’ “monstrous body”) the unnatural look that some plastic surgery promotes is akin to an absence of normal features, such as wrinkles. One surgeon that Gimlin cites argues that he would not remove the wrinkles of a woman in her 60s: “she’s gonna look like a freak without them”, he says. This admission signifies a clear distinction between what we understand as freakish plastic surgery (Wildenstein) and the not-yet-freakish appearance of women whose surgically enhanced appearance is at once uncanny and accepted, perpetuating norms around plastic surgery and beauty. Denial is thus part of the fabric of performing naturalness and the desire to make the unnatural seem natural, adding another quasi-freakish dimension to the increasingly normalised appearance of surgically enhanced women. While Wildenstein is mocked for her grotesque appearance, in addition to her denial of having had plastic surgery, women who have navigated plastic surgery successfully are congratulated and envied. Although contemporary media increasingly advocates the ability to age naturally, with actresses like Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep frequently cited as natural older beauties, natural ageing is only accepted to the extent that this look of naturalness is appeasing. Unflattering, unaltered naturalness, on the other hand, is demonised, with such women encouraged to turn to the knife after all in order to achieve a more acceptable look of natural ageing, one that will inevitably and ironically provoke further criticism. For women considering plastic surgery, they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Grant McCracken notes the similarities between Wildenstein and the famous French body artist Orlan: “like Orlan, Wildenstein had engaged in an extravagant, destructive creativity. But where Orlan sought transformational opportunity by moving upward in the Renaissance hierarchy, toward saints and angels, Wildenstein moved downwards, toward animals” (25). McCracken argues that it isn’t entirely clear whether Orlan and Wildenstein are “outliers or precursors” to the contemporary obsession with plastic surgery. But he notes how the transition of plastic surgery from a “shameful secret” to a ubiquitous if not obligatory phenomenon coincides with the surgical work of Orlan and Wildenstein. “The question remains”, he says, “what will we use this surgery to do to ourselves? Orlan and Wildenstein suggest two possibilities” (26).Meredith Jones, in her discussion of Wildenstein, echoes the earlier sentiments of Williams in regards to the monster’s body possessing too much or too little. In Wildenstein’s case, her freakishness is provoked by excess: “when too many body parts become independent they are deemed too disparate: wayward children who no longer lend harmony or respect to their host body. Jocelyn Wildenstein’s features do this: her cheeks, her eyes, her forehead and her lips are all striking enough to be deemed untoward” (125). For Jones, the combination of these features “form a grotesquery that means their host can only be deemed, at best, perversely beautiful” (125). Wildenstein has been referred to as a “modern-day freak”, and to a certain extent she does share something in common with the nineteenth century freak, specifically through the manner in which her distorted features invite viewers to gawk. Like the Elephant Man, her freakish body possesses “too much”, as Williams put it. Yet her appearance evokes none of the empathy afforded traditional freaks, whose facial or anatomical deformities were inherent and thus cause for empathy. They played no role in the formation of their deformities, only reclaiming agency once they exhibited themselves. While Wildenstein is, certainly, an anomaly in the sense that she is the only known woman who has had her features surgically altered to appear cat-like, her appearance more broadly represents an unnerving trajectory that reconstructs the freak as someone manufactured rather than born, upending Katherine Dunne’s assertion that true freaks are born, not made. Indeed, Wildenstein can be seen as a precursor to Nannette Hammond and Valeria Lukyanova, women who surgically enhanced their faces and bodies to resemble a real-life Barbie doll. Hammond, a woman from Cincinnati, has been called the first ‘Human Barbie’, chronicling the surgical process on her Instagram account. She states that her children and husband are “just so proud of me and what I’ve achieved through surgery” (Levine). This surgery has included numerous breast augmentations, botox injections and dental veneers, in addition to eyelash extensions and monthly fake tans. But while Hammond is certainly considered a “scalpel junkie”, Valeria Lukyanova’s desire to transform herself into a living Barbie doll is particularly uncanny. Michael’s Idov’s article in GQ magazine titled: “This is not a Barbie Doll. This is an Actual Human Being” attests to the uncanny appearance of Lukyanova. “Meeting Valeria Lukyanova is the closest you will come to an alien encounter”, Idov writes, describing the “queasy fear” he felt upon meeting her. “A living Barbie is automatically an Uncanny Valley Girl. Her beauty, though I hesitate to use the term, is pitched at the exact precipice where the male gaze curdles in on itself.” Lukyanova, a Ukrainian, admits to having had breast implants, but denies that she has had any more modifications, despite the uncanny symmetry of her face and body that would otherwise allude to further surgeries (Figure 3). Importantly, Lukyanova’s transformation both fulfils and affronts beauty standards. In this sense, she is at once freakish but does not fit the profile of the traditional freak, whose deformities are never confused with ideals of beauty, at least not in theory. While Johnny Fox saw freaks as talented, unique individuals, their appeal was borne of their defiance of the ideal, rather than a reinforcement of it, and the fact that their appearance was anomalous and unique, rather than reproducible at whim. Figure 3: Valeria Lukyanova with a Barbie Doll <http://shorturl.at/mER06>.Conclusion As a modern-day freak, these Barbie girls are a specific kind of abomination that undermines the very notion of the freak due to their emphasis on acceptance, on becoming mainstream, rather than being confined to the margins. As Jones puts it: “if a trajectory […] is drawn between mainstream cosmetic surgery and these individuals who have ‘gone too far’, we see that while they may be ‘freaks’ now, they nevertheless point towards a moment when such modifications could in fact be near mainstream” (188). The emphasis that is placed on mainstream acceptance and reproducibility in these cases affronts traditional notions of the freak as an anomalous individual whose features cannot be replicated. But the shift that society has seen towards genetic and surgical perfection has only accentuated the importance of biological anomalies who affront the status quo. While Wildenstein and the Barbie girls may provoke a similar sense of shock, revulsion and pity as the Elephant Man experienced, they possess none of the exceptionality or cultural importance of real freaks, whose very existence admonishes mainstream standards of beauty, ability, and biology. References Bogdan, Robert. 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Abstract:

Introduction Curation-related discourses have become widespread. The growing public profile of curators, the emergence of new curation-related discourses and their proliferation beyond the confines of museums, particularly on social media, have led some to conclude that we now live in an age of curation (Buskirk cited in Synder). Curation is commonly understood in instrumentalist terms as the evaluation, selection and presentation of artefacts around a central theme or motif (see O’Neill; Synder). However, there is a growing academic interest in what underlies the shifting discourses and practices. Many are asking what do these changes mean (Martinon) now that “the curatorial turn” has positioned curation as a legitimate object of academic study (O’Neill). This article locates an exploration of the curatorial turn in journalism studies since 2010 within the shifting meanings of curation from antiquity to the digital age. It argues that the industry is facing a Foucauldian moment where the changing political economy of news and the proliferation of user-generated content on social media have disrupted the monopolies traditional news media held over the circulation of knowledge of current affairs and the power this gave them to shape public debate. The disruptions are profound, prompting a rethinking of journalism (Peters and Broersma; Schudson). However, debates have polarised between those who view news curation as symptomatic of the demise of journalism and others who see it as part of a wider revival of the profession, freed from monopolistic institutions to circulate a wider array of knowledge and viewpoints (see Picard). This article eschews such polarisations and instead draws on Robert Picard’s argument that journalism is in transition and that journalism, as a set of professional practices, is adapting to the age of curation but that those traditional news providers that fail to adapt will most likely decline. However, Picard’s approach does not address the definitional problem as to what distinguishes news curating from other journalistic practices when the commonly used instrumental definition can apply to editing. This article aims to negotiate this problem by addressing some of the conceptual ambiguities that arise from wholly instrumental notions of news curation. From “Cura” to the Curatorial Turn and the Age of Curation Modern instrumentalist definitions are necessary but not sufficient for an exploration of the curatorial turn in journalism. Tracing the meanings of curation over time facilitates an expansion of the instrumental to include metaphoric conceptualisations. The term originated in a Latin allegory about a mythological figure, personified as the “cura”, translated literally as care or concern, and who created human beings from the clay of the earth. Having created the human, the cura was charged by the gods with the lifelong care of the human (Reich) and at the same time became a symbol of curiosity and creativity (see Nowotny). “Curators” first emerged in Imperial Rome to denote a public officer charged with maintaining order and the emperor’s finances (Nowotny) but by the fourteenth century the meaning had shifted to that of religious officer charged with the care of souls (Gaskill). At this point the metaphorical associations of creativity and curiosity subsided. Six hundred years later souls had been replaced by artefacts valorised because of their contribution to human knowledge or as a testament to exceptional human creativity (Nowotny). Objects of curiosity and originality, as well as their creators, were reified and curation became the specialist practice of an expert custodian charged with the care and preservation of artefacts but relegated to the background to collect, evaluate and archive artefacts entrusted to the care of museums and to be preserved for future generations. Instrumentalist meanings thus dominated. From the 1960s discourses shifted again from the privileging of a “producer who actually creates the object in its materiality” to an entire set of actors (Bourdieu 261). These shifts were part of the changing political economy of museums, the growing prevalence of exhibitions and the emergence of mega-exhibitions hosted in global cities and capable of attracting massive audiences (see O’Neill). The curator was no longer seen merely as a custodian but able to add cultural value to artefacts when drawing individual items together into a collection, interpreting their relevance to a theme then re-presenting them through a story or visuals (see O’Neill). The verb “to curate”, which had first entered the English lexicon in the early 1900s but was used sporadically (Synder), proliferated from the 1960s in museum studies (Farquharson cited in O’Neill) as mega-exhibitions attracted publicity and the higher profile of curators attracted the attention of intellectuals prompting a curatorial turn in museum studies. The curatorial turn in museum studies from the 1980s marks the emergence of curation as a legitimate object of academic enquiry. O’Neill identified a “Foucauldian moment” in museum studies where shifting discourses signified challenges to, and disruptions of, traditional forms of knowledge-based power. Curation was no longer seen as a neutral activity of preservation, but one located within a contested political economy and invested with contradictions and complexities. Philosophers such as Martinon and Nowotny have highlighted the impossibility of separating the oversight of valuable artefacts from the processes by which these are selected, valorised and signified and what, at times, has been the controversial appropriation of creative outputs. Thus, a new critical approach emerged. Recently, curating-related discourses have expanded beyond the “rarefied” world of museum studies (Synder). Social media platforms have facilitated the proliferation of user-generated content offering a vast array of new artefacts. Information circulates widely and new discourses can challenge traditional bases of knowledge. Audiences now actively search for new material driven in part by curiosity and a growing distrust of the professions and establishments (see Holmberg). The boundaries between professionals and lay people are blurring and, some argue, knowledge is being democratized (see Ibrahim; Holmberg). However, as new information becomes voluminous, alternative truths, misinformation and false information compete for attention and there is a growing demand for the verification, selection and presentation of artefacts, that is online curation (Picard; Bakker). Thus, the appropriation of social media is disrupting traditional power relations but also offering new opportunities for new information-related practices. Journalism is facing its own Foucauldian moment. A Foucauldian Moment in Journalism Studies Journalism has been traditionally understood as capturing today’s happenings, verifying the facts of an event, then presenting these as a narrative that reporters update as news unfolds. News has been seen as the preserve of professionals trained to interview eyewitnesses or experts, to verify facts and to compile what they found into a compelling narrative (Hallin and Mancini). News-gathering was typically the work of an individual tasked with collecting stand-alone stories then passing them onto editors to evaluate, select, prioritise and collate these into a collection that formed a newspaper or news programme . This understanding of journalism emerged from the 1830s along with a type of news that was accessible, that large numbers of people wanted to read and that, consequently, attracted advertising making news profitable (Park). The idea that presumed trained journalists were best placed to produce news appeared first in the UK and USA then spread worldwide (Hallin and Mancini). At the same time as there was growing demand for news, space constraints restricted how much could be published and the high costs of production served as a barrier to entry first in print then later in broadcast media (Picard; Curran and Seaton). The large news organisations that employed these professionals were thus able to control the circulation of information and knowledge they generated and the editors that selected content were able, in part, to shape public debates (Picard; Habermas). Social media challenge the control traditional media have had over the production and dissemination of news since the mid-1800s. Practically every major global news story in 2010 and 2011 from natural disasters to uprisings was broken by ordinary people on social media (Bruns and Highfield). Twitter facilitates a steady stream of updates at an almost real-time speed that 24-hour news channels cannot match. Facebook, Instagram and blogs add commentary, context, visuals and personal stories to breaking news. Experts and official sources routinely post announcements on social media platforms enabling anyone to access much of the same source material that previously was the preserve of reporters. Investigations by bloggers have exposed abuses of power by companies and governments that journalists on traditional media have failed to (Wischnowski). Audiences and advertisers are migrating away from traditional newspapers to a range of different online platforms. News consumers now actively use search engines to find available information of interest and look for efficient ways of sifting through the proliferation of the useful and the dubious, the revelatory and the misleading or inaccurate (see Picard). That is, news organisations and the professional journalists they employ are increasingly operating in a hyper-competitive (see Picard) and hyper-sceptical environment. This paper posits that cumulatively these are disrupting the control news organisations have and journalism is facing a Foucauldian moment when shifting discourses signify a disturbance of the intellectual rules that shape who and what knowledge of news is produced and hence the power relations they sustain. Social media not only challenge the core news business of reporting, they also present new opportunities. Some traditional organisations have responded by adding new activities to their repertoire of practices. In 2011, the Guardian uploaded its entire database of the expense claims of British MPs onto its Website and invited readers to select, evaluate and comment on entries, a form of crowd-sourced curating. Andy Carvin, while at National Public Radio (NPR) built an international reputation from his curation of breaking news, opinion and commentary on Twitter as Syria became too dangerous for foreign correspondents to enter. New types of press agencies such as Storyful have emerged around a curatorial business model that aggregates information culled from social media and uses journalists to evaluate and repackage them as news stories that are sold onto traditional news media around the world (Guerrini). Research into the growing market for such skills in the Netherlands found more advertisements for “news curators” than for “traditional reporters” (Bakker). At the same time, organic and spontaneous curation can emerge out of Twitter and Facebook communities that is capable of challenging news reporting by traditional media (Lewis and Westlund). Curation has become a common refrain attracting the attention of academics. A Curatorial Turn in Journalism The curatorial turn in journalism studies is manifest in the growing academic attention to curation-related discourses and practices. A review of four academic journals in the field, Journalism, Journalism Studies, Journalism Practice, and Digital Journalism found the first mention of journalism and curation emerged in 2010 with references in nearly 40 articles by July 2015. The meta-analysis that follows draws on this corpus. The consensus is that traditional business models based on mass circulation and advertising are failing partly because of the proliferation of alternative sources of information and the migration of readers in search of it. While some of this alternative content is credible, much is dubious and the sheer volume of information makes it difficult to discern what to believe. It is unsurprising, then, that there is a growing demand for “new types and practices of curation and information vetting” that attest to “the veracity and accuracy of content” particularly of news (Picard 280). However, academics disagree on whether new information practices such as curation are replacing or supplementing traditional newsgathering. Some look for evidence of displacement in the expansion of job advertisements for news curators relative to those for traditional reporters (Bakker). Others look at how new and traditional practices co-exist in organisations like the BBC, Guardian and NPR, sometimes clashing and sometimes collaborating in the co-creation of content (McQuail cited in Fahy and Nisbet; Hermida and Thurman). The debate has polarised between whether these changes signify the “twilight years of journalism or a new dawn” (Picard). Optimists view the proliferation of alternative sources of information as breaking the control traditional organisations held over news production, exposing their ideological biases and disrupting their traditional knowledge-based power and practices (see Hermida; Siapera, Papadopoulou, and Archontakis; Compton and Benedetti). Others have focused on the loss of “traditional” permanent journalistic jobs (see Schwalbe, Silcock, and Candello; Spaulding) with the implication that traditional forms of professional practice are in demise. Picard rejects this polarisation, counter-arguing that much analysis implicitly conflates journalism as a practice with the news organisations that have traditionally hosted it. Journalists may or may not be located within a traditional media organisation and social media is offering numerous opportunities for them to operate independently and for new types of hybrid practices and organisations such as Storyful to emerge outside of traditional operations. Picard argues that making the most of the opportunities social media presents is revitalising the profession offering a new dawn but that those traditional organisations that fail to adapt to the new media landscape and new practices are in their twilight years and likely to decline. These divergences, he argues, highlight a profession and industry in transition from an old order to a new one (Picard). This notion of journalism in transition usefully negotiates confusion over what curation in the social media age means for news providers but it does not address the uncertainty as to where it sits in relation to journalism. Futuristic accounts predict that journalists will become “managers of content rather than simply sourcing one story next to another” and that roles will shift from reporting to curation (Montgomery cited in Bakker; see Fahy and Nisbet). Others insist curators are not journalists but “information workers” or “gatecheckers” (McQuail 2013 cited in Bakker; Schwalbe, Silcock, and Candello) thereby differentiating the professional from the manual worker and reinforcing the historic elitism of the professions by implying curation is a lesser practice. However, such demarcation is problematic in that arguably both journalist and news curator can be seen as information workers and the instrumental definition outlined at the beginning of this article is as relevant to curation as it is to news editing. It is therefore necessary to revisit commonly used definitions (see Bakker; Guerrini; Synder). The literature broadly defines content creation, including news reporting, as the generation of original content that is distinguishable from aggregation and curation, both of which entail working with existing material. News aggregation is the automated use of computer algorithms to find and collect existing content relevant to a specified subject followed by the generation of a list or image gallery (Bakker; Synder). While aggregators may help with the collection component of news curation, the practices differ in their relation to technology. Apart from the upfront human design of the original algorithm, aggregation is wholly machine-driven while modern news curation adds human intervention to the technological processes of aggregation (Bakker). This intervention is conscious rather than automated, active rather than passive. It brings to bear human knowledge, expertise and interpretation to verify and evaluate content, filter and select artefacts based on their perceived quality and relevance for a particular topic or theme then re-present them in an accessible form as a narrative or infographics or both. While it does not involve the generation of original news content in the way news reporting does, curation is more than the collation of information. It can also involve the re-presenting of it in imaginative ways, the re-formulating of existing content in new configurations. In this sense, curation can constitute a form of creativity increasingly common in the social media age, that of re-mixing and re-imagining of existing material to create something novel (Navas and Gallagher). The distinction, therefore, between content creation and content curation lies primarily in the relation to original material and not the assumed presence or otherwise of creativity. In addition, curation outputs need not stand apart from news reports. They can serve to contextualize news in ways that short reports cannot while the latter provides original content to sit alongside curated materials. Thus the two types of news-related practices can complement rather than compete with each other. While this addresses the relation between reporting and curation, it does not clarify the relation between curating and editing. Bakker eludes to this when he argues curating also involves “editing … enriching or combining content from different sources” (599). But teasing out the distinctions is tricky because editing encompasses a wide range of sub-specialisations and divergent duties. Broadly speaking, editors are “newsrooms professionals … with decision-making authority over content and structure” who evaluate, verify and select information so are “quality controllers” in newsrooms (Stepp). This conceptualization overlaps with the instrumentalist definition of curation and while the broad type of skills and tasks involved are similar, the two are not synonymous. Editors tends to be relatively experienced professionals who have worked up the newsroom ranks whereas news curators are often new entrants ultimately answerable to editors. Furthermore, curation in the social media age involves voluminous material that curators sift through as part of first level content collection and it involves ever more complex verification processes as digital technologies make it increasingly easy to alter and falsify information and images. The quality control role of curators may also involve in-house specialists or junior staff working with external experts in a particular region or specialisation (Fahy and Nisbett). Some of job advertisements suggest a growing demand for specialist curatorial skills and position these alongside other newsroom professionals (Bakker). Whether this means they are journalists is still open to question. Conclusion This article has presented a more expansive conceptualisation of news curation than is commonly used in journalism studies, by including both the instrumental and the symbolic dimensions of a proliferating practice. It also sought to avoid confining this wider conceptualisation within unhelpful polarisations as to whether news curation is symbolic of a wider demise or revival of journalism by distinguishing the profession from the organisation in which it operates. The article was then free to negotiate the conceptual ambiguity surrounding the often taken-for-granted instrumental meanings of curation. It argues that what distinguishes news curation from traditional newsgathering is the relationship to original content. While the reporter generates the journalistic equivalent of original content in the form of news, the imaginative curator re-mixes and re-presents existing content in potentially novel ways. This has faint echoes of the mythological cura creating something new from the existing clay. The other conceptual ambiguity negotiated was in the definitional overlaps between curating and editing. On the one hand, this questions the appropriateness of reducing the news curator to the status of an “information worker”, a manual labourer rather than a professional. On the other hand, it positions news curators as one of many types of newsroom professionals. 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Abstract:

Film adaptation is an ambiguous term, both semantically and conceptually. Among its multiple connotations, the word “adaptation” may signify an artistic composition that has been recast in a new form, an alteration in the structure or function of an organism to make it better fitted for survival, or a modification in individual or social activity in adjustment to social surroundings. What all these definitions have in common is a tacitly implied hierarchy and valorisation: they presume the existence of an origin to which the recast work of art is indebted, or of biological or societal constraints to which the individual should conform in order to survive. The bias implied in the very connotations of the word has affected the theory and study of film adaptation. This bias is most noticeably reflected in the criterion of fidelity, which has been the major standard for evaluating film adaptations ever since George Bluestone’s 1957 pivotal Novels into Films. “Fidelity criticism,” observes McFarlane, “depends on a notion of the text as having and rendering up to the (intelligent) reader a single, correct ‘meaning’ which the film-maker has either adhered to or in some sense violated or tampered with” (7). But such an approach, Leitch argues, is rooted in several unacknowledged but entrenched misconceptions. It privileges literature over film, casts a false aura of originality on the precursor text, and ignores the fact that all texts, whether literary or cinematic, are essentially intertexts. As Kristeva, along with other poststructuralist theorists, has taught us, any text is an amalgam of others, a part of a larger fabric of cultural discourse (64-91). “A text is a multidimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash”, writes Barthes in 1977 (146), and 15 years later film theoretician Robert Stam elaborates: “The text feeds on and is fed into an infinitely permutating intertext, which is seen through evershifting grids of interpretation” (57). The poststructuralists’ view of texts draws on the structuralists’ view of language, which is conceived as a system that pre-exists the individual speaker and determines subjectivity. These assumptions counter the Romantic ideology of individualism, with its associated concepts of authorial originality and a text’s single, unified meaning, based on the author’s intention. “It is language which speaks, not the author,” declares Barthes, “to write is to reach the point where only language acts, ‘performs’, and not me” (143). In consequence, the fidelity criterion of film adaptation may be regarded as an outdated vestige of the Romantic world-view. If all texts quote or embed fragments of earlier texts, the notion of an authoritative literary source, which the cinematic version should faithfully reproduce, is no longer valid. Film adaptation should rather be perceived as an intertextual practice, contributing to a dynamic interpretive exchange between the literary and cinematic texts, an exchange in which each text can be enriched, modified or subverted. The relationship between Jonathan Nolan’s short story “Memento Mori” and Christopher Nolan’s film Memento (2001) is a case in point. Here there was no source text, as the writing of the story did not precede the making of the film. The two processes were concurrent, and were triggered by the same basic idea, which Jonathan discussed with his brother during a road trip from Chicago to LA. Christopher developed the idea into a film and Jonathan turned it into a short story; he also collaborated in the film script. Moreover, Jonathan designed otnemem> (memento in reverse), the official Website, which contextualises the film’s fictional world, while increasing its ambiguity. What was adapted here was an idea, and each text explores in different ways the narrative, ontological and epistemological implications of that idea. The story, the film and the Website produce a multi-layered intertextual fabric, in which each thread potentially unravels the narrative possibilities suggested by the other threads. Intertextuality functions to increase ambiguity, and is therefore thematically relevant, for “Memento Mori”, Memento and otnemem> are three fragmented texts in search of a coherent narrative. The concept of narrative may arguably be one of the most overused and under-defined terms in academic discourse. In the context of the present paper, the most productive approach is that of Wilkens, Hughes, Wildemuth and Marchionini, who define narrative as a chain of events related by cause and effect, occurring in time and space, and involving agency and intention. In fiction or in film, intention is usually associated with human agents, who can be either the characters or the narrator. It is these agents who move along the chain of causes and effects, so that cause-effect and agency work together to make the narrative. This narrative paradigm underpins mainstream Hollywood cinema in the years 1917-1960. In Narration in the Fiction Film, David Bordwell writes: The classical Hollywood film presents psychologically defined individuals who struggle to solve a clear-cut problem or to attain specific goals. … The story ends with a decisive victory or defeat, a resolution of the problem, and a clear achievement, or non achievement, of the goals. The principal causal agency is thus the character … . In classical fabula construction, causality is the prime unifying principle. (157) The large body of films flourishing in America between the years 1941 and 1958 collectively dubbed film noir subvert this narrative formula, but only partially. As accurately observed by Telotte, the devices of flashback and voice-over associated with the genre implicitly challenge conventionally linear narratives, while the use of the subjective camera shatters the illusion of objective truth and foregrounds the rift between reality and perception (3, 20). Yet in spite of the narrative experimentation that characterises the genre, the viewer of a classical film noir film can still figure out what happened in the fictional world and why, and can still reconstruct the story line according to sequential and causal schemata. This does not hold true for the intertextual composite consisting of Memento, “Memento Mori” and otnemem>. The basic idea that generated the project was that of a self-appointed detective who obsessively investigates and seeks to revenge his wife’s rape and murder, while suffering from a total loss of short term memory. The loss of memory precludes learning and the acquisition of knowledge, so the protagonist uses scribbled notes, Polaroid photos and information tattooed onto his skin, in an effort to reconstruct his fragmented reality into a coherent and meaningful narrative. Narrativity is visually foregrounded: the protagonist reads his body to make sense of his predicament. To recap, the narrative paradigm relies on a triad of terms: connectedness (a chain of events), causality, and intentionality. The basic situation in Memento and “Memento Mori”, which involves a rupture in the protagonist’s/narrator’s psychological time, entails a breakdown of all three pre-requisites of narrativity. Since the protagonists of both story and film are condemned, by their memory deficiency, to living in an eternal present, they are unable to experience the continuity of time and the connectedness of events. The disruption of temporality inevitably entails the breakdown of causality: the central character’s inability to determine the proper sequence of events prevents him from being able to distinguish between cause and effect. Finally, the notion of agency is also problematised, because agency implies the existence of a stable, identifiable subject, and identity is contingent on the subject’s uninterrupted continuity across time and change. The subversive potential of the basic narrative situation is heightened by the fact that both Memento and “Memento Mori” are focalised through the consciousness and perception of the main character. This means that the story, as well as the film, is conveyed from the point of view of a narrator who is constitutionally unable to experience his life as a narrative. This conundrum is addressed differently in the story and in the film, both thematically and formally. “Memento Mori” presents, in a way, the backdrop to Memento. It focuses on the figure of Earl, a brain damaged protagonist suffering from anterograde amnesia, who is staying in a blank, anonymous room, that we assume to be a part of a mental institution. We also assume that Earl’s brain damage results from a blow to the head that he received while witnessing the rape and murder of his wife. Earl is bent on avenging his wife’s death. To remind himself to do so, he writes messages to himself, which he affixes on the walls of his room. Leonard Shelby is Memento’s cinematic version of Earl. By Leonard’s own account, he has an inability to form memories. This, he claims, is the result of neurological damage sustained during an attack on him and his wife, an attack in which his wife was raped and killed. To be able to pursue his wife’s killers, he has recourse to various complex and bizarre devices—Polaroid photos, a quasi-police file, a wall chart, and inscriptions tattooed onto his skin—in order to replace his memory. Hampered by his affliction, Leonard trawls the motels and bars of Southern California in an effort to gather evidence against the killer he believes to be named “John G.” Leonard’s faulty memory is deviously manipulated by various people he encounters, of whom the most crucial are a bartender called Natalie and an undercover cop named Teddy, both involved in a lucrative drug deal. So far for a straightforward account of the short story and the film. But there is nothing straightforward about either Memento or “Memento Mori”. The basic narrative premise, consisting of a protagonist/narrator suffering from a severe memory deficit, is a condition entailing far-reaching psychological and philosophical implications. In the following discussion, I would like to focus on these two implications and to tie them in to the notions of narrativity, intertextuality, and eventually, adaptation. The first implication of memory loss is the dissolution of identity. Our sense of identity is contingent on our ability to construct an uninterrupted personal narrative, a narrative in which the present self is continuous with the past self. In Oneself as Another, his philosophical treatise on the concept of selfhood, Paul Ricoeur queries: “do we not consider human lives to be more readable when they have been interpreted in terms of the stories that people tell about them?” He concludes by observing that “interpretation of the self … finds in narrative, among others signs and symbols, a privileged form of mediation” (ft. 114). Ricoeur further suggests that the sense of selfhood is contingent on four attributes: numerical identity, qualitative identity, uninterrupted continuity across time and change, and finally, permanence in time that defines sameness. The loss of memory subverts the last two attributes of personal identity, the sense of continuity and permanence over time, and thereby also ruptures the first two. In “Memento Mori” and Memento, the disintegration of identity is formally rendered through the fragmentation of the literary and cinematic narratives, respectively. In Jonathan Nolan’s short story, traditional linear narrative is disrupted by shifts in point of view and by graphic differences in the shape of the print on the page. “Memento Mori” is alternately narrated in the first and in the third person. The first person segments, which constitute the present of the story, are written by Earl to himself. As his memory span is ten-minute long, his existence consists of “just the same ten minutes, over and over again” (Nolan, 187). Fully aware of the impending fading away of memory, Earl’s present-version self leaves notes to his future-version self, in an effort to situate him in time and space and to motivate him to the final action of revenge. The literary device of alternating points of view formally subverts the notion of identity as a stable unity. Paradoxically, rather than setting him apart from the rest of us, Earl’s brain damage foregrounds his similarity. “Every man is broken into twenty-four-hour fractions,” observes Earl, comforting his future self by affirming his basic humanity, “Your problem is a little more acute, maybe, but fundamentally the same thing” (Nolan, 189). His observation echoes Beckett’s description of the individual as “the seat of a constant process of decantation … to the vessel containing the fluid of past time” (Beckett, 4-5). Identity, suggests Jonathan Nolan, following Beckett, among other things, is a theoretical construct. Human beings are works in progress, existing in a state of constant flux. We are all fragmented beings—the ten-minute man is only more so. A second strategy employed by Jonathan to convey the discontinuity of the self is the creation of visual graphic disunity. As noted by Yellowlees Douglas, among others, the static, fixed nature of the printed page and its austere linearity make it ideal for the representation of our mental construct of narrative. The text of “Memento Mori” appears on the page in three different font types: the first person segments, Earl’s admonitions to himself, appear in italics; the third person segments are written in regular type; and the notes and signs are capitalised. Christopher Nolan obviously has recourse to different strategies to reach the same ends. His principal technique, and the film’s most striking aspect, is its reversed time sequence. The film begins with a crude Polaroid flash photograph of a man’s body lying on a decaying wooden floor. The image in the photo gradually fades, until the camera sucks the picture up. The photograph presents the last chronological event; the film then skips backwards in ten-minute increments, mirroring the protagonist’s memory span. But the film’s time sequence is not simply a reversed linear structure. It is a triple-decker narrative, mirroring the three-part organisation of the story. In the opening scene, one comes to realise that the film-spool is running backwards. After several minutes the film suddenly reverses and runs forward for a few seconds. Then there is a sudden cut to a different scene, in black and white, where the protagonist (who we have just learned is called Leonard) begins to talk, out of the blue, about his confusion. Soon the film switches to a color scene, again unconnected, in which the “action” of the film begins. In the black and white scenes, which from then on are interspersed with the main action, Leonard attempts to understand what is happening to him and to explain (to an unseen listener) the nature of his condition. The “main action” of the film follows a double temporal structure: while each scene, as a unit of action, runs normally forward, each scene is triggered by the following, rather than by the preceding scene, so that we are witnessing a story whose main action goes back in time as the film progresses (Hutchinson and Read, 79). A third narrative thread, interspersed with the other two, is a story that functions as a foil to the film’s main action. It is the story of Sammy Jankis: one of the cases that Leonard worked on in his past career as an insurance investigator. Sammy was apparently suffering from anterograde amnesia, the same condition that Leonard is suffering from now. Sammy’s wife filed an insurance claim on his behalf, a claim that Leonard rejected on the grounds that Sammy’s condition was merely psychosomatic. Hoping to confirm Leonard’s diagnosis, Sammy’s diabetic wife puts her husband to the test. He fails the test as he tenderly administers multiple insulin injections to her, thereby causing her death. As Leonard’s beloved wife also suffered from diabetes, and as Teddy (the undercover cop) eventually tells Leonard that Sammy never had a wife, the Sammy Jankis parable functions as a mise en abyme, which can either corroborate or subvert the narrative that Leonard is attempting to construct of his own life. Sammy may be seen as Leonard’s symbolic double in that his form of amnesia foreshadows the condition with which Leonard will eventually be afflicted. This interpretation corroborates Leonard’s personal narrative of his memory loss, while tainting him with the blame for the death of Sammy’s wife. But the camera also suggests a more unsettling possibility—Leonard may ultimately be responsible for the death of his own wife. The scene in which Sammy, condemned by his amnesia, administers to his wife a repeated and fatal shot of insulin, is briefly followed by a scene of Leonard pinching his own wife’s thigh before her insulin shot, a scene recurring in the film like a leitmotif. The juxtaposition of the two scenes suggests that it is Leonard who, mistakenly or deliberately, has killed his wife, and that ever since he has been projecting his guilt onto others: the innocent victims of his trail of revenge. In this ironic interpretive twist, it is Leonard, rather than Sammy, who has been faking his amnesia. The parable of Sammy Jankis highlights another central concern of Memento and “Memento Mori”: the precarious nature of truth. This is the second psychological and philosophical implication of what Leonard persistently calls his “condition”, namely his loss of memory. The question explicitly raised in the film is whether memory records or creates, if it retains the lived life or reshapes it into a narrative that will confer on it unity and meaning. The answer is metaphorically suggested by the recurring shots of a mirror, which Leonard must use to read his body inscriptions. The mirror, as Lacan describes it, offers the infant his first recognition as a coherent, unique self. But this recognition is a mis-recognition, for the reflection has a coherence and unity that the subject both lacks and desires. The body inscriptions that Leonard can read only in the mirror do not necessarily testify to the truth. But they do enable him to create a narrative that makes his life worth living. A Lacanian reading of the mirror image has two profoundly unsettling implications. It establishes Leonard as a morally deficient, rather than neurologically deficient, human being, and it suggests that we are not fundamentally different from him. Leonard’s intricate system of notes and body inscriptions builds up an inventory of set representations to which he can refer in all his future experiences. Thus when he wakes up naked in bed with a woman lying beside him, he looks among his Polaroid photographs for a picture which he can match with her, which will tell him what the woman’s name is and what he can expect from her on the basis of past experience. But this, suggest Hutchinson and Read, is an external representation of operations that all of us perform mentally (89). We all respond to sensory input by constructing internal representations that form the foundations of our psyche. This view underpins current theories of language and of the mind. Semioticians tell us that the word, the signifier, refers to a mental representation of an object rather than to the object itself. Cognitivists assume that cognition consists in the operation of mental items which are symbols for real entities. Leonard’s apparently bizarre method of apprehending reality is thus essentially an externalisation of memory. But if, cognitively and epistemologically speaking, Lennie is less different from us than we would like to think, this implication may also extend to our moral nature. Our complicity with Leonard is mainly established through the film’s complex temporal structure, which makes us viscerally share the protagonist’s/narrator’s confusion and disorientation. We become as unable as he is to construct a single, coherent and meaningful narrative: the film’s obscurity is built in. Memento’s ambiguity is enhanced by the film’s Website, which presents a newspaper clipping about the attack on Leonard and his wife, torn pages from police and psychiatric reports, and a number of notes from Leonard to himself. While blurring the boundaries between story and film by suggesting that Leonard, like Earl, may have escaped from a mental institution, otnemem> also provides evidence that can either confirm or confound our interpretive efforts, such as a doctor’s report suggesting that “John G.” may be a figment of Leonard’s imagination. The precarious nature of truth is foregrounded by the fact that the narrative Leonard is trying to construct, as well as the narrative in which Christopher Nolan has embedded him, is a detective story. The traditional detective story proceeds from a two-fold assumption: truth exists, and it can be known. But Memento and “Memento Mori” undermine this epistemological confidence. They suggest that truth, like identity, is a fictional construct, derived from the tales we tell ourselves and recount to others. These tales do not coincide with objective reality; they are the prisms we create in order to understand reality, to make our lives bearable and worth living. Narratives are cognitive patterns that we construct to make sense of the world. They convey our yearning for coherence, closure, and a single unified meaning. The overlapping and conflicting threads interweaving Memento, “Memento Mori” and the Website otnemem> simultaneously expose and resist our nostalgia for unity, by evoking a multiplicity of meanings and creating an intertextual web that is the essence of all adaptation. References Barthes, Roland. Image-Music-Text. London: Fontana, 1977. Beckett, Samuel. Proust. London: Chatto and Windus, 1931. Bluestone, George. Novels into Film. Berkley and Los Angeles: California UP, 1957. Bordwell, David. Narration in the Fiction Film. Madison: Wisconsin UP, 1985. Hutchinson, Phil, and Rupert Read. “Memento: A Philosophical Investigation.” Film as Philosophy: Essays in Cinema after Wittgenstein and Cavell. Ed. Rupert Read and Jerry Goodenough. Hampshire: Palgrave, 2005. 72-93. Kristeva, Julia. “World, Dialogue and Novel.” Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. Ed. Leon S. Rudiez. Trans. Thomas Gora. New York: Columbia UP, 1980. 64-91. Lacan, Jacques. “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience.” Ēcrits: A Selection. New York: Norton 1977. 1-7. Leitch, Thomas. “Twelve Fallacies in Contemporary Adaptation Theory.” Criticism 45.2 (2003): 149-71. McFarlane, Brian. Novel to Film: An Introduction to the Theory of Adaptation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Nolan, Jonathan. “Memento Mori.” The Making of Memento. Ed. James Mottram. London: Faber and Faber, 2002. 183-95. Nolan, Jonathan. otnemem. 24 April 2007 http://otnemem.com>. Ricoeur, Paul. Oneself as Another. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1992. Stam, Robert. “Beyond Fidelity: The Dialogics of Adaptation.” Film Adaptation. Ed. James Naremore. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2000. 54-76. Telotte, J.P. Voices in the Dark: The Narrative Patterns of Film Noir. Urbana and Chicago: Illinois UP, 1989. Wilkens, T., A. Hughes, B.M. Wildemuth, and G. Marchionini. “The Role of Narrative in Understanding Digital Video.” 24 April 2007 http://www.open-video.org/papers/Wilkens_Asist_2003.pdf>. Yellowlees Douglass, J. “Gaps, Maps and Perception: What Hypertext Readers (Don’t) Do.” 24 April 2007 http://www.pd.org/topos/perforations/perf3/douglas_p3.html>. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Shiloh, Ilana. "Adaptation, Intertextuality, and the Endless Deferral of Meaning: Memento." M/C Journal 10.2 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0705/08-shiloh.php>. APA Style Shiloh, I. (May 2007) "Adaptation, Intertextuality, and the Endless Deferral of Meaning: Memento," M/C Journal, 10(2). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0705/08-shiloh.php>.

Abstract:

In 1988, historian Nadia Wheatley and indigenous artist Donna Rawlins published their award-winning picture book, My Place, a reinterpretation of Australian national identity and sovereignty prompted by the bicentennial of white settlement. Twenty years later, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) commissioned Penny Chapman’s multi-platform project based on this book. The 13 episodes of the television series begin in 2008, each telling the story of a child at a different point in history, and are accompanied by substantial interactive online content. Issues as diverse as religious difference and immigration, wartime conscription and trauma, and the experiences of Aboriginal Australians are canvassed. The program itself, which has a second series currently in production, introduces child audiences to—and implicates them in—a rich ideological fabric of deeply politicised issues that directly engage with vexed questions of Australian nationhood. The series offers a subversive view of Australian history and society, and it is the child—whether protagonist on the screen or the viewer/user of the content—who is left to discover, negotiate and move beyond often problematic societal norms. As one of the public broadcaster’s keystone projects, My Place signifies important developments in ABC’s construction of multicultural child citizenship. The digitisation of Australian television has facilitated a wave of multi-channel and new media innovation. Though the development of a multi-channel ecology has occurred significantly later in Australia than in the US or Europe, in part due to genre restrictions on broadcasters, all major Australian networks now have at least one additional free-to-air channel, make some of their content available online, and utilise various forms of social media to engage their audiences. The ABC has been in the vanguard of new media innovation, leveraging the industry dominance of ABC Online and its cross-platform radio networks for the repurposing of news, together with the additional funding for digital renewal, new Australian content, and a digital children’s channel in the 2006 and 2009 federal budgets. In line with “market failure” models of broadcasting (Born, Debrett), the ABC was once the most important producer-broadcaster for child viewers. With the recent allocation for the establishment of ABC3, it is now the catalyst for a significant revitalisation of the Australian children’s television industry. The ABC Charter requires it to broadcast programs that “contribute to a sense of national identity” and that “reflect the cultural diversity of the Australian community” (ABC Documents). Through its digital children’s channel (ABC3) and its multi-platform content, child viewers are not only exposed to a much more diverse range of local content, but also politicised by an intricate network of online texts connected to the TV programs. The representation of diasporic communities through and within multi-platformed spaces forms a crucial part of the way(s) in which collective identities are now being negotiated in children’s texts. An analysis of one of the ABC’s My Place “projects” and its associated multi-platformed content reveals an intricate relationship between postcolonial concerns and the construction of child citizenship. Multicultural Places, Multi-Platformed Spaces: New Media Innovation at the ABC The 2007 restructure at the ABC has transformed commissioning practices along the lines noted by James Bennett and Niki Strange of the BBC—a shift of focus from “programs” to multi-platform “projects,” with the latter consisting of a complex network of textual production. These “second shift media practices” (Caldwell) involve the tactical management of “user flows structured into and across the textual terrain that serve to promote a multifaceted and prolonged experience of the project” (Bennett and Strange 115). ABC Managing Director Mark Scott’s polemic deployment of the “digital commons” trope (Murdock, From) differs from that of his opposite number at the BBC, Mark Thompson, in its emphasis on the glocalised openness of the Australian “town square”—at once distinct from, and an integral part of, larger conversations. As announced at the beginning of the ABC’s 2009 annual report, the ABC is redefining the town square as a world of greater opportunities: a world where Australians can engage with one another and explore the ideas and events that are shaping our communities, our nation and beyond … where people can come to speak and be heard, to listen and learn from each other. (ABC ii)The broad emphasis on engagement characterises ABC3’s positioning of children in multi-platformed projects. As the Executive Producer of the ABC’s Children’s Television Multi-platform division comments, “participation is very much the mantra of the new channel” (Glen). The concept of “participation” is integral to what has been described elsewhere as “rehearsals in citizenship” (Northam). Writing of contemporary youth, David Buckingham notes that “‘political thinking’ is not merely an intellectual or developmental achievement, but an interpersonal process which is part of the construction of a collective, social identity” (179). Recent domestically produced children’s programs and their associated multimedia applications have significant potential to contribute to this interpersonal, “participatory” process. Through multi-platform experiences, children are (apparently) invited to construct narratives of their own. Dan Harries coined the term “viewser” to highlight the tension between watching and interacting, and the increased sense of agency on the part of audiences (171–82). Various online texts hosted by the ABC offer engagement with extra content relating to programs, with themed websites serving as “branches” of the overarching ABC3 metasite. The main site—strongly branded as the place for its targeted demographic—combines conventional television guide/program details with “Watch Now!,” a customised iView application within ABC3’s own themed interface; youth-oriented news; online gaming; and avenues for viewsers to create digital art and video, or interact with the community of “Club3” and associated message boards. The profiles created by members of Club3 are moderated and proscribe any personal information, resulting in an (understandably) restricted form of “networked publics” (boyd 124–5). Viewser profiles comprise only a username (which, the website stresses, should not be one’s real name) and an “avatar” (a customisable animated face). As in other social media sites, comments posted are accompanied by the viewser’s “name” and “face,” reinforcing the notion of individuality within the common group. The tool allows users to choose from various skin colours, emphasising the multicultural nature of the ABC3 community. Other customisable elements, including the ability to choose between dozens of pre-designed ABC3 assets and feeds, stress the audience’s “ownership” of the site. The Help instructions for the Club3 site stress the notion of “participation” directly: “Here at ABC3, we don’t want to tell you what your site should look like! We think that you should be able to choose for yourself.” Multi-platformed texts also provide viewsers with opportunities to interact with many of the characters (human actors and animated) from the television texts and share further aspects of their lives and fictional worlds. One example, linked to the representation of diasporic communities, is the Abatti Pizza Game, in which the player must “save the day” by battling obstacles to fulfil a pizza order. The game’s prefacing directions makes clear the ethnicity of the Abatti family, who are also visually distinctive. The dialogue also registers cultural markers: “Poor Nona, whatsa she gonna do? Now it’s up to you to help Johnny and his friends make four pizzas.” The game was acquired from the Canadian-animated franchise, Angela Anaconda; nonetheless, the Abatti family, the pizza store they operate and the dilemma they face translates easily to the Australian context. Dramatisations of diasporic contributions to national youth identities in postcolonial or settler societies—the UK (My Life as a Popat, CITV) and Canada (How to Be Indie)—also contribute to the diversity of ABC3’s television offerings and the positioning of its multi-platform community. The negotiation of diasporic and postcolonial politics is even clearer in the public broadcaster’s commitment to My Place. The project’s multifaceted construction of “places,” the ethical positioning of the child both as an individual and a member of (multicultural) communities, and the significant acknowledgement of ongoing conflict and discrimination, articulate a cultural commons that is more open-ended and challenging than the Eurocentric metaphor, the “town square,” suggests. Diversity, Discrimination and Diasporas: Positioning the Viewser of My Place Throughout the first series of My Place, the experiences of children within different diasporic communities are the focal point of five of the initial six episodes, the plots of which revolve around children with Lebanese, Vietnamese, Greek, and Irish backgrounds. This article focuses on an early episode of the series, “1988,” which explicitly confronts the cultural frictions between dominant Anglocentric Australian and diasporic communities. “1988” centres on the reaction of young Lily to the arrival of her cousin, Phuong, from Vietnam. Lily is a member of a diasporic community, but one who strongly identifies as “an Australian,” allowing a nuanced exploration of the ideological conflicts surrounding the issue of so-called “boat people.” The protagonist’s voice-over narration at the beginning of the episode foregrounds her desire to win Australia’s first Olympic gold medal in gymnastics, thus mobilising nationally identified hierarchies of value. Tensions between diasporic and settler cultures are frequently depicted. One potentially reactionary sequence portrays the recurring character of Michaelis complaining about having to use chopsticks in the Vietnamese restaurant; however, this comment is contextualised several episodes later, when a much younger Michaelis, as protagonist of the episode “1958,” is himself discriminated against, due to his Greek background. The political irony of “1988” pivots on Lily’s assumption that her cousin “won’t know Australian.” There is a patronising tone in her warning to Phuong not to speak Vietnamese for fear of schoolyard bullying: “The kids at school give you heaps if you talk funny. But it’s okay, I can talk for you!” This encourages child viewers to distance themselves from this fictional parallel to the frequent absence of representation of asylum seekers in contemporary debates. Lily’s assumptions and attitudes are treated with a degree of scepticism, particularly when she assures her friends that the silent Phuong will “get normal soon,” before objectifying her cousin for classroom “show and tell.” A close-up camera shot settles on Phuong’s unease while the children around her gossip about her status as a “boat person,” further encouraging the audience to empathise with the bullied character. However, Phuong turns the tables on those around her when she reveals she can competently speak English, is able to perform gymnastics and other feats beyond Lily’s ability, and even invents a story of being attacked by “pirates” in order to silence her gossiping peers. By the end of the narrative, Lily has redeemed herself and shares a close friendship with Phuong. My Place’s structured child “participation” plays a key role in developing the postcolonial perspective required by this episode and the project more broadly. Indeed, despite the record project budget, a second series was commissioned, at least partly on the basis of the overwhelmingly positive reception of viewsers on the ABC website forums (Buckland). The intricate My Place website, accessible through the ABC3 metasite, generates transmedia intertextuality interlocking with, and extending the diegesis of, the televised texts. A hyperlinked timeline leads to collections of personal artefacts “owned” by each protagonist, such as journals, toys, and clothing. Clicking on a gold medal marked “History” in Lily’s collection activates scrolling text describing the political acceptance of the phrase “multiculturalism” and the “Family Reunion” policy, which assisted the arrival of 100,000 Vietnamese immigrants. The viewser is reminded that some people were “not very welcoming” of diasporic groups via an explicit reference to Mrs Benson’s discriminatory attitudes in the series. Viewsers can “visit” virtual representations of the program’s sets. In the bedroom, kitchen, living room and/or backyard of each protagonist can be discovered familiar and additional details of the characters’ lives. The artefacts that can be “played” with in the multimedia applications often imply the enthusiastic (and apparently desirable) adoption of “Australianness” by immigrant children. Lily’s toys (her doll, hair accessories, roller skates, and glass marbles) invoke various aspects of western children’s culture, while her “journal entry” about Phuong states that she is “new to Australia but with her sense of humour she has fitted in really well.” At the same time, the interactive elements within Lily’s kitchen, including a bowl of rice and other Asian food ingredients, emphasise cultural continuity. The description of incense in another room of Lily’s house as a “common link” that is “used in many different cultures and religions for similar purposes” clearly normalises a glocalised world-view. Artefacts inside the restaurant operated by Lily’s mother link to information ranging from the ingredients and (flexible) instructions for how to make rice paper rolls (“Lily and Phuong used these fillings but you can use whatever you like!”) to a brief interactive puzzle game requiring the arrangement of several peppers in order from least hot to most hot. A selectable picture frame downloads a text box labelled “Images of Home.” Combined with a slideshow of static, hand-drawn images of traditional Vietnamese life, the text can be read as symbolic of the multiplicity of My Place’s target audience(s): “These images would have reminded the family of their homeland and also given restaurant customers a sense of Vietnamese culture.” The social-developmental, postcolonial agenda of My Place is registered in both “conventional” ancillary texts, such as the series’ “making of” publication (Wheatley), and the elaborate pedagogical website for teachers developed by the ACTF and Educational Services Australia (http://www.myplace.edu.au/). The politicising function of the latter is encoded in the various summaries of each decade’s historical, political, social, cultural, and technological highlights, often associated with the plot of the relevant episode. The page titled “Multiculturalism” reports on the positive amendments to the Commonwealth’s Migration Act 1958 and provides links to photographs of Vietnamese migrants in 1982, exemplifying the values of equality and cultural diversity through Lily and Phuong’s story. The detailed “Teaching Activities” documents available for each episode serve a similar purpose, providing, for example, the suggestion that teachers “ask students to discuss the importance to a new immigrant of retaining links to family, culture and tradition.” The empathetic positioning of Phuong’s situation is further mirrored in the interactive map available for teacher use that enables children to navigate a boat from Vietnam to the Australian coast, encouraging a perspective that is rarely put forward in Australia’s mass media. This is not to suggest that the My Place project is entirely unproblematic. In her postcolonial analysis of Aboriginal children’s literature, Clare Bradford argues that “it’s all too possible for ‘similarities’ to erase difference and the political significances of [a] text” (188). Lily’s schoolteacher’s lesson in the episode “reminds us that boat people have been coming to Australia for a very long time.” However, the implied connection between convicts and asylum seekers triggered by Phuong’s (mis)understanding awkwardly appropriates a mythologised Australian history. Similarly in the “1998” episode, the Muslim character Mohammad’s use of Ramadan for personal strength in order to emulate the iconic Australian cricketer Shane Warne threatens to subsume the “difference” of the diasporic community. Nonetheless, alongside the similarities between individuals and the various ethnic groups that make up the My Place community, important distinctions remain. Each episode begins and/or ends with the child protagonist(s) playing on or around the central motif of the series—a large fig tree—with the characters declaring that the tree is “my place.” While emphasising the importance of individuality in the project’s construction of child citizens, the cumulative effect of these “my place” sentiments, felt over time by characters from different socio-economic, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds, builds a multifaceted conception of Australian identity that consists of numerous (and complementary) “branches.” The project’s multi-platformed content further emphasises this, with the website containing an image of the prominent (literal and figurative) “Community Tree,” through which the viewser can interact with the generations of characters and families from the series (http://www.abc.net.au/abc3/myplace/). The significant role of the ABC’s My Place project showcases the ABC’s remit as a public broadcaster in the digital era. As Tim Brooke-Hunt, the Executive Head of Children’s Content, explains, if the ABC didn’t do it, no other broadcaster was going to come near it. ... I don’t expect My Place to be a humungous commercial or ratings success, but I firmly believe ... that it will be something that will exist for many years and will have a very special place. Conclusion The reversion to iconic aspects of mainstream Anglo-Australian culture is perhaps unsurprising—and certainly telling—when reflecting on the network of local, national, and global forces impacting on the development of a cultural commons. However, this does not detract from the value of the public broadcaster’s construction of child citizens within a clearly self-conscious discourse of “multiculturalism.” The transmedia intertextuality at work across ABC3 projects and platforms serves an important politicising function, offering positive representations of diasporic communities to counter the negative depictions children are exposed to elsewhere, and positioning child viewsers to “participate” in “working through” fraught issues of Australia’s past that still remain starkly relevant today.References ABC. Redefining the Town Square. ABC Annual Report. Sydney: ABC, 2009. Bennett, James, and Niki Strange. “The BBC’s Second-Shift Aesthetics: Interactive Television, Multi-Platform Projects and Public Service Content for a Digital Era.” Media International Australia: Incorporating Culture and Policy 126 (2008): 106-19. Born, Georgina. Uncertain Vision: Birt, Dyke and the Reinvention of the BBC. London: Vintage, 2004. boyd, danah. “Why Youth ♥ Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life.” Youth, Identity, and Digital Media. Ed. David Buckingham. Cambridge: MIT, 2008. 119-42. Bradford, Clare. Reading Race: Aboriginality in Australian Children’s Literature. Carlton: Melbourne UP, 2001. Brooke-Hunt, Tim. Executive Head of Children’s Content, ABC TV. Interviewed by Dr Leonie Rutherford, ABC Ultimo Center, 16 Mar. 2010. Buckingham, David. After the Death of Childhood: Growing Up in the Age of Electronic Media. Cambridge: Polity, 2000. Buckland, Jenny. Chief Executive Officer, Australian Children’s Television Foundation. Interviewed by Dr Leonie Rutherford and Dr Nina Weerakkody, ACTF, 2 June 2010. Caldwell, John T. “Second Shift Media Aesthetics: Programming, Interactivity and User Flows.” New Media: Theories and Practices of Digitextuality. Eds. John T. Caldwell and Anna Everett. London: Routledge, 2003. 127-44. Debrett, Mary. “Riding the Wave: Public Service Television in the Multiplatform Era.” Media, Culture & Society 31.5 (2009): 807-27. From, Unni. “Domestically Produced TV-Drama and Cultural Commons.” Cultural Dilemmas in Public Service Broadcasting. Eds. Gregory Ferrell Lowe and Per Jauert. Göteborg: Nordicom, 2005. 163-77. Glen, David. Executive Producer, ABC Multiplatform. Interviewed by Dr Leonie Rutherford, ABC Elsternwick, 6 July 2010. Harries, Dan. “Watching the Internet.” The New Media Book. Ed. Dan Harries. London: BFI, 2002. 171-82. Murdock, Graham. “Building the Digital Commons: Public Broadcasting in the Age of the Internet.” Cultural Dilemmas in Public Service Broadcasting. Ed. Gregory Ferrell Lowe and Per Jauert. Göteborg: Nordicom, 2005. 213–30. My Place, Volumes 1 & 2: 2008–1888. DVD. ABC, 2009. Northam, Jean A. “Rehearsals in Citizenship: BBC Stop-Motion Animation Programmes for Young Children.” Journal for Cultural Research 9.3 (2005): 245-63. Wheatley, Nadia. Making My Place. Sydney and Auckland: HarperCollins, 2010. ———, and Donna Rawlins. My Place, South Melbourne: Longman, 1988.

Abstract:

In the contemporary urban environment of mass transit, it falls to a small group of public officers to keep large number of travellers safe. The small size of their force and the often limited powers they exert mean that these public safety ‘transit officers’ must project more authority and control than they really have. It is this ambience of authority and control which, in most situations they encounter and seek to influence, is enough to keep the public safe. This paper examines the ambience of a group of transit officers working on the railway lines of an Australian capital city. We seek to show how transit officers are both influenced by, and seek to influence, the ambience of their workplace and the public spaces they inhabit whilst on duty, and here we take ambience to apply to the surrounding atmosphere, the aura, and the emotional environment of a place or situation: the setting, tone, or mood. For these transit officers to keep the public safe, they must themselves remain safe. A transit officer who is disabled in a confrontation with a violent offender is unable to provide protection to his or her passengers. Thus, in the culture of the transit officers, their own workplace safety takes on a higher significance. It affects not just themselves. The ambience exuded by transit officers, and how transit officers see their relationship with the travelling public, their management and other organisational work groups, is an important determinant of their work group’s safety culture. Researching the Working Lives of Transit Officers in Perth Our discussion draws on an ethnographic study of the working lives and communication cultures of transit officers (TOs) employed by the Public Transport Authority (PTA) of Western Australia (WA). Transit officers have argued that to understand fully the challenges of their work it is necessary to spend time with them as they undertake their daily duties: roster in, roster out. To this end, the research team and the employer organisation secured an ARC Linkage Grant in partnership with the PTA to fund doctoral candidate and ethnographer Christine Teague to research the workers’ point of view, and the workers’ experiences within the organisation. The two-hundred TOs are unique in the PTA. Neither of the other groups who ride with them on the trains, the drivers and revenue protection staff (whose sole job is to sell and check tickets), experiences the combination of intense contact with passengers, danger of physical injury or group morale. The TOs of the PTA in Perth operate from a central location at the main train station and the end stations on each line. Here there are change lockers where they can lock up their uniforms and equipment such as handcuffs and batons when not on duty, an equipment room where they sign out their radios, and ticket-checking machines. At the main train station there is also a gym, a canteen and holding cells for offenders they detain. From these end stations and central location, the TOs fan out across the network to all suburbs where they either operate from stations or onboard the trains. The TOs also do ‘delta van’ duty providing rapid, mobile back-up support for their colleagues on stations or trains, and providing transport for arrested persons to the holding cell or police lock up. TOs are on duty whenever the trains are running–but the evenings and nights are when they are mainly rostered on. This is when trouble mostly occurs. The TOs’ work ends only after the final train has completed its run and all offenders who may require detaining and charging have been transferred into police custody. While the public perceive that security is the TOs’ most frequent role, much of the work involves non-confrontational activity such as assisting passengers, checking tickets and providing a reassuring presence. One way to deal with an ambiguous role is to claim an ambience of power and authority regardless. Various aspects of the TO role permit and hinder this, and the paper goes on to consider aspects of ambience in terms of fear and force, order and safety, and role confusion. An Ambience of Fear and Force The TOs are responsible for front-line security in WA’s urban railway network. Their role is to offer a feeling of security for passengers using the rail network after the bustle of the work day finishes, and is replaced by the mainly recreational travels of the after hours public. This is the time when some passengers find the prospect of evening travel on the public transport rail network unsettling–so unsettling that it was a 2001 WA government election promise (WA Legislative Council) that every train leaving the city centre after 7pm would have two TOs riding on it. Interestingly, recruitment levels have never been high enough for this promise to be fully kept. The working conditions of the TOs reflect the perception, and to an extent, the reality that some late night travel on public transport involves negotiating an edgy ambience with an element of risk, rubbing shoulders with people who may be loud, rowdy, travelling in a group, and or drug and alcohol affected. As Fred (all TO names are pseudonyms) comments: You’re not dealing with rational people, you’re not dealing with ‘people’: most of the people you’re dealing with are either drunk or under the influence of drugs, so they’re not rational, they don’t hear you, they don’t understand what you’re saying, they just have no sense of what’s right or wrong, you know? Especially being under the influence, so I mean, you can talk till you’re blue in the face with somebody who’s drunk or on drugs, I mean, all you have to say is one thing. ‘Oh, can I see your ticket please’, ‘oh, why do I need a fucking ticket’, you know? They just don’t get simple everyday messages. Dealing with violence and making arrest is a normal part of this job. Jo described an early experience in her working life as a TO:Within the first week of coming out of course I got smacked on the side of the head, but this lady had actually been certified, like, she was nuts. She was completely mental and we were just standing on the train talking and I’ve turned around to say something to my partner and she was fine, she was as calm as, and I turned around and talked to my partner and the next thing I know I ended up with her fist to the side of my head. And I went ‘what the hell was that’? And she went off, she went absolutely ballistic. I ended up arresting her because it was assault on an officer whether she was mental or not so I ended up arresting her.Although Jo here is describing how she experienced an unprovoked assault in the early days of her career as a TO, one of the most frequent precursors to a TO injury occurs when the TO is required to make an arrest. The injury may occur when the passenger to be arrested resists or flees, and the TO gives chase in dark or treacherous circumstances such as railway reserves and tunnels, or when other passengers, maybe friends or family of the original person of concern, involve themselves in an affray around the precipitating action of the arrest. In circumstances where capsicum spray is the primary way of enforcing compliance, with batons used as a defence tool, group members may feel that they can take on the two TOs with impunity, certainly in the first instance. Even though there are security cameras on trains and in stations, and these can be cued to cover the threatening or difficult situations confronting TOs, the conflict is located in the here-and-now of the exchanges between TOs and the travelling public. This means the longer term consequence of trouble in the future may hold less sway with unruly travellers than the temptation to try to escape from trouble in the present. In discussing the impact of remote communications, Rubert Murdoch commented that these technologies are “a powerful influence for civilised behaviour. If you are arranging a massacre, it will be useless to shoot the cameraman who has so inconveniently appeared on the scene. His picture will already be safe in the studio five thousand miles away and his final image may hang you” (Shawcross 242). Unfortunately, whether public aggression in these circumstances is useless or not, the daily experience of TOs is that the presence of closed circuit television (CCTV) does not prevent attacks upon them: nor is it a guarantee of ‘civilised behaviour’. This is possibly because many of the more argumentative and angry members of the public are dis-inhibited by alcohol or other drugs. Police officers can employ the threat or actual application of stun guns to control situations in which they are outnumbered, but in the case of TOs they can remain outnumbered and vulnerable until reinforcements arrive. Such reinforcements are available, but the situation has to be managed through the communication of authority until the point where the train arrives at a ‘manned’ station, or the staff on the delta vehicle are able to support their colleagues. An Ambience of Order and Safety Some public transport organisations take this responsibility to sustain an ambience of order more seriously than others. The TO ethnographer, Christine Teague, visited public transport organisations in the UK, USA and Canada which are recognised as setting world-class standards for injury rates of their staff. In the USA particularly, there is a commitment to what is called ‘the broken windows’ theory, where a train is withdrawn from service promptly if it is damaged or defaced (Kelling and Coles; Maple and Mitchell). According to Henry (117): The ‘Broken Windows’ theory suggests that there is both a high correlation and a causal link between community disorder and more serious crime: when community disorder is permitted to flourish or when disorderly conditions or problems are left untended, they actually cause more serious crime. ‘Broken windows’ are a metaphor for community disorder which, as Wilson and Kelling (1982) use the term, includes the violation of informal social norms for public behaviour as well as quality of life offenses such as littering, graffiti, playing loud radios, aggressive panhandling, and vandalism.This theory implies that the physical ambience of the train, and by extension the station, may be highly influential in terms of creating a safe working environment. In this case of ‘no broken window’ organisations, the TO role is to maintain a high ‘quality of life’ rather than being a role predominantly about restraining and bringing to justice those whose behaviour is offensive, dangerous or illegal. The TOs in Perth achieve this through personal means such as taking pride in their uniforms, presenting a good-natured demeanour to passengers and assisting in maintaining the high standard of train interiors. Such a priority, and its link to reduced workforce injury, suggests that a perception of order impacts upon safety. It has long been argued that the safety culture of an organisation affects the safety performance of that organisation (Pidgeon; Leplat); but it has been more recently established that different cultural groupings in an organisation conceive and construct their safety culture differently (Leith). The research on ‘safety culture’ raises a problematic which is rarely addressed in practice. That problematic is this: managers frequently engage with safety at the level of instituting systems, while workers engage with safety in terms of behaviour. When Glendon and Litherland comment that, contrary to expectations, they could find no relationship between safety culture and safety performance, they were drawing attention to the fact that much managerial safety culture is premised upon systems involving tick boxes and the filling in of report forms. The broken window approach combines the managerial tick box with managerial behaviour: a dis-ordered train is removed from service. To some extent a general lack of fit between safety culture and safety performance endorses Everett’s view that it is conceptually inadequate to conceive organisations as cultures: “the conceptual inadequacy stems from the failure to distinguish between culture and behavioural features of organizational life” (238). The general focus upon safety culture as a way of promoting improvements in safety performance assumes that compliance with a range of safety systems will guarantee a safe workplace. Such an assumption, however, risks positioning the injured worker as responsible for his or her own predicament and sets up an environment in which some management officials are wont to seek ways in which that injured worker’s behaviour failed to conform with safety rules or safety processes. Yet there are roles which place workers in harm’s way, including military duties, law enforcement and some emergency services. Here, the work becomes dangerous as it becomes disorderly. An Ambience of Roles and Confusion As the research reported here progressed, it became clear that the ambience around the presentation of the self in the role of a TO (Goffman) was an important part of how ‘safety’ was promoted and enacted in their work upon the PTA (WA) trains, face to face with the travelling public. Goffman’s view of all people, not specifically TOs, is that: Regardless of the particular objective which the individual has in mind and of his motive for having this objective, it will be in his interests to control the conduct of the others, especially their responsive treatment of him. This will largely be through influencing the perception and definition that others will come to formulate of him. He will influence them by expressing himself in such a way that the kind of impression given off will lead them to act voluntarily in accordance with his own plan. (3)This ‘influencing of perception’ is an important element of performing the role of a TO. This task of the TOs is made all the more difficult because of confusions about their role in relation to two other officers: police (who have more power to act in situations of public safety) and revenue project officers (who have less), as we now discuss. The aura of the TO role borrows somewhat from those quintessential law and order officers: the police. TOs work in pairs, like many police, to support each other. They have a range of legal powers including the power of arrest, and they carry handcuffs, a baton and capsicum spray as a means of helping ensure their safety and effectiveness in circumstances where they might be outnumbered. The tools of their trade are accessibly displayed on heavy leather belts around their waists and their uniforms have similarities with police uniforms. However, in some ways these similarities are problematic, because TOs are not afforded the same respect as police. This situation underlines of the ambiguities negotiated within the ambience of what it is to be a TO, and how it is to conduct oneself in that role. Notwithstanding the TOs’ law and order responsibilities, public perceptions of the role and some of the public’s responses to the officers can position these workers as “plastic cops” (Teague and Leith). The penultimate deterrent of police officers, the stun gun (Taser), is not available to TOs who are expected to control all incidents arising on duty through the fact that they operate in pairs, with capsicum spray available and, as a last resort, are authorised to use their batons in self defence. Furthermore, although TOs are the key security and enforcement staff in the PTA workforce, and are managed separately from related staff roles, they believe that the clarity of this distinction is compromised because of similarities in the look of Revenue Protection Officers (RPOs). RPOs work on the trains to check that passengers have tickets and have paid the correct fares, and obtain names and addresses to issue infringement notices when required. They are not PTA employees, but contracted staff from an outside company. They also work in pairs. Significantly, the RPO uniform is in many respects identical to that of the TO, and this appears to be a deliberate management choice to make the number of TOs seem greater than it is: extending the TO ambience through to the activities of the RPOs. However, in the event of a disturbance, TOs are required and trained to act, while RPOs are instructed not to get involved; even though the RPOs appear to the travelling public to be operating in the role of a law-and-order-keeper, RPOs are specifically instructed not to get involved in breaches of the peace or disruptive passenger behaviour. From the point of view of the travelling public, who observe the RPO waiting for TOs to arrive, it may seems as if a TO is passively standing by while a chaotic situation unravels. As Angus commented: I’ve spoken to quite a few members of public and received complaints from them about transit officers and talking more about the incident have found out that it was actually [RPOs] that are dealing with it. So it’s creating a bad image for us …. It’s Transits that are copping all the flak for it … It is dangerous for us and it’s a lot of bad publicity for us. It’s hard enough, the job that we do and the lack of respect that we do get from people, we don’t need other people adding to it and making it harder. Indeed, it is not only the travelling public who can mistake the two uniforms. Mike tells of an “incident where an officer [TO] has called for backup on a train and the guys have got off [the train at the next station] and just stood there, and he didn’t realise that they are actually [revenue protection] officers, so he effectively had no backup. He thought he did, but he didn’t.” The RPO uniform may confer an ambience of power borrowed from TOs and communicated visually, but the impact is to compromise the authority of the TO role. Unfortunately, what could be a complementary role to the TOs becomes one which, in the minds of the TO workforce, serves to undermine their presence. This effect of this role confusion is to dilute the aura of authority of the TOs. At one end of a power continuum the TO role is minimised by those who see it as a second-rate ‘Wannabe cop’ (Teague and Leith 2008), while its impact is diluted at the other end by an apparently deliberate confusion between the TO broader ‘law and order’ role, and the more limited RPO revenue collection activities. Postlude To the passengers of the PTA in Perth, the presence and actions of transit officers appear as unremarkable as the daily commute. In this ethnographic study of their workplace culture, however, the transit officers have revealed ways in which they influence the ambience of the workplace and the public spaces they inhabit whilst on duty, and how they are influenced by it. While this ambient inter-relationship is not documented in the organisation’s occupational safety and health management system, the TOs are aware that it is a factor in their level at safety at work, both positively and negatively. Clearly, an ethnography study is conducted at a certain point in time and place, and culture is a living and changing expression of human interaction. The Public Transport Authority of Western Australia is committed to continuous improvement in safety and to the investigation of all ways and means in which to support TOs in their daily activities. This is evident not only in their support of the research and their welcoming of the ethnographer into the workforce and onto the tracks, but also in their robust commitment to change as the findings of the research have progressed. In particular, changes in the ambient TO culture and in the training and daily practices of TOs have already resulted from this research or are under active consideration. Nonetheless, this project is a cogent indicator of the fact that a safety culture is critically dependent upon intangible but nonetheless important factors such as the ambience of the workplace and the way in which officers are able to communicate their authority to others. References Everett, James. “Organizational Culture and Ethnoecology in Public Relations Theory and Practice.” Public Relations Research Annual. Vol. 2. Eds. Larissa Grunig and James Grunig. Hillsdale, NJ, 1990. 235-251. Glendon, Ian, and Debbie Litherland. “Safety Climate Factors, Group Differences and Safety Behaviour in Road Construction.” Safety Science 39.3 (2001): 157-188. Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin, 1959. Henry, Vincent. The Comstat Paradigm: Management Accountability in Policing, Business and the Public Sector. New York: Looseleaf Law Publications, 2003. Kelling, George, and Catherine Coles. Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities. New York: Touchstone, 1996. Leith, David. Workplace Culture and Accidents: How Management Can Communicate to Prevent Injuries. Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag, 2008. Leplat, Jacques. “About Implementation of Safety Rules.” Safety Science 29.3 (1998): 189-204. Maple, Jack, and Chris Mitchell. The Crime Fighter: How You Can Make Your Community Crime-Free. New York: Broadway Books, 1999. Pidgeon, Nick. “Safety Culture and Risk Management in Organizations.” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 22.1 (1991): 129-140. Shawcross, William. Rupert Murdoch. London: Chatto & Windus, 1992. Teague, Christine, and David Leith. “Men of Steel or Plastic Cops? The Use of Ethnography as a Transformative Agent.” Transforming Information and Learning Conference Transformers: People, Technologies and Spaces, Edith Cowan University, Perth, WA, 2008. ‹http://conferences.scis.ecu.edu.au/TILC2008/documents/2008/teague_and_leith-men_of_steel_or_plastic_cops.pdf›. Wilson, James, and George Kelling. “Broken Windows.” The Atlantic Monthly (Mar. 1982): 29-38. WA Legislative Council. “Metropolitan Railway – Transit Guards 273 [Hon Ed Dermer to Minister of Transport Hon. Simon O’Brien].” Hansard 19 Mar. 2009: 2145b.

Abstract:

Introduction: Our current obsession with the lives of others “Biography—that is to say, our creative and non-fictional output devoted to recording and interpreting real lives—has enjoyed an extraordinary renaissance in recent years,” writes Nigel Hamilton in Biography: A Brief History (1). Ian Donaldson agrees that biography is back in fashion: “Once neglected within the academy and relegated to the dustier recesses of public bookstores, biography has made a notable return over recent years, emerging, somewhat surprisingly, as a new cultural phenomenon, and a new academic adventure” (23). For over a decade now, commentators having been making similar observations about our obsession with the intimacies of individual people’s lives. In a lecture in 1994, Justin Kaplan asserted the West was “a culture of biography” (qtd. in Salwak 1) and more recent research findings by John Feather and Hazel Woodbridge affirm that “the undiminished human curiosity about other peoples lives is clearly reflected in the popularity of autobiographies and biographies” (218). At least in relation to television, this assertion seems valid. In Australia, as in the USA and the UK, reality and other biographically based television shows have taken over from drama in both the numbers of shows produced and the viewers these shows attract, and these forms are also popular in Canada (see, for instance, Morreale on The Osbournes). In 2007, the program Biography celebrated its twentieth anniversary season to become one of the longest running documentary series on American television; so successful that in 1999 it was spun off into its own eponymous channel (Rak; Dempsey). Premiered in May 1996, Australian Story—which aims to utilise a “personal approach” to biographical storytelling—has won a significant viewership, critical acclaim and professional recognition (ABC). It can also be posited that the real home movies viewers submit to such programs as Australia’s Favourite Home Videos, and “chat” or “confessional” television are further reflections of a general mania for biographical detail (see Douglas), no matter how fragmented, sensationalized, or even inane and cruel. A recent example of the latter, the USA-produced The Moment of Truth, has contestants answering personal questions under polygraph examination and then again in front of an audience including close relatives and friends—the more “truthful” their answers (and often, the more humiliated and/or distressed contestants are willing to be), the more money they can win. Away from television, but offering further evidence of this interest are the growing readerships for personally oriented weblogs and networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook (Grossman), individual profiles and interviews in periodical publications, and the recently widely revived newspaper obituary column (Starck). Adult and community education organisations run short courses on researching and writing auto/biographical forms and, across Western countries, the family history/genealogy sections of many local, state, and national libraries have been upgraded to meet the increasing demand for these services. Academically, journals and e-mail discussion lists have been established on the topics of biography and autobiography, and North American, British, and Australian universities offer undergraduate and postgraduate courses in life writing. The commonly aired wisdom is that published life writing in its many text-based forms (biography, autobiography, memoir, diaries, and collections of personal letters) is enjoying unprecedented popularity. It is our purpose to examine this proposition. Methodological problems There are a number of problems involved in investigating genre popularity, growth, and decline in publishing. Firstly, it is not easy to gain access to detailed statistics, which are usually only available within the industry. Secondly, it is difficult to ascertain how publishing statistics are gathered and what they report (Eliot). There is the question of whether bestselling booklists reflect actual book sales or are manipulated marketing tools (Miller), although the move from surveys of booksellers to electronic reporting at point of sale in new publishing lists such as BookScan will hopefully obviate this problem. Thirdly, some publishing lists categorise by subject and form, some by subject only, and some do not categorise at all. This means that in any analysis of these statistics, a decision has to be made whether to use the publishing list’s system or impose a different mode. If the publishing list is taken at face value, the question arises of whether to use categorisation by form or by subject. Fourthly, there is the bedeviling issue of terminology. Traditionally, there reigned a simple dualism in the terminology applied to forms of telling the true story of an actual life: biography and autobiography. Publishing lists that categorise their books, such as BookScan, have retained it. But with postmodern recognition of the presence of the biographer in a biography and of the presence of other subjects in an autobiography, the dichotomy proves false. There is the further problem of how to categorise memoirs, diaries, and letters. In the academic arena, the term “life writing” has emerged to describe the field as a whole. Within the genre of life writing, there are, however, still recognised sub-genres. Academic definitions vary, but generally a biography is understood to be a scholarly study of a subject who is not the writer; an autobiography is the story of a entire life written by its subject; while a memoir is a segment or particular focus of that life told, again, by its own subject. These terms are, however, often used interchangeably even by significant institutions such the USA Library of Congress, which utilises the term “biography” for all. Different commentators also use differing definitions. Hamilton uses the term “biography” to include all forms of life writing. Donaldson discusses how the term has been co-opted to include biographies of place such as Peter Ackroyd’s London: The Biography (2000) and of things such as Lizzie Collingham’s Curry: A Biography (2005). This reflects, of course, a writing/publishing world in which non-fiction stories of places, creatures, and even foodstuffs are called biographies, presumably in the belief that this will make them more saleable. The situation is further complicated by the emergence of hybrid publishing forms such as, for instance, the “memoir-with-recipes” or “food memoir” (Brien, Rutherford and Williamson). Are such books to be classified as autobiography or put in the “cookery/food & drink” category? We mention in passing the further confusion caused by novels with a subtitle of The Biography such as Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. The fifth methodological problem that needs to be mentioned is the increasing globalisation of the publishing industry, which raises questions about the validity of the majority of studies available (including those cited herein) which are nationally based. Whether book sales reflect what is actually read (and by whom), raises of course another set of questions altogether. Methodology In our exploration, we were fundamentally concerned with two questions. Is life writing as popular as claimed? And, if it is, is this a new phenomenon? To answer these questions, we examined a range of available sources. We began with the non-fiction bestseller lists in Publishers Weekly (a respected American trade magazine aimed at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents that claims to be international in scope) from their inception in 1912 to the present time. We hoped that this data could provide a longitudinal perspective. The term bestseller was coined by Publishers Weekly when it began publishing its lists in 1912; although the first list of popular American books actually appeared in The Bookman (New York) in 1895, based itself on lists appearing in London’s The Bookman since 1891 (Bassett and Walter 206). The Publishers Weekly lists are the best source of longitudinal information as the currently widely cited New York Times listings did not appear till 1942, with the Wall Street Journal a late entry into the field in 1994. We then examined a number of sources of more recent statistics. We looked at the bestseller lists from the USA-based Amazon.com online bookseller; recent research on bestsellers in Britain; and lists from Nielsen BookScan Australia, which claims to tally some 85% or more of books sold in Australia, wherever they are published. In addition to the reservations expressed above, caveats must be aired in relation to these sources. While Publishers Weekly claims to be an international publication, it largely reflects the North American publishing scene and especially that of the USA. Although available internationally, Amazon.com also has its own national sites—such as Amazon.co.uk—not considered here. It also caters to a “specific computer-literate, credit-able clientele” (Gutjahr: 219) and has an unashamedly commercial focus, within which all the information generated must be considered. In our analysis of the material studied, we will use “life writing” as a genre term. When it comes to analysis of the lists, we have broken down the genre of life writing into biography and autobiography, incorporating memoir, letters, and diaries under autobiography. This is consistent with the use of the terminology in BookScan. Although we have broken down the genre in this way, it is the overall picture with regard to life writing that is our concern. It is beyond the scope of this paper to offer a detailed analysis of whether, within life writing, further distinctions should be drawn. Publishers Weekly: 1912 to 2006 1912 saw the first list of the 10 bestselling non-fiction titles in Publishers Weekly. It featured two life writing texts, being headed by an autobiography, The Promised Land by Russian Jewish immigrant Mary Antin, and concluding with Albert Bigelow Paine’s six-volume biography, Mark Twain. The Publishers Weekly lists do not categorise non-fiction titles by either form or subject, so the classifications below are our own with memoir classified as autobiography. In a decade-by-decade tally of these listings, there were 3 biographies and 20 autobiographies in the lists between 1912 and 1919; 24 biographies and 21 autobiographies in the 1920s; 13 biographies and 40 autobiographies in the 1930s; 8 biographies and 46 biographies in the 1940s; 4 biographies and 14 autobiographies in the 1950s; 11 biographies and 13 autobiographies in the 1960s; 6 biographies and 11 autobiographies in the 1970s; 3 biographies and 19 autobiographies in the 1980s; 5 biographies and 17 autobiographies in the 1990s; and 2 biographies and 7 autobiographies from 2000 up until the end of 2006. See Appendix 1 for the relevant titles and authors. Breaking down the most recent figures for 1990–2006, we find a not radically different range of figures and trends across years in the contemporary environment. The validity of looking only at the top ten books sold in any year is, of course, questionable, as are all the issues regarding sources discussed above. But one thing is certain in terms of our inquiry. There is no upwards curve obvious here. If anything, the decade break-down suggests that sales are trending downwards. This is in keeping with the findings of Michael Korda, in his history of twentieth-century bestsellers. He suggests a consistent longitudinal picture across all genres: In every decade, from 1900 to the end of the twentieth century, people have been reliably attracted to the same kind of books […] Certain kinds of popular fiction always do well, as do diet books […] self-help books, celebrity memoirs, sensationalist scientific or religious speculation, stories about pets, medical advice (particularly on the subjects of sex, longevity, and child rearing), folksy wisdom and/or humour, and the American Civil War (xvii). Amazon.com since 2000 The USA-based Amazon.com online bookselling site provides listings of its own top 50 bestsellers since 2000, although only the top 14 bestsellers are recorded for 2001. As fiction and non-fiction are not separated out on these lists and no genre categories are specified, we have again made our own decisions about what books fall into the category of life writing. Generally, we erred on the side of inclusion. (See Appendix 2.) However, when it came to books dealing with political events, we excluded books dealing with specific aspects of political practice/policy. This meant excluding books on, for instance, George Bush’s so-called ‘war on terror,’ of which there were a number of bestsellers listed. In summary, these listings reveal that of the top 364 books sold by Amazon from 2000 to 2007, 46 (or some 12.6%) were, according to our judgment, either biographical or autobiographical texts. This is not far from the 10% of the 1912 Publishers Weekly listing, although, as above, the proportion of bestsellers that can be classified as life writing varied dramatically from year to year, with no discernible pattern of peaks and troughs. This proportion tallied to 4% auto/biographies in 2000, 14% in 2001, 10% in 2002, 18% in 2003 and 2004, 4% in 2005, 14% in 2006 and 20% in 2007. This could suggest a rising trend, although it does not offer any consistent trend data to suggest sales figures may either continue to grow, or fall again, in 2008 or afterwards. Looking at the particular texts in these lists (see Appendix 2) also suggests that there is no general trend in the popularity of life writing in relation to other genres. For instance, in these listings in Amazon.com, life writing texts only rarely figure in the top 10 books sold in any year. So rarely indeed, that from 2001 there were only five in this category. In 2001, John Adams by David McCullough was the best selling book of the year; in 2003, Hillary Clinton’s autobiographical Living History was 7th; in 2004, My Life by Bill Clinton reached number 1; in 2006, Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck: and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman was 9th; and in 2007, Ishmael Beah’s discredited A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier came in at 8th. Apart from McCulloch’s biography of Adams, all the above are autobiographical texts, while the focus on leading political figures is notable. Britain: Feather and Woodbridge With regard to the British situation, we did not have actual lists and relied on recent analysis. John Feather and Hazel Woodbridge find considerably higher levels for life writing in Britain than above with, from 1998 to 2005, 28% of British published non-fiction comprising autobiography, while 8% of hardback and 5% of paperback non-fiction was biography (2007). Furthermore, although Feather and Woodbridge agree with commentators that life writing is currently popular, they do not agree that this is a growth state, finding the popularity of life writing “essentially unchanged” since their previous study, which covered 1979 to the early 1990s (Feather and Reid). Australia: Nielsen BookScan 2006 and 2007 In the Australian publishing industry, where producing books remains an ‘expensive, risky endeavour which is increasingly market driven’ (Galligan 36) and ‘an inherently complex activity’ (Carter and Galligan 4), the most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics figures reveal that the total numbers of books sold in Australia has remained relatively static over the past decade (130.6 million in the financial year 1995–96 and 128.8 million in 2003–04) (ABS). During this time, however, sales volumes of non-fiction publications have grown markedly, with a trend towards “non-fiction, mass market and predictable” books (Corporall 41) resulting in general non-fiction sales in 2003–2004 outselling general fiction by factors as high as ten depending on the format—hard- or paperback, and trade or mass market paperback (ABS 2005). However, while non-fiction has increased in popularity in Australia, the same does not seem to hold true for life writing. Here, in utilising data for the top 5,000 selling non-fiction books in both 2006 and 2007, we are relying on Nielsen BookScan’s categorisation of texts as either biography or autobiography. In 2006, no works of life writing made the top 10 books sold in Australia. In looking at the top 100 books sold for 2006, in some cases the subjects of these works vary markedly from those extracted from the Amazon.com listings. In Australia in 2006, life writing makes its first appearance at number 14 with convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby’s My Story. This is followed by another My Story at 25, this time by retired Australian army chief, Peter Cosgrove. Jonestown: The Power and Myth of Alan Jones comes in at 34 for the Australian broadcaster’s biographer Chris Masters; the biography, The Innocent Man by John Grisham at 38 and Li Cunxin’s autobiographical Mao’s Last Dancer at 45. Australian Susan Duncan’s memoir of coping with personal loss, Salvation Creek: An Unexpected Life makes 50; bestselling USA travel writer Bill Bryson’s autobiographical memoir of his childhood The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid 69; Mandela: The Authorised Portrait by Rosalind Coward, 79; and Joanne Lees’s memoir of dealing with her kidnapping, the murder of her partner and the justice system in Australia’s Northern Territory, No Turning Back, 89. These books reveal a market preference for autobiographical writing, and an almost even split between Australian and overseas subjects in 2006. 2007 similarly saw no life writing in the top 10. The books in the top 100 sales reveal a downward trend, with fewer titles making this band overall. In 2007, Terri Irwin’s memoir of life with her famous husband, wildlife warrior Steve Irwin, My Steve, came in at number 26; musician Andrew Johns’s memoir of mental illness, The Two of Me, at 37; Ayaan Hirst Ali’s autobiography Infidel at 39; John Grogan’s biography/memoir, Marley and Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog, at 42; Sally Collings’s biography of the inspirational young survivor Sophie Delezio, Sophie’s Journey, at 51; and Elizabeth Gilbert’s hybrid food, self-help and travel memoir, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything at 82. Mao’s Last Dancer, published the year before, remained in the top 100 in 2007 at 87. When moving to a consideration of the top 5,000 books sold in Australia in 2006, BookScan reveals only 62 books categorised as life writing in the top 1,000, and only 222 in the top 5,000 (with 34 titles between 1,000 and 1,999, 45 between 2,000 and 2,999, 48 between 3,000 and 3,999, and 33 between 4,000 and 5,000). 2007 shows a similar total of 235 life writing texts in the top 5,000 bestselling books (75 titles in the first 1,000, 27 between 1,000 and 1,999, 51 between 2,000 and 2,999, 39 between 3,000 and 3,999, and 43 between 4,000 and 5,000). In both years, 2006 and 2007, life writing thus not only constituted only some 4% of the bestselling 5,000 titles in Australia, it also showed only minimal change between these years and, therefore, no significant growth. Conclusions Our investigation using various instruments that claim to reflect levels of book sales reveals that Western readers’ willingness to purchase published life writing has not changed significantly over the past century. We find no evidence of either a short, or longer, term growth or boom in sales in such books. Instead, it appears that what has been widely heralded as a new golden age of life writing may well be more the result of an expanded understanding of what is included in the genre than an increased interest in it by either book readers or publishers. What recent years do appear to have seen, however, is a significantly increased interest by public commentators, critics, and academics in this genre of writing. We have also discovered that the issue of our current obsession with the lives of others tends to be discussed in academic as well as popular fora as if what applies to one sub-genre or production form applies to another: if biography is popular, then autobiography will also be, and vice versa. If reality television programming is attracting viewers, then readers will be flocking to life writing as well. Our investigation reveals that such propositions are questionable, and that there is significant research to be completed in mapping such audiences against each other. This work has also highlighted the difficulty of separating out the categories of written texts in publishing studies, firstly in terms of determining what falls within the category of life writing as distinct from other forms of non-fiction (the hybrid problem) and, secondly, in terms of separating out the categories within life writing. Although we have continued to use the terms biography and autobiography as sub-genres, we are aware that they are less useful as descriptors than they are often assumed to be. In order to obtain a more complete and accurate picture, publishing categories may need to be agreed upon, redefined and utilised across the publishing industry and within academia. This is of particular importance in the light of the suggestions (from total sales volumes) that the audiences for books are limited, and therefore the rise of one sub-genre may be directly responsible for the fall of another. Bair argues, for example, that in the 1980s and 1990s, the popularity of what she categorises as memoir had direct repercussions on the numbers of birth-to-death biographies that were commissioned, contracted, and published as “sales and marketing staffs conclude[d] that readers don’t want a full-scale life any more” (17). Finally, although we have highlighted the difficulty of using publishing statistics when there is no common understanding as to what such data is reporting, we hope this study shows that the utilisation of such material does add a depth to such enquiries, especially in interrogating the anecdotal evidence that is often quoted as data in publishing and other studies. Appendix 1 Publishers Weekly listings 1990–1999 1990 included two autobiographies, Bo Knows Bo by professional athlete Bo Jackson (with Dick Schaap) and Ronald Reagan’s An America Life: An Autobiography. In 1991, there were further examples of life writing with unimaginative titles, Me: Stories of My Life by Katherine Hepburn, Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography by Kitty Kelley, and Under Fire: An American Story by Oliver North with William Novak; as indeed there were again in 1992 with It Doesn’t Take a Hero: The Autobiography of Norman Schwarzkopf, Sam Walton: Made in America, the autobiography of the founder of Wal-Mart, Diana: Her True Story by Andrew Morton, Every Living Thing, yet another veterinary outpouring from James Herriot, and Truman by David McCullough. In 1993, radio shock-jock Howard Stern was successful with the autobiographical Private Parts, as was Betty Eadie with her detailed recounting of her alleged near-death experience, Embraced by the Light. Eadie’s book remained on the list in 1994 next to Don’t Stand too Close to a Naked Man, comedian Tim Allen’s autobiography. Flag-waving titles continue in 1995 with Colin Powell’s My American Journey, and Miss America, Howard Stern’s follow-up to Private Parts. 1996 saw two autobiographical works, basketball superstar Dennis Rodman’s Bad as I Wanna Be and figure-skater, Ekaterina Gordeeva’s (with EM Swift) My Sergei: A Love Story. In 1997, Diana: Her True Story returns to the top 10, joining Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes and prolific biographer Kitty Kelly’s The Royals, while in 1998, there is only the part-autobiography, part travel-writing A Pirate Looks at Fifty, by musician Jimmy Buffet. There is no biography or autobiography included in either the 1999 or 2000 top 10 lists in Publishers Weekly, nor in that for 2005. In 2001, David McCullough’s biography John Adams and Jack Welch’s business memoir Jack: Straight from the Gut featured. In 2002, Let’s Roll! Lisa Beamer’s tribute to her husband, one of the heroes of 9/11, written with Ken Abraham, joined Rudolph Giuliani’s autobiography, Leadership. 2003 saw Hillary Clinton’s autobiography Living History and Paul Burrell’s memoir of his time as Princess Diana’s butler, A Royal Duty, on the list. In 2004, it was Bill Clinton’s turn with My Life. In 2006, we find John Grisham’s true crime (arguably a biography), The Innocent Man, at the top, Grogan’s Marley and Me at number three, and the autobiographical The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama in fourth place. Appendix 2 Amazon.com listings since 2000 In 2000, there were only two auto/biographies in the top Amazon 50 bestsellers with Lance Armstrong’s It’s Not about the Bike: My Journey Back to Life about his battle with cancer at 20, and Dave Eggers’s self-consciously fictionalised memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius at 32. In 2001, only the top 14 bestsellers were recorded. At number 1 is John Adams by David McCullough and, at 11, Jack: Straight from the Gut by USA golfer Jack Welch. In 2002, Leadership by Rudolph Giuliani was at 12; Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro at 29; Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper by Patricia Cornwell at 42; Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative by David Brock at 48; and Louis Gerstner’s autobiographical Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance: Inside IBM’s Historic Turnaround at 50. In 2003, Living History by Hillary Clinton was 7th; Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson 14th; Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How President Bill Clinton Endangered America’s Long-Term National Security by Robert Patterson 20th; Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer 32nd; Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life by Queen Noor of Jordan 33rd; Kate Remembered, Scott Berg’s biography of Katharine Hepburn, 37th; Who’s your Caddy?: Looping for the Great, Near Great and Reprobates of Golf by Rick Reilly 39th; The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship about a winning baseball team by David Halberstam 42nd; and Every Second Counts by Lance Armstrong 49th. In 2004, My Life by Bill Clinton was the best selling book of the year; American Soldier by General Tommy Franks was 16th; Kevin Phillips’s American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush 18th; Timothy Russert’s Big Russ and Me: Father and Son. Lessons of Life 20th; Tony Hendra’s Father Joe: The Man who Saved my Soul 23rd; Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton 27th; Cokie Roberts’s Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised our Nation 31st; Kitty Kelley’s The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty 42nd; and Chronicles, Volume 1 by Bob Dylan was 43rd. In 2005, auto/biographical texts were well down the list with only The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion at 45 and The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeanette Walls at 49. In 2006, there was a resurgence of life writing with Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck: and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman at 9; Grisham’s The Innocent Man at 12; Bill Buford’s food memoir Heat: an Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany at 23; more food writing with Julia Child’s My Life in France at 29; Immaculée Ilibagiza’s Left to Tell: Discovering God amidst the Rwandan Holocaust at 30; CNN anchor Anderson Cooper’s Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters and Survival at 43; and Isabella Hatkoff’s Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship (between a baby hippo and a giant tortoise) at 44. In 2007, Ishmael Beah’s discredited A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier came in at 8; Walter Isaacson’s Einstein: His Life and Universe 13; Ayaan Hirst Ali’s autobiography of her life in Muslim society, Infidel, 18; The Reagan Diaries 25; Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI 29; Mother Teresa: Come be my Light 36; Clapton: The Autobiography 40; Tina Brown’s The Diana Chronicles 45; Tony Dungy’s Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices & Priorities of a Winning Life 47; and Daniel Tammet’s Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant at 49. Acknowledgements A sincere thank you to Michael Webster at RMIT for assistance with access to Nielsen BookScan statistics, and to the reviewers of this article for their insightful comments. Any errors are, of course, our own. References Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). “About Us.” Australian Story 2008. 1 June 2008. ‹http://www.abc.net.au/austory/aboutus.htm>. 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