Jets are like comets at sunset
“…that this whole global, yet American, postmodern culture is the internal and superstructural expression of a whole new wave of American military and economic domination throughout the world; in this sense, as throughout class history, the underside of culture is blood, torture, death, and terror” (Jameson 31).
Quote Analysis
Jameson critiques the way in which a postmodern capitalist society has been built on blood and terror. Although the system appears to be progressive, advanced and stable, it also masks the way in which culture is produced. America has gained world power through its overt use of hegemonic bullying, military buildup, nuclear proliferation and war. However, this culture has been removed from the everyday lives of citizens. As Americans, we often feel powerless when it comes to our country’s political decisions, feeling as though we are not responsible for the spilled blood. For my project, I would like to create an environment where users could experience their direct connection with the terror that is produced in our society. The goal of the project would be to focus on our individual responsibility rather than making the outcomes of terror a global responsibility left to the government to solve.
Jameson critiques the way in which a postmodern capitalist society has been built on blood and terror. Although the system appears to be progressive, advanced and stable, it also masks the way in which culture is produced. America has gained world power through its overt use of hegemonic bullying, military buildup, nuclear proliferation and war. However, this culture has been removed from the everyday lives of citizens. As Americans, we often feel powerless when it comes to our country’s political decisions, feeling as though we are not responsible for the spilled blood. For my project, I would like to create an environment where users could experience their direct connection with the terror that is produced in our society. The goal of the project would be to focus on our individual responsibility rather than making the outcomes of terror a global responsibility left to the government to solve.
Project Idea Take One
So for my first attempt at tackling the monster which is Adobe Flash Professional 8, I decided I would focus my argument on consumer responsibility, or rather, lack thereof. I wrote up a little blurb about it which said things like this:
In this project I would set up what looks like an online store. Users would have many products they could purchase. They would start with a set amount of money. Their goal would be to keep their money so they could spend more. However, depending on what products they buy, they could potentially loose more money. The goal would be to show how buyers need to be responsible when choosing where or what to buy. For instance I’d have some clothes from Bebe or Guess, ones that are undoubtedly made in sweatshops in low income parts of Asia. If the user decides to buy these products the environment would change and they’d be shown a clip of a horrifying scene in a sweatshop. Also, there would be a Walmart section, where users could again choose from various products. However, if they choose to buy from Walmart, the screen will then show a video or sound clip that demonstrates the effects of urban sprawl or how women who work for Walmart are still paid less than men. There could be many different products from various companies, but in every instance there would be a negative impact to them. I would hope that users would become interested in finding what products do not cause blood, torture, terror or death. However, for the sake of trying to make the site reflect postmodernism, everything would have a negative impact. Therefore making it the responsibility of the user to determine what is true and what is not, and how they can take responsibility for some of the outcomes and hopefully change the way they consume.
So for my first attempt at tackling the monster which is Adobe Flash Professional 8, I decided I would focus my argument on consumer responsibility, or rather, lack thereof. I wrote up a little blurb about it which said things like this:
In this project I would set up what looks like an online store. Users would have many products they could purchase. They would start with a set amount of money. Their goal would be to keep their money so they could spend more. However, depending on what products they buy, they could potentially loose more money. The goal would be to show how buyers need to be responsible when choosing where or what to buy. For instance I’d have some clothes from Bebe or Guess, ones that are undoubtedly made in sweatshops in low income parts of Asia. If the user decides to buy these products the environment would change and they’d be shown a clip of a horrifying scene in a sweatshop. Also, there would be a Walmart section, where users could again choose from various products. However, if they choose to buy from Walmart, the screen will then show a video or sound clip that demonstrates the effects of urban sprawl or how women who work for Walmart are still paid less than men. There could be many different products from various companies, but in every instance there would be a negative impact to them. I would hope that users would become interested in finding what products do not cause blood, torture, terror or death. However, for the sake of trying to make the site reflect postmodernism, everything would have a negative impact. Therefore making it the responsibility of the user to determine what is true and what is not, and how they can take responsibility for some of the outcomes and hopefully change the way they consume.
This didn’t work out
1. In retrospect, this idea was boring to me. It was too obvious and wasn’t getting the creative juices flowing.
2. I didn’t have the Flash skills to create this environment, let alone create it well enough to distract from the fact that my argument was so general and boring.
Project Idea Take Two
I decided to focus on the part of the quote that says “the underside of culture is blood, torture, death, and terror.” Instead of focusing on consumerism and exploitation, I wanted to focus on “nuclear culture.” I feel that we are a society that often throws around the terms “nuclear war,” “nukes,” “a bomb,” “proliferation,” and “nuclear deterrence” without really thinking about what those words imply, let alone do to actual people, countries, and nations. I feel as though our culture oftentimes revolves around nuclear tactics, but that we have become numb to their actual meanings and functions in society. For instance, “nukes” sounds like some adorable lovechild that North Korea and Iraq have made in their spare time, when in fact it is capable of things like this. So my project aims at taking a closer look into nuclear culture, the things we justify with it, and the way in which we don’t take responsibility for its use. Nuclear deterrence is like a performance, a play in a theater – we individuals as the audience watching the state play all the parts on stage – They do this because they refuse to take responsibility for their own will to violence and for finding solutions to problems – this obsession with the state as the locus of violence precludes us from examining our own violence and actually solving the problem. Nuclear deterrence entrenches state based activism – it forces us to look to the state to solve other problems because we need an institution that is strong enough to scare other countries – This is bad because when the state has the power to save life – it implicitly has the power to take life – this mass genocide ultimately culminates in extinction. By refusing to take part in a system that justifies nuclear use through both language and action, we can reclaim our responsibility to enact violence and mobilize some sort of change. Baby steps do matter.
Challenges with Flash
Flash was the hardest software I’ve ever touched, yet probably my favorite because there are so many possibilities with it. I had a lot of trouble with the text because I was coding in action script rather than just typing words exactly where I wanted them. Although this seemed like a useless tool, action script is actually really dynamic and allows creators to do much more with text than simply typing it in where you want it. I made the mistake of driving to class the day Dave gave a Flash tutorial and incidentally popped my tire and spent that afternoon making friends with Arturo the towing and tire guy. I felt as though I had no clue where to begin with flash so resorted to some online research. For anyone that decides to use flash again, or simply has a question on any software, I highly recommend using http://forums.creativecow.net/. It has entire forums where people discuss how to do certain things using Flash, as well as other Adobe products. This site literally saved my project because I could type in something like “how to encode html script while mousing over text on Flash,” and I’d find a forum where someone already had this question and subsequently had an answer for me.
What I think of my project
I think there are a lot of shortcomings - - the most notable one being that this was supposed to be a visual representation of a Jameson quote, and I relied heavily on text. However, there is a point to my project, it is somewhat boring and has trance-like music, but it was the best way I saw fit to express an idea about being “numb to nuclear use.” Since the idea is that the underside of culture relies on justifying mass killings through nuclear weapons, and that we have become so numb to this idea that we don’t do much to prevent it, I wanted an environment that made nuclear war look pretty normal and standard. However, I relied on the text to show that we should not accept this nuclear culture. The text offered questions to the viewer, and though it did not give strict answers, it provided some food for thought so that the viewer could come to his or her conclusions. The song is from Blur’s Jets, which simply says “jets are like comets at sunset.” I thought this was the most appropriate song because it describes something that can be used as a weapon (for instance we are using jets for air raids on Afghanistan now which are killing hundreds of civilians a day) as a beautiful comet at sunset. It juxtaposes something terrifying and deadly with something magnificent and appealing. In the same effect, I think we often forget how deadly nuclear weapons are, and instead, we simply look at it as a means of protection and security. Nukes are like security blankets at sunset. For the most part, I’m happy with my project, but if I were to do it again I would try to get more movement on the page, I had a lot of difficulty with animation and the timeline and I think that really shows.
Post Paper World
Though I may not read Jameson again, I would hope that many more projects will scratch the use of paper and just be interactive assignments like this one. I think there’s a good chance that will happen, not in the near future, but sometime in the future…hopefully sooner than later. The tools we used in this class provided great new ways for learning content, and I want to continue using them in my near future.
1. In retrospect, this idea was boring to me. It was too obvious and wasn’t getting the creative juices flowing.
2. I didn’t have the Flash skills to create this environment, let alone create it well enough to distract from the fact that my argument was so general and boring.
Project Idea Take Two
I decided to focus on the part of the quote that says “the underside of culture is blood, torture, death, and terror.” Instead of focusing on consumerism and exploitation, I wanted to focus on “nuclear culture.” I feel that we are a society that often throws around the terms “nuclear war,” “nukes,” “a bomb,” “proliferation,” and “nuclear deterrence” without really thinking about what those words imply, let alone do to actual people, countries, and nations. I feel as though our culture oftentimes revolves around nuclear tactics, but that we have become numb to their actual meanings and functions in society. For instance, “nukes” sounds like some adorable lovechild that North Korea and Iraq have made in their spare time, when in fact it is capable of things like this. So my project aims at taking a closer look into nuclear culture, the things we justify with it, and the way in which we don’t take responsibility for its use. Nuclear deterrence is like a performance, a play in a theater – we individuals as the audience watching the state play all the parts on stage – They do this because they refuse to take responsibility for their own will to violence and for finding solutions to problems – this obsession with the state as the locus of violence precludes us from examining our own violence and actually solving the problem. Nuclear deterrence entrenches state based activism – it forces us to look to the state to solve other problems because we need an institution that is strong enough to scare other countries – This is bad because when the state has the power to save life – it implicitly has the power to take life – this mass genocide ultimately culminates in extinction. By refusing to take part in a system that justifies nuclear use through both language and action, we can reclaim our responsibility to enact violence and mobilize some sort of change. Baby steps do matter.
Challenges with Flash
Flash was the hardest software I’ve ever touched, yet probably my favorite because there are so many possibilities with it. I had a lot of trouble with the text because I was coding in action script rather than just typing words exactly where I wanted them. Although this seemed like a useless tool, action script is actually really dynamic and allows creators to do much more with text than simply typing it in where you want it. I made the mistake of driving to class the day Dave gave a Flash tutorial and incidentally popped my tire and spent that afternoon making friends with Arturo the towing and tire guy. I felt as though I had no clue where to begin with flash so resorted to some online research. For anyone that decides to use flash again, or simply has a question on any software, I highly recommend using http://forums.creativecow.net/. It has entire forums where people discuss how to do certain things using Flash, as well as other Adobe products. This site literally saved my project because I could type in something like “how to encode html script while mousing over text on Flash,” and I’d find a forum where someone already had this question and subsequently had an answer for me.
What I think of my project
I think there are a lot of shortcomings - - the most notable one being that this was supposed to be a visual representation of a Jameson quote, and I relied heavily on text. However, there is a point to my project, it is somewhat boring and has trance-like music, but it was the best way I saw fit to express an idea about being “numb to nuclear use.” Since the idea is that the underside of culture relies on justifying mass killings through nuclear weapons, and that we have become so numb to this idea that we don’t do much to prevent it, I wanted an environment that made nuclear war look pretty normal and standard. However, I relied on the text to show that we should not accept this nuclear culture. The text offered questions to the viewer, and though it did not give strict answers, it provided some food for thought so that the viewer could come to his or her conclusions. The song is from Blur’s Jets, which simply says “jets are like comets at sunset.” I thought this was the most appropriate song because it describes something that can be used as a weapon (for instance we are using jets for air raids on Afghanistan now which are killing hundreds of civilians a day) as a beautiful comet at sunset. It juxtaposes something terrifying and deadly with something magnificent and appealing. In the same effect, I think we often forget how deadly nuclear weapons are, and instead, we simply look at it as a means of protection and security. Nukes are like security blankets at sunset. For the most part, I’m happy with my project, but if I were to do it again I would try to get more movement on the page, I had a lot of difficulty with animation and the timeline and I think that really shows.
Post Paper World
Though I may not read Jameson again, I would hope that many more projects will scratch the use of paper and just be interactive assignments like this one. I think there’s a good chance that will happen, not in the near future, but sometime in the future…hopefully sooner than later. The tools we used in this class provided great new ways for learning content, and I want to continue using them in my near future.
posted by Jazmyn Henry at
1:41 PM
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