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Transmitting Ugly Things
you are part of the stream
What ugly things and the medium
Marginalized people are mediating things that are unacceptable by the society, unspeakable, political incorrect, emotionally overwhelmed, disorderly. They are too personal, too emotional, too embodied. Carson in her text explains how the direct mode of address of women's voices is annoying for the patriarchal society since Ancient Greece. A woman would expose her inside facts that are supposed to be private data. Examples of these facts would be emotions that reveal pleasure or pain either from sexual encounters from before or the birth of a child. "By projections and leakages of all kinds- somatic, vocal, emotional, sexual- females expose or expend what should be kept in" (Carson, 1996, pg. 129) and this reveals the fear of society for death, blood, darkness, birth, the female body. This direct continuity and linkage between the inside and outside was a threat for the human nature and society as it was not filtrated through the rational toll of human, the 'speech'. It has been established that our inner desires and needs have to be expressed indirectly through speech and in the case of women through their men’s speech. It is very common that women stay inside home when their men come out to the streets to protest or talk about their family concerns (Kanaveli, 2012, pg. )example.
One ugly form of address in Ancient Greece was an utterance, a high-pitched cry, called ‘ololyga’ and it was a ritual practice of women (more in 'Monstrosity...'). This is a practice that is still valid in countries like Greece or Middle East and it is related to mourning. In their rituals women were also talking offensive bad things under the context of 'aischrologia'. A woman would freely discharge the unspeakable things on behalf of the city. A more recent one is 'hysteria', introduced by Freud, that expresses the psychic events within the woman's body directly to the outside of the body. Female is associated with the bad things of the collective memory. Gossiping is a another form of address that reveals secrets that should have stayed hidden. It is an alternative way of communication existing in the private domains and has been created in response to the exclusion of speech in public. Gossip "provides subordinated classes with a mode of communication beyond an official public culture from which they are excluded" (The Gossip, 2017, p.61). But even in the Ancient Greece this form was annoying. Alkaios describes how talkativeness annoyed him ('Monstrosity...') when he was exiled and Plutarch tells a story about how a secret is spread fast by women creating chaos and ruins, in contrast to men that are keeping themselves from revealing it (Carson, 1996, pg. 130).
Other ugly things are the private and hidden events of family violence. For feminists in the early 20th century the speech in public, in a group of other women sharing the same problem, was a way to externalize the personal violence and suppression of women without using violence in response. Protesters talk collectively about the bad financial structure of the states either by demonstrating or occupying public spaces. All these examples are not following the rationalist approach of the context they are part of. They express passion, vulnerabilities and unfulfilled desires. The idea that democracy is a civilized way of taking decisions that doesn't accept any form of over-emotion or overflow of expression, is nothing more than an illusion. An illusion that threatens the existence of democracy by creating exclusion and disregarding the importance of passions and desires in politics. As Mouffe (2013) says, "[i]f there is anything that endangers democracy nowadays, it is precisely the rationalist approach, because it is blind to the nature of the political and denies the central role that passions play in the field of politics." Thus democratic processes should take into consideration any irrational fantasies and desires that the public express. Their suppression may lead to repressed pain, fanaticism and fascism/totalitarianism.
Streaming media in relation to female continuity
In the ancient medical and anatomical theory women had two mouths, the upper and the lower, connected through a neck. The lips of both of them guarded the “hollow cavity” (Carson, 1996, pg. 131) and they had to remain closed. Having two mouths that speak simultaneously is confusing and embarrassing and this creates ‘kakophony’. Females were expressing something directly when it should have been told indirectly. This direct continuity between the inside and the outside is repelling for the male nature that aspires the self-control which interrupts this continuity and dissociates the inside from the outside (Crason, 1996, pg. 131). They 'transmit' unfiltered information. At this point I would like to draw parallel lines with the streaming media that has been used as a tool of direct and urgent communication for protesters like in the case of the Occupy Movement. Similarly with the continuity I described before streaming protocols/processes are delivering unedited live messages that sometimes don't agree with the mainstream current public opinion. In Occupy Wall Street for example streaming media, like Livestream, Ustream and Youtube stream, was a way for the protesters to be heard in public fast and broadcast their own news online ("Multiplication..."). Thus, experts or official media platforms could not filter their speech and alter the message before they spread it online. This unaltered and direct speech of (radio/streaming) broadcasting (Ernst, 2016, pg. 104) more from his text have similarities with the non controlled direct expression of the female bodies in public (like hysteria and aischrologia, ololyga).
image of streaming occupy
what similarities?
Streaming online depends on protocols that can stream directly or indirectly filter with TCP
"Celebrities, politicians and organizers of events (...) soon discovered that streaming services offered by Ustream and the other leading start-up provider, Livestream, could help expand their audience online. Now, the huge amount of user-generated live video produced by the Occupy Wall Street movement has delivered what could be a watershed moment for these companies, potentially helping them gain the audience needed to become viable businesses" (Preston, 2011). But other businesses found live streaming successful after that, like Facebook, Youtube, Instagram and users distribute easily live videos from terrorist attacks or demonstrations.
*"Both Livestream and Ustream officials say they simply operate platforms and are not supporting the movements. They have made some adjustments on their platforms and provided some extra resources to accommodate Occupy movement video. Mr. Haot removed advertising from the Occupy channels after some brands complained that they did not want their ads appearing next to streaming video of protesters." (expert!)
(Preston, 2011)*
For an agonistic streaming
streaming media in relation to voice and gender This uninterrupted continuity shows us that what is important is not the last message but what is happening right now at present and what practices of democracy are emerging. It is like the 'agonistic' model of democracy of Chantal Mouffe in which there is not an external power that filters it example of personal licences and creative commons and no time for thinking about future utopias and realities but what is happening now. It gives space to the conflicts to happen naturally.
Streaming media reflects a sense of liveness and presence. There is no time to reflect or edit the message Clara and pauline oliveros mediation, workshop at tender. The audience receives the message directly from the proprietor and can see clearly who is broadcasting, what is the source, how it looks like.
Conclusion
The marginalized modes of address share concerns that seem uninteresting or bad for the Western formal and civilized society, that supports a democracy rooting in the Ancient Greek politics. Because of their ugliness, they are suppressed and accused as ugly forms, then filtered and censored before they been expressed in public. They share unfiltered, unedited messages that overpass the rational sphere of speech. From my perspective the medium used by these modes reflects their character. They are based on instant and urgent communication, liveness, "hit and run" approach (from Multiplication...). Today streaming media is used constantly by protesters or citizens for broadcasting news by themselves that are not censored by the government. Streaming media is characterized by the distribution of unfiltered data, the sense of liveness and the continuity (direct distribution) of the message. In this essay I wanted to highlight how the use of streaming media and the concept of streaming in general can be related to these 'ugly' forms of mediation. How these kind of media transmits 'ugly' things, according to the rational society, that marginalized people need to communicate for establishing their own voice and find space for their own desires. I think that the acceptance of continuity and direct mediation can facilitate more democratic processes. The ugly forms of address are pushed away because they reveal the hidden dark side of a 'democratic' society. The allowance of them can become crucial for the democracy we want to be part of. As "the prime task of democratic politics is not to eliminate passions or to relegate them to the private sphere in order to establish a rational consensus in the public sphere. Rather, it is to 'tame' those passions by mobilizing them towards democratic designs" (Mouffe, 2013). Focus more on the media that allow/facilitate this process to happen can open possibilities and alternatives of democratic processes.
Bibliography
- Inside/ Media: Voices of the Absent, Antinomies of Transmission
- Rose Gibbs, Speech Matters: Violence and the Feminist Voice (2016)
- Federici, S. B. (2014) Caliban and the witch. 2., rev. ed. New York, NY: Autonomedia.
- Ernst, W. (2016) ‘Experiencing Time as Sound’, in Chronopoetics. London ; New York: Rli, pp. 99–121 (102-111).
- Berry, D. (2011) ‘Real-Time Streams’, in The Philosophy of Software: Code and Mediation in the Digital Age. 2011 edition. Basingstoke New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 142–171.
- Tetsuo, K. (no date) ‘Minima Memoranda: a note on streaming media’. Available at: http://anarchy.translocal.jp/non-japanese/minima_memoranda.html (Accessed: 12 October 2018).