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Multiplication Vis a Vis Amplification
Become techy with your body
- Benjamin, W. (2008) The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. 01 edition. Translated by J. A. Underwood. London: Penguin. ‘Φύλο, φόβος και δημόσιος λόγος - Βαβυλωνία | Πολιτικό Περιοδικό’ (2012) Βαβυλωνία, 25 February. Available at: https://www.babylonia.gr/2012/02/25/filo-fovos-ke-dimosios-logos/ (Accessed: 26 November 2018).
Sth that is visible and can be heard is reality and can create power (Kanaveli)
The collective voice vis a vis multiplication and amplification ways of amplification
Deliberating communicative processes through the voice/ activating communal activities. “This new orality has striking resemblances to the old in its participatory mystique, its fostering of a communal sense, its concentration on the present moment, and even its use of formulas (...) But it is essentially a more deliberate and self-conscious orality, based permanently on the use of writing and print, which are essential for the manufacture and operation of the equipment and for its use as well” (Ong. pg.13).
second orality The ‘secondary orality’. “At the same time, with telephone, radio, television and various kinds of sound tape, electronic technology has brought us into the age of 'secondary orality'.” (Ong, pg.13)
radio in chiasme
Parallel or multiple presences in other places. “Radio and television have brought major political figures as public speakers to a larger public than was ever possible before modern electronic developments. Thus in a sense orality has come into its own more than ever before.” (Ong, pg. 135). Describing further with examples of media [radio, telephone, Skype, voice messages] that spread the voice in private or public spheres. Being here now and elsewhere. "Heidegger, in Being and Time and elsewhere,", "To the extent that it always relates us to the absent other, the telephone"(Telephone Book, Ronell)
_the access to technology and the relationship of amateur and expert "point A: the importance of voice and body in the public" human microphone
In a contemporary context public speeches are happening in both physical and digital spaces with the help of several media like internet (podcasts and live streaming) and radio (community radios). In the diverse media landscape individuals or groups can easily form and communicate speeches happening in a physical space by themselves without being dependent on a newspaper, publisher or state. In the occupy movements known and unknown public speakers would spread their message to an audience by standing in a public square. This action followed the principles of the Speaker's Corner. "Speakers’ Corner symbolises the kind of forum for debate sought for today’s post-industrial, highly mediated cities, encouraging face-to-face interaction and real-life conversation, albeit arranged by people texting each other, recorded by shooting and uploading video on YouTube, reported on twitter or documented on face book" (Speakers Corner Trust, no date). What I find interesting is that those people because of their multilayered relation to technology are able to spread the words and make them viral in internet. This process is also a way to archive and make public bottom-up initiatives in public spaces. At the same time there is a temporarity in this action as platforms in internet are constantly changing or disappearing. So, the events and speeches are appearing in fragments of videos, transcriptions, conversations in forums. It is more like the users, protesters are leaving traces online. As it can be seen from the Youtube videos of the Occupy Movements the crowd is using a lot of media technologies, like their smartphones, to record or stream the words of the public speakers. From my point of view, the Occupy Movement revealed a lot about the relation of the media technology with the presence and resistance in public.
According to Hanna Arendt the speech becomes possible with the existence of a group of people (public assemblies) and it is a civilized way to respond to violence. Suffragettes' speech-making workshops was a way to provide women with tools “with which to take their concerns out into the public domain” (Rose Gibbs, 2016). They focused on the voice because there is a uniqueness in it, that embodies the speaker and doesn’t apply to the abstract and bodiless universality of western thought. Even more, the voice through speech (songs, protest) connects one another in a group and at the same time keeps the individuality of the speaker. In contrast to mainstream political spheres the feminists, like anarchists, were looking for horizontal ways of communication were no voice was dominating over others. The speeches of African American women, in the first part of 19th century, were very intense as they were tolerating a lot of violence because of their gender and nationality. The brave speech of Sojourner Truth, "Ain't I a Woman?" was one of the first speech acts of women in public of that time. She made that speech after gaining her freedom and she became well-known anti-slavery speaker. I will elaborate on that speech later.
Saskia Sassen (2012, p.) observes that in the cities today a big mix of people coexist. The ones who lack power can make themselves present through face to face communication. According to her this condition reveals another type of politics and political actors, based on hybrid contexts of acting and outside of the formal system. The urban space hosts several political activities like squatting, demonstrations, politics of culture and identity that are visible on the street and non dependent on massive media technologies. This brings the conversation to the Speaker's Corner, "the home of free speech, where anyone can get on their soapbox and make their voice heard" (Coomes, 2015). This practice was very crucial in Occupy Movement 1. Anyone could be a speaker and be heard by the people surrounding her/him. In the Occupy Wall Street, amplified sound devices, like microphone and megaphone, were not permitted in the city and the crowd could bot listen clearly to the speaker 1. But "when the technologies above them are removed somehow, the foundational elements remain embedded and embodied in our cyborg bodies and brains" (Pages, 2011). The participants of #occupy used the 'human microphone', as they call it. This means that the crowd would repeat the words of the speaker for the benefit of those located in the rear. There the voice played an important role in the spreading of the speech to the farest points of the public space. "Even given that many of the participants of #occupy are in full possession of smartphones, verbal address to the crowd from a singular source is still important" (Pages, 2011). This is an intersting fact of the public space of today. Even though many new technologies exist the public space seems to exist in a more primitive face to face communication and bodily expression under the context of public assemblies.