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Transmitting Ugly Things
These modes of addressing are perceived as ugly forms of saying things and their message seems uninteresting or bad for this formal and civilized society, that is based on the democracy of the ancient Greece. At the same time because of their ugliness, they are suppressed and accused as ugly forms. They are unfiltered, unedited messages that overpass the rational sphere of speech and so they are checked, filtered, censored before they come out. From my perspective the medium they use affects also their character. They are characterized by instant and urgent communication, liveness, "hit and run" approach (from Multiplication...). Streaming media, especially, is characterized by the distribution of unfiltered data, the sense of liveness and the continuity. In this essay I will explain 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 perceive this continuity as an important element of democratic processes.
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 the dark side and of death, blood 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. ).
As I described in "Monstrosity" one ugly form of address was an utterance, a high-pitched cry, called ‘ololyga’ and it was a ritual practice of women. This is a practice that is still valid in countries like Greece or Middle East. In their rituals women were also talking offensive bad things as described in "Monstrosity..." under the context of 'aischrologia'. 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.pg. 134 kaminada "untoward event" Female is associated with the bad things of the collective memory. Gossiping is a form of address that reveals secrets that should have stayed hidden. It is an alternative way of communication hidden in the private domains that 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') and Plutarch describes a story about how a secret is spread fast by women creating chaos and ruins, and how men 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. 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 and doesn't accept any form of over-emotion, overflow of expression is an illusion. An illusion that threatens the existence of democracy by creating exclusion and disregarding the importance of passions and desires. 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. The suppression of them may lead to pain, fanaticism, fascism.
Streaming media in relation to female continuity
unfiltered data: 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 should 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 that interrupts this l and dissociates the inside from the outside (Crason, 131). 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 was a way for them to be heard in public fast and broadcast their own news online ("Multiplication..."). Thus not any expert or official media platform could 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) have similarities with the non controlled direct expression of the female bodies (like hysteria and aischrologia, ololyga).
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)*
liveness: Streaming media reflects a sense of liveness. 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.
Continuity: For an agonistic streaming-> streaming media in relation to voice and gender
But this uninterrupted continuity shows us that what is important is not the last message but what is happening right at present and what practices of democracy are emerging. It is like the agonistic model of Chantal Mouffe where 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.
Conclusion
"Envisaged from this perspective of what I have proposed to call 'agonistic pluralism' , 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." in ancient greece it was the dionysian
I perceive this continuity as an important element 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).