- Venue
- nottingham
- Location
‘Cinema is the ultimate pervert art. It doesn’t give you what you desire – it tells you how to desire’.1
In the 2006 documentary The Pervert’s Guide To Cinema, postmodern critical thinker Slovaj Zizek psychoanalyses the role of cinema and it’s social influence, reducing it’s functions to fantasy, reality, sexuality and desire; particularly the notion that the later is not natural or organic, but man-made. It is not so much these functions individually that I am interested in, but a culmination of the four. More correctly, how sexuality and desire are represented through violence to create a cultural juxtaposition between fiction and reality. How in a world too complex and confrontational for human psyche, we confront and process our reality through fictitious experience.
When discussing the relationship between sexuality and violence, links are often made to Freudian psychology, that if external violence is too great, the subject exits the domain – ‘either the shock is re-integrated into a pre-existing libidinal frame, or it destroys psyche and nothing is left’.2 Whilst interested in the sexuality of violence, my initial interest focuses on the glamorisation and glorification of violence within cinema, and how this is mutually perpetuated in the mass media. Particularly in reference to the defence of Western countries engagement in warfare and the damnation of global terrorism – we have arrived at a place where we need to ‘disentangle ourselves from violence performed by a clearly identifiable agent and perceive the contours of the background which generates such outbursts’.3
The notion of a propaganda model within the mass media is not Zizek’s revelation, his predecessors, namely Chomsky and Virilio, have long argued against the manipulation and exploitation of society in relation to violence and war. Chomsky’s notion of Manufactured Consent, Necessary Illusions and Folk Devils4 in the 1980’s solidified the foundations of this apparent social agenda.
Virilio’s 1989 publication War and Cinema appears to present the idea that technologies of warfare and cinema have developed a ‘fatal interdependence’. By this I mean that the situation has arrived whereby the notion of visibility and invisibility within media representation is a battle that runs parallel to the conflicts that armies engage in. That ‘the streets themselves have become a permanent film-set for army cameras or the tourist reporters of global civil war.’5
Having grown up in a post-vietnam/gulf war society, and irrelevant to my context as artist/human being, the revolution of televised warfare seems obsolete and intangible. Modern wars fought on foreign terrain appear as mutually distant and close as the devastation of terrorism on my doorstep, the frame of news feeds directly mirror Hollywood war epics – the lenses job is to keeps us at a distance whilst simultaneously drawing us in. What I am talking about now, is the idea of overexposure and desensitisation to the reality of battle.
When discussing the idea of television, artist and film maker Bjorn Melhus states that we have to analyse not just the psychology of television but also ‘the psychology of the television age‘.6 A focus must be placed on not just the exploits of television, but also societies reception, to define the relationship between the mass media and the viewer as one of mutual gratification – a marriage of convenience. Melhus equates television to a constant role of conversation. When I consider devices of glorification, I primarily consider the emotive and persuasive tools of language. Paying homage to the resonance of political speech, the ardent language of poetry and the compelling scripture of cinema, I tend to find myself referencing one tactic more than any – the idea of a semantic field.
This notion of repetition is particularly relevant not just within mainstream cinema and political newscasts, but also within the world of art. In works such as Still Men Out There, Melhus appropriates dialogue from a range of war epics, centralising affecting language and dialogue that glamorises the heroism of the Western soldier. The removal of imagery from installations imply’s that stylised sets and idolised actors distract an audience from the pain and violence that they are perceiving. The stripped essence of dialogue, in this case the soundtrack of destruction, is synchronised instead to flashing colours of light. When the image is removed, there is little difference audibly between the crossfire we perceive here, and the backdrop for the news. This repetition of sound and light creates a sensual attack, the repeated crescendo of artillery fire between dialogue strains an audience determined to remain engaged, Western society is still unaware of the irony of it’s perversion.
Artist Christian Marclay engages a far more disciplined and precise semantic field within his work. Attempting to comment not just on the sources of his appropriated clips, but also on the process of film making itself, he inclusively examines narrative structures. In his 2007 piece Crossfire Marclay explores the incitement of fear and the sexuality of violence within cinema, specifically focusing on the role of the gun. The White Cube press release describes the gun as ‘perhaps the most iconic image in the media, a constant presence in everything from newscasts about faraway wars and local crimes to its persistent role as a narrative device in movies. While guns always foreshadow violence, they also offer a false promise of safety from an outside threat.’7
It is the idea of ‘foreshadowed violence’ that excites me, artistically. Unlike Melhus’ abrasive artillery assaults, Marclay’s installation focuses more on the foreplay of violence. The pseudo erotic handling of the gun and the unrealistic timescale of the cocking alludes to the encapsulation and seduction of fear; societies desire to feel afraid contrasted with it’s rejection of the reality around it amuses me. Humour is created by the use of repetition as a comment on our consumer culture, the gunshot just being the inevitable conclusion for a generation raised by televised violence.
I do think it is important to acknowledge the reduced scope for serendipity in the television age. There is no coincidence in the post production of cinema, and societies reactions are generally predetermined. It is only with a level of self awareness that an audience, or society, can become intrinsically aware of the ease with which they consume incessant violence and the mutually humorous and absurd nature of our daily ingestion. Whether one is caught in the crossfire, or discussing the men ‘still out there’, I am interested in the seemingly arduous desire to remain immersed in the atrocity of brutality and how the media and cinema cross reference each other to the point that society appears intolerant of modern war, yet encapsulated by the excitement the fictional war epic.
1The Perverts Guide To Cinema (Documentary), 2006, P Guide Ltc
2Zizek, S. 2007, Violence or Ecology as the New Opium of the Masses.Available from http://www.lacan.com/zizecology2.htm [Accessed 02.01.2011]
3Zizek, S. 2008, Violence, Profile Books,
4Chomsky, N 1988, Manufacturing Consent,
5Amazon -, War and Cinema [online], Available from: http://www.amazon.com/War-Cinema-Perception-Paul-V… [Accessed: 05.1.2011]
6Nightwatch, Press release, Kunstmuseum Magdeburg, 2010
7White Cube 2007, Crossfire [online], Available from: http://www.whitecube.com/exhibitions/crossfire/ [Accessed: 28.12.2010]
