Another set of notes. These are for a presentation I gave in Media, Memory & History at New York University. The notes are casual, but outline the idea. Since the question of comics and journalism was brought up at the PCA/ACA conference earlier, I thought it might be valuable to share. Slides are also included:
Foxmania
Thoughts and Essays by Maxwell Foxman
Climate Balance Through Play: A Manifesto
We must return to a state of play within the ambit of climate to achieve glory through sacrifice and, ultimately, expenditure by all the planet’s players. Humanity has ceased playing with its environment, and instead seeks to control and abstract it. We must regain the magic power that once enveloped our lives in order to achieve climate balance.
Play
[1] Play is universal. Play pervades all our lives and is incorporated into our daily practices. Play is embedded within our DNA, an instinctual element of human and non-human behavior.
[2] Play does not have a single meaning. Play is performance. Play is improvisation. Play is fun. Transient meanings give play its unique power, allowing it to reside intimately within our daily experience. Play invades multiple realms, but it is never static within those realms. These realms are simultaneously part of play and subsumed by it.[2] We both “play” instruments and “play” games. When we play, we are truly, then, entering a “state of play.” This state is never quite the same, and thus we evaluate it differently each time we enter it.
Introducing “Climate Balance Through Play”
I want to introduce a new process for finding Climate Balance. Less of a means of visualizing the climate crisis, it promotes a mindset with which both individuals and societies can combat the crisis daily. The significance of this new method is its global scope and deviation from and yet reliance on previous models of social networks, practices, exchanges and sacrifices. I advocate acquiring Climate Balance through a most fundamental activity, play.
However, “play” is a particularly amorphous term. It conveys and connotes a variety of meanings, from performance and improvisation, to games. Rhetorically, play is powerful, as it constitutes so much of our daily experience and pervades how and what we do, particularly during this time, when games, trophies and rewards are becoming increasingly integrated into a diverse array of institutions.
Perhaps the best mode to regard play in the context of combating climate change is that of the game. Eric Zimmerman, in articulating his Rules of Play, describes the “environment” or “the context surrounding the system” (loc. 881) as an important component of the game. Through a variety of Zimmerman’s definitions, it can easily be discerned that games exist in relation to play and vice versa. The ever-shifting relationship of games and play can also be compared to Latour’s “collective,” in which the role of play within the game is subsumed and re-evaluated as we entertain ourselves.
Games provide a framework for safe play. Zimmerman tracks these structures, emphasizing the fluidity and commonality of such designs. Games are primarily defined by rules, as much as they are by competition. Ultimately, the most common feature that a game “proceeds according to rules that limit the player” imparts that near inexplicable feeling of safety and excitement as achieved in Johann Huizinga’s “magic circle,” the realm we enter to play.
The magic circle, with its guidelines, provides a schema for understanding and evaluating play within games, not dissimilar to Edwards’ contentions about the systems and models used to visualize and comprehend the climate. Since both games and climate require systems, they share comparable analytical perspectives as envisioned by various scholars including Alenda Chang, who while drawing attention to the environmental/systemic connections between games, does not provide a model for understanding “play” within that correlation.
I advocate play over “games” as a paradigm for fighting the climate crisis. Philosophically, play establishes a new focus on the experience of the individual. No form of play contains a non-physical component. By changing our rhetoric and attitude about play, our understanding of climate is moved from the systematic to the individual. In other words, we are able to think of “how do I play,” or perhaps more accurately, “what can I do,” rather than “what can I save” or “how is the environment affected.”
The consequences of orienting politics towards play can be found in more “archaic” models of society, namely that of the “potlatch,” observed by a diverse group of scholars including Marcel Mauss, George Bataille and Tiziana Terranova. This societal game of exchange and sacrifice, in which all actions of the tribe or clan had to be reciprocated and glory and “soul” were awarded for giving rather than receiving, exemplifies the transformative effect of competitive play in a real world environment. In Mauss’ analysis all parts of society were altered by the system of potlatch and it was in the convergence of the economical, religious, familial and political systems under the potlatch from which it acquired its efficacy. Play may represent a means of realizing the collective in our very actions and daily experiences.
In my future work, I plan to articulate more clearly on the interrelationship between systems of play and of the environment, explain why in the current age of climate collapse play is necessary, examine play in a variety of models, most notably Chang’s analysis of play environments, Mauss’ thesis of societal play, and, finally, touch on elements of play embedded within a social movement, namely Occupy Wall Street.
Draft: House MD and the Effects of Self-Reliance
This was an undergraduate paper I wrote about House MD and couldn’t get out of my head. The entire essay is predicated only on the first few seasons, but I invite any and all comments. Maybe I will revive the subject in the future
The central character, Gregory House, of the ongoing television series, House MD, owes much of his and the show’s success by realizing the ideal person espoused by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay Self-Reliance. House, in his actions, his thoughts and even in cinematic style is portrayed as the independent, unencumbered man of Emerson’s essay, following his own direction and combating the forces that desire to control him. Despite this, however, House does not attain the fulfillment of Emerson’s self-reliant man. He does not have “peace” (Emerson, 282) that is the essential conclusion of Emerson’s work. He is a man devoid of happiness. He is tormented by addiction, loneliness, and physical infirmity. This conflict represents a somewhat ironic and, even more so, critical look at the nature of self-reliance in this new century.
Structures of Isolation in “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore”
Don’t Get Around Much Anymore By Art Spiegelman ©1973
Panels marked for Clarity
One of the basic structures of the medium of comic books is the panel. This enclosure separates one piece of art from another, creating the sequence of images known as comics. Panels can vary in size, shape, etc. but ultimately they isolate one image from another, dividing up a page. This idea of isolation is prominent throughout the short comic “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” whose basic contextual and constructive structures exploit the medium of the comic to create a feeling of isolation.
Revisiting: Countermonuments, an Attack on Memory and the Off-Modern Memorial
I wrote an article almost a year ago about the interesting world of Countermonuments, focusing on the work of Countermonument creators Esther and Jochen Gerz. For those interested, read the article here. A little different than some of my other stuff.
Celebrity Culture and Illusion
A presentation on Chris Hedges’ view of Celebrity Culture.
http://app.sliderocket.com:80/app/fullplayer.aspx?id=7E274799-629A-41B8-096B-5FEA9D803732
