As Appadurai mentions in the extract The Production of Locality (Modernity at Large), our understanding of the local is changing “in a world where spatial localization, quotidian interaction, and social scale are not always isomorphic”. With the rise of virtual spaces, the components of what creates space are rapidly being changed, and with it, our understanding of it. As we are entering an era where space is expanding from being only tangible physicality, I wish to look at the fundament of this new notion of space and how it will affect us. With this I will investigate the role of moving images in the future, as I see this two clearly connected. What is cinema´s role in the new form of locality that we are moving into, and why is it so important to define it? I believe the conjunction between space and moving images will affect us, but what are the possible problems of the two coming together? Leaning on ideas by Marshall McLuhan and Guy Debord, I am attempting to provide some answers to these questions.

As we encounter virtual environments, our mind enters a space where the same needs can be fulfilled and the same tasks executed as in our physical world. As in Appadurai´s terms, “ neighborhoods are inherently what they are because they are opposed to something else and derive from other, already produced neighborhoods.” (The Production of Locality) Using Appadurai´s definition, a virtual reality like Second Life qualifies in being an autonomous neighborhood, at least in its intention. It adds to our new understanding of space, even though it´s context is produced by the world of which is its governed, the first life. As the founder of Linden Lab Philip Rosedale said during our discussion; he wanted a world where people were completely free to form their own lives and new identities, without any other limits than the their own creativity. This appeals to all human beings as we wish to constitute and be in charge of our own lives. In a western society where the lower levels of Abraham Maslows Hierarchy of Needs usually are covered, our need revolves around realizing ourselves and reaching fulfillment through our creative skills.

“Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.” (Chapter 1 Separation Perfected, La Société du spectacle.) In 1967, Guy Debord described how our physical space was invaded by imagery and that the spectacle had become omnipresent. As for today, not only are we surrounded by images in our physical world, we are actually starting to live inside the imagery. This, as more and more time is being spent within virtual localities. Second life is maybe just a forerunner and the form of its followers will probably vary, but as virtual environments are increasingly starting to play a major role in many people´ s lives, it is important to look at what is in the core of these new forms of space.

As you enter a virtual reality, you enter a set of images and the images are moving. But, as opposed to the cinema, the images are moving where and when you want them to move. It looks like you are controlling your space, but somebody has created the ways of which you can move these images, and that will always restrict and lead your options. Moving images has become more than a cinematic medium that can affect you emotionally. It is now creating the fundament of what we think of as space. As we are starting to move, live, and even create ourselves in virtual spaces, we are starting to inhabit these images, and they are contributing to the definition of our lives.

In La technique et le temp, Bernhard Stiegler talks about  the “cinematic constitution of consciousness”. The reason why we so easily can lose ourselves to the experience of cinema, is that the structure of our consciousness is identical with the one of the cinematographic structure. With our minds moving in the space of the moving image, the line between our own consciousness and the ubiquitous imagery we are moving through (and creating), is becoming blurred. Our minds melt together with the space of which we move, and we can no longer detach ourselves from the moving images. This will make it harder to distinguish who actually created these moving images. Ourselves or our surroundings? As this line is getting blurred, we are likely to be left open for influences believing it to be our own ideas. I wonder how we then can be free to constitute our own lives?

Starting to live inside the moving images, we need to train ourselves to seperate them from our own consciousness. This to make us able to choose what influences to accept and which to avoid. To do this, we need to deconstruct the moving images and look at their components. In the extract Myth and mass media (Understanding Media) Marshall McLuhan explains how the mass media is a language. By analyzing the moving images into its grammatical components, we might be able to understand the medium for then to understand the content, as the medium is in itself the message, as stated by McLuhan.

McLuhan continues saying that in the core of the language, in this context being moving images; here lies the myth. Or, in the words of Guy Debord: “The spectacle is the heart of the unrealism of the real society” (La Société du spectacle) The myth is the purpose and the core of the language. Images are representations, and thus adding to our reality a complete fakeness. As the medium is the language is the myth being the fakeness, the message is the fakeness and we are embracing it. The myth creates desires, needs and values within us, and with the compelling imagery, we choose to believe it. We don’t want choices and difficult questions, we want answers, and the myth provides us with all the answers we need.. and more.

I find it important to demand a separation between ourselves and the myth, as the myth often is loaded with commercial messages. Exemplified by second life turning itself into an additional market economy, leaving the users not free to recreate themselves based on their own creativity. This, as the channels of where the imagery is produced and exposed are commercially loaded. But Second Life still sells itself as freedom. As virtual spaces is dominated by commercial forces, the imagery will still have commercial purposes. Blogs, web-sites, virtual realities, they are all carriers of clear or hidden commercial messages, keeping us warm as consumers. And we carry this commercial notion onto our own imagery. “The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images.” (La Société du spectacle) As we are becoming one with our space and the moving images we are living in, we become transmitters of the values downloaded into us from the ubiquitous imagery and we continue carrying these values further into our real physical world as well. We become ourselves representatives of the consumption culture, it becomes us and we do not remain free. But how can we be free from an oppressor that we love? We need to want our freedom from the myth that creates values and desires manifested in objects. How can we step out from this space if we don’t want to wake up?

As all the images in the spectacle are signs for values and ideas we long to inhabit, we will have to devaluate these images. We are the ones providing these images their value by accepting their appearance and their replacement of our own social relations, and carrying them onto new imagery. To be free, we will need to devaluate the social relations these images appear to be. Devaluate the myth, and kill it. By deconstructing the moving images, we can understand the components of what is creating the myth, and then, we can detach ourselves for a moment and subvert the myth, by using its own means, the means of the moving images. We have to manipulate our use of the technological automata in the moving images, inseparable from the content. This can be used to our advantage, as we are now able to communicate in real time with the imagery, as opposed to in the days when Debord wrote La Société du spectacle. The spectacle does not any longer need to be a monologue, as the images that creates our space now is depending on our participation. But, on the other hand, it is harder to draw the line. We need to choose our imagery carefully. It has to be subverted as the message lies in its nature. It has to be used against itself. If not, using moving images adds to the creation of the myth and will then maintain the fakeness of our reality.

List of literature:

Arjun Appadurai: The Production of locality, Modernity at Large

Marshall McLuhan: Myth and Mass Media, Understanding Media

Guy Debord: La Societé du Spectacle

Bernhard Stiegler: La technique et le temp

Arjun Appadurai is a social-cultural anthropologist focusing on modernity and globalization. He believes that the nation-state is in crisis, and argues that “current global processes of migration and communication will lead to the deterritorialization of identities in a world which will become culturally hybridized through the growth of diasporic public spheres and the global flow of images, finances, technologies, and ideologies.” He suggests we “think beyond the nation,” by imagining a form of sovereignty that replaces territoriality with trans-localities. (Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. 1996)

With the nation state in a crisis, this unfilled space could be viewed as an opportunity, and creating answers to Appadurai´ s question is a great challenge that needs to be taken. With the idea of the nation-state being in crisis, there is room for new trans-localities that can work as channels for improved conditions and more equal platforms for human interaction, and I wonder if the demand for new trans-localities is a renewed need for the imaginary ideal. There already exists a range of artist, creators and thinkers participating in making proposals, fictitious or real, of new trans-localities. Which creations and ideas are the ones that can actually contribute in creating a future based on equality amongst humans and freedom from not desired influence? What is the model that can have real impact on the conditions of our human existence…

PRODUCTION OF SPACE

I wish to look at how creating a space can become a model used for amelioration of the space we ourselves inhabit, and how produced spaces can be trans local dreams for us to reach for. Looking at different Productions of spaces, I am aware of Marxist analyst saying that; “space is not a neutral container or void within which social interactions take place, but rather an ideological product and instrument in itself”. (Miwon Kwon: One place after another, 2002.) To believe his idea, we can look at how public space is under commercial control, without necessarily consent by the public. I am looking at space as a tool for directing us, without a naïve belief of the space being empty of directives or free from connotations.

I want to look at different creations of utopian and existing spaces as examples of the above-mentioned suggested new trans-localities. Which means are the most effective in terms of influencing the future and making our world into a better place to be: The imaginary ideal or a space that creates tension for discussion?

Of course, the question of what is a good world is a large discussion. In this context, I will simplify the task by stating certain subjective criteria for what a good future would be, seen in the light of the American psychiatrist Abraham H. Maslow´ s theory of the hierarchic pyramid of need. As long as the three lowest level of the pyramid are covered equally amongst humans; physiological needs, safety, and needs of belonging, our physical space would be a better place to inhabit. As we live in a world of constant influence from wanted and unwanted sources, I would also add freedom to decide upon our own desires, free from non-wanted influence.

So based on the abovementioned criteria, which model is the ultimate tool for enhancing the conditions of our human existence? I will begin to look at the creations of fictional Utopias and existing Micro Topias.

UTOPIAS

Using dream models to transform or criticize the world we inhabit, has been a popular topic amongst artists, architects, designers and filmmakers in the west for a long time.

As from Thomas More´ s book Utopia (1516), the illusionary idea of a perfect society was used as a tool to transform both the individual and society, in his case through a criticism of his contemporary Britain. The book is describing a fictional island, Utopia, the name derived from the Greek words ou (not) and topos (place) meaning a non-existing place. Utopia is pronounced exactly as Eutopia, meaning a good place, so while Utopia might be the idea of a perfected society, it has at the same time the meaning of a space that cannot exist.

Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius

As an example of the relevance of a Utopian idea and it´ s impact onto reality, I will use a pure fictional example, the short story: Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, written by the Argentinean author Jorge Luis Borges in 1941. His short story stands for me as an example (though literary and fictional) on how imaginary ideas can come to life.

In the story, an encyclopedia article about a mysterious country called Uqbar, is the first indication of a massive conspiracy of intellectuals to imagine a new world called Tlön. A secret society has apparently been creating several volumes of Encyclopedias about the fake world Tlön. By introducing artifacts from this fake world into the real one, they wish to alter the history of the world.  Even though it is known that Tlön is not a real place; its languages, rites, and history is being studied by the real world. The country enters the modern lexicon and the language is even being taught in school. Slowly the fiction of Tlön starts to replace the truth of the real world and the story shows how ideas ultimately manifest themselves in the physical world.

Tlön is a fictional creation loaded with values and Utopian ideals for improvement of the real world. As opposed to the real world, Tlön denies the existence of objective material reality, exemplified by the fact that the Tlönic language has no nouns. I read this as Borges´ hope for our own world. The relevance of his book within modern literature history and in studies of the Utopian ideal, could be seen as a slight version of the impact that his fictional country had in the “real” world of his novel, but it cannot really be compared.

NSK- State of time

Neue Slovenische Kunst is a collective art organization based in Slovenia. The artists are working within a variety of disciplines and are fronted by the performance group and industrial punk band Laibach. In the early nineties, the group formed The State of NSK, a state that does not exist in real, three-dimensional space and has no physical territory. Its only territory is the dimension of time, and becomes therefore a suggestion of a new trans local entity, where the time has become the space. The project was conceived when former Yugoslavia was ravaged by war and new countries was being formed in Europe, and The state of NSK can be seen as a reaction to the fighting over space and boarders. By becoming a citizen of time, people would belong to the same nation no matter ethnicity. NSK issued passports, mostly to art interested individuals, but also to residents from Bosnia Herzegovina without a formal state-residency. Some of them tried to cross boarders with passports from The State of NSK, but that never really worked. The direct impact of the project onto real life did not happen and the project remained a Utopian idea.

The Utopian problem

Ruth Levitas mentions in The Concepts of Utopia (1990), how Utopias itself is an ideological irony, since “the very ambiguous nature of the word suggests the similarly ambiguous nature of the idea of a place that is both good and non-existent.” This states the impossibility of the existence of a perfect society.

As in the case of Tlön, the Utopian model did influence reality, but the example was also fictional. In the case of NSK, The Utopian creation becomes more an idea that can inspire and have us questioning physical boarders and the idea of a nation. But the project does not necessarily change the conditions of our lives, and this points to the criticism towards the use of Utopia as a model for change. The Utopian ideal remains a dream, too far away from our realities.  In Utopics: Spatial Play (1894), Louis Marin says that the gap that separates reality and Utopia is too large. We don´ t know how to get to the perfect ideal. I understand this as; we see the gold, but nothing moves our critical minds in the direction of achieving it.

Robert Hughes goes even further in his criticism towards the concept of Utopia, by saying “the idea of a world like Utopia is similar to a poison that contaminates people’s minds”. (The Phantom of Utopia, Time Magazine Nov. 2002) He sees Utopia as a false belief, which “requires giving up individual desires and freedoms so as to maintain equality.” In the Tate Modern lecture on Utopian ideals, Claire Bishop points to a critical aspect in Thomas More´ s Utopia, showing that to gain a perfect social harmony, you have to seclude those who have ideas that differs from your own idea of the perfect. In the case of More´ s book, this is shown by the exclusion of the noisy Christian zealot from the island. As a dream hardly ever can be common for all humans, the Utopian idea comes close to become authoritarian. As in Borges´ Tlön, where the new country is made up of a group of intellectuals that has decided upon what would be the other desired reality. By deliberately disseminating information about this other world, they wish to manipulate the people into adopting their idea, and the people do not remain free from influence.

MICRO TOPIAS

While the Utopias stands as mere ideas that will not be fully reached and that will never really be rid of the authoritarian problem, creations of Micro Topias seems to be rather tangible goals, aiming to create small- scale harmonies. Sovereignty is a key word of their strive, and the spaces often exist as parallel smaller nations within a larger scale system. Often used as prototypes for self-sufficient sustainable communities of the future, Micro Topias function as a platform for human interaction. Commonly, the inhabitants are to decide together upon the governing of their own world.

Creating a Micro Topia or a micro nation can have a range of different reasons, but a common motivation are certain discontents with the established society. Whether it being the tax system, ideological governing of a country, or a wish for carrying out more ecological sustainable ideas into practice. Micro Topias are not claiming to solve the big problems or speculating in grand ideas for the future, the greatest difference between a small sovereignty and Utopia is that Micro Topias are aiming to make the here and now slightly better.

I will look at some projects creating Micro Topian spaces for a better future. Nicholas Bourriaud has mentioned this trend amongst artists in his book Relational Aesthetics (1998) and points to how artists have come to the conclusion of not being able to really change the world. “It seems more pressing to invent possible relations with our neighbors in the present than bet on happier tomorrows… Instead of looking for future Utopia, today’s artists seek to find solutions in the here and now. The work should produce the conditions of our existence in a fragmented culture- not only reflect upon the conditions.” Bourriaud sees this as one of the significances of relational art. (Claire Bishop: Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics, October Magazine, 110, Fall 2004.)

The Land

I will look at one physical and one virtual space, that both functions as small independent Micro Topian worlds. One of the examples often mentioned by Bourriaud is a project initiated by the two artists Tarivanija, and Lertchaiprasert. The Land (Founded in 1998) is a rice field in Northern Thailand, and as being a small nation in itself consisting of people coming together from all over the world, I choose to see The Land as a trans local entity even though the territory is physically limited. The idea is to cultivate a place of and for social engagement, an open space for people without the concept of ownership by the founders. On the project’s web-site, Tiravanija and Lertchaiprasert describe it “…as a means of trying to find new ways of being together, by facilitating a space where no one is told what to think, what to buy or who to vote for, but rather encouraged to experiment with different living standards and modes of thought.”  How to run the space is figured out by trial and error, and no rules and regulations govern life on The Land. Tarivanija says; “it’s the choices people make with their time that is imperative to changing their immediate society”.

Does it work?

Being an open space for interactions without having set criteria for governing, The Land seems to be an open space for interaction free from influences and open for co-authorship of the participants. But to repeat Marx: “No space is without an ideology.” Somebody has created some initial criteria of what to be subtracted from the real world, to make another perfect one, as in Borges idea of the Utopian world of Tlön.

The Micro Topia is not completely free from predominant rules, even not in Tarivanija and Lertchaiprasert´s case, though it is further away from the total authoritarian space of a Utopia. An important thing to bear in mind, is that such a created space cannot dwell in it´ s often originated consensus (as a Micro Topia often has been created in the opposition of something else.) In order to create change, the critical mind must be aware and conflict sustained, to avoid the total authoritarian.

Second Life

A virtual example of another trans local space that is hard to avoid, is the virtual world of Second Life. Existing outside of, or parallel to, our existing world, it has become an important new trans local entity in itself with 14 million registered online users. Participants create their own parallel realities in which they can live out their dreams, represented by an avatar that they can customize into becoming their own ideal selves. Philip Rosedale is the founder of Linden Lab, the company that created Second Life, and he has said that he wanted a world where people were completely free to form their own lives, and where they could create new identities without any other limits than their own creativity. This appeals to all human beings as we wish to constitute and be in charge of our own lives… free from hidden unwanted influence.

RMB City… in Second Life

There are also artists using Second Life to produce spaces for improving our real world. The Chinese artist Cau Fei has used second life as a Micro Topian platform for developing new Utopian visions for China. Her project gets close to the merging of utopian ideas with a virtually real Micro Topia. This, by constructing the virtual RMB City, which will continue to grow and change over the two years it is bound to run. The city is an art community in the virtual world and is meant to function as a public platform for creativity. On it’s own web page, the city says that it’s “seeking to create the conditions for an expansive discourse about art, urbanism, economy, imagination and freedom.” The city is also reflecting on China’s recent urban and cultural explosion, and becomes like this a criticism of the world it derives from. This is a common factor in both the cases of Utopias and Micro Topias.

Does it work?

Second Life could be seen as the ultimate space of bringing utopian dreams into real existence, but I will still argue it being far from Utopia. Cau Fei´ s project takes it the furthest, by creating a Micro Topian platform where Utopian ideas can be discussed. The project aims to create a cell within Second Life, free from an authoritarian premise. But Second Life is in itself not a free space to roam. Its context is produced by the world of which it is governed, the first life, and I find that Second Life is looking more and more like the real world. This makes it into just another small scale Micro Topia, where the participants cannot function free from influences created by the producers of its space. To exemplify this point, I will mention how the economic model of second life is copying our own capitalistic model, with the market to be the moderator to decide upon the value of things. Second Life has its own currency, The Linden Dollar. This has become a driving force for the space, which creates certain immediate restrictions on the creative potential for new and innovative solutions of co-existence. The problem, and even the danger of parallel worlds such as Second Life, is that it does not really provide us with new solutions to old problems, but it pretends to do.

Are these Micro Topias instant ameliorations of our every day or are they just re-iterations of our own world, such as in the case of Second Life? The Land seems to be less authoritarian as it creates an open space for interaction, and The Land does exist.  But the aspirations to real social change is minimal, as The Land is small and the idea not widespread enough to have the impact to really change anything else than the little piece of land in Northern Thailand. And with consensus, comes the authoritarian problem.

ANTAGONISM

… So, as the only way to create a sustainable tomorrow, there needs to be incorporated real participation from the people, in order to avoid being under unwanted authoritarian influence.  How can this be mixed together with the Utopian ideal? In order to come up with new solutions, something needs to be at stake, something like our own integrity as humans. To create real reflection about what would be our preferred tomorrow, there needs to be some tension.

Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe argue “that a fully functioning democratic society is not one in which all antagonisms have disappeared, but one in which new political frontiers are constantly being drawn and brought into debate- in other words, a democratic society is one in which relations of conflict are sustained, not erased. Without antagonism there is only the imposed consensus of authoritarian order- a total suppression of debate and discussion.” Antagonism does not mean “the expulsion of Utopia from the field of the political.” On the contrary, Laclau and Mouffe say that without the concept of Utopia there is no possibility of a radical imaginary. “The task is to balance the tension between the imaginary ideal and pragmatic management of a social positivity. This without lapsing into the totalitarian.” (Laclau and Mouffe: Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. 2001) I think this is a fundamental thought to bring into the creating of a model for change.

As an example of antagonistic work, I would like to use Santiago Sierra as an example. By paying workers in or from underdeveloped countries to perform activities conducted by himself, often very unpleasant activities, he is doing the opposite of creating a space for consensus. He uses his own rules, and as a spectator, your integrity is being questioned. You plunge into a discussion with yourself, that you cannot leave. His work forces you to reflect upon your own values, as a spectator, participant and human being. And Santiago Sierra does not provide any answers.

ANTAGONOPIA

By mixing Utopian suggestions with antagonism, there can be both conflicts for reflection and hints of hope and sparks for answers. I choose to call for a new production of space, called the Antagonopia; the mix of the Utopian and the Micro Topian space, with the antagonistic approach. Looking for projects that fulfill all of these criteria, I could not find that many. Though there is one project I would like to mention as a slight example of the Antagonopian model.

In the Bataille Monument, shown in Documenta 11 in 2002, Thomas Hirschorn created a space in an immigrant suburb of Kassel, as a monument to the French surrealist writer George Bataille. The monument was placed in low-income district with different shacks working as additional houses/ spaces to the community. The monument consisted of a library, a snack bar and a television studio. All run by workers from the local society. “Art tourists” from Documenta was taken to the monument by a local taxi-company, and they were forced to stay in the monument until the taxi driver picked them up later.

By creating this space, Hirschorn created a zone for human interaction between two social groups that doesn’t necessarily come together. He created a Micro Topia, without the naïve togetherness that often can be seen in community projects. (Such as for example was the case with the Laton Project, where an art school did a make over of a suburban community together with its inhabitants.) The social structures were not at all hidden in Hirschorn´s project, they were rather emphasized. But at the same time, the space for interaction was open for the participants; and- the interaction became an answer. The local workers were being paid, and the art viewers entered a local community they did not belong to.

Walking around as a stranger in the monument, I can imagine the social structures starts being questioned by the art viewers, and the workers. This is what I think creates the antagonism, demanded for the democratic discussion by Laclau and Mouffe. The monument becomes a ground, that isn’t necessarily equal, but neither tries to pretend it is. And as for the Utopian spark of the project, the residents of Kassel said the monument had brought a greater sense of community to the neighborhood. Hirschorn´ s work does both create the tension and aspires to provide answers to its own conflict. This is the produced space that I believe can be the model.

“… politics itself is, in the final analysis, always the politics of fantasy. It needs to imagine answers to antagonisms” (Slavoj Zizek, Ha’aretz, 2003). An Antagonopian work needs to function both as the troublemaker and as politics. Creating the antagonism that can result in conflicts that can result in the reflection to create answers- and at the same time also provide answers in itself for inspiration and guiding. But this, without hiding the forces behind the answers, so as people can remain free to decide upon which influences to take in or not.

Arjun Appadurai: Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, 1996

Thomas More: Utopia, 1516

Jorge Luis Borges: Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, 1941

Ruth Levitas: The Concepts of Utopia, 1990

Laclau and Mouffe: Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, 2001

Claire Bishop: Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics, October 110, Fall 2004

Miwon Kwon: One place after another, 2002

The film had its world premiere in the official Short Film Competition in The 66th Venice Film Festival, la Biennale di Venezia 2009. The film has also screened at New Horizon Film Festival, Wrocklaw, Poland, July 2011, St. Johns Woman Film Festival, Canada, Oct. 2010, Calgary Int. Film Festival, Canada, Sept. 2010, Citizen Jane Film Festival, USA, Oct. 2010, Munich Int. Short Film Festival, Germany, June 2010, Toronto World Wide Short Film Fest, Canada, June 2010, Transylvania Int. Film Festival, Romania, May 2010, San Francisco Int. Film Festival, USA, April 2010, Breda Int. Film Festival , The Netherlands, March 2010, Go Short Int. Short Film Festival, Netherlands, March 2010, Miami Int. Film Festival, USA, March 2010, Sundance Film Festival, USA Jan. 2010, Stockholm Int. Film Festival, Sweden, Nov. 2009, Nordic Panorama, Iceland, Sept. 2009 (Special mention), The Norwegian Int. Short Film Festival, June, 2009 (Honorable mention).

The films were screened at The Haugesund International Film Festival 2005 and 2006, The Norwegian International Short film Festival 2005 and 2006, and at BIFF International Film festival 2007. NRK (The Norwegian Broadcasting Company) bought the series for screening in 2007/ 2008. The Norwegian Film Institute has released a DVD with the six films, and today, the films are being used for educational purposes in Norwegian high schools and libraries. If interested in using the films, please contact The Norwegian Film Institute.