BarryTaylorBlog

theology and media culture

Just over halfway through the course and today we finished up the television section. In honour of Halloween we spent some time exploring otherness--strangers and monsters. We looked at The Walking Dead and True Blood using some of Richard Kearney's thinking on Strangers, Gods and Monsters, which I have found insightful along the way in thinking about the ways in which we (various and diverse cultures and societies) process and manage our fears, anxieties and concerns.

"There are monsters on the prowl whose form changes with the history of knowledge," declared Foucault and I think these shows, and others like them, give some examples of how our monsters have changed over the past decades. The fact that both zombies and vampires have traction in the culture is interesting to me. Those characters first appeared out of the underbelly of the enlightenment project, the 19th century churning with change and looking for new maps, manifested its anxieties in the tales of Frankenstein and Dracula--today we seem to have come back around to these symbols and are using them again, in modified forms, to attempt to find new pathways, to handle our present challenges and fears in this time when of not-knowing--when once again, the maps that have brought us thus far, seem insufficient.

Next week we are turning our attention toward digital culture and entering the world of new technologies, social media and all that. Geert Lovink's book on Network Culture is strong critique of post-desktop digitality, the world of mobile digitality, but along with critique he does open up some great questions about things like anonymity, connectivity, sociality, which I hope will give the students plenty to wrestle with. I must say that this particualr class has been very engaged thus far and I have heard and learnt a lot from them.

monday

fuck yeah radiohead

One of the best bands out there, live on PBS' Austin City Limits---brilliant, they never cease to entertain and push limits, loves them. way to kick off a new season ACL!

the future in 1962

It was fifty years ago today that The Jetsons first aired on American tv. It was the first show to air in colour on ABC-TV. presented as a sort of space-age answer to the Flintstones, it was everything you might expect from a country, and a world, excited about the potential of the future. It was a glimpse into American self-identity--carried into a new age--carried into a new age, but very much of its own time--no people of colour, no alternate life-style families--just George Jetson, his long-suffering wife, kids, pets, and the future, all offering up a look at the future that was ideologically the same as its present, just with more space-age gadgets. In keeping with the views of the times, George moaned about work--his three-hour work week was getting to him all the time--well, why not consider the future as an age of less work, it had been the trajectory since the introduction of Labour laws and a host of other societal shifts brought about by the industrial revolution etc. No-one envisioned a future with more work, or with the lines between work and leisure blurred by technology as it is today--you can work on the way to work...and on your way home from it, today.

The family unit was intact, there were no derivations, no alternate lifestyles--and gender roles were still clearly laid out--men did men stuff, women--well, their place was in the home, even if it was a ranch-style futuristic abode with a parking spot for your own flying saucer. Jeffrey Tucker, said of it,

"The whole scene — which anticipated so much of the technology we have today but, strangely, not e-mail or texting— reflected the ethos of time: a love of progress and a vision of a future that stayed on course ... The Jetsons' world is our world: explosive technological advances, entrenched bourgeois culture, a culture of enterprise that is the very fond of the good life."

What the Jetsons reminds us is that we are not very good at predicting the future--it's why I love the site paleo-future so much--its a lesson on our presumptive follies. "a future that stayed on course" Tucker writes--yeah, not so much, that future disappeared really quickly, a future we can predict is really no future at all, it is an assumption that we have arrived rather than an observation that we still have places to go---We certainly can't predict the future based on what we assume is concrete. Not long after The Jetsons aired, a new future did arrive in America, and much of the rest of the world, it wasn't the same world just with shinier gadgets--it was a whole new way of being human--it's still playing out before our eyes, it will not take trajectories we assume it will--it will be different, it will be the future, it will feel much like now--and I doubt we will be piloting personal space-craft, but what do I know? The future holds its own secrets, its the present that holds my interest.

after the apocalypse

I have been thinking a fair bit about this fascination that there seems to be with the idea of post-apocalypse, post-technological collapse. It's evident in things as diverse as The Hunger Games, The Walking Dead andnow, even more, the new JJ Abrams produced, Revolution, which explores the world post-electricity. It seems to echo the on-going love/hate relationship we have with technology. On the one hand we are enraptured with what technology can accomplish and how connected it allows us to be, and what it can deliver, literally into our hands. On the other hand, we speak a lot about the downside of technology-the loss of face-to-face communing, i-pod isolation, hyper-individualized mediation, and these shows seem to be wrestling with those duelling forces at work in our lives.

I begin a class next week on Theology and Media Culture and I might begin with this question, this issue, in the class, get us thinking about the role/s technology plays in enhancing and diminishing our lives. There is an interesting article in Esquire magazine online about this very thing--a worthwhile read. This is something that Marshall Mcluhan addressed with his laws of media tetrad, putting forward the view that technology, any technology, causes four major effects upon the user-it (whatever it is)enhances, retrieves, reverses and obsolesces. We seem to live somewhere in the tension between those dynamics, each of us being pulled by various preferences, positions, access etc. 

There are often times when I would happily give up my cell-phone, but the idea of going back to a pre-electric world--one that would also herald a return to the 'dark' in so many other areas, is not one that I care to visit. I think we have to find our own balance with technology and its use, misuse, disuse.

Much like Hunger Games--Revolution presents a sort of frontier-survivalist mentality--both interestingly, are heavily led by females--the girl with the crossbow in the NBC ad would not look out of place at all in the HG artworks, advertising and narrative ideology--this idea of living close to the land, technology-free, surviving off of ones wits and ancient-or older, close-to-earth wisdom, holds great appeal.

We rely so much on technology--and for most of us, most of it is a mystery in terms of how it actually works--i'm still stuck on radio-waves!!! Derrida used this idea to great degree in his writing on knowledge and our relation to technology. For him, the space created between our reliance upon and ignorance of, technology, was precisley the cause of a revived and renewed interest in animis, magic and mystery--i.e. religious belief is affected by technology relation.

And of course, all these shows draw heavily upon the American Obsession with all things apocalyptic--which continues to be expressed at the heart of much of our culturally mediated imagination. Oh, and AC/DC are still cool!

Fall TV

I am watching Dexter again. Going to be an interesting season. Dexter is going to explore spirituality, well, actually he is going to try and work out whether or not his serial-killer code functions in place of a religious belief--that's an interesting equation if you ask me. Themes of darkness and light, faith and doubt, sin and salvation--all with a blood-spatter veneer! I am also watching Boardwalk Empire-another morality tale, set against the backdrop of Prohibition (I would heartily recommend the Ken Burns 3-part Prohibition documentary)--tv works better for me than films lately. In fact, I have seen a couple of films recently and they have put me in a real funk--Moneyball and Ides of March--both good films, but each of them impacted me quite negatively on an emotional level--not sure why, well, I am actually--I think that my current emotional state is a bit frail and consquently, I don't need to be drawn into other emotional spaces in the way movies can--television is a little less passive and I can watch a little more detached I think...I don't knoew, just enjoying a bit of telly that's all.

mcluhan tv monday

 
I think tomorrow will be a bit of a McLuhan day in the Theology+Media Culture class. We are going to explore television's roots, technological implications and socio-cultural influence. We are watching Mad Men as a class--a way of watching and thinking theologically together--hopefully it will be fun.

theology + media culture

 

So, we are off and running on a new term. I am teaching a couple of classes, two modules online and one on campus. The campus class is Theology and Media Culture and I decided to completely overhaul it--nothing like last minute decisions to stir things up, but I wanted to chart some different territory this time around. The central theme is going to be transmedia entertainment--communication via multiple media platforms and what that does both to content and to us--hopefully it will be interesting enough to get people thinking a little more deeply about these things.

a day in the life

Documentary film-maker, Morgan Spurlock has a new series on Hulu (yes, on Hulu--doing their own prgramming now) called A Day in the Life. Richard Branson is up right now and it is worth a look. Find it here.

113 minutes and counting

I have mentioned my slight addiction to Christian television before, I find it so compelling--for all the wrong reasons-it's usually a fashion nightmare, a theological trainwreck, and a slice of aesthetic tastelessness that it has to be experienced in order to be believed. No offense to the good folks at TBN, or their desire to get their message to the whole world, but wow! Anyway, to be honest, I have cooled my addiction of late, I just got over it, too predictable, but last night, I just happened to click by and glory be! Golden!! So apparently TBN's Holy Land Experience(i'm saying road trip!!) in Orlando is hosting a special event just in time for the New Year. Two speakers will address the topic of their respective books. Don Piper, author of 90 minutes in Heaven and Bill Wiese author of 23 minutes in Hell will come together for a time of salvation, revival and healing--genius!! 113 minutes and you can get all the information you need about heaven and hell, full details of what happens in the afterlife, full descriptions of it all--a perfect way to end the year I say.

For $14.95 you can read Wiese's account of his 23 minutes in hell,

"With electrified senses Bill Wiese experienced the searing flames of hell, total isolation, a putrid, breathtaking stench, deafening screams of agony, terrorizing demons, and finally, the strong hand of God lifting him out of the pit.
Wiese's visit to the devil's lair lasted just twenty-three minutes, but he returned with vivid details etched in his memory. During his twelve-month recovery after this life-changing ordeal, he studied the Scriptures to find answers and has listed more than 300 Bible verses referencing hell."

And when you have had enough information about that you can switch to the more sedate exploration of heaven by Don Piper,

"In his book 90 Minutes in Heaven, Don made a decision to take a different route home from a church growth conference that he attended in 1989. It didn't seem like an important choice at the time, but it turned out to be one that changed his life. Waiting down an East Texas highway on his way back to Houston was a large truck that took his life.
In retrospect, the decision to take a different route might appear to be a crucial one. But the most important decision in Don's life occurred NOT on his drive home but when he accepted Christ as Lord at the age of sixteen. Deciding to accept Christ meant Don had an eternal home in Heaven no matter when he died. Acknowledging Christ as Savior guarantees that you will spend eternity with Him."

I love the image of a truck waiting on an East Texas highway waiting to take him out, such a programmed view of how life unfolds--no accidents just pieces moved into place by the hand of god I suppose---To each his own I guess, and far be it from me to doubt their experiences, but I have to say that this preoccupation that many Christians seem have with the afterlife and its discontents drives me a bit nuts--I have spent a long time with the Bible and hard as I try I can't get this many details about either place, I think you have to do a lot of reading into the texts to get there from here. Which is precisely what I think happens, rather than exploring cosmology and conceptual structures of the universe, they attempt to turn the symbolic into the literal, medieval perceptions of the structure of the universe (and it is essentially in this period that the afterlife is divided into heaven and hell), are given a 20th century sheen and away we go, modern christianity with its obsession on the state of the soul after death.

The above image is from some work by Paul Seely about Old Testament cosmology, how the strucutre of the universe was understood from their perspective. Obviously it is very different to the way we see things now and it would require too much of us to try and go back and see this as the 'way things are'--obviously the writers were limted by their own understanding of things, as are we, but we have come a long way from here, and we have come a long way from the medieval view as well. Perhaps the lesson in all of this is that we have to come to some different understandings of how we come to the biblical texts and how we present conceptions of religious themes and ideas.

There are so many issues in all of this that I dont track with--the subjective soul, cosmology, consciousness, the role of scripture, the purpose of christain proclamation and witness, pretty much everything, but it sure makes for some crazy tv--why watch another rerun of Law and Order when you can get 113 minutes of heaven and hell?!!