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Posted at Nov 30/2005 08:50AM:
Henry Lowood: I'm nowhere near finishing the book yet, but I have two goals in deciphering Klein's argument:
1. What exactly does Klein mean by a "special effect?" How is his meaning different from a more general term such as "spectacle?"
2. From a game studies perspective, the notion of a "scripted space" is problematic. I'm going to be looking for his discussion of how scripting is contested, modified, transgressed, etc.
So far, I am having to resist being carried away by Klein's narrative and annotative tendencies, which are seductive, to say the least. I would like to see what happens if I try to focus on a couple of key ideas.
Posted at Nov 30/2005 11:09AM:
Henrik Bennetsen: Some random thoughts:
I liked the quote “What words alone could not convey” it seems to be the starting point for this journey into new media
His discussion of Multiple perspectives vs. Fixed perspectives had me thinking about computer games. Where the discussion between people who wants to tell a story vs. people who wants to motivate gameplay and player agency remains alive and well.
The discussion of the labyrinth and how the good creator would keep the audience above too easy and below too hard reminded me of Csikszentmihalyi’s flow theory.
His discussion of when the digital effects almost lost something from being too perfect had me thinking back towards our previous discussion of authenticity.
Posted at Nov 30/2005 12:24PM:
Meg Butler:
I've gone through quite a bit of this book, and I must say, I'm not pleased. The idea is good, but I'm not happy with the execution.
Before starting the book (and just after reading the book jacket), I was worried that this book would take on the terribly worn-out theme of power structures vs. little man empowerment, but thankfully, it didn't. The person who controls the illusion has some degree of power over the viewer. The viewer has, to some degree, the power to challenge, disagree, misinterpret, reinterpret, appropriate, etc., the illusion and intended effect. Enough said. No need to revisit this point. Please.
What disappointed me was that he makes some pretty grand claims without going into real detail. He'll start with some enticing detail, or he'll make a broad and authoritative claim as a side note (is he trying to be the special effects guy?), and then he'll abandon this train of thought entirely. For example, Disneyland as "happy imprisonment." He gives some information about Disneyland throughout the book, but he doesn't give us any indication of what he means or why with "happy imprisonment." I can guess, but I can't evaluate, agree, or disagree with this statement until he gives me some more information. I'd like details. I know he's trying to write the book in special effects style, but I find it annoying. I'd rather he publish in a hypertext online format, with images throughout, if he's going to attempt this style. I don't mind the style, but I don't think a book format suits it very well.
A passage:
We review the plain facts: A special effect, by definition, “fools” the audience. By fooling, it manipulates them, on behalf of whoever runs the game; let us say, on behalf of those “in power.” But this is hardly a sin, not in our civilization. Many very great Renaissance/Baroque masterpieces qualify as media manipulation. And those are worshipped. What’s more, we all love to be tricked by some version of the sublime (or by submlimation, at least). So rather than praise or condemn how manipulative effects can get, why not simply discover their nuances, as well as their cracks?: When is a trick as thin as an eyelash? How does it “work” an audience – “immerse” them in scripted revelation, from resurrections of Jesus to a night at the casino?
I'm not finding adequate exploration of those nuances in this book, nor am I finding the writing itself illuminating. He does not "take this game apart like a clock" (as he claims he will do), unless by taking apart he means smashing the clock and strewing broken pieces everywhere, then, after allowing extensive foot traffic, picking one shred of one piece to examine, but then throwing it away the second after the eye has managed to focus on it.
If he wanted the book itself to be a labyrinth or a freak show, he has succeeded, but I'm not convinced that this is helpful. Perhaps we could all think about special effects which we find interesting and "bring" them to the discussion -- with images even! -- so we can get at those nuances ourselves.
Posted at Nov 30/2005 03:10PM:
Alfredo Gonzalez-Ruibal:
The Vatican to Vegas or Vegas to Vegas? I think the latter would be a more adequate title. Is Klein really interested in the historical background at all? I was expecting some sort of foucaldian, genealogical narrative, but I have not seen anything like that so far (I'm in page 300), even if the author acknowledges the influence of Foucault at the very beginning.
I agree with Meg's criticisms. The style is appealing at first but after 200 pages it becomes annoying. A hypertext format, as Meg proposes, would have certainly yielded better results. Too much autobiography ("my students, etc.")? (too much Coney Island!) Having been trained as a historian, I cannot help but see the book as ersatz cultural history, sometimes alarmingly frivolous and superficial. There is a waste of incredibly amazing data and ideas that seem to lead nowhere.
A few issues, however, are very appealing (for me at least, as an archaeologist):
Posted at Dec 01/2005 02:56PM:
Matteo Bittanti:
I know, it’s a cliché’, but Klein’s book is deliberately labyrinthine (like his previous efforts, it must be said). It’s rizomatic, and, like the best videogames both enjoyable and maddening, pleasurable and frustrating. V2V should be navigated rather than read. The best strategy is to open a page, randomly, and see where it leads. Above all, V2V is a collection of great quotes. A generator of ideas, for example: the digital age as an Electronic Baroque. Klein is basically updating Omar Calabrese's Neo-Baroque meme (see: Neo-Baroque: A Sign of the Times, http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/reviews/aug2004/neo_baetens.html), as Angela Ndalianis did with Neo-Baroque Aesthetics and Contemporary Entertainment http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/stp17/newreviews/rev_17/PCbr17a.html. Among other things, Ndalianis examines the scripted spaces of computer games (Doom, in particular, a succinct version of her investigation can be found in Henry Jenkins, Jane Shattuc and Tara Mac Pherson’s Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/reviews/sept2003/Hop_Ryssen.html).
Alfredo - RE: “Too much Coney Island”. I agree that it is hard to say something new about Coney Island after Mark Dery’s Pyrotechnic Insanitarium http://www.levity.com/markdery/culturjam.html and David Nasaw’s Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/NASGOX.html (Incidentally, Gary Cross just released a fantastic book on playground spaces in the US titled The Playful Crowd : Pleasure Places in the Twentieth Century http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/data/023112/0231127243.HTM).
Henry - RE: spectacle vs. special effects. Klein writes that “spectacle is a (term a) little too broad” (p. 214). When I think about “spectacle”, I think about a) Guy Debord http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/, b) “Narrative vs. Spectacle”, the ongoing debate in film studies (the best summary can be found here: http://www.us.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/FilmMediaPerformingArts/FilmStudies/?ci=0340762063&view=usa) – this is the equivalent of the “Story vs. Simulation” querelle in game studies. The real “problem” is that Norman Klein gives approximately 35262 definition of “special effects” in the book, so there is plenty of room for ambiguities. My favorite definition: “Special effect is an instrument and critique of power” (p. 6 - See the Mission Accomplished image...)
Posted at Dec 01/2005 03:16PM:
Meg Butler:
I agree that it's deliberately labyrinthine, and I have no problem with that, but I still maintain that hypertext is a better medium for this sort of presentation. That might be something we can talk about -- new forms of media for academic work and how they can finally be made truly legitimate.
Posted at Dec 01/2005 05:19PM:
Matteo Bittanti: ‘’’RE: Scripted spaces’’’. Klein’s notion is dangerously similar to the idea of ‘’environmental storytelling’’, which informs the design of entertainment themed spaces. [Basically, the narrative elements are infused into the physical space that guests walks or ride through] mental note: I wonder if/how the two concepts differ. ’Environmental storytelling’ informs (most) videogames as well, as Henry Jenkins pointed out in a very influential essay titled ‘’Game Design as Narrative Architecture’’ (http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/games&narrative.html).
More info about environmental storytelling can be found here: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20000301/carson_pfv.htm. However, the true masters of environmental storytelling were the creators of Disneyland, as Klein’s notes (this topic is also explored here http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/2080136399/qid=1133484235/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-4864083-2528756?n=507846&s=books&v=glance and here http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/5895.html)
The best scripted space that I can think of is IKEA: it brilliantly combines the excitement of the theme park, consumer culture, happy imprisonment, and the frustration of videogame-like obstacles. The dissemination of maps into the store encourages exploration – both linear and a-linear. The narrative components are reinforced by such tricks as transforming the items on sale into characters (by naming them, http://www.margaret-marks.com/Transblawg/archives/000302.html). At IKEA, the consumer becomes an heroic figure – (“I survived level 3!, e.g. going to IKEA on a weekend or assembling a new bed/table/etc). The ubiquitous notepads + pencils seem to invite the consumer-as-player to write his/her own story (the quest for cheap furniture = the thrill of a new lifestyle) – IKEA is not really a store, is an experience. No wonder somebody transformed it into a videogame http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/how_to/the_nonexpert_ikea.php
Posted at Dec 01/2005 09:54PM:
Seeta Peña Gangadharan:
-What would be a more acceptable way to present the history of special effects? If scripted spaces existed earlier... then what types of linkages would we need to draw in order to make a more compelling historical argument?
-Could we maybe list out a few of the 35262 definitions of special effects? (One that I picked up on at the end... he says special effects as Artifice may actually be a biological fact in the brain. 384).
-Do special effects serve as ontological security and as manifestations of political anxieties?
Sebastian De Vivo: I must confess I'm quite fascinated by Klein's suggestion that the spectacle is a sort of sanitized experience of anxiety, and that it not only reaffirms the socio-economic status quo but also provides a false sense of security in the face of a vast (unknowable mysterious) world. This is obviously also deeply implicated in the experience of scripted spaces and the labyrinthine. We (who? humans, biologically?) crave controlled chaos (scripted, with tears in the fabric showing the reassuring mark (trace) of the deus ex machina) in order to fill the emptiness that is our existence. It is a bleak view of humanity, Sartrean at its best and worst, that shines forth most when he speaks of Kubrick's "2001."
The implications are clear: the experience of spectacle is a distraction, a lulling of the Spirit (in the Marxian sense), while the creation of spectacle is a mark, a trace upon the world. The active/passive dichotomy is a bit facile, perhaps, but it is rather appealing. For, on the one hand, you have distraction as a flimsy bandage upon the devastating realization that, well, we are afraid of that which we don't know, while on the other it is a slightly less flimsy bandage upon that other much more devastating realization that our existence really comes to nothing, unless we can forcefully, physically, leave a mark on the world. In the one we are afraid, in the other we are God.
The spectacle thus becomes the medium through which existential anxiety is mitigated. The question then becomes, as Seeta and Alfredo mention, is it really?
Posted at Dec 01/2005 11:24PM:
Henrik Bennetsen: I have to say that I agree with Meg in her view of the book. I also do not think that his style does not fit the book format and I have had the hardest time reading it. The subject interests me a lot, but how he chose to do it get’s in the way of me hearing what he is saying. I actually went online and checked for some reviews and this quote from a (very positive) review says it all for me: “Our only complaint about this book is the linearity of the format - it’s a book.”
Posted at Dec 01/2005 11:58PM:
Matteo Bittanti: The digested read.
RE: Scripter Spaces: “Scripted spaces are configured as a narrative journey where the audience becomes a central character, from the domes by Brunelleschi or Mantegna in the fifteenth century to Citywalk, SimCity computer games, Doom, Myst, casinos, amusement parks, Futurama (New York World's Fairs of 1939, and of 1964), Pirates of the Caribbean (all versions of walk-through anamorphic places), war simulation games, installation spaces in galleries and museums. To navigate through this narrative, the player enters an immersive, illusionistic, scripted space.
RE: Happy Imprisonment: “Why enter Happy Imprisonment? Because you slowly catch your breath. You expect to outwit the program … In popular CD-Rom games like Sim-City, Doom, Red Alert, the player spends hours learning how to navigate from one level to another perhaps four hours to get full hand/motor coordination (outshoot those aliens), and another fifteen hours to get to the end. Then what? The script takes an interesting turn, if it has potential as a cult item, what the designers of SimCity call "the chaos variable." ("Chaos is, in effect, your opponent.") Holes are built into the program not too many, just enough. Game fans contact each other. They download secrets. The fun is to cheat a little, find glitches in the program, tilt the table". (Norman M. Klein)
Posted at Dec 02/2005 12:13AM:
Daniel Kreiss: And another definition: "Special effects as staged chaos (anamorphic media) warn about the apocalyptic risks to come, while at the same time making these threats easy on the eye."
In his introduction, Klein talks about ruin (an idea which he does not really return to), specifically as it "humanizes the effects, takes us inside the deal that the audience once made with the program."
He was talking about 'ruin' here in the context of Coney Island (sorry)...and I couldn't help thinking about how Coney Island as a scripted space isn't really a 'ruin' anymore (if it ever was), but an active, new effect, a new "deal with the audience" in a new cultural context and for a new generation (one that populates a very different scripted space, the public housing projects nearby.)
Klein seems only to be concerned with the act of creation of the effect (often by the big men of history), and the immediate experience of it. The scripted spaces tend to flit by quickly (from either his view or in history) and do not get returned to. But does the experience of the effect and the scripted space change over time? Do people always experience it the same way?
Posted at Dec 02/2005 12:31AM:
Matteo Bittanti: Special Effects, some definitions:
Special Effects are…
…Something that “fools the audience (…) manipulates them, on behalf of whomever runs the game” (p. 8)
…They “have set up imaginary power struggles” (p. 9)
…“Are not a copy of the real, not even copy of themselves” (p. 10 – Klein does not play the postmodern game, special effects are not instrumental in creating simulacra)
…”Often required a double collusion. Two cheat codes (“folly”) operate at once, each erasing each other” (p. 10) One helps the ruler, the other helps the ruled.
…”Operate also as literature” (p. 12)
…”Scholarly evidence operates as special effects” (p. 13)
…”The election of George W. Bush and the war of terrorism (are) a special effect” (p. 13)
…”A technological marvel (that) controls an illusionistic environment” (p. 13)
…”It has been set up to deliver elaborate shock” (p. 13)
…Reveal “political anxieties” (p. 13)
…”Theatricalize a political disaster” (p. 14)
…Are not “surreal or simulated” – they “convert terror into a friendly ride” (p. 14)
…Are “shock absorbers” (p. 14)
…”were the bridge between Enlightenment materialism and Romantic introversion, a bridge over water, and people by sculpture” (p. 121)
…”Rarely defend revolutionary politics (…) at any time, now or ever” (p. 155)
…”Cities are being rescripted as special effects” (p. 364)
…”special effects as Artifice may actually be a biological fact in the brain” (p. 384)
…Can be “compared to the early stages of Fordist illusion” (p. 400)
more on special effects vs. hidden effects in movies pp.221-223
In cinema, special effects “add layers in space (on the screen and inside the theater). They also add layers to time itself, through stop-motion or morphing” (p. 223)
“Special effects fils (…) have become the portable cathedrals for (the) disengaged Electronic Baroque civilization” (p. 232)
Posted at Dec 02/2005 01:06AM:
Henry Lowood:
Well, I want to make a few comments about this book as history, but I have to get two snippy comments out of the way.
First, my favorite passage, because it almost suggests a semi-conscious state or stream of consciousness -- one where every bit in the stream is independent of the previous one. I had to read it three times before I believed he had really written it:
"This pattern repeats continuously -- factoids, raw quotes that are featured almost everywhere but here . In the U.S., like courtly masque, breaking stories that might embarass Bush's war are mostly blacked out. Right-wing think tanks account for close to half of the news stories that appear on Fox news alone, and probably something like that on other cable stations as well." (p. 94).
I don't disagree with the general tendency in the statement, I just couldn't believe a critique of "factoids" in global media could be followed so blatantly by an unattibuted statement ("close to half"?!), a factoid of his own, perfectly uncited in a book with dozens of gratuitous footnotes. It is an almost charmingly revealing moment about the sharp turns in this book.
Second, I just wanted to ask if any non-historians of science in the group -- and you can't have read Lovejoy -- could make heads or tails out of The Great Chain of Being discussion. Could you follow it? Did you learn anything about what the notion is from just these passages? It was interesting to me in such an intensely personal series of vantage points that Klein often leaves blanks for the reader to fill in with their own texts -- hmm, I wonder if that is related to his take on 2001 as cinema of blank spaces?
Now, the serious point I wanted to raise had to do with the Klein's disciplinary location. Normally, I wouldn't care very much about this issue, but in a book that is called a "history of special effects" by an author identified on the dust jacket as "cultural critic, media and urban historian," I think it might be important to ask, what does he mean by history? For me, as a historian, the two foundations of historical writings are documentation and context, and those are the things I look for in any historical writing. Beyond that, I'm flexible. But these are exactly the areas that Klein plays with in what seems like a deliberate manner. He riffs on a color, or a surface or an angle of perception, often jumping across centuries to suggest similarities of attitude or imagination, but precisely with disregard for the relationship of sources and contexts.
By the way, "special effects" turns out not to be the only multiply defined word. Others: baroque, modernism, immersion, power.
His insights worked for me occasionally, sometimes brilliantly, but usually I ended up puzzled and unconvinced. In the end, I think what was lacking for me is a sense of methodology in making these connections. How does one thrill, or sense of immersion, or momentary confusion relate to another perceived under a different set of historical conditions. In this book the lynchpin is usually Klein himself as the pan-historical subject--these parallel reactions are read through the filter of Klein's own experience as the reader of these "texts" and images. I'm not sure what this can yield to us as a methodology for working on histories of our own. I would be very interested to hear more from him about methodology.
On the other question I started with, I did not get much from Klein about resistance, even reception (other than his own) about many of the effects he described. Given the linkage to relationships of power, the issue of resistance to these effects is very important. I am maybe being a little unfair. He did discuss resistance, but his fragmentary, labyrinthine, elliptical style obscured my attempts to understand the precise relationships of power he had in mind, and how they were mediated by these effects. The author of an effect obviously stands in a relationship of power to the person who experiences it, but that does not define the role of this mediation as part of a system of relationships. I mean that I have not learned much about how power can be resisted in this system, which is a pity, because that is a very rich topic.
Posted at Dec 02/2005 01:40AM:
Ralph Maurer: Intellectual Rigor
I also agree with Meg and take particular delight in her line, "He does not "take this game apart like a clock" (as he claims he will do), unless by taking apart he means smashing the clock and strewing broken pieces everywhere, then, after allowing extensive foot traffic, picking one shred of one piece to examine, but then throwing it away the second after the eye has managed to focus on it."
That's the kind of gem that should be in NYT book reviews.
In any case, I'm a little dissapointed to be critiquing this book on the basis of style. That can get old in academia, particularly when critiquing works outside one's own discipline. Norms vary considerably between fields and one field's sloppy mess is another's brilliant work.
That said, one thing every field has (or should have) in common is a demand at the highest levels for intellectual rigor. This is a little tricky to specify in non-positivistic areas like Klein's (and likely most of ours), but it generally has to do with careful logic, precise definitions, well reasoned use of sources, and appropriate boundary setting with regard to the scope of arguments. Klein doesn't exhibit any of these things.
When I first got to Stanford I (unknowingly) had very little appreciation for rigor and my writing from that period reads like a less eloquent versions of Klein's book. I thought that intelligent writing consisted of intellectual name-dropping, clever supposition and a sort of cavalier writing style. Fortunately, this was soundly beaten out of me and I've gained a real appreciation for those who write rigorously while still retaining novelty, passion and insight. Fred and Michael both fit into this group and I suggest picking up their work (if you haven't already).
As far as the content goes, I think Klein's book offers some excellent opportunities for cultural research. To a sociologist or anthropologist the book is like a candy store of potential research sites and topics. I can provide my own ideas during our discussion, but I'd also like to hear if anyone else felt inspired to investigate some of Klein's topics more...dare I say it...rigorously.
Posted at Dec 02/2005 01:46AM:
Leila Takayama: I am definitely in agreement that this should have been done with something more like hypertext than this paper book. Perhaps something more like a "choose your own adventure" structure without a conclusion would have been more appropriate.
This concept of scripted spaces resonated with me is thinking of them as the shapers of (social cognitive and cognitive) schemas that reinforce social roles and expected behaviors in the space.
Klein closes with the Afterward's awkward point about how "Special effects are simple enough to humanize," (393) following up on how our brains do not "chemically separate truth from fiction" (384). How is it that special effects are humanized/naturalized to the point that we need a book to remind us of this "invasion of nature by Artifice" (397)?
One piece I wish Klein would address more thoroughly is the active participation (and subversive action) in scripted spaces. Scripted spaces may trigger/prime/elicit particular roles and actions, but cannot always require them
The other piece I wish Klein would address (or perhaps he just assumes) is how scripted spaces and the scripting of a space requires social actors and social practice. Are people merely props in the presentation of the scripted space?
A final bit I wonder about is the role of reflection upon participation in a scripted space.
Posted at Dec 02/2005 12:35PM:
Daniel Kreiss: Not sure if the URL will work, but it is Ann Swidler, "Culture in Action, Symbols and Strategies", American Sociological Review, 1986. You can grab it off of Google Scholar (or I have a PDF version if you want me to e-mail you one.)
Leila Takayama: Rules for entering into complicit participation in St. Peters within the Vatican (from visit June 2003)
Leila Takayama: An "armchair tourism" view of one of the domes of St. Peters within the Vatican (in case you haven't seen one)
Leila Takayama: The twin churches of the Piazza del Popolo (the "People's Square") could serve as one example special effects in a scripted space for "the people" and visitors to of the city of Rome, which has apparently has been studied at some length by others, including ones with a critical perspective.
Sebastian De Vivo: Interestingly enough, Gothic cathedrals attempt to move the eye upwards much the same way Baroque domes do, except through a more architectural (rather than pictorial) language. The fact that they do it without images--without placing you in the mise-en-scene--makes it almost a bodily ascension, much more immersive, at times. This is from the York Minster, a fantastic Gothic cathedral in Yorkshire.
This ceiling is one of the smaller side chapels.
Culture in Action.pdf