Setting Up a World

Phenomenology and Cultural Amnesia in General Orders No.9

In this article, Tina Richardson reviews General Orders No.9, written and directed by Robert Persons and released in 2009, and reflects on the geography of loss and forgetting:

On its website, General Orders No. 9 describes itself thus: “An experimental documentary that contemplates the signs of loss and change in the American South as potent metaphors of personal and collective destiny”. As a psychogeographer, the word ‘loss’ is not lost on me, since a wealth of psychogeographical accounts and related literary texts exist on this very subject. Written and directed by Robert Persons, the award-winning General Orders No. 9 would make for a very neat analysis along the lines of nostalgia, haunting and memory – quite possibly one of a deconstruction.

Despite this ‘call’ to me from General Orders No. 9 to write about these themes directly, I will be exploring them rather more indirectly through the concept of centring, in particular under the rubric of cultural forgetting such that it is concerned with ideas around concealing and revealing. By comparing the idea of ‘man’s progress’ (in regards to its impact on ‘nature’) with Martin Heidegger’s example of the Greek temple in ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’, I will discuss how this forgetting operates through an ideological ‘naturalness’ that enables humans to operate with a high degree of amnesia when it comes to environmental impact.

In his essay Heidegger states that the temple reveals little in terms of its content – it is what it represents that is important because ‘god is present in the temple’ (2000: 89). It is this understanding, and the power invested in the temple by the people, that designates its authority. The temple’s centre of power forms the nexus for the connections and relationships which guide the lives of the people and frame their future. In Persons’ film, this centre appears as the Courthouse in the centre of the Town, which is in the centre of the County, which is in the centre of the State of Georgia in the United States:” Here there is a sense of order. From above and below, from within and without. This shall be the centre of the world. The pillar of heaven” (Persons 2009).

Heidegger’s temple serves many functions. It constitutes the law, society and culture, it is the central point of socio-cultural connections, and it is also the originator of truth and knowledge. The temple “makes visible the invisible” (2000: 89). As Heidegger explains, the early morning light lands on the temple marking the beginning of the day to the people. The form and order of their world is thus defined and the citizens go about their day within this pre-given framework. Later, the sunset signals the closing down of the world, and the people return home having made meaning and sense out of their day. So, too, the people of the Town are guided by the clock tower on the Courthouse, which informs their day, being a reminder of where they are and where they should be. The Courthouse represents order and form, and the Town’s citizens make meaning from this in the same way that the Greeks made meaning from their lived experiences via the temple. The temple/Courthouse “clears and illuminates” (ibid.) by providing delineated physical and existential boundaries, and a well-recognised centre: “The Courthouse is the man and the County is the world [and] the roads of the County meet like the spokes of a wheel and it appears as a world entire” (Persons 2009). This is what Heidegger calls “setting up a world” (2000: 91).

But, this all changes with the development of the new interstate, which scythes its way through the County, coming within half-a-mile of the Courthouse: “The interstate does not serve, it possesses. It has the power to make the land invisible to our attention” (Persons 2009). The City eventually appears at the locus of three interstates, becoming “an image that suggests a centre…but it is a false centre” (Persons 2009). The City has displaced the Courthouse. Yet, the City is unrepresentable and cannot be made sense of in any way that provides meaning to the citizens. The lack of a physical centre has the effect of decentring the postmodern individual, leaving them open to a fluidity that exposes them to unpredictable networks and flows. The film’s narrator (William Davidson – his voice spookily reminiscent of Captain Willard, played by Martin Sheen, in Apocalypse Now) explains to us that he searches for “Some level of communion, some sign of belonging, the realisation of one’s part to the City’s whole” (Persons 2009). This new temple no longer “gives to things their look and to men their outlook on themselves” (Heidegger 2000: 89). Heidegger’s god has now “fled from the temple” (ibid.). The temple is ruined: “You’re not a witness to the ruin. You are the ruin. You are to be witnessed” (Persons 2009).

Providing the citizens believed that the temple still contained their god this process of revealing and hiding of the world continued to remake the world anew every day. They needed to be content in their forgetting of the fact that they were actually the builders of the temple in the first place, and were the ones responsible for placing their god there. G. Spencer Brown, a mathematician and expert in boundary algebra, explains: “Thus the world, when ever it appears as a physical universe, must always seem to us, its representatives, to be playing a kind of hide-and-seek with itself. What is revealed will be concealed, but what is concealed will again be revealed” (1972: 106). And it is through this concept of hide-and-seek that cultural amnesia takes place.

The temple had been created by the people for their gods, but in that very act of creation, in that singularity that denoted a new moment in history (and saw representation as symbolising knowledge), man had forgotten that he was the creator of the temple. In a bizarre kind of mass forgetting the temple as representation was forgotten and instead formed the ground upon which man based his life, it became “the naming power of the word” (Heidegger 2000: 91). The temple became the primary position from which all other positions were related (logos), so did the Courthouse. It is through this naturalising process of ideology (Louis Althusser) that the Greeks collectively forgot they were the creators of their temple and thus relocated their power there. Heidegger says that with the “temple-work” the material (the concrete phenomenological matter) does not disappear but causes itself to appear as if for the very first time in the opening of the world (2000: 91). This concretisation of ideology in the temple itself is continually reproduced in every moment. The temple in its “setting forth” (ibid.) out of the material of its manufacture emerges from a ground position. The Greek people, and the citizens of the Town, simply (and self-reflexively) glanced at the symbol of their respective temples, thus actualising their self-created ideology and completing the circle of praxis.

But, this is a double forgetting. The citizens also created the City.

Spencer Brown explains how this takes place: “we somehow cleverly obscured this knowledge from ourselves, in order that we might navigate ourselves through a journey of rediscovery, consisting in series of justifications and proofs with the purpose of again rendering, to ourselves, irrefutable evidence of what we already knew” (1972: 106). This self-reflection is echoed in the film when the narrator says:” At some point we accept that everything – your ideas, your certainty, even what you think is right – they are all deceptions of greater or lesser degree” (Persons 2009). So, we have a glimmer of a revealing that comes to us in moments of clarity, when the game of hide-and-seek with the world becomes a game of existential hide-and-seek: “we somehow cleverly obscured this knowledge from ourselves through a journey of rediscovery, consisting in a series of justifications and proofs with the purpose of again rendering, to ourselves, irrefutable evidence of what we already knew” (Spencer Brown 1972: 106).

But, the lens then closes, the light dims and the world’s course becomes, yet again, inevitable. The realisation of what we have done to the world is pushed aside and we return to that place of security, the knowable centre: “there is only one thing. Nothing else matters. This is the one thing. The County is at the centre of the State. The Town is at the centre of the County. The Courthouse is at the centre of the Town” (Persons 2009).

The film ends.

The Parkinson Temple: How does ideology influence our aesthetic experience? (part 2)

Please click here for part one of the blog

Walter Benjamin explains how: “Buildings are appropriated in a twofold manner: by use and by perception […].” (2004, p. 526). It is the perception of the temple that is the guiding force in terms of the aesthetic experience for the Greek peoples. The internal model they have of it, in regards to the concepts that define its intent, is what feeds into the feelings they have upon observing it. The same applies to those viewing the Parkinson Building. Louis Althusser explains that ideology is part of all human activity and “is identical with the ‘lived’ experience of human existence itself [...]” (1971a, p.223). Thus it is impossible to say where ideology ends and aesthetics begins: “The aesthetics of consumption and the aesthetics of creation are merely one and the same.” (Althusser 1971b, p.230). This leads us onto the self-reflexivity of this ideological aesthetic relationship.

Heidegger says: “The temple, in its standing there, first gives to things their look and to men their outlook on themselves.” (2000, p.89). He explains that “the work” sets up the world and gives meaning to this opening (2000, p.90). The temple had been created by the people for their gods, but in that very act of creation, in that singularity that not only denoted a new moment in history but also saw representation as symbolising knowledge, man had forgotten that he was the creator of the temple. In a bizarre kind of cultural amnesia the temple as representation was forgotten and instead formed the ground upon which man based his life, it became “the naming power of the word” (Heidegger 2000, p. 91). The temple became the primary position from which all other positions were related: “In the beginning there was the word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1: 1– 3).

In the same way that the temple represented logos for the Greeks the Parkinson Building represents a particular ideology and a specific truth. The lives of the students and staff are organised around the university. The clock tower on the Parkinson Building, a constant reminder of where you are and where you should be, reflects the period of modernity in which it was designed: a period where time became standardised and processes rationalised. The building represents order and form and the students make meaning from this in the same way that the Greeks made meaning from their lived experiences: “It clears and illuminates […] that on which and in which man bases his dwelling.” (Heidegger 2000, p.89). Althusser explains how these subtle yet complex relationships between men and their objects inform this lived experience:

The structure which controls the concrete existence of men, i.e. which informs the lived ideology of the relations between men and objects and between objects and men, this structure, as a structure, can never be depicted by its presence, in person, positively, in relief, but only by traces and effects […](1971b, p.237).

Ideological “traces and effects” are subtly sutured into our very lives and become naturalised to the extent that we may need to step out of ourselves for a moment to notice them. They permeate the world around us and exist in the very objects that feature in our daily lives. And, the reason they are unnoticeable “presupposes that ideology itself” (Althusser 1971a, p.225).

It is through this naturalising process of ideology that the Greeks collectively ‘forgot’ they were the creators of their temple and thus relocated their power there. Heidegger says that with the “temple-work” the material (matter) does not disappear but causes it to appear as if for the very first time in the opening of the world (2000, p.91). This concretisation of ideology in the temple is “produced anew each instant” (Neitzsche 1956, p.33). The temple in its “setting forth” (Heidegger 2000, p.91) out of the material of its manufacture emerges from a ground position. The Greek people, and the students of the university, simply need to glance at the symbol of their prospective temple to actualise their ideology and complete the circle of praxis. This can be compared to the Buddhist ‘wheel of life’ whereby the world evolves and involves in every moment, brought into existence in each instance because of our material attachment to it. The material world is recreated in every moment at that point of recognition (misrecognition):

Thus the world was made to appear, at every instant, as a successful solution of God’s own tensions, as an ever new vision projected by the grand sufferer for whom illusion is the only possible mode of redemption. (Neitzsche 1956, pp.9-10).

However, an absolutist reading of the ideology of the object would be challenged within the poststructuralist framework. In the postmodern world where "The absence of the transcendental signified extends the domain and the play of signification infinitely." (Derrida 2004, p.34) all meaning can be considered subjective.

Heidegger explains how this emerging of the world continues providing “god has not fled from the temple” (2000, p.89). Therefore in this lack of awareness of praxis, this cultural amnesia whereby the Greek peoples forget they are the originators of the temple, the temple thus creates them. The power imbued in it makes it appear as something ‘out there’. The Greeks followed the rules and dictums of the temple and in that practice the original event was forgotten. So, in effect this aesthetic experience is narcissistic, man is taking pleasure in himself. This is what Althusser describes as “the mirror-reflection of the subjectivity of consumption” (1971b, p.231) and what Nietzsche refers to when he says that the Greeks saw themselves in the images of the gods, what he calls the “esthetic mirror” (1956, p.32). The process of the “opening of the world” (Heidegger 2000, p.91) and the “setting forth” (ibid.) of the temple-work is reciprocal. As Theodor Lipps says: “aesthetic pleasure is self-pleasure” (cited in Rieser 1957, p.243). Man marvels at the objects of his own creation and, in this self-forgetting, misinterprets the image in front of him, himself, as the face of God.

Bibliography:

Althusser, Louis. 1971a. ‘A Letter on Art in Reply to Andre Daspre’, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, trans. by Ben Brewster (London, New York: Monthly Review Press) pp. 221-228.

Althusser, Louis. 1971b. ‘Cremonini, Painter of the Abstract’, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, trans. by Ben Brewster (London, New York: Monthly Review Press) pp. 29-242.

Bayer, Patricia. 1992. Art Deco Architecture: Design, Decoration and Detail from the Twenties and Thirties (London: Thames and Hudson).

Benjamin, Walter. 2004. ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, Art in Theory – 1900-2000, ed. by Charles Harrison & Paul Wood (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing) pp. 520-527.

Derrida, Jacques. 2004. Writing and Difference, trans. by Alan Bass (London: Routledge).

Foucault, Michel. 2005. The Order of Things (Abingdon, New York: Routledge).

Gosden, P. H. J. H. and Taylor, A. J. 1975. Studies in the History of a University 1874-1974 (Leeds: Arnold and Son).

Hegel, G. W. F. 2000. Extracts from ‘Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art’, The Continental Aesthetics Reader, ed. by Clive Cazeaux (Abingdon: Routledge) pp. 35-52.

Heidegger, Martin. 2000. ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’, The Continental Aesthetics Reader, ed. by Clive Cazeaux (Abingdon: Routledge) pp. 80-101.

Nietzsche, Firiedrich. 1956. The Birth of Tragedy and The Genealogy of Morals, trans. by Francis Golffing (New York: Doubleday Anchor).

Rieser, Max, ‘The Aesthetic Theory of Social Realism’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 16, 2 (1957) pp. 237-248.

Scully, Vincent Joseph. 1979. The Earth, the Temple and the Gods: Greek Sacred Architecture (New Haven, London: Yale University Press).

The Parkinson Temple: How does ideology influence our aesthetic experience? (part 1)

The Parkinson Building at Leeds University is considered to be the symbol of the university: it is also part of the graphical representation of the university logo, it therefore denominates the ‘brand’. What I propose to do is demonstrate how Martin Heidegger’s “temple-work” (2000, p.91) could be theoretically applied to the Parkinson Building. I believe that this approach is more productive in demonstrating the ideology behind the architecture than using the model that Heidegger applies to art.

To the Greeks their temples were not places of worship but rather the material symbol of their gods. The temples themselves were built on holy sites that represented the force of nature symbolised in that particular god or group of gods (Scully 1979, p.7):

With the coming of the temple, housing its image within it, itself developed as a sculptural embodiment of the god’s presence and character, the meaning becomes double, both of the deity as in nature and the god as imagined by men. (ibid.).

Temples were built to please the deities and became the earthly representation of the gods in manifest form, thus becoming a focal point for the citizens and highlighting its centrality to their lives.

In his essay ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ Heidegger makes it clear that the temple reveals little in terms of its content. It is what it represents that is important because “god is present in the temple.”: it is this understanding and the power invested in the object by the people that designates its authority. (2000, p.89) According to Heidegger the temple’s centre of power forms the nexus for the connections and relationships which guide the lives of the people and frame their future (ibid.). Friedrich Nietzsche also discusses how the creative drive behind a work of art, in the sense of its “completion and consummation of existence, and as a guarantee of further existence”, is the very same drive as the will that gave rise to the notion behind the realm of the gods (1956, p.30). He explains how this reciprocal process imbues the gods with a power that offers itself back to the people, it thus becomes a “transfiguring mirror” (ibid.). It is this self-reflexivity I would like to concentrate on here, and how the ideology behind it informs the aesthetics for the individual.

The temple serves many functions: it constitutes the law, society and culture; it is the central point of socio-cultural connections; and it is also the originator of truth and knowledge, because it “makes visible the invisible” (Heidegger 2000, p.89). The temple could be compared to the theological ‘ground of being’ in that it is the whence from which everything emanates and that in which everything returns. As Heidegger explains, the early morning light lands on the temple marking the beginning of the day to the people; the form and order of their world is thus defined and the citizens go about their day within this pre-given framework (ibid.). Later the sunset signals the closing down of the world, and the people return home having made meaning and sense out of their day: “the naming power of the word.” (Heidegger 2000, p.91). Tomorrow brings a new dawn and the process begins again. Michel Foucault explains how in this period of history “The universe was folded in upon itself: the earth echoing the sky, faces seeing themselves reflected in the stars” (2005, p.19). In ancient history the world was smaller, social relationships were well-defined and prescribed boundaries were clearly delimited.



At this point I would like to jump ahead about three thousand years and introduce the Parkinson Building at the University of Leeds. The Parkinson Building was funded by a £200,000 donation from the local industrialist Frank Parkinson who was educated at the university (Gosden and Taylor 1975, p.166). The Parkinson Building superseded the Brotherton Library as the new frontage to the university. Funding was short when it came to completing the entrance to the Brotherton Library and when Parkinson’s welcome bequest arrived a much grander façade was planned (ibid.). Thus, the exterior of the Brotherton Library became subsumed in the Parkinson Building and now exists in a kind of enclave - today it can only be seen through the windows at the rear of Parkinson Court and via other surrounding buildings. The students of postmodernity can peer back though history from the position of the current symbol of the ‘temple of knowledge’ and view its past incarnation, the Brotherton Library: yesterday’s version of truth. This confirms Győrgy Lukacs point that a work of art as well as showing a new order of things, replacing an older one, will at the same time have an ideological effect (cited in Rieser 1957, p.239).

The Parkinson Building was designed in the 1930s. The architecture highlights many Art Deco qualities, for instance horizontal lines and Neoclassical elements, but is not as highly decorated as some buildings from the same period. It could be considered to be one of the “stone-sheathed giants” (Bayer 1992, p.7) that were erected in urban areas at this time. The University of Leeds sits on a hill and upon approaching it from the south the imposing Parkinson Building fills your vista. The symmetrical building has a centralised entrance with steps leading to a number of doors. A substantial phallus-like clock tower, reminiscent of many office or industrial buildings of that period, crowns the building. The Parkinson Building was not completed till 1951 due to a suspension in building during the war period.



In an attempt to concentrate on the ideological aspects of the aesthetic response, I do not plan to dwell further on the architectural elements of the Parkinson Building and have offered them here to contextualise the building itself. To further my hypothesis I would like to include a pertinent quote by Parkinson himself on some ideological expectations he had of the building’s design:

I have in mind that in addition to the provision of Chambers more befitting the dignity of the Council and the Senate they should include an Entrance and Entrance Hall which would leave an indelible impression on the mind of the student which he would remember in after years with affection. (Gosden and Taylor 1975, p.166)

It is clear from this request, and from the planned grand entrance for the Brotherton Library, that the Parkinson Building is designed to be impressive and make a statement about the university. This demonstrates an ideology inherent in the architecture itself; an ideology that becomes part of the very fabric of the building. As G. W. F. Hegel states, architecture can build meaning into its very form and material (2000, p.47). Heidegger explains that in this process the material is “set forth” and in its “consecrating praising erection” the temple is then “setting up a world” (2000, p.91), as we can see reflected in Parkinson’s comments above. When it comes to cultural objects we could say that the glue of matter and creation is form, and that very form is ideology itself.

Part 2 of blog

Bibliography:

Althusser, Louis. 1971a. ‘A Letter on Art in Reply to Andre Daspre’, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, trans. by Ben Brewster (London, New York: Monthly Review Press) pp. 221-228.

Althusser, Louis. 1971b. ‘Cremonini, Painter of the Abstract’, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, trans. by Ben Brewster (London, New York: Monthly Review Press) pp. 29-242.

Bayer, Patricia. 1992. Art Deco Architecture: Design, Decoration and Detail from the Twenties and Thirties (London: Thames and Hudson).

Benjamin, Walter. 2004. ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, Art in Theory – 1900-2000, ed. by Charles Harrison & Paul Wood (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing) pp. 520-527.

Derrida, Jacques. 2004. Writing and Difference, trans. by Alan Bass (London: Routledge).

Foucault, Michel. 2005. The Order of Things (Abingdon, New York: Routledge).

Gosden, P. H. J. H. and Taylor, A. J. 1975. Studies in the History of a University 1874-1974 (Leeds: Arnold and Son).

Hegel, G. W. F. 2000. Extracts from ‘Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art’, The Continental Aesthetics Reader, ed. by Clive Cazeaux (Abingdon: Routledge) pp. 35-52.

Heidegger, Martin. 2000. ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’, The Continental Aesthetics Reader, ed. by Clive Cazeaux (Abingdon: Routledge) pp. 80-101.

Nietzsche, Firiedrich. 1956. The Birth of Tragedy and The Genealogy of Morals, trans. by Francis Golffing (New York: Doubleday Anchor).

Rieser, Max, ‘The Aesthetic Theory of Social Realism’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 16, 2 (1957) pp. 237-248.

Scully, Vincent Joseph. 1979. The Earth, the Temple and the Gods: Greek Sacred Architecture (New Haven, London: Yale University Press).