Blog 8-9-10

          Reading chapters eight through ten of Kevin Williams’ book I Want My MTV delves into perception as they further elaborate on the nature of the audio-visual relationship. The relationship is further explored through discussing the medical phenomenon known as synesthesia as well as applying it as a term involving two different sensory mediums (i.e. audio and visual) being combined to form a new perspective. In addition, the chapters explore the physical and spiritual aspects that involve music video, as chapters 9 and 10 will elaborate.

            Chapter eight discusses ‘synesthesia’ which is defined as: ““the experience of an associated sensation when another sense is stimulated.”” (Ch. 8, 13). The most common example of synesthesia is a person being able to see colors, shapes, and other hallucinations when stimulated by sound. There are people diagnosed with synesthesia in which their senses are cross wired in the brain and thus other combinations include being able to taste flavors when speaking words, hearing colors, or associating numbers to having personalities. 

            Synesthesia is not an individual phenomenon as Williams proves that everyone has some limited form of synesthesia: “

“In 1934 Hartman conducted another experiment using the Seashore test of music ability which was administered under the conditions of varying the amount of light in the room; the light was shifted from 510 watts to as complete darkness as possible. Hartman concluded that “the statistical treatment here followed shows that the mean auditory efficiency…is definitely better by about three percent in the light than in the dark.” (p. 819). In other words, according to Hartman, people hear better in well-lit rooms. While better is difficult to measure, it seems clear that vision resonates with aural experience, and conversely, aural experience resonates with visual experience.” (Ch. 8, 17).

            By rooting synesthesia as a biologically universal phenomenon rather than an individual psychological profile, we can now understand music’s relationship to the body: “Writing about music is far from stupid because music can teach us so much about the ecological and communicative relationship between the body (an organism), its environment (in our case, socio-cultural), and the Environment (or, world; see Lanigan, 1899).” (Ch. 8, 24).

            The idea that music, a technological construct, has a relationship with the body is touched on in chapter nine. Technology is seen as an extension of the body as it enhances our perception: “Technology makes manifest the latent, or, put another way, it makes our present to out awareness that which was always already present but hidden from perception.” (Ch. 9, 5). The text provides an example detailing the invention of the film camera, how it all began with a bet to see if all four of a horse’s hooves could not touch the ground if still in motion. It turned out to be true, but the fact that it revealed something that is hidden proves how technology enhances our perspective on things: “The machine is thus “incorporated into the human intentional act of perceiving the world, even as the machine enables a patently ‘impossible’ human perception, that is, one otherwise unrealizable without the machine’s incorporation.” (Ch. 9, 7).

            Chapter ten revisits the topic of aesthetics from chapters five through seven by discussing how aesthetics influence and are a byproduct of perspective. However, the main topic is logos and echos, to which they are defined respectively as: “not only denotes reason, but also the expression of reason, and the order perceived in things, word, universe, discourse, definition, formula, principle and ration.” (Ch. 10, 3). And “the mode of televisual/video address as a multimedia presentation which draws on sight and sound writing and speaking, orality and literacy, hearing and listening in its overlapping and interpenetrating presentation of images, words, sounds, music, and so on.” (Ch. 10, 6).

            Earlier in the paragraph, I said aesthetics influence and are the byproducts of perspective, what happens if several forms are intermingled?

“The Western complementary and contrary to the Apollonian is the Dionysian the twin brother or the double of identity, fixity, and objectivity. The Apollonian gives us the thing as thing, an object, with its form, contour and plasticity. The Dionysian understanding obliterates the thing’s ontological status. The Dionysian traverses an awareness of aesthetics which brings to light the superfluity of aesthetic awareness—the aisthetic.” (Ch. 10, 18).

            Williams adds Eastern philosophies to his argument:

“The Confucian Doctrine functions to stratify the social sphere, channeling “the original spontaneity of life” into a rigid social regime. It’s ethical, legal, and moral doctrine is made to govern thought and conduct, so to produce a conventional knowledge, which has been reduced to that which can be represented in words, mathematical formulae, or musical notations. With its ability to define, demarcate, and delimit, the Confucian meets the Apollonian…The study of television following its Apollonian and Confucist roots, has primarily been an analyst of content and the passing of moral judgement based on that content; it is thus we ask for better re-presentation” of things we “want” to see instead of asking it to make “present” that which it does not; its expression is overlooked for that which it is supposed to express.” (Ch. 10, 20-21).

            Williams is arguing that every culture has its own perspective, its own spin on a subject. They tend to not look at it at face value; they look at it with their own perspectives. For example, a glass of water with its contents set at mid-level. One person may look at it and say it’s half-empty, another would say it’s half-full. Every person in every culture will never take something at face value; they would just put their own spin on it.

            Chapters eight through ten of I Want My MTV discuss perception. Everyone perceives the world in his or her unique way as people with synesthesia and people brought up in different cultures do. However, there is some universality in how people perceive the world just as it’s proven one hears better in the dark. And there are ways in which are perception of the world can be altered or enhanced like how the camera ‘revealed’ what was hidden, and technology in serving as an extension of our body.

              

Blog 5-6-7

           Reading chapters five through seven of Kevin Williams book I Want My MTV, delves into the relationship of the audio and visual. MTV was a cultural zeitgeist in its heyday. An innovative channel that offered unconventional programming to the 80s generation, a channel that was groundbreaking in the medium of film, and influencing people on a macro level.

            Chapter five focuses on how music videos have become a distinct form of art thanks to MTV perfecting the medium through style. MTV’s style is traced from a variety of sources, mainly from advertising: “MTV’s style is derived from its strong textual and institutional ties to advertising. Seen as an advertising medium, Music Television presents (or advertises) images of bourgeois, patriarchal, consumer capitalism (e.g. mythical landscapes, fast cars, fetishized women).” (Ch. 5, 4). And their storytelling style is derived from the Cyberpunk genre: “[George Slusser] first notes that Cyberpunk, like MTV, rejects traditional narrative: Images have been condensed and sharpened, creating an optical surface, a matrix of images, a glitterspace. These images, both visual and literary, are, he suggests, no longer capable of connecting to form the figurative space of mythos or story.” (Ch. 5, 5). Because MTV is characterized with fast passed editing, large budgets to afford higher quality sets, and bombarding the audience with a blitzkrieg of images, forcing them to absorb as much stimuli as they can handle to form the message, the style influenced and was quickly copied by Hollywood to use for their films, specifically action scenes and movie trailers.

            For example, here’s British comedian Stephen Fry deconstructing a typical movie trailer with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

            And to show how the style influenced Hollywood, here’s a scene from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World:

            Despite MTV innovating filmmaking and contributing to culture through its visual style and aesthetics; its visuals, however, seem to have dominated the visual-audio relationship. In chapter six, Williams laments at society’s increasing dependence on images and visuals for information:

“As the shift from orality to literacy created new ways of “seeing” and organizing knowledge and understanding, so a shift from literacy to imagery would also imply radical epistemic change: Postman suggests that spoken and written statements encourage scrutiny and rational contemplation, and that they engage the subject in rational argumentation and logical debate. Postman suggests further that imagery simply appeals to consciousness. Rhetorically speaking, he continues, images are faster than arguments; judgment becomes based on look (is it appealing or not?) and not on logic (does it make sense?), on aesthetics (does it catch my eye?) and not on rational argumentation (given this, then what?).” (Ch. 6, 5).   

            Visuals have taken precedence in our, insisting on “Seeing is believing” to know truth. People, however, tend to forget that audio and sound is just as crucial in the relationship:

“The sound is there and cannot be ignored or considered as secondary, especially when television is so often listened to as background as well as watched. Also sound and music cannot be reduced to apparatus, industry or economy, even though these are important domains of critical inquiry…Indeed, MTV wants to be understood with both ears and eyes open.” (Ch. 6, 9).

            Instead, Williams opposes the idea that ‘seeing is believing’ by supporting the claim that audio is just as crucial as visual through radio: “This is why one may claim that radio drama is a more imagistic than television drama—one has to imagine what is happening. Thus, an image is an appearance of sight, so long as we remember that appearances and sight may be understood metaphorically, and not necessarily as related to the sense of vision.” (Ch. 6, 15). Thus making the argument that ‘hearing is believing’: “Sounds, unlike visuals that are clear, distinct and stable, are more like experience, memory, and feeling.” (Ch. 6, 16).

            Chapter seven converges on the two spectrums, specifying that both of them serve an equal function to create a performance, an experience to the viewer:

“However, while the sounds establish the depth of the viewing experience, the sounds and sights of the aural and visual presentation interpenetrate to create a third communicative dimension… Both intellectual receptivity (i.e. my ability to read the narrative, interpret the video, and make sense of it), and pathic receptivity (i.e., affective and emotive experience) are informed musically and visually as the visuals dance the music. I am witness to a specific aesthetic , a musical visuality.” (Ch. 7, 21).  

            MTV has honed a style that is distinct and influential by making audio a visual medium. However, sometimes there’s an imbalance and the visual dominates the relationship. If one were to achieve a balance of the two, they’d create a performance that will live forever in the viewer.