"Unclouded by conscience or delusions of morality...

...It's structural perfection matched only by its hostility..."

These were the android Ash's words in Alien, as he confessed his admiration for the creature that was systematically wiping out the crew of the Nostromo. In this post, I'd like to consider some of their thematic implications.

Firstly though, I have a confession of my own to make: sometimes I can be a little slow to post the various things I've seen and heard. So I don't pretend to be breaking the exclusive of Ridley Scott outlining the premise of the Alien prequel he's working on. I also take it as read that the film will be steeped in Lovecraftian lore:

"It's set in 2085, about 30 years before Sigourney [Weaver's character Ellen Ripley]. It's fundamentally about going out to find out 'Who the hell was that Space Jockey?' The guy who was sitting in the chair in the alien vehicle — there was a giant fellow sitting in a seat on what looked to be either a piece of technology or an astronomer's chair....
[The film] is about the discussion of terraforming — taking planets and planetoids and balls of earth and trying to terraform, seed them with the possibilities of future life".

Less obviously though, I'm also interested in how the hopes invested in the film may be related to the process of rationalisation. Weber's thesis described a situation where charisma would be one of the few means available to break the "iron cage". This can tell us something then about the appeal of auteur theory, with the pantheon of "great directors" acting as circuit breakers on the model of mass serial production that is business as usual in Hollywood. Reading fan reactions and reflecting on my own expectations in light of this most recent event contributes to the sense that the Alien series is one of the most self reflexive ever made: at every level they are obsessed with the meaning of (re)production.

Other readers of Weber's work, not least Habermas, were critically aware of how attempts to manifest the surrealist project in everyday life, as per Bataille, amounted to a horror story (see The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity; but also recall Andre Breton's claim that the simplest surrealist act would be to open fire on a crowd with a pistol). Bataille so feared the utilitarian calculus that he deliberately avoided systematising his own thought, but in so doing, argues Habermas, he provided inadequate contextualisation to prevent it becoming a philosophical wildcard.

It might also be said that Alien is sympathetic to Habermas' perspective as the film makes use of surrealist H.R. Giger's designs to horrific effect to demonstrate the consequences of the surrealist project literally colonising "the lifeworld". Indeed, there is a telling scene in Alien Resurrection where the evil scientists who had attempted to breed the xenomorphs in captivity for their own purposes, find themselves fused to the wall of the hive. But they are so transfixed by the biological/aesthetic qualities of the creatures ("my beautiful butterfly") that it comes as a shock to them when their creation lumbers over to casually bite off the top of their heads. Like Ash before them, these scientists had failed to heed Habermas' words. You might call this "blowback".

If I had the means available, I'd like to write a book on critical theory called Everything I Know About Philosophy I Learnt from the Alien Films. In my version of Alien Resurrection's hive scene, I'd substitute Bataille and certain other philosophers for the scientists. Let the punishment fit the crime, you might say. Another way of putting it is in terms of thinkers committing a common category mistake and being forced to reap the consequences. For example, here is how a recent limited reading of Whitehead's work is taken to task. It could serve equally well as an admonishment by a science court of any number of scientists in the Alien series:

"Consequently, it is one thing to claim, with Shaviro, that from the purely aesthetic perspective destruction (or robbery) is justified by the degree of novelty that is released into the world, but it is quite another thing to pose this justification from the perspective of another living society that has just been robbed to become "food" for the creation of the new beautiful order. According to Whitehead himself, this is where the nature of reflective judgment becomes ethical and concerns the moral issue of creativity that must be "reactively adapted" to fit each living occasion of novelty. Even though creativity becomes "the highest notion of the ultimate generality" in Whitehead's metaphysical system, it cannot serve as a kind of categorical justification for every actual occasion of "craving for intensity", for novelty and adventure, in short, for every act of robbery. It is clear that there is a moral dimension to Whitehead's system as well, a second critique that is hidden behind the first and primary affirmation of the general notion of creativity, and I would even suggest that certain negative and critical feelings (or what Whitehead calls "negative prehensions") can also belong to the creative process in the production of new "discordant feelings." Of course, these negative prehensions need not necessarily lead to new prohibitions against beautiful feelings as in most traditional Marxian critiques, which would be tantamount to a prohibition against eating, and according to Whitehead, would result in the loss of inter-play between living societies and the environment composed of other societies, both organic and inorganic. However, it could lead to a construction of "critical aestheticism" that would be capable of both "creativity" and "critique".

Numerous lebensphilosophie style conceptions of creativity could have served equally well as illustrations of the category mistake. Hans Joas is someone who understands where Habermas was coming from, but attempts to be more thorough in bringing together creativity and critique, to avoid any limitations associated with the aforementioned "traditional Marxian critiques". There is a danger that the creative turn can amount to the same thing as the universal calculus: the only real ground for guilt is a lack of self-interest. Moral behaviour is the acquisition of a value. Certain goods have a higher value simply because others desire what you have. It matters less whether this entails imposing your will on others as long as you make it. This becomes an end in itself, another form of instrumental rationality to legitimate all perversity, strangeness and eccentricity. Again, as Ash said of the xenomorph, "I admire its purity".

This might explain why so many figures in the esoteric underground, including Nikolas Schreck in this unintentionally hilarious clip (and his offsider, here wearing a monocle for effect) for example, develop a social Darwinian philosophy (described fittingly by Anton LaVey as "basically Ayn Rand's philosophy with some ritual thrown in", while Schreck prefers to talk in terms of how "it is difficult to explain something of this majesty and glory to mortal minds"). It also speaks to why provocateurs such as GG Allin felt entitled (while naked, covered in blood, and smeared in human excrement) to stage an afterlife to his performance by inciting a mini-riot in the streets of New York City (Allin died of a heroin overdose several hours after this footage was taken).

I recommend reading Colin Campbell's piece, which I have in part drawn on here, for an intriguing take on how the discourses of decadence used to frame the horror associated with transgressive culture are informed by a serial logic, with reference to C.S. Lewis' The Bell and the Hammer. In this post I have wondered about where and how to situate the popular appeal of the Alien films with respect to the continuum Campbell describes. Does it amount to resistance or complicity?

Martine Beugnet & the cinema of transgression

I was reviewing the list of influences on Coffin Joe and it got me thinking more generally about transgression and the need to complicate the gender blindness that can follow on from uncritical use of this concept. I thought one promising starting point would be to get hold of Martine Beugnet's book on the so-called "new French extremity", entitled Cinema and sensation: French film and the art of transgression. Derridata, have you encountered this book in your travels, and if so, do you feel it departs in any significant ways from Shaviro's The Cinematic Body? Methodologically, does it follow the default setting of the continental philosophy blogosphere of performing deep readings of canonical texts and applying them in an analytically suspect way to this cultural phenomenon, or does it really contextualise them social theoretically so that they are saying something about life in France at the beginning of the 21st century?

Given the biological themes of this blog, it is hard to ignore her starting point that film is a "medium of the senses". I like the description of the book though how it claims to move from the cinematic apparatus itself to broader social issues:

"Martine Beugnet focuses on the crucial and fertile overlaps that occur between experimental and mainstream cinema. Her book draws on the writings of Deleuze, Merleau-Ponty, and Bataille, among others, but first and foremost, she develops her arguments from the films themselves, from the comprehensive description of specific sequences, techniques, and motifs that allows us to engage with the works as material events and as thinking processes. In turn, she demonstrates how the films, envisaged as forms of embodied thought, offer alternative ways of approaching today’s most burning sociocultural debates—from the growing supremacy of technology, to globalization, exile, and exclusion".

I'm intrigued by the prospect of encompassing "today's most burning sociocultural debates", particularly how the foregrounding of globalization would seem to intimate the applicability of her critical approach to comparable studies of other films as epiphenomena of cultural transgression. I don't know the extent to which she undertakes a feminist analysis that is reflexive enough to epistemologically qualify Bataille's contribution in light of the formative influence of his companion Laure (as per, for example, Michel Surya's Georges Bataille: An Intellectual Biography).

But I do know that when I start to think about this topic I admit to feeling a lot like I imagine Herbert Marcuse did in Eros & Civilization, shyly tiptoeing past the cavalcade of perversions he attempted to introduce on account of their [alleged] radical emancipatory potential. For me, reading or thinking about such possibilities demands something like Martine Beugenet's approach: I treat the reading as a material event. If I am repulsed by it I admit I will have a hard time moving forward by articulating why I feel that way, letalone changing my reaction, irrespective of whether a prima facie political reason can be advanced to try to convince me otherwise. So my test in the first instance is gauging how you respond to these kinds of positions. Be sure to drill down to the comments in that post about bell hooks before you try to reach any decisions about your receptiveness to transgression. Another affirmative perspective can be found here, along with the aforementioned Shaviro's extreme take on its biological ramifications, thanks to a reading of Michel Foucault. Transgressors would no doubt sneer at the idea of opposition (claiming it presupposes transgression), but a representative example is Ashley Tauchert's Against Transgression. Closer to my own social theoretical views are Anthony Elliott's objections to queer theory more generally (of which transgression forms a subset), which can be found in his Concepts of the Self.

But I'll finish up here by leaving it to some examples of transgressive filmmaking to serve as a litmus test. That is my only justification for posting them here. I fear they are treading some dangerous misogynistic territory, so I advise extreme caution in case anyone else chooses to watch them (especially the second half of the final clip). But the test for me is whether the advocates of transgression would be willing to redeem even these activities, letalone their filmic representation, or do they agree that limits and distinctions occasionally have to be drawn because some things are simply beyond the pale? By the same token, how much latitude must be given in light of the fact that there is a diverse range of cultural logics, or are they merely accentuated for the reasons Beugnet adduces i.e. an explosion of difference in response to globalization?

Graphic Sexual Horror is an interesting case though because it documents political censure of a bondage website by an administration under the Patriot Act that was itself willing to use torture as an interrogation technique, in addition to the greed of the website's creator (and its effect on his "models"), so I certainly don't wish to imply that the issues are always cut and dried. It would be interesting to compare the motivations of that webmaster with those of the Japanese maker of genki porn. In the latter case the documentary makes little effort to establish how representative such an extreme genre is, letalone attempt to challenge any justification behind it.

My only point then in regard to each is that Beugnet's book might help me to get a better critical perspective on what is at stake in these kinds of debates, thus also hopefully making it unnecessary to automatically appeal to Videodrome as sole evidence of a transgressive "postmodern" media culture.

Jumpcut: "Asia Extreme"

JUMP CUT A REVIEW OF CONTEMPORARY MEDIA

Current issue No. 50, spring 2008

Horror's new terrain by Chuck Kleinhans Introduction to horror film section.

Art of branding: Tartan "Asia Extreme" films by Chi-Yun Shin Taking the Tartan "Asia Extreme" label as a fascinating site to explore how the West consumes East Asian cinema, this essay examines the marketing and promotional practices of the most high-profile label amongst the East Asian film providers in the West.
Sentimentality and the cinema of the extreme by Jinhee Choi This essay examines the sentimental "mode" that is shared between sentimentality and brutality manifest in the recent trend of melodrama and extreme cinema.

Audio podcasting now by Julia Lesage An overview of spoken word podcasting and a guide to some interesting podcasts, mostly free

Becoming Animal

One final piece of synchronicity in tonight's posting session. Manuel DeLanda is renowned for "War in the Age of Intelligent Machines", and this lecture (only one part of which I have posted here) is useful in clarifying the meaning of Deleuze's "geology [sic] of morals". I say this in light of the possibilty that it may in principle be distinguished from some of the developments foregrounded in Laurie Anderson's work (to say nothing of the comments by Deleuze's contemporary, Derrida, that the insidious emergent forms of bioterror will one day almost make people nostalgic for the visibility of the style of attack adopted in 9/11).

It is interesting to consider whether an earlier understanding of biocultural implications in part motivated DeLanda's own switch from his early path as a "transgressive" filmmaker (Nick Zedd even mentions him in his book on the subject). What future for the spectacle when the real effects would be felt beneath the threshold of visual perception? I resisted posting the youtube clip from the documentary Snuff, even though its makers appear sincere in their motivations, in part because of the point I'm making here. Isn't it incumbent on the filmmakers to situate their investment in such material with reference to the ready availability of websites such as ogrish.com? What effect does this have on the taboo nature of their topic, even if they choose to ignore the future biocultural ramifications (which will tend to date their work that much quicker).

At the very least, DeLanda's talk, if not his personal biography, will help me revise my manuscript to some extent, which touches on "becoming animal", bioculture more generally, and violence.

The Threshold HouseBoys Choir

I think I may have found some answers to my previous queries about Sleazy. A simple google search brought to light how Coil filmed their "Love's Secret Domain" video in Thailand, (in a male go-go bar), with John Balance and Peter Christopherson later channelling their energy into a side project, a group called The Threshold HouseBoys Choir.I'm posting these clips here as I await broadband access so I can not only see if I like the music, but whether the cultural representation is in keeping with any of my hypotheses advanced in the previous post. All I know so far is that the Choir is somehow related to a festival involving the transgression of physical pain thresholds by young men in a trance state. I'm sure derridata will want to point out to me that the Coil clip is not for the title track, "Love's Secret Domain", but I look forward to reviewing it anyway.
Can't help chuckling at the memory of reports of Nick Cave walking out of a Coil live performance on the basis that it was "too gay" for his tastes! Must check if Chris and Cosey have done any interesting videos as well, with any bearing on some of the topics raised thus far.

The Dark Stuff: Serial Psychopathology

I haven't laid eyes on Nick Kent's book since around 1995, but after spending some time compulsively turning the pages in the Ariel Bookstore that hot summer day, I'm unable to ignore [what seems like] the anecdotal evidence for later theoretical concerns. One of the things I find particularly remarkable is how forthright Iggy Pop was in agreeing to pen a foreword for this book. I applaud his honesty, for Kent marshals considerable evidence for the indictment of Iggy as one of the most dissolute, intemperate figures in the annals of rock history. Indeed, Kent confirms and builds on some of Iggy's assertions from I Need More concerning a sexual fixation on underage girls, replete with apocalyptic imagery of him passed out among industrial ruins, with a semi-naked pre-pubescent girl lying next to him. Other examples abound, but the general picture is clear.

It might become clearer though if read alongside Danny Sugerman's memoirs, Wonderland Avenue: Tales of Glamour and Excess. One of the most lucid and insightful passages in this book is when Sugerman offers a general evaluation of the transgressive behaviour of figures he was personally associated with, such as Iggy and Jim Morrison. He concludes that there was something calculated about their actions, inasfar as the obvious non-reciprocity was designed to destroy the sense of personal justice of those subject to it, thus controlling them. Upon returning home to discover an unconscious Iggy on the floor, with a trail of vomit, faeces and blood strewn down the hallway, Sugerman chose to adopt the managerial technique of instilling a sense of symmetry. Seizing Iggy by the ankles, he then proceeded to clean up the mess, using Iggy's long hair as a mop.

Reading The Dark Stuff and Wonderland Avenue in combination conveys a vivid sense of how such excesses define themselves against the sequenced interpolation of everyday encounters, which Giddens has fittingly described in terms of "seriality". The resort to primordialism draws its appeal from the possibility of transcending the negotiation of tact required by social interaction. Garfinkel was able to make comparable points with his experiments designed to breach trust. What this proves is the unfeasibility of the avant-garde's experimental approach to the world eventually destroying the Law; transgression is only meaningful insofar as a limit exists. On this basis I would modify some gender criticism of transgression, as it is not so much that protest masculinity is driven to return to a state of undifferentiation, to nothingness, at the most extreme end of the continuum. I think Nietzsche was closer to the heart of the matter when he noted that the problem was not the heights attained, but the fall. The discovery is not that there is nothing on the other side to "break on through to", but rather that its effects are inscribed within larger mechanisms of power. The self evolves in its complexity, and may revel in this reward, but this is a Faustian bargain, subject to continual renegotiation. Sooner or later then, seriality reappears to remind us that the retraction of symbolic boundaries constitutes a form of order.

If this holds, then it can hardly be coincidental that towards the end of his life, Morrison had adopted a more sombre, sociologically realist mode of songwriting. Indeed, "L.A. Woman" is one of the best things he ever wrote, with its ethnographic snapshots of everyday scenes (as opposed to an earlier "weird scenes inside the goldmine), "cops in cars/topless bars/never seen a woman so alone". True, glimpses of the old persona remain, with "The Changeling" and "L'America", but overall the album is his most diverse lyrically.

We know that Morrison claimed he would have studied more sociology if he had lived a different life, but whether this would have meant reading Deleuze's thesis of the "control society", Foucault and Lacan, that have influenced this posting, along with the aforementioned select sociological stablemates, no one can say for sure. In any case, Kent and Sugerman provide much grist for the theoretical mill, spurring the realisation that creativity can be a form of normativity. As I've commented on this blog before, it is only a failure to understand this that can fuel convictions of an inevitable Ballardian society leading us all on a merry dance towards the apocalypse. At first glance you could be forgiven for thinking that such theorists make for strange bedfellows with neoconservative cultural critics, but this impression may soon fade. My advice would be to articulate ideas of aesthetic revolt to permanent revolution, and consider how complementary they are. Then watch the documentary Arguing the World and draw conclusions as to how and why so many of the interviewees "broke on through" to the other side of the political spectrum.