On Mirrors! : Philosophy, Art, Organization 1527505758, 9781527505759

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On Mirrors!

On Mirrors! Philosophy—Art—Organization By

Luc Peters and Anthony R. Yue

On Mirrors! Philosophy—Art—Organization Series: “Schwung”; Critical Curating and Aesthetic Management for Art, Business and Politics By Luc Peters and Anthony R. Yue This book first published 2018 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2018 by Luc Peters and Anthony R. Yue All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-0575-8 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-0575-9

CONTENTS

On the Text ................................................................................................ xii In the Mirror ................................................................................................ 1 Chapter One ............................................................................................... 14 The Case of the Black Mirror Interzone 1 - Haunted Mirror..................................................................... 42 Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 48 Belchin’ Bender Interzone 2 - Yakuza Mirror ...................................................................... 76 Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 82 Mash-Up Mirror Interzone 3 - Twisted Mirror ................................................................... 110 Chapter Four ............................................................................................ 116 Liturgy & Leiben Interzone 4 - Done With Mirrors ............................................................. 150 Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 156 Frozen Geilness Interzone 5 - Fröbel-Mirror ..................................................................... 184 Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 190 Caution: Cesspool Interzone 6 - Untamed Mirror ................................................................. 220

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Contents

Reflections ............................................................................................... 226 Bibliography ............................................................................................ 234 Images ..................................................................................................... 244 Thanx!! .................................................................................................... 248 Biographies .............................................................................................. 251

ON THE TEXT

This book started some five years ago when we were discussing our work in a hotel lobby in Istanbul. By that time we had written some material together and were slowly becoming aware of our mutual interest and concerns about mirrors. These early collaborations were, in hindsight, a sort of practicing for what was to come. In Istanbul we decided to start investigating mirrors further and to work on a philosophy of mirrors, with the help of the forms of art that beguiled us. We had already presented some of our work at various conferences around the world. Being newly fixed on the idea of a book, we started working on more material, and continued to present our work at exotic places around the world such as Montreal, Lisbon, Barcelona, Sydney, Melbourne, Gothenburg, Helsinki, Utrecht, Rotterdam, Lille, Copenhagen, Manchester, the afore mentioned Istanbul, and many more; cities where we not only presented our work, but also enjoyed life. We discussed our ideas with various academics in order to strengthen arguments, get new ideas and insights, but most of all, because we happen to like such engagements. During that time we crossed the Atlantic, and visited each other’s places, homes, numerous times. Drinking beer, playing guitars, and discussing philosophy. In the end this all resulted in the book which you are now holding in your hands. When writing this book on mirrors we decided that it had to be a “readable” book, and not a “pure” scientific report. In other words: people inside, as well as outside of academia should be able to read it. Therefore we tried to reduce the footnotes and references down to a bare minimum. We also decided to eliminate most of the academic jargon present in contemporary philosophical treatises. Words like modernity, ontology, agency and many more. The reason is that we, without diminishing the relevance of these words, wanted to keep the focus upon what is going on with mirrors, and not on discussions around the specific meaning of such words. What we did on the other hand is shape some new words or use rather obscure ones, which support our arguments; words like clauding, geilness, leiben, Hütten-dasein, mash-up and some more. We will explain these words, and through their use in the text, the reader should get an idea of the specific meaning of these words. We found them necessary as they “enliven” the text in new and unexpected ways, and in our humble opinion they seem to hit the hammer on the proverbial nail. This also means that

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these words are not static, but are always open for new uses and deviation of meaning. A similar thing happened when we were thinking about translations of words and quotes from German or Dutch to English. Something always gets lost in translation and we tried to reduce the loss to a minimum. Working with the thoughts of the “word-wizard from the Black Forest” Martin Heidegger proved to be a particular challenge, but a pleasant one. Where necessary, we have put the original sentence in the text, or in a footnote. Considering “our” language, we had long talks about how we could develop this. How can we translate our thoughts and ideas to “readable” sentences? How to capture the transatlantic spirit of our discussions into a book? We considered that there is a significant difference between spoken and written language, while both have their merits. But what if we could fuse them? Would this contribute to the readability and accessibility of the book? We thought it would. After toying around with some ideas, we decided that we should take a video camera, and one of us should sit in front of it, while the other pushed the record button. From behind the camera came a question on mirrors, and in front of the camera, the other started answering this question in their own words. This became a focused sort of riffing, philosophy as jazz. We then switched roles and repeated this several times. When watching the recorded footage we got a notion of how the language could be as powerful as possible, and especially how it could be our own. We then went back to our desks, typewriters, and laptops and started jotting down our thoughts and ideas. The process of writing was entangled with the process of coming to grips with how to use words. This more or less molded the text. Lastly, we believe that words have their strength, yet sometimes images can speak “louder” than words. Well maybe there isn’t even such a big difference between images and words, and sometimes words can become images and images become words. Therefore we began to take photographs of mirrors and those things that mirror, in order to insert them in the text, between the various chapters, and interzones. We maintain that these images should not always directly relate to a specific chapter, but instead should open up the potency for thought, more poetry than prose. In this way our creation and arrangement of the materials is not a finished artifact, but rather a quietly persistent call to action for the reader; an invitation to play with the text as an arty animal. Anyway, enjoy reading!

Out of unbelievable violence, the light that the sun creates, arrives 8 1/2 minutes later...

 

IN THE MIRROR

We are caught in the mirror. We are under its spell and enchanted by its reflections. We are beguiled by it. Mirrors direct us without our awareness, largely because we do not perceive them as mirrors. This is a problem because mirrors are everywhere. It is common knowledge that mirrors play a dominant role in our lives. This is nothing new. We might even say that mirrors, since the time they were invented and proliferated, have played a crucial part in our lives and in society. “Mirror, mirror on the wall…" causes us to recall the well-known fairytale story in which the mirror displays its enigmatic, tacit and unavoidable power. This power was there from the beginning and it is still going strong. In fact it is arguably stronger than ever before. But not just strong, indeed it is inescapable, all enveloping. Boldly put, we can consider this situation as a form of relentless domination. The mirror is directing our lives, bewitching and entrancing us. The mirror beguiles us. Now it could be argued that there is nothing wrong with having or being given some direction. The problem arises when this direction goes on mainly unnoticed and is a more subtle form of coercion. We have become unaware of mirrors, because the mirror has developed a tendency to hide. In other words, we do not recognize mirrors as mirrors anymore. We look in these mirrors and see reflections, without us being aware that these are reflections. Over time mirrors have taken new shapes and new disguises, disguises that successfully escape our perception. Still, mirrors are everywhere in whatever shape they choose to present themselves and they are not limited to simple reflections: digital cameras, TV screens, smart phones, but also annual reports, textbooks, guru literature, or even our built surroundings. They are all around us, like water on a tile floor, the surface of a pond, polished chrome, or even the glass skins of office buildings. We can draw up an endless list. But mirrors are not only about the visual; they mess with all of our senses. They seduce and trigger our sensory exciters. They make us see, hear, smell, taste and feel. They capture and thrill us through their enigmatic mirroring of our hopes, fears, loves hates, behaviors and imaginings. This not only implies that mirrors are not what they pretend to be, but perhaps worse, that mirrors are not to be trusted. A director who is not to be trusted, and that means trouble. Therefore these appearances or

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In the Mirror!

disguises of the mirror should be investigated. We cannot neglect the increasing dominance, importance, and danger of mirrors. Mirrors are slowly and definitely taking over, but this should not give the impression that mirrors are bad or evil. No, mirrors can come in very handy and we can have a lot of fun with them too. We can even assert that a life without mirrors might be impossible. So paradoxically, there are always at least two sides to every mirror. The central problem that we are emphasizing is that we are caught in the mirror, without even being aware of it. It is not we using mirrors, but rather mirrors using us. When we refer to mirrors, we do not mean just a mirror, or any mirror, or a certain example, but the mirror, as the thing that mirrors, the process and implications of mirroring. This mirroring can take various shapes. As mentioned, some of these shapes might be recognized as mirrors while others might be hidden from us. Such mirrors may pretend, or try to pretend that they are not mirrors, but instead are something else. This pretending is not necessarily a conscious thing. The mirror might be unaware of its intentions. Not all conspiracies are planned or lead. Yet still the mirror is there, reflecting, shining, and capturing us. We remember the classic example already alluded to: “mirror, mirror on the wall, who is …”. This seems pretty straightforward, but the mirror of the past has evolved. It is not the same mirror anymore. And it is not a Darwinian evolution, but one with bumps, hiccups, detours, roundabouts and roller coaster rides. It is enigmatic and incomprehensible. It is important to know what the mirror has become, which shapes it is taking, and maybe even more urgent, what the mirror is up to, what are its plans and where is it leading us? But our beguilement with mirrors and reflections makes this neigh impossible. We have already stated that we are caught in the mirror, and that this is not necessarily a preferable situation. Moreover, unknown situations are not preferable either. In the case of the mirror however there is serious danger involved. We only perceive its reflections and these are superficial. In other words, we take the reflections of the mirror for real, and are unaware of what else a mirror could inform us about. We are under a spell, and have not yet found a way to break loose. Therefore it is important for us to investigate the mirror and all its appearances, and to figure out what its plans are. It is not just about the fact that there is a mirror we can look into and see a reflection, but also about what these reflections (visible or hidden) can do for us, with us, or to us. We are concerned with the power of the mirror and how mirroring can capture us, without us even being

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aware of it. The mirror has caught us, and this means trouble. Investigation is required. We are further compelled to point out that the mirror is real; it is not just a metaphor. It is the real thing. It does not portray an artificial world, or some other world through which we can mirror our so-called “real world”. It displays the real world. It is not an “as if”, but an “is”. It’s real and it’s consuming us, it’s twisting our mind, and soul, and even worse: it eats us up, chewing on our flesh. We have to be very clear on this. Crystal-clear. Mirrors do not reveal a safe world that we can look at (or into) from a safe distance, and then step away whenever we feel like it. Mirrors do not function as an example, which offers us a beautiful version of our world. These reflections are not a representation of a tempting beauty that we want to copy. The Mirror is not something else. No, the mirror is just the mirror. It can show beautiful things, horrible things, things we do not understand, or things we do not even recognize; things we do not even perceive as mirrors. No, the mirror is just the mirror. It is not something else. It is exactly how it presents itself, although we might not notice this. We might not be aware of the way the mirror interacts with us, because the mirror has a tendency to hide. We might not even be aware of the fact that we are caught in the mirror. Whenever we become aware of the mirror, when the mirror presents itself or draws our attention, we perceive it as it is. The mirror leaves us no time for any calculation. This however does not imply, and we have to be very specific in this, that mirrors are always similar. We have already argued that we sometimes do not recognize the mirror as mirror. It can escape or hide from our perception. The mirror does not always have an identity or behaviors we can firmly grasp ahold of. Furthermore, the mirror is not necessarily a stable thing and may change itself and its meaning. It reveals itself in a never-ending variety of shapes and forms, always moving and changing its appearance, in a constant state of metamorphosis. This also implies that we might be unaware of certain shapes of the mirror and that we are susceptible to the trickery of the mirror. Dwelling on Spinoza, we can argue that we never know what a mirror is capable of. We only know that we cannot look away. We are seduced by its enigma. It is ungraspable. It tries to stay out of our reach. Still, there is always a desire, always a longing for the mirror. Mirrors are tempting. “Mirror, mirror on the wall….” We are drawn towards and into it. It doesn’t leave us unaffected. The mirror demands attention. We cannot look away. We cannot live without it and are sucked into it.

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In the Mirror!

The Sucker Punch The question we are interested in, and which we want to propose here is: How can we investigate the mirror’s appearance, reflections, and enigmatic power? When broaching these issues we are immediately reminded of Narcissus and his deadly encounter with the mirror. Narcissus looked in the mirroring surface of a pond and saw an image staring back at him. It was an image he had never seen before, and he was beguiled by its novelty. How could he recognize this face, which he had never seen before? How could he know it was his own reflection? Despite his ignorance, he was overcome with curiosity, and he wanted grasp the image; to grasp the reflection, without even knowing what a reflection was. Perhaps he thought the reflection was a real stranger. He wanted to grasp this enigmatic stranger, wanted to hug him, kiss him maybe, take his face in his hands, and maybe even make love to him. When he tried to take hold of the reflection, he tumbled into the water and drowned. Unfortunately the stranger couldn’t help him. Narcissus wasn’t aware of the power of the mirror, and of his own helplessness when considering mirrors, and therefore was literally (not metaphorically) drawn into it. He lost himself to the mirror. This fable made it quite clear that the mirror is real, that it has lethal capacities and stresses the danger of mirrors, so we best beware. Narcissus got in the mirror and drowned, so we must be prepared for the worst. Playing with mirrors can be a dangerous exercise. You might lose your life. So our investigations of mirrors are not without risk, neither for us nor for anyone else who becomes involved with mirrors. We are also brought to consider Perseus tricking Medusa by catching her mirror reflection without Medusa being aware of it, and then using this reflection to eventually chop off Medusa’s head. In this situation we again see the lethal possibilities of mirrors. Times have changed and it is mirroring itself that we now must be concerned about. Of course this is not all negative and dangerous, and we can reverse this point of view, for the mirror gives life. It can envelope us in a way that becomes meaningful or even fundamental. The mirror gives and takes in incomprehensible ways. This goes beyond a division of good or bad. But this also makes it clear that there is only one possibility and that is to get in the mirror. Looking from a distance is not an option for us. No, we need to be in there. As philosophers we want to be out there, in there, immersed and fully being a part of it. There is no safe distance when you want to investigate danger. Therefore we have to get in the mirror, and not just look at it from a distance.

On Mirrors!

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The question remains: How we can grasp ourselves in the mirror? To put it more bluntly: How can we make sense of this mirror-image? How can we make sense of it without losing ourselves in the mirror, without being dissolved, without ending up like Narcissus, or Medusa? Without drowning or getting our heads chopped off? How can we know what is revealed? What is hidden? But also what is distorted and what is polished to the extreme? We see things, but what is it that we see and experience in a sensory way, knowing that the mirror is not only about the visual. Maybe there is some sort of magic involved? How can we make eye contact with the mirror? Although the mirror may try to hide, we want to see eye-toeye. Our eyesight looking at our eyesight. Eye contact makes eye contact. Eye contact without us always being aware of it. This means that just like Medusa we might not realize that we are in the mirror. Then we only know that we’ve been in the mirror when our heads are chopped off. This is not a preferred situation for us as investigators. We have to be on guard. But how to investigate? We are trying to perceive and are not only looking. This is a multisensory mode of interrogation, a blurring between the supposed lines of the different senses with synesthetic possibilities. When looking, we also wonder: How does what we perceive relate to the known images and experiences that we are already carrying with us? These are perceptions we have learned to trust and rely upon and they are time related, relying on the past which calls into question the preferred images. The mirror has some tricks up its sleeve. It may try to convince us to collaborate in moulding our future. These are movement related images, which seek their way into the future. The mirror is thus our informer on both past and future, an informer about the known, which is not always (to be) known, and the preferred, which might sometimes not be preferred. But the mirror is not a passive informer. It is a highly active informer. It is a volatile informer. It is a secretive informer. It informs us at breakneck speed. It can choke us. It can drown us. It can burn us. It can tear us apart. It goes up and down in time at a speed that is incomprehensible for us. It always starts from the middle, and moves in two directions in a way that it is not clear for us. We never know exactly which way it is moving. We thus have to try and keep up with the movements of the mirror. Usually a mirror is delineated by its frame, which forms a cutout of some reality. This frame cuts a piece out of a visibility and thus shapes our perception. It supplies saturation and rarefaction. It creates the out of field and the depth of field, becoming a blurred zone of folding, unfolding and refolding. Although the mirror looks framed, it is never a static object, able to be unproblematically deployed. No, it tricks us, runs off and catches us in its slipstream, where we try to hold on to the wild ride of the

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In the Mirror!

mirror. This implies that we see simultaneously without seeing, and that the mirror can be invisible. We do not have to recognize the mirror as mirror, so it could escape our perception. Our perception might be limited or we can be “perceptionally challenged”, to put it nicely. Perception can be limited but also unexpected, like the already mentioned case of Narcissus. It can catch us like it did Medusa. It is a matter of a constant revealing and hiding. When we try to look into the future we might see it bright and shiny, or small and dark, or maybe a chiaroscuro. Bewitched, beguiled, enchanted. Mirror, mirror on the wall ... Briefly, considering us, we have to reveal that we (the two authors) have written this book as two parts of a whole. These two parts have constantly been mirroring thoughts and ideas that have fused as real mirror images. Each of us was more or less creating certain mirrors into which the other could peek and which could trigger new thoughts and ideas and thus create new mirrors; an ongoing process of constant mirroring in such a way that at a point, these mirrors became real and indistinguishable. Was it still real? Was it a mirror? Whose reality and whose mirror? As soon as these questions could not be answered anymore, we knew that our thoughts were able to create new, unexpected and unpredictable mirrors that had the potency to trigger the thoughts and ideas of others gazing into these mirrors. Our mirrors fused into this book. They fused into images and words. Stating this seems like there was some sort of magic involved, something difficult to grasp but still present. And that is exactly what it probably is, some sort of magic. We are however not magicians but just philosophers. Philosophers who refer to themselves as we, and whenever we write “we”, it’s us.

Arty Animals That’s why I study organization. But I never find anything that looks like my work

As philosophers, and not magicians, we can boldly state that philosophy, in the old days, used to be centrally concerned about the “polis”. In these contemporary times however, it is not just the polis (or city) that should be the most important subject of investigation. The conceptual polis has been taken over by organization. Organization is our main topic of investigation and we view the world through the lens of organization. We boldly state that organization creates our lives. Organization makes the boundary, which exemplified the city, superfluous. The boundary becomes obsolete.

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This suggests that we have no other choice than to look at things from a perspective of organization. This perspective is not a neutral or even rational one. Moreover, it is one that is lived. It is an embodied perspective. It is corporeal. We have lived in organization and we are still living in it. Our lived experience shapes our perspective and allows us a subjective view on the world of organization. It is perhaps therefore that we are scholars of organization, as we are intrigued by organization. Organization with a capital O, the big O. Organization is a process and a physical manifestation as “the” organization. Organization is about connections, gut-level as well as reasoned, and these personal experiences function as connection. Given our prior discussion, it comes as no surprise that the trouble with organization, meaning the real problem, is that organization itself is caught in the mirror. Organizations are taking the mirror for real and are being directed by mirrors; mirrors which again take very different, very distinctive shapes. Whether it is the annual report, business suits, the masks behind which people hide, or all the screens people are looking at on a daily basis, these mirrors direct organization and thus our lives. This drives us as both philosophers and scholars of organization to conduct our investigations regarding mirrors. So we return to the risky nature of eschewing the safety of regarding mirrors from a distance and instead choosing to run the risk of being consumed. The world of organization is not a world that sits next to our socalled real world. No, it is our world. The world we live in is shaped by organization and organizations in all possible appearances. A world without organization can no longer be imagined anymore. Our world is organization and as we live in this world, we are living in organization. Living this in an embodied way. This sensory experience, this susceptibility to our five senses, is what shaped and still shapes our investigation of the mirror. Although the mirror is a contemporary partner in our daily life, there has not been a focused investigation of the role it plays in organization. Why is this object, this process, which plays an important role in everyday life, an almost invisible player in organizational studies? Perhaps the mirror is so obvious that it is simply overlooked; one looks in the mirror without even fully realizing that it is there. Or it could be that the mirror is immediately and negatively linked to metaphor, and the naming of one thing as though it were another might make it unappealing. Nevertheless, the idea that mirrors play an important part in organizations is intriguing. Of particular interest is the possibility that mirrors are overlooked, meaning that the mirror is somehow hidden from our view,

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In the Mirror!

unnoticed or perhaps not recognized as a mirror. Such a characteristic could also be related to our perception of what a mirror is. If a mirror is simply an object that we know and which we can recognize (perhaps through its shape, or frame, or shiny surface), then this seems understandable. On the other hand, a mirror could be something that has characteristics we can recognize, but the specific manifestation is either unknown or new. The possibility of new appearances doesn’t acknowledge the mirror in our preconceptions, and consequently may open up new possibilities. But it is not just that organization uses mirrors, or is caught in mirrors. We suggest that organizations appear to function in similar ways as mirrors, that is, organizations are mirrors. Put differently, this is not a simple case of metaphor, but rather a sort of metonymy. Our assertion is contingent upon a new conception of a mirror, and has broad reaching consequences. This is not the sort of conception that came forth out of Gareth Morgan’s (1986) Images of Organization. It is clear that mirrors give images or can be referred as some sort of image, but our primary focus is an interest in the way images are constructed and how this construction functions like a mirror. In this way we follow the Deleuzian argument to “Kill Metaphor” (1989; 1986) and instead of examining the mirror from the safe distance, which metaphor allows, we instead crawl into the mirror and investigate what it is doing to, or through, organization. With this sort of intimacy, there is no safe distance from which to dispassionately consider mirrors and organization. We do not like to watch from a distance or to observe while standing on the shore. We are diving in. We dive into the mirror. There is no distance. Organization is a mirror. Maybe not a mirror that we would “normally” always consider as a mirror, but the mirror as a philosophical concept, constantly changing its appearance and meaning. It changes at breakneck speed. The concept constantly reinvents itself and is in a perpetual state of metamorphosis. This challenges language. Words and images are getting new meanings in a tempo that is faster than our understanding of these words. We’re in hot pursuit of language and try to keep up with the tempo through conceptualization. The question remains: how we can grab this potency of the mirror? This hidden power, which can creep up to us or knock us off our feet. This power that is not always visible in the mirror, and in such cases, the mirror is putting us to sleep or seeing to it that we keep on sleeping. The mirror helps us with remaining in our state of somnambulism; awake and yet asleep. This state, although appealing and sometimes needed, is not what we are interested in when thinking about mirrors. No, we want to be kicked awake, brutally if necessary. In order to be kicked awake, to

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leave our state of somnambulism, we need the arts. Art with a capital A, the big A. We need to be in the Nietszchean “Rausch”, the haze. This haze contains potency. It is not sedation. It doesn’t shoot us out to space, but rather brings us down to earth. We need the potency which art possesses. When this potency is not used, we do not refer to art anymore. Without potency, art becomes entertainment. Now there is nothing wrong with entertainment if you are in need of rest, or sleep. If you want or need to be sedated. But that is not what we are interested in. For us this is about the critical potency of art, about being awake. Just like an animal we are restless and awake and not really interested in entertainment. Animals are probably not interested in entertainment, and we’re not even sure if they would be interested in art, by the way. This doesn’t hold us back from the fact that we have to be critical animals. Arty-animals. Animals who are into music, painting, architecture, cartoons, film or photography. These are some of the various shapes that art can take and which critical potential we are investigating. This doesn’t mean that the potency of art and thus the potency of the mirror is predictable. No it is and remains a mystery. We never know in what way it’s gonna hit us; the sucker-punch. To put it differently and in a Spinozian way: We never know what a mirror is capable of, and so we have to be agile, nimble and a bit tricky ourselves. We just might need to investigate entertainment in order to learn in what way the critical potency is not being used. Sometimes we might have to play tricks on the mirror. Sometimes we may even have to abuse the mirror. Sometimes we use the sucker-punch. Whatever the case may be, we have to dive in. We’re diving in. Now.

Investigation Our investigation, as arty-animals, of the critical potency of the mirror, is divided into six separate chapters. These chapters are interrupted with bits and pieces of text, Interzones, and various images to challenge the investigation and the reading of this book. They can be seen as insertions that dissect the text. While we are writing it we are simultaneously cutting it up. It is not a straight story. This is a story that allows itself to be interrupted. Art is never straightforward. The mirror is never straightforward. We always have to think it through. In the first chapter we investigate the mirror of painting and especially a device called the Claude Mirror. A device used to get a better view on reality by turning ones back on reality. This idea made us wonder and at

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In the Mirror!

the same time realize that this is also what organizations do. Why is it that we are using the Claude Mirror and how does it work in organization? Chapter two concerns the mirror of cartoons. We specifically investigate Futurama, and how it informs us about work and organization in the future. But the main thing is the appearance of the robot. We become befriended with Bender, a boozing, chain-cigar smoking, lying kleptomaniac; a robot that is more human than human could be. This informs us on working in the future and the way technology might or might not be helpful with this. In the third chapter we step into the mirror of music. We use Tiesto as an example of entertainment and witness how his mashing up of music takes place in a stadium where screens play an enigmatic role. This will inform us about the critical potential the mirror has and its implications for the contemporary manager in organization. Chapter four interrogates the mirror of architecture. We are interested in it’s fundamentals and in order to figure these out, we use some thoughts of German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk. We confront these thoughts with those of the Benedictine monk and architect Dom van der Laan. Their ideas on the monkish cell are interfered with by some thoughts of Martin Heidegger and his being in his hut. This shapes some thoughts regarding the plastic office. Chapter five goes into the mirror of photography. Japanese photographer Araki shows us images that might be considered extravagant or even perverse. We find out very quickly however that they are more normal than normal itself seems. These images are everyday life which is sometimes hidden from us, but which is still in the mirror. It is the collision of ugliness and beauty. It is about being tied-up. Being in bondage. It is about organization, which has an urge to expand, to become freer, while it is tied-up. We are informed about the pretty and desirable side of bondage. The sixth chapter challenges the mirror of film. It informs us about the essentials of organization which we happen to overlook when thinking about excellence. For this we compare 1963 movie High & Low with 1982 book In Search of Excellence. We are informed that organization has no learning capability and that there is a perpetual juxtaposition of quantity and quality.

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All these chapters are about being bound up with mirrors, which makes bondage a central theme. It is about being caught in this frame of the mirror, being addicted to it, being tied-up, caught-up, in the mirror. Being caught in a mirror, which blinds us and binds us with entertainment to hide its critical potential. But then, as we have stated: You never know what a mirror is capable of. It is this hidden critical potency that is sought after and revealed in the various chapters and which adds up to an idea of how to uncover or even use such critical potency. It is about an escape from bondage. It is about the question of the leaking of the frame. The permeability of the frame. This leakage can be considered the critical potency. Leaking fluids might indicate some sort of heat and with this thought we get back to the opening statement: Out of unbelievable violence, the light that the sun creates arrives 8 1/2 minutes later. The sun is thus an important element in thinking about mirrors. The sun, or more precisely light can be considered pivotal. We could even state that the mirror tries to be an imitation of the sun, or maybe better an ode to the sun. Just as the sun appears to be an endless thing, the mirror has a frame, but inside the frame it has the potency to reach for infinity. We can see the mirror as an ode to the sun trying to reach infinity. This infinity allows us to get lost in the mirror.

 

 

CHAPTER ONE THE CASE OF THE BLACK MIRROR

1.1 Unveiling Mirrors and painting have a strong, intense and intriguing relationship. This harkens back to the days when Leonardo Da Vinci used mirrors to give his paintings something extra, a final sign of approval. Human eyes as devices were apparently insufficient and mirrors were deployed for quality control. However the attraction of the mirror exceeded its presence as device. In medieval and renaissance paintings, we find many examples in which the mirror itself is being visualized. An important example is the painting Las Meninas (1656, or the Ladies in Waiting), from Diego Velasquez, described by French philosopher Michel Foucault in the opening of his book The Order of Things. This relationship between mirrors and painting has not diminished, and even today mirrors still play an important role in painting. Painting needs mirrors and who knows, maybe mirrors need paintings. In this chapter we highlight a very special type of mirror. It is a mirror that encouraged painters to turn their back on reality. These painters stopped looking at the world and chose to look in mirrors instead, to look in Claude Mirrors to be more precise. They preferred the view of the mirror instead of an unadulterated vision. These Claude Mirrors gave them a “compressed” or “sharper” image of the world, which they considered essential for their paintings and portrayal of reality. Was reality as seen directly through their eyes too complex to grasp for them? The specific qualities of this mirror reflection were more useful, and therefore painters turned their back on reality and looked in the mirror. What does this imply for our conception of reality, when the mirror image is preferred over real and actual perception? Such a situation also calls into question whether the resultant form of painting can always be considered art, or perhaps that it has no relation to art but is instead only entertainment. In other words, something to distract the senses and made to kill time? First we ought to consider the origins of the Claude mirror (also referred to as a black or dark mirror or Claude Glass). The originations are themselves blurry and it

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is not clear where the name “Claude Mirror” came from, let alone when this device was first invented or used. This gives an impression that the Claude Mirror originated in a secretive way, hidden from reality and through the mirrors origination is a reflection of its use. What we do know is that its use started somewhere in the late 1700’s, and it was used predominantly for landscape painting. What is more important however than its history is the reason why painters started to employ this mirror. What triggered the desire for such a mirror? Why did painters need to get a "sharper" image of reality, something more real in their eyes? Why did they need a compressed view on the world? How did the mirror develop social embedment, and how did it evolve out of the paintings by Claude Lorrain? This is especially interesting because the paintings of Claude Lorrain were not of the greatest prominence and yet they left a serious impression on those painters who started using the Claude Mirror to mimic his style. These painters apparently had a desire for a device which alters a particular reality, which itself arises out of another alteration, and this informs an understanding of the desire for a deviant construction of reality. Our observation is that these mirrors are not restricted to only art or painting, but have found their way into many aspects of life. It seems that there is a desire, or need, for the alteration of reality. There is a desire for a compressed view and this is also apparent in organization. But is the user of the “organizational Claude Mirror” aware of the fact that he is using a mirror? Or could it be that the use of this mirror has become so common, almost like a cliché, that the user is not even aware of the fact that they are using a mirror? This an example of the “consensus” as described by Rancière (2010, 1999), where the use is so common, that any questioning or even awareness is abolished. Perhaps this is an exemplary case of the tendency of the mirror to hide Are we under the spell of this hiding mirror which is used for "simplifying" the world? But there is more to this mirror than meets the eye, because it is a reality even though it may go unnoticed. This unnoticed reality is nevertheless still real. It is a presence, and offers some reference. In other words it is a metonym and not just a metaphor. It is an “is”, and not an “as if”. To reiterate: the question of how the Claude Mirror functions to create an image of reality is important for our investigations because we do not look at organization as if it were a Claude Mirror (metaphor), but organization which is a Claude Mirror (a metonym). So, we argue that the Claude Mirror is real, and we go some steps further to argue that it is not just about the device, but about a process, which can be more or less intentional. We coin the term “claudemirroring” or more simply, “clauding”, to designate this process. This clauding causes a certain distribution of the

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sensible (Rancière, 2010, 2009, 2007a, 2006, 1999). It is a distribution caused by the police, to use Jacques Rancière’s parlance. Rancière’s police is that which distributes and freezes, and excludes any noise or deviations from the norm. Consequently, such clauding becomes the norm and anything outside this norm is excluded and silenced. This then opens up the political potency of dissensus, which disrupts the power of the police through the sheer unpredictability of politics. This disruption should lead to a re-distribution of the sensible, or to use our parlance is reflective of a constant process of re-clauding. Organization gets caught up in the process of clauding, but simultaneously is exposed to a disrupting re-clauding. Particularly interesting is that the latter is unpredictable. In Rancière’s words: “What occurs are processes of dissociation: a break in a relationship between sense and sense-between what is seen and what is thought, what is thought and what is felt. Such breaks can happen anywhere and at any time. But they cannot be calculated” (2009, 75).

This means that although there can be a deliberate use of clauding, this may still be disrupted, unannounced and unpredicted. So there is always a voice for all that is silenced by the consensus of clauding. The question that still remains is how did we get caught in this world of clauding?

1.2 Claude Painting In this part we discuss the work of the painter Claude Lorrain, the godfather of the Claude Mirror. We then give a visual reading of one of his paintings. After that we unfold his relation with the famous painter JMW Turner. Through explaining Lorrain’s influence upon Turner through the visual readings of one of Tuner’s painting, we offer some hints as to how these readings relate to the use of the Claude Mirror, to art, and to organization. When looking in a mirror, one inherently understands that whatever can be caught in its frame will become visible. This relationship then implies that there is invisibility (those things which do not fit in the frame). At least, that is the case with any commonplace reflective mirrored surface. The Claude Mirror however also hides images within its frame. It is thus a fusion of visibility and invisibility. It both conceals and reveals. It is therefore useful to consider how these devices work and why people use them. The history of the Claude Mirror forms a logical starting point. The story of the Claude Mirror starts with the celebrated work of the

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17th century French painter Claude Gellée (1600-1682). Painting under the pseudonym Claude de Lorrain, his landscapes were prized and formed the early foundations of French romantic landscape painting. Being essentially uneducated 1 from a classical painting viewpoint (arguably due to his illiteracy), his use of light and atmosphere, along with a use of side elements (sometimes referred to as “stagelike”) were precursors to impressionism. The expansive vistas and nuanced use of light became hallmarks of his later work (Claude Gellée, 2008). The English in particular were taken with his style, which was often referred to as being picturesque. This aesthetic was prized at the time and yet difficult to attain, presumably because of both Lorrain’s talent and also his relative lack of formal arts education. This lack implies that he wasn’t educated in the traditional sense. It seems likely that arts education in the 17th century must have been somewhat different from contemporary arts education. The educator was the skilled master, who taught the craft first-hand. Textbooks or sketchbooks were largely unavailable. This could have been a reason that Claude Lorrain created study-books of his own, and in this way, took a first step towards a different form of education. A Lorrain study-book, in Lorrain’s case a text he created while lacking a formal arts education, is an interesting extension of Rancière’s (2009, 2006) description of the ignorant schoolmaster. However the situation Rancière describes is one whereby the schoolmaster and student interpret the unknowable text together. In the Lorrain example, the ignorant student who is not nor has been a student (and is simultaneously becoming a schoolmaster) becomes the producer of the text itself. In this sense, and similar to Rancière’s description of the potential of the ignorant schoolmaster, such a studybook makes emancipation possible and functions as a medium; a medium where not only knowledge or skills are transferred, but also new skills are created. This is an example of the distribution of the sensible, as described by Rancière (2007a, 2006, 2010). The studybook becomes a device for distribution and thus predicates what’s in and what’s out. It disrupts the common in unexpected and unpredictable ways, but it also creates a new common; it creates a consensus. Rancière argues:

1

This does not imply untrained, for Claude Lorrain (nee Gellée) did undertake some training in Italy.

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Chapter One Consensus, as a mode of government, says: it is perfectly fine for people to have different interests, values and aspirations, nevertheless there is one unique reality to which everything must be related, a reality that is experienceable as a sense datum and which has only one possible signification. (2010, 144).

But when there is consensus, there always lurks the possibility for dissensus: What “dissensus” means is an organization of the sensible where there is neither a reality concealed behind appearances nor a single regime of presentation and interpretation of the given imposing its obviousness on all. It means that every situation can be cracked open from the inside, reconfigured in a different regime of perception and signification. To reconfigure the landscape of what can be seen and what can be thought is to alter the field of the possible and the distribution of capacities and incapacities. Dissensus brings back into play both the obviousness of what can be perceived, thought and done, and the distribution of those who are capable of perceiving, thinking and altering the coordinates of a shared world ... crack open the unity of the given and the obviousness of the visible, in order to sketch a new topography of the possible. (Rancière, 2009, 48-49, emphasis in original)

Here we witness what can be considered art, and what is not: Consensus means closing spaces of dissensus by plugging intervals and patching up any possible gaps between appearance and reality, law and fact. (Rancière, 2010, 71,72).

So “reality”, or the image of reality, is created by erasing all deviance, all that which would distort the picture and would therefore make it incomprehensible. It is Rancière’s idea of the police which freezes everything in a certain order and shape. Art however wants to break out of this mould. It works as a “dissensus”: A dissensus is not a conflict of interests, opinions or values; it is a division inserted in "common sense": a dispute over what is given and about the frame within which we see something as given. (ibid., 69, emphasis in original).

It is that which disrupts the common reality. This is an unpredictable process, without any clear relationship between cause and effect. We never know when dissensus will strike, when it will hit us. It is the sucker-

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punch. Whatever Lorrain’s intentions might have been, the outcome is based on a nasty serendipity.

Lorrain In the case of Claude Lorrain, he seized an opportunity to be original, and yet in doing so simultaneously laid the foundations for a sort of institutionalized stylistic mimesis. To this end we offer a visual reading of the Lorrain painting Seaport with the embarkation of the Queen of Sheba, painted in the style that gave rise to the Claude Mirror technology. At first look this seems an ordinary painting but when giving it more attention, it starts to speak to us. It starts to reveal itself. It becomes clear that there might be something hidden for the viewer which doesn’t open up at first sight. It might hold some secrets. As with many paintings or works of art, this is perhaps a question of giving the painting some necessary amount of time. Being patient, working on it, in order for it to show its’ secrets. Through a close visual reading of Lorrain’s work, perhaps the painting may talk to us and help in its’ own translation, although of course: “the painting itself will always be literally silent” (Serres, 2010: 113). It is about an interpretation of what the painting is revealing to the specific spectator. It is about seducing the painting to talk to you in a specific voice while the perceiver is listening with the ear of the beholder. What do we see and hear? It reveals itself to us as a painting about work or even more specifically, about the organization of work. On its left and right the painting is enclosed by fierce and formal looking buildings, which give the impression of power and stability. Greek or Roman columns imply the idea of an empire. A top-down led organization where the workers are either paid to do their work, or are slaves, but nevertheless expected to work and obey. A situation where an arborescent, tree-like, binary structure is dominant (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) and the directionality goes one way. The buildings go up, they don’t come down. The orders go down, they do not go up. The buildings give the impression of solidity, of being static. They seem unmovable, although one on the left seems to be losing its ground to the water and simultaneously being slowly consumed by plants, already growing at the top of the building. Nevertheless they seem safe havens upon which to rely and convey their image of tradition. They give the impression of having been there for a very long time. Whatever happened between these buildings on the left and the right of the painting, they have stood their ground.

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In between them there is water and thus an immediate confrontation between the soft and the hard, always trying to get into each other’s territories (Serres, 2008). The waves move in various directions, directions that are often unforeseeable and unpredictable, akin to a rhizome (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). They shape a force field between security and danger. In the erection of the buildings there always lies a choice in the chosen shape for them. This is not the case with water. Water decides itself. It goes up and it goes down. Water can even decide not to let itself be limited in space, between the buildings and the shore. It can crawl onto the shore and flow over the land. This is further exemplified by the way in which the shoreline fuses with the water. It is as if the shoreline is in doubt whether or not to be hard. Maybe the painter wanted to show that it doesn’t matter if it is soft or hard, as the water decides whether or not to go onto the shore and leave the shoreline just where it is. It gives the impression that the shoreline is obsolete and that there is no real noticeable difference between the soft and the hard, between what remains in place and we can rely upon and that which flows away. When looking at the buildings we see people on the stairs. It is not really obvious what they are doing. Are they just hanging around, or are they perhaps interfering with the work? We maintain our focus upon work as a central theme and notice in the right lower corner two people are standing, talking to each other. They might be the commanders, or they might be the managers who are organizing the work? They might be the: “... the managers of the state machine …” (Rancière, 1999, 113). Perhaps they are an owner and a client? What is the work that they are doing? Various smaller boats are floating in this harbor. The boat in the front shows two people carrying a heavy case. It is not clear but perhaps they are carrying it aboard the small vessel, maybe in order to bring it to a bigger sailing ship and to take it out onto the sea. It could also be that they are carrying it onto the shore. It doesn’t matter in what area one looks, or how long one looks at the painting, these questions are never answered. The mysteries remain. The gaze is not capable of solving this riddle. We see a sailing ship almost in the middle of the painting. This ship might have sailed into the harbor, or it could be on its way out into the open sea. According to the title of the painting it is being embarked upon. This implies that it is leaving, not only as a discrete ship, but also as the meme of sailing vessels in general, leaving in order to be replaced by the steamship. This sort of leaving is also a strong theme in the work of the English painter JMW Turner (1775-1851) (Serres, 2010). Maybe this is what the two figures in the right lower corner are discussing, wondering

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how the business of sailing ships might evolve, and how their future is attached to it. So in this painting and based upon our reading of the work, we see overarching themes of soft and hard and the theme of change, unpredictable change to be more precise. We view these ideas as they are painted out before us, but we can never be sure what exactly is going on. If we can’t be sure, then how do we know that the characters portrayed in the painting are not going through the same motions? They are probably not sure either. How could they be? Much as the waves and the water are unpredictable, so also might the various characters’ business be unpredictable. They won’t know what next step the water is going to take. The organization as portrayed in the painting is thus one of uncertainty and unpredictability. Nevertheless the painter has provided us with an image. Whatever Claude Lorrain was thinking or trying to do, he nevertheless wanted to show something. He conceived of something, which he put in a painting, in order to have someone look at it, and have him or her wonder about it. He set about to create a reality that he knew would be interpreted.

Turner How does this visual reading connect to our thinking about the Claude Mirror? First of all we should state that painting is not only about the picture. It is not just an image, but it is about the art of painting. In other words, this is the use of paint and canvas in an artistic way. This implies that there is more going on than just the picture itself. This is grounded in the idea that our reality is not just a picture, because reality is incomprehensible. We are now confronted with two options. The first is that the image should be toned down to something we understand and can communicate. It should be a common simplicity that can be agreed upon. Such an image should alter reality into the regular. Therefore it cannot be considered art anymore, but non-art, or as we like to call it: entertainment. The second option is using the tendency of art and painting to exceed the perception of reality, and push, or kick us out of the regular. Art may expose a reality that is probably too much for us. As we will see, this was Turners intention: to stretch the limits of perception, to unveil the “too much”. The reason being, that there is always more to something than meets the eye. But what could this be in the Lorrain painting that influenced Turner? Perhaps the most striking part of the painting is the sun breaking through the clouds. Or is it the clouds shading the sun? Regardless, it is

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the light that makes this scene possible in the first place. It is also this particular use or painting of light which intrigued many other painters, as well as Turner. Most important for us, it is the portrayal of light by Claude Lorrain that led to the invention and proliferation of the Claude Mirror as a technology to recreate this aesthetic. It is thus the importance of a certain kind of light that sheds clarity on the problems of the soft and hard, and the unpredictability of business. We can boldly suggest that Claude Lorrain with his painting shed some light upon the obscurity of organization. This is also what the Claude Mirror does for the spectator. There are thus multiple movements that were triggered by Claude Lorrain and important for our discussion is the three fold connections of Lorrain with the painter JMW Turner. The first connection is that Lorrain inspired Turner as a painter, as well as the inventors and users of the Claude Mirror. Put another way, his painting is mirrored in future paintings. This means he was a genuine influence for many painters as well as upon Turner. This is evidenced especially with regard to the above described painting Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba, as Turners painting Dido building Carthage: Or the Rise of the Carthaginian Empire. This particular case was done without the use of the technology of a Claude Mirror. Turner used the painting by Lorrain to develop his own style. Through this inspired movement, an original occurs through copying. The second connection between Lorrain and Turner was that Lorrain was an inspiration on the practice of gardening, and one of Turners early assignments was painting a garden, which was built after the paintings of Claude Lorrain (Bockemühl, 2007). Thirdly, there are the studybooks by Claude Lorrain (Liber Veritatis), which were a big influence on Turner who was inspired to make his own studybook, the Liber Studorium. These studybooks can be regarded as early forms of textbooks, and thus prototypical tools used for teaching or studying. Claude Lorrain can thus be regarded as a forefather of textbooks. We return to the discussion of textbooks in the last part of this chapter. According to Deleuze & Guattari (1983: 132), Turner’s work is ageless. It comes to us from an eternal future or flees toward it. His paintings remain relevant for us. They are not about certain moments in time, but about life and our world in general. This does not imply that they are average. They are: ...incomplete...belong to no school, no period ...-art as a process without goal. (ibid., 370).

As mentioned before, they deal with whatever tries to escape from our perception, or alternatively overwhelms it.

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To conclude this discussion of Lorrain and Turner we return to the issue of light and how Turner uses it. Light is a very important feature, not only in painting, but also in organization. Without light, there is only darkness, which makes it near impossible to figure out what is going on. This illumination is needed in order to decide which direction organization should take, but this also involves a sort of risk. Should the light become too bright, it could be blinding. Illumination can be an unpredictable or even dangerous thing. It could lead to blindness, as is portrayed in Turner’s painting Dido building Carthage: Or the Rise of the Carthaginian Empire, which was influenced by Claude Lorraine’s Seaport with the embarkation of the Queen of Sheba. ...Turner does not exhibit, but keeps secret. (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983: 132)

Turner’s version is a painting, based on the sage of Regulus (Bockemuhl, 2007, 21), as seen through the eyes of a slave whose eyelids had been cut off, and thus constantly blinded by the piercing sunlight. The light is overwhelming and even devastating, and when it is, it loses its function of creating transparency or useful illumination. When the illumination is too much, too transparent, it becomes blinding. It becomes lethal. In other words too much clarity diffuses the eyesight and might even destroy it. In this respect, the transcendence described is similar to Serres’ comparison of how the intensity of a sensory experience is similar to the act of coitus (Serres, 2010); as senses become overwhelmed, there is a ceasing of the rationality of “homo-economicus”. We lose our minds and become irrational. Put differently, we lose our minds and run the risk of losing our heads. And even a little bit further, we lose our minds, heads, and bodies, just as in coitus. As seen in Dido building Carthage: Or the Rise of the Carthaginian Empire, Turner was well aware of the blinding characteristics of reality. All the clarity of the painting by Claude Lorrain which we described earlier has vanished and so interpretation becomes another story altogether. It is no longer about changes, or hierarchies, or the soft and the hard, or unpredictability. No, Turner shows us that the overexposure blinds us. As a result we see that the water is diminished and taken over by the rocks. We see the buildings as just fragments, and it is not really clear if they are still strong and stable. We see human creatures on the rocky shoreline. It doesn’t look like any form of organization is present. We get the impression that the light is taking over everything and that any reasonable detection of any reality, or organization, becomes impossible.

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Is this what Turner is telling us? That we need the darkness, the shadows, in order to organize our world? Or could it be that he is trying to tell us that nature is an even stronger force than any human organization could be. Is it a statement that organization is always overwhelmed by nature? In his paintings he shows the overwhelming eruptions of nature such as found in the brutal power of the sea, or the blinding light of the sun. Reality is volatile like spreading fire and it is especially this characteristic which was understood by the users of the Claude Mirror and which we further claim is how organization creates a reality. As users of the Claude Mirror, we step back, turn our backs to the reality presented to us and look from a safe distance, using a device that turns the world into a “harmless” place. It blocks out an excess of light, and as a result “reality” shows up. Maybe not “the” reality, but rather a reality that we can communicate about and which is clear to everyone. It is the actualization of a virtual reality. There is more. We can also argue that what the Claude Mirror does, as do the studybooks of Claude Lorrain, is to create consensus. The Claude Mirror silences deviance. It is the world of the Rancièrian police which puts everything in “order”. Everything seems restricted to the beaten path created by the compression of the Claude Mirror, through the process of clauding. This is totally different from the world of Turner, which is one of disruption, deviance, or coitus. Turner’s world shakes up the boundaries; it turns the hard into the soft and doesn’t compress, but blinds everything in an overwhelming eruption of light and thus is an act of art as opposed to the non-art of the copied imagery through clauding. This non-art and non-deviance of copied imagery seemingly suggests that clauding is a harmless activity and the Claude Mirror a trustworthy instrument. We argue that this is not the case.

1.3 Black Mirror In this part we more carefully examine the Black Mirror and try to explain what its reflections or intentions are. How and why did it appear? Why did it become enchanting and beguiling? What happens to our reality when we start looking in the Black Mirror? Why does this clauding seem dangerous? Now that we have examined the painterly origins of the Claude Mirror, it makes sense to more closely examine the apparatus. What is this device? What is it doing to us? Why are we using it? Are we using it, or is it using us? These questions seem urgent in our investigation of the Black Mirror,

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as it is also known. In taking this closer look, it seems necessary to also peek in this mirror’s reflection as well. To be very specific, this is because simply regarding the mirror as an object or regarding its’ reflection is not enough, for the mirror is a medium. Our central point revolves around the urge to shape another reality. What drives this desire for a new or altered image? What drives “this” distribution of the sensible? Such questions are far more important than solely considering the apparatus itself. We also feel that this medium, this translator, and the desire for it stand apart from time and so it is timeless. Simply put, the apparatus is just a thing that can be used to perceive the world in certain, desired ways. Our investigations go further than solely the considerations of the device itself. Therefore the urge to use the Claude Mirror in 17th century landscape painting is no different than the urge to use it in organization or organization studies. Consequently, it is therefore not very useful to try and produce a narrow definition of the Claude Mirror, because this seems not only impossible, but also useless. Or to put it differently: “...there is no set definition of the Claude mirror, there’s an endless number of variations” (Maillet, 2009: 22). This implies that the urge for the Claude Mirror is, as mentioned in the work on Turner, ageless. It is in a constant state of becoming and is therefore in the processual slipstream of reality. Nevertheless, we need to come to some basic sense about the apparatus. The Claude Mirror (also known as a black mirror or Lorrain glass) was essentially a “virtual reality device” (The Transient Glance, 2008) of the 18th and 19th century that was designed to offer a reflected image, which approximated the aesthetic of the paintings of Claude Gellée. Such mirrors are convex in shape and tinted black. The reflection in these devices is a right side up image, with a field of view that is greater than the ordinary field of vision offered through human sight. The convex nature of the mirror places a certain scale of emphasis upon what is in the center of the reflection and a muted lighting as described below: The distorted perspective, altered colour saturation and compressed tonal values of the reflection resulted in a loss of detail (especially in the shadows), but an overall unification of form and line. The Claude mirror essentially edited a natural scene, making its scale and diversity manageable, throwing its picturesque qualities into relief and-cruciallymaking it much easier to draw and record. (The Transient Glance, 2008)

So popular were these handheld devices that in areas such as the Lake District in England, there were prescribed tours with maps, directions and specified viewing stations where the tourist would stand and turn their

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back upon the natural vista in order to view it through the more aesthetically pleasing distorted reflection of the Claude Mirror. This popular trend was used by both the casual observer as well as the artist, who would turn their back upon the landscape, view it dark and distorted in the mirror, and then proceed to further make an artistic rendition of the reflection. Thus, unlike a simple lens, the Claude Mirror did not only act to mediate the experience of the environment in such cases. The reflection in the mirror actually then became the subject of the artist. It is this aspect of the popularity and aesthetic polity of the mirror that is most intriguing. Whether these renditions can be considered art is questionable.

Catropmancy As already mentioned the mirror has always been an important device in painting (Melchior-Bonnet, 2001). This applies not only to black mirrors, but also white or regular mirrors. The aforementioned Leonardo Da Vinci for instance, always checked his paintings in a regular mirror. Only this check could convince him of the quality of the painting, or in other words, if the image was to his liking. He referred to the mirror as a: “master of painters” (Maillet, 2009: 103). Da Vinci not only used mirrors, he even went so far as to design the machines for grinding the mirrors themselves. These and other various aspects regarding mirrors and their uses are thoroughly investigated by English painter David Hockney in his book Secret Knowledge. However, Da Vinci’s mirrors were the regular sort of “white” mirrors to which we are accustomed. They were considered “safe” mirrors. The “opposite” of the white mirror, namely the Claude or black mirrors, weren’t considered so safe. They played a contrary and deviant role in history, namely through catoptromancy or divination by means of mirrors. This catoptromancy was related to witchcraft and typically cast as being evil in nature. Therefore these mirrors were viewed with suspicion: ... they had a bad reputation. People owned them, they were bought and sold, but no one spoke of it. And with good reason! The convex mirror is the devil’s ass … (Maillet, 2009, 47).

In other words, black mirrors were associated with: …lust, bondage, S&M, depravity, scatology, satanism - in short, everything that ordinarily shocks, defies, and transgresses society and the politically correct. (ibid., 74).

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It is notable that this S&M plays a pivotal role in the history and philosophy of mirrors and also in organization2. So these black mirrors weren’t considered harmless objects: The black mirror unsettles and disquiets. Shadow, primitive, enigma, debauchery, dim reflection, magic, alchemy, sorcery, necromancy, subversion, death - so many causes for disquiet in the black mirror. (ibid., 75).

Black mirrors are definitely objects to take into careful consideration, and not something to be taken for granted or handled carelessly. Black mirrors have some tricks up their sleeves that escape or hide from the innocent eye of the beholder. The black mirror, both literally and figuratively, has a dark side to it, being: “a magical and diabolical object” (Maillet, 2009, 47) which frightened and intrigued people all at the same time: Through an analogous symbolism certain modern occultists believe that dark mirrors show only inferior or bad spirits, whereas clear mirrors present only good spirits. (ibid., 2009: 59).

This is the difference between the black and the white, the good and the bad, the trustworthy and the tricky, the safe and the dangerous. As philosophers, however, we find it compelling to go beyond simple dichotomies. We love the incomprehensible chiaroscuro. For us the function of the Claude Mirror is therefore not so much about the good or bad, but about a process of turning reality into a coherent visual unity. This is not simply about a represented reality, but about sensations evoked by reality. It is about the creation of a misty transparency. The Claude Mirror eliminates particular details and imperfections: “This progressive loss of the image is inseparable from abstraction” (ibid., 2009; 203). This might be regarded as a removal of triviality, deviations and of that beyond the “norm” and should lead to ideal beauty. We consider this to be a Rancièrian police distribution of the sensible. Of course, this ideal beauty is in the eye of the beholder, who with the help of the mirror is not only the creator, but also the perceiver of the image. In the process of creating this abstraction, the mirror allows one to select and to combine different elements, which the reflection then presents as unity. The image is thus not exact. It is an abstraction, although 2

see more on S&M in our chapter on photography and the work of Araki

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the sort and intensity of abstraction is a hazy mystery. It brings three dimensions into two dimensions (in this respect it shares a function with other types of mirrors). It creates an ephemeral view. This takes us to another aspect regarding the potency of the Claude Mirror as a medium. Rancière sums it best: A medium is not a “proper” means of material. It is a surface of conversion: a surface of equivalence between the different arts’ ways of making; a conceptual space of articulation between these ways of making and forms of visibility and intelligibility determining the way in which they can be viewed and conceived. (Rancière, 2007a: 75-76)

The central point is that it is not about the specific device or medium and the model or the copy, but rather about the functioning of the medium. In short, the way the medium contributes to the creation of a set of relations through which it enables a new image of reality. This set of relations is not dominated by the device itself, although such a device plays its role. Further, this set of relations suggests sharper, clearer and more easily articulated apprehensions. Far from being a simple mimetic relationship, this mirror offers something well beyond a trite copy. The compressed image of reality is a crucial aspect of our considerations of the Claude Mirror. As the image is compressed, some parts become clear and others get blurry or even disappear. In this respect a Claude Mirror functions somewhat like a veil, invoking considerations of a presence of an absence (Maillet, 2009). The Claude Mirror veils and unveils. One can see through the veil, but only a shaded, or smoked or misty image appears. It is akin to seeing the image of a city through windblown smog, or legs through a pair of lace stockings; a subtle interplay between revealing and hiding. Knowing that the image is compressed, we might at some point want to know how the image would look when it is de-compressed, or uncompressed. The ability to know what lies beyond the compressed image and it rests upon the combination of four main characteristics: sensibility, intelligibility, experience and comparison (ibid.). These characteristics are what is needed for such de-compression and making sense of the image and its’ implications. Furthermore, these four characteristics are not designated by the medium, but rather by the set of relations, surrounding the medium or device. This set of relations has a strong political component: “The indoctrination of the eye is not innocent, it is essentially political” (ibid., 86). We will shortly consider these politics when we move to further examine Rancière’s distribution of the sensible. To do so, we consider that in the case of the black mirror:

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... the mirror is always a metaphor for something (the painting, for example); it is ekphrasis. However, when the relation between the eye and the mirror is instrumental, the figure used is metonomy. Both the eye and the mirror can then be considered “contiguous instruments, on the same plane of operation, with varying capabilities and features. (ibid., 214)

This mirror is not a matter of metaphor. Instead, it is an instrument entwined in a metonymy, due to the contingency of eye and mirror. We are not concerned about seeing a mirror, but rather seeing what is in a mirror that relationally incorporates us as a part of it. This process of becoming is a direct experience. It is not an interpretation from a safe distance, no matter what medium is used. This evokes the story of the painter Turner, who reputedly tied himself to the mast of the ship under sail in a storm in order to get the genuine experience. He wanted to be tortured, his body mutilated, by the relentless whips of the mighty storm wind. Again, an example of S&M. Metaphor is just a safe distraction; it never becomes the real thing. It is like looking from a safe and sheltered distance. It is like a “bunker-view”. The metonym on the other hand, is the real deal. It is like the overwhelming light, which makes us crave for darkness, because the sun is so powerful, that we have to close our eyes, preventing them from being burned. Perfect transparency and illumination are blinding, just as the example of the Turner painting. It burns us, and this is not what organizational actors want. Instead, these actors want to see without being blinded, just like the users of the Claude Mirror. They need shades, sunglasses, or lace stockings. They might even assume it has the safety of the “bunker-view”, but it does not.

1.4 Black Organization In this part we connect the use of the Claude Mirror to organization and organization studies. We start with elaboration on Rancière’s distribution of the sensible, and argue how it interferes with the Claude Mirror. We highlight the organizational notion of consensus and how this goes hand in hand with concealing and the animal behavior of hiding. Furthermore we muse upon distorted realities and how these get accepted in organization, largely driven by ignorance. We suggest that this ignorance is different from Jacques Rancière’s notion of the Ignorant Schoolmaster. What is most intriguing about our consideration of Claude Mirrors in organization is the purposive turning of one’s back upon a particular

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reality for reasons of aesthetic preference. The political nature of the aesthetic and the subsequent use of the political reflection by artists as the reality to translate is fascinating, especially when placed against the backdrop of legitimate questions about whether or not such mimesis can be considered as art. The distribution of the sensible creates a consensus, and clauding seems to tell a story about the process of the political becoming both disengaged from the conditions of its inception and likewise taking on characteristics of the ideological. The central point is that when an initial distortion then becomes the subject of interpretation and further mediation, any discernible causal chain of power relations becomes hidden. Furthermore, because of this erasure or disconnection, retrospective accounts struggle to reveal these disconnected relations. Somehow those peeking into the Claude mirror and trying to cope with whatever is revealed will still sense that something is missing. They feel that something is hiding, but don’t know where to look. What is it? Where is it? It is comparable to when you take a stroll in the wild, and you can sense that animals are watching you, but you cannot perceive them. They hide. Consequently, the outcomes of clauding are both a product and a perpetuator of the embedded understandings of the originating power relations while simultaneously rendering this relationship invisible. This “taken for grantedness” is essentially a black box of relations rendered so sensible as to offer inevitable conclusions. Such a process enables the translation of “givens” across time and consequently has an interesting relationship with historiography. The study of the production of histories and the power relations contained within them are emerging as key areas of interest in organization studies. When the insights of organization studies and historiography are combined with an examination of art as situated in a sensible distribution, the strange intersection of historical presentism (the past seen and made coherent through the present) and originating conditions for ideology become apparent. This then brings art back into the game, because the potency of art is to offer the option of political emancipation, and to frustrate the process of stultification (Rancière, 2010), all in order to trigger a re-distribution of the sensible. Relevant in Rancière’s thinking is the idea of serendipity, although he does not use this notion directly. Strongly related to serendipity is the difference between art and non-art (which we refer to as entertainment). The idea is that through a certain and fixed distribution, a state of consensus is achieved. Such a consensus silences any form of deviance, or dissensus, and that is exactly what the use of the Claude Mirror, and thus the process of clauding is trying to do. It silences all that

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could be perceived and considered as different. One view, one vision, one thought; striving for univocality. This is what the distribution of the sensible tries to achieve. It creates the police as opposed to politics, according to Rancière (2010, 2009, 2007a, 2006, 1999). It opposes emancipation, and tries to rule out any deviant translations or narratives. This also is what clauding does. It seems clear that this process is not about art, but rather about entertainment and the creation of an artificial world that seems real and without any hiccups. That is exactly when the need for art as dissensus becomes dire, in order to ignite a re-distribution of the sensible, all driven by hiccups, by serendipity.

Consensus We now raise questions as to why this Claude mirror is considered, why clauding is so tempting, and the preference for the use of a mirror instead of a directly perceived reality. One question concerns the very idea of looking at a reality. What does that mean? When looking at a landscape, as in the aforementioned case of landscape artists, or perhaps as organizational scholars do when considering organizations, one may be overwhelmed by the richness of the picture and by the way it is frameless. It seemingly goes on forever. Wherever the eyes move and observe, there is something to be seen. However, no matter how careful the gaze, it proves difficult to find a beginning, end, or significant points in time which can be discovered a priori and have the same relevance for all observers. Perhaps this is an important reason why certain points in time in organizational life, for example the start of a project or the launch of a marketing campaign or redundancy-operations, are mutually agreed upon. They need clauding. They need to move the soft and moving into the hard and stable. However, this does not mean that such an agreement constitutes the same significance for all involved. A mutual and fixated agreement in a fluid landscape seems to be what is achieved. Just as the users of the Claude Mirror sought clarity in an overwhelmingly rich world, this is a similar process (albeit group constituted) at work in organizations. Thus, to some extent, organizational members create the landscape painting together and with imbedded relations: Mimesis is not resemblance understood as the relationship between a copy and the model. It is a way of making resemblances function within a set of relations between ways of making, modes of speech, forms of visibility, and protocols of intelligibility. (Rancière, 2007a; 73, italics in original)

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Organization is constantly looking for ways, devices, and mediums to portray the world and not so much for itself, but in order to communicate an image. Organization searches for a translating machine, to translate the world into signs as an attempt to break out of the solipsistic cage. However when one chooses a reality, one accepts a world. In the world of the Claude Mirror this means that details become darkened and some sort of unification of form and line becomes visible. It is a compression of a reality that puts forward some sort of relevant essence. Actors are thrown into a world which they have shaped but which they do not know and only suspect. Trust is an important facet of organizational life and indeed of mirrors as utilitarian devices. When considering this idea of trustworthiness and mirrors added to how we contextualize mirrors as rearward looking devices, we come to interrogate the past-referenced framing of the present in organizations. This is the mirror-based equivalent of the earlier identified historical presentism. Thus, making a choice implies bringing something forward, putting it upfront, letting it arise out of the mist, but also that the background itself remains mist-shrouded. It is a subtle play of depth of field. Something is hidden from our view and so it is not possible to see or know everything. Nevertheless there is a pressing need for an agreed upon reality which can be worked with. The whole is too much, so the alternative is a small sample of it to feel at ease with the surroundings. This is a world in consumable, communicable portions that offers a relative sense of security. It is a safe world of consensus, of police, of the distribution of the sensible.

Hiding Whether or not consensus is achieved, there is still the vexing issue of that which is hidden from us in the use of Claude Mirrors. Not just the choice we did not make, or the frame we didn’t choose, but also that which is hidden through the choices made. We are concerned about the details that are hidden from view, their relevance and even the possibility that they could contribute to any failures of the choices we made. This implies something nasty about our choices. Maybe we are not just choosing from different realities, options, or illusions, but we are framing a reality that hides certain details from us, relevant or not. Simply put, uncertainty is always embedded in choice. The Claude Mirror offers a sort of relief but at

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the same time does not necessarily make life easier and may actually strengthen insecurity, because we sense that something is hiding.3 In many respects this shares similarities with attempts to control nature. Nature in its unpredictability dictates to us a requirement to make sense and determine how we understand our reality. This fuels a desire to command nature, akin to the ordering of wild and rural landscapes in the case of the 17th century painters. This is likewise the case in dealing with the wild landscapes of organizations. When one orders, one initiates a process of concealing, and such ordering rules out certain kind of behavior, actions, or views. These then become invisible and go into hiding. This is the world of the Rancièrian police, a means against insecurity. Still, there is more to consider regarding the nature of hiding. According to Dutch philosopher René ten Bos (2008), hiding is what exemplifies animals. The animal’s instinct is to avoid being seen, to evade our view. Perhaps hiding is an animal instinct which humans possess but which they are not aware of, having largely disappeared through repression and civilized docility. If hiding is an animal instinct, then it seem to act in opposition to transparency or rationality, opposed to a reasoning process which determines inclusion in our reality. This separation of the rational from the animal likely contributes to the abolishment of many feelings not aligned with rationality. Despite the absence of rationality, animals know how to manage nature and life without devices. This is something that humans cannot do. In the absence of the legitimacy of the animal hiding instinct, humans require devices, such as the Claude Mirror, for such management. So whether it be drawing up organization charts or preparing annual reports, we thus show a rationalization of a reality that we have observed and from which all animal instinct is banned. Moreover, it goes further than being just a rationalization. According to Nietzsche (1999; 1886) in his aphorism (51, first book) Wie der Schein zum Sein wird [How appearance becomes being]: Der Beruf fast jedes Menschen, sogar des Künstlers, beginnt mit Heuchelei, mit einem nachmachen von Aussen her, mit einem Copieren des Wirkungsvollen [“Almost everyone’s job, even that of the artist, starts with cheating, with an imitation from the outside, with a copying of that which works/functions”].

3

See also the intriguing book by Canadian philosopher Mark Taylor on hiding.

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Reading Nietzsche offers that this situation is not just a rationalization, but rather it is feigning and hypocrisy that forms our reality. This hypocrisy is used to copy things from our perception and these things are beneficial and effective. Deleuze (1989, 1986) goes one step further, claiming that we only perceive things that are familiar, which are known and seem trustworthy. This idea is also firmly rooted in cognitive neuroscience (Hohwy, 2013). Individuals perceive what they want to perceive and are not keen on nasty surprises. There is a certain politicization of what is observed. First a mirror is chosen, and then the mirror decides what is relevant, in a world which is simply too complex. The Claude Mirror is a political instrument that is starting to seem not so strange after all. It is the politics of the police which tries to create a consensus, and which tries to rule out any dissensus. It mediates one correct translation from reality to image and shapes one univocal narrative and therefore rules out art by silencing the senses. It begets entertainment. With the choice to feel real in the mirror-mediated illusion, the line between reality and illusion becomes obsolete. However in our experience it seems obvious that reality is stubborn, doesn’t like orders even to the point of opposing them. It fuels dissensus which disrupts the consensus and makes the political viable again, urging a re-distribution of the sensible. This is a reality in which everyone can become a translator and narrator again. The process of clauding immediately ignites a process of unclauding or reclauding. Moreover, this is also what happens in organization. Although there is constant police striving for consensus, dissensus can never be ruled out. It is always lurking in the shadows, or alternatively in the extreme and blinding Turner light. It is always hiding, waiting for its chance to appear. It is the black organization messing about with the white organization. It shapes a chiaroscuro, secretively battling transparency.

1.5 Black Study-Book In this final part we elaborate ways that the Claude Mirror as a metonym is used in the world of organization studies, and how the mirror shows its captivating aspects. We suggest that the Black Mirror has become a dominant device in business studies, having turned into a Black Studybook. We contend that this can be regarded as a clear case of clauding. To summarize to this point, we are immersed in the chiaroscuro of the black organization which claims to be driven by consensus, and in this

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way trying to silence S&M and coitus in a process of stultification. We have a sense of why organization needs the Claude Mirror and how the process of clauding works. But there is still one aspect that is crucial in this process of clauding: the studybook. We have discussed how it became a relevant object for Claude Lorrain and Turner. This was driven by an urge to create a piece of history, but probably most important, to reveal a bit of the secret of their craft. Success more or less triggers the idea of laying down the elements of this success in some sort of medium. With intention or not, this could result in a valuable “translator” for those interesting in learning the craft. In the case of painting, someone interested in painting, but having no idea where to start, could use such a studybook in order to figure out a way to paint. This utility of studybooks goes for organization as well. For example, there are the self-acclaimed success stories, which are written down in books and then made available to the public. Anyone interested in that success can read, or study the written account of the secret of success. A famous example of the utility of studybooks is that of Jacotot, the protagonist in The Ignorant Schoolmaster (2007b), by Jacques Rancière. In this book Rancière stresses the potency of the medium of the studybook. In his example, a schoolmaster and the students were both ignorant but had a studybook, in their case the Telemaque, which shaped their knowledge of the language they wanted to learn. In this way the Telemaque provided a consensus on their topic of language. It functioned as a Claude Mirror, compressing elements that the creator of the Telemaque considered essential in learning the language. When we consider organization and organization studies we notice that studybooks form a crucial part of the obtainment of knowledge on organization. This means that these studybooks function like a Claude Mirror, and that they enable the process of clauding. But how does this clauding translation work in organization studies? It seems useful at this point to provide an illustration of how we might interpret an aspect of organization studies as a Claude Mirror. For this we use the example of the MBA and introduce the Claude Guru, and will illuminate their paradoxical position.

Claude Gurus The modern Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree has origins in America and was offered with close affiliation to industry. Seen as a practical, applied degree it married the applied engineering approach regarding what we now think of as evidence based management and informed such analysis with the understandings of the Human Relations

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school; essentially a programmatic Tayloristic approach to management. Later developments in the 20th century were informed by the confluence of the legitimacy of a university sanctioned degree, the will of industry in post-war America and the enormous number of returning servicemen who would accrue a state sponsored education through the financing of the GI Bill. Returning soldiers were familiar with a strict hierarchical management style within the military. Industry sought to make use of an experienced and stalwart excess labor pool, and the Cold War provided an enemy they might strive to out-manage in the name of patriotism and security. Consequently, in this context the rationalistic, ends-orientated manager was/became heroic. In the present context, management is often told that it needs to be creative, flexible and responsive (e.g. Peters & Waterman, 1982)4. This seems to carry with it the presumption that management education must therefore also be responsive. If this is the case, then why is the industry reflected gaze of instrumentality so distorted? How can we declare that innovation is the new normal while at the same time, by the same captains of industry, be criticized for not being practical and applied enough in our research and education of new managers? (e.g. Porter & McKibbon, 1988; Shrivastava & Mitroff, 1984). Is the historical reflection of the Cold War manager more aesthetically compelling, despite the present conceptualization of a landscape of change? Perhaps it has simply been rendered sensible. Here the Claude Mirror offers an important and nuanced heuristic view. The requirement for a framing and containment strategy to render a complex environment understandable, leads to certain presumptions. These presumptions are politicized and they are rendered sensible through notions of causality, historical presentism, distortions and aesthetic regimes. The requirement of a legitimated education process concerning management is predicated upon contextual factors, and so the university is enrolled in the project. Reflected in the Claude Mirror, certain aspects of this requirement are revealed, highlighted, concealed and hidden all at the same time. These aspects of the reflection are then interpreted as being aesthetically legitimate or not (e.g. management research should be practical and applied and driven by industry needs). Consequently during what is described as a time of change requiring creativity and novelty from management, there is a compulsion to maintain and reproduce extant approaches (e.g. business school accreditations).

4

see more on Peters & Waterman and their book in our chapter on film.

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One of the best-selling business books in North America, Good to Great by Jim Collins (Collins, 2001) has been a bestseller since its release (Niendorf & Beck, 2008). Notwithstanding the very serious methodological concerns (Resnick & Smunt, 2008; Niendorf & Beck, 2008) regarding Collin’s work, including flawed statistical analyses, mistaking association for causality, and data mining (a term which in critique seems to denote the “dustbowl empiricism” charge of the past), the most interesting aspect of this situation is the use of the book by top-tiered American business schools (Niendorf & Beck, 2008). Collins seems to have decontextualized the performance of certain publicly traded companies based upon inflexion points of change and then compared them with a dyadic organizational pair which showed similar growth which was un-sustained. Then, arguing that universal principles could be extracted from such success stories, he created a six-step process for taking good companies to greatness. Accepting Locke’s contention (Locke, 2007) that inductive approaches are best suited to “mesotheorizing” and not for large scale grand theories, this presents an interesting situation: a business best seller as a textbook and functioning as both a Claude Mirror and as a Lorrain studybook at the same time. This is a Claude mirror example of aesthetics at work in these examples. Let us be very specific in this, it doesn’t function like a Claude mirror, as a metaphor, in other words. No, it is a Claude Mirror. More precisely, it is a new conceptualization of a Claude mirror. This is what happens: through declaring in a very narrow and decontextualized way what is beautiful (or “great”, in this case) a totalizing perspective of goodness and greatness is extracted and then codified in such a way as to be replicated. This replication (the six steps to greatness for an organization) is then interpreted and disseminated through business schools as being sensible. This situation offers an example of how a particular aesthetic may be extracted, rendered as beautiful, reified as sensible, and then promoted as ideological. So we have stumbled into a situation whereby the captains of industry try to cope with the MBA education system and vice versa. One needs the other and there’s mutual agreement on the benefit of the joint effort. Still we see two different worlds far apart, and which remain divided by the specific part played by the guru. Moreover, the guru can claim anything he wants, as accreditation plays no role in his world. This is similar to the situation of Lorrain, who wasn’t subject to accreditation either. The Claude Guru has the freedom to offer whatever he pleases and the effect is a bestseller. At the same time the captain of industry gets disappointed in the accredited MBA world that loses its connection with

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the world of industry. The Claude Guru assumes a paradoxical position, and works simultaneously as a disturber and a connector. His story connects the world of industry with “his” studybook, which we term the Black Studybook. This is a studybook which functions as a Claude or Black mirror. Particularly interesting is that the users of this studybook are unaware of the fact that they’re using it. The mirror hides and tricks. Claude Lorrain became a guru, and as a result the Claude Mirror as device was developed and used. The new guru, is self-proclaimed, the Claude Guru, and his device is there for us, without the user knowing that it’s a Black Mirror that they are using. In this way the Claude Guru and his studybook functions as a sucker-punch. It can be referred to as a clear case of “claudemirroring” or clauding.

1.6 Reflections After arguing all this we are left with a dire question, namely: What are the odds of cracks appearing in the mirror? Let us rephrase this: What are the chances or the options of disrupting this claudemirroring, and infusing it with what Rancière would call dissensus? We now possess a detailed understanding of how the distribution and re-distribution of the sensible is simultaneously preserved over time and yet may also morph and shift in ways that range from incremental to paradigmatic, infused with hiccups and distortions that are triggered by serendipity. We arrive at a paradoxical realization. On the one hand there is a deliberate use of the Claude Mirror, although users might not be aware that it is indeed a Claude Mirror, so the political act of using it is already blurred. On the other hand, and this feeds the paradox, there is an ignorant use of the Claude Mirror. People are not aware anymore that they are using it, and their agency is driven by ignorance of a reframing, or simplifying, or claudemirroring of reality. “Let’s make it real simple, lean, clean, and green”, could be a random outcry of any manager in a given position, believing he or she is managing reality, while essentially managing ignorance. Reality is uncontrollable and untrustworthy and contains a considerable dose of serendipity, so this ignorance might not be such a bad management approach. In a situation where we don’t know, we just don’t know and maybe should leave it that way. The aesthetic beauty of the outcome of Claude Lorrain charmed Turner, and in turn many of us have been charmed by the work of Turner, so maybe there is something to this claudemirroring. Serendipity can become a welcome guest.

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The Claude Mirror is consequently not a simple story of turning ones back upon a reality, but is rather a politicized decision, perhaps based on ignorance, to frame the limitless with an aesthetically governed view. One may still debate the legitimacy of such a device in organization, but not without admitting that it seemingly makes the organizational world a lot simpler and more manageable. Provided with a constructed reality which supplies some piece of mind enables people to come up with stories that make communication regarding organization possible. We go further, questioning not only whether we should use Claude mirrors, but also realizing that they are already in use and individuals could not organize without them. This is less a matter of giving examples and more the idea of becoming aware of the fact that our decision-making is constructed by Claude Mirrors, regardless of how they are disclosed. With this knowledge it is possible to know that while our perception is incomplete, there is nevertheless the perception of something and this enables people to accomplish acts that we might or might not agree upon. Claudemirroring, offers a frame in which to work together. Offering reassurance in an otherwise endless horizon the act of claudemirroring supports a type of mapmaking needed in order to avoid getting lost in the terrain of our own perceptions. Finally there are considerations regarding the application of the Claude mirror analysis to organizational studies itself. It is fascinating to consider the endless changing, distorted and appropriated reflections of other modes and areas of inquiry to organizational studies, a potpourri of traditions and perspectives, yet with the difficulty of finding vestiges of the original landscape itself. These considerations are perhaps the most provocative of this chapter, for to consider that organizational studies and not organizing may in fact be the Claude mirror itself and are therefore a reflection which we view, firmly illustrates the metonymy (and not metaphor) of the claudemirroring. The decision making aspect of the mirror which is chosen and decided upon in a politicized context, possibly strikes an unforeseen blow; the colloquial sucker-punch. The mirror we chose decides for us, and yet we are often surprised with what we see. Perhaps our area of inquiry in this chapter represents the social and political technology that provides the reflection, and is not necessarily a fair rendition of its content.

 

 

INTERZONE 1 HAUNTED MIRROR

In an episode of the 1945 black & white film Dead of Night, we see a man and a woman, a “happy” couple, who are on the verge of getting married. To offer a token of her love for him, she buys him an antique mirror. He is apparently pleased and hangs the mirror up on the wall of their bedroom. Looking into it, he notices that it does what a mirror, any mirror, is supposed to do, namely to show a reflection of that which is mirrored; a reflection of him and their room. So far nothing unusual is going on. Suddenly the reflection changes. Instead of their room, he now sees a totally different, ancient room. He closes his eyes, opens them, and there is his normal room again. At first he is puzzled, but he soon concludes that this uncanny reflection is some sort of an optical illusion. So far so good, but the next time he looks, the ancient room is there again. This time however the mirror sticks to its illusion. The ancient room remains. Being puzzled, he informs his fiancé, who simply and pragmatically suggests that he just shouldn't look into this mirror anymore. This seems like a good idea, but it underestimates the seductive power of the mirror. He simply cannot ignore it. Its power is too strong. He is fascinated, intrigued, and is draws into it, through a fatal and unavoidable attraction. “I know there is something waiting for me on the other side of the mirror, something evil, monstrously evil”, he claims. His fiancé is obviously worried by this, and can only think of one reason for this behavior. She concludes: “perhaps you're overworked”. Traumatic behavior is immediately related to work, the root of all evil. He however is convinced that it is not just work stress, but rather that the mirror is playing tricks on him. This is a haunted mirror. He is sure of this, and he becomes afraid of what he will see next. He is afraid of what's in the mirror, yet he is also attracted by this altered mirror image, and beguiled by the mystery. But it is his mystery, as he knows that he is the only one seeing this illusion. So how can he know if it is the mirror, or maybe just himself becoming delusional? Maybe he is losing his mind? He therefore asks his

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fiancé to also have a look into this mirror. He knows that if she sees the same mirror image as he does, then he is not only not becoming insane, but also that they can share the experience and even collaborate in solving the mystery of this mirror. She agrees, and they both look in the mirror. He, again, sees the ancient room, but with only him in it, she is invisible, she is not in the frame, until they hold hands, which makes her suddenly appear in the mirror. She, on the other hand, sees a normal mirror image, which is a regular reflection of the room with both of them standing in it. This means that he cannot really convince her of the mystery in the mirror. Nevertheless she trusts him, which is perhaps typical in situations where love is involved, and she wants to help him in his quest to solve the mirror’s mystery. When solving mysteries, a starting point is to try to figure out what happened prior to the mystery occurring. This is where the couple starts their investigation. In retracing the history of the haunted mirror, she goes back to the shop where she bought it. The shop owner informs her that the mirror is haunted by traumas. As viewer you could wonder why he did not inform her of this when she purchased the mirror. It might have been useful information. Anyway, apparently the mirror has traumas, which it cannot let go. This is because the mirror has witnessed a murder. Someone strangled his wife in front of this mirror, after which the murderer slit his own throat. This was a traumatic experience for the mirror, and that is the reason why the mirror is haunted. It unfortunately also means that the first person, looking in the mirror, after the murder, becomes a murderer himself, after which he will slit his own throat. That is the reason that he, our protagonist, is drawn into the mirror, and the only one who can see the haunted image. He is therefore on the verge of becoming a suicidal murderer himself. She informs him of the background story, and we see them again, standing in front of the mirror. Suddenly, but deliberately he starts to strangle his fiancé. While being strangled, she looks in the mirror, and now she also sees the haunted mirror image. She sees how she is being strangled, and obviously knows and feels that this is not just an image. No, it is real. The image becomes real, and she seizes the chance to smash the mirror with a chandelier. The haunted mirror shatters to pieces, and the spell is broken. This re-awakens her fiancé, and releases him out of the spell and her out of the stranglehold. They're safe and happy, again. As they tell the story to some of their friends, who look puzzled, their first reaction is: “I think you could do with a drink”. Obviously alcohol is seen as a stress reliever. We, the viewers of this film are informed that mirrors can be susceptible to traumas. They seemingly have

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feelings. These traumas are transmittable, which in the film is referred to as crypto-amnesia. This transforms mirrors into dangerous objects and spectators into suicidal killers. This implies that we have to take caution with what a mirror can see. In other words, we have to censor its view in order to prevent it from getting traumatized and in turn it becoming a haunted mirror. However as viewers we have also learned that this goes for the image of work as well. Work is seen in this film as a logical source and explanation for traumas. Luckily the remedy, namely alcohol, is within reach. The drink as a reliever is easily welcomed and there is probably a good reason for that. 

   

 

CHAPTER TWO BELCHIN’ BENDER

2.1 Unveiling Last thing I need is horny robots, running around, tripping over shit … (The Devil’s Rejects, Rob Zombie, 2005)

Cartoons are something else. You like them or you don’t, you’re either into them or not. Of course this suggests that there is only one sort of cartoon, and thus we run the risk of over generalization. Such generalization should immediately raise eyebrows and evoke consternation. Just as not all films, paintings, or architecture have the same quality and impact, so also is it the case with cartoons. There are cartoons, and then there are cartoons, meaning there is a wide variety and differing expressions of the power of beguilement. This is beyond being just a matter of taste. Some will love Bugs Bunny, while others go crazy over Mickey Mouse, or Family Guy, or the Simpsons, or Ren & Stimpy. The list can be as long as we want it to be; it is seemingly endless. And even better, everyone has a favorite. One of ours is Futurama. We love this animated sitcom. We love watching and talking about it, discussing it, or even mimicking some dialogue of the characters. In addition to enjoyment, we also consider this show to be crucial in our thinking about mirrors. This is not a rational or scientific choice, but rather one of beguilement. Futurama, in its specific way, mirrors the present through a portrayal of the future. One of the ways it does so is through the idea of being cryogenically frozen. A mirror is created through both the icy frozen surface of those who are cryogenically frozen and their actions when they are defrosted. Through this depiction of a frozen present transported into the future, Futurama offers an intriguing image of the future and of the present. Therefore we are under the spell of Futurama and enjoying it. It informs us about organization and the way it “works” or malfunctions in the future, and does so especially well because it has arty qualities. In a

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recent promotional campaign on a series of lectures regarding The Simpsons (from the same creators as Futurama), it was stated that: “cartoons are arguably the purest of philosophical forms”. 1 We are not sure if Futurama is the purest form, but it is nevertheless an intriguing and relevant example. So our investigations are about art, philosophy, but also about the hilarious as well, and arty animals are especially susceptible to the hilarious. We start by watching how the series kicks off: my parents my co-workers my girlfriend I’ll never see any one of them again... YAAAAHHOOOOOEEEEE!

This quote is from Futurama protagonist Fry, upon his realization that he has gone to the future. This, unplanned time travel occurred when he was cryogenically frozen for exactly 1000 years; an event that the presently frozen Walt Disney is still waiting and hoping for.2 This strange cryogenic trip to the future draws the sketch for the animated series Futurama. Fry awakens in New New York in the year 3000, just when the new millennium starts. This triggers our curiosity and poses some questions regarding the future: how will the future differ from the present, will there still be people going to work, or how and in what way will technology improve our life? The latter holds the intriguing thought: Will robots be a relevant part of society and if so, will they be likeable characters? Through a visual reading of Futurama we will explore these questions. This means that we will have our eyes fixed on the screen and will indulge in the crazy world of Futurama. To consider Futurama is to investigate how the concepts of time and space intertwine in the future. To do this, we, as philosophers, will be guided by the character of Bender, the fire-belching robot in this adventure. What seems clear however from Fry’s joyous outburst, “YAAAAHHOOOOOEEEEE!” is that he is already thrilled and enjoying 1

as stated on the website of the University of Glasgow, on a course called D’OH!, after Homer Simpson’s (in)famous outcry. 2 see also: Baudrillard,(1994), who is obsessed with ice, even to the point where he is interested in what has happened to the iceberg, which caused the Titanic’s tragic ending.

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himself, even when just hearing the “good” news of having arrived in the future, and having left his old world behind. Apparently the past, which is our present, was not a “happy” place for him. It wasn’t a world where he preferred to stay and which had offered him anything desirable. This feeling of relief includes his parents, his girlfriend, and maybe most important his co-workers. He is glad to be rid of them. We can draw our own conclusions, or feed our own fantasies about why and how. We might wonder if his happiness will be differently grounded given his time travel, or to put it differently: has anything changed in the future, or is the future, for him, just like the present, just like now? Is the future now, or is the now the future?

2.2 Arty Cartoons In this part we elaborate on the “artiness” of cartoons. We argue how art and entertainment collide in our investigation of time and the mirroring of present and future. We further explore the role of the screen in mirroring. We also introduce the characters “working” in Futurama, and give some extra attention to Hermes the rastafari bureaucrat. Our choice of Futurama as being worthy of deep interrogation is not a random one. Although we are admittedly spellbound by the animated series, there are other reasons for this choice, although like many choices the reasons became clearer in hindsight. In Futurama, we are confronted with an animated sitcom that uses art-like qualities. We, as arty animals, are immediately intrigued. Futurama can be considered to be a work of art, and therefore places us as viewers in a position to independently reflect upon our world. This is not to imply that animated sitcoms are implicitly works of art, but that they have a critical potency that might be used. This is the case in Futurama. What is also clear is that we are investigating a popular sitcom, which draws many viewers. This consequently suggests that the animated sitcom is also entertaining. In this instance, we argue that art can reveal a world that is normally hidden from us, and thus can make us think. Such potency does not automatically oppose entertainment. We are caught in a provocative juxtaposition where art and entertainment collide and become more or less indistinguishable. Viewers of Futurama might feel it is art, but at the same time they are enjoying the entertainment. Put differently, they might be enjoying themselves, while simultaneously their thoughts might be shocked. The world of perception and thought and its distribution

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become shaken up, fueled by serendipity and disrupting the chain between cause and effect. Thus the video screen becomes an uncanny space where viewers are entertained and provoked. This is what Futurama does to its viewers. Futurama is a sitcom about the future. Despite this focus upon the future, it perhaps more so informs us about our contemporary condition.3 This implies that time and the accompanying space are visualized in new appearances. Time and space are being shaped in new ways that challenge perceptions or even dreams and yearnings for the future. We therefor suggest that the way the show reveals the future is entertaining, and the fact that this makes us think about our contemporary condition is arty. This comes with the consequence that the future is used to awaken us to the present, and perhaps even the past. It also implies that we need images of the future to be able to understand the present. In other words, without the future we are alienated from the present and thus become disconnected from it. The present itself is not enough, and Futurama is capable of mirroring a future that forces us to think. Futurama is powerful in that it shocks our thoughts. This is done in a laughable seriousness. Thus, it is important to note that the future portrayed in Futurama is not a metaphorical world that is shown to us, but it is a metonym, a world that is just as it is. It is real, although not immediately recognizable, being that we are caught in the entertainment. It is more precisely a reality we need, in order to make sense of our present “reality”. It is even more real than “real”. When viewing Futurama it seems clear that tempo is a very important aspect of an animated sitcom. The medium is television, so it has to be fast and likewise there has to be a logical plot using a narrative rhetorical form with a clear beginning and end. These requirements are also reasons why the detective sitcom is extremely popular (Ronell, 2002). However, this tempo and these cliché-like conditions that mould the sitcom, did not prevent Futurama’s founding father Matt Groening from creating food for thought, or even better, creating the Deleuzian “shock to thought”. It is rumored that Groening protected his artistic freedom and refused to place it as an item for negotiation when pitching the series. Is this the reason why Futurama kept its artistic and subversive potential? Maybe Groening even had the idea that an arty-sitcom would be a great business model. If so, this implies that the world of business needs a mirror to enable thinking. It is therefore important to understand that we 3

see also Alison Pullen & Carl Rhodes (2012) on Bender and gender.

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consider this sitcom, and comparable ones, to exist within the field of the Deleuzian film. Especially in the case of Futurama, when considering it’s collapsing of past, present and future, we find something Deleuze would argue is shown through hyalosigns. This triggers the potency to show us a real-reality and therefore shocks our preconceptions, helping us break the cast mould of perception and thought4. To consider Futurama as a sitcom, we also have to consider its predecessor The Simpsons, Groening’s break-through series. This does not negate other contemporary equivalents like South Park, Ren & Stimpy, Duckman, Family Guy or American Dad. Nevertheless Futurama creates its own relevant place between these animated sitcoms; sitcoms which shake-up the preconceptions viewers may have, and open up the potency and possibility to think. Just as Futurama’s specific depiction of the future offers us a view of a future which would normally be hidden, and which can make us think. However, practically speaking, when trying to make a visual reading of Futurama we are confronted with a large number of episodes and four feature length movies. In order to answer our questions, as we have posed them in the beginning, we have therefore chosen to limit this body of work, and to pick out three episodes to consider. These episodes are: Space Pilot 3000, Future Stock, and Lethal Inspection. They inform us about working in the future, technology and the role of the robot, and more specifically about the topics of testing, management, malfunctioning, and the immortality of robots. These are topics that help our visual reading and inform our investigations about living and working in the future. These topics became apparent in hindsight and after viewing Groening’s entire Futurama oeuvre. Nevertheless we somehow feel that they comprise the core of Futurama’s offered insights in order to shock and awaken our thoughts, in a hilarious way.

Hermes By way of providing some background, Futurama revolves around the lives of certain characters but especially around their place of work. The main workplace is a transportation company called the “Planet Express Delivery Company”. It is this positioning which becomes very important; it concerns the relevance of delivery and thus movement in relation to space. Being situated within the science fiction genre allows us to observe 4

see Deleuze (1989, 1986) and our chapter on film

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that travel through space at ludicrous speed collapses distance, while time likewise is compressed. It is this collapsing of past, present and future which enables the potency and relevance of Futurama. It is not without reason that the Planet Express Company’s main executive is named Hermes, the traveling messenger of the Gods. The Greek god Hermes is understood to be the God of trade, commerce and communication5 and these are probably the three most important ingredients for a transportation company like Planet Express. The other main characters working for Planet Express, as they are presented in the series, are the mad and twisted scientist Professor Farnsworth, the female uni-eyed manager Turanga Leela, the fire belching, chain smoking alcoholic and kleptomaniac robot Bender Rodriguez, the other mad and twisted scientist Dr. Zoidberg, and the nymphomaniac Dr. Amy Wong. Together with their accountant Hermes Conrad, and the aforementioned protagonist Philip J. Fry, we see a group of outcasts who probably could not find their place anywhere but at Planet Express. The impression is that they just don’t fit in the “normal” or “regular” world. Their only option is to “work” together in a transportation company, like Planet Express. Just as in the year 2000, where Fry was a pizza-delivery boy, the only option for dropouts is apparently transporting goods for others to others. The same goes for the year 3000, although the products themselves, the merchandise, might have changed. To press on, we must more closely examine the character of Hermes. The Futurama Hermes is a “rastafari” with an obsession for bureaucracy. This catches us in a juxtaposition, because we have the impression that the combination of a rastafari and a bureaucrat is an impossible one. When thinking about rastafari’s we might feel a pejorative connotation associated with the consummation of large amounts of marijuana. Simply put, one gets the impression of an individual who is occupied with smoking large quantities of dope, which is typically done in order to get “high”. When considering a bureaucrat, in this case Hermes the accountant, we have a totally flipped idea of someone who is not “high” but desperately trying to be very “down” to earth. We could say that where the rastafari is “high”, the bureaucrat is “down” or “low”. The combination of high and low seems a troublesome one. These are two characteristics which we assume could not coexist, but they surprisingly go hand-in-hand in Futurama. Perhaps the bureaucrat should also be high, even if he might pretend to be low? This also suggests that he is not down 5

Hermes is also central in the work of French philosopher Michel Serres (eg. 2007, 1997, 1995, 1983).

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to earth, but up in the air, and maybe even up in smoke. The implication is that the rastafari wants to get high in order to be low. So smoke is unavoidable and can be viewed as that which escapes from the apparently “hard” numbers. The hard becomes soft, going up in smoke and up into the air, where it disappears out of sight. When considering Futurama’s Hermes, he is indeed up in the air, in their delivery spaceship. Is this a lesson learned or a suggestion made: that bureaucrats should get “high” and leave the surface of the earth? Their work is apparently up in the atmosphere. What is certain is that in the future the bureaucratic character is still important, even indispensable. We see the bureaucrat still assumes his position, but also that he has metamorphosed into an advanced version by becoming “high”. Another important characteristic of Hermes is his extraordinary and adored skills in limbo dancing. How this relates to him being a rastafari bureaucrat is not immediately clear. Thinking it through, we could assume that a bureaucrat, or to be more specific in his case, an accountant, is concerned with controlling the “doings” or “business” of an organization, in this case Planet Express. He figures out if the organization is “on track”? Is the organization doing things that were agreed upon in advance? Is the financial situation stable and “within” budget? When we assume that organization is about economic growth, we could say that it is about “raising the bar”. This is not only about being “on track”, but also about improving, increasing, or expanding. Limbo dancing on the other hand is about lowering the bar. It is a contest where the one that goes the “lowest” wins. Apparently Hermes has to get high in order to go low again. So this is again a juxtaposition for Hermes, our rastafari bureaucrat. He has to raise the bar while simultaneously lowering it. Alternatively, we could argue that he tries to seek an improvement of his work/life balance, where he has to raise the bar at work, while lowering it in his leisure time. Moreover, we suggest that he knows that raising the bar is an illusion and that the only profitable way forward is lowering the bar, in order to improve. Continuing the argument, we see that he also considers physical skills to be important for a bureaucrat, implying that doing the work goes beyond just sitting behind a desk and requires getting down and limboing, and at the same time getting “high”. It is thus a combination of getting down and high simultaneously6 without any specific sequence or script. The bureaucrat goes down and high at random in a state of losing control and going up in smoke. It also shows 6

see also our chapter on High & Low, and how these intertwine.

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that he has a certain flexibility, which resists the stubborn and fixed structure of the organization. His flexibility is needed in order to make the solid and structured organization function. Furthermore we get the impression that he is the only one actually doing anything. As nobody else is willing to do any work, Hermes makes sure that some job gets done.

2.3 Fry & Bender In this part we elaborate on testing and how it affects the career opportunities of Fry. We furthermore sketch his introduction to the obnoxious robot Bender, and why Bender suggests to Fry that he “Bite my shiny metal ass”. We show why this opens up an opportunity for Fry to enjoy his new “work” life in the future. As mentioned, the series starts with the episode Space Pilot 3000, which gives an introduction to the life of protagonist Philip J. Fry. He leads an unhappy life in our loosely contemporary year 2000. He is a pizza delivery boy who hates his job, his family, his girlfriend and everything that is attached to that life. For him however there is no escape and therefore his only option is living the life he is living and accepting the drama. It is about Fry accepting the fact that he’s unhappy, can do nothing about it, and therefore has but one option and that is to accept this fact and indulge. It seems there is no way out, and in principle there is none. He has to roll with the punches. This however does not seriously take into consideration the element of chance. Due to chance he is directed to deliver a pizza to a science lab, where they have built a time machine. His ignorant curiosity, or beguilement, seduces him to have a “closer look” at this time machine. Due to a comedy of errors and perhaps a malfunction, Fry gets his lucky shot and he stumbles and is caught in the time-machine, becoming cryogenically frozen, like Walt Disney. He subsequently wakes up in the year 3000. When Fry arrives in the future, he is almost immediately recognized as a person who is not “registered”. Registration is comprised of not only ones name and number, but most of all, one’s job-description. Being that there is some experience with awaking the cryogenically frozen time travelers, one of the first things done to Fry is to test him and find out what his job should be. After being “thoroughly” tested it is decided that his job will be a delivery boy. This is indistinguishable from the pizza delivery job that Fry did in his old life. Fry freaks out. He doesn’t want to do that, and he hoped the future had something better in store for him. He was hoping for a better future, bright and shiny. His boss and tester, the

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uni-eyed Leila, makes it crystal clear to him this is not the case and after he woefully states “But I didn’t like being a delivery-boy”, she declares: Well, that’s tough, a lotta people don’t like their jobs but we do them anyway.

There is no other option for him; the test decides. This casts testing as a new form of religion, which is faithfully believed beyond questioning. In Futurama this theme is stressed and reinforced by an advertisement, seen in the background picturing a sad looking worker with the caption: “you gotta do what you gotta do”. These cartoon vignettes make it clear that our conception of the future and our perception of our present day might not be so different. For Fry, the possibility of getting a better future is shattered; he cannot go through the looking glass to another reality. Whatever better future that could be imagined nevertheless remains unattainable. He opposes and resists this, creating a space for friction between the status quo and moving on. But the status quo for Fry, the unwitting time traveler, is both contained in his history and found in his future now made present. The insistence of Leila, that she is just following orders to implant a “career microchip”, makes things worse and seemingly irreversible for Fry. We are thus shown that testing is taken to the extreme, the most didactic version of industrial psychology and deterministic biology imaginable. No longer is one tested in a way such that the results might function as advice. No, the test-results are binding. They are the definite outcome, not to be negotiated. Avital Ronell’s fear that testing will become a dominant factor in our contemporary life turns out to be truer than we could ever imagine. She refers to it as our “will to scientific knowledge” (2005, 7) and naturally this can be considered negative or positive depending on what position we take in the debate on testing. Regardless, the test decides what options in life we have and we are also aware that we cannot consider other options, because there is only one. This one cannot be negotiated, it cannot be escaped. It is our destiny, a destiny to be accepted whether we like it or not. Time will not change it. Time is rendered impotent. We are now confronted with a strange paradox: How can you hate something that you seem to be perfectly suited for? Could it be that the thing we are good at doing, is not the thing we like doing? Does this also imply that striving for the best results can be an illusion? Is there a significant difference between the rationality of the test and a particular

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desire? We argue that this testing may be understood as a rational machine, and that rationality is not in sync with desire. But it is also possible that it is not in sync with what Fry might be really good at. He might have qualities that escape the test and which he himself might not even be aware of. Such qualities could be very hard to detect, and have come to him by chance. This is certainly what the test rules out: chance, because tests are about certainty, however incomplete. Chance and security don’t go along together very well. They are not the coexisting ingredients for a happy marriage. Thus not only does Fry miss out on an opportunity to do what he likes, but he may also miss out on the chance to do what he is really good at. It gets even worse for the protagonist. It is made clear that the past life in which Fry was trapped, the life of a delivery-boy, will not take a different turn for him in the future. His life is fully organized for him and time plays no role. Whatever he wants, needs or wishes for, has no impact on the rational machine of testing, implying that such rationality kills any passion for work. Fry’s treatment as a machine implies a broader wish for a robotic human: the sort of human who behaves as a robot, who agrees and complies with the outcome of the test, and who operates as a clean, shiny and well-functioning machine. This is what is needed, and what people are tested for in the Futurama future. Robots are needed and humans are overrated, unless the test proves that humans can be made to function as robots. It is significant that the timing of this testing coincides with the moment when Fry meets the robot Bender. Bender’s first line “Bite my Shiny Metal Ass”, is both prophetic and inaccurate, for Fry then retorts that the hind side of the robot does not in fact appear very shiny. We are consequently introduced to a robot that has all the characteristics that the French philosopher Michel Serres (2008) thought they would never have. This Futurama robot is an alcoholic, cigar chain smoking, womanizing, egocentric, kleptomaniac, who is never to be trusted and who is not working7. Beyond the caveats about trustworthiness and general sloth, Bender is open for anything, as long as robot type work is not involved. This leads us to consider a new kind of robot, a new conceptualization of what a robot might be. It also causes us to suggest that when the craving for humans that behave like robots backfires, the new robots that arise might even be worse than the untrustworthy and 7

we have to notice that working has two meanings, namely work as a physical activity and the idea of work as functioning of a machine. In the case of Bender he is not working, meaning he is not doing any work. This goes for Fry as well. The question of malfunction is another one.

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unpredictable humans. On a positive note, meeting with Bender makes Fry realize that his new future is not necessarily bad news. He ruminates about his situation, which he now doesn’t find very upsetting, and proclaims: Y'know, I guess I should be upset but actually I'm glad. I had nothing to live for in my old life. I was broke, I had a humiliating job and I was beginning to suspect my girlfriend might be cheating on me.

Bleak as Fry’s past/present/future was/is/and could be, there is a certain relief that the future is in fact not so very bright or shiny. The utopia is already here and now, even if it is not so very utopian. Despite the testing regime, Fry is able to see something different: a robot, purpose built, which is not complying with any of the preordained requirements. This gives him the impression that there is a possibility for him to also not do anything. In other words, that he can get away with “not working”. This immediately makes him happy, and colors his future bright and shiny. Whether or not this mirrors Bender’s ass, is not the point. Whether he did some actual work in the past, the year 2000, is also besides the question. What is important is that he is beguiled by the future prospects, which Bender has painted for him.

Bender’s Belching We now take a closer look at Bender. At first glance he has all the characteristics that we consider fit for a robot, meaning he looks like a robot should look. However this is where the similarities stop, because his behaviors deviate as far as possible from what we should expect from a robot. Robots should behave in a well-mannered and rational way. They should resemble, as mentioned, the “perfect human”, whatever that is. They should be obedient and any bad manners, which humans might have, should be unusual in robots. This is definitely not what Bender is about. He curses, he chain-smokes cigars, he is an alcoholic, he is lazy, untrustworthy, he is a kleptomaniac, a womanizer, and last but not least, he belches fire. A robot that is more human than human, because he does everything that most humans would prefer him not to do. Put differently, humans might wish to do these things, maybe even enjoy them, but they do not do them because such actions are not socially accepted behavior. If they would do these things, they would most probably do them in a secretive way, out of some kind of desire to conform to societal norms. This compliance with expectations allows us to

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argue that humans then become more like robots, mirroring what we have seen in the case of Fry. They become more and more programmed to do what society expects them to do, and be what society expects them to be, and this includes living and acting according to their pre-determined job description. We are thus seeing a certain kind of dressage or training, which is intended to keep humans within bounds. On the other hand we see in Bender someone who is stepping out of these bounds, and therefore becoming a robot that is more human than humans. While expectations of his surroundings, for example his working environment, suggest he should act stereotypically robotic, he stays human. He is being-human. Bender is willing to be engaged in employment, but he is not working. Incidentally, this goes for the complete crew of Planet Express. Everyone has a job, but nobody is working, except for the rastafari accountant Hermes, the amazing limbo-dancer, who goes low and high simultaneously and who offers flexibility to the stubborn structure of organization. There is yet another poignant dimension to the character of Bender: he is also a body without organs. Organs are of no use to a robot, but here we are writing specifically about the Deleuzian body without organs: In short, the body without organs is not defined solely by the absence of organs, nor is it defined solely by the existence of a determinate organ; it is finally defined by the temporary and provisional presence of determinate organs. (Deleuze, 2003, 42, italics in original).

This is not so much about absence, but rather about the fact that organs should not be constantly directing from a stable or frozen situation. It is thus an unstable situation. This means that organization is unstable and not fixed, and therefore unpredictable. Organization needs to be flexible, just like limbo dancing Hermes. Bender’s robotic body is exemplified by a “polyvalent orifice”. Although Bender has more than one orifice, they seem to function in a quite similar ways. He uses his polyvalent orifice for drinking alcohol, thieving and belching fire. When we compare him to the body without organs as pictured in the work of Francis Bacon (Deleuze, 2003), we see a stunning similarity. There, in the screaming popes of Bacon, the body erupts out of the mouth, out of the scream. We see the same thing happening with Bender through his belching fire. It is the body that tries to escape. The horror cannot stay inside. It is the visualization of the spasm, an eruption via the belch. Benders belching fire, however shows us the

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power of the ludicrous. Bender’s power and his horror, is a happy-horror. It is the opposite of the maniacal, frustrated and impotent scream of the Baconian Popes. Bender is definitely not frustrated or impotent, although he might be a maniac; a happy maniac, enjoying the happy-horror of life. He enjoys what he is doing and he wouldn’t want to do anything else. Although his surroundings or his colleagues are not always happy with his attitude, he is having the time of his life and his being immortal means this could last a mighty long time. It is the power of the ludicrous we have lost touch with and which Bender brings back to us. It creates a zone of indiscernibility or undecidability between man and robot. This friendly violence, maniacal joy, or happy-horror of Bender exemplifies the critical potency of Futurama. His fire blasting belches shocks our thoughts and creates hope for a future; a future where robots, just as humans, are alien to work, but not to employment. This illustrates a new conceptualization of work, life and their balance, and breaks through our cliché-like conceptions where the only options seem either good or bad.

2.4 That Guy In this part we consider the management style of That Guy, an 80’s character who becomes CEO of Planet Express and tries to create a “backbone” for Planet Express. We juxtapose the notions of fairytale management and mess management. Both do not involve any “real” work. We have already touched upon the topic of organization, with or without bodies, so now we turn our attention to how leadership or management is portrayed in the future of Futurama. An important example is the episode Future Stock found in series three. This episode opens with a stockholders meeting of Planet Express, which is held in the “Comfort Dome-Inn”. Present are the members of Planet Express, including their janitor Scruffy, and an old lady with a cat. Their CEO, Professor Farnsworth takes the stage and a film of Planet Express is shown to recapitulate the fiscal year, and stress the success of the company. We hear the voice-over: Planet Express is on the move. For this young, hip delivery company, tomorrow is today and today is yesterday. You heard me. It was a year of soaring profits and significant one time losses. And so our company flames onwards.

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Planet Express: Limitless potential, boundless horizons, the unstoppable juggernaut of the corporate universe.

During the screening of the film Fry and Dr. Zoidberg walk away in search for free food. Fry ends up at a “Cryogenic Support Group”. This is meant for people who have been cryogenically frozen and feel an urge to share their experiences with other post-cryogenics or defrostees. Here Fry meets “That Guy”. The latter tells his story to the support group, about how he had been extremely successful in the “old” eighties. He proclaims, “we could rule this world, if only someone gave us a shot”, and claims that he is “ready to sleaze my way back to the top, eighties style”. Fry is impressed and immediately bonds with That Guy and his “impressive” monologue. He happily joins in and states: “they’re afraid of our raw power”, and spontaneously offers him a job at Planet Express. Whether or not Fry is even in a position of offering anyone a job seems beside the point. Nevertheless That Guy immediately accepts the offer, and proclaims that he considers this “awesome, awesome to the max”. Fry takes That Guy with him back to the stockholders meeting, where meanwhile the film has ended. Despite the film’s extremely optimistic message, Hermes declares that Planet Express is almost bankrupt. This leads to a considerable outrage with the shareholders present. The present CEO, Professor Farnsworth is held accountable and some explanations are demanded. His answers are not to everyone’s liking, and some demand a new CEO. Loyal Hermes nominates Professor Farnsworth, while Fry nominates That Guy and votes based upon his shares, equaling 10% of the total votes possible. Scruffy, the janitor, who owns 40% of the shares votes for the “mysterious stranger”, and with the one vote from the old lady with the cat, That Guy gets elected as the new CEO from Planet Express. Fry favors That Guy, not only because “he wears a suit, knows about business and stuff, and wears a tie”, but probably most of all, because he has experience in the “old” eighties. Fry is referring to his period on the “old” earth where so-called “neoliberalism” or “neoconservatism” was dominant, something often referred to as “Reaganomics". During this time instrumental rationality seemed the only option and the number became dominant. This was fueled by the adage what is measured can be managed. There was a strong urge for transparency, efficiency and a belief in a logical chain between cause and effect. When looking at the business of Planet Express, we can argue that transparency and efficiency are absent, and there seems to be no chain between cause and effect. The employees of the company probably have

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no clue what they are doing or why. The business of Planet Express seems a mess, and this might be the reason why they’re almost bankrupt. Even a rastafari accountant, getting high and low simultaneously, and trying to keep it flexible, cannot prevent that. The idea of entering into a world of neoliberalism or Reaganomics therefore seems a good option to Fry. The others seem ignorant or just do not care. They want to carry on, preferably doing nothing. That Fry has no clue what neoliberalism, or 80’s style entails seems obvious. Therefore he has to rely on other things to judge legitimacy, like a believable story or convincing looks. These are the only attributes that are convincing to him. After the shareholders election for CEO, That Guy explains his views on doing business: Let's cut to the chase. There are two kinds of people: Sheep and sharks. Anyone who's a sheep is fired... Sharks are winners and they don't look back 'cause, they don't have necks. Necks are for sheep. I am proud to be the shepherd of this herd of sharks and I am gonna lead you to the top in this industry of ... of—.

Shockingly, That Guy has no idea what kind of business they are in. Fry then explains it to him. In fact Fry is the only one who trusts That Guy and believes that his being elected CEO is a good thing for the company. For his loyalty, That Guy rewards Fry with the position of assistant CEO, which makes Fry happy and proud, although he has no idea what it means. That Guy queries Fry about what he thinks is the secret of success. Fry thinks it is about “working really, really hard”. That Guy explains that it is all about appearance and that they therefore should change their appearance to the eighties style. He wants to bring back the so-called Reaganomics. During their first business meeting That Guy reveals his strategy to the crew of Planet Express, and he starts with “to blame everything on the guy before me”. He asks his predecessor Farnsworth for his business plan. When the latter hands this over, That Guy says: “this is not a business plan, it’s an escape plan”, upon which Farnsworth yells: “so long suckers”, and runs off. The Planet Express crew, however, does not look happy with this new strategy and becomes clear that no delivery has been made since the

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new leadership took over the company. That Guy replies: “Delivery has nothing to do with the delivery business. Image people, image”. They are worried that That Guy is turning their business into some kind of ... “business”. The professor who has now mysteriously returned assures them that: “This isn’t a business, I’ve always thought of it more as of a source of cheap labour. Like a family”. The idea of bringing the 80’s way of doing business back and really believing in it is backfiring within the organization. That Guy, the expert, turns out to be their nemesis. We see how the role of the leader, or the CEO or manager, is largely about appearance. He has no notion whatsoever about the business they’re in. No expertise or experts required, just as Henry Ford, Fordism’s founding father, rejected expert advice.8 In the future of Futurama experts are mistrusted in the same way. Might this be related to the position of That Guy, the person who abandoned his name for a pseudonym? This pseudonym gives us no clue about the identity of this person. Who is he? He is only appearance or image. He is only doing his job, although he has no clue what that job is. His job as CEO likely does not even have a description so his job title becomes his identity. So it is just a job title, with no clue as to what that means. That Guy never has to reason on a human level with his colleagues. This can only be done on an artificial, robotic level. This same logic underlies the reason why Bender the robot is named after his function, a bending unit. A job-name is robotic. It is inherent to the loss of identity. This goes for Bender and That Guy. Bender however acts as if he has an identity, or tries to get one, and through this becomes more human than human.

Boneitis During an unexpected event That Guy sells the company to their competitor “MOM”, putting Planet Express employees out of work. Everyone is angry with Fry, who states that: “he didn’t see it coming”. The take-over however, is prevented in the end as That Guy fell victim to his old 80’s disease “boneitis”. Boneitis is the crumbling of bones and the subsequent collapsing of the body. This tragic change of events saves the company. Boneitis breaks apart the appearance-business of That Guy. This suggests that bones, even backbones can be detrimental to organization. Perhaps this is why Hermes tries to keep it flexible, to prevent the bones hardening and the possibility of collapse or of crumbling. 8

see Grandin (2010) on Fordlandia, again with some referencing to Walt Disney

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Although That Guy is probably ignorant of the relevance of flexibility, and still believes in bones, he knows about his problem of boneitis although he seemingly forgets about it. He is busy being an 80’s guy. The fact that he was cryogenically frozen in order to await a cure in the future apparently slipped his mind. Maybe, on a subliminal level he therefore prefers sharks to sheep, because sharks don’t have necks, and have very few bones. They have mostly cartilage instead. So they don’t run the risk of boneitis. So it is not just that organs, as we have seen in the case of Bender, are detrimental to organization, but this goes for bones as well. This might be because bones represent structure, but not organization as such. It is only appearance or image. We then get the impression that the organization That Guy proposes, in other words the neoliberal, or Reagonomic way of doing business, does not need organization at all. It only needs something that looks like organization. It is just bones, just structure, without identities. It is not about doing anything, but only about the image or appearance. The body with bones creates a fairytale world, which appears to be functioning, but eventually falls victim to boneitis, and the moment of crumbling or collapsing is designated by serendipity. So we never know when boneitis will hit the organization. When the bones are gone, the body and thus the organization fall to pieces. So, we argue that boneitis comes from the sole reliance on imagery and not actual work. In other words Reagonomics or neo-liberalism favors fairytales and therefore falls apart in the end. When that end will occur is completely unpredictable. We get the impression that a body without organs improves business, while a body without bones is detrimental. Notwithstanding what we have explored above, in the Futurama episode That Guy has a plan whereas Planet Express basically has none, only an “escape-plan”. As Professor Farnsworth has shown, escape is impossible. He returns mysteriously, implying: there is no way out. Planet Express has no plan but this wasn’t a problem, because they were never planning to do any actual work whatsoever. Translating this to style, we can refer to the management of That Guy, as “appearance-management”, “image-management”, or “fairytale-management”. The style of Planet Express, on the other hand, can be referred to as “escape-management”, and we can argue that this basically resembles a mess, where nobody really knows what is going on, and no one really cares. We therefore might also refer to this as “mess-management”. However the staff members of Planet Express are still having a great time, and seem to survive, so there is some viability in mess. The employees do not pretend, but just abide, and they do not need structure or fairytale identities to do

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so. They do not need bones, but rather, mess. They are not a body with bones, but a messy body. That Guy was the CEO of a delivery company that does not deliver anything. The only thing he delivers, according to Hermes is “swinging baloney”. Hermes brings things into perspective from his bureaucratic persona. He knows the importance of limbo dancing. Bender brings it into perspective from his alcoholic gaze and his fear of losing his comfortable lifestyle full of alcohol, cigars, women, and especially being lazy. For Bender, work has nothing to do with working, but only with making money and doing as little as possible. In that case he is more similar to That Guy, than the rest of the crew. Bender and That Guy are the ones that hide behind a pseudo-name and are the ones who truly know the meaning of efficiency; make loads of money without doing any actual work.

2.5 Leaking Robot We are confronted with Bender’s fear of being mortal and why he doesn’t want to be just a “bag of flesh”, like his colleagues in Planet Express. We show why the limbo dancing rastafari bureaucrat who goes high and low needs emotion in order to open up the malfunctioning of robots. This malfunctioning is what is badly needed in order to retrieve the full potential of machines. In the episode Lethal Inspection, we learn more about Bender’s origin. We had already learned, in another episode, that he was built on an assembly line on the bad side of Tijuana, but now we find out that there is more to this bending-unit robot than meets the eye. It is in this episode that we are confronted with Bender’s fear of dying. This happens after playing a laser based combat simulation game. In this game, some feigned killing is going on and yet a happy end is always at hand: for the winners, because they are alive and have won, and for the losers because they are alive and losers, yet still have an opportunity to become winners next time around. Every game holds chances that you might take, as long as you are still alive. A simulated combat game makes this possible. Bender jokes about this game, because he is immortal compared to his human colleagues. He is a robot, a machine that can always be reconstructed. The only weak part is his memory, which has to be copied into a new machine. We are led to consider that our “new” machines, the machines we use for consumption and production, have an ever-decreasing life span. This means that it not at all a certainty that a machine will be always useable or repairable, a strange peculiarity which eventually estranges

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them from human use. By way of examples, we can think of cars, which eventually become irreparably damaged, or the floppy disc, the 3.5” disc, the music cassette or the VCR. Machines are subject to evolution and therefore are in a constant process of estrangement. This process seems to speed up. In the case of Futurama, this speeding is brought to a halt in the future. Bender occupies a condition where the estrangement is put to a halt and machines are solid members of society in which we can safely put our trust, knowing that their functioning will never let us down. They are what they are, and nothing is going to change that. Their use remains useful. In any case, should damage occur, we could repair or restore such machines to working order. So there is no need to dispose of them; repair is always an option.

Bags of Flesh The immortal Bender laughs at his friends and colleagues and calls them as “bags of flesh”. However, based upon our prior discussions we argue that they are more than just bags of flesh; they are also bodies with organs, which refuse any kind of organization that can put them to work. They furthermore can turn into bags without bones, whenever they fall victim to boneitis. Then they’re just pure flesh, or maybe better, flesh and skin. Regardless, Bender’s human colleagues are mortal and he is not above reminding them of this fact. Bender’s laughter is silenced only when he suddenly notices that he has lost some oil. There is leakage from his body. His body leaks oil. A body leaking fluid is not an unusual situation for a human, because they obviously leak all sorts of fluids9. We can think of saliva, sweat, blood, urine, semen or milk. We can say that there is a constant ongoing and often uncontrollable process of leaking. Related to this leaking of fluids is also a constant process of refilling the human body. Fluids have to be replenished. Through food or beverages the body has to obtain its quota of fluids. The element of fluidity, which exemplifies a body, has to be maintained; otherwise the body desiccates. It turns into a “bony” substance and is on the verge of falling victim to boneitis. This fear of boneitis and drying out was never a problem for Bender; his consumption of fluids (mostly alcohol) had only an element of fun or trying to be cool, sexy, obnoxious and ruthless. He filled up his organless body, without any problem whatsoever, and he never leaked. Therefore when he spilled oil, he knew he was in trouble. This was 9

see also Linstead (2000)

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worsened by the fact that the leakage turned out to be due to faulty construction that also prevented him from restoring his memory in case of a malfunction. Bender’s body, his shell, or exoskeleton, is replaceable, whereas his memory is the only element that is unique and therefore has to be protected. His leaking turns his being a robot, into a becoming human and that is the one thing Bender definitely does not want to be. He wants to be a robot and an immortal one at that. In the episode Lethal Inspection we learn that a mistake has been made during the robot’s production. Bender wants to know which bureaucrat is responsible for this lethal mistake, and therefore he and Hermes go back to Tijuana, to the original plant where Bender was assembled. Bender wants to find the “paper pushing file jockey” who is to blame for his “mortality”. Perhaps predictably, the plant is closed down. It is out of business. It seems that in the future manufacturing plants have also a limited lifecycle, just like contemporary facilities do10. We then discover the shocking news that it was his colleague Hermes, the bureaucratic Rastafari, who was responsible for Bender’s faulty construction. We see that the oversight happened in a moment of emotional weakness. Although Hermes knew that the “baby-bender-robot” had a malfunction and should be disposed of, he fell for the sweetness of the baby robot and gave him his sign of approval, his quality seal. As a consequence, we see a bureaucrat who is part of an organizational machine, who can be described as a machine within a machine, malfunctioning. A machine should have no emotions, at least not in the case of the sort of machines we are familiar with. Because Hermes is a human turned into a (bureaucratic) machine, we might forgive him for not being able to abandon all of his emotions, but he is supposed to act like an emotionless machine. However, there is another way to read this situation. Perhaps Hermes is such a perfect machine, that he knows that the malfunctioning of Bender turns Bender into a better machine. Hermes knows the importance of limbo dancing and being flexible. He knows the importance of smoke that escapes the grasp of our fingers. Although it is not visible in the episode, it could also be that Hermes, functioning as the perfect machine (even without his knowledge) understands that the functioning of Bender would be imperfect should he be without flaws, and that he, Hermes, has to rearrange the machine to render it less than perfect.

10

In passing it is interesting to notice the synonym “plant” for both the organic and the industrial.

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This is comparable to the ideas of the philosopher Sohn-Rettel (in: Agamben, 2009, 165-171), which talks about the: “Philosophie des Kaputten” (ibid., 165), which we understand as a philosophy of broken things. He claims that only when things are broken do they become usable. Put differently, malfunction is what makes them functional: True technology only starts, when man is capable of resisting the blind and hostile automatism of the machine, and when he learns to use it in fields and customs not thought of before …(ibid., 165-166).

He argues that the potency of a machine is always latently maintained, whether it malfunctions or not. This implies that we can release this potential from its bindings. This freed potency can offer us new unimagined possibilities and make the machine less mechanistic, although it still remains a mechanism. It is about freeing the machine and claiming new territories for it to function and be used. Of course, this also means that designing a machine necessarily has its blind spots. The design of a machine imbues the mechanism with potential developments that are disconnected from our intentions. Thus we are creating technology or machines that will function in considerably different manners than we intended. In other words: we never know what a machine is capable of. Probing this further suggests that it is the task of the designer or user to figure out what the machine is actually capable of or how it can actually be used. In the case of Bender we see that he is designed as a bending machine, but turns into a machine that is made for thieving, womanizing, chain-smoking and heavy boozing. It is not immediately clear what we would use such an obnoxious machine for. We might have to be cryogenically frozen and transported to the future to figure this out. Yet another important aspect of machines is shown in Futurama, namely that they are unhappy. This is despite the refined testing regimen we have already considered. Bender illustrates how what he was made to do is not how he wants to function. He is designed as a bending machine, but does not want to be a bending machine. He wants to live life his “own” way, and therefore he quits the bending business and becomes a member of Planet Express. This gives him all the freedom to do whatever he wants to do, which is boozing, smoking, thieving and chasing women. Just like Fry, he opposes the result of the test and similarly, he gets away with it. Losing his immortality, however, is another dysfunction for Bender. When this happens to him, his life gets a new twist. He goes through a profound qualitative change, and has to live the life he has to the

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fullest, without a second chance. He has to embrace life in a new, almost Nietzschean way. “We do not even know of what a body is capable” is the famous Spinoza saying11. This goes for a robot as well. We do not even know what a robot is capable of, unless it malfunctions.

Suicide Booth One of the surprises that Bender confronts us with in the first episode of Futurama, Space Pilot 3000, is his frequent visit to the so-called “suicide booth”. How can we explain this mysterious act? What is the point for a robot to commit this seemingly pointless activity? Is it his attempt, knowing that he is immortal, to destroy his being-machine and try to change it for a becoming-human? This is stressed by the fact that the coin needed for the suicide booth is on a string, so that Bender can use it endlessly. This might imply that he is hooked or addicted, just like he seems hooked on booze, money and women. Could it be that it is a twisted form of robotic masochism? 12 Regardless, this is an example that illustrates the breaking of the logical chain between cause and effect. The only chain left is the one he has on his coin for the suicide booth. Bender lives according to a twisted version of Nietzsche’s eternal return in which he is willing to take the chance, whatever the outcome, of becominghuman and thus losing his robot identity; an endless repetition with the hope for a difference. The fact that he is immortal however creates a certainty of outcome for him. He is thus purposively trying to malfunction. It becomes an endless loop, a perpetual suicide, or perpetual malfunctioning. The ouroboros of fucking things up! This idea of malfunctioning machines has long been a very appealing idea in film. We might think of examples like Der Golem (1920), Frankenstein (1931), A Space Odyssey (1968), Blade Runner (1982) and there are of course many more. It stands to reason that not only are malfunctioning machines attractive, but malfunctioning humans are as well. In the case of humans, it might be the same as with machines. That is, malfunctioning might be more interesting than regular functioning because it implies the use of the available potency, rather than regular or planned functioning. We are now compelled to consider the idea of the malfunctioning organization. Could it be that the organization that 11

quoted in Deleuze (1990, 226) see also our chapter on photography and the portrayal of the work of Araki and the theory on masochism by Deleuze (1991) 12

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malfunctions functions better than the organization that functions according to plan? To put it differently: does planning hamper the potency of organization? An accompanying and complementary question concerns whether or not organizational design becomes an obstruction for organization. The example of Futurama, as we have seen in the case of boneitis and the notion of mess-management, allows us to answer these inquiries with a resounding yes. Whether Hermes might be aware of this, and if so how it applies to him as well, remains unclear. Let us return to Lethal Inspection, where the characters are uncovering the past of Hermes’ working life, which is still our future, in order to investigate Bender’s mortality. We are transported back to Hermes’ former office building where he worked as a government official. We see that the cubicle is still dominant in office work and in this case has evolved into a “Rubik’s Cube”,13 a Rubik’s Cubicle. Such cubicles are not just laid out on a two dimensional plan, but they are part of this futuristic three dimensional cubical plan, which makes the various cubicles harder to reach and which thus secures more privacy, giving an image of seclusion. There is also an accompanying notion that the Rubik’s Cubicle is type of a game, but one that also rules out the element of chance. It is a game without chance, or to be more precisely, a game where chance can be ruled out. We can learn how to solve the riddle, comparable to the realm of bureaucratic office work. There always seems to be a solution available to us. It seems that the obsession with the cube is like a magical cloistered monkish cell, with aspects that both appeal to and disgust us. However in the case of Hermes’s Rubiks’s Cubicle we see that it also encompasses malfunctioning and secretive behavior. Files disappear mysteriously, but always due to human action. We note that this suggests that not only bureaucracy, but also the way it is laid out in architecture triggers malfunctioning and secrecy. This offers some hope for those trapped in a bureaucracy, being that disobedience appears to be a dominant factor in such organizational forms. If disobedience is a dominant factor, we see that in the case of Bender that it saves his life and makes it possible for him to become a robot. On the other hand, it constitutes him as a malfunctioning machine. The disobedient organization gets to Bender and turns him into a body with organs. He gets organized in other words. It functions like the sucker13

see also Hartt (2011) who explores the Rubik’s cube and how the competitions which surround the cube form a bridge to from one solid position to another in a liquid modernity.

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punch, and this causes his mortality through the production defect, intentionally neglected by inspector 5 (who turns out to be Hermes the rastafari-bureaucrat) that makes Bender mortal. As a consequence, Bender’s laughing at his colleagues who he refers to as “meatbags” or “bags of flesh”, is silenced. Bender’s body was organized and this caused malfunction. Organization and malfunctioning again show their intertwined relationship. We therefore argue that the organized disobedience creates malfunctioning machines. As we have argued that machines only function when they dysfunction, we can conclude that this disobedience is required by organization. This then differs from the appearance-management or fairytale-management as proposed by That Guy, because in that case, no machines would be produced, but just image or appearance. It is also different from the mess-management of Planet Express, although it is closely related. The bureaucrats in the Rubik’s Cubicle seem to be quite organized, but that is just the way it looks. They also behave like disobedient or malfunctioning machines. Maybe this style of management is somewhere in between, and can be referred to as: “limbo-management”.

2.6 Reflections As arty animals we have embarked on a visual reading of the animated sitcom Futurama. We have seen how the future doesn’t really differ from our present. People are still doing work they do not like. This is brought to an extreme with the dominance of testing. The test decides what you are fit for, and there is no alternative option. The only escape is malfunctioning as we have seen in the examples of Fry and Bender. Malfunctioning turns out to be what machines, but also humans need to do in order for organization to function. We see this in the character of Bender the robot, who decided that he didn’t want to be a bending unit, but instead prefers heavy boozing, womanizing, thieving, gambling, and belching fire. With this last feature he becomes a body without organs and mirrors the screaming popes of Francis Bacon. The difference is that his screaming, his horror, is a happy horror. We have witnessed that Planet Express, the delivery company the main characters of Futurama work for, is a mess. Their style of management can therefore be referred to as “mess-management”. Nobody is really working and nobody has a clue what is going on, nevertheless this seems to be a viable model of organization. Again, it is clear that malfunctioning is needed. When a new CEO is appointed, That Guy, who wants to run the company 80’s style, we see that everything goes wrong.

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That Guy is all about image and appearance, something we refer to as “fairytale-management”. Planet Express is saved when That Guy falls victim to a disease called “boneitis” which makes his bones crumble and his body collapse. The body with bones, in other words, creates structure, and this is detrimental to the functioning of Planet Express. We have also seen the delicate role of the limbo-dancing rastafari bureaucrat Hermes who goes high and low simultaneously, and constantly raises and lowers the bar. It is his style of emotional accounting, which keeps the employees of Planet Express on board. Our hope for the future then maybe lies in robots like Bender, who are more human than human, and limbo dancing bureaucrats like Hermes. Finally, when I look through my telescope at the moon in the night sky, I see images that are poetic, imaginative, and changing in mood. When I see official photographs of men walking on the moon, I see an efficient cold war bureaucracy and then the poetry is gone.

 

      





INTERZONE 2 YAKUZA MIRROR

The Yakuza may be thought of as the Japanese equivalent of the Mafia. The latter often gets portrayed in a romantic and very charismatic way. Examples like The Godfather or Goodfellas spark the imagination and inform us that crime has a positive and funny side to it. It appears to be just a bunch of “bad” guys having a good time, while they are on the wrong side of the law. “Having a good time” is maybe not the best expression, because obviously tragedy plays its part, as does bloody violence and relentless killing, but still, it’s seductive. At the same time we know that these portrayals are just reflections and no matter how “cool” everything looks, how eloquent the criminals talk, or how popular they are, we still feel a strange affinity and distance from these characters at the same time. We sense a distance between the life we are thrown into and the one portrayed on the screen, reflecting these cool mirror images of the Mob. The same goes for the Yakuza. Although it is perhaps difficult to judge an aspect of Japanese culture from a Western point of view, we get a good idea of what is going on, and even get the feeling that it isn't very different. In film we have examples such as the work of Takeshi Kitano, (Sonatine, Boiling Point or Hana-Bi), Seijun Suzuki (Branded to Kill, Tokyo Drifter, Pistol Opera or Youth of the Beast) or Takashi Miike (Itchi the Killer, Graveyard of Honor, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Agitator, or City of Lost Souls) to give us an impression of what these gangsters are doing. We also get the impression that they “out-tough” their American counterparts. In Kitano's film Brother, the Western and Japanese gang culture is compared. The main difference is probably that the Japanese, besides being more violent and ruthless, are also more silent whereas the Americans are chatterboxes. A peculiar position is taken by honor, which results in an intriguing scene where a Japanese gangster commits suicide to prove the loyalty to his boss. Understanding the gain of this action is difficult and it remains unclear, but these are filmic images that always keep a distance from what we consider to be “real” mirror images. On the

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other hand, with a bit of explanation we may come to understand that the films are probably more real than our pre-molded imagination. Another way to get investigate the image of the Yakuza might be to try to “ride” along with them as a sort of reporter. This whole idea could cause consternation because it is both too unlikely and too unlikable to be true. However this is exactly what happened when Belgian photographer Anton Kusters approached the Yakuza and was allowed to “ride” with and photograph them for a two-year period. This adventure is documented in his book ODO YAKUZA TOKYO. The book bundles the pictures he took while being on the prowl with the “bad” or the “cool” guys. The pictures in the book mirror his experiences and they are simply unparalleled. The book provides us with images as the appeared before Anton's lens, and which offer a mirror that is different from the others already described. But this book of images is not just a mirror; it displays various other mirrors as well. Let's examine a few. First there is the mirroring of the Yakuza as ancient warriors ruling the city. Warriors have to be in shape, and therefore we see them busy training in a boot camp. We are shown how they are trained in endurance and, obviously, fighting skills. A warrior has to know how to fight and more important, how to win. Their fighting skills mirror animal behavior. This is also mirrored in their tattoos. The impressive tattoos mirror their lives and what they stand for. It is not just a secret and hidden presentation of what they are, but also a solid sign of power. In these tattoos, images of animals play an important part. The dragon is clearly dominant. Nobody wants to fool around with a dragon, we presume. But there is more that is mirrored in the images that Kusters made. We see the Yakuza clothing. Dressed as business executives they take on the sanitized outfit of clean and regular business. They control the town and the lives of many people and therefore probably dress as regular leaders do. Their faces mirror this in much the same way, although they tend to stick to looking solemn and tragic. And then we see the car doors of their expensive vehicles mirroring the city and its people. We see a group of them standing in front of sky high neon lighting announcing porn shows. They own and direct these shows, but are only visible as silhouettes in front of them. This emphasizes their hidden power. One knows that they are there, although one does not know where or when they will reveal themselves. In order to control the city, the Yakuza have their own offices, filled with video screens to keep their territory under control, but it is obviously never safe. So the ever-watchful screen still isn't trustworthy. But they are there, everywhere.

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There is still more to the Yakuza reflections as businessmen. It implies that this dressing up legitimizes them in a way that raises them up, to move them upwards out of the underground, onto the “overworld”. They pave a way forward, a path into the light. This seems a clever way to expand their business and life. However, there is a dark side to all this, for with this stepping into the light is also the erasure of the differences between the underground and “overworld”. This also suggests that those businessmen busy in the “overworld”, and not members of the Yakuza can make a similar, but backward, move, stepping into the dark, into the shadows of the underground. So it becomes pretty blurry who are the good and who are the bad guys. Even worse, perhaps the good fellas are the gangsters and the bad ones are the businessmen. The mirror gets twisted and reversed. The only option left is to look on puzzled, worried and amused. 

       



 

CHAPTER THREE MASH-UP MIRROR

3.1 Unveiling the Screen1 Having fun in a stadium together, jumping around, and screaming at the top of your lungs, arms all the way up in the air. Moving with the crowd in your own small private space, together, yet alone, dressed to kill and shaking it loose. Getting really into it, and not afraid to go for broke, and showing all this excitement, these thrills, by taking a pic, the so-called “selfie”, spreading it all over the place and into the virtual. The endless joy of screening yourself. This screen, we could argue, functions like a continuous audition; it is a non-stop test, but cool, adventurous, and contagious. It’s an addiction. You’re hooked and have to feed the monkey. Once you start, the point of no return is way behind you. But what does the screen, this mirror, think of us and how do our 50,000 closest “friends” in the stadium perceive this? What is going on anyway? Why are we beguiled by the stadium setting? What happens in the stadium? The stadium, the heterotopia, the state of exception with its own rules, and which is only accessible for those lucky owners of the ticket, or those whose “act” is favorable to the guards of “order”. It is a sealed off world, like an immunity container. Those who are in, are in, those who are out, should stay out. Buckminster-Fuller (1895-1982), the American, architect, author, and “spaceship” designer made a sketch for a giant transparent globe to shield New York. This would create a separate, clean and safe inner atmosphere. It would create a globe shaped immunity container, and function as an “air conditioner”, to protect those under the globe from all the possible infections from the outside world. In this way New York would become a “clean” and “hygienic” mirror image of the outside 1

Large chunks of this chapter were written while listening to the music of Squarepusher, JLin, Nine Inch Nails, Aphex Twin and The Prodigy.

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world. Probably inspired by this image, a similar globe is portrayed in The Simpsons Movie (2007). This time the globe is positioned over Springfield, the imagined city where the Simpsons live in their cartoon universe. However in the movie the idea is now inverted, with the outside world being protected from the world inside the globe, Springfield. Apparently the world outside of the globe needs to be protected from the cartoon world of the Simpsons. The mirror is reversed. Obviously when creating such a mirror, there is necessarily a need, or an urge, or maybe even an instinct to do so. This in turn is also driven by an image of what a preferable situation or outcome might be. Somehow, somewhere, in some way, this image must have been perceived, but this does not mean that it necessarily refers to an original. No, it refers to a fantasy image, almost like a dream. This dream image shapes the mirror. It is like a screening. This urge to portray the preferable or the likable drives the need for a mirror, a mirror in which we can check with and compare whether or not we adhere to the desirable. Whether we look the way we want to look. This is much like an audition. Japanese director Takashi Miike has already sketched the dangers of this in his film Audition (1999) and while this is a different kind of audition, it still shows the “dark” side of auditioning, especially how you never know what you get, and you never know what hits you. It is like the sucker-punch; real and nevertheless also a type of hoax. How these auditions actually function is a mystery, however this screening, the “selfie” audition, remains popular, fulfilling a strong need for this digital mirror dream image. But it’s just an image, portrayed after some sort of fantasized and idealized real, implying that although there is no real which we can mirror, we still mirror nonetheless. This further fuels a strong sense of insecurity. So the screen audition is always a mirror of nothing, or a mirror of insecurity. This individual insecurity becomes a mass-insecurity when we enter the stadium with 50,000 of our closest friends. Is this a moment of relief, or an escape? Regardless, it is also a search for some guidance. To direct the guidance, the director, in this case the DJ, is in the center of the stadium and thus is the center of attention. This is where the DJ, the manager of the crowd, can play his or her crucial role. His or her guidance, almost gains a religious stature, steering the insecurity. But what happens if this person, this manager of hope and relief, has no clue what is going on. How shall he or she “guide” the audience? A situation arises where the DJ has to choose a mirror of their act. But what kind of mirror is this, and what is the reason for him being attractive? What is he doing anyway? Remixing? Is that creating a mash of some old bits and pieces of sound? Does this also involve mashed up imagery on “huge” screens? As

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philosopher detectives we are questioning the stadium, the screens, and the DJ. We start our investigations with mashing and remixing.

3.2 Mash-Up!! In this section we investigate the concept of mashing or remixing, and how the DJ is the character that uses the “original”, to create a new “original”. This calls into question the idea of taking small pieces, out of bigger chunks, and rearranging them in new ways. Furthermore we will introduce Tiësto and his stadium performance challenge. In 1970 the Robert Altman film MASH caused quite a stir. A theatrical poster of that time announced it as: “what the new freedom of the screen is all about”. The film was provocative, not only for the way it portrayed the Vietnam War, but also because there was no real chronological plot, just a seemingly random assemblage of scenes. This randomness, this mashing up of “shots” of reality, implied that any order would be fine, that a proverbial “roll of the dice” might be appropriate for any sequence. The screen was released from its ball and chain and became free. This emancipation was important for a further development of the potency of the screen.2 We can assume that this goes for any mashing up, almost like the famous cut-up technique as it has associated with the Naked Lunch (1959) by William S Burroughs. Beyond questioning if this was an inspiration for MASH is beside our point. What is clear is that there are various ways to “order” reality, to create various sequences. Our present focus is the mashing up or remixing of music, with help of screens. This is thus a combination of sound and vision. This mashing up goes thus beyond just the idea of inspiration, but actually chopping up music into bits and pieces and mashing it up, or to put it differently, creating a mash. But how are we to understand the modern penchant for taking existing recordings of music and slicing, reordering and augmenting them to the point where the pieces are but referents of the original. In fact, what is original? According to French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, there is no original which we can rely on, or which we can turn to. When looking at the 50,000 spectators in the stadium we already feel that the question of originality exceeds “just” the mashing up of the DJ; it involves every move of the members of the audience. They are subject to this unusual 2

see more on this unfold in our chapter on film

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situation regardless as to whether they are intrigued, beguiled, or maybe just plain bored, nevertheless looking for ways to face this mashing up. This creates an unavoidable uncertainty. Baudrillard states: The uncertainty of the world lies in the fact that it has no equivalent anywhere, it cannot be exchanged for anything. The uncertainty of thought lies in the fact that it cannot be exchanged either for truth or for reality. It is thought which tips the world over into uncertainty, or the other way round? This in itself is part of the uncertainty. There is no equivalent of the world ... No equivalent, no double, no representation, no mirror. Any mirror whatsoever would still be part of the world ... “reality” is an imposture. Being without possible verification, the world is a fundamental illusion. (2001, 3, emphasis in original)

So we can argue that if there is no certainty, and no reality, that an original likewise is impossible. Still, there are pieces of music that are considered original and are mashed up into a “new” piece of music. Even the mash-up can be considered original. This means that the dream and the original become indistinguishable, and this is what the audience in the stadium is encountering when they are looking for ways to express themselves in this mass audition. So what is going on with this new mash? Drawing on the movie with the same name we have already argued that it is the negation of the linear chronological plot. This is also the abolition of an original script for acting. What do we do when we do not know what happens next? How should we enter this audition? What can we expect? Again, more uncertainty… When thinking about the mash-up, we also notice that it is a different situation than simply creating replicas. Walter Benjamin discusses replicas in his essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935), drawing a distinction between the terms cult value and exhibition value. He argues that the artistic work of screen actors is different from that of stage actors and that is because of the audiences’ relationship to the camera in the case of the screen actor. Benjamin then goes on to suggest that the mediating aspect of the camera and its effects for the audience render a situation in which exhibition value rises to prominence over and above the cult value of the art. So it is not so much about the uniqueness or exclusivity, but it is about exposure and this exposure always resembles an audition and thus becomes a mirror of insecurity. This also concerns differences between the screen and the stage and we are now confronted with an interesting situation in the stadium, because we see both a stage and a screen. The stage is where the DJ

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creates a performance based on copying the dream, and the screens upon which he visualizes his dream performance, and where the audience can be portrayed as well. Moreover there is the social media dimension in which the audience starts screening themselves, and 50,000 of their closest friends can interact with each other and proliferate their images in a rapid and random way, exceeding just the 50,000 present in the stadium. So Benjamin’s worry about the “aura” of art might have been correct, but these worries about art also enter a new phase, approaching obsolescence considering the jumping and mashing mass in the stadium. Still Benjamin can offer us hope for the potency of art. He argues: In the same way today, by the absolute emphasis on its exhibition value the work of art becomes a creation with entirely new functions, among which the one we are conscious of, the artistic function, later may be recognized as incidental. (Benjamin, 1935: 5)

This implies that art and its aura might get lost in the exhibition, but might raise its head once more in new and unexpected ways. Serendipity opens the path for new forms of art. So if we are to see this ability to take recorded creations and manipulate them as being only a technologically driven phenomenon, we deny that there seems to be something very different going on than the simple reinterpretation of the original work. However, this manipulation of recorded music goes further still. Sampling DJ’s took the opportunity to manipulate existing works one-step further, with the possibility to copy the overall performances of the artist who recorded the originals. So we may disagree with the idea that mechanical reproduction is just a loss of “aura”. We see that in the process of mashing up, new options for “aura” arise. This means that when considering DJ’s we can argue that their ways of cutting and pasting of originals can create “new” originals; originals, which are not original. This is due to the idea that the mash-up offers technical possibilities that were possible before. The order of copying has changed drastically through the metamorphosis from analogue to digital. From the tape or celluloid towards data, from the solid to the ephemeral. Has this “Xerox” oriented activity caused a technical and unavoidable evolution, catching us in its slipstream? Or was this what the making of music was craving for? Beyond arguing whether this is good or bad, we encounter new sounds, new visuals and new combinations of these two. This is not about the binary; the binary should be considered obsolete. No more choosing between right or wrong, good or bad, left or right, original or fake, cool or uncool, or awesome or lame. We are instead confronted with an indistinguishable and ephemeral fusion of the

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opposites. The straight line is gone. This also means that the regular seems to be lost. So it might be true that the artistic function may be rendered incidental. This implies that art, in this way, keeps its subversive potency for disruption, or dissensus.3 Although Baudrillard argues that “art is gone” (1993b, 14), and that we have entered a state of “transaesthetics”, in which art and entertainment, or to use Benjamin’s parlance, exhibition and cult, fuse in an indistinguishable way, this doesn’t rule out art. Art is probably not gone, it just changed its appearance, and we are still trying to recognize it and are trying to find the right words for it. This further fuels the idea that we need the exhibition, or the entertainment, to make way for art, and maybe even make it become visible, or in the case of the DJ, made audible. Perhaps this implies that the mash-up is usual and not an exception. Maybe the uncertainty of what an original is fuels the desire to mash things up? Does this imply that the mashing up is also an audition for something unknown? Is the mash-up driven by the mirror of nothing or uncertainty? Does this illustrate our fascination with combinations of the expected with the unexpected, the thrill with the relief, the danger of losing control with the assurance of a safe haven, in a context where nothing unexpected is to be expected? Are we trying to be different while repeating something that isn’t an original and does this constitute striving for safety while losing security? Or perhaps this being different and deviant, this urge to copy, is just sheer entertainment. In other words, isn’t popular music subject to repetition and does this repetition guarantee a copy that always differs from the copied copy? Isn’t it a matter of creating security in the insecurity? These questions and observations apply to the stadium shows of the DJ’s as well. Their next, unavoidable step, after mashing up the music, was to take their samplers to the stage and then to the stadium, where the act of sampling was made thrilling. The performance became like a big rock show; it became spectacular. This means that besides the music, an authentic stage had to be copied and most important and not as easy as it may seem, the audience had to be made aware of the fact that they were part of this “spectacular” show and made to be willing participants. These participants had to understand that nothing strange was going on, but instead the normalcy of an ordinary rock or festival show was underway. Through this process, any separation of the act of reordering, the resultant 3

See especially our chapter on clauding for discussions about dissensus

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artistic work, performance, and the audience became blurrier. The border was rendered obsolete and is now replaced by an ephemeral zone of indistinguishability driven by mirrors of nothing.

Tiësto The DJ’s were confronted with an interesting task, namely to design a convincing performance and this “new” phenomenon had to be recognizable to the “old” audience. Not only the music got remixed, but the performance as well and this suggests that it also recreates the function and role of the audience in stadium or festival like settings. So not only is the DJ challenged, but so also is the audience. So we ask: if the performance is the point, then what becomes the role of the newborn artist who cuts and pastes, and how are we to understand the relationship between the raw material of art, the reinterpretation of that art, and the performance of such as an artistic act? The DJ whom we highlight is Tiësto, and this chapter spawned from the video clips of the evangelist-like raised arms of DJ Tiësto4 as he commands the audience from his dais, shaped like an enormous record. He mixes, remixes, slices, mashes and reinterprets others music in such a way as to produce something seemingly different. In his performances, he does this largely from the stage with all of his equipment arranged around him. Massive television screens document, project, and reflect his labour; we hear and see the process and the results. The production, commodification and (re)commodification are Tiësto’s labour, but also, down in the audience, ours as well. Our response to his art is orchestrated and we are directed to “put our hands together!” or to “make some noise!” (Tiësto, 2008). Mass entertainment, is encouraged and sculpted into mass hysteria. This leads to new forms of music and performances with the potential for the mass entertainment to lead towards disgust and subversive acts (perhaps craved for) and creates the “new”. Herein lies an “arty” potential in the entertainment. We see how the performance is the act of production and the audience coproduces with the DJ. In our orgy of sweaty bodies rhythmically moving, dervishlike to the bass-driven beat felt in our chests, we give up our heartbeats to the music. But our production is being managed. Why we are fascinated by this performance and moreover, why should we want to be managed? 4

Now known simply as Tiësto, with the omission of the “DJ” title signifying his movement towards original song making, an interesting shift in itself.

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What’s in it for us? What is our reward and does this in any way connect to our expectations insofar as we are aware of them? Perhaps there is a lesson in this coproduction? Are we just consumers or maybe consumers who crave to be emancipated, or is there just some sort of carelessness, which longs for “safe” entertainment? Simply labeling the performing DJ as a manager is not enough. As a consequence of our questioning, we realize that while Tiësto may be a sort of modern day manager, a manager of the mash-up, yet it is also unclear that a manager is reciprocally able to enjoy the same advantages as the DJ. Our investigations lead us to consider the possibility that this Tiësto-type manager is possibly a very special sort of educator: a sort of Rancierian ignorant schoolmaster. Furthermore, it seems that the sort of intentionality we conventionally associate with management is actually an anathema to our uncovered requisite ignorance for such pedagogy. Simply put, in this respect managerial ignorance may be both beneficial in organizations and simultaneously difficult to attain. But what can we make of this stadium hysteria, this contagiousness, putting ourselves up for the audition, surrendering to the test, fueled by uncertainty, and constructing this alibi for identity, while the atmosphere of the mash-up is hot on our heels.

3.3 Atmosphere!! In this section we elaborate upon the work of Baudrillard. How does the bourgeoisie mirror change our perception and treatment of objects? How do these make us “geil”, under the influence of beguilement? Perhaps this constitutes a new or different form of clauding? In his groundbreaking book The System of Objects, Baudrillard (2005, 108) refers to Le Mepris (1963), the famous film by Jean Luc Godard. This is a film about the making of film. Jack Palance plays a producer, the “real” Fritz Lang a director, and Michel Piccoli, a screenwriter who wants to remain authentic while simultaneously being caught in a “love investigation” with his enigmatic girlfriend, the one and only Brigitte Bardot. In the opening scene we see a nude Brigitte Bardot lying seductively on a white fur skin, and asking her boyfriend, if her various body parts still look good in the mirror. The mirror itself remains out of sight. But the suggestion that there is a mirror and that the boyfriend should be more interested in the mirror image of the naked Bardot than in the actual nude Bardot herself remains intriguing. While this is not the

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point Baudrillard wants to make, he is intrigued by the tearing apart of the body in small pieces which then become replaceable. These pieces then become solely objects that we can criticize; not a logical whole anymore that has a function as a body, but rather an apparently random assemblage of objects. It becomes a mash-up. Godard’s intention is slightly different. He made the movie, his only film on a “big” budget, in order to question the relationship between the various people responsible for the making of the film itself. He wants to emphasize that a film is not a logical whole anymore with a specific function as a work of art, but is dependent upon the various individual elements and participants who all have their own objectives, and are replaceable as well. How is film created and in what way can it remain art, and not merely entertainment? However the film goes further than that because it also explores the complexities of relationships and the apparently unbridgeable gap between men and women. The point of Le Mepris is, according to Godard: […]that these are people who look at each other and judge each other, and then are in turn looked at and judged by the cinema. (in Milne, 1990, 201).

That is, they in some manner audition to each other, as well as to the spectators. This indicates that cinema, or film, acts as a mirror of behavior and likewise doubt about this behavior. Thus the screen becomes a mirror, or put in other words: the mirror metamorphosis into a new appearance. In the film, which is loosely based on the novel Contempt by Alberto Moravia, Godard also tried to copy the style of Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni. This happened not in real time, but in hindsight, when he saw the film Red Desert (Antonioni, 1964) at the Venice Film Festival. Godard states: “[...] I said to myself: this is the kind of movie I wanted to make of Contempt” (in, Sterritt, 1998, 46). So Le Mepris (in English, Contempt), was seemingly crafted with a future Antonini film in mind. In Red Desert, Antonioni portrays the intriguing and beautiful site of factories and industry. It shows a sense of hope for the possibilities of technological innovation, but also questions whether or not people are ready to adapt to such a new world (Antonioni, 1964). In other words, the world is changing through the differentiating relationships between people, their surroundings and the role of technique in this. People risk of losing themselves in this process. Just as Bardot in Le Mepris is losing her body, so also we see protagonist Monica Vitti lose her mind in Red Desert. This is suggestive of a new relationship between people, the world and the

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way they live in that world. Connections are lost in a mirror of contingency. In the System of Objects, there is another important quote on Bardot. Whether Baudrillard is obsessed with Bardot can only be suggested. He states: ... Brigitte Bardot hairdos ... every girl who followed the fashion remained unique in her own eyes, because her point of reference was never the thousands of others who looked exactly like her but, rather Bardot herself, sublime archetype and fountainhead of uniqueness. (2005, 201, footnote 42).

This informs us of the attractiveness of Bardot, which turns her into an immaculate role model. Although she is apparently unique, girls begin to imitate the way she looks. These imitations can never be exact copies, because there is only one Bardot. They may even exceed being a simple copy and turn into something which Baudrillard refers to as a simulation; real, but not real, an imitation which loses any connection to an unavailable original. Could it be that those girls imitating Bardot need this imitation in order to find their way in the world? To give them some sense of security in a world which they are detached from, just as Antonioni suggested? Antonioni mirrors this in a detached and enigmatic way through the portrayal of his protagonist’s, Monica Vitti,’s, hair. He makes the camera give a lot of attention to this. Perhaps because this hair is constantly changing shape due to the wind, or because of its enigmatic and ungraspable beauty. Maybe as a role model, or maybe as a token of vulnerable beauty. In both films, Le Mepris and Red Desert, we observe characters that are constantly trying to grasp life, to find some way to hold onto the world from which they are disconnected. Monica Vitti shows this by constantly trying to seek safety by clinging onto walls, or other stable and solid objects. This is case whereby a Baudrillardian approach elaborates upon a new system of objects, one in which the objects are not related to their specific function anymore, but rather to their image: The system of objects is the embodiment of this systematization of fragility, of ephemerality, of the ever more rapid recurrence of the repetition compulsion; the embodiment of satisfaction and disillusion; the embodiment of the problematic exorcism of the real conflicts that threaten individual and social relationships. With the advent of our consumer society, we are seemingly faced for the first time in history by an irreversible attempt to swamp society with objects and integrate it into

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This implies that the objects which were invisible as part of a complete and functional whole, have become visible and regarded as loose objects which are replaceable. In Vitti’s case it might be the walls which still function the way they always functioned and remain sole survivors of a secure past. This further implies that these objects are subject to fashion or trends; that they have more or less vaporized, that the solid has gone up into air and changed into an atmosphere. This is why the attention to the hair of Bardot and Vitti is important. It doesn’t have a bodily function anymore, but is only meant for looks, to look at, to draw attention in ever changing appearances. The hair can be changed to any mood or desire or so it seems, and the body just doesn’t care. The objects replace all needs and become seemingly meaningless. Their function is taken over by desire. This is due to the impact of mirrors: The object is thus in the strict sense a mirror, for the images it reflects can only follow upon one another without ever contradicting one another. And indeed, as a mirror the object is perfect, precisely because it sends back not real images, but desired ones. In a word, it is a dog of which nothing remains but faithfulness. What is more, you can look at an object without it looking back at you. That is why everything that cannot be invested in human relations is invested in objects. (ibid., 96, italics in original)

Simply put, the object takes the place of human relations and in doing so claim their place in new and unexpected ways, becoming images of what we believe them to be. They become mirrors of reality, or even of human relations, as they take their place and thus become identical. They become the relation and thus a part of our own image. “Individuals define themselves through their objects” (ibid., 214). They thus create a personal atmosphere and open the potency for atunement, or as Heidegger would name it: Stimmung. So it is not so much that these objects have a specific function as objects, but they function more as a connector between people. The Stimmung implies an option for connection. But Stimmung also implies sound, a more or less sonic atmosphere. We have already argued that the objects become ephemeral. They more or less vaporize. This means that while these objects are being produced they simultaneously contain their own destruction. They contain death. Baudrillard writes:

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The use of objects leads only to their dwindling disappearance. The value created is much more intense in violent loss. This is why destruction remains the fundamental alternative to production: consumption is merely an intermediate term between the two. (1998, 47, italics in original).

In order to keep the mass production of such objects viable, their life expectancy should be limited. It can be regarded as an attempt to keep things clean and hygienic. Hygiene and death apparently go hand in hand: The same goes for death: by hint of being washed and sponged, cleaned and scoured, denied and warded off, death rubs off into every aspect life. Our whole culture is hygienic, and aims to expurgate life from death. The detergents in the weakest washing powder are intended for death. To sterilize death at all costs, to varnish it, cryogenically freeze it, aircondition it, put make-up on it, “design” it, to pursue it with the same relentlessness as grime, sex, bacteriological or radioactive waste. (1993a, 180, emphasis in original)

This, however, also means that we must also constantly renew our connections. We constantly have to adapt to the Stimmung at hand. These relations are based on the insecurity of an awaiting destruction. So it is a constant flow of mashing things up in order to find a way in the world. Maybe there is not even an option for the DJ’s to start remixing or mashing up. Perhaps he or she just doesn’t have a choice when confronted with perpetual dissolving relations. In the case of our protagonist Tiësto we are confronted with an ephemeral “hero” who tries to connect the spectators gathered for his show through a mash of sound and vision. The nuance that this ephemeral and hygienic situation of recombined and remixed sound and vision offers seems to suggest that we are immersed in participating in what Baudrillard labels a third order simulacrum. In Baudrillard’s (1993a) view, reality has been subsumed if not replaced by simulacra, cultural signs of reality. There are three orders of simulacra: the first: “The counterfeit is the dominant schema in the “classical” period, from the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution” (ibid., 50). The second: “Production is the dominant schema in the industrial era” (ibid.). The third: “Simulation is the dominant schema in the current code-governed phase” (ibid.). With the first, the counterfeit, Baudrillard takes the example of the “Stucco Angel” (ibid., 51), which he relates to the stucco interiors of the Baroque, which is

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exemplified by folds,5 and shaped by “velvet curtains, wooden cornices, and fleshy curves of the body” (ibid., 51) which are a mirror of all others’ (ibid., 52). Essentially, it is the baroque counterfeit which changed our relations to objects, and therefore also to ourselves. In Baudrillard’s counterfeit stage, individuals started to mirror and became obsessed with (beguiled by) mirrors. The second order simulacrum stressed this further through the industrial revolution and its production of exact copies, the mass production and proliferation of objects. The third order is our contemporary condition which Baudrillard refers to as the “hyperreal” (1994), the more real than real. It is real in such a way that there is no original. We are driven to believe that screened and staged realities are indeed real. This fuels uncertainty, because any “real” examples have vanished, or were never there in the first place. Such uncertainty demands a test, to provide some security as to how to behave. It is our surrender to the audition. As an example we could say that when we wonder about the way we look, we can look in a mirror, or take a picture of ourselves, a “selfie”, in order to figure out if the mirror image is to our liking. But with our frame of reference, what is the original for such a comparison? We soon conclude that there is none. We could say that a similar scenario takes place in a larger social context, or at a Tiësto show. This juxtaposition offers a distinctly different sense of what might be happening in the capacity filled stadiums of Tiësto’s performances. The participation of the crowd further convolutes the situation. Whose music are we listening to? What is going on? How to behave? Is the experience actually the simulated point? In this sense, when we go to see Tiësto with 50,000 of our closest friends, we participate in a simulation comprised of acts without an original. When everybody becomes an actor, nobody’s an actor, because everything has turned into an act. It is a never ending show coming fullcircle. It’s the ultimate audition. Tiësto appears to be managing, but is he really, and what or whom is he managing? We get the impression that he is trying to manage mirrors, while simultaneously mirroring.

5

see also Deleuze (2006), and our chapter on Araki and photography

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Mirror, Mirror … ... the mirror is an opulent object which affords the self-indulgent bourgeois individual the opportunity to exercise his privilege - to reproduce his own image and revel in his possessions. In a more general sense we may say that the mirror is a symbolic object which not only reflects the characteristics of the individual but also echoes in its expansion the historical expansion of individual consciousness. (Baudrillard, 2005, 21)

The mirror changed its role during the period of the baroque. According to Baudrillard, people became aware of the enigmatic force of the mirror and were beguiled by it. The image became important, just as did the comparison and with comparison comes notions of the test or audition. Comparing involves testing. We compare and then pass judgment. We test the similarities and differences. At the same time this testing also causes action. Whenever something is to our liking, or we dislike it, we seem to feel a need to “move”. This means that we not only perceive, but also act and this implies that we therefore both consume and also produce. However, the nature of a third order simulacrum situation as presented in a Tiësto concert forces us to interrogate our notions of production and consumption. In Baudrillard’s words: ... the factory no longer exists because labour is everywhere; the prison no longer exists because arrests and confinements pervade social spacetime; the asylum no longer exists because psychological control and therapy have been generalized and become banal; the school no longer exists because every strand of social progress is shot through with discipline and pedagogical training ... (1993a, 126, 127)

The demarcation line has become obsolete. There is no more separation. It has vaporized, gone up in thin air, permeating the atmosphere. This atmosphere is gaseous and able to penetrate everything. The simulation thus has an all areas pass. This fuels Tiësto’s mash and makes it available anywhere. Through the filming and recording through digital cameras or mobile phones, the Tiësto atmosphere spreads like a virus. In this respect, it is unclear if the “mirrorer" (the DJ), the one who mirrors, creates the mirror or is a product of it. He mirrors, and is mirrored.

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As arty animals we have become uncomfortable with this situation for quite some time6. We have no problem with the stadium style rock shows, or with the mashing up of existing music. The question that bothers us, although Baudrillard informed us not to be bothered (1993b), is whether or not this is art. Is it art when the created copy without an original, becomes an original itself, and thus an option for copying? Is it not art, and thus entertainment, when the copy remains a copy? Is it entertainment when the only objective is to entertain the masses, without any further intention beyond the making of money, or just having a “good” time? Is it art when it is not about making money, but primarily about a process of creation, whether this is related to consumption or not? While arguing this, we obviously run the risk, just as Baudrillard stated, that such separations have gone up in the atmosphere. The aesthetic has become “transaesthetic”. Therefore, the argument that the remixing of others recorded music by a DJ is not artistic cannot be articulated simply based upon this remixing being a form of mirroring. That is, copying elements of others’ music in this situation appears more complex. It is a more complex situation, which, unfortunately, again demands the test, although the test never has a usable outcome. And then there is the question: do we decide, or does the artist, or indeed does the audience? What seems clear however is that whether it is art or entertainment there will be peopled triggered by it. Triggered to break through the ordinary, the accepted, the copy.

3.4 Hairy Auditions In this part we investigate the way mirrors have become screens, and how they can interact in the collapsing of production and consumption. As we earlier suggested we are investigating situations where there is a subversive and “arty” potency. There is always the option of art. When this happens is mysterious and subject to serendipity. We have argued that the relations, or connections play a crucial role and this then suggests that it is not only about the masses and it does not only depend upon the size of 6

During the writing of this chapter we argued about the arty DJs like DJ Shadow, Mixmaster Mike (from Beastie Boys fame) or Cut Chemist, as opposed to our protagonist Tiësto, who might have other good reasons besides trying to be original, to abolish the DJ before his name.

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venue. However in the case of Tiësto, size does matter. To watch Tiësto is to watch a football stadium filled with 50,000 chanting fans listening to reordered and reinterpreted music. Considering a Tiësto performance however makes us wonder if what we see is what we get. We see Tiësto in the big stadium working through his routine, reflected in the mirrors that overshadow his dais. He knows he has to do something and he knows that he has to take the center stage position. His performance needs to be central and the crowd has to be able to literally surround him. His crowd encapsulates him. This could be a form of shyness, hiding in the crowd, or it could be a strong urge to be worshipped, or even an awkward fusion of the two. Most likely is that he is simply subject to the flow of the situation. He wants to connect. On the other hand, the audience or the spectators could simply be attracted to his availability and nearness, as though he were one of them. The audience probably wants to connect too. The mirrors make it possible for the entire crowd to be near to him. Intimacy is craved. The situation is characterized by getting near, although always at a distance, and gives the impression that the screened-show brings us closer together, becoming intimate. The audience is beguiled by the performance and the way the screens interact. The word beguile is an interesting one. Beguiled contains the German word “geil” when we loosely interpret it in an etymological way. When one is geil it means they are horny, wanting to get intimate, and in the Tiësto situation the way to connect is with the help of screens. The screens bring us closer together, or so it seems. We get the impression that this being geil also reassembles the body into a new shape. Where Godard in Le Mepris was disassembling Brigitte Bardot’s body, as argued by Baudrilard (2005), we now see a similar movement where the body is again mashed up. Just like the DJ is mashing up sound and vision, the atmosphere or Stimmung in the stadium makes it possible to mash-up our body parts, driven by being geil. It is exactly the audition, in which the hair, as demonstrated by Monica Vitti, plays its part. The looking at oneself and each other, the auditioning, should create security. It should create a safe and sound situation in which they can be confident about their looks. However Monica’s hair shows that it is constantly out of bounds, the hair cannot be controlled, the wind is its master. So we are under the constant regime of the way the hair is shaped by the wind. How does this “hairy” audition relate to Tiësto’s stadium show? The mirroring of his staged performance offers an image of work. We see him on big screens, busy with his equipment and are left wondering if what we see is what we hear. What is he really doing and what is not being

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done? We can never tell if he is actually doing something, or just pretending. The mirror of his rock show is probably a deceiving mirror, or at least a mirror that is not trustworthy. We see that sonic pleasure is combined or even synchronized with visual pleasure, but what is really going on? No one knows, but the mirrors give the audience a sense of direction. They help define a common focus of attention. The stadium goers assume that they have to be looking at something, preferably the main attraction. The idea of seeing the act is to see something special and this is probably what the crowd considers Tiësto to be. One wants to get what has been paid for and in this sense, Tiësto and this fans are in agreement. In this sense it doesn’t matter if the impression he is giving is actually happening. Maybe the mirror isn’t a trustworthy partner anymore and yet maybe we this is no problem at all. Maybe we are just cryogenically frozen and awaiting notice of a change in the future, like our old friend Walt Disney. So we are confronted with a stadium filled with people who are all looking in the same direction, without having any clue what is going on. The act of looking becomes pretty pointless in this way. Furthermore they are all screening themselves in hairy auditions, trying to be as special and cool as the protagonist on the stage. The enormous video screens that are part of Tiësto performances are thus interesting as mirrors, which for Tiësto mirror his own performance of art(work) and are placed for the “fans” to view. The fans then have the option, to go along, ignore or be enraged. Although the baroque mirrors that Baudrillard writes of are probably more popular than ever, we see in the case of a Tiësto performance, larger than ever mirrors in the form of video screens which reflect the mirroring processes of Tiësto at work. These are the “new” mirrors. They reflect back to us the “mirrorer" at work, and in doing so confront us with a strange interaction that shapes the mass hairy audition in the mirrors of insecurity.

3.5 Geilness In this part we investigate the thoughts of Rancière on the theater. We transport these thoughts into the manifestation of the stadium as the space where Tiësto takes the stage and his audience can become “geil”. They are beguiled, under the influence of geilness, through his performance and their own presence. They transform or remix this presence into new imagery. This leads us in turn to consideration of Sloterdijk’s immunity containers.

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So everyone is having a good time during the mass hairy audition with Tiësto. It would be easy to dismiss this as mass ignorance, but to consider the fans ignorant might be a misunderstanding of what is happening. The audience may not be quite so ignorant and are probably aware of what is going on, and might not be able to act any other way. This means they are locked as though in some sort of container, limited in their expression. Or maybe they are under the influence, either from geilness, alcohol or drugs. Maybe they crave an escape from the enveloping regularity of the normal and just want to get “fucked up”. Whether and how any emancipation is possible might not be the central issue. Still, without answering the last question we nevertheless do feel a certain curiosity about the option of emancipation. In his book The Emancipated Spectator, Jacques Rancière interrogates the potential meanings of theatre. He describes the Platonic notion where there is a strict separation between audience and actors. The spectators watch, while the actors act. This leads to a certain distribution of the sensible, 7 and creates a situation consisting of those who know, and those who are ignorant; those who have knowledge and those who have to be taught. Rancière wants to abolish this situation and create an atmosphere where both those who know and those who are ignorant become ignorant, and thus create a situation of producing knowledge (the sensible) together. This means that the demarcation between stage and non-stage disappears. Everyone is an actor as well as a spectator. No more passive consumption, but rather something like active production. Trial and error are pivotal in this. This is how the spectators become emancipated. In the case of Rancière this also gives the impression that everyone is exploring on his own. Everyone is discovering the world in his or her own way and thus caught or separated in some sort of container, from out of which they observe and act. How does this relate to the situation in Tiësto’s stadium, where everyone is probably under the influence of geilness, drugs and alcohol? How does this emancipation work when everyone is only trying to get fucked up? How are they producing and making sense of the world? How does their trial and error work out for them? Maybe even more important: are they aware of their being alone, their loneliness8, or is that the reason they want to get fucked up? Rancière dreams of a collective audience, but 7

see also our chapter on clauding In our chapter on architecture we elaborate on Heidegger's thoughts on loneliness. 8

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is this really an option in the Tiësto show? Is Tiësto an ignorant teacher or just one of the spectators? In his book The Ignorant Schoolmaster Rancière describes a teaching method that disposes of the idea that the student has to gain his master’s knowledge in more detail. The master shouldn’t teach or distribute his knowledge but instead has to create “new” knowledge together with his students. Together they shape their sense of the world. It can be considered an egalitarian process of learning. Through this, Rancière is convinced of the idea of equal intelligence. You don’t need a teacher to teach. The teaching is a two-way dialogic process. Just as children learn their mother tongue from their parents without a teacher interfering, Rancière is convinced one can learn anything that could be of use to them. Herein lays their potential for emancipation. He stresses the fact that there should be a motivation or an urge to learn and there should be an objective medium, in the case of Jacotot, the ignorant schoolmaster, a textbook9. But what is the medium in the stadium with Tiësto? Is it the music, the screens, and the way these are mashed up and furthermore, is this an audience who want to learn and actively participate? If they do not want to be active participants, do they have a choice? In other words: does the stepping into the stadium make you an active participant and in what way? These questions emphasize the fact that is not a clear situation, but one that requires thought. What is really going on in that stadium? Rancière offers the possibility of emancipation based upon dismissing the opposition between the viewing of the screened performance in the stadium and the hairy auditions on the part of the viewer. The audience has to interpret the performance with Tiësto to make their own performance out of it. Images fuse with images, an uncontrollable proliferation and mutilation based on circumstance and being geil. Here is potency for emancipation based on serendipity. Whether he is aware of it or not and whether he wants to or not, Tiësto seems to be a pedagogue who at the same time is being taught by his audience. He is like the ignorant Star/DJ - he never knows what the audience is doing, or what their perception is. He has no clue, whatsoever. He is like a clueless manager. But then we can ask: why should he care and what should he care about when he has no clue? Especially when he doesn’t know what the end result will be. This is a breaking of the chain between cause & effect. And if he, DJ or manager, doesn’t know what’s 9

In our chapter on painting we will elaborate on textbooks and ignorance.

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going to happen, then he needs the audiences’ ignorance in order to be successful. They have to be willing to cherish his act, but this also demands predictability. In order to gain the security of success his act has to be predictable, and any trial and error on his part essentially involves bad luck. This means that it makes no difference what he does, as long as he delivers what is expected. This leads to another accompanying contemporary effect, that one can be very skilled but that is never a guarantee of success. The breaking of the chain between merit and success.

Stadium We have already argued that Tiesto is not in a theater, but in a stadium. We then wonder if the stadium and theater are comparable and thus should create the same behavior of geilness. From a simplistic point of view, a theater is much smaller than a stadium. We can also argue that the big screens of the stadium and the mass of people likely invoke different behaviors. Perhaps we first need to understand what a stadium is. To answer this we enlist the help of German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, who has argued that the stadium, together with the apartment, are the two most successful manifestations of architecture in the twentieth century (2004, 568). Sloterdijk argues extensively about the relevance of these architectural forms in part three of his Spheres trilogy, called Schäume. “Schäume”, popularly translated as foam, is probably more similar to soap bubbles, or maybe even packing bubbles. What is specific of these soap bubbles is their temporal character. The bubble awaits certain and unpredictable death. The impression that Sloterdijk gives is that everyone is living in his or her own bubble. Living should be considered as being the place where you are staying, regardless of enjoyment or relevancy of this situation. It is thus a different concept than the one Heidegger (1954) refers to in his essay “Bauen, Wohnen, Denken”, which we translate as “Building, Living, Thinking”.10 In his essay, Heidegger relates living to thinking, and this is dependent on the relevant connection with the surroundings. Dependency and relevancy are absent in the Sloterdijk soap bubbles. Everyone is in his or her own bubble, however this is understood. It is simply a designation of a position. Sloterdijk argues: 10

These thoughts are further unfolded in our chapter on architecture.

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Chapter Three In the soap bubbles there exists the principle of co-isolation, which means that each and every wall always functions as a border for two or more spheres. (2004, 56, own translation).

So the co-isolation functions through detachment. That means that people are together, but yet apart. This is the principle of the stadium. Individuals might be cheering together and maybe even interacting, but they are still in their own world. They might be hugging, or even making love, but it still keeps them apart. This is not to imply that these soap bubbles are solid, because they are not. They can burst at any given time, without any proper announcement, always under the influence of serendipity. So people are together and yet they are not. It is roughly analogous to the aforementioned apartment building, in which people are living together, although solid walls always separate them, where under “normal” conditions, the walls remain walls, without any possible urge to collapse. Everyone is out on his own and having a great time: Every single bubble in the living-foam is shaped as a container for the self-relations of the inhabitants, who designs his living-unit in order to act as a consumer of a primary comfort. (ibid., 576, own translation).

Here each can be together with oneself, and create a certain immunity for the outside world. In the stadium, each individual is in his or her temporary container, which is always on the verge of bursting. As a model, Sloterdijk refers to the idea of the “archipelago” (ibid., 302). Such a loosely coupled and indistinguishable set of islands which are co-isolated are an analogue to those enjoying themselves in the stadium. This is further emphasized by the use of mobile screens. These screens create another appearance of the container. The stability of the soap bubble is then protected by the robustness of the network that “connects” all the mobile screens and therefore the identities of the inhabitants of the immunity containers. These soap bubbles in their co-isolation assemble the stadium. Consequently the stadium becomes a stadium through the coisolation of the immunity containers. We wonder why these people are staying in their containers. Why do they need their immunity? Why are they afraid of being contaminated? According to Sloterdijk (ibid., 507), one reason that the container is important and worthwhile residing in is the concept of waiting; waiting for something interesting to happen. And not only interesting, but also especially something that is really convincing. Something that exceeds the value of mere entertainment, and which according to Sloterdijk, is strongly linked to boredom. According to him, the inhabitants of the immunity

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containers see no other alternative than either being bored or being entertained (ibid., 836). This again means that they are constantly busy with things that should lead them to something they can “really” be into, something really convincing. The chance that this will be found in entertainment is however virtually none. In the book Schäume there is an image of a stadium, filled with people, whom are all looking at a bunch of trees, assembled in the middle of the stadium. 11 In the background we see skyscrapers and apartment buildings. This image sketches the absurdity of the stadium and suggests the “excitement” we all likely witness there. Nothing really happens. We await the non-event while getting geil on the uninteresting and boring. This goes for the stadium shows of Tiësto as well. A stadium filled with people, who are all in their immunity container, and co-isolated through the best available network, being splendidly entertained by this DJ who apparently has no clue what to do. We get the impression that we are confronted with some sort of unity, a univocal expression of bored people whose only connection is their mobile screen, a connection that seems addictive. We are not referring to an addiction to drugs like ecstasy, but rather addiction to mobile screens. Addiction goes further than just the drugs we perceive as drugs, or which society labels as drugs. As Captain Beefheart suggested in his album of the same title, we should: “lick the decals off”.12 So we witness co-isolation and addiction in our hope for the spectator to be emancipated. Maybe this hope is justified, because we could argue that every crowd, every stadium, always creates its subversive tendencies. Some people will always escape their boredom container, and feel an urge to take the stage, change the music and the crowd. We suggest that every mainstream creates its disruption, its underground, and every entertainment evokes new forms of art and subversiveness. The time of such creation or evocation is as unpredictable as the bursting of soap bubbles.

11

Max Peintner, Die unabgebrochene Anziehungskraft der Natur 1970/71 (The endless attraction of nature), in Sloterdijk, 2004, 669 12 Referring to his album and the title track Lick my Decals Off. The Captain in his time was already remixing the blues with avant-garde.

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3.6 Clueless Managers? In this part we mash-up our thoughts on screens and stadiums and consider how these present new images to the world of organization and management. We finally come to a point where we can begin to see how the overlapping and contested views of Tiësto’s situation offer some interesting views of management and organization. What are the implications for organization when considering the immunity containers, the hairy auditions, the geilness, and the urge to get fucked up? Are there any lessons to be learned from our ignorance? Does the stadium elucidate a comparable situation to that of the organization? We start with the last question. Is there a difference between the stadium and the organization? First of all we can state that the stadium requires organization and is thus also an organization, although of a specific kind. We have described the stadium as a heterotopia. It is signified by a state of exception with its own rules, and moreover is only accessible for those lucky owners of the ticket, or those whose “act” is favorable to the guards of “order”. It is a sealed off world, an immunity container. Those who are in, are in, those who are out, should stay out, much like the earlier mentioned Buckminster Fuller Dome. This should prevent contamination. The big difference however is the obligation of the participants of the DJ event, those who participate “freely” in the hairy audition. We can hardly compare them to employees, who have to stick to the company policy in order to get paid. The stadium crowd doesn’t get paid, but has to pay. They are probably seeking relief from the organized heterotopia, and therefore might feel a strong urge to get fucked up and let loose. It is like a release of built up tension, and the alcohol, drugs and party atmosphere act as a catalyst. So the stadium works as a reversed mirror for them. This is visualized through the screened hairy audition. The personal screens, located in their owner’s immunity containers can be used to connect to the outside world in the stadium and out of the stadium. This looks like an act of deviancy, which is nevertheless managed and identical, arising out of an urge to gain security. Unfortunately deviance is hardly possible in these mirrors of insecurity. Still, the screens play a crucial part. But how does this work in an organization? We can argue that the manager also has an increased desire and maybe even passion for screens. Just as Tiësto needs the screens, the manager needs the screens. This is maybe the only way to connect to the employers locked up in their

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immunity containers. The screen with words, or charts on them should function as connectors and informers on the achievements, positive or negative, of the various participants in the organization. This is a different kind of audition, but still puts them to the test, constantly. Although the manager and his staff may have no idea what is actually going on, despite the auditions, they can use the screen knowledge as an alternative, as a means to make sense of the world, to make sense of the mash-up. We suggest that the manager is also a DJ, and is constantly remixing, although not music, but facts and emotions. These emotions are at risk of being managed, in an attempt to keep them under control, perhaps in the name of professionalism. This, as in the stadium, might build up some tension, and ignite the consumption of alcohol and drugs. So we argue that just as the stadium produces ignorance, so also does the organization produce ignorance. This should have the consequence of making a manager ignorant or clueless. Ultimately the path to feigning knowledge is always available and can create the separation between the stage of the manager and his crowd of employees. Perhaps the clueless manager is like Tiësto, just an entertainer whose show is a distraction from everyday reality. Whereas the manager just wants to make money, and get it over with, Tiësto might just want to make music and perhaps plain luck and chance have brought him these huge crowds. Maybe, as argued, he just did not know what to do at first, but the copying of stadium rock shows brought him one-step further to eternal fame. Fame might be a motivator and whether he is aware of his powers over the crowd or motivated to bring them a space for emancipation or just wants to empty their pockets, are all alternatives to be considered. Such fame is unlikely be a motivator for the manager, for his crowd is just a fraction of Tiësto’s and cheering might be notoriously absent during his performance. So we are managed in an ignorant and clueless way, where the result is driven by serendipity. No chain between cause & effect, merit & success. In the workplace immunity containers we are addicted or enslaved to the screens and whether or not the consumption of alcohol and drugs has a positive or negative impact is a question, which we leave open for the reader.

3.7 Reflections The lights have dimmed in the stadium, and the crowd of friends is gone. Tiësto is in his dressing room taking a breather and wondering what is next. All over the internet the images are shared and people get an impression of the “thrill” of the show. They are spectators of the mass

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hairy audition and the mash up of sound and vision. Tiësto is soon on his way to his next show, and the audience is back on its way to their organizations and trying to cope with their geilness and being fucked up. They need to get down in order to be organized again. We are left wondering about the options of a dome, as suggested by Buckminster Fuller. If we look at the stadium we could argue about the similarities concerning hygiene. We can also talk about the contagiousness of the audition. Just as in the Takashi Miike film with the same title, we are informed that an audition involves danger where your body might be cut to pieces with a piece of piano wire. Then as the film illustrates, we never know what is real and what isn’t. It sketches a hyperreality in which dream and reality are mashed up and the DJ becomes relevant once more. In all his ignorance he tries to steer the hairy audition screened in a mirror of uncertainty. 

       



 

INTERZONE 3 TWISTED MIRROR

“The work of Francis Bacon is of a special kind of violence”. With these words Gilles Deleuze opens the introduction of his monograph on the famous painter. Bacon established his fame through paintings of screaming popes, triptychs, and seemingly mutilated faces and bodies. Violence, terror, despair, horror, tragedy, even grotesque, are all words which hint at what Bacon shows us. It is his way of portraying a world in pain. In Francis Bacon’s work, the body and the way it is mutilated, takes a central position. It is however not just the body, but the body in motion, moving in uncanny ways. There is always an uncomfortable motion in his paintings, seemingly frozen and emphasized through his use of the triptych. In order to detect these frozen movements, Bacon searched for new ways of perceiving the world. He found these by looking through whisky or beer glasses, probably emptying them first, and observing the world. This gave him a “clearer” view, and images of the world that looked more real than what we normally perceive. He thus used the glasses as some sort of lens that mirrors the world and its twisted bodies and movements. But Bacon was not satisfied at this point; he needed even more mirroring. Therefore he put glass plates in front of his paintings. The result is, as we witnessed in the 2009 exhibition of his work in the Metropolitan in New York, was that the viewer always sees the painting through the mirroring glass, and thus always sees a reflection of the spectator(s) in the painting. The onlooker is, in other words, mirrored in the painting. Some people might consider this to be a major nuisance, as they only want to see the painting. It however implies that the painting is not so easy to consummate. It is not as approachable as the spectator perhaps wants it to be. It is not a simple consumable. It is not a fast food approach to art. No, the viewer has some work to do. This means crawling into the painting, and becoming part of it. You’re never an innocent bystander or spectator with the paintings of Bacon. The painting “draws” you in, and maybe even consumes you. It means that the spectator becomes part of the torture, the horror, and the mutilated bodies. You sense the torture, the pain, the

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suffering. So in this way, the paintings of Bacon catch the spectator in their mirrors and they become part of a world that is not normally perceived. It is the world through a whiskey or a beer glass. There is no safe distance. You get sucked into the mirror. You are in the mirror. British sculptor, Anish Kapoor, shaped a different kind of mirror. In his exhibition in the Sydney Museum of Modern Art in 2012, a main attraction was two large bended and twisted mirror plates. These were crowd magnets, next to the illustrious meat-grinder. People queued to see their images weirdly alternate while moving in front of these mirrors. Different movements caused different reflections. Simply standing immobile made no sense. The spectator has to move in front of it. In other words, it was not just about moving your eyeballs, but also about moving your body or parts of your body. Whenever you move, the reflection starts to move in strange ungraspable ways. A standstill is then a possibility, and there is always the option of freezing the moment and taking a photograph of these twisted reflections. This offered enigmatic distortions that worked to inform us about the body and its movement. The “mover” perceives these twisted distortions and sees that his or her bodily movements deviate from his or her intentions. The spectator gets a totally different and twisted view. He or she sees a mutilated, tortured and even ludicrous body. This puzzling view makes the viewer wonder about his or her bodily movements. Could it be that the way we think our body behaves is nothing near to what actually goes on? Does that imply that not only the mirror has tricks up its sleeve, but the body as well? Do we need the mirror in order to reveal the tricks of the body? Whatever the case may be, it becomes pretty clear that we the mirror is an unavoidable companion when raising these questions and dealing with them. Questions that cannot easily be solved. Is that what Anish Kapoor is doing to us, with us? Is he trying to confuse us, or trying to kick us awake, or both? But there is more, it was not just that these mirrors offered an image that was puzzling. It also illustrates a seductive potency. This is not just about looking into a mirror while moving, but that these mirrors leave one no other option. The attraction is irresistible. The mirrors are powerful magnets. Long queues of individuals were waiting to have their bodies willingly mutilated and tortured in the mirror. There was no choice left, besides looking into it and letting the mirror have its way with you, just as Francis Bacon had no choice but to look into the glass and visualize the world in new ways, having his spectators drawn into the mirror. So we see the seductive potential of the mirror. Not just the potential of a world which is a straight reflection of what we are used to

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carelessly perceiving, but images which are the world in a twisted way, and which have us in it. We crave the horror, the grotesque, and the twisted image. The spectator is drawn into this mirror, into the world, from which they were disconnected. The seductive and irresistible mirror confuses and connects. It is this enigmatic combination of confusion and connection that is triggered by mirrors which are bent, twisted or are whisky or beer glasses. This suggests that the mirror not only confuses and connects, but also offers the Nietzschean “Rausch” which art and its spectators need. We are gladly seduced by this mirror, which informs us about our body and its twisted movements.

 

CHAPTER FOUR LITURGY & LEIBEN

4.1 Unveiling Some years ago we were introduced to the work of the Dutch Benedictine monk and architect Dom van der Laan (1904-1991). We were immediately intrigued and knew that we had to dive into further investigations. 1 However it took a few years before our first tentative investigative steps taken by visiting one of the church ceremonies in the Dom van der Laan monastery in Vaals (NL). We were instantly beguiled by the solemn architecture and by the sonorous Gregorian mass. There was something special going on, some kind of unveiled magic existed between the columns and chanting. It strengthened the notion of diving further into this world. More than mere coincidence was necessary to take the next step and this eventually happened when we attended another ceremony. Once more we were deeply moved by the chanting, the recitals, the clothing, the architecture; in other words, the “whole package”. Afterwards we stepped up to the concierge working there and asked for more information on the architecture. He brought us into contact with one of the monks, called Lambertus, who is also head of the monastery archives. His advice: to spend a week at the monastery and to live with the monks. Thus we would have plenty of time to sense how the monastery “worked”, and to get to “know” the building. Furthermore he could help us with material from the archives. He also informed us, and this became one of the main triggers of our interest, that Dom van der Laan’s architecture is based on the liturgy, which is the worshipping of God. So this whole package, which we experienced and which moved us, is a concerted effort around the liturgy. 1

We have to confess that although we write: “we”, it was just one of us. Who? This doesn’t really matter, but for the reader who really wants to know, we can reveal that there might be some clues in this chapter on who “we” is.

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Everything made for a single purpose. We recall the works of many great architects, of which Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) is a prime example, who also created these “Gesamtkunstwerke”, based upon a single purpose, namely living. In the case of Frank Lloyd Wright, this is living in an organic way, resulting in organic architecture. In the case of Dom van der Laan this would mean “liturgic” architecture. There can hardly be a doubt that Dom van der Laan knew about the works of Frank Lloyd Wright, although we uncovered no real evidence of this. Whether Frank Lloyd Wright knew about Dom van der Laan is however very unlikely, as Dom van der Laan started with his works after the death of Frank Lloyd Wright. We were immediately excited by this idea of living with the monks, and we fantasized about any possible implications for organization. For instance, could an analogue of the liturgy for an organization be considered the mission statement? We wondered how office or organizational architecture could be shaped based upon a specific mission statement, or was this just a ridiculous idea? This was enough reason for us to dive right in and investigate. So we accepted the invitation and set a date. Before the date we had time to prepare and, at last, study the books of Dom van der Laan, and those dealing with his work. Constantly nagging at us, however, was a remark that Peter Sloterdijk made in his lecture Inspiration (2009b). In this lecture, on architecture, Sloterdijk elaborates on the monkish cell and claims: “one person, one room, no message”. We wondered if this assumption is correct, and if there really is no message? We were not sure, but knew that we needed to find out whether or not there was message. We figured that the only way to find any answer was to spent time in one of these cells. So in this chapter, we will reveal our experience of living with the monks and trying to figure out how the Gesamtkunstwerk of the liturgy works. We will mirror the thoughts of Peter Sloterdijk and Dom van der Laan, and try to find out whether there is a message or not. We will also call on the ideas of Martin Heidegger, the philosopher from the Black Forest and the tiny town of Todtnauberg. He wrote a seminal work on architecture, Bauen Wohnen Denken (building, living, thinking) (Heidegger, 1954), which holds some key thoughts that we will mirror with the thoughts of Dom van der Laan, and Sloterdijk. Heidegger also wrote two thick volumes on Nietzsche, the philosopher who embraced life, but also a horse in Turin. In these volumes Heidegger introduces the concept of “leiben”, which can be translated as “bodying”. It would thus be a case of our bodies, next to our thoughts, being subjected to the monkish life.

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Peter Sloterdijk knew about Dom van der Laan and refers to him in the third volume, of his Spheres trilogy called Schäume (2004), which can be translated as foam, or maybe more to the point as an assemblage of soap bubbles. So Peter knew about the work of Dom. Whether Dom knew about Peter remains a mystery. At least we could not find any evidence or reference. Nevertheless we suppose that if he would have known of the work, it might well have been to his liking. So we assume a strong connection between the works and thoughts of Peter and Dom. Therefore we will mirror these thoughts. Let us begin with Sloterdijk’s thoughts first.

4.2 Containers In this section we unfold the thoughts of Peter Sloterdijk on architecture. We will elaborate on savannah-apes, boredom, and the monkish cell. Furthermore we introduce the concepts of doezelen, leiben and Losgelöstheit. For this we also involve the thoughts of Martin Heidegger on architecture. We join him in his hut and wonder about Hüttendasein. ... human beings are always condemned to shape their spaces. (Sloterdijk 2009b, 245)

In his lecture Inspiration, German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk elaborates on the fundamentals of architecture. Sloterdijk’s main conclusion is that the task of architecture is: “ … to create containers of boredom” (ibid, 245). Now what does he mean by that? First of all there is the idea of creation. Architecture is not something that is already there, in other words a cave or burrow is not architecture, but just an appearance of nature. As a consequence, this means architecture involves the act of building. Second is the idea of the containers, suggesting some sort of enclosure in which people can retreat, or perhaps even hide. Thus there is an inside, an outside and connections. Third is the concept of boredom, which suggests a pejorative connotation. This would allow us to consider architecture as something that we should avoid one way or another. We will argue that this is definitely not the case. To explain his thoughts, Sloterdijk goes back in time to the period when the first humans were living on the savannah. These so-called “savannah-apes” were hanging around for 22 hours a day, without any driving conviction to do anything besides being bored. The only deviation from this condition was in the case of hunger-alarm, stranger-alarm or sexual-alarm. Boredom, in other words, was the only way to be in the

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world. This was the basic condition of human beings and we have to note here that in this situation we can recognize a significant difference between alarm and a more systemic stress. What is also important is that there was still no notion of architecture. What these savannah-apes used for shelter were caves, burrows, or any other thing that protected them from the harsh elements of nature. They were living on the savannah, living an existence driven by boredom, and not worrying about this. They were in a constant state of “doezelen”.2 So there was no real need to build structures. This changed when these apes started roaming around, moving from place to place. They changed their existence from living on the savannah to a nomadic life and this is when shapes of architecture arrived. These shapes were temporary such as tents, or tipis, which could be easily erected and carried around, or igloos which could be made with the materials, snow and ice, which were at hand. Early agriculture was another big change that happened, this because of the eventual transition from a nomadic way of life to a sedentary way. From herding cattle to agriculture. From the breeding of the animal to the growing of the plant. From moving around to, again, almost like on the savannah, sitting still and waiting. This new form of waiting dictated a different kind of architecture; architecture with a more permanent character, architecture as waiting rooms. Very important in this development was the idea of the wall. Sloterdijk argues: … with the discovery of the principle of the wall, you discover the possibility to change the side of the wall and through this discovery of changing sides, in front of the wall or behind the wall, the invention of the door is close at hand. (ibid, 245).

The wall, on the one hand created a solid shield for the wind, but on the other it created an inner and an outer space. It opened up the possibility of the more permanent and immobile container. There is a difference between nomadic and sedentary architecture. This difference is dependent on the movement of the body, and thus suggests a specific kind of architecture. It needs a different kind of shell or skin. Nomadic architecture has a more flexible and permeable skin than the more solid skin of the sedentary architecture. As a result, the latter 2

Sloterdijk refers to the Dutch word: “doezelen”, which is a fuzzy state between sleeping and awake, maybe half sleeping or half awake, although the term half is misleading.

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might deliver an increased sense of security, but it might also enhance the feeling of being locked in. Locked in, waiting for the crops to grow. Thus the erection of waiting rooms defined or started a sedentary kind of architecture. This however also created a different kind of boredom. A boredom based upon a different kind of movement of the body. As Sloterdijk explains: It is a boredom of those who cannot do anything but wait for the ripening of the plants outside the house. (ibid, 247).

It is thus being made immobile while waiting for something to happen. Waiting and hoping that with the passage of time it will go as planned. The next step was the creation of the inner structure of the building, and the broadening of the function of architecture. Not just for waiting, but also creating a space for activities within the container. An important example of this is the monastery. In this cloistered existence a different kind of waiting and boredom occurred. A boredom which recursively affected architecture, as exemplified by Blaise Pascal: All the misery of mankind comes from the fact that no-one is able to stay quietly in his own room. (Blaise Pascal, in Sloterdijk 2009b, 243)

The above quote by Pascal was inspired by his thoughts on monastic life, according to Sloterdijk. It shows how we create architecture, which we then paradoxically want to escape. When we think about the monastery we have to take the concept of heterotopia into consideration. The heterotopia, as introduced by Michel Foucault, basically means “other place” (1967).3 This “other” means that not everyone is allowed in, and that there are certain rules and regulations, some implicit, which have to be followed. This is certainly the case in the restricted and shielded world of the monastery. Such a shielded-off existence created an interesting situation considering the inside and the outside. In this the monkish cell, as explained by Pascal, something of importance occurs. Here we see the monk, alone in his cell, obedient. Sloterdijk explains: The monk or the religious person, male or female, is always a human being that has engaged his or her life in the adventure of allowing God to 3

see also the excellent work of Belgian philosopher Lieven de Cauter on heterotopias (2012, 2004)

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bore you, because he cuts all his or her natural engagements. This is the deeper meaning of this vow of obedience, which is the basic vow of religious existence. Obedience means you drop your own will and you allow your superiors and finally you allow your God to order your life. From that moment on, you have the opportunity to discover that divine orders are extremely vague and that you are absolutely incapable of catching a clear message from beyond. This means that you have to withdraw into this monkish cell and push the beyond to reveal itself. Obviously it never does and Pascal discovers this profound relationship between the unsupportable existence in a monkish cell: one individual, one room, no message. The consequence is that out of this impossible and insupportable holy boredom, which is the essence of monastic life, arises the drive to rush out. (ibid, 243)

We now arrive at the essence of Sloterdijk’s thoughts: one individual, one room, no message. This combination fuels the almost uncontrollable urge to rush out. This suggests that being in a monkish cell leads to restlessness, or bad boredom in other words. So whereas in sedentary architecture the idea was waiting for the crops to grow, in the monastic architecture we notice that it is again waiting, but without any result, as there is no message. no exit, no message. We are confronted with the unnerving thought, that the monkish cell is an example of architecture where we apparently started building structures from which we then have to escape.

Doezelen This grinding paradox was caused by the movement from nomadic to sedentary architecture. It led to a situation where an inside is created which is seemingly unbearable. What is strongly connected to this change in architecture is the movement of the body. It is the difference between moving and sitting, immobile. As argued, this also changed boredom, from a “savannah”, or “good” boredom to restlessness and stress that we can define as “bad” boredom. Sloterdijk explains this “bad” boredom further by referring to Heidegger’s important lecture during the wintersemester of 1929/30 in Freiburg: Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik, Welt Endlichkeit - Einsamkeit (1983)4. In this Heidegger explains how this bad boredom became the contemporary condition. Here again, the absence of a “message” plays a crucial part, however this is a totally different message, as Sloterdijk explains: 4

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Chapter Four According to his [Heidegger] diagnosis human beings of our time are basically bored. And to be bored means that if you look into yourself, what you find is the profound absence of a driving conviction. You find all kinds of interests, games, inclinations, but no convictions. So it’s a ruthless, ongoing game of convictionless inclinations. One day you desire this, the other day you desire something else. (ibid., 244)

In other words, this is not waiting for a message from God, but rather the perpetual desiring of something, whatever that may be. This desire is never convincing. We want something, whatever it is, but then it is not really what we want, and it doesn’t give us any satisfaction. This something remains unattainable, just like the message in the monkish cell and that is the reason why it fuels a constant restlessness, or even miserableness. This creates a situation where being equates to being miserable. Again, this is a different kind of boredom than the one experienced by the savannah ape. Moreover, the latter is not just boredom, but one with an association to thinking. Sloterdijk explains: ... human intelligence is shaped in the savannah because usually nothing happens. That’s why human intelligence has a profound inclination to fall back into the attitude of … Doezelen. (ibid., 244, italics in original)

So thinking and doezelen are closely connected. Doezelen can be regarded as a state of drowsiness, half awake and allowing your thoughts to drift away to wherever somewhere. It also means that during doezelen there is no notion of alarm. There is no need to “do” anything. There is no pressure on objectives or achievements. But it is not just doezelen, it is also the savannah, the physical space, which plays its part, with its wide vistas and uninterrupted endless sight. So there is no pressure on time or space. We can wonder what this means for the situation in a monkish cell. This again is a grinding paradox, because there is the immobility and contemplation. In other words, there is room for doezelen and endless thoughts. Still, there is an urge to rush out, caused on the one hand, by the focus on an awaited message which does not appear, and on the other hand by the uncomfortable feeling of being locked up. So it is not “just” about doezelen, but also rather also about the idea of being locked up in convictionless inclinations, which causes restlessness and stress. Although Sloterdijk argues that boredom is the basic condition of man, we nevertheless notice that being in the monkish cell shapes an uncomfortable relationship with boredom. This causes the negative connotation of boredom. Therefore we have difficulties surrendering and

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admitting to boredom, and want to hide our boredom, as Sloterdijk explains: ...and that everything we do is just designed in order to hide a deep feeling of boredom. That is the bottom of our existence’. (ibid., 244)

We thus hide our deep feeling of boredom, and pretend to be busy, out of an uncomfortable conviction caused by restlessness and stress. We become convinced that it is not a good thing to be bored and therefore became alienated from our basic savannah condition, that of being bored. We even developed some sense of shame or unease about it. This, again, causes stress, and is connected to the possibility of an exit, the urge to rush out of the room. This evokes for us to the famous Sartre play No Exit (1989). In a simple reversal of the context, Sartre himself wrote of this with his declaration “Hell is other people”, in which a featureless room provides the setting for a group of characters to tortuously probe each other’s failings, while subsequently failing to leave the others behind when the opportunity to escape from the situation presents itself. Thus we have a need to rush out of Pascal’s empty room, or similarly, an inability to leave Sartre’s hell. The problem lies in the paradoxical desire to escape from what we have built. Our question: how we can deal with this paradox when considering architecture and organization?

Leiben We need architecture, as Sloterdijk argued, due to the fact that human beings are always condemned to shape their own spaces. This means that we have to do the unavoidable and start building. When we talk about building we ought to be cautious according to Heidegger, as he explains in his classic essay Bauen Wohnen Denken (1954). He argues that building and living are closely related, and that man should learn the art of living before he should start building. In other words, living precedes, if not precludes, building. What Heidegger means by this living, is being able to feel at home, and to give relevance to the surrounding(s). In other words, to make it a space where you can feel comfortable. This doesn’t mean that there can never be any stress involved, but then it is more of a stress like when Sloterdijk describes an alarm. It mainly revolves around feeling at home, or feeling at ease. This concerns the giving of relevance to the container, or even better shaping a container that you can give relevance to.

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But Heidegger goes further and claims that not only building and living are equals, but that this goes for being and thinking as well. So thinking, building, being, and living imply the same thing. Considering the monkish cell we already might conclude that something went wrong, largely because of this urge to rush out. So architecture needs thinking, and thinking needs architecture. When we go back to the initial thought of Sloterdijk, that architecture is about the creation of containers of boredom, we can argue that architecture, thinking and boredom are three sides of the same coin. When we put these thoughts together this leads to another interesting formulaic consideration: living = building = thinking = being = boredom. We have concluded earlier that architecture, and therefore building and living, is subject to the movement of the body. Put differently, nomadic architecture is different than sedentary architecture because the moving body demands a different kind of architecture. But how can we get a deeper understanding of this relation between the body and architecture?5 Paraphrasing Nietzsche, Heidegger states: “Das Leben lebt, indem es leibt” (1961a, 509), which means: “das Leben leibt". We can translate this as: “life bodies”. This means that being is actually “bodying”, and this implies that being and thus thinking, but also boredom are “moved” by our bodily movements. So the body and its movement, the bodying in other words, always shapes our thinking, and thus our living and building. It is an embodied thinking. This was perfectly understood by the architect Dom van der Laan as we will see later on. So not only does the movement of the body demands a certain kind of architecture, but also the movement of the body shapes our being and our thinking. The movement of the body thus designates one’s thinking, be it on the savannah or in the monkish cell. We then conclude that thinking and being may be hampered by the idea of being locked up, or in other words, of not being able to move. This being locked up or not, as opposed to the condition of the savannah, is heavily influenced by the idea of the message. As we have seen, the absence of the message creates stress, which paralyzes the body. In order to beat this paralysis, there is the Pascallian urge to rush out. The body thus starts to move in an alternative hampered way, not supporting boredom, but reacting to restlessness and stress. 5

Therefore we, again, question Heidegger and especially his two thick volumes on Nietzsche (1961a, 1961b).

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But there is more. Living also refers to the “lively”, or that which is constantly in an unpredictable motion. Heidegger states: The lively is that which moves by itself. Moving, in this case, is not just restricted to the changing of places, but means any metamorphosis and behavior (1961a, 52).6

Living implies a multiple and perpetual movement, without the necessity to move to “other” places. This also unveils some of the magic of the boredom container. It implies that good boredom gives the body room to “body”, to be as a body, to move and have its movements not restricted by the limitations of the container, so that our thoughts can flow freely while bodying. Whether or not this “leiben”, or bodying, is frustrated by the lack of a message is something else and hampered by the calculative aspect of the message, but we can assume that the container which supplies sufficient space for bodying will also be a good boredom container. This might diminish the paralysis, and thus the urge to rush out. It also suggests that the architecture itself should not just be a solid, but a moving structure. We now move to another important concept which Heidegger uses while, again, dwelling on Nietzsche, and which is closely related to leiben. We are referring to the “Rausch”, which can be translated as: “haze”: “The essence of the haze is a feeling of an increase in power and fullness” (ibid, 99).7 We realize that our translation might not capture the essence of Heidegger’s words, which are hardly translatable, but let us try to explain what he implied. According to Heidegger, the Rausch is a physiological state we need, so we can gain the power and fullness to create works of art. Not just art for art sake, but art in order to shape conditions for living. Again, the Rausch is allergic to the calculative, but instead is free flowing, cascading organically and moving like wildfire. So leiben needs the Rausch in order to live and shape places for living, and thus to create good boredom containers. This is basically how Heidegger theorizes on living building and thinking. In these thoughts it is important to notice that building cannot be restricted to just a calculable plan. It is not something that can be solely figured out in advance, or is restricted to a certain method that is 6

We decided to translate the original words by the “word wizard from the Schwarzwald” ourselves. 7 “Das Wesentliche am Rausch ist das Gefühl der Kraftsteigerung und Fülle”. (1961, 99)

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independent of any location. “Bauen und Bauen ist nie dasselbe” (ibid., 578), meaning building and building is never the same, just like thinking and thinking is never the same. It is always a singularity, a uniqueness, driven by the Rausch. No two buildings, or containers of boredom should be the same. It is always dependent on a specific time and place and especially driven by leiben and the Rausch. Before we move on we would like to sketch the image of Heidegger sitting in his hut in Todtnauberg in the Black Forest. He is immobile, embraced in his thoughts, deeply bored. He opens his eyes and looks out over the mountains and valleys, which unfold, before his hut. His hut offers him a wide view, similar to the savannah. There is no uncontrollable urge to rush out in this self-chosen retreat deep in the Black Forest. He can however move out if he feels like it. His body and thoughts have the freedom to move, but also his view ranges over the mountains and its valleys. It offers room for leiben and indulgence in the Rausch. In his hut he can let his thoughts roam freely and find the space to write his major works. Could other writers or philosophers have achieved the same results under similar conditions? Probably not, which makes it a very personal and singular space. So it is not about a method, a calculation, or a mould for building living and thinking, but about creating unique and singular situations. In his very personal essay Schöpferische Landschaft: warum bleiben wir in der Provinz? 8 , Heidegger explains the reasons why he prefers to be in his hut and the surrounding rural landscape. He explains how he doesn’t really have to look at the landscape, because he subliminally experiences it. The landscape has become part of his body. The landscape bodies, in other words. It is always part of him. This becomes realized when he starts working, that’s when the landscape becomes relevant for him. He calls this: “Hüttendasein” (2002, 11), which we can translate as: “hut-being”. He claims that his whole Hüttendasein is shaped by the mountains and farmers that surround him. This is what also shapes his work. In his words: “My whole work is grounded by and directed by these mountains and its farmers” (2002, 11). So it is not just he and his thoughts as separate things, which are disconnected from his surroundings. No, he claims that it is the surroundings that shape his work. Important in this is the idea of “Einsamkeit”, or loneliness, which, according to him, is not a separation, but which opens up his being to the essence of all things. 8

translation: Creatable Landscape: why do we stay in the province?

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So it is he, immobile, embraced in his thoughts, deeply bored, while being connected to the surrounding landscape and all the things present. 9 This is the way that the messages concerning his philosophy reach him. This means that in the case of Heidegger in his hut, there is a message, as opposed to Sloterdijk’s monk in his cell. So the Einsamkeit, the loneliness, opens up a message although it might not be the message you have been waiting for. But this also shows how thinking is possible, and how his thoughts unfold and actualize in his books. The idea of Sloterdijk, that intelligence is shaped in the savannah because nothing happens, which allows a state of doezelen, goes for Heidegger as well, but in a different kind of way. He may be doezeling, but he still creates his major works in this situation. So we see one individual, one room leading to Heidegger’s philosophy, while doezeling.

Losgelöstheit How might we further theorize Heidegger’s hut-being and how does it relate to leiben and boredom? For this we, again, call on Sloterdijk. He picks up his thoughts on boredom in his 2011 essay Streß & Freiheit (Stress & Freedom). He reframes a story of Rousseau, in his rowing boat, lying on his back, staring at the sky, daydreaming, “doezeling”, and letting his thoughts roam freely. There was no pressure, and no urge or necessity to achieve anything. He was in a state of “Losgelöstheit” (Sloterdijk, 2011, 34), which we can translate as “looseness”. This state is similar to the boredom of the savannah-ape. It is similar to doezelen. It is a relief from restlessness and stress and enables thoughts to flow freely. Rousseau lying on his back in his boat offers us an image of a certain immobility of the body. So his body is in a state of relaxedness, while the boat is moving wherever it might go. We suggest the boat is a specific kind of nomadic architecture, which supplies the body with its required movement. The body moves, it is a state of leiben. It is about a freedom of movement, but also about freedom in general. Sloterdijk explains:

9 Again we have to state that it is almost impossible to capture the essence of Heideggers words in a translation. Nevertheless we feel that the essence is there, although the whole argument is way more complex.

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Chapter Four The freedom of man is not designated by the idea that he can do whatever he wants to do, but by the idea that he doesn’t have to do what he doesn’t want to do. (ibid., 47, 48).10

So it is this freedom to choose which directly shapes the kind of boredom, good or bad, and thus plays a part in the creation of containers of boredom. Sloterdijk also subtly remarks about the similarities between the boat and the bed. We feel obliged to name the sofa as a similar place of “Losgelöstheit”. But we also consider Heidegger’s hut, his office, as a form of architecture that supports Losgelöstheit. So hut-being implies Losgelöstheit. By way of an essential summary, we claim that architecture changed under the influence of the movement of the body. This is how sedentary architecture arose, and of which the monastic architecture is a crucial element. This was also where the metamorphosis of good to bad boredom started. This resulted in an enigmatic paradox, where we started to create buildings which fuel an urge to rush out. So the inside and the outside play an important part in our understanding of the relation between boredom and architecture. It moves us back to savannah conditions, as we will argue later on. Heidegger has informed us that building should equal living, and should in this way enable thinking. We have also seen that architecture is shaped by leiben, translated as bodying. This is not a calculable process, but one driven by the Rausch, the haze. We ended with the idea of Losgelöstheit, or looseness, which is again good boredom, as some form of hut-being. We have also seen that in the case of Heidegger and his hut-being, there is a message that we constitute as one individual (Heidegger), one room (his hut in Todtnauberg), and various unexpected messages (his philosophy books).

4.3 Plastic Space In this section we explore the thoughts of Dom van der Laan on architecture. We investigate his mottos Ora et Labora and Imma Summis, and explain the relevance of the plastic number. As the body and the senses play an important part, we will describe our embodied 10 again our own translation of the original: “Die Freiheit des Menschen liegt nicht darin, daß er tun kann, was er will, sondern darin, daß er nicht tun muß, was er nicht will”.

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research in the monastery of Dom van der Laan, in which the horology plays a crucial role. Following our elaboration of the thoughts of Sloterdijk and Heidegger, we now take a next step: to mirror these thoughts with the thoughts and ideas of the Benedictine monk and architect Dom van der Laan. His thoughts and writings on architecture are still relevant perhaps even more so than ever before. His ideas inform us about the very basics of building, but also about our human behavior in connection to physical structures. So just like Sloterdijk, Dom van der Laan is interested in the vernacular of architecture and the way buildings can move us. As we discussed earlier, Sloterdijk argued in his musing on the monkish cell about the unsupportable existence in such a structure: one individual, one room, no message. This was also the tipping point between good and bad boredom, in other words between Losgelöstheit, or looseness, and restlessness, stress and paralysis. We have discussed Heidegger’s Hüttendasein, his hut-being and how this creates various unexpected and uncontrollable messages caused by the Rausch, a necessity for art as well as living. The question we ask ourselves is whether the idea of no message in the monkish cell is still correct, or if there might be some sort of Heideggerian cell-being. Consequently, the monkish cell is a study object par excellence.

Ima Summis Dom van der Laan was no “ordinary” architect, he was a Benedictine monk. His “Leitmotiv” was “Ima Summis", which means: connecting the heavenly world with the earthly world. This motto came to him, while, at an early age, he was studying architecture in Delft. He was however displeased with this study, because it didn’t offer him what he was interested in. The lessons taught were drawing on certain “new” or “modern” movements in architecture, which, according to him, were just a temporal hype. He wanted to grasp the vernacular, or timeless fundamentals. He also had the idea that these lessons were based too much on theory, without sufficient practicality. He therefore needed to get away from the already molded world in order to create freedom for his thoughts. He needed seclusion. For him there was only one possiblity and that was to become a Benedictine monk. This life, its rhythm and seclusion, he considered vital for the unfolding of his ideas on architecture. So it was not just a simple retreat, or a “getting away” from things he didn’t believe in, but rather it was a case of escaping

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the daily banality and moving to the core, to the essence of what architecture had to tell him. He wanted to grasp the vernacular in part because he considered architecture to be an integral part of living. He argued: “Naturally we are dependent on food, clothing and housing” (1977, 1). So architecture is not just buildings, but a part of our being. He continues: Through the building of houses we are able to physically survive in raw nature. The house itself should make us part of nature, despite the fact that it creates a separation. (1967, 115)

So he made a clear separation between architecture and nature, a separation but simultaneously a connection. He explains: “If man decides to retreat into a cave, he flees for the space of nature, as opposed to adapting to it” (ibid., 9). So architecture is the way man starts using the space of nature, although it is different than nature, both becoming a part while remaining differentiated. He continues: “It is almost as if nature waits for the work of our hands, in order to make it complete” (ibid., 69). So we need clothing and architecture for our body and its movement, while simultaneously nature requires architecture. Therefore architecture is neither a solitary nor a separate thing. No, it is connected, and as argued earlier shaped by our bodily movements. Dom van der Laan argues: ... our living existence, which manifests itself through spontaneous movements, demands a protection which leaves enough space for movement. (ibid., 5)

So, in addition to being, the movement of the body is also decisive in the type of architecture needed. This means that architecture should supply room to move. There should be an inner space, a sort of emptiness, between the skin of the body and its clothing, and the skin of the building. We can easily imagine that this space is wider in sedentary architecture than in nomadic architecture. This implies that immobility needs more space. In other words: the sedentary-ape needs more inner space than the savannah-ape. It seemingly needs this because of another way of leiben. In a contradictory fashion, the body in waiting needs more inner space than the moving body. The thoughts and ideas of Dom van der Laan were first laid out in his book The Plastic Number (1967). In this book he explains his ideas on architecture, and how the plastic number plays a crucial part in this. He

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developed the plastic number because he didn’t believe in “just” abstract numbers. He explains: A mathematical calculation only gives us abstract numbers with plenty of decimals, but the contact with the concrete reality of plasticity itself then gets lost. (1977, 112)

Exact numbers create an artificial reality, and this reality deviates from nature. So the exact and mathematical numbers are insufficient for the creation of architecture. But what is this plastic number? The plastic number is not a strictly rational number, but a slightly mouldable number. It is like a moving number, which moves along the movement of the body. Dom van der Laan biographer Caroline Voet explains this further: “The plastic number, his own proportional system, acts as a bridge between experience and reason” (2016, 19). It thus contains a zone of difference. This is the plasticity, which goes beyond the mathematical number with decimals. In nature this zone of difference is normal. Van der Laan names the example of the tree. As a structure it has many parts, for instance the leaves. No two leaves are exactly identical, still we all refer to them as leaves, and in our minds we have accepted the fact that these are identical. We have internalized this zone of difference and perceive it as a unity with similar elements. The plastic number works in a comparable way and thus cherishes difference.11 This implies that the plastic number connects the way we build to nature, and yet nature still remains incomprehensible. Another Dom van der Laan biographer Richard Padovan explains: We cannot know nature directly, but only images that we glean through our senses and transform into intellectual or artistic concepts. Our systems of measure arise, not from nature itself, but from our inability to know precisely the sizes of natural things. We scan the measureless continuum offered by nature, disregarding all differences but those that are significant for the mind: distinct intervals that we can “give a name to”, by embodying these intervals in buildings and cities, we give measure - that is, human measure - to our natural environment. The measures of the plastic number are thus manifested in art and imposed on nature. (1994, 12-13)

11

We only give a brief exploration on the plastic number. For a more detailed analysis see Dom Van der Laan (1977, 1967) or Voet (2015)

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It is thus some sort of ignorance, whereby we cannot measure nature, which makes the plastic number unavoidable in architecture. We need this number of difference in order to build architecture in which we can feel “natural”. We need it, in other words, in order to support leiben and Losgelöstheit. This difference of the plastic number leads us back to a previous quote by Martin Heidegger, who proclaimed: “Bauen und Bauen ist nie dasselbe” (1961a, 578), which we translated as: building and building is never the same. We argued that this proposes singular architecture in which the copy is rendered obsolete. This also means that building always gets caught up in this plastic zone of difference, which is shaped by whatever the inhabitants need for living. Moreover, it is this difference that also plays with the fine line between good and bad boredom. This means that the shaping of the container and creation of a certain atmosphere influences the Pascallian urge to rush out, or the Sartrean exitless container. But there is also another meaning to the Heidegger quote. Dom van der Laan argues that: “ … it is through building houses that we must learn how we should build houses” (1967, 194). This means that we do not know how to build by some sort of instinct, but rather that building is dependent upon a process of learning. It contains the element of ascesis, the art of meticulous practice. 12 This we have to learn, and it is not something we know beforehand a priori, like a bird that immediately knows how to built its nest. In other words: What animals can achieve instantly and perfectly, thanks to their instinct, we must learn in the process of doing. The last nest built by a bird is not better than the first. But we must learn how to make from the things that we make:… (2012, 62-63, italics in original).

We learn by doing, and from our mistakes. Or again in the words of Dom van der Laan: “Paradoxically as it may sound, it is by making things that we have to learn how to make them: we must always proceed by trial and error” (ibid, 27). This trial and error underscores our difference from nature. One architectural element that is most important in this process is the wall, almost as if the hypothetical wall between man and nature needs a manifestation. “The key measure, the wall-thickness, is chosen for each project; once this is chosen, all other measures are then determined by 12

See an extensive exploration of ascesis in: Sloterdijk, 2009a.

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fixed proportions to it” (Padovan, 1994, 241). So the wall, and its thickness, visible through holes in the wall, made for windows or doors, becomes a dominant feature. It offers a sense of security and shelter through its thickness.

Ora et labora Dom van der Laan’s life motto, just like that of any Benedictine monk, was: “Ora et Labora”; work and pray. While working and praying in seclusion, Dom van der Laan found the time and space to further develop his thoughts on architecture and its rudiments. In these explorations the sensory experience plays a pivotal role. He argues: “We shouldn’t forget, that the architectural expression is based on sensory perception” (1967, 72). It is thus the way we perceive a building that decides whether or not we can feel comfortable in or around it, and even if it brings forth the urge to rush out. We have already argued that it is the movement of the body that decides what kind of architecture we need. So it is not just the body, but also the way in which the senses steer the body through the architecture. In these relationships the horizontal dimension of the building, and the way in which our eyes scan this, is most important. Our gaze moves in front of us, and sometimes up, down or sideways. The horizontal lines or planes designate our perceptual freedom of space, and thus our experience space. Again this is also not just an instinct, but requires ascesis, the art of practice. In other words, we have to train the senses, in order to be able to perceive. It is pretty clear that the trained eye is a requirement for any architect, just as a musician should have a trained ear. But this goes not only for those who create, but also for those who perceive, although there is a difference. The musician will hear things or comprehend pieces of music in a different way than the untrained listener, because he knows and understands what is necessary to create or play the music. This means that the piece of music, just like any structure, opens itself up if the perceiver knows what is required to create it. For instance if an untrained listener would hear a piece of music by Giacinto Scelsi, John Coltrane, Captain Beefheart, or The Mars Volta for the first time, it might be ungraspable, or even considered to be horrendous noise. This doesn’t mean however, that not anyone can appreciate it, but rather that the appreciation will differ, according to the training of the ear. The same goes for the other sensory perceptions. So architecture is not just about being good or bad, or beautiful or ugly. It is about a deeper understanding, which makes it possible to enter

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into that specific world and let the senses roam and explore freely. It concerns the way our sensory experience moves us through a building, or how we are moved by a building. It is about being able to be moved. It is about leiben. It is not, and here we begin to argue with Sloterdijk, just about the image of the monk sitting in his cell. No, it is about a totally different experience; an experience which is closely connected to nature. Dom explains: First of all, our mind will be activated by our perception of nature, after that the same things happens with those things we make … in this way our making connects with the creation of nature, in order to complement and complete nature. (2012, 62)

So we need nature to create and to think, and in this way we can create architecture, which then completes nature in a hermeneutic circle. This means that although there is a clear separation between nature and architecture, they are still closely connected through our senses, our making, and our thinking. In this process there is thus a twofold purpose; we need to think about creating a space for thinking, which then offers us the possibility to think. This furthermore implies that without architecture, thinking becomes problematic. Dom van der Laan continues: “... our mental faculties ... can only develop by means of material things that are perceived by the senses” (ibid., 64). We need architecture in order to think and further develop our capacity for thinking. So the way spaces are shaped, but also how we perceive them is crucial for thinking. As mentioned earlier, this shaping and sensing happens through trial and error. But Dom van der Laan did not just create pieces of architecture. No, he created “Gesamtkunstwerke”. In his efforts he basically designed everything, all based around the liturgy. The liturgy is all the elements needed for the worship of God. 13 He wanted all these elements of his architecture to be in unison, in order for one clear-cut task. Not just for the sake of architecture, but especially for the liturgy. Therefore it’s important to notice that: “in fact it is not that the form of the church is based on the 13

Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has devoted two volumes on the liturgy, The Highest Poverty (2013a), in which he argues how the rule becomes similar to life, and Opus Dei (2013b), which means liturgy, and how duty becomes a key feature in the life of the Benedictine monk. So rules and duties become the core of the Benedictine existence.

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meaning which it acquires from the liturgy, but rather that its liturgical meaning is founded on its form. And this form is purely a question of architecture” (Padovan, 1994, 21). So the liturgy needs the architecture in order to express itself and provide the monks with a space for the Benedictine life and rituals. The relationship between the liturgy and architecture requires some further elaboration. In the words of Dom van der Laan: In general, liturgy is the whole body of symbols, chants and actions by which the church expresses and makes its faith known. Fundamental to liturgy is the fact that it is presented in a system of exterior forms meaningful objects, specially cultivated words and deliberate transactions; they are forms that we also encounter in society and which serve there to maintain our human relations … (2001, 9)

So the liturgy is not exclusive. This means that the architecture of Dom van der Laan, which as a “Gesamtkunstwerk” is based on the liturgy, is not restricted only to monasteries. Rather it is applicable for all architecture, whether the sole purpose revolves around the worshipping of God or if it has some other objective. This means that the church mainly resembles a house for living. Thus the fundamentals for living and building, and how these shape the structure remain the same. So it is not that church architecture differs from “other” architecture, but that there are fundamentals for building and living, which are identical, no matter what the function of the building is, be it a house, a church, a hut, or an office. This brings us to the cell in which the monk retreats to look for the aforementioned message. The cell is the kernel of monastic life, the place for retreat, solitude and for thinking. It plays an important part in the seven rules for Benedictine life: “silence, simplicity, peace, prayer, work, study and seclusion” (Voet, 2016, 90). Here the monk is sitting, immobile, reaching out to God, awaiting a message and hoping for a response. The cell is the space for contemplation, a space that offers room for thought, the space where thinking is not interrupted. It is the space where the monk is alone with his thoughts, and under the influence of the sensual perception of the architecture, feeling Losgelöstheit, just like Rousseau in his boat, or Heidegger in his hut. This is the idea of cell-being as it is supplied by the architecture of Dom van der Laan. There is more that is specific to the architecture of Dom van der Laan, in that it is stripped to its bare essence. No unnecessary ornamentation. This strengthens the structure, which is of a special kind of solemnity. It is the bare and raw materials which create its beauty and

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which allow the sun, shining through the windows, to paint ephemeral patterns on the walls, the columns and the people present. “Van der Laan’s architecture is essentially a framework, a stage destined for rites …” (Ferlenga & Verde, 2001, 18). In these rites, sound, light, smoke and silence play a pivotal part: “... the silence, which is the essential element that completes the cloistered life: the silence which in Van der Laan’s architecture replaces the decoration in places destined for meditation and faith” (ibid., 18). It is a Gesamtkunstwerk in all its solemnity. It is this solemnity and the way that it drives the senses and opens up spaces for thinking which gives this Gesamtkunstwerk its strength. In his speech for the consecration of the Benedictine church in Vaals, Dom van der Laan stated: But it is precisely the size of the spaces here that gives it such a great power ... It is because this spatial effect is so extremely weak in regular houses that beauty is sought in forms and colours of furniture and knickknacks. One has then reached the level of impressionable pleasures with their easy appreciation, which quickly become boring and have to be constantly replenished. (Voet, 2015, 265)

This simplicity emphasizes the power of the space that Dom van der Laan creates while highlighting the simple, solemn, and unique atmosphere that the building generates. He makes clear that the “fashionable” and the “modern”, which he already despised during his architecture studies, deviate from the function which architecture should have. The fashionable creates distractions, whereas the architecture of Dom creates contemplation. It can even be argued that the fashionable creates containers of bad boredom, which fuel the urge to rush out caused by restlessness, stress, and paralysis, but which in one way or the other, the fashionable constantly maintain itself. It is for this reason that it is important to go back to the fundamentals, as shaped by Dom van der Laan, in order to figure out how architecture should be created, and how a building can connect living and thinking, all revolving around the liturgy. This is also what intrigued us, and this curiosity paved our way into the monastery of St. Benedictusberg.

Horology Despite the charm of open nature, we still need the urge to go inside. (Dom van der Laan, 2008, 13)

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This quote refers back to the one from Pascal, that all the misery of mankind comes from the fact that no one is able to stay quietly in his own room. This urge to rush out is challenged by an equal urge to go inside. The urge to go in, however, is not enough. One must feel a want to stay inside, otherwise the erected architecture isn’t a good boredom container. In other words it doesn’t facilitate Losgelöstheit. We also felt this urge to go inside to experience the sensual architecture of Dom van der Laan. We wanted to be moved by the architecture, through our body and its senses and to experience it, corporeal, and taste its atmosphere.14 This option is strictly for males, as females are prohibited. Living with the Benedictine monks in the monastery should help us to design answers to the main question we have posed, whether the suggestion made by Sloterdijk that there is no message in the monkish cell, is true. We have already argued that in the case of Heidegger’s hut-being, or the monkish cell-being there are various unexpected messages. An adjacent question concerns how this specific monastery moves our bodies and how this enables thinking. In other words, how does leiben and thinking fuse in the monastery of St. Benedictusberg? Will we experience Losgelöstheit? During a weeklong stay in September 2016, we became part of the monastic organization as designed by Dom van der Laan. We became part of the Gesamtkunstwerk. We were able to witness and be a part of the prescribed ways by which the Benedictine monks live, and their daily schedule, the horology, which starts at 5 in the morning and stops around 9 in the evening. 15 This schedule determines how the monks move throughout the day. Praying eight times a day, at exactly the same moments, holy days excluded, means that a certain rhythm creeps into your body, and the movement inside and outside of the church creates a certain routine. This is strengthened by the church rituals, which share similarities to meticulously staged performances. The way the monks dress, move, sing, chant are all designed by Dom van der Laan and thus shape the liturgy. The strict horology is a limitation that creates a certain kind of awareness that highlights the importance of every moment in the day. So the limitation creates these highlighted pressure points in time.

14

The idea of Atmosphere is strongly featured in the work of Swiss architect Peter Zumthor (2006). 15 we obviously realize that a week is just a week, but it gave an impression nevertheless.

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This horology also worked on us, although it is a different experience than those of the monks, being that we were only visitors for a week. Still we could sense the essence. For us it also meant that during the services our minds got carried away to our thoughts about the architecture. We noticed how nature plays around with the architecture, and although Dom wanted to create a clear separation, we nevertheless sensed how nature moved the building. This happened through its light, shadows, and sounds. The light of the sun constantly penetrated the building and shaped its moving shadows on the solemn and comforting walls of the monastery. The same happened with sound as produced through the voices of the monks. The acoustics are so specific that their singing, chanting or proclamations are audible without any use of microphones. The acoustics add to the beauty and the enchantment of the monastery and its rituals. The playful intruding of nature is also visible through the way the windows frame nature and its trees, slowly moved by the wind. The framed and moving nature reminds us of the work of Michelangelo Antonioni in L’Eclisse (1962), or Andrej Tarkovsky in Solaris (1972), Mirror (1975), or Stalker (1979). In these films nature is seen to be restless, while in the monastery we see nature not only moving, but also giving some sense of rest. It is a paradoxical imagery which nature emanates. We also witnessed a lot of mirroring. First of all we see the architecture mirroring itself, through the ordinance, the disposition, the rhythm and the symmetry, all the elements that are specific and fundamental in Dom van der Laans architecture. Second, we witness the rituals in the monastery, which are similar each day, each year, driven by the horology, and thus mirroring themselves. Considering this further we argue that organizational life mirrors monastery life, as we will dwell on when proposing the plastic office. Moreover, the outer appearance, not just of the architecture but also of the monks, works as mirrors; the same haircuts, the same robes, the same facial expressions and movements. The unison works as a mirror or can be regarded as a mirror. Through this mirroring we get the impression that the identity is erased. They see each other reflected in their mirror. Difference has become repetition. The difference then moves to all that is not repetitive, namely the words and thoughts. This is strengthened by the living, working and praying together. Here we see a fusion of living and being. This is further emphasized by the incense, the ritual smoke, used during the ceremonies. The smoke illuminated by the sunbeams creates a hazy atmosphere in which the monks slowly dissolve. It transforms the scenery almost in some kind of “fata morgana”. Real and not real at the same time. This further fuses their appearances into an indistinguishable whole, a Gesamtkunstwerk.

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This slowly brings us to the main question, whether the Sloterdijk claim of one room, one person, no message, is correct. Dwelling in the monastery and staying quietly in our own cells we tried to experience this and think it through. We noticed that, under the regime of the strict horology, the cell, the one room, creates a certain type of contemplation. This space, created by Dom van der Laan, offered a possibility for thoughts to roam freely. This space, this solemnity, this good boredom container thus enables thinking. So there can be a message indeed, although perhaps not the message that we’re hoping for, or in the case of the monks, a message from God. Not necessarily a message that comes at an expected moment, but rather one that comes whenever it feels like it. Nevertheless, the monkish cell as created by Dom van der Laan offers a message. The message comes as a surprise, at the whim of chance or luck. The cell does not only offer boredom, but also a sense of wonder that triggers a deep sense of contemplation. A kind of “doezelen”, but with eyes wide awake, open to the world, and not just closed off in its own space, but in a state of “Losgelöstheit”.

4.4 Plastic Office Here we investigate what the implications of our thoughts about the architecture by Dom van der Laan are for organization. What can organization and its architecture learn from considerations of the liturgy? An adjacent question is: in what way can organizational architecture facilitate Losgelöstheit? For this, we elaborate on the works and ideas of Frank Lloyd Wright. We have argued that the monastery life mirrors the organizational life. We have also stated that the monastery is an organization. After having elaborated extensively on the architecture of Dom van der Laan and the way it is shaped, we now turn our attention to organizations. We are investigating in what way organizational architecture can be created as a Gesamtkunstwerk, just as in the architecture of Dom van der Laan. An adjacent question is how the idea of the liturgy might be useful in organization? Put differently: what are the conditions for contemplation in the organizational cell? How can we create an “office-being”, just like Heidegger’s hut-being, or Dom van der Laan’s cell-being? This directs us to question if there is a message available in the office? To answer these questions, we have to dive further into the world of architecture. This is not a uniform world with specific rules and characteristics but rather it is a world of differences with all kinds of

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shapes and ideas. Architecture is a world that is fluid, constantly in motion; moving just like the architecture is moved around by the moving body, as we have described earlier. It is an uncontrollable and indistinguishable watery field, which perpetually folds, unfolds and refolds. Containing it is seemingly impossible for this would mean building a fence or even better, a wall around the field of architecture. Whenever one builds a wall, then the urge for a door becomes dire and we know that doors open up the possibility of uninvited or unpredictable guests who would disrupt this watery field. So there is no uniform world but we still desire to know how the ideas of Dom van der Laan are suitable for organizational architecture. Our option, in the spirit of Dom van der Laan, is to let ourselves be driven by our sensual excitement and to search for examples of organizational architecture which may contribute to our investigation. In other words, this is not a rational and calculative choice. Indeed, Dom van der Laan also dismissed rationality. This was exemplified by both his plastic number and also by his dislike of the mathematical approach in scientific management: “... the Taylor System which I disliked intensely …" (Van der Laan, 2001, 34). This implies that the rational number is an unwelcome guest in the architecture of Dom van der Laan, but also, we would like to suggest, that it provokes an unnatural organization. It suffocates leiben. This constitutes a sort of critique of Taylorism, by which we can conclude that organizational architecture shouldn’t resemble conveyor-like architecture, but rather it should be plastic or organic. This brings us to the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. 16 Wright also had a special relationship with Taylorism, as we will describe in short order. He also had his way of dealing with the fundamentals of architecture. So Frank Lloyd Wright can help us investigate the possible message for the organizational actor, or to use the Sloterdijk parlance, the “office-ape”. Frank Lloyd Wright, just like Dom van der Laan, created the socalled “Gesamtkunstwerk”, where everything is focused on just one issue, that being the comfort and joy of living. This applies to his office buildings as well as residences, all built and centered around one purpose, the creation of unison in which people are able to focus on their job in such a way that they constantly feel at home. Living was to be the key ingredient for success and satisfaction of the workers and the organization

16

his thoughts and ideas can be found in numerous books, but we propose his autobiography (1943)

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and we have already argued that this living is the key element for building, being and thinking. Frank Lloyd Wright didn’t build a monastery, but he did build various churches. The most famous perhaps are the Unity Temple in Oak Park Chicago, which he designed in 1905, and the Unitarian Meeting Home in Madison Wisconsin, which opened its doors in 1951. In both these churches we see how Wright tries to create an intriguing mixture of unity and freedom. He tries, just as in any of his other buildings, to create a certain atmosphere which envelopes you whenever you enter the building. It is as if stepping into another world, a world which comforts and makes one feel at ease. These are spaces in which you want to stay, quietly, without feeling the urge to rush out. These are spaces for contemplation, spaces for Losgelöstheit. Unity Temple, the first concrete monolith, is notable for its lack of overt religious symbolism, and its acoustics. 17 This immediately reminds us of the monastery of Dom van der Laan. The Unitarian Meeting Home is similar in this respect, and was built by the Unitarians themselves, with their bare hands. What is very typical is that the Unity Temple in some sort of way mirrors Wright’s Larking Building, which we will later discuss. This implies that the fundamentals of architecture for Frank Lloyd Wright were not really different for churches, houses, or office buildings. They more or less revolve around the ideas of openness, movement, containment and atmosphere. It is important to remind ourselves of the life mottos of Dom van der Laan: Ora et Labora and Imma Summis; in other words: work and pray, and connecting heaven and earth. Would these mottos also work for organization and what would they imply? When examining organizations, we suggest that work is a pretty normal thing, but prayer might be considered uncommon. Although prayer will occur in organization, it will likely be alien to the work done. It won’t be a logical and Siamese twin of organization, unless we define it differently. Consequently, this means that praying gets a new meaning. In organization, we argue that one prays not to any God of religion, but to a “God” of money. In other words money is the new religion. The same goes for the Imma Summis, which nowadays would mean: connecting the earth, with the money heaven. So any praying done is always a praying for more profit. This means that the Ora et Labora and the Imma Summis in their new meanings, play a relevant part in organization. This also suggests that there is hope for a liturgy in 17

drawing on the work of Robert McCarter (1997) and Patrick Cannon (2009)

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organization, and creating a Gesamtkunstwerk around this liturgy. But let us return to architecture and Frank Lloyd Wright. Frank Lloyd Wright started his career in the studio of Dankmar Adler (1844-1900) and “Lieber Meister” Louis Sullivan (1856-1924). Together, Adler and Sullivan with Frank Lloyd Wright created the Wainwright Building (1887) in St Louis. This can be considered not only the first skyscraper, but more importantly, the first office building. What is central in Louis Sullivan’s work is his relationship with the ornament. Where Dom van der Laan stripped his buildings to the bare essence without any unnecessary ornamentation, Louis Sullivan does the opposite. Louis Sullivan created a building as ornament. The curves and folds of the ornament of Louis Sullivan became the main feature, which made the building essentially one big ornament. This is not about using or not using an ornament, but instead about the way its use strengthens the building. These curves and folds were very important to Sullivan because he believed that the smooth and adventurous forms would also shape society into a more fluid and friendly form. 18 In other words, our built surroundings designate our behavior. This then implies the shaping of a different kind of office. In other words, office work would be driven by these folds and curves and result in a more smooth, friendly and perhaps adventurous world, and not a world driven by rigid ratio. Just a few years after Frank Lloyd Wright started his own studio, he created one of his most important structures, the Larkin Building (1904), an office building which used to be in Buffalo New York. Unfortunately it was demolished and all that remains is just a small piece of a wall, poignant given earlier discussions about walls and Dom van der Laan. So all that is left, besides the piece of wall, are images, stories and a very relevant case study (Quinan, 2006), which describes precisely in what way the Larkin Building was a groundbreaking building considering office architecture. It was the first office structure that was meticulously moulded as a Gesamtkunstwerk. It shaped the space for an organization which functions like a living creature, in which humans and their movements became the core. A structure that made living and thinking possible. When we consider the year 1904, and given that Frank Lloyd Wright probably started around 1900 with the development of his ideas, we observe that this was some eleven years before Frederic Taylor published his ideas on scientific management. Although we sometimes 18

see Twombly (1987)

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read musings on the Larkin Building as an example of Taylorism we can easily conclude that this is far removed from the actual chronology. Looking at the images and studying the Larkin Building shows indeed that the opposite is true. Organic doesn’t go along with Taylorism, just as Dom van der Laan’s plastic number is allergic to it. Returning to the Larkin Building, we see how Frank Lloyd Wright, at an early age of 33, created a Gesamtkunstwerk in which he designed basically everything short of the clothes people were wearing. It shows that it is the unity of the building, as Gesamtkunstwerk, that gains its potency. It also contained the first office landscape, intended for people to be and work closely together. This was a unique feature that would later be copied massively, if not unfortunately, for the most part in deplorable ways. The Larkin Building was a revolution in office architecture. It can therefore be considered a tragedy that the building, besides the small piece of wall, is demolished. This makes any sensual investigation impossible. As argued earlier, one must be in a building to experience how the building works on your body and senses. Frank Lloyd Wright created his second office masterpiece in 1936, with the Johnson Wax Administration Building in Racine Wisconsin. This Gesamtkunstwerk is still standing and still fully operational as it was intended to be from the beginning. Here we see how Frank Lloyd Wright has enlarged the concept of the office landscape, and created an inner world, that resembles a forest of gracious columns. Originally he wanted to build a complete village of which the administration building was only a part. This meant that the Gesamtkunstwerk was extended and would contain the surrounding environment and in this way tear down barriers between work and leisure. In the end, the Johnson Wax Company abandoned these plans.19 Nevertheless the building is still considered to be one of the major works of architecture in the 20th century. Wright’s most intriguing office structure however is Taliesin West, his studio in the Arizona desert. It had its origins in an assemblage of tents under the name Ocotillo, built in 1928 as a form of nomadic architecture. In 1936 it was rebuilt, in another place, and turned into a more solid shape as Taliesin West. It is here that Frank Lloyd Wright recreates savannah conditions. This is the place where the savannah-ape and the office-ape are almost identical. This means that it offers space for

19

for an extensive case study, and the eventual succes of Johnson Wax in their new Frank Lloyd Wright building see the case study by Jonathan Lipman (1986)

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Losgelöstheit. In other words it can be considered a container of good boredom. So if we think back to the ideas and thoughts of Dom van der Laan, we notice a similarity and also the possibility of a message, although in the case of Taliesin West the individual is not restricted to just a room, but to an open space, just like the savannah. Another fascinating aspect is the various tent-like structures surrounding Taliesin West. The apprentices working for Frank Lloyd Wright built these desert shelters20, and in their way, recreated savannah conditions and made it possible for the apprentices to shape their own space for Losgelöstheit. What is clear however is that Wright’s ideas were well ahead of his time and he laid down the blueprint for future office architecture with the Larkin Building. However, when we survey the further development of “other” office architecture, we notice that this is mainly based around a more Tayloristic approach, resulting in dull cell offices, or office landscapes, which are dominant in the American and English offices (Van Meel, 2000, Albrecht & Broikos (eds.) (2000). These latter versions of the office landscape constitute a totally different approach than the one created by Frank Lloyd Wright. For some mysterious reason Taylorism became more popular than the organic approach to office architecture. As it turned out, under the influence of this Taylorism, the livingaspect of these spaces was downsized. It became greyer, an environment and container of bad boredom, which made living almost impossible. Along this movement we also witness the birth of the office cubicle. One of the first representations of this was in the famous Jaques Tati movie Playtime (1967). Intended as sort of a humorous warning against the dominance of rectangularity and grayness and against the loss of identity and individuality, we must however conclude that the film was either overlooked or not understood. The idea of the cubicle was copied widely and is a dominant feature in our contemporary office landscapes. This shows that humor isn’t necessarily a sure signpost for success. So in these Taylorized offices, filled with cubicles, we have stumbled upon a situation in which various individuals must work together while being separated. This is a strange idea of isolated employees who nevertheless have to be connected in some sort of way, connected so they can work together in a concerted effort so that the objectives of the organization can be realized. We compare these objectives to the liturgy, 20

see the book: Under the Arizona Skies (2011) by Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer and Victor E Sidy, with images of the various tent-like structures.

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however this is an example whereby the aspect of living is absent, which means that thinking also becomes impossible. The togetherness is just a rational togetherness, which essentially creates a separation to be fixed. Consequently this is not a situation created as a Gesamtkunstwerk, in which everything: building, furniture, clothing, movements, speaking, are created for the same purpose. No, the separation implies that any objective of the organization, which normally would be contained in the mission statement, is splintered. Following this line of argument, we immediately sense that this forms an impossible situation for any liturgy in these Taylorized offices. So it is fair enough to state that an analogue to the liturgy doesn’t happen in organization and its office architecture. Instead, what happens revolves around connected isolations. What are connected isolations? “Connected isolation is a social order in the sense that it describes how screens organize society - linking various media, transportation, and economic institutions” (Groening, 2008, 1)21. It is the screens, which people look into, just like mirrors. These screens separate and isolate people when they are together. It is a separated togetherness. This is, again, beautifully visualized in again the Tati movie Playtime. In the nighttime sequence we observe Monsieur Hulot looking at an apartment building and he sees many lit up apartment boxes stacked on top of each other. They work like paper lanterns. One can look inside, but one cannot look outside. It is a useless transparency. In these boxes, or containers, Mr. Hulot sees people staring at screens. They cannot see each other, as they are separated either by screens or walls. They can however hear each other. This is connected isolation. We conclude that the cubicle and the apartment lead to similar living conditions. These are both examples of connected isolations. But the idea of connected isolation, which we witness in Taylorized offices, and which is a representation of bad boredom, might be something that is also contained in work itself. It is not just the fact that people may be bored with working or work in general, but also that work itself is sometimes (perhaps mostly) boring. As Mangham & Overington have so mildly put: Work involves people doing the same thing over and over with hardly a moment’s thought .... most of social life has the same quality. (1987, 44)

21

Sloterdijk (2009b) also refers to connected isolations and the work of architectural firm Morphosis. See also Anonioli (2010)

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This implies that work and social life are qualitatively similar and that both are largely about doing the same thing over and over again; redundancy and repetition without doing any thinking. It in some sort of way this resembles the horology, but then without the contemplation, without thinking and the option of messages. There is good reason to go back to Louis Sullivan and his curves and folds that re-shape life and its social implications. It also shows that the architecture plays a major part in our perception and experience of work. The Tayloristic way is the way to bad boredom, while what we call the plastic way, opens up the possibility of Losgelöstheit, as it takes leiben into consideration. This is what the architectures of Dom van der Laan and Frank Lloyd Wright offer us. This is also where office-being, comparable to Heidegger’s hut-being, or Dom van der Laan’s cell-being, becomes possible and this opens up the possibility of a message, enabled by chance, and not by calculative rationality. When considering this, we have to state that this is not about mirroring the exact copy, but about a twist in the mirror. The mirror should deviate, it should differ. It is like a pond, in a freeze frame, which mirrors but which suddenly and unexpectedly gets disrupted by waves. It becomes blurry, and the only option to make sense is thinking. Not just mere thinking, but a total and bodily involvement, leiben, just as in the Heidegger quote: “das Leben leibt"; life bodies. Consequently, this means that the mirror in architecture should make a difference, not indifference. Those are the ingredients of architecture, of containers of boredom. This is what we have seen in the mirror of architecture.

4.5 Reflections We have played with some unusual concepts like Rausch, leiben, doezelen, Losgelöstheit, liturgy, horology, and plasticity. These concepts can help us thinking about mirrors, architecture or organization. They help us to rip up the regular, to disrupt, and to break away from the ordinary. These concepts also bring us back to some areas from which we might have been estranged. Much as some journey into the woods without a compass or a map, roaming around and open for some surprises or maybe some magic. This is what beguiled us and has moved us through the thoughts of Sloterdijk on savannah apes, Heidegger’s Hüttendasein, Dom van der Laan’s plasticity and the organic world of Frank Lloyd Wright.

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In the book Boredom by Alberto Moravia we read about a protagonist who is an artist, a painter. He claims that boredom can be amusing, and that it helps to distract or forget. It comes from a “…sense of the absurdity of a reality which is insufficient, or anyhow unable, to convince me of its own effective existence” (1999, 5). Here is where architecture can play its part. We have explored, investigated and uncovered how the task of architecture is to create containers of boredom. Through the thoughts of Sloterdijk, Heidegger and Dom van der Laan we have come to understand how these containers can be shaped and how they make thinking and being possible. Architecture is a crucial mirror for us and our leiben; it offers support for Losgelöstheit, just as in our ancestral home in the savannah. 

  



INTERZONE 4 DONE WITH MIRRORS

To be done with something, mirrors in this case, implies an end. In other words, you stop with something you have been doing. Whether good or bad, whether you enjoyed it or not. You stop, it is at an end. An end is also a synonym for something you want to achieve, like in the idiom of “means and ends”. It is a goal. Now ending and scoring a goal suggest different things. Put differently, a goal doesn't always imply an end of something. It can also imply that the game goes on. We could say that a goal and an end have a strange relationship. This relationship suggests to us that to be done with something, to try and reach a goal, doesn't always mean reaching an end. Ends and means; ends and goals. Separate but together, like conjoined twins. But first let's get back to the title, which assuredly suggests more than we notice at first glance. Done With Mirrors is the title of the 1985 reunion album by Aerosmith. This legendary seventies rock combo regrouped in the beginning of the eighties after a feuding period of some years. They, but especially singer Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry, decided to bury the hatchet, and make amends. Steven and Joe were then commonly known as The Toxic Twins. This name refers to their addictive enjoyment of illegal drugs. The drugs made them high when they were on top, but also brought them down which eventually led to their feuding and separation. The twins didn't turn out to be as “siamese” as a lot of people had expected them to be. Fueled by drugs and alcohol, they stopped mirroring each other’s lust for life and music. After the band’s divorce, Steven kept the Aerosmith train a’ rollin’ and Joe started to get his rocks off by himself under the monicker: The Joe Perry Project. Joe's first album was entitled Let the Music Do the Talking. The album cover shows Joe in his rock-outfit presenting a tape, which is presumably his album. He presents it to a group of elderly men, in business-suits, seated around a table. The tabletop is made of glass and mirrors their faces. Joe is standing in the middle while the rest are seated around him. This implies him taking control and being in command. In

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other words: let's cut the crap and get rocking, or as the title commands: Let the Music do the Talking. This probably emphasized his frustration of doing a lot of talking before his break up with Aerosmith, and not so much “making” music. Although Joe’s album was spectacular and can be considered a true classic, the sales weren't as spectacular. The businessmen weren't paying attention, or maybe they had no clue whatsoever as to what they were doing, but regardless the album did not find the success it could have. This didn’t discourage Joe too much, who just kept on rocking and rolling until he figured that he still missed Steven, and decided to get back with his twin brother. In the meantime Steven had been rocking and rolling with what was left of Aerosmith, also not as successful as in the previous years. The lack of success, but especially their “toxic twinhood” planted the seeds for their reunion. Success, as well as twinhood can be comforting and addictive. Before they hit it off as in the “old” days, they decided that they first had to clean up their act. They had to get the so-called monkey of their back. Their monkey was cocaine. Cocaine and not coke, the blackish soft drink, but the white innocently looking powder, which is mostly arranged in lines. For cocaine, for the chopping up before the snorting, the consumer needs a razor, the stereotypical $100 bill, and a mirror. Getting rid of the monkey suggests getting rid of the razor and mirror, and finding another use for the $100 bill. So the musicians cleaned up their act and got the band back together. It is probably for this reason that they decided to call their reunion album Done With Mirrors. Their involvement with mirrors was over. At least that is what the title suggests. The album also offered Steven a chance to show his appreciation for his twin brother’s solo project title track “Let the Music Do the Talking” and re-use it for their present album. A distinctive part of this song is Joe's riff played with a slide, a chromium bottleneck, which itself reflects a twisted mirror image. So they were not altogether done with mirrors, but instead switched to a chromium variety. Mirrors can have numerous appearances, but they still mirror. Steven didn't want to “just” copy, or mirror, Joe's song as an identical twin. Just like the slide, he preferred an alternative mirror image. Using the power that any singer possesses, he changed the vocal melody and the lyrics. He wanted it to be their song, a song from the Toxic Twins, who however weren’t toxic anymore. He vents: Got my brand new baby She's my brand new drug

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He made it his brand new baby and his brand new drug, the substitute for cocaine. So he had his twin brother back, they became “siamese” twins again. He got his brand new song which was his brand new drug. This all should emphasize them being “done with mirrors”. However old habits die hard, and after a while it turned out that they weren't done with mirrors after all and couldn’t resist becoming toxic again. They needed the old mirror. The mirror of nostalgia, the mirror of the good old days. They needed the mirror that made them loose control. They craved that mirror. They were addicted to that mirror. The mirror showed and renewed its addictive power. For them, trying to get rid of the mirror failed hopelessly, but this did not prove to be a very big problem as they became more successful than ever before after that. This then probably shows that the mirror deserves its positive connotation. So the idea to be done with mirrors didn't turn out to be such a swell idea after all. They re-embraced the mirror and became “siamese” twins, toxic and successful, again.



      



      



CHAPTER FIVE FROZEN GEILNESS

5.1 UNVEILING These amateurs looked as if they had absolutely no sense of shame or guilt about what they were doing. On the contrary, and their attitude toward their work was cheerful and carefree, an attitude shared by the clients who thronged to them. (Yasumi, 2005, 7) Death, like mourning, has become obscene and awkward, and it is good taste to hide it, since it can offend the well-being of others. (Baudrillard, 1993a, 182)

When reading the above quotes above we immediately notice that there is mention of shame and the obscene. Whereas the first quote is about sex, the other one deals with death. The first is grounded in the work of Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki (born 1940) and his book Tokyo Lucky Hole (2005a). In this book he portrays the Tokyo underground sex scene. The quote reveals to us that the people portrayed in these pictures are not ashamed of showing their nude bodies in explicit sexual activities, but rather are happy and cheerful. Carefree. The second quote is from the French philosopher of the hyperreal, Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007). He is also interested in sex, much like Araki, but especially in relation to death,. Baudrillard’s quote lays bare the problematic relation we have with death and how we try to hide it. We are thus confronted with a situation where sex and death are related although we simultaneously want to both hide and expose them. To try and understand what this enigmatic relation of apparent opposites implies we have to consult Araki and Baudrillard. Although these two “artists” and “philosophers” have never commented on each other’s work, as far as we know, we nevertheless found it fruitful to bring them in touch with each other, and mirror their thoughts. The problem with mirroring, however, is that the reflections easily get out of bounds. This means that other people can get in the

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picture. Whenever they add something, we welcome them, and when not, we kick them out of the frame. When mirroring the thoughts of Araki and Baudrillard, it is important to mention that their main connection is photography. This seems obvious for Araki. Baudrillard on the other hand, was a philosopher, but he was also interested in photography and not only from a theoretical point of view. This is evidenced through exhibitions of his photographs. The consideration of photography immediately raises some questions. What is a photograph? What is a photographer? In order to find answers, we also invite French philosopher Roland Barthes (1915-1980) into the discussion. To disrupt these thoughts, another French philosopher Jacques Rancière (born 1940) will elaborate on the pensive image, the image full of thought. But the main feature is photographs. Now there is no such thing as “the” photograph, we only have “a” photograph. There is never the definite picture that contains all the elements relevant for photography within itself. Without going too much into the various styles of photography or photographers we allowed ourselves to be influenced by those images that struck us as intriguing. In other words, those images which beguiled us. This beguilement was the reason to dive into the work of Japanese photographer Araki. His imagery is intriguing, disturbing, demanding, and beautiful simultaneously. It is a world which is stripped of its glamour, a world as it is, a world stripped bare; a world in all its nakedness. He shows a world where we can witness prostitution, death, joy and excitement. Araki confronts these images, of what goes on in the black holes or hidden spaces of the city, with the generic images of the big city of Tokyo. It is a contrast of the hidden world and the so-called visible world and reveals that the difference might not be as extreme as it seems at first glance. Araki’s work shows how the underground is related to something that we refer to as the “overworld”, the visible world above the ground. Araki displays contrasts of dark and light, black and white, local and global. This opens up possibilities to think about this world in a broader perspective. It helps us to expand our thoughts beyond the world of Tokyo. Is Tokyo unique, or are there similarities around the world, and how could it be that these similarities occur, despite apparent cultural differences? And when they occur how do they reflect in our mirror? How can we make sense of this? What is already becoming clear and in focus is that the hidden world needs the visible world and vice versa. This also suggests that some

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generic tendencies or characteristics are relevant, and some others are superfluous or maybe even hampering. It suggests a world where human behavior searches for hidden spaces. The hidden world needs to be included in order for people to remain human. The sanitized, clean and shiny cannot remain so in the absence of the dirty and the tarnished. This is further exemplified by Araki’s imagery of bondage. He portrays its enigmatic relevance. He brings the hidden out into the open, and reveals the art of tying people up. But what could he possibly try to tell us with this imagery? To open up this enigma, we call on Deleuze to appear in the mirror. His thoughts on masochism can inform us on the way Araki portrays bondage and its relevance for our thinking on the overworld and the underground. This opens up the possibility to investigate the closely related concept of being-slave, which more or less argues that people are constantly enslaved or in chains. Considering all this, it is important to notice that Araki is always beguiled by whatever comes near his lens and it looks as if he cannot wait to freeze the image into his frame. Even better, because of his geilness, there are many occasions that he is in the frame as well. He is there, visible, not hiding, almost as if he wants to show his excitement. He is not just an innocent bystander, or distant observer. No, he is right in there, diving into the frame, and in our face. It makes us wonder if there is an invisible third who is taking these pictures. We never know and maybe do not care, as Araki’s frozen frames and his geilness, beguile us.

5.2 Tokyo Lucky Hole In this part we move with Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki through his scandalous but revealing book: Tokyo Lucky Hole. We will describe what he sketches, his geilness, and whether or not it is scandalous. We also introduce the concept of the hypernormal. For this we go underground and paint a chiaroscuro. The work of Araki is of a special kind of tenderness; a tenderness which might also be considered obscene. But then obscene is not necessarily by definition a negative thing to everyone. This implies that obscenities can have a positive or productive side to it. This probably also suggests that there is a good reason for obscenities, but also that binaries are problematic. The same goes for good and bad, that they shouldn’t be considered only as a duality. We only know that something is bad, because there is a thing called good, just as we can consider something obscene,

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because there is a non-obscene, and both elements need each other. They are like “siamese” twins. But what does that say about Araki? Who is he, and why does he portray things the way he does? An example is one of his earliest books: Subway Love (2005b), in which he pictures people on the Tokyo underground. In this book he explains how people considered him a freak that was shooting pictures up women’s dresses. He even got arrested a few times because of that, and also because nobody could understand why he would want to shoot images of something so uninteresting and boring as people traveling to work on the underground. This was however exactly what intrigued Araki, who was beguiled by this more normal than normal life which people were leading. More normal than normal, to such an extent that it even becomes unrecognizable or even invisible to those living in such normalcy. This was what he wanted to portray. Perhaps the people in these images wanted to remain invisible out of some sort of shame? Maybe that was the reason for considering Araki a freak, or even worse, as an intruder of the more normal than normal, or “hypernormal" existence. Hypernormal can be considered the normal that is so normal, that we do not recognize it as normal anymore. Beyond the lack of recognition, we might even try to neglect or deny its existence at all. In his book Tokyo Lucky Hole, Araki leaves the subway and goes underground into the Tokyo sex scene. When we open this “scandalous” book, the first picture we see is a two page black and white image of a city in despair. The city is Tokyo. The image is almost too real to be true. An image of the hypernormal. It displays a grimness that is on the one hand unique and on the hand other generic. It seems a city-image like any other city-image. According to Araki it nevertheless perfectly shows “his” city, Tokyo. When we turn the page we see another image spread out over two pages. It is the image of a young woman with a veil loosely draped around her still half-naked body. She is in a stylish and gentle pose, and looks shy but confident. She seems at ease and comfortable, and there is a certain friendliness around her. We do not see any other person, although obviously there is the photographer. It is clear that she is posing, on display and her actions are freeze-framed in Araki’s camera-eye. We furthermore see that she is in a room in front of a small hallway. The interior however doesn’t give a clue on the surrounding space. It gives the impression that people in the city are enclosed, or we could say encaged, in featureless rooms. It also shows how sexuality and its consummation are present in interiors that try to hide. It looks like a secret world within the black and white features of Tokyo, or maybe any city. After these first

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images, the book is an endless display of naked women, naked men and women in all kinds of sexual activities as well as city images. It is this black and white assemblage of enclosed sexuality and open city spaces that shapes the world of Tokyo Lucky Hole. While portraying Tokyo, Araki gives us the impression that it has its specificities, although it looks and behaves like any other big city. Therefore we get a glimpse of city life that exceeds the boundaries of Tokyo. In these cities, buildings give the impression of static objects, but we prefer the assumption that they are more like moving subjects, moving together with their inhabitants and users. This is however a different kind of movement. Buildings can crumble, or change their shape and appearance with the help of the users and inhabitants. It is a joint movement in which the individual plays a crucial part. So when we wonder about the global city, we simultaneously wonder about the global or generic individual. Although there is no such thing as a generic or global individual, there are nevertheless generic characteristics. These characteristics work as mirrors, reflecting behavior and in some sort of way adapting to this behavior. When we peek into the Araki mirror, we notice that his “models” might look average, or hypernormal, at first glance. Araki, however, turns them into unique individuals. The sameness becomes unique. It is as if he wants to state that whenever we try to imitate something or try to be average, there is nevertheless always a sense of uniqueness to it. This gives the impression that the unique cannot be constrained by the average. The singular escapes the mutual and more or less slips away from its cage. We therefore see that there are unique individuals in an average, hypernormal, everyday banality. It is the banal which becomes singular. The images look like a tender obscene singular.

5.3 Frozen Points In this part we dwell on what a photograph, a freeze frame, is. We discuss this with French philosophers Roland Barthes and Jean Baudrillard. They inform us about life and death and how they are paradoxically intertwined in the photograph. Their thoughts get disrupted by their colleague Jacques Rancière, and some thoughts on hypertelia. Araki’s book Tokyo Lucky Hole is a ludicrous and extravagant display of nudeness and brutishness. This display is raw and yet it is tender. It is

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harsh and mellow simultaneously. It displays a black and white world where everybody seems to enjoy themselves, and each other. It looks natural in all its weirdness. It seeks its way between the black and white, the light and dark, between hidden and visible. It lurks in the chiaroscuro, and is never a world of opposites, but one of indistinguishable mixtures. It is a world laid down in freeze frames. It is in this reality that Araki tries to make sense of what is happening, knowing that sense is similar to nonsense. It is Araki’s specific way of creating images that open up this world. But what can be considered photography in the eyes of Araki? In short, photography is about ... A single point of a moment it’s like stopping time as everything gets condensed in that forced instant. Photography has a kind of ... a reality which is almost illusion. Shooting makes you aware of this. But if you keep creating these points, they form a line which reflects your life. That’s what I’m unconsciously thinking, while clicking the shutter, gathering these points. (Araki, 2004a, 39.24)1

For Araki, it is about stopping time and condensing points which are almost an illusion, and thus never truly real. This shapes or creates a life, his life. Thus his whole corpus of work more or less visualizes his life. But it is not just about him. What is important is the relationship between Araki and his model. He explains how this relation exhibits itself in time and space: So I gamble on the moment. I hit them with my feelings, and I capture what returns. That’s how I shoot. That moment is a love affair. (Araki, 2004b, 01:33)

1

The quotes we use from Arakimentari (2004a) and the interview on the same DVD disk (2004b) are from the English subtitles. As our understanding of Japanese is next to zero, we depend on the skills of the translator involved in creating the subtitles.

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So this is not just about any kind of interaction. No, it goes deeper. It is about passion, about love, about surrendering to each other, but also about gambling. That is what is important in the work of Araki: to catch this moment, to freeze this point in time. But it goes beyond just that point. I have the desire to create that space. Not just one point. The points are to create the line. The point is for the surface. It’s not that photography isn’t about lines and surfaces. It’s not unlikely a collection of points. It’s about how to disperse them, how to gather them. That’s how I unconsciously go about it. So I need an amount. A lot. For example, a face. A great many points that is the face. When they are lined up, we get a single result. (Araki, 2004b, 12:41).

So it is about a relationship, about surrendering to each other, about the possibility to create the points, about drawing the line that shapes the image. It is about gambling, being vulnerable, being exposed. It is intense and demanding. That is Araki’s singular attitude towards photography. But there is more to tell about photography. More about what it is, how it works, or what its magic is. Therefore we will question Roland Barthes and Jean Baudrillard who both are beguiled by photography, but in different ways.

Light-Writing Roland Barthes was interested in photography although, at least as far as we know, he didn’t take any photographs. His colleague Jean Baudrillard, on the other hand, not only wrote about photography, but also published and exhibited his photographs. Perhaps because he thought that photography contains potency. He states: It is the photographer’s objective lens which, paradoxically, reveals the non-objectivity of the world which reveals that “something” that will not be resolved either by analysis or resemblance. (2001, 139).

The picture shows us something that we would not have seen otherwise and which is unexplainable. This is captured in the freezing of the moment, the freezing of time, the freezing of the frame. The photograph catches an instant in time and freezes the captured light, something which Baudrillard calls “light-writing” (ibid., 141). It brings light in a darkness hidden from us, a darkness which is enlightened and which is frozen as a moment in time. The freezing makes it both unique and artificial at the

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same time. Put differently, we can say that photography creates the unique artificial. Barthes knew that the essence of photography is about metonyms and not about metaphors. He knew it is exactly what we see, although there is always an element of posing: Now once I feel myself observed by the lens, everything changes: I constitute myself in the process of “posing”, I instantaneously make another body for myself, I transform myself in advance into an image. (2000, 10, emphasis in original).

It suggests that whenever we are aware of a camera eye, we are aware of what we are becoming as an image. Awareness is a big word, because the image always holds the element of surprise. Still, we might pose and check our appearance as in a mirror, but the frozen result, always contains the unexpected. This is strengthened by the triangle of spectator, operator and spectrum. This triangle shapes the posing. Barthes describes it as follows: In front of the lens, I am at the same time: the one I think I am, the one I want others to think I am, the one the photographer thinks I am, and the one he makes use of to exhibit his art. (ibid., 13).

There is thus a complex and unpredictable dimension to posing. It is not just stepping into the frame and trying to act natural or even normal. No, the pose gets shaped by this unpredictability and thus creates some sort of unrest. This unrest is fueled through the mystery the photograph contains. What really happened in that frozen moment? This is nicely visualized in the 1966 Michelangelo Antonioni film Blow Up, where we never know what has actually happened. Although the photographer shoots an image of a murder, we never know whether this is true or not. The real escapes, or as Baudrillard stated, it is: “a rape of the real” (ibid., 145). So we can never know what is really going on. This is what the photograph delivers; it offers puzzlement. A sort of puzzle whereby we do not know the outcome. Has the danger disappeared or is it still there? Are we safe or not? Is the hidden world safely sealed off, or is it still able to wound us? Can we recover or are we in mortal danger? This is also related to the fact that we cannot change the image. Once it is there, it is there: The photograph is violent: not because it shows violent things, but because on each occasion it fills the sight by force and because in it nothing can be refused or transformed. (ibid., 91, italics in original)

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So whatever puzzle is delivered, it is there to stay. It is a moment that more or less has died in time and leaves us wondering. But this rendering of the puzzle is not only about dying; there is also life. Here Barthes makes the distinction between a thing and a “matter of being” (ibid., 107). According to him the latter as shown through a body or a face, contains an “air” (ibid., 107), which refers to the expression or look. This is something that can both puzzle and move us. The imagery moves with our puzzlement when we try to make sense of it. This enigma is more than just the frozen image. The air is the element that gives the image life. It is frozen but still vibrant. Thus there is a fusion of life and death in the photograph. Through this, life resembles death and death resembles life. A photograph can also have a sedative effect. Although images can seem shocking at first, we can eventually get used to them. Baudrillard states about this sedation: Now, the more we are told about poverty and violence, and presented with them openly, the less effect they have on us. This is the law of the imaginary. (2001, 144)

Our fantasy, as it gets fired up by photographic images, thus diminishes and maybe even becomes careless. There is a certain saturation point that tones down our excitement or disgust. We get used to nastiness or brutality, and maybe even geilness. The fiction that comes out of the real, or Araki’s hypernormal, is thus made impotent. The “real” and harsh world, as it gets photographed, eventually becomes soft. It gets smooth and harmless. It is as Baudrillard names it: “a rape of the real” (ibid., 145). It is also a matter of addiction, whereby we get used to a certain dose and need more and more to feed the monkey of excitement. So: a combination of sedation and addiction. We get used to the extra-ordinary and the bizarre, and just need a higher dose. When looking at a photograph, we can distinguish two elements according to Barthes. The first is the “studium”, which advises us whether we like a picture or dislike it. The second element is the “punctum” which can generate a certain shock. This goes beyond the matter of taste. These elements are not affected by whether we like something or not. We could even say that such elements are the most direct effects, and happen before we even worry about whether we like an image or not. Therefore it is not to be analyzed, because it contains the element of surprise. It is a metonymic power that can tear open the flesh and leave a serious wound. A wound that can infect itself and its spectators, and thus proliferate out of

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bounds. It has the power of a virus. The photograph is thus not a harmless thing that can splendidly entertain us. No, it has the potency to wound us viciously, or make us tremble with excitement or geilness. When we think through this idea of the punctum, we see a resemblance to the German word “Punkt” which means point. So it can be argued that punctum is related to a point, maybe a point in time which would explain the freeze frame; an enigmatic point of time full of surprises, and something which cannot be studied in a “regular” way, like the studium. When we consider the earlier quotes from Araki, we notice that he refers to points that create a line, a space and how this results in a dispersion of points. So photography goes beyond the punctum, but is more like an uncontrollable proliferation of points which creates the freeze frame, and can shock or thrill us in enigmatic ways.

Pensiveness When we think back to the Barthesian air, and how it gives life, we become puzzled and wonder what the character in the image might be thinking. What happened before or after the clicking of the shutter? What went through his or her mind? What was the image thinking? Rancière calls this the pensive image, an image that is: “full of thought”. What could Rancière mean by this? How can an image be full of thought while simultaneously we are in doubt whether or not it is really thinking? Obviously a frozen point cannot think, because the time to think is frozen in an instant and thus excludes any duration. This means that as a viewer you cannot really know what is going on. We can assume that the person portrayed is thinking, but these thoughts are an impossibility. Or aren’t they? Could it be that the frozen point nevertheless suggests a state of thought which exceeds this frozen point? Could it be that it shows us a train of thought, which is revealed to us through the image? …a zone of indeterminacy between thought and non-thought, activity and passivity, but also between art and non-art. (2009, 107)

This suggests that the image appears to have a tendency to break out of the freeze frame, to be more or less, on the verge of unfreezing. At this tipping point the option of thought arises, but the situation also toys with the notion of art. When looking at Araki and hearing him talk about his work (2004a, b), he always tries to escape the world of art, as if he considers it to be a restriction or maybe even a world which can hold him accountable for his work. He gives the impression that he just wants to take pictures and in this way feed his addiction. Any talk about his work keeps him

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from doing his work, so it seems. He wants to be on the job 24/7, and doesn't cherish any distractions. It is almost as if art is stripped of its “seriousness” and is thrown into a world where thought or opinion are not necessary. Just images, and anyone trying to form an opinion is free to do so, Araki suggests. So the one looking at the image is free to decide whether or not to have thoughts or to form an opinion about it. But is this really true? Can we have a rational or an emotionless choice when we are confronted with shocking, crazy, or arousing imagery? Can we look away carelessly, as if we are not really bothered? For us, this is not the case. We believe that we can be “blown away” by imagery. It can kick us out of the regular, out of the banal, out of the hypernormal. We also argue that we cannot look away because we are puzzled, because we wonder what is going on, we wonder what the image is thinking. Rancière explains it further and argues that pensiveness: “thwarted the calculations of thought and art” (ibid, 110). So the zone of indeterminacy is a zone where calculation is of no use, just like Barthes argued earlier. We cannot explain photographic images in a regular way, but instead we have to think it through, and maybe remain puzzled. Moreover, as earlier mentioned, it is not just the perceiver of the image who is triggered to think, but it is also the image itself that contains thoughts. Rancière continues: The photograph’s pensiveness might then be defined as this tangle between several forms of indeterminacy. It might be characterized as an effect of the circulation, between the subject, the photographer and us, of the intentional and the unintentional, the known and the unknown, the expressed and unexpressed, the present and the past. (2009, 114-115)

This relates more or less to the earlier mentioned thoughts of Barthes on posing. But where posing is the insecurity of the one posing for an image, here we are dealing with looking at an image and trying to make sense of it. Rancière suggests that this might not be so easy, in fact maybe even an impossibility. We are looking at an image, and we just don’t know. In the case of Araki we see these people portrayed and wonder about their thoughts, motives or feelings. What goes through their minds, and how is it that we wonder about this? Apparently this is the power that arises out of Araki’s imagery and it does not leave us unaffected. It is hard to look away carelessly.

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Hypertelia But maybe something else is going on? Maybe there is a connection between the proliferation of Araki images, and the way they get to us? Perhaps the wounding and spreading like a virus of this imagery contains more than meets the eye. To gain some insight we suggest the concept of hypertelia as proposed by Baudrillard. He argues: It’s the paradox of saturation, inversion. There is a kind of reversible fatality for systems, because the more they go towards universality, towards their total limits, there is a kind of reversal which they themselves produce, and which destroys their own objective. It is what I call “hypertelia”. (1993c, 91, emphasis in original)

So when we witness proliferation, there can be a backfire. It can lead to an increase in thrill, enjoyment or disgust, but this can overrun itself in an unpredictable way. It can become too much and spread like a virus. It gets out of control. Hypertelia suggests that there is a certain point in time, a paradoxical saturation, which can turn a positive virus into a negative one. Baudrillard continues: Cancer, for example, is a hypertelic process: the cells are too lively; they reproduce too quickly. (ibid., 91)

One gets the impression that this is a process that goes off the rails and out of bounds. And then control is something that, as we have argued, is an impossibility in photographic images. We never exactly know what is going to happen. Araki however creates a completely different situation, where the proliferation of images spreads like a virus and in this way disrupts the hypernormal. It creates a subversive potency that shakes up the underground and the overworld and their connection; a blurry virus, which moves in unpredictable ways and through its viscosity, is able to move into areas that would otherwise be unreachable. In this way it is an antidote to the hypernormal. This means that we are confronted with the visualization of the hypernormal through Araki’s camera eye, and the concurrent virological proliferation of his imagery, which spreads like wildfire. Araki shapes a mirror that is like an endless mirroring, mirror into mirror into mirror, like a never-ending or perpetual mirroring. This is how Araki’s images behave. Understanding this helps us to make sense of

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the virus that disrupts the underground and the overworld, and creates a metamorphosis.

5.4 Being-Slave In this part we elaborate on bondage and the thoughts on masochism by Gilles Deleuze. We introduce the concept of being-slave and wonder about the productive aspects of being tied up in ropes. We also question Baudrillard on his thoughts on death. This has implications for our thinking about the frozen points and how these can unfreeze and become fluids, like sweat. She’s just like a penguin in bondage way over on the wet side of the bed Frank Zappa - Penguin in Bondage - Roxy & Elsewhere

The above quote by Frank Zappa combines bondage and fluids in a “nifty kind of way”. Bondage is also something that captures the attention of Araki, although he prefers the Japanese art of kinbaku, which can be regarded as a more “subtle” variant of the practice. Araki’s images suggest that is not just about being tied up, but about a subtle delicate and loving torture. Not a humiliation, but almost a worshipping. It seems to respect the person being tied up. But it is not just respect, but there is also a sense of joy. Apparently bondage can be a happy gesture. We should also notice that this kinbaku is shown only later on in Araki’s work. It gives the impression that Araki needed the time to develop this subtlety. Starting with street photography imagery, he slowly worked his way up to color images, kinbaku, flowers, food or plastic dinosaurs. It shows that the eye of Araki constantly sees new things, and searches for new imagery. But is not so much a radical and ruthless change, but more like a delicate change or metamorphosis that always includes reflections of his previous work. It is a certain advanced or progressed mirror image. Just as the city and its people change, so also do the images change. Bondage is something that exemplifies the relationship with his camera. Here is a guy who sleeps with his camera, and probably with his models, and whose camera fuses with his being. He’s on it 24/7, and he’s geil. This has resulted in an enormously productive career, which already consists of publishing more than 350 books. It is a perfect manifestation of his geilness. Although this seems excessive, he is not the only photographer who indulges in geilness. Perhaps this reflects some sort of

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photographers obsession? An obsession, an addiction of photographing everything. But Araki might well be the only one who shoots thousands of pictures and publishes them all. He goes berserk and is tied-up with his camera. Araki and his camera are in bondage. This obsession furthermore suggests that the photographic image makes something real for all eternity. All of these things which we might be afraid of will disappear become eternal through the photographed image. This goes beyond making something visible and opening up the hidden world, or black hole. No, this is also about protecting it from disappearing: It is rooted in 20th century Japanese culture, the frenzied pace of social change and the leveling of social structures ... This clinging to and conserving of experiences and impressions before they disappear has become a reflex. Though it sounds cliché, it also explains why Japanese tourists photograph everything and everybody they get their eyes on ... Araki is like a tourist - insatiable - a haunting fear of forgetting or missing something - the camera as an addiction. (Siemens, 2009, 4)

The tourist-view is thus a dominant feature in the world in which Araki moves around. But Araki is not just another tourist; no, he is a singularity, as well as a junky. He never gets enough. He is insatiable. He is a singular junky.

Slave We return to the earlier quoted Zappa lyrics, and upon closer examination, learn that “it” is not really what “it” is, meaning: she is not really a penguin in bondage. It is something else. It is only a metaphor. What the “she” is then remains a mystery. We have already argued that we have a troublesome relationship with metaphors. We prefer metonyms, those things that really are what they are. This means that in the case of Araki, he is really in bondage, tied up with his camera. He is really tied up, but then simultaneously trying to break loose. This means that the concept of bondage is expanded, where being tied-up is not necessarily restricted to ropes. Nevertheless, Araki is tied-up, just like his models, but always busy escaping the cage, or untying the ropes. But before the escape there is always the tying up and the urge to do so. Where does this craving for bondage, this passion for bondage, come from? What is this masochistic desire that makes people want to be tied up or humiliated in some sort of way? On the other hand there is simultaneously a desire or craving to tie people up. It is always a two-way

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street. It always involves two parties: the one who ties, and the one who is tied up. But how does this work? How is this organized? And how is the slave related to the master, or masochism related to sadism? According to Deleuze there is a misconception about the relationship between sadism and masochism. He claims that although these two are often intertwined, they also differ. He argues that: ... the sadistic “instructor” stands in contrast to the masochistic “educator”. (Deleuze, 1991, 19, emphasis in original)

The sadist doesn’t want to teach anything, he2 doesn’t want to convince, or persuade. No, he wants to instruct. He wants obedience. He is not open for debate. Things have to happen in exactly the way he wants them to happen. The sadist is a director. He knows what he wants and he doesn’t want anything to interfere with his intentions. It is black and white, with no room for chiaroscuro. But these intertwined individuals also differ in the way they organize: The sadist thinks in terms of institutionalized possession, the masochist in terms of contracted alliance. (ibid., 20, 21)

The term institution in these thoughts reminds us of a hardened machine, which leaves no option for deviation, but moves in the only way that it is intended to move. Any subversive behavior or disobedience is evicted. The sadist is the one operating the institution and secures its functioning. The masochist on the other hand is open for negotiations. Discussion or deviation from the norm is possible. Although the masochist needs the humiliation, he apparently has the option to choose which one he craves. This opens up a space for learning. It gives the impression that sadism should have a negative connotation while masochism should be more on the positive side. But this relation is more complex, as Italian philosopher Agamben argues: While the operation of the Sadean turns immediately against the law as such, the masochist’s operation is turned against respect, which it undermines at its base and destroys. (Agamben, 2013b, 117)

This suggests that the masochist might have a contract and be open for learning, but that this openness is rooted in a caged subversiveness that 2

for some mysterious reason we immediately start referring to: he.

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resembles bondage. It fuels a constant struggle to break the chains or untie the ropes. The masochist knows what he or she wants and knows he has to abide and endure. For the masochist this is so demanding that he accepts humiliation willingly. So his learning is always based on humiliation and resistance. He learns how his resistance becomes more and more effective and brings him or her closer and closer to his or her goals. The learning in masochism therefore exceeds both what is taught and the thoughts included in such teaching, and thus is strongly driven by imagination: The cold purity of thought in sadism stands in contrast to the iciness of imagination in masochism. (Deleuze, 1991, 128)

So, it is thought as opposed to imagination when comparing sadism and masochism, nevertheless connected in the iciness or the coldness. There is not too much warmth to be detected in sadism or in masochism. This is different in the kinbaku world of Araki. Here we see a sort of compassion. There is much warmth and love in the way that Araki portrays his tied up models, as they gaze into his camera with a tender look. The tied-up models seem to feel at ease. This is not so much as to say that they crave being tied-up, but that even if they’re tied up, they still feel free, or seem to know that freedom awaits them. We witness their thoughtful gaze and sense that they have some control over the situation. The images give the impression that a slave is also a master in some sense. This is what Araki’s images show. So the masochistic world is not just cold, icy and cruel, but can also be tender and passionate. It gives the impression of a paradoxical world which is harsh and comforting at the same time; a world which the masochist craves. It always gives the impression of free choice while also suggesting that the importance is not so much about the pain but rather the humiliation. Deleuze argues that: Waiting and suspense are essential characteristics of the masochistic experience. (ibid., 70).

This implies that the fantasy needs the suspense, or in other words, that the suspense feeds the fantasy. It is also argues for the relevance of waiting. Immediacy is ruled out. The endless waiting for “it” to happen is important.

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Death Araki shows us there is a strong connection between being free and beingslave; that being tied-up, being a slave, resembles a fluid state. Always moving from one state to the other, in both directions simultaneously, without ever being just in condition. This implies that the slave always has a sense of freedom. The tied-up model is not just giving in to bondage, but she is embracing bondage. It looks like a form of embracing life, it is like bounded freedom. It is the amalgam of death and life, of air and suffocation, of the comfortable stranglehold. Araki explains: My playground was a cemetery. There was this graveyard in my neighborhood ... The graveyard was very special. It was next to Yoshiwaha, a whorehouse district. Those whores, without families, when they died, their bodies were thrown into a mass grave, piled up without gravestones or names. That was where ... well ... I learned about … The erotic, life and death, and how they’re mixed together. That concept was burned into me at an early age. And it’s remained with me forever. That’s the core of my Tokyo … A place where life and death exist side by side. ... That mixture of life and death exists all over Tokyo. ... I’ll enter the world of monochrome and experience death … Then I enter the world of color and experience life. Back and forth. What I’m doing is drifting between the two. (Araki, 2004a, 56’30”)

Araki stresses the strong connection between prostitution and death. Baudrillard agrees and states: So it is with life and death in our current system: the price we pay for the “reality” of this life, to live it as a positive value, is the ever-present phantasm of death. (1993a, 133, emphasis in original)

Death is not only inescapable, meaning it awaits us sometime, somewhere. No, death is already here, it is already present. It is not just a physical thing, but a social state as well. Death is ultimately nothing more than the social line of demarcation separating the “dead” from the “living”: therefore, it affects both equally. (ibid., 127, emphasis in original)

Although we think and feel that we are living, we are not and this implies is that the concept of death has changed and has given a new meaning to our being in the world. It implies that we are tied up slaves that cannot open up to the possibilities of life. We are no longer able to use the

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potency which life offers. It exemplifies the slave as a creature who is basically dead. This is what Araki wants to show us with his images. He tears open wounds in order to get us back to life, and untie the ropes. But it is not just that we are dead, but all our life has been pervaded by death, as if we have stopped breathing. Baudrillard states: … by dint of being washed and sponged, cleaned and scoured, denied and warded off, death rubs off onto every aspect of life. Our whole culture is hygienic, and aims to expurgate life from death. The detergents in the weakest washing powder are intended for death. To sterilize death at all costs, to varnish it, cryogenically freeze it. air-condition it, put make-up on it, “design” it, to pursue it with the same relentlessness as grime, sex, bacteriological or radioactive waste. (ibid., 180, emphasis in original)

Death is everywhere, because we want it to be. The organic functioning of life has vanished. This has happened in lives and in our cities: Our true necropolises are no longer the cemeteries, hospitals, wars, hectacombs; death is no longer where we think it is, it is no longer biological, psychological, metaphysical, it is no longer even murder: our societies’ true necropolises are the computer banks or the foyers, blank spaces from which all human noise has been expunged, glass coffins where the world’s sterilized memories are frozen. (ibid., 185)

Death is everywhere and as Baudrillard states: Death is when everything functions and serves something else, it is the absolute, signing, cybernetic functionality of the urban environment as in Jaques Tati’s film Playtime. (ibid., 185)

It is inescapable and has claimed the world we built in the name of progress. Looking at Araki’s images, we learn that this all-enveloping death is the reason we need the black holes of the city. Here is where we can regain life. That is what Araki shows us. We are in bondage, and we are slaves. But his images can open our eyes and untie the ropes. The rope is therefore a very important feature in his work: Ropes, he says, are just a show, a means of provoking and upsetting the balance ... The rope is like a snake holding you in its grip. (Siemens, 2009, 10)

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The rope is on the threshold and exemplifies a comfortable stranglehold. It’s a liquid grip. It might imply domination, but is also love. You only tie up people you respect and love, says Araki with his pictures: Putting a rope round a woman is like putting an arm around her. (Sans, 2007, 7)

It’s an act of love. This love battles death or the hypernormal, the more normal than normal. Araki’s pensive images mirror a hidden world and suggest that the underground, the world normally hidden from sight, is the place where you can be tied up but also resist to this bondage, and create an option to escape and embrace life. This shows that the underground is a place of dissensus, to use Rancière’s nomenclature. 3 It breaks through the consensus of the overworld, where resistance is made impotent, and the only option is to accept the slavery. We must however realize that this is about us responding to Araki’s work. It is about what his images are doing to us, and how they are wounding us. Araki might refute the idea of there being a message in his photographs. He claims: I don’t have anything to say. There’s no special message in my photos. The messages come from my subjects, men or women. I wait for my subjects to give of themselves, offer themselves up. I have things to photograph, so I’ve nothing to express. (ibid., 8)

Although Araki might not agree, we still see him opening up the hidden world in the black holes. He tears them open and shows the infected wounds. He is cutting open the flesh of life, in order to retrieve life, and in order to release the air present. This all happens in such moments of freezing in the frame when the shutter opens and then closes again.

3

See our chapter on the mirror of painting and the concept of clauding.

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5.5 Masochistic Organization In this part we go deeper into the black holes of cities.4 We explore these and wonder about the implications for organization, and in what way masochism plays its part. We then grab these thoughts and move them around the world. We do this with the help of Mr Phileas Fog. He informs us that globalization and the generic is strongly driven by chance. Obviously Araki has to be in the picture as well. We have argued that we need the underground to remain human. We need it in order to live. This also implies that the overworld is the space of death. Life has vanished and people are just being slaves. Their ropes can only be untied when they move to the underground, and paradoxically subject themselves to bondage, as if to prove that they can untie themselves or that they are in some sort of control. In this way, they regain their lives. People are thus slaves unless they go underground. We have also argued that the overworld and the underground are connected through a zone of indeterminacy. This zone implies a world which is moving, and which has become liquid.5 People move fluidly from one world to the other, and vice versa. As life is moving, we could say that this simultaneously creates an urge for some stability, or to put it differently, for some hardness. This creates the urge to tie up life, in order to prevent it from flowing in all sorts of directions and maybe even flowing away. This implies that bondage becomes direr in this liquid life. A liquid state also implies that time and space disembark from their chronological and mathematical state. The world becomes less predictable and manageable. This is a horror for organizations. Therefore they want to bring back the solid states and this goes for solid relations as well. Organization thus has an urge to tie people up. In other words organizations in the overworld want to bind their employees, they want to tie them up, and turn them into slaves. Slaves should not slip away in an untrustworthy or secretive way. The images of Araki however show that this tying up is troublesome, because it creates an urge to escape, as sketched through his imagery of the underground. Individuals move underground, where they 4

Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells refers to the “fourth world” (2000, 1998, 1997). This is however a zone which is to be found in every city, on the fringe of society, where all the dropouts, the bums live. 5 See also the work of Zygmunt Bauman on liquid (2005, 2003, 2000)

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might or might not get into some sort of relation, or where they might or might not indulge in bondage. This also implies that relations need life and are allergic to death. Therefore they are absent in the overworld, although they might appear to be there in the hypernormal. The restlessness is fueled and increases the urge of movement and the need to escape the solid state of being-slave. It is however a paradoxical movement. It goes in two directions simultaneously. This also means that while life becomes fluid, contracts and thus masochism, become more and more important. This raises some questions about organization. Do people still want to be organized?

Black Masochism The increasing importance of masochism and the way it is related to the contract nevertheless requires some sort of organization. This is problematic, because although there might be a contract and the slave might be willingly tied up, there is nevertheless always a strong subversive urge. The slave might pretend to agree to the contract and the punishment, but only because he or she knows that it supplies a slight chance to break free. So there is always an indeterminate state between being tied up and breaking loose. This complicates any means of organization, as it usually tries to create some solid situation, something that people can hold on to, like clichés6 for instance. Unfortunately for organization, there is always the urge to break free, and retreat into the black hole. This hidden space then offers another kind of masochism, more like a cheerful masochism, just like Araki’s models are cheerful. We call this cheerful masochism: black masochism. It is a form of masochism that goes underground. This can be a conscious choice, in other words a move to the secretive, or it can be subliminal, where we are under a regime of masochism without us being aware of it. Dutch philosopher René ten Bos suggests: that there are important family resemblances between masochists and managers. (2007, 543)

This suggests that managers want to be tied up as well, and should know how to deal with contracts. A characteristic of the contract is that it has a 6

See also Luc Peters: Cliché & Organization (2016)

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beginning and end and that there is an option to terminate it in between. This means that the contract is not only hard, but is softened up: The contract presupposes in principle the free consent of the contracting parties and determines between them a system of reciprocal rights and duties; it cannot affect a third party and is valid for a limited period. Institutions by contrast, determine a long state of affairs which is both involuntary and inalienable; it establishes a power or an authority which takes effect against a third party. (ibid., 548, quoted from: Deleuze, 1991, 77)

So there is a zone of tension between the organization 7 wanting an unlimited binding, and the slave craving the option of terminating at free will. This would still imply that people are alienated from organization. In other words, they do not really want to be organized. This is strongly related to escaping the state of being-slave. As Ten Bos argues: organizational structure does not cancel out pain and perversion but rather produces both as a normal rather than a merely exceptional effect. (ibid., 546)

This means that we need sadism or masochism in order to be able to organize, and that these create the hypernormal. Thus Araki’s images of bondage are not an exceptional portrayal of deviance, but rather a regular image of organization. By displaying this world hiding in the hypernormal, Araki opens up a window mirror of resistance. Thus masochism leaves the option of escape, as opposed to sadism which more or less supplies complete subordination: In masochism (and, I would suggest in management), trust is conveyed to an ordering power relation (potentia ordinata) in which the oftentimes painful relationships between two persons are regulated by and organized by a distinctively formal appeal to law, order and regulation; in sadism, on the other hand rules and regulations are replaced by an absolute power (potentia absolute) which uses grace, arbitrariness, and physicality in order to reign supreme over the victim who then have to endure that the

7

We randomly exchange management and organization, as if they would imply the same thing. Organization is the process of organizing, while organizations are the actual entities in which the process of organizing is executed.

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So the ordering power is favored over the absolute power. This means that in sadism, people are helpless, whereas the masochistic contract leaves open the option for the slave to breathe and to break free into the black holes of the underground and live. This makes organization in the overworld problematic. The absurdity and meticulous, scrupulous execution of rules and punishment in organizations is a form of the Baudrillarian hypertelia. It is the extreme proliferation in which rules only act as mirrors without any reflections. The slaves might pretend to follow the rules and endure the punishment, but this only fuels the urge to move to the underground. Araki images of bondage always contain the arrogance and the cheerfulness, as a token of deviance. It cracks the mirror and offers an escape into the underground to indulge in ecstatic sex and madness. Araki’s photographs may work as a shop window, or looking glass through which the slaves of masochism and organization can escape.

Fog Window Mentioning the shop window and its connection to the concept of beingslave immediately demands an answer to the question: what is a shop window? The shop window is an instrument which, through its mirror-like characteristics, makes it possible for the individual, whose attention it draws, to create a connection with the products on display. This involves individual perception and interpretation. This special relationship becomes strengthened when desire starts to work on the individual. This is fed constantly, because it is a desire not only fueled by the physical manifestation of the window itself, but also through constant exposure. We cannot escape the shop window. Therefore we should be aware, as it creates a new kind of bondage. The shop window also contains the element of choice and more importantly the element of chance. Whether or not you have your products or yourself displayed, the shop window offers the opportunity of success or negligence. It is the coming to life of the “chance-society” (Sloterdijk, 2005, 100). The idea of chance also implies luck. It implies a pitch or game-area for rolling the dice. This is contradictory to the whole idea of planning and management. Again, the world becomes less predictable and manageable. Again, a horror for organization.

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It is not just that there is something like chance, but that it is unavoidable. It is all around us and it is addictive. It seems to be some sort of fate, as an unavoidable destruction. The Cartesian quote: I think therefore I am’ is traded in for: I destroy therefore I am. (Sloterdijk, 2005, 178)

This is the constant tearing apart of the solid and being replaced by a liquid state. We see this mirrored in the shop window, where selling and buying equals prostitution. Slavery goes global. Going global implies breaking loose and covering the distance and here the achievement becomes most important. This is also Sloterdijk’s reading of the eighty days that Jules Verne, in one his most famous stories, attributed to Mr. Fog. There are a few things relevant in the challenge met by Mr. Fog in relation to globalization and its generic tendencies. The challenge for Fog was to figure out the fastest route around the globe in order to win a bet. His constraints concerned the eighty days in which he had to cover the distance, this distance being to circumnavigate the globe in any way he preferred. For him, this meant that he had to figure out the shortest route, or to put it differently the shortest line between two points on a sphere. It can be seen as a conclusion of a circle, comparable to Ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail. The journey of Fog wasn’t about any Nietzschean qualitative never-ending return experience, quite the contrary. Only the challenge of beating time and space was relevant for him. What might happen in the in between was only a vehicle for the hopefully positive fulfillment of the bet. Nevertheless it was a vehicle for disposing of the enigmatic world and opening it up for the managed race against time. It was furthermore an end of uniqueness, or abandoning of the singular, and a championing of the replaceable, as both their names, Fog as well as his assistant Passepartout suggest. Stability is lost and any unique feature is an annoyance, or so it seems to suggest. Mr. Fog was not interested in what he might find or even what he might gain from other countries or cultures. He didn’t want any secrets or any uncontrollable differences. He didn’t have time for that. He wanted it to be predictable and manageable. He needed to move on, because home awaited him and home is not just where the heart is, but where his competitors were. Only tempo was important. Time should conquer space and what happened during the journey was of no interest. Cultures, landscapes or whatever happened during the conclusion of the circle was a waste of space and time.

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What is also very important in the bet that Fog made is that he cannot do it on his own. He needs assistance and not just any assistance. No, he needed a slave, an assistant who obeyed no matter what, and therefore Fog had to know how to enforce obedience. There had to be a hierarchical situation where it is crystal clear who is master and who is slave. This hierarchical condition was needed for the global challenge and for the winning of the bet. The trouble for Mr. Fog was that he was also a slave. He was a slave to the bet and was not able to untie the ropes. He wasn’t able to embrace life as it was displayed in front of him and all around him. Mr. Fog’s assistant knew his master and he knew what his obligation was and especially to whom he owed allegiance. He knew his master just as any employee would know the organization he or she works for and might or might not feel obliged to. But times have changed since then. We are now in a new situation where we do not know anymore who we are working for: The big lottery-sale occurs when we stop serving one master whom we know, but the necessities of equivalent others, who we mostly don’t know. (Sloterdijk, 2005, 319)

Our masters are unknown to us and therefore it is irrelevant to offer any individuality, largely because we can’t imagine who would be interested. It also means that for the individual nothing remains but to keep his individuality and therefore not partake in any form of organization. So the individual and the organization become two separate entities. This further implies that the organization has no more individuals, but only objects that might join its sphere (Sloterdijk, 2004, 1999, 1998), or might seek some other attachment. People do not want to be organized anymore. The contract is just an excuse to be able to decide when they will leave. This attachment is based on the concepts of chance, luck, fate, scrutiny and destruction. The attachment is linked to the rolling of the dice. Do we win the bet or not? The rolling of the dice and the searching for the best way to acquire the money makes the world go round, and does therefore need some practice (Sloterdijk, 2009a). This ascesis is needed to survive in a situation that is constantly threatened by disaster, death, banality or senselessness. To remain human asks for the practice of defensibility. Our escape is the suicide-party, as suggested by Sloterdijk (1993). This means shutting down the senses and accepting the fact that we are already dead. Organization is therefore an evil to overcome. But there is also hope for organization and this lies in the black holes. These hidden zones of the city offer life. This is what Araki shows

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in his pictures. We lose our life in the “clean” overworld, and therefore need the dirt and secrecy of the black hole in order to get back to life. Not the regular shop window that enslaves us. No, we need the hidden world where we can hide, knowing that hiding is part of the visible. It is where we have the opportunity to feel comfortable in our being-slave by indulging in bondage.

5.6 Reflections Nobody ever wondered what became of the iceberg. (Baudrillard on the Titanic)

Araki is on the job again. Accompanied by some seven or eight different cameras, he is thrilled; he is geil. His model is tied up in ropes, hanging from the ceiling. He fondles her nipples, which become erect, just like the points he likes and wants to create. She laughs in distress. Hanging from the ceiling, tied up in ropes might not be just anyone’s cup of tea. Still she seems to enjoy it, and gives the impression of willingly abiding this “artistry”. Araki isn’t really interested in art, but just wants to indulge in geilness. This is what he does. He has no choice, just like a tourist, but different, more like a singularity. He craves the underground, the black holes, and all that is disposed there. He craves them and likes to create their images and mirror them to the overworld.

 



INTERZONE 5 FRÖBEL-MIRROR

We can get the impression that Frank Lloyd Wright wasn’t really into mirrors. When we examine his works it is hardly possible to find two exact copies. No two buildings of his are the same. There might be similarities, but there are no copies. This does not seem grounded in a strict antipathy against copies or clichés, although that surely plays its part, but is due to the demands of the specific client and the landscape. Does this imply that no two buildings can ever be the same? No, but the chance of such similarity happening is very unlikely. As a matter of fact, it has not happened. What is strongly connected to this uniqueness is an unbridled tendency of experimentation. Frank Lloyd Wright just couldn’t stop. This was not just for the sake of experimentation, but because specific questions of clients and landscapes demand specific solutions. Uniqueness offered, in each case, the pleasant opportunity to search for new ways in which the architecture could be in unison with the landscape, while the surrounding landscape should welcome the architecture as a long awaited guest. For Wright it was a matter of constantly finding new and unexplored ways to investigate his ideas on organic architecture. This was grounded upon the idea that there should be unison between man and nature, based on equality, and not on a hierarchical situation, whereby man should rule nature. As nature is not a univocal thing, but exemplified by difference, that means architecture should also be based on difference. Every piece of architecture becomes a singularity in this way. These singularities might have resemblances, or they might have some rudimentary assumptions considering building and living, but these assumptions always have difference as a trigger, never repetition or copying. Can this be considered a method that “every” architect should use? In other words, a method that could function as a mirror? Here we are immediately doubtful. We would like to say yes, but then we know that it also demands the specific talents, or let’s call it the genius, of Frank Lloyd Wright or any other great architect. This suggests in a subtle way that not every architect might necessarily be capable of handling these specific

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questions. Some have no other option than to use the copy, while others, are more adjusted to starting from their own answers, like “We already know what you want, we have the answer, and this is what ‘your’ building will look like”. So there is a uniqueness in Frank Lloyd Wright being an architect. When we were visiting his structures in the US, we repeatedly heard stories about how he became interested in architecture from a very early age. Important in these formative years were the so-called “Fröbel Blocks”, which he toyed around with. Apparently his “fröbeling” laid the foundations for his works. Does this mean that after becoming an architect he disposed of the fröbeling? No, the fröbeling remained part of his approach to architecture. He needed this for his constant experimentation. Again, not just for the sake of experimenting, but because of the specific questions and demands, which inherently require specific materials and building techniques; materials and techniques that must obey the demands of the landscape. So we notice that the landscape more or less directs the process of living and building, and this in turn engenders fröbeling. Such a process however does not completely rule out the idea of copying. We can see an example of this in Frank Lloyd Wright’s textile block houses in LA. Each of the 4 textile block houses has a unique block pattern. The blocks themselves of each specific house are moulded in a similar way. Furthermore the houses contain similar ideas concerning materials, shapes and construction. When we for instance look at the Millard House (La Miniature), in Pasadena, we see that the unique block pattern is copied numerous times in this house. So it is a repetition of the same pattern. This repetition however gets disrupted through the crafting by hand and this evokes all kinds of unpredictable, organic differences in the finished block pattern. These differences are further emphasized through the influences of nature, mainly the weather, tearing at these helpless but stubborn textile blocks. Nature slowly tries to tear them apart, to make them crumble. It’s nature’s sucker-punch. The blocks however try to resist the best they can. As a result, the differences increase and this heightens the uniqueness of each single textile block and thus each house. A similar phenomenon can be witnessed with Wright’s prairie style houses that he built during the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly in Chicago, or his Usonian Automatics that he built throughout the whole of the US. Although they have similar characteristics, no two houses are exactly the same, because of the specific demands of the client and nature, and because of nature’s sucker-punch. There is simultaneously unison and difference, just as we can see in nature. We can see this in examples such as the Rosenbaum House, the Jacobs House, or the

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Zimmerman House. So the client and the surrounding space designate the differences in these houses; differences which are created and shaped by fröbeling, building, and by nature’s sucker-punch. So it is Frank Lloyd Wright’s youthful, or “remaining childish”, attitude which cherishes the potency of fröbeling and in this way creates singularities. It is about craving unspoiled “kid’s eyes” to come up with the specific solution to the specific questions. Does this also mean that the client’s children play a part in the designing of the structure? Yes indeed, and perhaps the most intriguing example of this can be seen in Wingspread, in Racine Wisconsin. Here Frank Lloyd Wright built a crow’s nest atop of the building, with a small staircase leading up to it. It is just big enough for children. They were the only ones who could get to the crow’s nest, and oversee the surroundings, just for playful fun. We also tried to get up there, and even managed to worm our way in, probably because arty animals know how to behave like kids, sometimes, when needed. So it is about being a kid, and being able to think like a kid and look with kid’s eyes. Not the disciplined, moulded and cliché-like perception, but kid’s eyes, kid’s understandings. Children look for the new and exciting and immersion in nature. Therefore it is maybe not so much about being against mirrors, or being an anti-mirror, but more like an organic mirror, a fröbel mirror.

      



      

CHAPTER SIX CAUTION: CESSPOOL

6.1 Unveiling For quite some time the following pronouncement was written on the American rearview car mirror, stating: “objects in mirror may be closer than they appear”. This message implied that the rearview mirror was giving a misrepresentation of what people thought they were seeing. So it may not be what it is, and this it refers to objects, which in this mirror case will be mostly cars, trucks or motorcycles. This assumption or warning was however not considered to be specific enough. Even though we are talking about misinterpretations, it was concluded that this misinterpretation needed to be improved. So the message was changed into a new message that read: “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear”. The may had to go, and the are became its substitute. So the mirror apparently sometimes needs new messages for it to become trustworthy. Whether or not this message resolved anything remains unclear. We cannot be sure if the new as “new” really makes a difference. The new remains a mystery. Thus caution is needed. This vignette illustrates the urge for newness and improvement. Things appear never to be finished, but are constantly caught in a regime of improvement. Whether it concerns car mirrors, washing machines, fishing gear, or formula 1 cars. Improvement, or newness, is a dominant player. This also applies to organization, and our thinking about it. Organizations constantly have to improve themselves and a helpful companion in this process might be the so-called management gurus and their “guru” literature. These often self-proclaimed experts and their artifacts have become influential, and serve as an intriguing Claude Mirrors1. A key example is a book, which some thirty years ago hit the market, called: In Search of Excellence by Peters & Waterman. It provided 1

See also our chapter on painting, the Claude Mirror, and clauding.

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a new vision that was likely created out of this desire for improvement, or perhaps better put, a neophiliac urge. This urge seems driven by some sort of dissatisfaction with what is already present. The present has to change. The urge to create and present the new might be driven by the lust for money; this seems not such an unlikely scenario. Guru literature is big business, and has become a business of its own. Regardless of the motivations for the creation of the business guru literature, it is easy to argue that the dissatisfaction with the present is fueled by the clauding effects that these books have. This is because they present the world in such a simple way that any rejection becomes problematic. Besides the simplicity, there follows an “easy” solution near at hand, driven by heroic behavior. Organization is presented in a very “logical” way, almost proclaiming: “It’s as simple as that, you only have to execute the steps presented. What are you waiting for? Success is awaiting!” This promised success doesn’t show up, because the world is a little more complex and stubborn than the presented clauded guru view, and so the urge for improvement arises again. It shapes a perpetual desire for newness. This opens up the possibility for a new guru to hit the stage and promote a “new”, “exciting” and “heroic” view on organization. So we are dealing with an endless paradox where the new is never satisfying in the long run, and the new simultaneously creates this desire for its own abolishment, an ouroboros of management gurus. This leads us to wonder whether what is presented as new is really new. To put it differently, whether the new is a reasonable representation of what could be new. When conducting our investigations, an answer, with the clauded guru view, is already at hand. But if the new is not new, we might wonder: what is the new? What is it? How do we get to know it? And if we know what the new is, will we feel comfortable with this “new” new? Besides the “new” guru ideas, we wonder what these ideas do not show. What is it that escapes the mirror? What is it that vaporizes or leaks before we can perceive it? Deleuze has argued that we only perceive what we want to perceive. Simply put, we are caught in cliché like perceptions that hamper any deviation from the already known. This suggests that any new is impossible. The same Deleuze argues that we need film as art, in order to break through our clichés. That is why we need film to inform us on life, but also on organization. Film thus can help us to perceive those mirrors that are trying to hide and anything that vaporizes or leaks out of the frame of the mirror. Film can help us “unclaude” and find the new. When we return to the new vision Peters & Waterman created, we notice that it was largely based on a so-called “Japanese” way of doing

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business. Peters & Waterman had looked in their rearview mirror and concluded that American companies, which acted like the Japanese, were excellent. This view became very popular and the book became a best seller. We are well aware of the discussions, vilification, critiques and charges against the book and its authors, and these issues do not form the core of our interest. Moreover, we are also not interested in what the impact of this book is nowadays. What we are however interested in is to find out how Peters & Waterman’s ideas took shape. More precisely, we consider if their findings on the Japanese way of doing business were accurate, or if there were other or conflicting views? In other words: what kind of clauding happened through the writing of the book. In order to get insights in this process of clauding, we want to use the rearview mirror and go further back in time. We have learned that objects in mirrors are closer than they appear, and this observation can make our quest easier. In our rearview mirror we want to use the potency of film as described by Deleuze, and have a look at the 1963 Akira Kurosawa movie High & Low. This film also deals with the Japanese way of doing business, but some 20 years before Peters & Waterman presented their ideas on excellence. On the cover of Akira Kurosawa’s (the director of High & Low) autobiography there is this small appraisal from the New York Times Book Review claiming that the book is: “a moving record of one man’s pursuit of excellence in a single art”. This suggests that there is a connection between Kurosawa and Peters & Waterman on excellence. But we wonder if excellence means the same thing for them? So our investigation, in the rearview mirror will inform us about the Japanese way of doing business and how this was perceived by Peters & Waterman and Akira Kurosawa. It is clear that we as authors, are also in search of the “new”, and in other words are also “neophiliacs”. However we are maybe not so much seeking improvement, but rather we want to explore how the mirror of film can function, and how this can be helpful in a process of unclauding. Therefore our first task is to examine the 1982 book In Search of Excellence. Then we will go into the potency of film. For this we use of the film-philosophy of Gilles Deleuze (1989, 1986). Thirdly we will make a visual reading of the 1963 film High & Low, and compare it with the book by Peters & Waterman. This will give us reflections of our capabilities of learning from the past and figuring out the new.

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6.2 Excellence In this section we explore the book In Search of Excellence by Peters & Waterman. We describe what it is trying to inform us about through its seven balls and eight principles. We elaborate on “common” heroes, company songs, old patterns, obsessions, fanatics, the smart-dumb rule, and Heineken. Tom Peters (1942) and Robert Waterman (1936) are two consultants who used to work for McKinsey, an international consulting firm. In their research on the effectiveness of a number of American multinational organizations, which were clients of McKinsey, they concluded that the investigated companies were successful because of their striving for excellence. This investigation resulted in the book In Search of Excellence. The book had an unprecedented impact on organization and organization studies. Even today we notice a widespread use and belief in their famous 7s-model, as shown and described in the book. The model consists of seven balls, which are ordered like an atom. This arrangement of balls, together with eight basic principles, is argued to capture the “essence” of any organization, and thus open up the potency for excellence. So the seven balls, the eight principles, and the way these are mysteriously connected should mould the behavior of the organization, and shape the framework for excellence. The impact of the book was not only based on its massive sales and appealing “new” concepts on organization, but also because it gave the impression of a very practical tool kit. It did not draw on the scientific approach to organization as the more academic books did. It also did not pretend to be “so” difficult, but rather presented as understandable to anyone, even those who do not like to read, or considered reading to be a waste of time. This implies that it was a book for everybody. The world of organization and its mysteries became in reach for everyone, and even universities started using the entanglement of the seven balls and the eight basic principles. Despite its popularity the book also received a lot of criticism. There were doubts on the findings and the way data were collected. Peters & Waterman knew this and in their book they do not try to hide the fact that excellent companies are susceptible to deterioration just as any other company, and they also knew that their perception of the past wasn’t flawless. But they wrote the book anyway, because what’s the harm? It is just a book, isn’t it? Books can hardly do any harm now, can they? And then, although millions of people and numerous companies might copy

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their ideas, they, Peters & Waterman could hardly be held responsible for any damage done. When we closely examine the book, we learn that the seven balls are: structure, strategy, systems, style, staff, and skills, culminating in shared values. These should form the rudiments of any organization. The eight principles should make it possible for the seven balls to perform in an excellent way. It’s not without reason that the authors start the eight basic principles with a bias for action. No more beating around the bush, no more bureaucracy, but cut to the chase and get on with it. Action not words. The other principles are: closer to the customer, autonomy & entrepreneurship, productivity through people, hands on-value driven, stick to knitting, simple form-lean staff, and simultaneous loose-tight properties. This shapes a very culture-driven organization. We could easily begin arguing about the separate themes or the way they are presented as a coherent whole, but that is beside the point. There is something more foundational to the arguments that seems more interesting to us in our investigations. There is something else that is essentially at the core of the book, and this is what beguiled us. It is Peters & Waterman’s idea that: “...the excellent company looks very Japanese” (1982, 126). In other words: they prefer the Japanese culture in organization, as opposed to the American culture. This suggests that there is not only a significant difference between the two, but that this difference can be traced and identified, and that the culture of any organization can be moulded in the “Japanese” way. As a consequence, this then should result in changing the American way of organization, something badly needed according to the authors of In Search of Excellence: Business performance in the United States has deteriorated badly, at least compared to that of Japan, and sometimes to other countries - and in many cases absolutely, in terms of productivity and quality standards. We no longer make the best or most reliable products and we seldom make them for less, especially in internationally competitive industries (e.g., autos, chips). (1982, 41)

There is no time to lose and this pressure fuels a scramble for the new. The mirror that was constructed by Peters & Waterman, describes this preferable future. It was presented as a role model which had to be copied, a copy of the mirror of Japan. The new is needed, and this new is Japanese. The future is not here but it is already there, and there is Japan. It is not just that Japan as Japan is preferable, but also that all the things that can be related to Japan when appropriated by American companies,

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are also preferred. So the American company behaving in what Peters & Waterman considered a Japanese way is seen as preferable. What was particularly important in this was the culture: “We began to realize that these companies had cultures as strong as any Japanese organization” (1982, XIX-XX). This is not just about the hard facts, according to Peters & Waterman, which implies that the soft is hard. They state: “All that stuff you have been dismissing for so long as the intractable, irrational, intuitive, informal organization can be managed” (1982, 11, italics in original). In other words what was considered unmanageable turns out to be manageable after all. They even imply that anything can be managed. This hopeful message should however be met with some caution. To change people, or cultures, to makes them behave in an excellent way however is not so easy, as: “Old habit patterns persist” (1982, 3). The soft is then hard, but unfortunately stays hard, even if we want to make it soft again. The seven balls cannot be softened in every situation. This means that we are confronted with a paradox: change that which cannot be changed. Still Peters & Waterman remain hopeful and such hope seems to relate to the ability and will to change. However, it is not only the ability to change and embrace the new, but also about keeping things simple. Keep it simple, not too complex or too intellectual. This is fused with a striving for quality over profit. The idea is that if you put quality first, profits will come by themselves. It favors the long terms instead of the short term. At least that is what we assume. They however also dispose of the long term, stating: “We found that the excellent companies are not really ‘long-term thinkers’” (324, emphasis in original). This is an intriguing statement, and is contrary to what we would expect. It results in a paradoxical situation, where quality is considered a short-term exercise. So the excellent organization is driven by a simple short-term quality. The short-term is in some strange way connected to dedication, as the authors illuminate through an intriguing anecdote. They offer the example of a Honda worker, who: “on his way home each evening straightens up windshield wiper blades on all the Hondas he passes. He just can’t stand to see a flaw in a Honda!” (1982, 37). This example is presented as a good one, but is it really good, or should we have our doubts about the behavior of the person and his impact on the rest of the employees. The example might otherwise be seen as evidence of the worker having a mental illness. It therefore could be an example of someone who is unmanageable and just keeps doing whatever he feels like doing. Someone cherishing old habits. It also combines, contrary to the author’s ideas, action with the long-term. The example tries to emphasize

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the idea of the ordinary worker that makes the difference and suggests that through this total dedication to the company, he or she can make the difference and any company becomes prosperous. It is a very altruistic total dedication to quality. It is about the “common” everyday hero. This is not about a solitary common hero working on his own, for togetherness is described as an aspect of the Japanese corporate culture as well. An example of this are the company songs which play an important part, to such an extent that Peters & Waterman themselves got carried away by experiencing this. Singing together apparently is a way to excellence. Whether or not there is a difference between American and Japanese singing remains unclear. This also implies that people have to be turned on, that they have to be excited. This excitement should fuel a total dedication to the cause even in such a way that failure makes you sick. They name the example of beer tycoon Freddie Heineken who purportedly said: “I consider a bad bottle of Heineken to be a personal insult to me” (1982, 181). This illustrates the total dedication required to achieve excellence. Of course, there might be people who consider every bottle of Heineken a bad bottle, as exemplified in the film Blue Velvet (Lynch, 1986), where protagonist and genuine lunatic Frank Booth retorts: “Heineken? Fuck that shit, Pabst Blue Ribbon!” So quality might not be such a clear-cut concept after all. Another anecdote presented in In Search of Excellence is the part on The Champion, which tells the story of Howard Head, the inventor of the metal ski. This guy went skiing in 1946, but after his first attempt he said: “I was humiliated and disgusted by how badly I skied” (1982, 202). He then went berserk and couldn’t stop working on his new invention: the metal ski. He worked in the evening hours after work, and when that wouldn’t do, he quit his job and started working even more compulsively on metal skis. He even used up $6,000 of his poker winnings, which he had stashed under his bed. The story reads like a great kid’s story. After numerous failures and everybody advising him to quit, he succeeded. This hard headedness proved successful in the end. He achieved his goal, implying that whatever you do it all depends on sticking to your goal. This is not soft but extremely hard. It’s about being hard on yourself and your surroundings. It’s about personal obsession and ignoring any outside advice. How this works in conjunction with “togetherness” and “teamwork” is not quite clear. We wonder what would have happened if Howard Head had been dismayed by his swimming ability, or his sexual performance. What invention would he have obsessively worked on in those cases?

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Peters & Waterman go on to share with us where organizations go wrong: “Most corporations fail to tolerate the creative fanatic who has been the driving force behind most major innovations” (1982, 206). This failure is caused by management, because: “...management involvement doesn’t last. They just don’t have the depth of attention to detail” (1982, 255). Management should be hyper aware of what goes on, to be involved, to be fanatical and to go berserk. Management needs to act in an obsessive and compulsive manner. But Peters & Waterman tell us that management involvement doesn’t last…but still, the problem with management is even bigger. It can be related to the MBA education, which is absent in Japan according to Peters & Waterman. The problem with the MBA is described as the “smart-dumb rule”. This intriguing idea can be summarized as: what we consider smart is dumb and vice versa. Peters & Waterman explain: “Many of today’s managers-MBA trained and the like-may be a little too smart for their own good” (1982, 324) and they conclude that: “ ... the people who lead the excellent companies are a bit simplistic” (1982, 324, italics in original). So it is the search for the simplistic fanatic who makes the soft hard and the hard soft, and who is smart-dumb. The last thing that is typical of the excellent organization is its informal structure, again an example of soft. The authors quote their colleague Ken Ohmae: “Most Japanese corporations lack even an approximation of an organization chart. Managing directors who enjoy great influence on operations seldom appear in the company organization chart …” (269). We are now confronted with invisible powers, managers who hide unseen within the formal structure. They behave more or less like animals, hiding, not to be seen, but still present. It is the secret force that makes all the difference. The invisible common and altruistic hero shapes the excellent organization. To sum up, we can conclude that excellent organizations are quality driven, short-term, where anything can be managed, obsessed fanatics singing together, simple, common heroic, excited, animalistic and dumb as opposed to smart. This is more or less how Peters & Waterman have perceived the Japanese way of doing business, and how they believe excellent organizations should be “working”. Organizations as a mirror image of Japanese organizations. Knowing this, we can compare these ideas with the ideas that were presented twenty years earlier by Japanese author-director Akira Kurosawa as portrayed in his film High & Low. The questions we pose are: what are Kurosawa’s ideas, as shown in the movie, on business and are they different from those of Peters & Waterman? However, before we can investigate and seek answers to these questions,

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we must first discuss the characteristics of film. How can film inform us on organization? In other words: What is the potency of film?

6.3 Potency In this section we provide a small account, just a tiny fraction, of the film philosophy of Giles Deleuze, and how this elucidates the potency of film. Why is film relevant in our quest towards excellence? Prior to asking questions about the potency of film, we first need to ask what film itself is. This might seem a superfluous question, as apparently everyone knows what a film is. Film works in such a way that if you have a group of people in a movie theater, they known just what to do. They sit down in their seats. The lights dim, and the projector starts rolling, throwing its images onto the big screen in front. This needs no explanation. Everyone knows what to do, and immediately begins to watch the movie, curious about what is about to happen. So film is almost a medium that needs no explanation. Still there is more to film than meets the eye. According to Deleuze, film has three elements. The frame, the shot and the montage. What we perceive is always caught in a frame. The question is: how do we shape this frame, in other words, how do we decide upon what we are looking at? Enveloped in this is the idea that you cannot see everything. So the choosing or creation of a frame has its limitations. It can be compared to the frame of a painting or photograph. Although the frame can change during the film, it remains a frame and thus a limited perception. This is influenced by saturation or rarefaction. Saturation is when the frame becomes too full, which can distort the vision. Rarefaction implies the frame becoming too empty. This emptiness can partially blind us, and hamper the shaping of a vision. So the frame includes and excludes, and this is subject to clauding. The other elements are the shot and the montage. The shot is what happens in a certain sequence of time, within the frame. The montage is the way the various shots are welded together. This montage makes what eventually becomes the film. This seems pretty straightforward. The difference is how the various frames, shots and the montage are shaped, whether film is used to create entertainment, or whether film is used as art. The former makes thinking obsolete; the latter uses its potency to make us think. The question then arises: Do we need something to make us think, because are we not thinking already, and all of the time? Here is where Deleuze disagrees. He argues that we don’t, because we only perceive

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what we want to perceive. This suggests that we perceive what we already know, and that we close our eyes for that which does not appeal to us (see also Hohwy, 2013). Apparently we are not keen on nasty surprises. This means that we only perceive clichés. These should steer us and create a “safe” routine. The reason we are beguiled by clichés is that they are seductive and useful, and they persist. Do we need clichés? Without clichés the world would be incomprehensible. The problem however is the sole supremacy of clichés. Deleuze opposes this supremacy of clichés and claims that we have to be kicked awake, to break through the clichés, and get back to thinking. He argues that this is only possible through the potency of film, the only art form that contains this potency, according to him. Film can shock our thoughts and show us the so-called “real-reality”, a reality which we cannot perceive anymore. This reality is needed because the sole supremacy of clichés has resulted in us losing our faith in this world. Clichés create an artificial world, which we do not really believe in, however we go along with the cliché world because we cannot perceive anything else. Clichés thus provide an artificial reality, whereas film has the potency to show the real reality. We need some sort of rupture that tears open these pre-conceived perceptions. We need to uncover the “routine” and see through its disguise. We need to “unclaude” that which pretends to be new. So we need the potency of film, film as art, and not sheer entertainment. Such films can help us get back to thinking and thereby regain our faith in this world. We need film as art in order to think and be able to get in touch with the new. Without film the new is out of reach, as we only perceive what we want to perceive. This also means that guru literature only reaffirms, or rewrites clichés. It remains the same tired old story, maybe in a “new” and “exciting” layout, or with some intriguing buzzwords like “excellence”. On the other hand, the new is not always wanted in organization. Sometimes, maybe even most of the time, the old, the known routine, the clichés, will do just fine. Why rock the boat and not go with the flow, unless there’s a good reason. Baudrillard confirms this very subtly: the masses know that they don’t know anything, but they don’t care, the masses know that they are incompetent, but they don’t care. (1985, 149).

This quote could be directed towards the masses who bought the excellence book by Peters & Waterman. The fact that they don’t care that

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they don’t know anything, also underscores Peters & Waterman’s ideas about the fact that we shouldn’t be too smart. These ideas would be rejected by Rancière (2016, 2012), who would claim, that the masses are more educated, or into arts than we would assume. Moreover, they also know there is a difference between the rich and the poor, between those in power and those who are their servants. The masses know this, but they also know that they cannot change it. It is not ignorance, but rather acceptance, and waiting for the moment to disrupt the situation. So their positions differ from the one Baudrillard claims. This perspective is also different from that of Peter & Waterman who see merit in ignorance, according to the smart-dumb rule. So the latter’s idea of not thinking provides a comfortable and untroubled position. Deleuze, as mentioned, would not agree. He wants to shock our thoughts, through the potency of film. The cinema-screen or as we could call it the cinema-mirror, then turns into a brain. Knowing that we perceive only what we want to perceive, we also know that Peters & Waterman were on tenuous ground, when they were trying to figure out why some companies were excellent, and others were not. As they didn’t use the potency of film, they were not able to see what was really going on and were therefore hampered in their thinking about the new. They were caught in clichés. If according to Deleuze and his thoughts on film, they wanted to do something really new, something that hadn’t been perceived before, their only option was the use of film. Being that Deleuze’s books came out after that of Peters & Waterman, they obviously didn’t know about this. But what was it that they might have seen? This is what we are interested to investigate. With our understanding of the potency of film, it is now time to investigate in what way the film High and Low (1963) differs from the book In Search of Excellence (1984). What does the film tell us about organization? How does it relate to the ideas on excellence by Peters & Waterman? To do this we need to reaffirm that High & Low is a film as art, and thus contains the potency to make us think. Furthermore we should mention that the film should actually be called Heaven & Hell, if we take the Japanese translation literally. High & Low was the title used when the film was released in American theaters in November 1963, perhaps for marketing reasons. The differences between the two titles are obvious and concern the rigorous impact of Heaven & Hell. Considering our previous thoughts in our chapter on architecture, on connecting the world of business to heaven, and being that the film, deals with the world of business, we prefer the title Heaven & Hell. Not only because we crave

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the Black Sabbath Dio era, but because it emphasizes the brutality of the film’s depiction of business and how it has its claws in our everyday life. This offers that the world of business is all encompassing, as Peters & Waterman suggest. Their ideal of being obsessed with work and the impact of this obsession is shown in High & Low, or as we prefer Heaven & Hell.

6.4 Heaven & Hell In this section, we elaborate on Kurosawa, his films and his ideas. We then provide a visual reading of the film High & Low, or Heaven & Hell, moving to Heaven first, before we descend into Hell. We end up in the cesspool to try and sort out where the film and the book on excellence collide or when they are in sync. The Japanese director Akira Kurosawa can be considered an author director, with a signature style; someone who created his own film-language, just like directors as: John Cassavetes, Andrej Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman, Luis Bunuel, Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, Jean Luc Godard, Robert Bresson, Sam Peckinpah, Robert Altman, or contemporaries like: David Lynch, David Cronenberg, Jim Jarmusch, Guy Maddin or Ulrich Seidl. And then there are the famous Japanese author directors such as: Kenji Mizoguchi, Yasujiro Ozu, Seijun Suzuki or contemporaries like Takeshi Kitano or Takashi Miike. These individuals are examples of filmmakers who experimented with film as an art form, shaping their own signature style. This is distinct from treating film as a means of mere entertainment, which only acknowledges clichés, by showing what we already perceive, although these art films can also be entertaining. They, the author-directors, use film as a disruptive medium, deploying the subversive potency of film. They use film in a philosophical way, where it is not so much about answers or directions to be followed, but about showing that which is hidden from our perception, the things we cannot see anymore, showing the real-reality in a Deleuzian sense. They create a shock to thought. This process is about thinking, because what can you do when there are no answers at hand in a zone of indiscernibility? The only option that remains is thinking. This is what the films of these directors offer us. Not a rational reasoning from a distance, but a shock. This is exactly what Kurosawa did. He visualized the world of Japan as he witnessed it. Through his artistic skills as a filmmaker and an extreme devotion to perfection, or maybe the earlier discussed excellence, he created unique artworks as film.

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Kurosawa was born in 1910, and witnessed the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, which devastated Tokyo, leaving Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel as the sole survivor in an otherwise flattened landscape. Kurosawa was shocked by this devastation and it left a lasting imprint on him. Perhaps that was the reason he sought ways to express or visualize his thoughts. He argues: I had dabbled eagerly in painting, literature, theatre, music, and other arts that stuffed my head full of things that come together in the art of film. Yet I had never noticed that cinema was the one field where I would be required to make use of all I had learned. (Kurosawa, 1983, 90).

Film was thus the medium for him to make his audience think about the incomprehensibility of the world. Kurosawa made his first films during the war and had his international breakthrough with Rashomon (1950), which brought him international recognition. After that he became very productive, directing such classics as Seven Samurai (1954), Throne of Blood (1957), The Hidden Fortress (1958), Yojimbo (1961), Kagemusha (1980), or Ran (1985). These films focus on the subject of the samurai. Kurosawa also sketched the world of contemporary business in films like Ikiru (1952), which deals with the subject of bureaucratization or The Bad Sleep Well (1960) that portrays corruption. All of these films are very intense from an emotional point of view, but also groundbreaking from a filmic perspective. Kurosawa witnessed how post-war Japan became a strong economic power again, driven by heavy industrialization. He noticed an ever stronger Western influence, which some refer to as Americanization (Prince, 1999, Richie, 1998). It can be argued that this is why he focuses heavily on the samurai, to reopen Japanese tradition, which is not yet Americanized. On the other hand, especially in Seven Samurai, we witness how the samurai tradition itself was losing its relevance, and the samurai were losing their place in society, slowly becoming obsolete. So Kurosawa shows tradition, but also the way this slowly dissolves. When he focuses upon contemporary Japan, he shows the downside of progress. He shows a Japan that is heavily influenced by the “American” way. This leads to misery and despair. In Seven Samurai, where he depicts traditional Japan, we see that in the end the samurai are in misery, despite their assistance to the peasants. The peasants on the other hand are happy that their troubles are over. This is not the case in his contemporary films. They all end in misery. There are no winners, but only losers. This is apparently what progress, or the Americanization, or Westernization is doing to Japan. We can see this in Drunken Angel

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(1948), Stray Dog (1949), Ikiru (1952), or in The Bad Sleep Well (1960). Despite the efforts of the protagonists to change the situation, they all fail in the end. It is all about: “… corporate corruption, class division and exploitation” (Prince, 1999, xx). This implies that Kurosawa was not keen about the Japanese way of doing business, as this was infused with the American way. We can even argue that the “true” or the original way of doing business in Japan is gone and is replaced by an American way. There is thus no original Japanese way of doing business in Japan anymore. The ideas of Peters & Waterman of championing the Japanese way, and especially American firms who work in a Japanese way, become distorted. They describe an artificial-reality, whereas the film shows us the Deleuzian real-reality. Still there is always tradition that wants to reclaim itself, as he shows in The Bad Sleep Well and especially in High & Low, as we will discuss. The Bad Sleep Well is nothing if not an out and out indictment of the way in which Japanese business sought to reaffirm class hierarchies, the actual suicide of middle managers and salarymen at the behest of senior managers being not uncommon at the time. (Wild, 2014, 119).

So this tradition is still very strong, or as Peters & Waterman would argue: “Old habit patterns persist”. It results in a harsh world, where as mentioned, there are no winners, but only losers. Some lose more however and are caught down in the dumps, as he visualized intensely in films like The Lower Depth (1957), or Dodeskaden (1960). People living in misery, but then they still find their moments of joy, despite the fact that they have no chance of escaping this world. The search for excellence is absent. When we examine Kurosawa’s portrayal of the world of business we observe hardly any joy, and what joy there exists is not long-lasting. It is as if the characters are caught in world where they don’t stand a chance. Any stroke of luck is always disturbed by bad luck. It is a perpetual misery. But it is not just to show a dreary world, but more like an experimentation of what is going on, and why things move in the way they move, without giving an answer or solution, forcing the viewer into a position to think. To put it a less subtly, kicking the viewer awake and shocking his or her thoughts. This is also what we see in High & Low. We see a depiction of organization, the “Japanese” way.

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Heaven High & Low starts with images of Yokohama. We witness moving traffic, trains, factories, chaos and congestion. The shots are cut in a fast pace to underscore the tension that brews in this big city. This emphasizes the city’s wild and uncontrollable movements, which move the people of Yokohama; a city that was destroyed twice, through the Great Kanto Earthquake and through Allied firebombing in 1945. We notice how these images are viewed from a big modern house sitting on a bluff, towering over the city. We see a figure standing in front of a window, stepping out of the shadows and walking over to a wall and switching on the light. It is Kingo Gondo, the protagonist. We learn that he was the one overlooking Yokohama and perceiving the opening images. We see four other people, and a small table filled with women’s shoes in between them. A discussion starts between Gondo and three of the others, and we learn that they are, together with Gondo, the directors of National Shoes. The fourth one is Gondo’s assistant Kawanishi. They are discussing the future of the company and how they can make more money by producing cheaper shoes. Shoes that do not last very long. “Look, National Shoes is in business to make money”2, one of them proclaims. Gondo opposes this as he considers National Shoes a company that has always put quality first. He wants to carry on with what they have always been doing, this being the production of high quality shoes. The other three however want change. They believe they have to try something new in order to keep the company viable. They believe in producing cheap shoes with a high profit margin. Gondo is against this, as the new is meaningless to him. He chooses timeless quality, not only because it is better for business, but also because of an ethical obligation. Gondo explains how he worked his way up the company ladder, starting as an apprentice when he was 16 years old, now some thirty years ago. “I know every sound, every smell”, he claims. In other words he knows all about shoes, their quality and their manufacturing. He is a craftsman, who knows how to make good quality shoes. Gondo gets enraged and destroys one of the “cheap” shoes which are on the table and which the other three want to manufacture. This heightens the tension and everyone stands up. Gondo moves over to the glass window and opens the slider. The sounds of the 2

All the quotes used are from the subtitles of the Criterion Collection DVD of the film.

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city enter the room, as well as the heat. Inside, closed off from the city he is in his air-conditioned climate controlled cell of wealth and possession. Above the congestion and heat in the streets, Gondo closes the slider, sits down and lights a cigarette. There is tension and silence. The uncomfortable situation is disrupted when one of the three stands up and starts laughing, complementing Gondo on winning the argument. They continue arguing and try to convince each other of their ideas. We see them drinking whisky and smoking cigarettes. This should release some tension, but we don’t get the impression that it is effective. During their conversation the three corporate directors carry out a very subtle choreography through frequently changing their positions. This role-playing directs their arguments against Gondo. The specific camera movements further emphasize this. We feel a strong sense of intrigue, infused with silent anger. The three corporate directors present a plan. They want Gondo to join them in their attempt to get rid of their present CEO, who they refer to as “The old man”. Again we witness the old versus the new. The desired outcome of this confrontation is that the old has to go, and the new has to step in. Gondo however does not want to be included in their plans, as he does not believe in their strategy of producing cheap shoes. He doesn’t care about old or new, but only wants to make shoes the way he considers shoes should be made, drawing on his 30 years of experience. When he refuses to join in on the machinations, the other three put the pressure on him and threaten that they will vote Gondo out of the company if he does not do what they tell him to do. This culminates in a verbally violent finale after Gondo bullies them out of his house, and the parties split. Gondo’s wife shows up in traditional Japanese clothing and asks Gondo what went on. He answers: “nothing, you wouldn’t understand, it’s business”. She answers: “you always say that to keep me quiet”. He turns his back to her and fixes a drink. Meanwhile two kids in cowboy costumes show up, shooting their fake pistols at each other. This illustrates the Americanization of consumer capitalism in Japan. One of the children is Gondo’s son, who gets some fatherly advice: “A man must kill or be killed”. The other is the son of Gondo’s chauffeur. The kids continue their game, leaving Gondo, his wife and Kawanishi, in the room. Gondo also wants to gain control over the company. He knows he has to do something or otherwise he and his company will be finished. It is kill or be killed, dog eat dog, heaven or hell. Gondo has figured out a way to raise the money he needs to buy the majority of the shares to put himself in a position to fire the other three. He informs his assistant about his plans. Kawanishi is disturbed. Gondo reacts: “In shock?, have a drink”.

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Again alcohol plays its part in business. Gondo makes some phone calls securing all the money he needs to buy a majority of the stocks, thus gaining control over the company. Just when he has gathered all the money, he receives a phone call telling him that his son has been kidnapped and that the ransom equals almost exactly the amount he collected for taking over the company. He has no choice other than to pay the ransom, until his son suddenly walks in. After thinking it was a bad joke, he finds out that it is his chauffeur’s son that has been kidnapped. This forces an ethical dilemma of choosing between the chauffeur’s son and the company, or his life in other words. Meanwhile the police have arrived. At first Gondo refuses to pay and instructs Kawanishi to conclude the business deal and buy all the shares needed for getting control over the company. He argues: “My work is a part of me, without it I’m dead”. The rest are silent and he continues: “It would be suicide if I pay”. Kawanishi warns him of the public opinion and the effects of bad publicity this could have. After a night’s sleep Kawanishi suddenly refuses to conclude the deal. It is then that Gondo learns that Kawanishi has been bribed by the other three directors. Gondo goes berserk and screams: “You have sold me out” and kicks him out of his house. Gondo then decides to pay the ransom and save his chauffeur’s son and thus lose everything he has. The phone rings and the kidnapper is on the phone again. He asks: “Curtains closed in broad daylight?” upon which Gondo replies: “You can see us?” The kidnapper responds: “Quite well. You’re on a hilltop. It’s hot as hell down here. An inferno. Feels like 105 degrees. But you must be nice and cool with your air-conditioning”. Gondo finds out that it is not just his money that the kidnapper is after, but that he wants to humiliate Gondo, and see him suffer. The tension rises. Gondo’s room is congested with people moving around constantly, and the stress is all enveloping. Gondo walks up and down near the curtains, almost getting caught in them. Almost as if the curtains are catching him, consuming him, making him disappear, while he moves in and out of them. They, the police and Gondo, decided to give in to the demands of the kidnapper and are now told how the handover should be executed. It is to take place on a train where Gondo has to deliver the ransom stashed in two briefcases. We then see how Gondo works with his hands, his craft, to sew two smoke bombs into the briefcases. “It’s like I’m starting all over again”, Gondo states. This concludes the first part of the film.

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Hell The second part of the film shows the search for the kidnapper. It is the descent from heaven to hell. Director Kurosawa makes a drastic cut, from the room in Gondo’s house, to a fast speeding train, where the handover should take place. We see the policemen and Gondo inside the speeding train and we sense their tension. Kingo Gondo receives his instructions via a phone, and is ordered to throw the two suitcases containing the ransom out of the speeding train. He does so, and the money is gone, but the chauffeur’s son is saved. With the help of the police they attempt to hunt down the kidnapper in the back alleyways of the city. We see policemen searching and meanwhile looking at Gondo’s house, stating: “that house gets on your nerves”. We now see the house high upon the hill, from the lower depth of the city of Yokohama. The inspectors walk past a cesspool, an expression of filth and waste, suggesting there is no possibility of life. Almost as if capitalism chokes life. It is a reflection of the way the war has devastated the country, and deranged Japan. It is a cesspool similar to the one displayed in Drunken Angel. Akira Kurosawa biographer Stephen Prince argues that it sketches: “the moral and structural problems created by inequalities of economic development” (2008, 1.03.20h). Prince continues: “Gondo’s house seems like exactly the kind of thing that would drive a disturbed man to obsession and hatred” (ibid., 01.04.50h). The house becomes a prominent symbol of inequality and thus a provocation. We see how personal hatred is shaped by society, despite technological or economic progress that suggests it would lead to personal and social well-being. We witness how “The economic gains of the last decade have not solved Japan’s problems” (ibid, 01.06.30). The kidnapper is driven by a rage that is inflamed by the conspicuous consumption that is now possible. He is excluded from heaven. It is his exclusion from the world of pleasure that enrages him. The unequal distribution of wealth and especially its display has led to his disastrous actions. We also observe the hierarchic division between Gondo and Aoki his chauffeur. Aoki is always extremely obedient towards Gondo, who seemingly feels uncomfortable with this “slavery”. A slavery that, by the way, does not exist for their two sons who play cowboy games. The children have no problem switching roles. However in the case of Gondo and Aoki, the division doesn’t lead to happiness or comfort, but to restlessness and stress. They cannot switch roles, probably because whether you are in heaven or in hell doesn’t seem to make much of a difference. Meanwhile Gondo becomes a big hero with the help of the newspapers. They portray him as a guy who threw his whole fortune and

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his life out of a moving train to save his chauffeur’s kid. The public vents their anger against the kidnapper and the other directors of National Shoes. Women start to boycott these shoes. Kawanishi, his former assistant, enters Gondo’s house and tries to convince Gondo to come back. In this way they hope they can use Gondo to change the rising negative public opinion of National Shoes. Gondo is again enraged, refuses and kicks Kawanishi out a second time. We then see how a group of slick businessmen enter Gondo’s house. They are the people who loaned him the money he needed for the takeover of National Shoes. The police witness this scene but they do not interfere. These businessmen appear to be Yakuza, the Japanese mob. Their argument is that he cannot pay the kidnapper and not the Yakuza. It is their money, he threw out of the window of the moving train, and they want it back. They don’t care about Gondo’s feelings or that he rescued Aoki’s son. They don’t care about the public opinion, and they don’t care about shoes or their quality. They just want their money. As they are Yakuza, we know Gondo’s in trouble and has only one option and that is pay, although he has no money. We can wonder about the police not interfering in this “new” blackmail. Apparently: “the Yakuza were enmeshed with Japan’s corporations at all levels, especially at the highest executive levels” (ibid., 01.09.55). It is not that they are gangsters who are far removed from law, order, and society. No, they are a part of it all and their actions more or less shape society. The police know that they can do nothing about it. We now see the police and the detectives, busy during a meeting, in their office, a congested room. They are sweating, with a big electric fan in the centre, but nevertheless obviously suffering from the heat, constantly fanning themselves. This is in contrast to Gondo’s airconditioned home, again like heaven and hell. It suggests that the heat from hell cannot be escaped, unless you are in an air-conditioned heaven. The police set a trap. They have shown images in the news of the two suitcases that held the ransom. The kidnapper panics, and decides to burn these suitcases. Meanwhile the city itself, Yokohama, is a character. We see Gondo cutting a small patch of grass with his electric lawnmower, while his shirt is drenched with sweat. Then suddenly Gondo and Aoki’s sons show the police a pink smoke plume arising out of the lower city of Yokohama, out of hell. The smoke comes from the smoke bombs that Gondo sewed inside the suitcases. They now know where the suitcases have been burnt. They find a “junkyard dog” who burns trash every day. He remembers the suitcases, but wonders who would even bother to come to his junkyard. This is again

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an illustration of the waste produced by consumerism. Consumerism doesn’t create heaven, but junk, which burns like hell. The hunt for the kidnapper goes on, and the action moves to the nightlife of the inner city. We learn that the kidnapper has killed his two partners in crime by giving them pure heroin, upon which they overdosed. This implies that heroin is not pure anymore, but some kind of fake consumer good too. When people consume pure quality they die. In visually stunning scenes we are taken into the Yokohama nightlife. In a long scene we see bars, sailors, and hear rock and jazz music. It is a congested and chaotic nightlife, filled with drunken and loud people, and traffic moving all about in different directions. It is a Japan that is infused by Western culture. We hear the song “It’s now or never”. The kidnapper, in a den of junkies tests pure heroin on a prostitute. The heroin works, the prostitute dies. He escapes the police, and meets Gondo, who stands still before a shop window of a shoe store. The kidnapper stands next to him, and asks him for a light, enjoying Gondo’s suffering, while Gondo doesn’t know who this stranger really is. The police catch the kidnapper in the end and he tries to commit suicide by consuming the pure heroin left in his pocket, but he fails. Quality cannot save him. The kidnapper is imprisoned and taken to death row. He has one final wish and that is to meet with Gondo. This is the final showdown. Gondo asks why he did it and the kidnapper tries to remain calm, but nevertheless spews hatred at Gondo. It is a deep uncontrollable and ruthless hate. He states: “… my room was so cold in winter, and so hot in summer I couldn’t sleep. From my tiny room your house looked like heaven. Day by day I came to hate you more. It gave me a reason for living. Besides it’s amusing to make fortunate men taste the same misery as the unfortunate”. We witness the two characters fusing, mirroring each other. The kidnapper breaks down, while Gondo is ruined. He loses his chairmanship and work in the company, and he must start from scratch. Almost all of the ransom gets recovered, but this is however no good to Gondo, as it was a loan. The retrieved money goes back to the Yakuza. Meanwhile his house and his belongings are on auction. Gondo, who hasn’t been happy all through the film, remains in a situation of misery. His striving for quality has left him with nothing but despair

Cesspool We have described what we have seen in the film High & Low. In addition to the story of Gondo and the kidnapping, we also witnessed an image of a contemporary Japan. A country that is trying to recover from the

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devastation of war. A country that has become an economic power and is trying to find ways to cope with this prosperity, while still licking its wounds. We see a culture that is strongly shaped by Americanization. We see this in Gondo’s house, which is a Western modernistic style house, rather than a traditional Japanese one. We see it in the way the kids are dressed up in cowboy clothes. We see it in the whisky drinking. Times have changed. The only traditional thing is the kimono of Gondo’s wife, a kimono that she trades in for a Western skirt by the end of the film when they have lost all their wealth. We also see such Americanization in the second part of the film, especially in the nightlife scene, with the portrayal of American soldiers and the jazz and rock music. The kidnapper stares at a shop window in which we see a picture of Lee Morgan the Jazz trumpet player who was popular in Japan and a known heroin addict. Other famous jazz players, and heroin addicts, like Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, or John Coltrane, all played in Japan during the end of the fifties and the beginning of the sixties. This offers a suggestion as to how the culture was brought to Japan, causing all kinds of Western influences and undermining the traditional Japanese way of life. We boldly argue that Japan isn’t Japan anymore, but a mirror reflection of America. We can also state that this is the main problem for Gondo. This is why he doesn’t believe in the progress the other corporate directors suggested. He wants to remain in the tradition, but has been seemingly carried away by the Americanization himself. We can witness this in his air-conditioned house and the electric lawnmower he uses on his small patch of grass in the blistering heat. Although it is his house and belongings, it nevertheless suggests that Gondo has lost his connection to life, the life that he feels comfortable with. His life, his being, is taken away from him. The air-conditioning has cooled him down and shut him off from life. It is the antithesis to the Heideggerian Hüttendasein, as we have described in our chapter on architecture. Gondo is a victim to his cell-house, which locks him up, until he is forced to leave, likely moving to another cell. In the beginning of the film, before Gondo starts his debate with the other three directors, we see him literary step out of the shadows. It is as if he wants to get back to the light. Back to life. We see him step out of the shadows a second time, when he uses his old toolkit, to sew the smoke bombs into the suitcases. It is as though he gets back to his fundamentals for living. Not making money, but making shoes. He steps out of the shadows because he knows he has to make a new start and he knows that he is able to do so. He is able to start his life over again. He is dead, but

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can return to life. Not a life of luxury, but a life of misery, where living might be possible. Although we are left feeling that this living is out of reach, whether one is in heaven or in hell. Gondo’s luxury was only temporary and always on the verge of disappearing. His luxury didn’t bring him life, but instead formed a certain tension or stress which alienated him from his life. His luxury worked as a disrupter. But then the absence of luxury, as we have seen when the film descended into hell, doesn’t make it any better either. We have witnessed a Japanese way of doing business. This was based on egocentric actions, mistrusting each other, being subject to fate which could imply bad luck, and an atmosphere which is probably best described as dog eat dog. Kingo Gondo tries to trick the other directors as he knows that only one approach can be one victorious and it is either his or theirs. He chooses for himself. He also knows that if he wants to beat the “bad” guys, he has to become a bad guy himself. In other words: in order to avoid misery, he has to create misery. We see that the acting is infused with pride, shame, humiliation, suffering, rage, threats, hope, (bad) luck, sabotage, fear, anger, subservience and retaliation. These are characteristics not found in the book of Peters & Waterman. We saw how doing business is not about good quality or excellence. Moreover, excellence is overruled by efficiency and fast profits. Even an individual, such as Gondo, who wants to create quality, gets evicted one way or the other. This is not about working together in an open atmosphere, based on trust and loyalty. There are no company songs sung together. The director, King Gondo, who is loyal to the company, first by working his way up the corporate ladder and then through protecting the unique quality of the firm, gets cheated and tricked into bankruptcy. Gondo also tries to trick the others but a stroke of bad luck prevents his success. It is not one for all, but rather everyone for themselves. This is a game without winners. A game where everyone loses: the directors, Gondo, the kidnapper, but also the customers buying shoes. In this game the only result seems to be ending up behind bars, being locked up in a life of misery. Excellence is a superfluous thing in this. It doesn’t change the imprisonment. It’s like Blaise Pascal’s adagium of escaping the room, or cell, you’re in. But escape is pointless, as was argued by Sartre in our chapter on architecture. Inside or outside is the same cell, the same prison cell.

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The film abolishes the line between work and leisure. Business is not some sort of capsule or cell, which functions without the daily struggle of, or for life. We see it exemplified in Kingo Gondo’s house where he does his business and where the meeting with the other directors is held. It is his private place, with his whisky bar, cigarettes and his telephone. Some important facets are the glass panel windows. These imply an air conditioned and thus sealed off space. A capsule, where the air conditioning is needed to cool things down, because through business, temperature rises and things get heated up. During the first half of the film Gondo opens the glass-slides several times. We get the impression that he needs this noise and wind to get a clear head, or to be able to think the complex situation through. It is as though he has to break out of the enclosure and get infected with the heat and noise of outside life, with life as it is. Business has estranged him, and opening these windows and letting the outside in, helps him to get back to life’s rudiments, no matter how miserable these are. We see another puzzling development in the film. We see nobody, besides the police, doing any actual work. In the case of Gondo: “It is both kidnapper and police who make it impossible for him to work ... In either event he can no longer do any work - and he apparently takes to wandering …” (Richie, 1998, 167, italics in original). It implies that when you start doing business and get caught up in complex risky deals doing actual work is no longer possible. This creates a line between working and doing business, where doing business isn’t actual work anymore, but rather just drinking, talking and wandering. When Gondo starts mowing the lawn with his electric mower, it gives the impression of him being so restless that he just has to do something, anything, which vaguely resembles work, it doesn’t even matter what. It is an escape from his container. It is also an image that stresses the idea of him having lost all connections with his life. Gondo is living a life of luxury that has sucked him in, but he knows he cannot survive and it doesn’t bring him any happiness. Therefore he has to escape his air-conditioned container and get drenched in sweat. In the film we see how the plot takes its shape through jealousy, intrigue, alcohol, drugs, violence and extreme emotions. We see the prominent use of alcohol during the meetings of the directors. We are in doubt if this use is based on habit, something portrayed as normal when doing business, or if it can be seen as a punctuated stress-reliever. What is also prominently displayed is the gathering of junkies in the hell of Yokohama, a scene that was later mirrored in Spike Lee’s film Jungle Fever (1991). It is “...the murky hidden worlds of bars, drug-ridden

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alleyways, and cheap hotels; and the point of no return” (O’Brien, 15). The idea of Japan being rational, disciplined and focused proves at odds with images of people losing their minds, bodies and fucking up their heads. The controlled way of living and thus business turns out to be out of control. In this chaotic world that comes to the surface and infects the surroundings, we learn that we can perfect the organizational beast, but never control the beast of life. And the problem is that the beast of life is always in command. We also note the absence of the smart-dumb as suggested by Peters & Waterman, but instead mostly the dumb-lucky or the dumb-unlucky. Excellence rules out excellence. In the end scene, the showdown between the kidnapper & Gondo, we see: “the glass barrier in which criminal and victim each find the other’s face reflected” (O’Brien, 15). They become one. They are both stuck in their situation of no escape. It is this last part where we see how high and low, or heaven and hell, fuse into each other into a zone of indiscernibility, through which we do not know anymore what is high or what is low. In the book by Ed McBain, King’s Ransom (1959), on which High & Low is loosely based, the protagonist becomes the hero in the end. It emphasizes the belief in the strong hero, or even the American dream. Kurosawa did not believe in this and altered this for his film. He created a portrait of misery and rage. It questions … whether it is possible for a man to punish ‘the bad’ without becoming bad himself. The implicit answer seems to be that it is not so much the acting bad that makes you bad as the questioning yourself which makes you weak enough to be defeated. (Wild, 2014, 120).

Kurosawa seems to be saying: “Evil is a choice” (Wild, 136). We have seen that it is not so much about a choice, but rather that the choice doesn’t change anything. Misery remains. Another explanation is from Kurosawa biographer Stephen Prince who explains the difference between the film and the book, stating that there is an: “American celebration of wealth and power” (2008, 02.00h) in the book, as opposed to the film. Gondo cannot be considered a hero. He is even not a real protagonist anymore in the second part of the film. There is no longer any question of a hero or a villain, of heaven or hell, of high or low, of good or bad. It is not black or white; it is black and white, just like the film. It is black and white and the way these fuse in an indistinguishable chiaroscuro. It is not so easy to label things as good or bad, as excellent or not excellent. It is about acceptance, accepting things

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as they are, accepting hell as hell. The only hope is in the pink plume of the smoke cloud that escapes and then rises when the kidnapper burns the suitcases. It is the only color in a black and white world, but then the smoke slowly dissolves. We see how the plot unfolds with the help of technologies of hearing and seeing. We see this with the telephone, the train, the car and the telescope. We witness the role of mirrors in the film. We see mirroring windows, mirroring cesspools, the mirroring shades of the kidnapper, bar room mirrors and the rearview mirrors in the police cars when they are hunting down the kidnapper. We see how the film through its camera eye and its lenses tries to command space and to reveal hiding places. The camera eye shows its power, its potency. It suggests that we need this power of seeing and hearing. It opens up the real-reality. This real-reality has presented us, as mentioned before, with a world way different than that of Peters & Waterman. We have seen that the dumb-smart was exchanged for the dumb-lucky, or perhaps more accurately, the dumb-unlucky. Unlucky, because Kingo Gondo loses everything he has except his family. The kidnapper loses everything and the other three directors also lose everything, as assumedly their nonexcellent company won’t survive. The police might be lucky, but then they’re out of work as soon as the job of catching the kidnapper is finished, and they remain in hell. It is a world without winners. The Peters & Waterman idea of champions or heroes is absent in High & Low. Everyone is obviously born to lose and to hurt the fellow man. It is as if the film tells us that “You cannot realize yourself in this world without hurting something” (Richie, 1998, 170). This is certainly a deviation from the work of Peters & Waterman and thus food for thought.

6.5 Reflections Now that we have a visual reading of High & Low we can conclude that it gives a vastly different image of Japan than Peters & Waterman did. Their world of efficiency and quality get a totally different twist in High & Low. The latter shows a world of humiliation, backtalk, rage and bad luck. we do not find the champion that Peters & Waterman propose, but instead the loser that pulls the strings. It doesn’t look like a happy or even appealing world. Not a world you want to be in, but rather the world that we live in. It is the Deleuzian real-reality, a reality that we cannot perceive anymore, as opposed to the artificial reality, based on clichés.

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Herein lies the main difference between the book by Peters & Waterman and the film by Kurosawa, between the cliché and the realreality. This implies that the excellence world is a cliché, while the world from Kingo Gondo is our world as it is and therefore we need the potency of film as we have witnessed it in High & Low to show this world. We can conclude that film makes you think and the book, not so much. The latter only tries to convince us of its cliché-reality. This means that the different mirror, the mirror of film is absent in the Peters & Waterman’s book. They didn’t perceive Kurosawa’s lesson from twenty years prior to their work, and thus the essence of the Japanese way of organization. We conclude that their view on excellence, and especially the way Japan is seen as a role model, falls short. We conclude that it is a false image. A very appealing image, because that is obviously the function of a role model, but a false one nevertheless. How is it that the authors of In Search of Excellence perceived things and started to question them, but weren’t able to see the big picture? Is there something innate in us that hampers our learning capacity? According to Deleuze this is indeed the case, as we only perceive what we want to perceive. But according to German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk (1989) there is more. Sloterdijk argues that people and thus people in organizations are not able to learn from their mistakes. He names the examples of catastrophes like Three Miles Island and Chernobyl and concludes that we have not learned anything from these disasters. We just go on, pretending that we now know what we are doing. On a rather bizarre note, Sloterdijk concludes that the only disaster from which we can learn from is the disaster that no one survives. We also conclude that learning abilities are hampered by a process of clauding. Just as the use of the Claude Mirror only gives us an abstraction of reality, so In Search of Excellence only gives an abstract. It is an abstract that is shaped by the Americanization of organization studies, which are driven by clichés such as the strong leader, or hero, or the happy ending. High & Low shows that these are absent. There is no hero, there are no winners, there are only losers, and there is only misery. The world is exemplified by the cesspool as shown in the film. This cesspool chokes life. Peter & Waterman are not so different from the three directors of National Shoes, who want to manufacture cheap shoes and care only about profits and not quality. They only want to make money and are not really interested in the cesspool that their actions create. They are in their own cesspool, without any escape either. Hell remains hell.

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This harkens back to our chapter on Futurama. Just like Peters & Waterman are parts of the eighties, Futurama’s That Guy, was also enamored with the eighties, which he considered to be “awesome, awesome to the max”. We have a clear example of the way that the eighties weren’t what they pretended to be. On the other hand, our examples also show how it is not about the business itself, but only about pretending. Just like the three directors who were competing with Gondo, who only wanted to pretend about the quality of the shoes. They had no clue, compared with Gondo, about how to actually make shoes, just as That Guy from Futurama had no clue how to run a delivery company, or probably any company. When considering the Planet Express example, we are unsure as to the capability of Professor Farnsworth, although we are pretty sure he had no insight whatsoever. He just created a mess, which refers to his style of management: mess-management, not excellence. Farnsworth has no employees like Peters & Waterman’s obsessed Honda windshield conductor. His employees were not obsessed with work, but rather with anything that might avoid work. Nevertheless this is how Planet Express functions. The case of High & Low is different. There is no joy about the work, any which way it is conducted or organized. It only leads to dread and despair. A belching Bender might have made all the difference.









INTERZONE 6 UNTAMED MIRROR

The cartoon show Ren & Stimpy caused quite a stir. Not only though it’s bizarre graphics, or weird adventures, but also through its hysterics and adjacent sound effects. Somewhere between manic and trite, some even referred to it as “bat-shit crazy”. It was indeed a quite nerve wracking experience, but nevertheless one like no other. This raises the question as to how such obnoxious animated shows even get aired. Apparently success is quite a good reason. This triggered the makers of Ren & Stimpy to go even a “bit” further, as airtime was no problem. The result was the episode Man’s Best Friend. The creators were happy with the result, but the network was not amused and the episode was “banned”, which led to a break up between the show’s team and the network. What could have been so extreme or disturbing compared to the rest of the episodes? Let’s have a look. The episode Man’s Best Friend opens when we see “American” George Liquor standing in front of a pet store. He has decided that: “A man needs to share his love. A man needs the companionship of lower lifeforms”. We see him, peeping into the shop window, where he sees, looking for lower lifeforms, Ren and Stimpy peacefully displayed, sleeping and snoring. We observe a big sign next to them stating: “Do not Tap on Glass”. George watches, spellbound, at the “two cute little rascals”, and begins banging on the shop window triggering total hysteria on the part of Ren and Stimpy. Ren however comes to his senses quickly, and informs Stimpy they should present themselves favorably, because: “maybe he will buy us”. This indeed happens, and George takes them home, stuffed in a brown paper bag. It all starts strangely mundane, until the next morning when George shows up in his military uniform ready to teach them all about discipline. He informs them that: “in order to learn discipline, you must learn to misbehave”. Although Ren & Stimpy are not really up for it, George insists and wants them to be worthy of the name “Liquor”. It all happens under the motto: “it’s discipline that begets love”. Love is where it all started, but unfortunately this love backfires upon George, when he

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wants them to misbehave by attacking him. For protection he has stuffed himself in an attack dog training suit. Stimpy is not up for attacking George, but Ren seizes the opportunity, grasps an oar and beats George senseless, and to a bloody pulp. George is helpless in his “dog-suit”, and realizes too late that all of this might not have been such a good idea, after all. However he miraculously survives and after which the three dance happily, with rubber cigars, as doggy treats, in their mouths towards a happy end. “Happy happy joy joy”, as Stimpy would proclaim. Apparently the network wasn’t too happy and rumors have it that they considered the violence to be beyond excessive for kids. Also the rubber cigars gave the suggestion of smoking, which was considered unsuitable for children viewing the show. All good reasons for the network to fire the makers of the show. The mirror of the television is can be a dangerous one, and caution may be required. For the makers of Ren and Stimpy “Happy Happy Joy Joy” backfired. Now considering the origin of Stimpy and his mantra “Happy Happy Joy Joy”, we have to move to the episode Untamed World. In this episode we are led by “famous” explorer Marland Höek, who looks a lot like Ren, and his obedient and drooling assistant Stimpy. They are off to the “fabled” Galapagos Islands, which are introduced by Marland as “a virtual textbook of the process of ‘evilution’”. They discover all sorts of strange looking animals that more or less mirror Ren or Stimpy. This implies that, yes indeed, there is a thing as evolution, or “evilution” as they name it, and this works as a mirror that gets more and more distorted and deviated. It is a mirror that loses control and becomes untamed. It is a mirror that consistently, slowly leaks away. Where the missing, leaked parts go remains unresolved. The idea of evolution, or “evilution”, is that things, or animals in this case, are never complete or fit for the job, but always need improvement. Nature is never perfect but always waiting and ready for a “better” version, in which the strong, or fittest, survive, and the weak or unfit ones, dissolve. Nature has its laws, and these laws always autonomously strive for the perfect beast or plant. This is probably also the reason why organizations have an urge for becoming perfect. However, this is also an inexorable urge that often backfires, because it is clear that whatever the improvement might be, it is never “perfect” enough. So the result is always waiting for its own abolishment. In Untamed World we see some examples of animals that were once an improvement moving towards the perfect beast, but now gone and forgotten, unless you move to the “fabled” Galapagos Islands with Marland Höek and his assistant Stimpy. The most intriguing animal they find is the “terrible and fearsome” Crocostimpy. This animal is an exciting

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fusion between a crocodile and Stimpy; famous for “the beautiful haunting mating call of this majestic beast”. It will come as no surprise that the mating call is Stimpy’s favorite expression: “Happy Happy Joy Joy”. We see how the crocostimpy, lying peacefully in the sun, suddenly stands up, and walks erect, with his lunchbox towards a bus, a subtle homage to a classic Looney Tunes episode from the early 1950’s entitled A Sheep in the Deep. The bus door opens, and we see that the bus is filled with crocostimpy’s, all chanting “Happy Happy Joy Joy”, in an uncontrolled crazed fashion. This is where the scene ends and we are introduced to the next almost perfect animal. The untamed world and the intriguing mating call raise some questions. Where are the chanting crocostimpy’s going? What kind of work will they be doing? Are they really happy and joyful, or are they crazed by their urge to mate? And last but not least: what are they carrying in their lunch boxes? Unfortunately these questions get no answers in the episode. Probably because when the answers should be given, it becomes simultaneously clear that the answers are not perfect. They are not tamed but untamed. This probably goes for their jobs as well, it might not be what they really want to do, but something on the way to something better, something more perfect. The only thing that remains the same is the “perfect” mating call: “Happy Happy Joy Joy”.

 

 

REFLECTIONS

We are slowly recovering from our adventures in the mirror. As arty animals we have scrounged through the strange, unpredictable, haunting, leaking, and mist-shrouded territories of painting, architecture, music, cartoons, photography and film. We have been dwelling and picking up bits and pieces. Trying to get used to a new way of sensing. Maybe paying a different kind of attention, or resolving a deviant focus. And then there are always things that escape our perception; those things that remain hidden. We couldn’t beat their tendency to hide. At least that is what we guess, because it is almost impossible to know what has been missing. And then suddenly there was this certain point, a juncture that made us stop. A stop, without watching too much in the rearview mirror, where nowadays objects are closer than they appear. Objects that never immediately make clear what they have to tell us. Anyway, time for a breather. Put down the pens and papers. Let Heidegger rest comfortably on the bookshelf. Just sit down and relax, maybe even close our eyes for a moment or two, enjoy the fresh air, and the cool beverage in our hands, ready to be consumed. Losgelöstheit. We have moved our bodies from the inside of the room, to the outside, overlooking the wide landscape and the seemingly endless horizon. For us this is no escape, it is not fueled by an urge to rush out, but it came kind of naturally. Maybe it was in some kind of Rausch that got us excited and made us feel at ease simultaneously. It makes us aware of the way the inside and outside works on our bodies, and the way we let our bodies be moved by this. We are slowly scanning the wide vista in front of us, trying to see some movements of animals, but not too much is happening besides some birds and insects, and the slight motion of the trees in the wind. We know the animals are hiding, waiting for darkness, so they can come out and search for food or companionship, or perhaps just to play and fool around. They probably know that we are looking, sensing it somehow, but are not really interested in presenting themselves so long as we do not disturb them. We enjoy the vista and feel that it offers some sense of freedom. Although our container, our cell, is right behind us, we enjoy the combination of the enclosure and the endless horizon. The sun is intense

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but we’re protected by our trucker hats and shades, which mirror our faces when looking at each other. We know that the light of the sun has traveled 8 1/2 minutes before it reaches us. That is one of the assurances we have with the sun, the unwritten pact that the light keeps shining, sometimes obscured by clouds, but mostly in a pretty consistent way. We remember the Jim Jarmusch film Dead Man, in which one of the actors fantasizes about what would happen if the light of the sun suddenly dimmed, that it would go out like a candle. If that should ever be the case we might have to reconsider some of our thoughts on the mirror. These thoughts are always leaning on the idea of how light shapes a chiaroscuro. In other words never black or white, or light or dark, but a shadowy in-between, which is never stable, always moving in various unpredictable, or serendipitous directions. Maybe even flickering, just like a candle. Enlightenment is enigmatic. We crave the shadows, and find them more intriguing than when everything is completely and evenly illuminated, almost like a total transparency. We prefer the shadows indeed, although they always contain the danger of the sucker-punch. Always on the verge of hitting us where we least expect it. Yes, but they are also the playground for arty animals, where they can drift in whatever direction their bodies direct them. And then we know there are always more options, different paths, so we also crave the sun, longing to feel its heat burn upon our bodies. The burning heat, the sun, always throwing its shadows. Our thoughts keep drifting to belching and boozing robots, geil photographers, monkish cells, cesspools, hairy auditions and clauding. We notice that we are suddenly looking in hindsight. We are looking in a rearview mirror indeed. We are well aware of the caution that things are closer than they appear in the mirror. We know this, but still we also know that we never know exactly what is going on. There is no exactness in the predictability of what the future has in store for us. Serendipity. There is only a chance to get lucky, or unlucky maybe, or maybe something in between. Yes, the chiaroscuro again. Without being deliberate, we try to make sense of this mash-up, but we also know that it will be a pointless exercise. The thoughts keep on moving, just like the body. The mash-up is never a status quo, but it moves constantly, in various unpredictable directions. These thoughts in hindsight, mashed-up in our minds, directing our bodies. Life that bodies. Leiben. Just as we have our thoughts, the reader will have his or her thoughts too. Thoughts constantly unfolding and refolding. We look at each other and sense that our minds are constantly drifting. Drifting far

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away to endless vistas and barren landscapes. The silence informs us on the way our thoughts are rambling on and on and on. We think back to our times in the museum in London, gazing at the works of Turner and Claude Lorrain, and thinking about black mirrors. Poignant memories of the ruthless paintings of Turner and his total and corporeal dedication to the art of painting. Suffering to an extreme in order to figure out in what way the paint should be brought to the canvas. Just like Francis Bacon and his gaze through the bottom of a whisky or beer glass. We too tried it many, many times. Not an unpleasant experience we can assure the reader, in case he or she should have any doubts. We remember watching Futurama together. Getting thrilled over the ludicrous antics of the boozing and belching robot. The robot that is more human than human. Why is it that certain cartoons have such an obnoxious power to disrupt the regular and open up this zone for new and volatile ideas? Ren & Stimpy make their appearance and we wonder about Log from Blammo and the fearsome Crocostimpy, and his famous mating call: Happy Happy Joy Joy. Thinking about this makes us want to get back to the screen and to watch the episodes again, while simultaneously feeling an urge to write down our thoughts and ideas. Still, the breather and beverage first. Guitars! That’s the answer! Maybe we ought to get our Strats and Explorers, or our V’s, plug them into our tube amps and connect a crazy variety of stomp boxes. Ring modulators, Rainbow Machines, Boris Pink Thunders, Berserker Overdrives, Dragon Wahs, EBows, or Pitch Shifters. Shifting the pitches of the sounds while torturing our strings and whammy bars. Fearless dive bombs. We remember the sweet young voice of one of our children begging us: “no more ring modulator”, disturbed by our intense sonic philosophy. This makes us think about the magic of music and to create and recreate it, mashing it up, endlessly, and sharing it. Or just listening, enjoying the experience of live music, in a stadium or in smaller clubs, anything goes. As long as the music is to our liking, as long as we get a kick out of it. It is very personal, but also for sharing. Sharing the thrill. However the wide vista and the breather are our top priority now. Enjoying the feeling of Losgelöstheit. This moves us back to us living in the monastery. Living and experiencing our cell-being. Experiencing the horology that left its marks on us. This idea of conforming to a meticulous regime driven by the hands of time would have normally made us feel very uneasy. Still opening up for the experience and undergoing these rituals gave us a new awareness of time, and how time moves within these fixed time frames. It was within these time frames that we became aware of the pressure points which time

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then creates. It seems contradictory to a feeling of Losgelöstheit, but then it isn’t really. It is almost like a heightened awareness of the freedom time seems to offer within its frames. The architecture was a protagonist in this. That was what we experienced but we also know that we prefer the situation now overlooking the wide vista, seemingly without any pressure on us whatsoever. Almost like lying in a boat, on our backs, staring at the sky. Or lying on a sofa, in a state of total relaxation. The only thing that remains is to perceive the wide vista and allow our minds to drift. It is a situation very different from the volatile geyser world of Araki, the photographer interested in sex and death, but especially bondage. He certainly got us caught up in his ropes while we were exploring his worlds through the enormous number of books he has published. A true geyser if there ever was one, and someone who is definitely geil. He helped us to investigate the concept of geilness, and how this is relevant in the connection between the overworld and the underground. It is one thing to investigate his world with the help of his books, or some video footage, but it still feeds our desire to visit his Tokyo world, and put our bodies and senses to the test, and maybe visit what is left of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel. This small piece, a remnant, a fragment, which could whisper secrets to us. This goes for the city of heaven and hell as well. We want to experience the cesspool, should it still be there. Immerse in the crazy nightlife, listen to the music in the bars, and look up to heaven, to the big mansion on the bluff, from Gondo. See if we can find the junkyard dog, or spot the small patch of grass in the blistering heat, up there in heaven. It’s strange that while being immobile, resting, our thoughts constantly drift away to all these magic places we’ve visited. While drifting, our eyes are constantly scanning the surroundings. The gaze is always in movement, like a fluid or gaseous gaze, shaping images that make our thoughts wander off to places which are out of our control. The thoughts roam freely. When we close our eyes we still witness these images. We think about a way to share them. To freeze what was fluid, in other words. How can you explain a certain vista and the way it shapes your thoughts? And all these wild and crazy philosophers who have moved along with us, and whose thoughts we used and mutilated. Diving into their ideas and concepts and immersing ourselves in it, tearing them apart, chopping them up, creating a mash-up, only then to get back on more solid ground to digest these thoughts and find their use for our thinking about mirrors. Not just for the purpose of using it, but also about mashing it up,

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unfolding and refolding it, in order to create new meanings, understandings, ideas, thoughts. We feel fatigued, for gazing in mirrors is a tiresome exercise. Therefore the long awaited breather, and the beverage, yet somehow wondering what went on, and maybe what is next, when we get up again, refreshed, strength regained, ready for a next move, a new investigation. Just like any detective, knowing there is never time to cool down. There is always the unexpected intruder who turns on the light and makes you aware of the new case to be solved. We know that we have no choice and that we will keep on moving. There is a saying that whenever you embark on a journey, this journey might grasp you, without ever letting loose, just like an addiction. It is this grip which feels good, and which we do not want to lose. So here we are in the grip of mirrors, and all that mirrors, enjoying the light that has traveled its 8 1/2 minutes to illuminate us and our surrounding world, except the animals; they remain hidden, waiting for darkness.





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THANX!!

It is hard to thank everyone involved in a project such as this one, because it is hard to figure out precisely when the project began and when or even if it ends. I first want to thank Luc Peters and Huubke, my coauthor and my dear friend. You both are inspirations to me. I also want to thank Dr. Albert J. Mills for his encouragement and belief in our undertaking. Certain colleagues have been part of these discussions over the years. In particular Chris Hartt has been a key sounding board for many of the ideas contained in this book. To all those SCOSians who saw early parts of this puzzle, thank you for your open mindedness and help. This has been a labour of ‘Serious Fun’. Andrew Weatherbee, my friend and climbing partner, you kept me sane with our trips to the climbing gym… Finally my wife Patricia, my daughter Sienna and my mother Lesley have all been patient with me and asked me those simple and clear questions that make any philosophy better. I love you all. -Anthony R. Yue

I would like to thank and give my sincere appreciation to: my beautiful wife Huubke, a true princess, the Yue family, Anthony, Patricia & Sienna, Pierre Guillet de Monthoux , René ten Bos, Anke Strauß, Sverre Spoelstra, Ruud Kaulingfreks, Temi Darief, Carl Rhodes, Alison Pullen, Edward Wray Bliss, Stephen Linstead, Chris Hartt, Gretchen, Noah, Gabrielle Durepos, Albert Mills, Jean Helms Mills, John Stuart, Andrea Beckers (Beckflah photography), Lene ter Haar, Roger Kengen, Claudia Schnugg, Jacco van Uden and everybody at the CORPORATE BODIES Film Fest, Jo Janssen and Wim van den Bergh (Jo Janssen architects), the monks at the Dom van der Laan monastery of St Benedictusberg, Thomas Lennerfors, Matt Statler, Bernadette Loacker, Renate Ortlieb, George Schreyögg, David Knights, Saara Taalas, Torkild Thanem, Peter Sloterdijk, Linda Waggoner (director Fallingwater), Mary Roberts (director Martin House), all the people at Taliesin West, Brain Spencer, Sarah Meers and Pepijn, Sylvia, Meike, Indy, Sandy, Caroline, Leon (loudest bass player in the world), EarthQuaker Devices, Dwarfcraft Devices, The Flaming Lips, The Mars Volta, Swans, Boris, Rob Zombie,

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GWAR, and my brother and mother (still going strong from ’31), and all the people I forget at this moment but nevertheless contributed … -Luc Peters

 

BIOGRAPHIES

Dr Luc Peters is a philosopher and writer. His book Cliché & Organization, thinking with Deleuze was published in 2014 by Uitgeverij IJzer. The book was nominated for Book of the Year by OOA, the Dutch organization for consultants. His books Frank Lloyd Wright - NOMAD (together with Huubke Rademakers), and Silence & Geiselnahme (with Dr Claudia Schnugg) are set to be released in 2018. His 2 novels with the working titles: FooTprinTs and Notes from the Inside, will be released somewhere in the near future. He is a regular at various conferences like EGOS, APROS or SCOS, and co-organizer of the CORPORATE BODIES Film Fest. Besides writing he works as a manager, guest lecturer, and consultant, gives masterclasses, and last but certainly not least, is a hardrock-drummer and a guitar shredder. Between his travels and adventures, Luc lives and works in the Netherlands. www.lucpeters.net Dr. Anthony R. Yue thinks, writes and teaches. He is Chair of the Department of Communication Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He has coauthored Business Research Methods (1st Canadian Edition, Oxford University Press), and numerous journal articles and book chapters. Anthony is especially interested in existentialism and how individuals navigate their organized world. His work is typically situated at the confluence of the individual, agency, freedom and organization. As an avid outdoor athlete, he finds inspiration and ideas to consider while sailing on the oceans, breath-hold free diving underwater, climbing upon the mountainsides, and fly fishing in the rivers of the world. Anthony is an atrocious yet very loud guitar player and enjoys rocking out with his 7-year-old daughter to the chagrin of his somewhat bewildered and understanding wife. For more info visit our YouTube channel: On Mirrors!