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Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Reading Kristen Stewart's "CHEATING" Pictures Through the Eyes of Foucalt Reading Manet

FOUCAULT and the CUT of MANET in PAINTING

The Foucauldian Method:

Not taking a position, but following and disentangling lines....

Foucault is less interested by what the image says than by what it produces -  the behavior that it generates, and what it leaves barely seen among the social machinery in which it distributes bodies, spaces and utterances.
 ....strategies that confine painting, to render visible what it shows, 
but equally what it conceals.

Artist: 
Completion Date: c.1879
Foucault Discusses Manet's The Waitress
In effect what does this picture consist of and what does it represent? Really, in a sense, it does not represent anything in so far as it offers nothing to see. In effect, you have a total here and for a total, in this picture, this figure of the waitress which you see very close to the painter, very close to the viewer, very close to us, who has a face turned suddenly turned towards us as though a spectacle has suddenly presented itself in front of her and attracted her gaze. You see that she is not looking at what she is doing, which is putting down her beer glass, but her eye has been attracted by something that we do not see, that we do not know, which is there in front of the canvas. (p 49)

....the canvas is composed of one, two, or at the most three other figures...which we almost do not see since between them we see hardly anything but the receding profile and after that we see nothing but the hat. Rather, whoever they are looking at, they are themselves looking back at them in exactly the opposite direction. What do they see? Well, we know nothing about it, we know nothing since the picture is cut in such a way that the spectacle which is there, and by which these gazes are attracted, this spectacle is also hidden form us. 

This is where Manet "breaks" with classical painting. 
Always before the spectacle was also there for us to see 
what the figures were looking at.

It is a picture where nothing is represented except two gazes, two gazes in two opposite directions, two gazes in the two opposite directions of the picture, recto verso and neither of the two spectacles which are actually followed with so much attention by the two figures, neither of these two spectacles is given to us; and to underline this, you have the curious irony of this little part of a hand that you see (on the left) and this small part of a dress.

...it is as though there is nothing to see, that the picture should consist of these gazes turned towards the invisible, showing nothing but the invisible....

From one part of the canvas to another, you have two spectacles which are seen by 
the two figures but at its root the canvas, instead of showing what is to be seen, 

hides and conceals it.(p 50)



First let us look at these 2/55 photographs  which have been included in a series of pictures in  a media manufactured Debordian world wide SPECTACLE
And let us consider them as paintings and not photographs.

What do we see?
Two figures, - in a soft out of focus shortened depth of field - a man and a woman in a heterotopian space, the front seat of a car.
The one at the top  shows the back of a woman's head facing away from us looking at something we cannot see. 
The clearest focus is the outside of the car, the handle of the car door and the pinpoint of sun reflected there. The light coming from outside the painting falls on the lower half of her back. 
The upper part of the man's face  is positioned looking over her shoulder, gazing at something obliquely outside this heterotopian space, this space in western culture, the front seat of a car, a place outside of all places, a place of separation.
He seems to be looking at us, but not quite. We cannot be sure at what he is looking as his face and eye is also out of focus.
The horizontals and diagonals are in clear sharp focus. The upper silver edge of the door of the car descends from left to right sloping to the edge of the raised window, its framing and the framing of the door, the separation between the two a dark black that continues a sensuous curve around the door closure continuing down to the lower part where we observe at the bottom a reflection of what is behind, but there is nothing there. Nothing for him to see and nothing for us to see. A gaze focused on the empty landscape. 

Strangely enough it is a very beautiful photograph if observed through the eyes of Foucault. The verticals and horizontals  interrupted by diagonals draw your eye away from the two figures in shadow and out of focus in a shortened depth of field, almost as if they are there along for the ride, almost as if they are ghosts.

The lower picture has obviously been cropped and cropped stupidly and crudely. The play of the horizontal and vertical lines with the intersecting diagonals has been cut off on all four outside edges. The primary focus now is on the two figures inside the car, the heterotopian space here, in shadow. The figure of the woman is lower now.  The sunlight coming from outside the painting is falling on her shoulder, but not quite to the top of it,  which is in shadow, and it is falling on her back.

We see more of the man's face and in this lower image his eye that was opened above is now closed. It is as if the painter drew a darker line across it and his mouth is so shadowed we cannot tell if he is touching her with his lips, is about to, is withdrawing, as the focus is too blurred for us to know. too deep in shadow for anything but speculation. We cannot see if her eyes are closed, if she is looking at something, if she is looking at him, as her gaze is invisible to us.

Since we know that these are not paintings by someone influenced by Manet, but perhaps are photographs by someone with that sensibility. There is a lovely quality about them, a haunting illusion not unlike that moment Michelangelo invokes as he has God extending his hand with pointed finger towards Adam to touch him with life, with just a hair of a gap between, an almost but not quite touch, a whisper away from bestowing life.(Leo Steinberg)

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

ALL and NEW DAMAGING VIDEO OF "CHEATING" PICS - UNBELIEVABLE

Click on the Picture
WOW




It's all over now watch:

http://youtu.be/9N3Od6j-d3A


And another one

HERE



WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THIS?


Zizek
We discover a Freud who is far from the 

proverbial Victorian caught in his 

repressive vision of sexuality, a Freud 

whose moment is, perhaps, arriving only 

today, in our 

"society of spectacle," 

when 

what we experience as everyday reality is 

more and more the incarnated lie.



When all is lies, the truth is a weapon. 

Bane - The Dark Knight Rises.


And of course the original video:



And here's another in Spanish

http://youtu.be/ezSkNJYBdUQ

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Eric PACKERING the Scandal

On The Road NY Premiere Kristen Stewart
Is everyone happy now to see the flailed actress all skin and bones
Has she been punished enough for THAT AFTERNOON
Or do you want more more MORE

For THAT AFTERNOON see The Rashomon Effect here:
Complete with pictures from THAT AFTERNOON

The camera never lies. It records what is there. It is we who lie to ourselves when we perceive what we think we see. as it filters through our own protective shield.


Does this mean that the photos we see take on the literal truth of what the camera has recorded? 

Look at this video
Now tell me what you see in those pictures you just looked at

Watch and Learn

Now put this link in your browser as it is unlisted on youtube
!!!WOW!!!
SAME PERSON WHO MADE THE FIRST VIDEO. As Diana was dying in her car pleading with her eyes for help the papz were filming her 
THEY TURNED HER INTO A SNUFF FILM


WIN ONE FOR DIANA
DOWN WITH THE TABLOIDS WHO CREATE THE MARKET 
FOR THE PAPZ

YAAAAY          OCCUPY!

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Kristen Auditions For Furious In a Parking Lot

Furious and Beautiful

The context is below

 Here are 6 pictures of Kristen in a gym parking lot with Nick Cassavetes, the director of Cali a movie she is going to be in or not going to be in, is a producer of or not a producer of.


 There is no way to know the order they were taken in. The order influences greatly how you will read them. Since there are 6 pictures there are 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2  =  720 - divided by 6 = 120 different possible permutations or ways of ordering them for viewing, and each order will give you a slightly different reading. 
Your choice.


 "I made Welcome to the Rileys [in which Stewart played a young woman with emotional issues] a few years back and now I want to open two halfway houses, one in New Orleans and one in LA, and I want to make a documentary about why it’s important. But all this ridiculously empty charity work that you see? Like, you show up at an event and you wear a dress and you auction your dress off and you suddenly feel important. I want to do it right. Right now, I just feel it. It’s not to be wasted. Because I know my value is fucking strong."
Little White Lies Interview - HERE
 Just guess who has taken the hit for saying this. Why hasn't she already done it. Blah blah blah.
But all this ridiculously empty charity work that you see? Like, you show up at an event and you wear a dress and you auction your dress off and you suddenly feel important. 
This is what has infuriated people. 
Do you want to know why?

She has dared to cut into the Dominating Discourse 
and call it fake. When anyone does that they provoke rage.

Here Zizek says exactly the same thing. Kristen is a Zizekian.

Remember when Copernicus challenged the earth centric position of the Church, saying the earth revolved around the sun instead of being in the center with the sun and planets revolving around the earth? Gulp.

Galileo
Galileo championed  heliocentrism 
And was threatened with execution by the Church for it if he didn't recant.
He recanted

There are many more who did or did not recant, but at one time it was worth your life to challenge the Dominating Discourse.
Now they just try to destroy your career.
There are many who wish it still was judging from the way they have trashed Stewart for saying this.
_______________________________________________
But she is correct and she is spontaneously making a ZIZEK statement without knowing it. Bravo!
____________________________________________
What she is saying is that the accepted normal way for celebrities to involve themselves in charity work is
DECAFFEINATED CHARITY WORK
Decaffeinated is a favorite term of Zizek's. I like it too.


Or we can read her statement through Lacan

And Debord
The celebrity charity work is a Spectacle
Which is a "floating sign"
Masking the opposite:

That it is empty


At Little White Lies











Isn't that what she just said? 
That it is empty. Jesus this
young woman is a philosopher also. No formal schooling and she comes up with that!

A few years back Stewart said she didn't want to act forever. that acting was lying. Her father told her she had it so easy because all she had to do was be in front of a camera and lie. 
Is that a fact. 

Picasso: All art is a lie.


What if the reality being mirrored in acting is the lie? 
Then her acting would be a lie of a lie. 
As Zizek would say in his most recent book -  Less Than Nothing, which is on Hegel, and  is more Hegel than Hegel, (Just trust me on this.)

 -  yes it is.

A lie based on a lie. 
The negation of a negation.
A negation of a negation is the truth. 


Here she is in an Interview in a zine called Little White Lies
and she is telling the truth.
When all is lies, the truth is a weapon - Bane 
The Dark Knight Rises
I just really am trying, trying, all the time. I mean, Walter [Salles] actually said to me several times during On the Road, ‘Stop reaching. You’re already there.’ But I like to be scared. I love to suddenly feel out of control. Actors walk around wearing these little tool-belts of acting skills. And I just don’t find that interesting to watch. 
Neither do we Kristen
So she is taking a "lie" (the acting) and pushing it to its limits and beyond to implosion! Loss of control. Letting the world will her in her performance.

When it is so excessive for her it is no longer a lie.

Nietzsche here folks. Push to excess to expose the truth lying there all palpitating before the cliched language and gestures covered it up.

She is doing the same thing DeLillo's Eric Packer did but not cowardly Cronenberg's Eric Packer.



And again she is trashed for saying the truth when all else is lies in the Dominating Discourse
But those of us in the know know she doesn't mean
Kate Winslet
Michelle Williams
Meryl Streep
Noomi Rapace
Michel Fassbender
Viggo
and many many others we love because they don't carry around a toolkit
the way Tom Cruise does, Bruce Willis does, Ashley Greene does, etc.