Do-it-yourself?

Bricolage:
This is a french word that means 'do-it-yourself' or making things from what you have and what ever skills and tools you posses rather than with the correct and best skills and tools.

As an analytical concept it was developed by Levi-Strauss and taken up by Derrida & Hebdidge (in different directions).


For Levi-Strauss the idea was a sign of a certain approach to understanding the world around one in an ad-hoc fashion, which he contrasted to the planned approach to understanding the world of the engineer.


For Derrida it was the only way in which we could read a text.  There can be no planned rational reading of a text because of, one, the semiotic blizzard of possible connotations available to us in that reading, and, two, the social construction of both text & reader (a point to look at in re Barthes S/Z & 'narrative codes').


For Hebdidge Bricolage was a stylistic mechanism which allowed people to mark their sub-cultural position. So that a particular musical or social scene would be associated with a particular set of fashion codes, stylistic choices, and presentations.  Hebdidge is looking at the ways in which we display our place in society through our choices of styles and fashions and our appropriations of others styles and fashions.

Meta Blog: Wordle conceptualises this blog

This is a wordle composition of this blog which shows the relative frequency of words used in these postings and so gives us a snap shot of the actual content of the blog far more effectively than a tag cloud could ever do.

The Missing The Point Society

The Royal Society of Chemistry have generated great deal of 'news' coverage for their Solve The Italian Job Competition without ever noticing what a horrible display of ignorance of socio-cultural matters in general this represents. The end of The Italian Job is left open to afford the slight possibility that the team get away with the loot because such a possibility was a radical departure from the previously strongly imposed conventions on crime not being allowed to pay. The contrast between the conclusion of The Italian Job (1969) and the conclusions of the great English comedy-heists of a slightly earlier generation [e.g. Two Way Stretch (1960), The League of Gentlemen (1960), The Lady Killers (1955)] could not be clearer. Fictional criminals were not allowed to profit from their crimes because the hegemonic-ethic of society was utterly opposed to such an outcome. So what is breathtaking about the literal cliffhanger ending of The Italian Job is the audacious playing with the ethical conventions of the heist movie not the unstable physical mechanics of the bus (which of course do not exist being just a plot device and an effect of the composition of the text of the film). The inability to recognise that there are no physics to discuss but that there are interesting things about society and culture to consider - not least the extremely nationalistic ideology of the text (which is only slightly undercut by the ironic composition of this nationalistic framework) - suggests an absolute (and deliberate) ignorance of literary studies and theory and of socio-cultural studies and theory more generally. As an approach to media culture it is very reminiscent of the poor deluded fools who try to establish scientific rationales for the 'events' 'reported' in the Bible and other holy works (the ten plagues as side-effects of volcanic activity, the deluge as memory of the formation of the Bosphorus, the star of Bethlehem as comet or nova or both) as though there were a necessary reason for those things to actually have happened.
What is particularly galling about this is that the standards they set for other peoples knowledge and understanding of science are reject by them when it comes to their dealings with other fields of knowledge (e.g. their fear of The Flintstones).
The RSocChem are not alone in this as Sense About Science and the rest of the 'science-communication-industry' are equally guilty of this hypocritical hectoring foolishness when it comes to knowledge of fields of enquiry and understanding beyond their own borders. If we consider Sense About Science's annual pop at celebraty ignorance of science we can see this deliberate ignorance of other fields of knowledge quite clearly.
Consider the following two examples.
First, Delia Smith is disturbingly, praised for keeping out of the politics of food (i.e. GM) but castigated for considering over indulgence in sugar to be a problem and suggesting excluding it from ones diet. The SaS response to this is remarkable and worth quoting in full

Lisa Miles, senior nutrition scientist, British Nutrition Foundation

“Delia, you’ll never get rid of sugar from the diet, nor would you want to, as you consume sugars naturally in many foods such as fruit and milk, which provide us with important nutrients. Also, the causes of obesity are much more complex. Although you’re right, in so far as that if you have too many foods/drinks with high levels of added sugar, it can upset the balance of a healthy diet.”

Note the 'ontological gerrymandering' at the begin of the second line in the move from the cooking term 'sugar' to the nutrition science term 'sugars'. The deliberate transition from singular to plural transforms the meaning of the words. Although these words are connected they do not posses the same meaning here and are, indeed, not even members of the same family resemblance. 'Sugar' here has been used to mean sucrose processed from the plant Sugar Cane and used as an ingredient in cooking - as we would expect from a famous cook. Whereas 'Sugars' has been used to indicate water-soluble carbohydrates - as we would expect from a nutrition scientist. There is a fundamental difference between the two uses of these words and there is no sense in which SaS's criticism of Delia is meaningful. It is not the case that this is ignorance of Wittgenstein on the part of SaS rather it is a wilful display of ignorance of cooking on the part of SaS and there is simply no ignorance of science on the part of Delia Smith to be discussed. Consider what a culinary disaster it would be if you asked a member of the SaS team to pass you the salt when cooking as they would have to pass you some salts; the combination of Lead Diacetate and Copper Sulphate sounds particularly yummy!
Second, we have this gem of wilful ignorance;

It’s unusual to hear celebrities talking about maths, but science sells and Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2 is so famous that it even makes a cool album title. Mariah Carey explained her choice of an equation as her latest album title by clarifying that it stood for “emancipation equals Mariah Carey times two”. Dr David Leslie, mathematician “Unfortunately, Mariah has misread the algebra. The two in the equation means c squared, not mc multiplied by two. The correct reading of the equation is E=mcc, so perhaps Mariah's re-interpretation should have been “Emancipation equals Mariah Carey Carey”? I would have been very happy to chat with her and check it out before she went to print.”

There is so much that is outrightly silly about this statement and it displays such blindness to other fields of knowledge that at first I assumed this was some kind of ironic piss taking of Sense About Science's communication project. Now I am forced to accept that this was sincerely meant. I look forward to Dr Leslie giving Garrison Keillor a good talking to about the impossibility of all the children of Lake Wobegon being 'above average' and slapping the producers of Lynx deodorant silly for claiming that the mere act of addition makes women undergo forced and immediate chimerism! The sign in question has marketing effectiveness because it is an icon of the modern world and is immediately recognisable to almost everyone. Their is no 'misreading' of this equation because it is not an composite entity in this case but one icon. In mathematics the five individual components are meaningful as an assemblage whereas in marketing or semiotic terms this is but one whole iconic entity.
The problem of this is that all of the fields of knowledge and understanding essential to communication are deliberately ignored by the professional communicators of scientific knowledge and understanding; which is a useful starting point for a discussion of irony.

Leading the Team

Hegemony is a representational strategy of power; it involves the uses of representations to control people (to manufacture the consent of the ruled to the rule of the rulers) and a fine set of examples of such controlling representations can be found in four current crime fiction TV shows.
The basic model of representational hegemony is that all social groups bar the elite are presented as unfit to lead or rule in one way or another. This is based on the elites power over the mechanisms of representation and of their prevention of of self representation by all other social groups. The elite are the only group with the social power necessary to make representations of and for society - the quotidian representations that normal people construct during interpersonal interaction are of insufficient durability and lack mechanisms for dissemination into the wider society.
In the past these extensive and widely distributed social representations have been far more direct and obvious. The stereotype of women as hysterical and therefore emotionally unfit to participate in rule was one such hegemonic representation. It was one part of a wider network of representations of women as subordinate (indeed as property) that denied women participation in the governance of their society and control of themselves. Racist representations that aimed to divide and terrorise were extremely common in all europeanised societies and are still a part of contemporary media discourse. This fostering of fear was and is intended to cut both ways. The racist representation terrorises the 'other' group by inflicting symbolic violence on them and by showing how close to physical violence they are. It also creates an ogre - the monstrous 'other' - with which the 'norm' group can be frightened.
Contemporary social representations are much less direct and overt and it is to one set of these hegemonic representations in crime fiction TV that we now turn. In Waking the Dead, CSI and its siblings CSI:Miami and CSI:NY, Without a Trace, Criminal Minds, and NCIS (a study in hegemony and interpellation in it own right & a borderline case as its teams is not as identity diverse as the other example texts) we find the same pattern of representation regarding leadership.
Although the team who constitute the central character group in the show are identity diverse - mixtures of genders and ethnicities on the whole as sexuality is carefully ignored - in each case the leader is the early or actually middle age white male; Boyd in Waking the Dead, Grissom in CSI, H & Mac in the other CSIs, Jack Malone in Without a Trace, and Gibbs in NCIS. In each case the legitimate authority of the white middle aged leader is repeatedly stressed and the subaltern status of all the other personnel on the team is reinforced. The hegemonic utility of this representational system (that is how this set of representations bolster the rule of the elite) lies in the clear delineation of leaders and led and the legitimacy of this division and the insistence that certain groups will all ways be found amongst the led.
In Missing Persons the first story of the current series of Waking the Dead - first broadcast in two parts 14th & 15th April 08 - the principle criminal protagonists were two tough, violent and very resourceful women one of whom was set upon a course of extreme violence until such point as she was faced down by the ever authoritative Boyd. The confrontation between Boyd and the former active service INLA member was a straightforward depiction of the triumph of his legitimate and rational authority over her rage and violence. That is to say it was a straightforward demonstration of who ought to be allowed to lead society and who ought to be controlled by society.
It is worth noting that this leadership representation is not limited to crime fiction the bricolage (see also here) of Sherlock Holmes that is House works on exactly the same basis and reinforces exactly the same representation of society. Finally part of the joy of Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes is in the fashion in which they subvert this representational system. Gene Hunt may well be the leader of the team but his leadership is not unquestionably legitimate and his authority is always suspect. Not least because he may well be a figment of the imagination.

Elementary my dear Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni

The BBC/HBO adaptation of Alexander McCall Smith's The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency was able to let its sumptuous location filming do a great deal of the work establishing the text as realistic that is so important for crime fiction. HBO of course are renowned for their use of location filming - The Sopranos and The Wire both make very effective use of the locals they are set in to establish them as realistic as have many other important HBO products - and the BBC does from time to time make very great use of on location filming when the discourse of realism of the text requires it. However, a well written and well directed 105 minute superior TV movie filmed entirely on location in Botswana must have been budget stretching. This lavish location filming has set the realism bar very high and it will be interesting to see if the 13 part series that is to follow can maintain that standard.
The screen-writing by Richard Curtis and direction by Anthony Minghella gave the text a rather lovely narrative naturalism that suited the piece very well. Minghella was all ways a natural story teller and his background as a writer informed his direction as his work is not very filmic rather it uses naturalistic mise-en-scene to make it seem as though the story tells itself. The highly filmic styles of Scorsese, Tarantino, Spike Lee et al that are based on showing you that you are watching a film - consider the brilliant filmic surface Scorsese constructs as a metaphor for glamour in Goodfellas - do not always lend themselves to easy telling of a tale.
The text also displays an normalising representational strategy in regard of Africa. Gaborone is in this text no more or less exotic than, the similarly populous, Brighton (and indeed far less 'other' than East Grinstead). Indeed the version of Baltimore to be found in The Wire seems more alien and other than Mma Ramotswe's Gaborone. This normalising representation is rather refreshing and the presentation of the characters was as naturalistic as the telling of the story and both were essential to the strong realism of the text.
Mma Ramotswe join a short and honourable list of TV detectives (such as the observational savants Robert Goran, from Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and Jonathan Creek) whose magical powers of observation have been inherited from Sherlock Holmes himself. This prodigious perceptive power is even more an index of the presence of Holmes than the Pipe & Deer Stalker Hat that Sidney Paget conjured. This power of observation, that was Holmes foremost talent, is most obviously pointed to at the beginning of A Scandal In Bohemia from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes where Holmes gently chides Watson for not having noted that there are seventeen steps up the stairs of 221b to their room. In The No1 Ladies Detective Agency Mma Ramotswe puts the same talent on display during her first meeting with Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni and at the same time shows us her utter suitability for the task of detection.