Author Archives: josealba

Jose Alba

Through capitalist models and overly produced material from the analog to the digital, this essay discussed the influence of mass media, reproduction, and a power structure, on page 152, Critical Art Ensemble says “In three sentences Lautreamont summed-up the methods and means of digital aesthetics as a process of copying a process that offers dominant culture minimal material for recuperation by recycling the same images, actions, and sounds into radical discourse.” This explains how powerful and practical the “digital” is. Critical Art Ensemble points out another definition affirming “From the smallest details to the first principle of the digital paradigm, it acts in a manner contrary to the analogic by insisting that orders comes from order (pg 153).” To my understanding, if we are talking as a performative spectacle or art, this order is already produced from a pre existing model. The essay thus imply a connection or a line between author and audience and, if we are talking in terms of performance, the digital theater cannot rely on one individual or a single creator. Critical Art Ensemble then, decentralizes authorship moving “theater” from the stage and onto the streets. They affirm that if there were to not be an “action” or a script there will be no performance. Critical Art Ensemble provides a an example with a work titles “The International Campaign for Free Alcohol and Tobacco for the Unemployed,” in which such “performance encouraged folks to act the message this performance showed, on page 159, “CAE carried out a guerilla performance in Sheffield, UK… in the hope of revealing some of the hidden structures of domination in everyday life. CAE chose a harmless action that took place in a location where the typical activities of the local population would not be disturbed.” Becoming a stage for spectators rather then spect-actors. Similarly, in the text of Brian Edwards, he argues that the digital age, entertainment, and other sources of media have given a raise to populism in the global sense. He focuses on how Donald Trump propelled this seismic symptom that altered entertainment, technology, art, politics and the media. Being trained in television, his rhetoric spread across what it is popular culture and the Untied States politics, where, without the use of the script, his political stand became entertainment and rupturing the “American Century”, on page 32, Edwards says “Twitter itself, and its logic of digital circulation—that which propels a message along a circulatory pathway—operate within the period after the American century. What the “American century” means in this context is what I have called elsewhere a Lucean logic of broadcasting (“After the American Century.”)

José Alba

Having read the book at a different time then it is today, gives the book a completely different perspective of the current situation of the world today. Simply based on the performance of political leaders. I found that Machiavelli, through his masterpiece of the prince, shows us the different types of principalities, the types of armies, the political system in Italy, and the characteristics, mannerism, behaviors, and attitudes that create the personality of the prince. Such characteristics, behaviors, and mannerism are tightly connected to what we see in Donald Trump. Machiavelli presents different principalities and different types of armies for a prince that, through a guideline of his own, he recommends the following in order to be a great leader: its better to be stingy than generous, its better to be cruel than merciful, its better to keep promises only if keeping them goes against ones interests, leaders should make themselves hated and despised because the goodwill of the people is a better defense than a fortress, a leader should undertake great projects to lift up his reputation, and finally, a great leader should choose his advisors wisely and avoid those who flatter him. Similarly, in the article by Charles M. Blow on Trumpism Extols its Folk Hero, he says of a governor named Edwin Edwards, that he had achieved what few politicians have, “transcended the political, and on some level even the rules of the workaday world, and entered the astral league of folk heroes.” Continuing to argue that people don’t agree with these politicians and do not compare themselves to them, however, the awful behavior that, including Donald Trump portrays, people prefer to relish it in the folk hero rather than in their own personal lives, and though his supporters are aware of his lying and corruption, to them, its all part of the show and the lore as Blow mentions, “they are allowing in him something that they would not allow in themselves.” Blow affirms that “Trump ascended to folk hero status among the people who like him, and so his lying, corruption, sexism, and grift not only do no damage, they add to his legend…The folk hero, wether real or imaginary, often fights the establishments, often devious, destructive and even deadly ways, and those outside that establishment cheer as the folk hero brings the beast to its knees.” Because we see this clown act, and as blow continues “Trump’s Br’er Rabbit-like ability to avert the best attempt by authorities to hold him accountable, at least for a while, only increases the chorus of applause” his greediness, selfishness, and outbursts to authority is a perfect example of what Machiavelli mentions to be a quality for a leader “better to be stingy than generous and better to be cruel than merciful.” Furthermore, as described in the performance video on how politicians use the belief/make believe “When a politician campaigns is make believe, they have been scripted, rehearsed, presented as make believe, making the voter that what they are saying is the true life… Critics who stick forks in them, who way, this is not true, to show that there is a gap between what the politician says and has said, to make believe that this is the actual social political reality” However, based on the research presented by the article Why facts don’t change our minds, it is imperative to analyze what it is presented “for their beliefs has been totally refuted, people fail to make appropriate revisions I those beliefs” Kolbert says. Kolbert affirms that the studies conducted on “confirmation bias” is a tendency that people have to embrace in order to support their beliefs and reject information that contradicts, “if reason is designed to generate sound judgements, then its hard to conceive of a more serious design flaw than confirmation bias,” but Kolbert then mentions that this leads people to dismiss evidence. Kolbert then goes presents another example by Sloman and Fernabach called “illusion of Explanatory depth” where people believe that they know way more than they actually do, which occurs by the belief of others, a trait in humans through out history meaning that we have always relied on other’s expertise. “As a rule, strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding… If your position on, say the affordable care act is baseless and I rely on it, then my opinion is also baseless… If we all now dismiss as unconvincing any information that contradicts our opinion, you get, well, the Trump Administration” Kolbert says on the human weakness of the political domain  and the experiment of the toilet, as well as the danger of knowledge as community. 

Jose Alba

I would like to start with this quote from The Intolerable image; “We must challenge these identifications of the use of image with idolatry, ignorance or passivity, if we want to take a fresh look at what images are, what they do and the effects they generate.” p.95, Ranciere reveals that shocking images, those who portray an message of “truth” behind the “spectacle,” achieves more or less of its purpose. Ranciere affirms that there is no “intolerable” image, but, that an image of something intolerable can be seen within the context of an image. He claims that there is an ability to trick or deceive the spectator from the gaze. For example, Ranciere says “This opinion is widely accepted because it confirms the traditional thesis is that the evil of images consists in their very number, their profusion effortlessly invading the spellbound gaze and mushy brain of the multitude of democratic consumers of commodities and images.” This affirms, on page 96, that what we see on the media are those who control it, and those who are knowledgeable at interpreting the images that we are shown, that somehow we do not choose what to “watch” he continues “The system of information does not operate through an excess of images, but by selecting the speaking and reasoning beings who are capable of ‘deciphering’ the flow of information about anonymous multitudes.” p.96. Ranciere seems to be criticizing classism, he mentions how photography or the photograph belongs to a “system of visibility” and to me, it seems like photographers (artists) are not found within this realm. This hegemony is maintained through those who are part of the class system and those who maintain a status quo allowing to not there be a system that manages institutions of media and, on page 97, Ranciere suggests “it is overturning the dominant logic that makes the visual the lot of multitudes and the verbal the privilege of the a few. The words do not replace the images” Meaning that we must work towards eradicating the systems that allow to control what images show, a text in a image of “horror” amplifies the image’s meaning. On the other hand, Azoulay on The Spectator is Called to Take Part, through an Arendtian approach, explains how spectators, photographers, and photographed subjects treat each other as sovereigns even when one can be no less operated than the capacity of operating. She claims that the civil contract of photography is as old as photography itself and the theorierical discourses on photography belong to the visual arts literatures. But, Ranciere mentions that we need to overturn this system because the notion of photography belongs to these systems, such as the literature or visual culture. Azoulay also points out to the relations between the photographic act, the photographed person, the photographer, and the spectator, she mentions that “these subjects are not mediated through a sovereign power and are not limited to the bounds of a nation state or an economic contract.” Therefore, photographers become visible, they are seen and are identified with the power that governs them. Beltran’s essay on Undocumented, Unafraid, and Unapologetic affirms how Social Media has become a “space of appearance“ for the DREAMers, as Rancière mentions, it gave them a “system of visibility,” prior to the internet, they could not “creating new spaces in which the undocumented are not objectified members of criminalized populations who are simply spoken about but instead are speaking subjects and agents of change” Beltran says on pg 81. She also draws onto  this idea to “Queer” the politics of migration where “coming out” claims sovereignty and state power, a way to defy visibilities. Beltran recognizes a connection between immigrant rights, activism, and sexuality, where both parties are “coming out of the shadows” as she claims on page 89. 

Jose Alba

Keywords: Spectator, Spect-Actor, Instrumentalization, Activism, Betweenness

The dramatic arts have been an important avenue for self-expression, discovery, and creativity. The art of storytelling introduces us to history that relates to the present. Shakespeare, for example, helped us understand love, family drama, tragedy, and the universals of life by presenting us the romantic and tragic story of Romeo and Juliet. As a society, we also need creativity and the dramatic arts are instruments that gives us a voice and platform to perform and preserve our histories, whether it is through playwriting or poetry. Additionally, theater, music, and the other performing arts can inspire people to express themselves and mobilize politically and culturally. For example, in the musical Spring Awakening, touches on subjects of rape, abortion, and homosexuality, it relays an important message about the consequences of restricting access to information to young people; the characters in Spring Awakening are repressed teenagers trying to explore and figure out who they are in a strict and prudish yet authoritarian society. In my own work, I explore the way that dramaturgical theories intersect with activism, that is, I am analyzing how dramatists use theater as a means of mobilizing, communicating, and spreading of critical thought through dramatic writing. Furthermore, I seek to ask, is political theater an avenue for social change that provides the audience with tools to feel empowered in taking collective or individual action towards social change?

In class, we have touched on the condition of the possibility of politics and its definition to go back to “betweenness,” to those who have rights and those who think they have rights, but they have been constituted by the “not has.” It’s the consternation of the exclusivity of the has. The universality of the emancipation of the model “impossible.” If the world emancipated, we would not have the struggles. For example, being a felon, you are being deprived of rights, who can take away rights? This question is part of the “political spectacle” and a constant struggle. The whole history of emancipation is not so much beyond demanding human rights as of the real struggle to enjoy the rights that have already been declared, theoretically, we should be able to enjoy these rights. Who declares these rights? An example is migrants, they do not exist within the realm of rights, and under the United States, they are declared as criminals, it’s always an open struggle and an open debate. Resistance is a way of becoming contingent, it is opportunistic, you have to find the way to crash and push the limits and pick up on something towards as if it seems it can’t happen where you need to push and make cracks (the role of the spect-actor changing the scene in a theatrical piece) Without politics there would be no “us vs them” so, there would be no performance with no spectator. As spectators, when we watch a ‘theater piece” we give the protagonists the role, where as the spect-actors, we feel empowered to act and change the ending of a scene. Therefore, performances are neither true or false, they are either effective or not effective. In the final project, I would like to explore art as a practice for freedom, how can one bring the theatricality of politics that influence voters to engage in presidential elections to the relationship between political theater and audiences, can a theatrical performance persuade, motivate, or influence to change the spectators consciousness and act? 

Following my interests for the final project. In conversation with human rights and art, I seek to ask the following questions: who constitutes these rights? who has the right to speak? With these questions in mind, art then becomes a medium that challenges us to research, to answer questions of aesthetics and actions, and provides us with the knowledge and responsibility to act for our freedoms, “we” are responsible for our own freedom and it does not depend on an ideology or institution to liberate ourselves. In conversation with Arendt in her topic of Action, she says “with the creation of man, the principle of beginning came into the world itself, which, of course, is only another way of saying that the principle of freedom was created when man was created but not before.” With this in mind, I would like to present a documentary by Juliano Mer Khamis a Palestanian peace activist and theater director in Jenin. Arna’s Children, directed by Juliano Mer Khamis and Danniel Danniel, is a film detailing the Israeli Occupation that centers around a children’s theater group founded by Arna Mer-Khamis, a legendary activist against the Israeli Occupation. Arna spent her life campaigning for justice and human rights in her homeland and founded an alternative education system for Palestinian children whose lives had been disrupted by Israeli occupation. In the Jenin refugee camp, Arna opened a theatre group where she taught the children to express anger, bitterness and fear through acting and art. In the first 20 minutes of the film we see how these children, through theater, are being trained to hate and are told what to say to the camera rather than giving them a free voice, there are questions like “what would you like to do to the Army?” and one child answers “Kill them.” In class, we have discussed art as a mode of connection and, as a vehicle that mobilizes communities towards social justice. An example we looked at was The Art Space by Alfredo Jaar, where he asked the community to build a space out of paper and he eventually burned it down, claiming that it was not his place to impose something on people. Based on this example, we see an act of transformation, art as a mode of connection, and transformation of the political as new possibilities. I encourage for this film to be watched and contextualized, I think it’s a perfect example that slightly answers my statement of art as a practice for freedom with activists resisting the Israeli Occupation. Below is a link to the entire film, the first 20 minutes provides with enough context. Trigger warning! Please be advised there is a lot of violence shown.

José Alba

Yes, the readings were difficult to read that, I built an outline. Dissecting Hannah Arendt’s writings I came with the conclusion that action is: Disclosing identity of an individual, freedom to appear, creating and sustaining a public space to appear, and make power, narrative and remembrance articulating action by means of storytelling to preserve memory. Ardent emphasizes that action is fundamental to humans because of its relation to activities like labor, however, action simply reaffirms its reality. Butler talks about the concept of public gatherings and human togetherness and how these bodies when “being together” is a form of politics. When togetherness occurs itself becomes a form of resistance based on persisting. Butler writes that an assembly has its own political form, a form of survival and equality. “Acting in concert can be an embodiment form of calling into question the inchoate and powerful dimensions of reigning notions of the political” pg 9

If you wish to read more, please see below my breakdown of the readings.

Notes on: The Human Condition/Action

• Freedom
  • Is the place of birth,  new beginnings, the moment the human is born freedom begins, human beings are given freedom the moment they are born giving them the capacity to act.
• Plurality
  • Arendt mentions that in order to act, we need plurality the same way that a performing artist needs an audience. Action being public, known, and consented through deeds and words. Action as human togetherness.
• Speech
  • Through speech and action human beings disclose of their identities. Ardent says that individuals reveal themselves as who they are. She also makes a clear distinction pointing out the “who” and “what” they are. Therefore action and speech when humans interact with each other through words, it becomes a moment of revelation of who they are. Ardent claims that speech is crucial in action because it will loose in which one reveals oneself to the other. 
• Narrative
  • Storytelling, significance of being, truthfulness, and maintaining archives and historical contexts
• Remembrance
  • As a historical and archival tool to immortality 
• Power
  • According to ardent, “power” does not necessarily mean strength or a source deriving from violence, though it is not excluded from this acts. On page 200-201 she says “human power corresponds to the condition of plurality” Action communicates and speech discloses. Power comes from human togetherness, acting in concert through persuasion. “Power is what keeps the public realm” pg 200
  • Power is unchangeable, measurable, reliable where this is always available for actors. 
• The space of Appearance
  • Gathering politically? Voting booths, protests, assemblies, without the help of speech, humans humans cannot act through performance of deeds. Acting in concert
• Unpredictability
  • The power of promise, there is no power that can control the outcomes and consequences of words of individuals.
  • Consequences are boundless
  • Action as a reaction
• Irreversibility
  • The power to forgive, one cannot retrieve what they have done, there is no control, yes, one can construct by the work of a hand and deconstruct, and do it again , but actions cannot be undone. 

Notes on: Notes Toward a Performance Theory of Assembly 

• Gender and Politics
  • Situations of precarity
    • A common understanding of individuals through shared experiences in a socio-economic and political system. 
• The Right to Appear
  • On the subjects, Butler questions who has the right to appear as human and what we call the other, or who cannot appear within the hegemonic discourse
    • “When bodies assemble they are exercising a plural and performative right to appear are that asserts and instates the body in the midst of the political field, and which, in its expressive and signifying function, delivers a bodily demand for a more livable set of economic, social, political contributions no longer afflicted by induced forms of precarity”. Pg 11
• Bodies in Alliance and Politics of the Street 
  • Perform activity of mass demonstrations
    • The United Stares Black Lives Matter
    • The role of media reporting on ‘who’ the people are and Butler touches on the topic of “the people” as well as “we the people” where she mentions that these statements are not inclusive because to which “people” do they refer to when this statements are used in a political space. “a) those who seek to define the people (a group much smaller than the people they seek to define), (b) the people defined (and demarcated) in the course of that discursive wager, (c) the people who are not “the people,” and (d) those who are trying to establish that last group as part of the people.” Pg 4

José Alba

1. Beginning with my first point, I would like to ask the question, how is theater an instrument of colonization? During class, Professor Taylor had made this statement and got me interested in knowing more about it, then I pose this, is theater an instrument of weaponazing spectators and spect actors? It reminds of museums being built in in communities where it will gentrify in the name of “art.”
2. Performance, as we discussed during class, is a way that follows conventions, that is, it followed rules. Churches, dances, or even a class can be a performance, they have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Performance usually refers to reiterated behaviors, twice behavior, happening more than once. This is something that has been already seen or experienced and performance is “reviving it”
3. Performance is and Performance As. Ballet is a performance, a theater piece is a performance. A political spectacle as a performance, memorials as performances, classrooms and churches as performances where there is a reiteration or twice the behavior.
4. As spectators, when we watch a ‘theater piece” we give the protagonists the role, where as the spect actors, we feel empowered to act and change the ending of a scene. Therefore, performances are neither true or false, they are either effective or not effective.
5. The condition of possibility of politics is the definition to go back to “betweeness” to those who have rights and those who think they have rights but they have been constituted by the “not has”. Its the consternation of the exclusivity of the has. The universality of the emancipation of the model “impossible”. If the world emancipated, we would not have the struggles. For example, being a felon, you are being deprived of rights, who can take away rights? This question is part of the “political spectacle” and a constant struggle. The whole history of emancipation is not so much beyond demanding human rights as of the real struggle to enjoy the rights that have already been declared, theoretically we should be able to enjoy these rights. Who declares these rights? An example is migrants, they do not exist within the realm of rights, and under the United States, they are declared as criminals, its always an open struggle and an open debate. Resistance is a way of becoming contingent, it is opportunistic, you have to find the way to crash and push the limits and pick up on something towards as if it seems it can’t happen where you need to push and make cracks (the role of the spectator changing the scene in a theatrical piece).
6. During the ancient times in Greece, theater was developed as a healing practice and Artistotle talks about art about what could happen. In the previous readings we talked about how art, as a mode of resistance, mobilizes communities for social justice. Alfredo Jaar is an example of how his master piece of burning the space the community built to bring awareness of “taking space.”
7. Dialectical Materialism: unearthing societies laws of motion treating social situations as processes, and traces all inconsistencies. The human feelings are in disharmony with themselves, opinions and attitudes.
8. Alienation effect: A representation that alienates is one which allows us to recognize its subject, but at the same time makes it seem unfamiliar. How does it become a barrier for showcasing empathy? and why, according to Brecht, theater must alienate what is shows if, in essence, theater is a pleasurable experience ?
9. Without politics there would be no “us vs them” so, there would be no performance with no spectator.
10. When Boal talks about “rehearsal” I think about the conversation we had in class when politicians are trained in television, because they “repeat” (twice behavior; performance) and show to their audiences (spect actors) what they believe, making spect actors act to their “speeches”

Jose Alba

In this weeks readings, the relationship between audience and actor were prevalent in Brecht, Boal, and Taylor’s work. First I’d like to begin with Performance, where we see an expansion of the thing one is doing and something that is done. It seems that Taylor is expanding the conversation on how audiences and spectators influence performance or they also take part in performing. She also points out how politicians as well as actors in terms of theater, engaged and shape the body, for example, colonialism, capitalism, religion, and dictatorships. I think that this book, performance, is itself, an act of performance because it engages the reader through photographs of performances. Brecht gives us an understanding of the theater, he mentions that it’s a platform to experience pleasures. Brecht, Taylor and, Boal in theater of the oppressed speak about the self and reality, meaning that as spectators or audience members, even in the form of a political event, we alienate from the reality to what its our our existence. Where theater, and like the book performance tells us, as spectators or audience members , Brecht promotes art as a way to intervene with history, which my interpretation of this would be, as spect-actors, to intervene with power and transform the realities in which we live.