So far jung has discussed this idea of good and evil. He's very particular on how they are related and how christianity has conceptualized it. His viewpoint, he claims, is cultivated from studying his patients and literature. He also challenges the idea that good and evil are separate as it is in christianity such as the split between god and the devil.
I'm still not clear what he's saying to the point where I can translate it comfortably to my own understanding. What I think is happening is he's making a comparison to the idea of the self to the idea of god. He notes that good and evil generate from a similar vein in his experience examining people's psyche.
To him, christianity sees the self as the creator of good and evil comes about not from the self but, in some way that is hard to describe, from the absent of self. This seems absurd because of how jung sees how people work. The actions people make are informed by the collective unconscious working together in a contained and reflexive system.
I somewhat trust that jung has insight into things that seem obscure to me--however his whole rational is one I've run into in philosophy--it especially was particular to older works and maybe not as prevalent today--but it is the idea that everything has an opposite and that each opposite is responsible for the other's being. And this is something jung sits on if this would be taken away would make a lot of his reasoning incoherent.
But to me it seems distasteful. Basically it applies qualities to a number that seems aesthetically pleasing. The idea of 2 in this case. I think it can lead to false assumptions and it might inform a lot of things that would appear to be true after one excepts this notion of duality and truth but not because it is pleasing.
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Sunrise and the anima
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
Watched this film with a friend on the internet. We had to count down to make sure we started the film on time and then discussed it in real time in a chat room. I recently watched another silent film by murnau called tabu and selected another one of his films somewhat at random.
This filmed turned out to be wildly different from tabu which was about a forbidden love between two 'primative' people who escape their island and seek refuge in near-by areas that are being colonized by capitalist culture. The movie seemed to link primative tabu and modern debt as two sides of the same coin. The debt, island tabu, and the woman's compassion for her father seem to dissolve the bond between the people who would otherwise belong together.
Sunrise is another love story but between a farm couple. The relationship has turned stale. The man sits idle in front of a table of bread showing no hunger for it, and before he can wait for his wife to bring him his supper he slips out side passing over a fence to meet a darkly dressed woman from the city in the brush of a forested area.
The presence of the moon and water suggest this femme fatale is a stand in for the unconscious mediator about to bring to consciousness what is already laying dormant in his mind--murder his wife and elope with this shadowy lady to the city.
There were several scenes in which the film was richly filmed which surprised my naive understanding of what silent films were. One scene that stand out in my memory is transition the man takes from his house to meet his mistress in the woods. The transformation from saccharine domestic life to this garden of erotic longing was palpable. We follow him to a fence that draws the boundary between his wife and the seductress. Then after he passes over the fence the camera merges with his sight and we become him as he sees her for the first time in the film under the moon and twirling a flower as if enchanting it and then discards it.
The next scene happens right after he attempts to murder his wife but emotionally capitulates and his wife flees fully aware of his intentions while the husband awkwardly pursues her urging her not to be afraid of him. By per chance she seems to find a trolley going to the city and boards. Interesting enough this is plan that the man and the mistress had in mind re: running away to the city. The trolley ride is suspenseful. The wife is safe from harm because there are so many witnesses around but still feels betrayed and his stuck in a box with her husband who is conflicted and wont leave her alone. The scene then turns away from these two characters and focuses on trolley driver and his lack of discern for what is going on between them. We then transition from the farm to the city where we trade flauna for iron trusses and large letters of billboards.
I wish I could recall more scenes with clarity but these were just the ones that stick out but don't between the two tell the whole story. The movie itself was crafted using metaphor and at times neglecting reality as it normally is before it is considered acutely as a poet. Even though it was obvious that the movies language was more proem than pros, there were intense feelings of reality. The turmoil the wife was in just after she realized what lied behind her husband's plans after she was dressed up as if she was going on a date. The person I was watching it expressed the same reaction without me confiding mine to hers.
The Syzygy: Anima and Animus
For some reason these archetypes are what fascinate me most about the collective unconscious. I see them as what is necessary for art and maybe that is why I love them.
In the previous section jung described the shadow. This part of the unconscious is some what familiar in that it is the part of us we dissociate with but could infer if we got past that there is a side of us we do not find tasteful lurking in our minds. It is as if we make this unconscious because we don't want to think about it.
The anima is different in that it isn't so much repressed. It's just boarder between what is conscious and the part of us that is so unconscious that it is off limits. The anima has a perplexing role of bringing what isn't conscious and confront consciousness with it. Our pysche tends to personify this in a person--it is generally a person of opposite gender. This character also has different gender roles. The masculine is more logical with reason and the feminine has the characteristics of irrationality and other feminine stereotypes. Reading this seems kind of scandalous and mainly I'm more concerned with the role the person plays as a mediator of the unconscious and not the whole gender thing.
Jung speaks of this character in other essays more fondly proclaiming if people lose touch with it it has disastrous consequences on one's mood. But here this person is treated more harshly as a cause for conflict and projecting unconscious things to the world in ways we aren't aware of. She is autonomous from the ego and often the conscious mind has turn inwards and reflect on what she has planned.
Watched this film with a friend on the internet. We had to count down to make sure we started the film on time and then discussed it in real time in a chat room. I recently watched another silent film by murnau called tabu and selected another one of his films somewhat at random.
This filmed turned out to be wildly different from tabu which was about a forbidden love between two 'primative' people who escape their island and seek refuge in near-by areas that are being colonized by capitalist culture. The movie seemed to link primative tabu and modern debt as two sides of the same coin. The debt, island tabu, and the woman's compassion for her father seem to dissolve the bond between the people who would otherwise belong together.
Sunrise is another love story but between a farm couple. The relationship has turned stale. The man sits idle in front of a table of bread showing no hunger for it, and before he can wait for his wife to bring him his supper he slips out side passing over a fence to meet a darkly dressed woman from the city in the brush of a forested area.
The presence of the moon and water suggest this femme fatale is a stand in for the unconscious mediator about to bring to consciousness what is already laying dormant in his mind--murder his wife and elope with this shadowy lady to the city.
There were several scenes in which the film was richly filmed which surprised my naive understanding of what silent films were. One scene that stand out in my memory is transition the man takes from his house to meet his mistress in the woods. The transformation from saccharine domestic life to this garden of erotic longing was palpable. We follow him to a fence that draws the boundary between his wife and the seductress. Then after he passes over the fence the camera merges with his sight and we become him as he sees her for the first time in the film under the moon and twirling a flower as if enchanting it and then discards it.
The Syzygy: Anima and Animus
For some reason these archetypes are what fascinate me most about the collective unconscious. I see them as what is necessary for art and maybe that is why I love them.
In the previous section jung described the shadow. This part of the unconscious is some what familiar in that it is the part of us we dissociate with but could infer if we got past that there is a side of us we do not find tasteful lurking in our minds. It is as if we make this unconscious because we don't want to think about it.
The anima is different in that it isn't so much repressed. It's just boarder between what is conscious and the part of us that is so unconscious that it is off limits. The anima has a perplexing role of bringing what isn't conscious and confront consciousness with it. Our pysche tends to personify this in a person--it is generally a person of opposite gender. This character also has different gender roles. The masculine is more logical with reason and the feminine has the characteristics of irrationality and other feminine stereotypes. Reading this seems kind of scandalous and mainly I'm more concerned with the role the person plays as a mediator of the unconscious and not the whole gender thing.
Jung speaks of this character in other essays more fondly proclaiming if people lose touch with it it has disastrous consequences on one's mood. But here this person is treated more harshly as a cause for conflict and projecting unconscious things to the world in ways we aren't aware of. She is autonomous from the ego and often the conscious mind has turn inwards and reflect on what she has planned.
Saturday, September 13, 2014
People on sunday and thinking about the unconscious
Noa noa on the wannsee
Another artforum article. This time I left my room and read at the corner coffee shop where it started to rain outside. My head wasn't clear it seemed and the subject of the article seemed hazy as I read it. The focus was on two silent german films from the 1930's.
The films both shared an attitude of a kind of utopia that rejected the idea of casting professional actors and the plots involve the characters going to a primitive settings very much in the vein of the painter paul gaugan. This also beckons the ideas I've been reading from jung about the symbols of the unconscious.
The idea behind the films also seem to celebrate youth and the time where one becomes aware of aesthetics and choosing to follow a path towards pleasure that seems to come from within. And the article was also connecting how the film makers reflected their idealism by the way the projects unfurled. One of the films was supposed to be shot in color but funding fell through and the film makers had to use their own money. Not only sacrificing their own money but compromising what the film started out being--they opted for a cheaper black and white film. I think it also effected the casting and even production was stop and go. They would pause to raise funds definitely indicating that it was not a project thought through in entirety but continued by the tenacity of a youth doggedly trying to produce the forms that are just emerging and maturing in their minds.
The anti-establishment vibe and home made aesthetic related to 60's camp movies I've read about before (The sins of the fleshapoids to be specific). This attitude was present at the start of the film industry and oddly enough both eras seem to idolize youth and hedonism. Perhaps the form the movies take result from the way the mind wraps itself around the idea. Originally I thought of the 60's camp movies as a reaction against an film industry that became overbearing, but now see it a struggle that happens as something is beginning and is anticipated.
The most enjoyable moments happened to do with photographs. A warp of the media portrayed moving photographs with static photographs and the characters relationship towards them. At first there is a fight between a couple who became jealous about the other's photographs of actresses and actors hung in their tiny room-- at a moment when they realized why the other idealized them and by the quantity of different photos there were. The photos were taken down from the wall and mutilated by tools the characters used to groom themselves for vanity re: shaver and curling iron. The reflexive nature was almost overwhelming and a smile came about from deep within delighting in what I was watching.
Then an opposite moment happened while people were at the beach. There is a photographer there photographing average people in states of euphoria as they enjoy their day off. Their motion gently slows to a halt transforming them to a single photograph while in reality the film of the camera is still moving just as fast. Probably this is the film makers penultimate articulation of meaning in this film. Taking into account the destroyed photographs from the beginning and living your own or dreaming your own that no one else can see.
Another thing that puzzled me was the character of the taxi driver's partner who misses the whole outing because she sleeps in and her partner decides to court someone else for the day out. The movie seemed to celebrate passion and chasing after one's will, but to me the most seductive moment was this wild stare given by the person who spends the day dreaming rather than realizing her fantasies in real life.
The characters related to their gender. This was very uncomfortable for me especially as they get into the woods and resemble old greeks myths of men chasing after girls who resist their advances in some golden rape fantasy. A lot of times rather than submit to the god chasing her, the woman is transformed into a tree. This seems to be alluded to when the men wear down the woman who then stands on the opposite side of a tree. They embrace awkwardly and their body language give every indication the man is forcing his will on the woman who wishes to flee but is worn out in a state of weakness. Shortly after this they make love and only after the coupling happens does the woman show signs of pleasure.
This upset me because I thought this film would be something I could show people as some sort of novel interest--just an interesting silent movie people probably haven't seen. Now that I know the behaviour of the men I definitely think twice in recommending this video. I don't think I'd have watched it if the article was upfront about it all.
The last thing I plan on mentioning is the role of motion in the film. The very beginning introduces us to a city that is moving in every direction largely by machines. This motion is related the city and it's way of life. Spinning wheels of cars and people hopping on to moving trolleys. There is also a moment later on which suggest the city has emptied and work has stopped--everyone has gone to the beach for the day. This transition leads to the scene where they two couples are on a paddle boat and its mechanized but powered by the people enjoying their day and not a product of all the necessary steps needed to make gasoline and electricity. As the day is ending the bus takes them back and we slowly transition back to the cultivated city out of the individual pleasure of wilderness. The film maybe stating that pleasure is an individual affair that takes us back to our animal selves but most of the week we work collectively in cities that function but we loose sight of ourselves and argue and get absorbed in how machines work. But we long for both worlds and for some reason spend most of the time in artificial one that causes us to labor.
The motion of the wheels and machines also relates to the camera. Just as the beach photographer quietly reminds us the actors are simple photographs the spinning wheels constantly call to mind the spinning real of film that originally produced the images. The allusion of spinning wheels proclaims the director's goal to harness the mechanical object of the camera and put it in service of hedonism and youth. The real people of berlin may have to work on other days besides sunday but the film itself portrays mostly that day of freedom.
Conscious, unconscious, and individuation
Someone came in the coffee shop and there was an irony overload so tried a table outside under an awning while it rained. I became more interested people watching than reading so I red this essay when I got home.
The past few essays by jung have been an obstacle--or burdensome to read. This one seemed relaxed and he was elaborating on the nature of how the unconscious interacts with the conscious mind. He reveals that the conscious mind is not present at the first stages of life. The primordial unconscious is always present but out of it becomes this awareness that is embodied by the ego. He is careful not to imply that the unconscious mind creates the ego from it's ageless crystalline structure but continues to goad consciousness further and inform what it sees. He informs us that the conscious mind would be static if it were not from the gentle massages of the unconscious bringing forth forms of thought.
He also cautions us to take both sides of our mind and not to favor one over the other. The patients he treats have problems either with the unconscious mind aggressively asserting itself over consciousness OR by the conscious mind naively trying to repress thoughts and neglecting the unconscious.
Another artforum article. This time I left my room and read at the corner coffee shop where it started to rain outside. My head wasn't clear it seemed and the subject of the article seemed hazy as I read it. The focus was on two silent german films from the 1930's.
The films both shared an attitude of a kind of utopia that rejected the idea of casting professional actors and the plots involve the characters going to a primitive settings very much in the vein of the painter paul gaugan. This also beckons the ideas I've been reading from jung about the symbols of the unconscious.
The idea behind the films also seem to celebrate youth and the time where one becomes aware of aesthetics and choosing to follow a path towards pleasure that seems to come from within. And the article was also connecting how the film makers reflected their idealism by the way the projects unfurled. One of the films was supposed to be shot in color but funding fell through and the film makers had to use their own money. Not only sacrificing their own money but compromising what the film started out being--they opted for a cheaper black and white film. I think it also effected the casting and even production was stop and go. They would pause to raise funds definitely indicating that it was not a project thought through in entirety but continued by the tenacity of a youth doggedly trying to produce the forms that are just emerging and maturing in their minds.
The anti-establishment vibe and home made aesthetic related to 60's camp movies I've read about before (The sins of the fleshapoids to be specific). This attitude was present at the start of the film industry and oddly enough both eras seem to idolize youth and hedonism. Perhaps the form the movies take result from the way the mind wraps itself around the idea. Originally I thought of the 60's camp movies as a reaction against an film industry that became overbearing, but now see it a struggle that happens as something is beginning and is anticipated.
People one sunday--one of the movies from the article--was on youtube so I took a look at it. For some reason I really enjoy when the magazine covers movies. They are generally the only things I'm interested in outside of the article itself.
The most enjoyable moments happened to do with photographs. A warp of the media portrayed moving photographs with static photographs and the characters relationship towards them. At first there is a fight between a couple who became jealous about the other's photographs of actresses and actors hung in their tiny room-- at a moment when they realized why the other idealized them and by the quantity of different photos there were. The photos were taken down from the wall and mutilated by tools the characters used to groom themselves for vanity re: shaver and curling iron. The reflexive nature was almost overwhelming and a smile came about from deep within delighting in what I was watching.
Then an opposite moment happened while people were at the beach. There is a photographer there photographing average people in states of euphoria as they enjoy their day off. Their motion gently slows to a halt transforming them to a single photograph while in reality the film of the camera is still moving just as fast. Probably this is the film makers penultimate articulation of meaning in this film. Taking into account the destroyed photographs from the beginning and living your own or dreaming your own that no one else can see.
Another thing that puzzled me was the character of the taxi driver's partner who misses the whole outing because she sleeps in and her partner decides to court someone else for the day out. The movie seemed to celebrate passion and chasing after one's will, but to me the most seductive moment was this wild stare given by the person who spends the day dreaming rather than realizing her fantasies in real life.
The characters related to their gender. This was very uncomfortable for me especially as they get into the woods and resemble old greeks myths of men chasing after girls who resist their advances in some golden rape fantasy. A lot of times rather than submit to the god chasing her, the woman is transformed into a tree. This seems to be alluded to when the men wear down the woman who then stands on the opposite side of a tree. They embrace awkwardly and their body language give every indication the man is forcing his will on the woman who wishes to flee but is worn out in a state of weakness. Shortly after this they make love and only after the coupling happens does the woman show signs of pleasure.
This upset me because I thought this film would be something I could show people as some sort of novel interest--just an interesting silent movie people probably haven't seen. Now that I know the behaviour of the men I definitely think twice in recommending this video. I don't think I'd have watched it if the article was upfront about it all.
The last thing I plan on mentioning is the role of motion in the film. The very beginning introduces us to a city that is moving in every direction largely by machines. This motion is related the city and it's way of life. Spinning wheels of cars and people hopping on to moving trolleys. There is also a moment later on which suggest the city has emptied and work has stopped--everyone has gone to the beach for the day. This transition leads to the scene where they two couples are on a paddle boat and its mechanized but powered by the people enjoying their day and not a product of all the necessary steps needed to make gasoline and electricity. As the day is ending the bus takes them back and we slowly transition back to the cultivated city out of the individual pleasure of wilderness. The film maybe stating that pleasure is an individual affair that takes us back to our animal selves but most of the week we work collectively in cities that function but we loose sight of ourselves and argue and get absorbed in how machines work. But we long for both worlds and for some reason spend most of the time in artificial one that causes us to labor.
The motion of the wheels and machines also relates to the camera. Just as the beach photographer quietly reminds us the actors are simple photographs the spinning wheels constantly call to mind the spinning real of film that originally produced the images. The allusion of spinning wheels proclaims the director's goal to harness the mechanical object of the camera and put it in service of hedonism and youth. The real people of berlin may have to work on other days besides sunday but the film itself portrays mostly that day of freedom.
Conscious, unconscious, and individuation
Someone came in the coffee shop and there was an irony overload so tried a table outside under an awning while it rained. I became more interested people watching than reading so I red this essay when I got home.
The past few essays by jung have been an obstacle--or burdensome to read. This one seemed relaxed and he was elaborating on the nature of how the unconscious interacts with the conscious mind. He reveals that the conscious mind is not present at the first stages of life. The primordial unconscious is always present but out of it becomes this awareness that is embodied by the ego. He is careful not to imply that the unconscious mind creates the ego from it's ageless crystalline structure but continues to goad consciousness further and inform what it sees. He informs us that the conscious mind would be static if it were not from the gentle massages of the unconscious bringing forth forms of thought.
He also cautions us to take both sides of our mind and not to favor one over the other. The patients he treats have problems either with the unconscious mind aggressively asserting itself over consciousness OR by the conscious mind naively trying to repress thoughts and neglecting the unconscious.
Friday, September 12, 2014
The trickster and rem koolhaas
On the psychology of the trickster figure
I've been reading a couple of things lately. Generally in the morning it's a combination of carl jung and maybe an art magazine. Today carl jung was talking about the trickster archetype. To me this character of the psyche didn't make as much sense as others such as the anima or mother archetypes. While it certainly is easy to imagine a joker the whole nature of it seemed unclear re: how it expresses itself and represses itself. He seems to be transfixed on the idea that everything has an opposite and that seems to inform a lot about how the psyche works. For instance if the trickster archetype is not present consciously it is not because it doesn't exist but rather it's lurking in the unconscious.
Perhaps it was unclear because he relates this figure through allusions of myth and descriptions of medieval festivals without making it real in the now although I guess myths are kind of timeless. This figure is also curious in that it isn't tied to gender as much as other archetypes are. I felt like it was one jung hasn't spent much time thinking about.
He also got a little bourgeois. Relating the trickster to someone who isn't in authority and mocks it by taking it's methods and profaning it. One passage was amusing that people burned incense made from an old shoe right next to a church alter. Jung admitted this character isn't so prevalent in modern culture compared to pagan societies that had feast days for this particular mindset. But honestly I have to disagree as this seems to be the goal for a lot people who associate themselves as punks and festivals such as marde gras and halloween.
The myth side was interesting because characters assigned this archetype are generally mischievous but end up also being a character that will as he says a 'saviour.' It reminds me a lot old greek stories that involve the forrest god pan. He's known for his promiscuity and dubious behaviour chasing after beauty that doesn't seem to feel the same way towards him. But in the particular story I'm reading now he assists two characters who are in many ways associated with the forrest and nature and he helps to nurture them to realize their love--often by creating chaos towards those who try to capture one of them.
--
Too much information: Sylvia lavin on the 14th venice architecture biennale
The article I read in artforum was about an architecture exhibition. It didn't seem to focus on much of what the exhibit was about. It was more focused on the curator and his role in presenting the content. He assumed a powerful role and rather than be democratic about the content.
There seemed to be little uproar about this will to power and the article noted that previous exhibitions that were avant guard art biennials had a comparable tumultuous coup feeling to it.
Architecture surprised me in it's nature. As a child I was interested in it, but it is also embodies permanence and a manifestation of a particular viewpoint. It's relation does seem to be intertwined with a power regime and it can be oppressive. The new structures being built in philadelphia seem to take a neoliberal guise and remind me a capitalist ethos. They seem very clean but lack a lot of decoration and are very box like. They reveal a sense of alienation and conceal a house's function as a domestic space.
The exhibition seemed to confirm the magazines prejudice towards architecture as a profession claiming that the exhibition was a stepping stone compared to what's been done before such as take into political factors of architecture but also took this as a remedial effort compared to the furvor in which art exhibitions cause controversy. Although it certainly gave more praise to this than it did in the article about the 9-11 museum in new york which it likened to some freudian repression of unpleasant realities.
But the curator was rem koolhaas. I'm not sure why the article was so complacent to his autocratic authority. Taking a look at the buildings he's designed feels like the cd jackets for a radiohead album. It's as if they are okay with the monumentalizing of an alienating capitalist agenda.
I've been reading a couple of things lately. Generally in the morning it's a combination of carl jung and maybe an art magazine. Today carl jung was talking about the trickster archetype. To me this character of the psyche didn't make as much sense as others such as the anima or mother archetypes. While it certainly is easy to imagine a joker the whole nature of it seemed unclear re: how it expresses itself and represses itself. He seems to be transfixed on the idea that everything has an opposite and that seems to inform a lot about how the psyche works. For instance if the trickster archetype is not present consciously it is not because it doesn't exist but rather it's lurking in the unconscious.
Perhaps it was unclear because he relates this figure through allusions of myth and descriptions of medieval festivals without making it real in the now although I guess myths are kind of timeless. This figure is also curious in that it isn't tied to gender as much as other archetypes are. I felt like it was one jung hasn't spent much time thinking about.
He also got a little bourgeois. Relating the trickster to someone who isn't in authority and mocks it by taking it's methods and profaning it. One passage was amusing that people burned incense made from an old shoe right next to a church alter. Jung admitted this character isn't so prevalent in modern culture compared to pagan societies that had feast days for this particular mindset. But honestly I have to disagree as this seems to be the goal for a lot people who associate themselves as punks and festivals such as marde gras and halloween.
The myth side was interesting because characters assigned this archetype are generally mischievous but end up also being a character that will as he says a 'saviour.' It reminds me a lot old greek stories that involve the forrest god pan. He's known for his promiscuity and dubious behaviour chasing after beauty that doesn't seem to feel the same way towards him. But in the particular story I'm reading now he assists two characters who are in many ways associated with the forrest and nature and he helps to nurture them to realize their love--often by creating chaos towards those who try to capture one of them.
--
Too much information: Sylvia lavin on the 14th venice architecture biennale
The article I read in artforum was about an architecture exhibition. It didn't seem to focus on much of what the exhibit was about. It was more focused on the curator and his role in presenting the content. He assumed a powerful role and rather than be democratic about the content.
There seemed to be little uproar about this will to power and the article noted that previous exhibitions that were avant guard art biennials had a comparable tumultuous coup feeling to it.
Architecture surprised me in it's nature. As a child I was interested in it, but it is also embodies permanence and a manifestation of a particular viewpoint. It's relation does seem to be intertwined with a power regime and it can be oppressive. The new structures being built in philadelphia seem to take a neoliberal guise and remind me a capitalist ethos. They seem very clean but lack a lot of decoration and are very box like. They reveal a sense of alienation and conceal a house's function as a domestic space.
The exhibition seemed to confirm the magazines prejudice towards architecture as a profession claiming that the exhibition was a stepping stone compared to what's been done before such as take into political factors of architecture but also took this as a remedial effort compared to the furvor in which art exhibitions cause controversy. Although it certainly gave more praise to this than it did in the article about the 9-11 museum in new york which it likened to some freudian repression of unpleasant realities.
But the curator was rem koolhaas. I'm not sure why the article was so complacent to his autocratic authority. Taking a look at the buildings he's designed feels like the cd jackets for a radiohead album. It's as if they are okay with the monumentalizing of an alienating capitalist agenda.
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