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James Bond and the Instrumentalization of Optical Technology

The Enlightenment “Catholization” of Projective Technology: Theurgy and the Media Origins of Art.

Barbara Maria Stafford

"Magic, as Hans Dieter Betz reminds us, is a venerable worldwide, one that tries to understand things in their mutual, but ordinarily concealed, connectedness. But, today, we have forgotten for just how long optical devices –or tools for “forcing the gods” – have been employed in a a wide range if interactive sacred practices. These instrumentalized body-based routines included casting spells, controlling ghosts, conjuring the dead, and projecting mortals into the foggy regions of the immortals or bringing the bright gods down to earth. Mirrors, lanterns, diaphanous textiles, and black boxes of all sorts, then need to be inscribed within the comparative history of aesthetics and religions as well as of science and technology. Media, magic, and mechanism are inextricably interwoven in an enduring narrative of allure and deviance.

I argue that during the Enlightenment this age-old spiritualization of optical technology becomes “catholized” –that is, made part of the larger hostility or discomfort with visual representation found in Protestant post-Reformation Europe. Image-mongering can thus be distinguished from legitimate science or even Jesuit science. While recent scholarship has complicated our ideas of what constituted the “iconic” in early-modern Europe, transformations of visual culture tend to be analysed from within the delimited fields of history, art history, religion and cultural studies. In reality, tools, ritual practices, and visual or performative environments cannot so easily be pried apart. In contrast, this essay sets out to demonstrate the elaborate intersections of theatre, theology, technology, and aesthetics. I propose that projective devices, in particular, become mobilized to tell a graphic story of the international culture of oriental despotism, global priestcraft, and the persistence of illusory styles of superstition. Animation is central to theurgy. This bringing-to-life of the gods in tableaux vivants, both literally and metaphorically, projects a concealed power over illiterate populations.

Phantasmagoric apparatus materializes an otherwise immaterial ontology; it corporealizes even the most esoteric philosophical system. Closer to home, the spectral illusions it generates invade the frame of our inner life, perforating the structure of consciousness itself. If technologically produced images –or media- are also mental pictures that exist apart from, behind, or beyond the natural images received through the senses, then vision is equally double. Ignoring physical boundaries, artificially enhanced sight is truly open-ended: snatching a luminous presence from outer space to relocate it within ordinary life or, conversely, chasing after an alternate world towards which we ceaselessly stretch.
...

[Instruments in Art and Science. On the Architectonics of Cultural Bounderies in the 17th Century. Volume 2. Edited by Helmar Schamm, Ludger Schwarte, Jan Lazardzig. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin. NY, 2008]

Europa: Colonialismo científico

La nueva entrega de 007 "Quantum of Solance" rodada en el norte de Chile y el Observatorio Paranal gestionado por la European South Observatory.
El espía inglés, proyección por mantener, aunque sea sólo en el imaginario mundial el imperio de la Commonwealth, se encontró como pez en el agua en el desierto de Atacama.
El entorno del oasis científico del Observatorio Paranal ofrece todos los complementos que necesita.
En el otro lado, el observatorio se encuentra cómodamente representado con la estética pseudocientífica y con banda-sonora-efecto-pegamento. O ¿quizás lo entienden como una forma de divulgación científica?

América: iconología con alevosía

AMERICA: iconología con alevosía

Descripción de cómo debía representarse América según la Iconología de Cesare Ripa :
"Mujer desnuda y de color oscuro, mezclado de amarillo. Será fiera de rostro y ha de llevar un velo jaspeado de diversos colores que le cae de los hombros cruzándole todo el cuerpo, hasta cubrirle las vergüenzas.
Sus cabellos han de aparecer revueltos y esparcidos, poniéndosele alrededor de todo el cuerpo un bello y artificiosos ornamento, todo él hecho de plumas de muy diversos colores.
Con la izquierda ha de sostener un arco, y una flecha con la diestra, poniéndosele al costado una bolsa o carcaj bien provista de flechas, así como bajo sus pies una cabeza humana traspasada por alguna de las saetas que digo. En tierra y al otro lado se pintará algún lagarto o un caimán de desmesurado tamaño.

Por ser tierra recientemente descubierta esta parte del Mundo, nada podría hallarse a propósito de ella en los textos de los Antiguos Escritores, precisando por tanto recabar su noticia entre los mejores Historiadores modernos que particularmente la tratan. Entre ellos el Padre Girolamo Gigli, Ferrante González, Botero y algunos Padres Jesuitas, siéndome también muy provechosa para la realización de mi trabajo la viva voz del Señor Fausto Rughese da Montepulciano, quien quiso complacerse con su particular benignidad y cortesía en darme la más completa referencia de toda aquella tierra; siendo en fin gentilhombre peritísmo en cuanto respecta a la Historia y la Cosmografía, habiendo publicado recientemente los Mapas que corresponden a los cuatro partes del Mundo, con un doctísimo elogio y relación de cada una.

La pintamos sin ropa por ser costumbre y usanza de estos pueblos el andar siempre desnudos, aunque es cierto que se cubren las vergüenzas con ciertos paños que hacen de algodón y cosas semejantes. La corona de plumas es el adorno que suelen utilizar más comúnmente; y aún se puede decir que en ocasiones acostumbran a emplumarse el cuerpo por entero, según puede leerse en los Autores citados.
El cráneo humano que aplasta con los pies muestra bien a las claras cómo aquellas gentes, dadas a la barbarie, acostumbran generalmente a alimentarse de carne humana, comiéndose a aquellos hombres que han vencido en la guerra, así como a los esclavos que compran y otras diversas víctimas, según ocasiones.
En cuanto al Lagarto o Caimán es animal muy notable y abundante en esta parte del Mundo, siendo tan grandes y fieros que devoran a los restantes animales y aun a los hombres en ciertas ocasiones."

Martha Rosler: Chile, on the road to Nafta

Constellation Series

Constellation nº3
Psychogeographic Cartography

Collage elements: 1.family archive picture: O.M. in atacama, 2. school map:mining industry in S.A.,
3. sallite view: chuquicamata copper mine
Berlin 08

Constellations Series

Constellation nº1
OM72

Collage elements: 1. family archive picture: O.M. in atacama desert,
2. satellite image
Berlin 08

Florian Nelle: Telescopes, and the Instrumental Revelation of New Worlds

"As is indicated here, the purpose of instruments in the seventeenth century is more than finding facts and truths. Yet they certainly do fulfill this purpose. They are inquisitorial instruments, as they, in Hooke's words, force nature "to confess, either directly or indirectly, the Truth of what we inquire." Furthermore, they nurture hopes for the profitability of imperialism and colonialism. Hooke proudly emphasizes the way the Royal Society is financially supported by pragmatic businessman. In this context, it should be mentioned that Bacon was also concerned with contemporary colonial projects. In 1597, he wrote the short memorandum Of Plantations, and in 1609 contributed to an expedition which ended up stranded in the Bermudas. (In his turn, William Shakespeare was inspired to take up the issue of colonization in The Tempest.) Finding a method to determine longitude, one of the main tasks of the Royal Society, was considered essential for maintaining England's naval supremacy.”

..."Thus, everyday things can become the stage for instrumentally sharpened curiosity. It is definitely possible to call this the poetics of the instrument, especially as this experimental art of observation is so strikingly close to the mannerist program. At the same time, the telescope and other optical glasses become the central emblem of mannerist program. In Emanuelo Tesauro’s work, Galileo’s a discovery of sunspots thus becomes an allegory for a surprising twist, thanks to the clever poet’s acutezza. Like a telescope, the metaphor’s role in mannerist poetry is to connect remote points with each other. By bringing together seemingly disparate points it creates surprising insights. Thus the instrument becomes an essential device for the production of wonders. It presents nature as an astonishing stage for a mysterious world, which –and this is actually the point- has to be penetrated by means of instruments.“

...“Instruments create aesthetic effects of wonder and reveal new worlds. They offer orientation in the chaos they cause, and yet they mostly refer to themselves. All of this is true for the theatre as well, which at the turn of the seventeenth century becomes the prime instrument of cultural politics. Scientific instruments promise to create artificial paradises. Yet it is the theatre of machines that constructs these new and better worlds in an exemplary way.”

Telescopes, Theater and the Instrumental Revelation of New Worlds

Florian Nelle:
"Instruments have a double function in the seventeenth century. They are a source of wonder and at the same time are intended to aid orientation in the new reality that they reveal. This applies to scientific instruments such as the telescope and microscope, which reveal a new nature. It applies to poetic instruments like the mannerist metaphor, which is meant to open up a new form of intellectual experience. However, it applies especially to instruments of political culture, which reveal new forms of society. In particular, this includes the theater of machines, which not only visualizes the transformation of literary myths into the world of the absolutist state, but also performs it on stage. Thus, an instrument for the manifest astaging of anew world is established beyond the mere visuality of writings and pictures. This accessible utopia can become the scene for satgings of faith, power and science."

[Instruments in Art and Science. On the Architectonics of Cultural Bounderies in the 17th Century. Volume 2. Edited by Helmar Schamm, Ludger Schwarte, Jan Lazardzig. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin. NY, 2008]
[Image: Alma Project, Chjanantor, Chile. Connie Mendoza, 2007]

DARWIN' WIN

What Mr. Darwin saw?


















[image: PROTOTIPO FUEGUINO]

Exempt of Liability

VIOLENCIA
"El pueblo de Chile está conquistando el poder político sin verse obligado a utilizar las armas. Avanza en el camino de su liberación social sin haber debido combatir contra un régimen despótico o dictatorial, sino contra las limitaciones de una democracia liberal. Nuestro pueblo aspira legítimamente a recorrer la etapa de transión al socialismo sin tener que recurrir a formas autoritarias de gobierno.
Nuestra voluntad en este punto es muy clara. Pero la responsabilidad de garantizar la evolución política hacia el socialismo no reside únicamente en el Gobierno, en los movimientos y partidos que lo integran. Nuestro pueblo se ha levantado contra la violencia institucionalizada que sobre él hace pesar el actual sistema capitalista. Y por eso estamos transformando las bases de este sistema.
Mi Gobierno tiene su origen en la voluntad popular libremente manifestada. Sólo ante ella responde, los movimientos y partidos que lo integran son orientadores de la conciencia revolucionaria de las masas y expresión de sus aspiraciones e intereses. Y también son directamente responsables ante el pueblo.
Con todo, es mi obligación advertir que un peligro puede amenazar la nítida trayectoria de nuestra emancipación y podría alterar radicalmente el camino que nos señalan nuestra realidad y nuestra conciencia colectiva; este peligro es la violencia contra la decisión del pueblo.

Señores Miembros del Congreso Nacional: ..."

[Salvador Allende (1971): La "vía chilena al socialismo"]
(las negritas son mías)

Die Astromädchen / Las chicas astronautas

La ESO busca astronautas. Haberlos hay los pero por poco tiempo. El tiempo de los astronautas es relativo, es más relativo que el de la mayoría,es el tiempo de la relatividad.
Ellos suben y suben y luego hay que caer y caer. La caída no es el problema. Lo difícil es levantarse de nuevo, como todos saben sin ser astronauta. Hay algunos que suben y ya no bajan. También los hay que suben y bajan sin alma. Qué le importará el alma al astronauta siendo científico de alta gama. Además hay mujeres astronautas y mujeres negras astronautas. El colmo de la integración. Primero mandaron perros, después monos, luego héroes y para rematar chicas. Y qué orden de importancia tiene eso para el alma lo sabrá cada uno pero para la ESO, el orden es inverso al descrito. La-primera-chica-en-conquistar-el-espacio-fue-Valentina-Tereschkova. Ayúdame Valentina, cantaba Violeta Parra, pasemos la escobillada.

Chuquicamata general view

[Images: Osvaldo Mendoza, Chuquicamata 1971-72.]

Extreme Visual Prosthesis

[Video: Deep Impact, NASA]
"Deep Impact made history when the mission team directed an impactor from the spacecraft into comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005. NASA recently extended the mission, redirecting the spacecraft for a flyby of comet Hartley 2 on Nov. 4, 2010."

El proyectil que chocó contra el cometa estaba hecho de cobre, material fácil de identificar, por lo que no interferiría la identificación de la composición del cuerpo celeste. Para la construcción de este proyectil, Codelco Chile donó más de 300 kilos de cobre blister de la máxima pureza posible de obtener. Sin embargo, la ley chilena impide que la minera estatal entregue donaciones, por lo cual, los 300 kilos fueron vendidos por la suma simbólica de un dólar.

The Samba Workshop 2

Master class 2: Terra em Transe
Professor: Glauber Rocha


Eztetyka del Hambre

Orson Welles' Great Mysteries

bfi/Film & TV Database
Anthology series featuring mystery and supernatural stories hosted by Orson Welles. [Not networked; episodes of this series were transmitted on various dates in various ITV regions.] GB. Anglia Television. LWT (London) tx 1974/07/06-1976/07/24
Canal 13_ Costa Rica

The Carnival

Most of the budget was spent -- or squandered -- during this story. Welles says he intended most of the 16 mm footage to be source material, to be restaged and refilmed in color on a soundstage later. By itself, the pandemonic dancing and "perfume wars" was insufficient, which is why Welles decided to shoot a voodoo ceremony in a favela, give drama to the action as well as trace the source of the samba.

The Wilson-Meisel-Krohn documentary uses the Carnival footage as a frame for their story of the Welles S.A. adventure. It opens with a sketched portrait of a witch doctor and Welles explaining his mission to Rio and his interest in the samba, closes with color footage of the Carnival, and a radio clip of Welles and Carmen Miranda explaining the various percussions used in the samba. Welles says he had in mind to actually intercut the third story about the voyage of the jangadeiros (Four Men On A Raft) with sequences from the Carnival.

Compiled and with notes by LAWRENCE FRENCH : Wellesnet
December 7, 1941 Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor; The U.S. enters World War II.Two weeks after the United States was drawn into World War II, RKO stockholder Nelson Rockefeller approached Orson Welles about going to Brazil on a good will mission. Shortly afterwards, John Hay Whitney, the director of the office for the coordination of Inter-American Affairs (OCIAA) sent this telegram to Orson Welles.

JOHN HAY WHITNEY TO ORSON WELLES:
December 20, 1941

DEAR ORSON:

WE UNDERSTAND YOU ARE WILLING AND MAY BE ABLE TO UNDER TAKE TRIP TO BRAZIL WHERE YOU WOULD PRODUCE MOTION PICTURES IN COOPERATION WITH BRAZILIAN GOVERNMENT. IF THIS CAN BE ARRANGED IT WILL BE ENORMOUSLY HELPFUL TO THE PROGRAM OF THIS OFFICE AND ENERGETICALLY SUPPORTED BY IT. WE HAVE ALREADY RECEIVED EXPRESSIONS ENTHUSIASTIC APPROVAL FROM RIO. PERSONALLY BELIEVE YOU WOULD MAKE GREAT CONTRIBUTION TO HEMISPHERIC SOLIDARITY WITH THIS PROJECT.

REGARDS,
JOHN HAY WHITNEY

Panamerican Odissey

It's All True: A Phantom Film

"A surprisingly high proportion of Orson Welles's few films deal with Latin America: Touch of Evil, of course, but also for instance The Lady from Shanghai and Mr Arkadin.

But it is It's All True that would have been Welles's most significant exercise in cinematic latinidad. Urged on by Nelson Rockefeller, Co-ordinator of "Inter-American Affairs," in 1942 Welles went down to Rio to make a film that would help undergird the US's "good neighbour" policy towards Latin America.

A plan emerged that the film would consist of three relatively independent sections: one, "My Friend Bonito," set in Mexico and about a child's relationship with his donkey; another, this time in colour, about the Rio Carnival; and a third, now back in black and white, about the epic 1600-mile sea voyage of four fisherman from Fortaleza to Rio de Janeiro."

Nuevo libro y una de las mayores colecciones internacionales sobre Orson Welles revelan aspectos inéditos de su aventura Latinoamericana> University of Michigan

Rockefeller, Warhol, Ford, Kissinger

Nelson Rockefeller: Una vida dedicada a la filantropía ... en Sud América / A life dedicated to philantropy ... in South America

American International Association for Economic and Social Development, 1946-1968.
AIA was established by Nelson A. Rockefeller to promote “self-development and better standards of living, together with understanding and cooperation” in Latin America. AIA worked on rural economic development and education, forming partnerships with more than 230 organizations (such as the Association of Credit and Rural Assistance, the Inter-American Council on Nutrition Education, the Council on Rural Development, and the Inter-American Popular Information Program) and government departments in thirty countries, and enrolling more than 160,000 members in rural youth clubs. When it ceased operations in 1968, AIA left behind self-sufficient vocational education programs in Venezuela and Chile, and agricultural development programs in Venezuela and Brazil. Source: Rockefeller Philantropy





[Image: President Ford meets in the Oval Office with Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller to discuss the American evacuation of Saigon. April 28, 1975. Oval Office, White House, Washington DC.
Source: http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/avproj/whitehouse-years-02.asp]

Hollywood Meets South American

Bender, Pennee. "Hollywood Meets South American and Stages a Show" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Studies Association, . 2008-06-21 <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p114070_index.html>

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript

Abstract: Although movies had utilized Latin America as an exotic backdrop for years, the 1940s ushered in an intense "Latin craze" with Latin American music, dance, film stars and even cartoon characters inundating U.S. movies and entertainment. Carmen Miranda sang and danced her way through ten Hollywood musicals with Latin American themes. Young and old alike watched Donald Duck frolic in Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina, and unite with cartoon characters from Mexico and Brazil to proclaim "all for one and one for all" philosophy in Saludos Amigos (1942) and Three Caballeros (1945). These Hollywood films served as part of a coordinated U.S. domestic propaganda campaign during the World War Two organized by the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (OCIAA), a U.S. government agency lead by Nelson Rockefeller. This paper uses the OCIAA work with the Hollywood studios during the 1940s to illuminate how government agencies, Latin American artists and performers, business interests, and popular culture industries worked together to shift both international policies and perceptions of Latin America.

The OCIAA influenced feature film production through both official and personal channels. Nelson Rockefeller and John Hay Whitney, the first Director of the Motion Picture Division of OCIAA, had major investments in Hollywood studios and sat on the boards of directors of those studios as well as other cultural organizations. On the more official side, the OCIAA formed the Motion Picture Society for the Americas, (MPSA), a liaison organization made up of studio executives, agents and heads of industry guilds. The MPSA worked with movie producers to include Latin American locations, themes, music and talent into their feature pictures and suggested original script ideas, obtained background footage, and assisted in preparing special trailers for Latin America.

Twentieth Century-Fox produced numerous films with Latin American themes -- many featuring Carmen Miranda. Miranda has become an icon for the distorted image of Latin America in Hollywood films -- her identification with bananas, her use of broken and often comic English, her exaggerated portrayals of a sexually aggressive women, and her hybrid Latin songs. She is often characterized as a pawn of the Hollywood studios as they tried to please the U.S. government, but her on-screen and off-screen presentation during the 1940s reveal more complex and mixed messages She regularly acknowledged her role as a "Good Neighbor" while still insisting on asserting her Latin Americanness. This paper focuses on films sponsored by the MPSA and how the song lyrics about and images of Latin Americans in the musicals of the 1940s both conformed to and challenged government policy goals and U.S. business interests.