Hypochondriac Culture (1)

What happens when the boundaries between the artificial and the natural break down? Jean Baudrillard said the following in his book on Simulation (p. 167) "To simulate is to feign to have what one hasn't." Baudrillard then extends this statement and talks about hypochondria. The hypochondriac generates all of the symptoms of disease while not having it. The result is that the hypochondriac becomes ill . Baudrillard goes on to say: "Psychology and medicine stop at this point, before a thereafter undiscoverable truth of the illness. For if any symptom can be 'produced', and can no longer be accepted as a fact of nature, then every illness may be considered as simulatable and simulated, and medicine loses its meaning since it only knows how to treat 'true' illnesses by their objective causes." (Sim 168) This artificially induced disease cannot be treated because it has no apparent cause.

The challenge of this metaphor is a profound one. What happens when the hypochondriac loses control of their simulated disease? Baudrillard suggests that the threat posed by the counterfeit, by reproduction, by any simulation process (Sim 182) is that it may take on a life of its own. Suddenly, control can be lost.

In a hypochondriac culture any number of claims can be made about reality. It matters little if those claims are true or not. What then happens is akin to what happens with disease. The claims take on a life of their own and it becomes very difficult to trace the origins of the claims.

Part Two

The Value of Art

A recent study by the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism persuasively argues not only for the value of the arts to the health of our society, but for its necessity as a fundamental part of everyday life. It is a great report, but it amazes me that we are still producing reports on these issues as if the debate is a new one. No city can survive without culture. No country would even dare call itself a country if it couldn't link its culture to its history. Every aspect of what we do and of how we live is intertwined with the cultural actitvities we pursue. No small town in Canada or the United States is without its craftspeople. Most of the environments that we inhabit either reference culture or express some form of cultural activity. The fork and knife that you use to eat with were designed by creative people. The buildings we inhabit are the product of centuries of thinking about the built environment. Unless we start connecting the dots here, we will continue to think of culture as something that is done by others, by artists and designers, as opposed to a process that we all engage in to varying degrees. Artists create the windows through which we can view and engage with our own world and the worlds of others.

An item from my extensive collection of newspapers from 1968

How Images Think

The quote below is from the introduction to my book, How Images Think. I have put this quote here in order to open up some debate about what we mean by the human mind in the 21st century. In this context, most of the book is about human consciousness and the impact of digital culture on ways in which people think, act on the world and create. The book examines the public space within which new cultural formations develop and are sustained:

"Throughout this book, reference is made either directly or indirectly to debates about perception, mind, consciousness and the role of images and culture in forming and shaping how humans interact with the world around them. However, the relationship among human beings and the cultural artifacts they use and create is by no means direct or transparent. Human consciousness is not passive nor is it simply a product of the cultural, social or political context within which humans live and struggle. Although the cognitive sciences have dreamed of developing a clearer picture of how the mind operates and although there have been tremendous advances in our understanding of human thought, the human mind remains not only difficult to understand, but relatively opaque in the information that can be gathered from it. (Searle, 1998) Notwithstanding numerous efforts to ‘picture’ and ‘decode’ the ways in which the mind operates, profound questions remain about the relationships among mind, body and brain and how all of the elements of what we describe as consciousness interact with a variety of cultural and social environments and artifacts.

How Images Think explores the rich intersections of image creation, production and communication within this context of debate about the mind and human consciousness. In addition, I examine the discourses about images in our culture and the impact of the digital revolution on our use of images in the communications process. The digital revolution is altering the fabric of research and practice in the sciences, arts and engineering and challenging many conventional wisdoms about the seemingly transparent relationship among images and meaning, mind and thought, as well as culture and identity."

VE Day

SIXTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF VE DAY on May 8th, 2005!!!

A number of books have come out recently on the immediate post-war period in London, England. I grew up in the late 1940's and early 1950's and have an almost photographic memory of the period. The experience was traumatic, although I was shielded from many of the problems by the dedication and hard work of my mother and father. Maureen Waller has written an excellent book about this period.

Food and fuel rationing went on until the early 1950's and austerity budgets were the norm. Everyday life was defined by the rigours of finding and holding onto the basic necessities.

The extraordinary resurgence of anti-semitism in Europe and North America makes the poignancy and imortance of VE day all the more central to my thoughts. A private school in Toronto had to expel a number of students because they had created a Web Site that was so anti-semitic, those who saw it were scandalised. Elie Wiesel has written about this in great detail, but his speech when he received the Nobel Prize is perhaps the best summary of the challenges that face Jews in the 21st Century.

I have just installed Apple's new system software, Tiger. It is truly a marvel. Apple's understanding of the needs of computer users is the best in the business.

More Thoughts

Roger Mandle is the President of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). He is pushing RISD to open itself up to the community and become more service oriented. This is one of the big challenges of the next ten years in post-secondary education, to open the doors of the academy to active participation in the community and making the resources of the institutions truly serve the interests of the community. This is not to suggest that universities and colleges don't serve the community now. Rather, service has to be more systematic and in the case of Art and Design Institutions, the relationship to community needs to be more deliberate and carefully planned than ever before.

The spectre of separatism in Quebec is rearing its head again with polls showing that over fifty percent of voters now would support the separation of Quebec from Canada in a referendum. "The outlook for Canada yesterday looked as bleak as Montreal's rainy weather. The Globe and Mail and Le Devoir reported that the Leger Marketing polling firm had projected that 54 per cent of Quebecers would have voted Yes in a sovereignty referendum held April 20 to 24. It was the first time since October 1998 that Leger had found a majority in favour of sovereignty." (Don Macpherson, Montreal Gazette)

I served as a jury member on the panel that chose the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics logo. The reaction to the logo has been divided. To me the emblem represents an excellent neutral ground between design for local consumption and the need to have a symbol that will resonate outside Canada. None of the submitted designs would have been accepted by the public in a universal and homogenious manner.