poliaesthetic

[poliaesthetic]

WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD

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Squid Game, the Netflix Original South Korean drama film that recently became a blockbuster because of its fast pacing and thrilling story that would make every audience’s heart pump. Aside from its public appeal that the show brings, it also brought to light an issue with the system of capitalism. An issue that Theodor Adorno tackled almost a century ago. 

The show stars Seong Gi-hun, a man reduced to nothingness because of his love for money and the thrill for gambling. His addiction ruined the stable job and financial income he supposes to have and considering that it also ruined his relationship with his family, the man has basically nothing to lose in terms of material and monetary possession. Imprisoned by his addiction, he desperately needed money to burn, which led him to take part in a deadly competition with billions at stake, including his life and morals. 

Adorno expounded the idea of Karl Marx about commodity fetishism wherein people become so fixed on a certain object or possession that they would go to lengths to preserve or grow it. This would go on to where capital and assets no longer become a statement of one’s success, but become the very definition of their identity. This would reach an all-time low when people can no longer detach themselves with these assets, thus a simple act of safe guarding possession becomes a case of commodity fetishism. 

This is very true to what happened to Seong Gi-Hun and probably to all the people who took part in the game. They became so attached to their respective fetishes that they would risk life and limb just to get hold of the fuel, that is money that replenishes their fetishes. Well, at first they were very hesitant and ended the game, but because they can no longer control such desires, they, in a sense, are forced by themselves to risk their life. 

Their fetishes blinded them to take part and leave everything behind, including whatever morals they have left as they sacrifice other participants just for them to survive. They intentionally did it too because they know that the more participants eliminated, the more the prize money is. The participants, including the protagonist, all turned to beast seeking money whatever the cost. 

At the end, the participants soon realized that whatever they are doing is wrong, but it is too late for them to turn back, forcing them yet again to sacrifice others like a lamb. But this time, the guilt is very clear.

We may all become like Seong Gi-hun at the end of the movie, as he realizes that the very system itself is cruel to the majority and if we have the power to fight back, then we must make the moves to do so.  

[poliaesthetic]

Michel Foucault's critique of Las Meninas is indeed a very complicated read for most of the audiences of this blog, but today this is what we are going to tackle. As you will have observed, the nature of this blog, from the first post and the title, it will try to link it again to known works of art, whether that be film or what not.

From the various critiques and commentaries of experts on this work of Foucault, most of them would say that this is but a critique of classical representation. To which, Foucault attributed the key principle of classical representation to the mental representation of the idea. But I am only concerned with the purest form of representation that Foucault mentioned at the end of Las Meninas.

Foucault mentions a necessity in achieving such pure form of a representation- a necessary disappearance, the requirement of an essential void that elides the subject from the relations that impede it. It is the same principle of entering "the zone. " Wherein, for context, is a state of mind in which one discards any relation and thinks of only what is present in front of him right now.

This image right here is the Tesseract (lower picture) from the 2014 sci-fi drama film Interstellar. From the movie, Cooper described it as a space that transcends even the fourth dimension of quantum physics. Within this space, it allowed him to interact with the past and the future while actually being detached from the said reality, which is the linear timeline from the moment the movie began up to that point in which he entered the Tesseract through the black hole.

Going back to Foucault, he described it is necessary to elide the foundation, to create a void to transcend the typical representation to its purest form. I interpret this with how Cooper literally disappeared from the timeline. In his perspective, it was just a fleeting moment, but for those left in the perceivable reality, in a simpler sense, the universe as we know it, his disappearance already took nearly a century.

With his elision from reality, it then allowed him to see the representation of the world in its purest form. To know the past and future, as well as the implication of actions for the linear timeline, allowed him to make sense of a solution that was impossible to find within the timeline. At the end of the movie, he then interacted with the past so that his daughter Murphy could come up with a solution that would save humanity from extinction. In the real world, Murphy became the hero genius that solved the equation that saved humanity. Using the point of view of an audience that does not know the pure representation, the Tesseract, it would look like as if Murphy had the help of some god, but in the complete picture we could then see that it was his father all along from that suspended moment of space.

With this analysis, we could then understand what Foucault is trying to say in simpler terms. That in order to fully understand and view an idea, there must be an essential void to be made. The processes that will lead to that impact may vary, but the principle is still the same. It all leads to the premise that knowledge, one that is pure, is power.

[poliaesthetic]

Symbolism of an abstract idea has been a method used throughout history to better signify and relate a cause to a multitude of people. It is a swift way to relay an intangible idea that is crucial to a cause while trying to bring about radical changes in society. From the intangibility of those ideas came the multitude of perception coming from the interpretations of different people, perceptions that are, in most cases, different from the true cause.

As a debut post for my blog, I shall look into what has transpired in the episode entitled “Waldo Moment” of the hit Netflix series “Black Mirror” and how it is a reminder of Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s depiction of the effect of bad governance. I will focus mainly on two characters as I try to give my own interpretations of them: the populist-like figure of Waldo and the demonic-like figure of Tyranny in Lorenzetti’s Allegory of Bad Governance.

Quentin Skinner has interpreted that what Lorenzetti is trying to show us is a form of political degeneration, specifically monarchy, in Lorenzetti’s context. Centered on this fresco is the diabolical figure of the character named Tyranny. What is most striking to me is how Tyranny is uniquely depicted in the fresco. From all the characters that are present in it, only Tyranny is given inhuman features. This is odd because the other abstract ideas such as Justice, Wisdom, or even the virtues were all given human-like features, even though they are much like Tyranny, that they are representations of abstract ideas in society. With this in mind, it could also be explained that maybe Tyranny is indeed a human hiding behind a demonic mask for unlike the ideas of Wisdom or Justice, it is almost impossible for a human being to attain a state such as those mentioned but it is very much possible for a sole human being to attain the state of Tyranny.

To better explain this, I shall now look at Waldo who shares a striking parallelism with the idea behind Tyranny. Much like Tyranny, Waldo is but a mask, a digital character voiced and made alive by an actual human being. Through various populist-like circumstances, Waldo, even though he is but an inanimate creation, gained popularity and was made a candidate for the upcoming elections and even overtook real human candidates in terms of popularity until the end of the movie wherein even though Waldo is no longer acted upon by the original actor he is continuously used as a popular and powerful political symbol leading to a somewhat dystopian ending, much like a mask for Tyranny.

Tyranny is dangerous, for it is just another form of oppression ready to be worn by a human being somewhere in the future. It will be continued to be worn because, like Lorenzetti’s analogy and the depiction of Waldo, it is but a mask that gives the person wearing it a sense of power, control, and authority. He will not be afraid to wear it, for it gives him a false sense of security, thinking that what people will recognize is not him but a diabolical figure or a cartoon named Waldo. This is then opposite to the people that will believe him, for they will see a relatable human figure, a depiction that will continue until the very society that they are in becomes dystopian.

We could interpret abstract ideas in an unlimited number of ways, but what we should be wary of is when these interpretations turn to something concrete in society. Lorenzetti and Waldo have shown us the various red flags that result in their creations. This sense of awareness is Aesthetics, it is not just on the arts but of perceiving everything around us and of abstracting such perceptions as either beneficial to the common good or not.                

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Sources:

https://www.aclu.org/blog/right-now-were-living-allegory-bad-government-and-we-have-obligation-resist-it

https://bibliochino.github.io/tv1f.html

https://doi.org/10.2307/751381