The Panopticon is totally metal

One of my classmates, during a discussion of Foucalt’s writings on the Panopticon, mentioned in an offhand fashion that the Panopticon “Sounded like some kind of metal band name.”

She actually wasn’t far off – Panopticon IS an actual metal band, and a good one at that – but the comment got me thinking. Of any genre of music, Metal would be the one most likely to discuss the impact and experiences associated with the Panopticon. The themes of isolationism, paranoia, and repentance inherent within the Panopticon’s design are definitely a strong fit; which, of course, is why the band Isis dealt with it in their third album, aptly titled Panopticon.

While the lyrical content is not as blantant, the feelings and themes are definitely present, and influence much of the music – which strikes a fine balance between clean, isolated, distant, and heavy, distorted rage. Definitely check out one of my favorite songs, “In Fiction“.

A much more blatant, direct reference to the theme of the all-seeing, all-knowing watcher can be found in the Judas Priest classic, “Electric Eye” – a song about the spy satellite featured in 1984 that allowed the denizens of Oceania to walk about in peace, as it monitored their movements and protected them from intrusive elements – but really, exists as a means of governmental control, as well as providing the fear of always being watched. As metal is a genre seen to be supportive of individual rights, as well as railing against “the man”, it’s not surprising that something like the Panopticon would be a topic of songs. Or, for that matter, that it could be so metal.

The Ecstasy of News

As I’m addressing these topics chronologically (in regards to when we dealt with them in class), the presence of the twenty-four hour news channel was something that had debated usefulness over the years up to 9/11, and then – from there – it exploded. Somehow, we thought of it as a convenience before, and afterwards, it was our crutch; probably because the frantic pace at which information was delivered mirrored our outlook on life. We were scared, and just waiting for the next shoe to drop. At this time, there was also the Internet to think about – aggregated news sites had just started to take shape, and internet discourse also informed a great deal of paranoia, as well as healthy discussion.

But, instead, let’s just focus on the idea that we needed information. After a point, we had a dependence. As humans, we thrive on consuming, producing, and acquiring information. A particularly important piece of news drives us to share it with others, in happiness or in hate, and it’s how we create a bond as people. The newscasters on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC became our sources of information, and we bonded with them. But while people, on the whole, create bonds with others and share both good stories and bad, to provide a depth of experience, we had no such luck. Terror and fear were pushed on us, continuously – to the point where one could say, “9/11″, and nothing else would be needed to conjure up a mental impression of fear, anger, despair, and even other past tragedies (Oklahoma City Bombing, prior WTC bombing, Pearl Harbor, the list goes on…) in the process. Even trying to offset the visuals with positive, happier stories did little to sate the need for something great and triumphant, to offset the weakness America “collectively felt” (in that it was a communal, representative violent act of image theory, that we all felt for – even if we weren’t personally impacted by it) in the wake of 9/11.

However, in the present state of news coverage, we find ourselves turning to it for updates. We have gotten over the emotionally charged content from those eight years ago, but we still need the hit, the opposite of what we felt on 9/11. We’ve gone to the internet, to Twitter, to celebrity sex tapes and beyond, to try and fill that void, but nothing does the trick. We could go so far back as the wedding of Princess Diana, but we need something in the here and now.

-Brian

Signs, Semiotics and the Sunken City of R’lyeh

Originally, when we had the discussion for class, I spent a great deal of time researching and trying to understand the basics of Peirce’s approach to semiotics; this wasn’t by any means solely a mandatory thing. I was the presenter for that week, but really, what I wanted to do was break down the dense, insurmountable language and definitions provided by Peirce and put them in a cover of “Signs”, made famous twice over by Five Man Electrical Band and Tesla.

Of course, this didn’t work. (Damn you, Peirce.)

But inasmuch as signs and semiotics are concerned, I liked his descriptions of a first degree of firstness. It’s experiencing something for the first time, without any prior frame for reference. One could liken it to the world after being born; in that early state, you have no idea what anything is, no words or descriptions, and everything carries with it an engaging new visual sense. But, unfortunately, nothing in the adult world really comes close to that first degree of firstness, ever again.

Unless, of course, you’re in an H.P. Lovecraft story.

In his famous “The Call of Cthulu”, Lovecraft wrote a passage about Gustaf Johansen, the Second Mate of a ship that landed afoul of the home of a pan-dimensional deity, the titular Cthulu. What strikes me about it is the struggle to describe the architecture, and, later, as I will discuss, the beast;

“Without knowing what futurism is like, Johansen achieved something very close to it when he spoke of the city; for instead of describing any definite structure or building, he dwells only on broad impressions of vast angles and stone surfaces – surfaces too great to belong to anything right or proper for this earth, and impious with horrible images and hieroglyphs. I mention his talk about angles because it suggests something Wilcox had told me of his awful dreams. He said that the geometry of the dream-place he saw was abnormal, non-Euclidean, and loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours. Now an unlettered seaman felt the same thing whilst gazing at the terrible reality.”

The story continues, until the unfortunate crew comes face to face with Cthulu, an indescribable being; “The Thing cannot be described – there is no language for such abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such eldritch contradictions of all matter, force, and cosmic order. A mountain walked or stumbled. God! What wonder that across the earth a great architect went mad…”

Although this is firstness by way of thirdness – trying to evoke the moment with written words and letters as signs, to create the feelings and the images in our minds, and forcing our brains to think of what a scene like this would be – the descriptions of firstness are undeniable.

-Brian

The Visual Culture of Book Covers

When I’m not at my part-time job, or doing work for graduate school, I write and I read. Voraciously.

Lately, due to time and interest, it’s just comic books and graphic novels; I’m the kind of person who prefers to get sucked in to a book, and read it in as few sittings as possible. It’s the best, purest way to maintain the experience, and comic books have the added benefits of a visual dimension, as well as the conventions of comic book length being approximately 22 pages. Stories have to be short and impactful; it’s no-frills storytelling, with a lot of motion. Novel-wise, I’m a big fan of George R.R. Martin, Haruki Murakami, Neil Gaiman, Herman Melville, Charles Bukowski, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Hunter S. Thompson; these are the worlds I like to get lost in. But when you’ve read all their books, and you have no recommendations from friends, what do you do while you wander through the stacks?

You judge a book by its cover.

It can be a great choice; you might find something you would have never considered before, all by virtue of an attractive cover. Each one – generally an illustration, painting, or arrangement of images – is a single visual representation of the book’s character, its delivery, and intent. Charles Bukowski’s Women, or at least the copy I have, is an illustration of a woman squatting to get her foot out of her six-inch heels. It’s very sparse, the colors are limited – themes of yellow, brown, red, and white – and it mirrors the aesthetic of Bukowski’s writing. When he describes something, it’s very raw and singular, just like the cover. It represents the outsider’s perspective, with a slightly voyeuristic angle. This design isn’t complicated or image loaded – with the exception of hinting at sex (the woman appears to be naked). This silhouette of a woman is a stand-in for women in general.

Moving on to a separate genre, epic fantasy, we have George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones. The cover, depending on which version you have, hits on one of two themes; you have the traditional fantasy representamen, the Lone Hero Against The World, looking majestic on his dark brown steed as a castle smolders in the background. It’s painted, as most fantasy covers are, but the imagery plays to both genre expectations, which in turn cater to the demographic. In a way, this picture furthers an individualist agenda in fantasy writing, even though the book itself is concerned with the separate stories of multiple figures, massive amounts of political intrigue, and conflicts on a national level.  The more widely sold copy from later printings features the family crest of the central family, the Starks; a simple, elegant, historically inspired design of a wolf on its front legs. It calls to mind the exact period of time it’s based on – the Middle Ages of Europe –  and, in referencing the house crest, places central importance on the family as a whole, rather than a representative individual, or lone hero. While the first cover is more in line with fantasy tropes and expectations, the second cover is much more evocative of the book’s character and values.

There are many, many other book covers out there to analyze, but these are three that I enjoy very much, and provided for the sake of example.

-Brian