~e; audiovisual EM iconography

[human being <human@electronetwork.org>]

  [was a bit fast in writing some words prior to
  this about radio, and saw a post in my peripheral
  vision, sent to the list by myself, and it seemed
  like a negative statement about electronica music.
  i remember writing it, but when i write i do not
  visually see, more, feel with fingers as i type,
  and oftentimes i think i write something that ends
  up being worded differently.

  case in point regarding electronica, yet the post
  is stuck in a mailbox fileformat as e-mail clients
  are transferred and now inaccessible for the near
  future of the recent past. in any case, it brings
  up an issue about electromagnetic analysis and of
  its understanding in relation to things as they
  are presently interpreted and understood. so far,
  as this has been a lone endeavor, it has often been
  the case where ideas contend for realist-relevancy.

  and therefore, it was often necessary, in a survival
  of the fittest (ideas of the given society), to be
  in an either-or mode, to basically present and also
  defend, and if need be, debunk another view which
  denied the legitimacy of an electromagnetic vantage.

  but that can be an awfully crude path, and it was not
  one that was desired, but by default, as all EM work
  is an uphill battle, across many fields & disciplines.

  to clarify, if possible, would be to understand both
  the non-electromagnetic and the electromagnetic, on
  their own terms, and together, and at times competing
  and at others cooperating in exploring and investigating
  ideas. sometimes an EM perspective is irrelevant. and it
  cannot and does not 1:1 equate with all that is, in all
  of its possible ways of seeing/being/interfacing/acting.

  to bring this into something of a tangible artifact, i
  watched the movie produced by double A production in
  the UK of Hamlet, on DVD on a computer, to describe the
  context. the movie was released in 2000, and presented
  in the US by miramax i think, with ethan hawke (actor)
  as the headliner. so, there is shakespeares play on not
  only film but also digital video disk on a computer. i
  do not remember hearing what others thought of the film,
  and not being a film-expert myself, cannot say what it
  means in these terms with any expertise. but content-
  wise, likewise, it would be difficult for a film-critic
  or theorist, possibly, to offer an EM analysis, which in
  this case was rich with iconography and symbolism and
  parallels, which would take several disciplines to look
  into this one artifact, including Shakespeare Scholars,
  Media Theorists, Industrial Archaeologists, Writers,
  Architects, and on and on. as there are many layers to
  this play that is best summed up when Hamlet is shown
  on TV, in a suicidal contemplation, while sitting in-
  front of his own image, pressing rewind and fast-foward
  on the image machine.

  and it is this type of electromagnetic symbolism, and
  the iconographic details which turn the King of Denmark
  into the King of a corporation named Denmark that has
  its own webpage, that owns the infomercials shown in-
  flight on an airplane Hamlet ferries himself around in.
  Hamelt is a video/film maker. Ophelia, in a moment of
  her own madness, tosses polaroid photographs of different
  flowers on the ground, then screeches full-bleed at the
  world of madness off a floor at the Guggenheim, to all
  in the play. the King's security guards have electronic
  security devices, Hamlet jousts in an electronic fencing
  face off on a balcony of a high-rise (EM related, the
  skyscraper in relation to welding and elevators, etc).
  one of the most ironic moments was a moment when Hamlet
  was in a Blockbuster's movie rental store, with various
  titles for film-categories (action, etc) in the aisles.
  there were so many parallels with electronics, from the
  phone and fax always going off, to television, to media
  archaeology through film and imagery, that it was in
  this way a very intriguing film. memory is not serving
  all of the information, and maybe some of it was not
  adding to the traditional script, but some surely was
  recontextualized and recompiled in the present day, in
  an electromagnetic environment of the end of the 2oth-
  21st centuries, at the same time, making anew, the play
  of tragedy which could and was produced in another medium,
  but the message can transfer to others. in this instance,
  in this film, it was successfully transferred, in that
  the EM environment enhanced the present-day-ness of the
  story, which i probably would not have understood as well
  in regard to the present day, if not for this film.

  this is not to say that 'shakespeare scholars' might find
  it a great film, nor performed as well as it could have
  been. yet, the last 3rd the origional language and the
  new setting seemed to find a groove in space-time to let
  the two worlds exist as one, the old and new interpretation
  and to transfer the meaning, the signal and its message.

  all-in-all, for the EM recontextualization, to demonstrate
  how a traditional work can be understood in a new context
  and reinterpreted, not just reproduced, the film Hamlet
  (2ooo, UK) does this quite expertly. enough so that it
  would require major analysis to grapple with all of the
  seemingly intentional juxtapositions of the old and new.

  therefore, when writing about EM civilization, and various
  fields such as art or music or physics or whatnot, it is
  not that everything has to become EM-related. some things
  are and will be related and relevant, others not, but no
  less of value in their other interpretations, just not in
  an EM view of things. for example, the BBC (it may have
  been) broadcast a reinterpretation of Othello a few weeks
  back on public tv in the USA, and this employed zero EM
  iconography, for the most part. it did not make it part of
  the meaning, more of the background, and a traditional but
  new context (sometime circa 20th century) so it replayed
  Shakespeare's work anew, yet it did not do so with an EM
  viewpoint, but through an EM medium (film, video, and TV).

  so, those two different works both have different aspects
  which are related. one is directly engaging, the other is
  more passive and yet was a superior performance, and it
  did not use 1:1 the original language but reinterpreted it
  on that level. so, in one case, an EM investigation would
  be plentiful (Hamlet) while in another it may not (Othello).
  yet, in terms of shakespearian acting, the latter may be
  found to be of a higher-caliber and easier to understand,
  not forced, and understandable. whereas in the EM version,
  the shakespearian aspects may be argued as lessened in a
  preference for literalizing the story in the (EM) present-
  day. a history might view things one way, another another.

  in such cases, the traditional interpretation is not in-
  valid by default. it is only at times that the language of
  electromagnetism may be telling part of the story that if
  analysed only in traditional terms (quality of the acting
  of the play, and shakespearian acting at that) that some-
  thing that might be considered 'not as good' may be full
  of rich meaning, if only perceived in a different light.]

Hamlet (2000)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0171359

Othello (2001) (TV)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0275577

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