Using the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari I will discuss the revolutionary potential of music. I will so do with reference to the Black movement in America. My main aim is to show how, through the music of blues and jazz, Blacks constructed a culture of resistance; giving rise to their freedom and subsequent status as citizen in America. I will look at … the deterritorialising power of music: how traditional blues and jazz improvisation deviate from formal musical structures to produce new forms of expression, and how the oppressive routine, and identity of the slave may have been ruptured by the singular effects of such music. … how blues and jazz incorporates both African and Western references to form an intensification of multiple heterogeneous and non-heterogeneous relations that are productive of different modes of thought and experience. … how Blacks found a distinct voice through their music, and how this led to their becoming other than slave, and to their emancipation.
Category: Stage 3
TITLE- Outline and consider how the philosophical concepts of power within institutions, according to Foucault, may be useful in assisting us to understand the change in power struggles between modern football clubs (as institutions) and their players (as individuals) compared with clubs first formed. Evaluate how this balance of power has shifted from the intuitions to the individual in the last hundred years and argue to what extent this relationship is also evident between the Football Association and Premier League. AIMS/OBJECTIVES- To show how Michel Foucault’s characterization of power in his works Power/Knowledge, The History of Sexuality and The Birth of the Clinic can be used a basis to explain the power struggles that exist between football clubs and their players. Show the factors/changes in rules of game that led to the balance of power shifting from club to players as a result of specific legal milestones such as the Eastham case or Bosman case which arguably laid the foundations for players to contest the supreme power of clubs. How this change has come about and to what extent The Football Association, as an oppressive institution, is to blame. In Foucault’s essay The Subject and Power, he outlines what he calls anti-authority struggles that will always develop between individuals and institutions and can be explained in terms of power struggles when the individuals reject the way in which certain institutions. Consequently, can power struggles in football, therefore, be explained in terms of this anti-authority struggle postulated by Foucault. Outline the changes in philosophical concept of power and how the definition has been adapted for to explain relations of power within institutions. Power promotes a delusion of one’s self-importance in the world, and this egotism leads to the illusion of the social effectiveness of power as an instrument that is used to control others. I will use the notion of change to show how change is fundamental when philosophically explaining the concept of power struggles within football institutions, because power is defined as the control of change and accordingly power is greater when there is control over change. CHANGE-In the 1880s football clubs had overall power (oppressive power as Foucault puts it) over players but today players (as individuals resisting to this power) now have power over clubs. Not only this, but the Football Association previously exercised similar power over the Premier League but now the Premier League has also become more powerful. FIELD OF EXPLORATION- How Foucault’s notion of power within institutions, as portrayed in his works power/knowledge, The History of Sexuality and The Birth of the Clinic, is relevant to the power relationship between the Football Association and the Premier League and between football clubs and players.
When a human being contracts AIDS, their DNA is replaced, and their very existence becomes deficient. In a cold light, it is a murderous disease but the reality is that the negation of viral infection only delays evolution. Nietzsche argued with and against Darwin on the nature of natural selection, and made the will to power applicable to more than just the human being. Highlighting the development of AIDS since the 1980s, I will show how diseases are able to shape society and evolve beings in a network of complexity theory created by the “self-organised behaviours of complex genetic regulatory systems”.
Territory & Field of Exploration This project will discuss the field of contemporary architecture. I want to discuss some of the major challenges that face the contemporary architect in relation to his particular ‘way of thinking’ about the problems of designing in our technological age. In Our Modern Technological Age, Can Contemporary Architecture truly appeal to The Heideggerian Notion of Dwelling? Aims & Objectives. • I will discuss Heidegger’s essay ‘Building. Dwelling, Thinking’ in order to reveal the nature of Heidegger’s notion of dwelling. • This project will discuss in detail the relationship between Building & Dwelling in order to adopt a ‘way of thinking’ about the challenge of building that may be applicable in the contemporary world. • I will discuss Heidegger’s use of ‘the poetic’, and ask weather or not there is the possibility in our contemporary world for ‘poetic building’ • This project will discuss the affect of modernity on Heidegger’s notion of dwelling, my focus will rest specifically on mans ‘homelessness’.
CONCEPTS/KEY WORDS: Thinking Machines: Philosophical implications of artificial intelligence, machines emulating human behaviour, Turing Test, notions of behaviourism, dualism and materialism, free will and determinism, strong and weak AI and intelligence. Mechanical Thinkers Affect of rise of technology on human behaviour. Dehumanising effect of treating people as machines in the work place. Modern emphasis on productivity, efficiency, and systematisation. Leisure time. Importance of play, playing at work, modern day work practices. OBJECTIVES 1. To investigate the philosophical implications of Artificial Intelligence, looking at factors that are taken into consideration outside the mathematical workings of a thinking machine such as notions of intelligence, behaviourism and free will. 2. To understand the philosopher Martin Heidegger’s opinion of the effect of technology on the world and on humans as a whole in his essay The Question Concerning Technology. 3. To look at a more modern interpretation of the effects of technology by way of Donald Norman, an expert on the human-side of technology, and his book The Invisible Computer. 4. To look at ways to combat the feeling of dehumanisation in using technology, particularly in the workplace, by investigating modern day work practices that incorporate work and play. SOURCES: Gottfried Leibniz, Alan Turing, Rene Descartes, Aaron Sloman, Donald Norman, Martin Heidegger, Herbert Marcuse, Institute for Play. PROJECT TERRITORY/FIELD OF EXPLORATION: I will use two companies that have adopted unconventional work practices in order to preserve the well being of their employees, producing a healthier environment which promotes quality of work rather than quantity. I will use an advertising agency called St. Lukes in London and a number of companies in the US who have adopted ingenious ways of improving their working environments. CHANGE The changes I will show are through the developments in the idea of a thinking machine, the change in the rise of technology and the way in which it affects our lives today. The difference in thought between Martin Heidegger and Donald Norman. THE GAP BETWEEN HUMANS AND THINGS Obvious separation of mind and matter is involved, the implications of modelling a machine on the brain, the difficulty for humans to work with machines that do not function as humans do, the separation between the individual and society when progress, and society with it, no longer facilitate individuality. My project tries to bridge the gap between humans and computers by trying to establish a healthier attitude towards them, especially in the workplace.
Aims · To resolve the problem of Consciousness and reconcile the mind/brain dichotomy via a new conception of language. Objectives · To provide an account of how the brain works. · To disabuse the notion of mental processes. · To show how a different way of looking at language can explain the problem of the mind. · To show that higher consciousness is a product of language. Sources · The field of Neuroscience – Gerald Edelman, Susan Greenfield. · Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gilbert Ryle, Derek Bickerton. Michael Polanyi, Alfred Korzybski · The Field of Psycholinguistics – Susan Curtiss Background After developing a new conception of knowledge and language I wanted to find out if it could be applied to the highly debated topic of consciousness to yield some result
Concepts:- To examine the way in which female athletes are systematically discriminated against in the following areas:- 1) Media 2) Sexuality 3) Race 4) Disability 5) Gender – Masculinity/Femininity 6) Coaching and Administrative positions Sources:- Newspapers, The History of Sexuality – M. Foucault Sporting Females – J. Hargreaves Women, Sport and Culture – S. Birrell & C.L.Cole Sport & Postmodern Times – Ed by G.Rail Tattoo, Torture, Mutilation & Adornment – A.Bolin Project Territory:- The world of sport – and in particular female sports. The Change:- Unfortunately my research has shown that there has not been a major change as of yet. There have been numerous improvements in the treatment of female athletes, but there is still an enormous way to go before they are treated on a par with their male counterparts.
The transition from the beginning of the twentieth century to the latter stages marked a change in thinking that can be reflected through the change in function of the art gallery. Taking the period that is known as High Modernity (roughly from 1900 to 1968) and exploring its defining artist, Picasso, and the philosopher that was instrumental in shaping the thought, Hegel, it can be seen that the Musée Picasso in Paris shows all of these characteristics. A full exploration of the themes of identity and capitalism will be used as the ‘signs’ that mean a historical account can be formed. Around 1968 many changes in thinking and society occurred which provoked a paradigm shift. The Pompidou Centre in Paris showed evidence of these changes in its retrospective of Roland Barthes. The philosopher Foucault gave a differing historical account than Hegel’s which looks to the networks of thought and how they interact, this also reflects the exhibition in that it is no longer a straightforward chronology but is instead an understanding of the overall, the particular and how they interact.
OBJECTIVES. To answer: Is there reality or only appearance? What is it about Physics that makes everything else “stamp collecting”? Why do both nature and physics become explicable with maths? How do observers see things? Would we recognise a Theory of Everything? Did Quantum Mechanics kill cause? TEXTS. B. Russell: The Relation of Sense- Data to Physics; Kant: Critique of Pure Reason; M. Lange: Locality, Fields, Energy and Mass; T.Kuhn: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; G. Berkeley: Treatise Concerning Principles of Human Knowledge; K. Popper: The Logic of Scientific Discovery Key Words. Theory, reason,experiment, cause and effect, measurement.
Contribution to the book of change: Aim To show there is a link between philosophical theory and popular American culture in an attempt to bridge the gap between humans and things around them Concepts/ Key words Existentialism and ideas from philosophers such as Sartre and Camus. Popular American culture namely The Simpson’s Objectives To illustrate that the following picture although stereotypically American with busy highways and mega capitalism does not represent popular American culture. To see if there is a link between the heroes of Sartre, Camus and Nieztsche and some of the Simpson’s characters To determine whether Homer is the authentic individual that Sartre and Camus dreamed of? Or is Bart the übermensch that Nietzsche depicted who could rise above Christian morality and create a new moral code? Project Territory The Simpson’s TV show Sources Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Friedrich Nieztsche, Mark Conrad……….
Sources: Newspaper Articles ‘The Economist’ Philosopher’s Books Literature Books and Productions Art Books Visit to the Ecuadorian Prison Visit to the Newcastle Law Courts Project Territory: Michel Foucault’s Theory on Technologies of Power Key Concepts: Technologies of Power Power over the Individual Human Beings made into Docile Bodies Human Rights Vs Homeland Security (Protection) Punishments and Prisons The Big Brother Resistance against Power Materialism Vs Spiritualism Freedom and Search for the Individual Self Objectives: Foucault had predicted the dominance of technology over our lives and the failure of prisons correctly. The connection between knowledge and power is found everywhere and at anytime. The search for individuality and meaning by the modern man The different ways in which power is presented Progression does not necessarily mean success, for example, the prison system The Change: People’s lives depend on the type of power and knowledge present. Materialism through science and technology, overtook the spiritual and meaningful side of a man’s life The centrality of life is no longer on man, but capitalism and progression. The Book of Change: Our lives are dominated by what surrounds us, such as the knowledge and power present. There is no one time more important than the other.
The investigation is based on Peter Shaffer’s screenplay Amadeus, an elaborate story of the relationship between the legendary musician Wolfgang Mozart and his contemporary counterpart Antonio Salieri. Critics have interpreted the film in various ways, however its philosophical content had been left untouched. The project’s first concern is the identification of two philosophical trends within the characters of the play – Mozart being aligned to the baroque and Salieri portraying notions of traditional philosophy. The interaction of the characters in the plot in this context raises new philosophical issues such as creativity, genius, autonomy and the concept of God and also displays the philosophical influence over mans interaction with his surroundings. This discussion takes place alongside Walter Benjamin’s similar interpretation of Trauerspiel, The Origin of German Tragic Drama. The project’s second concern lies not in the content of the film but in its creation and subsequent afterlife. Shaffer constructed the play on fragments of truth regarding the real Mozart, which he then exaggerated and developed into a fictional story. This process of destruction and reconstruction is investigated in relation to Walter Benjamin’s theory of the mortification of art in which art is constantly reinterpreted to produce new meaning. Benjamin argues that through the creation of new meaning the original object is redeemed. It is the final concern of the project to investigate this theory and explore to what extent Mozart has been redeemed by Amadeus. The result is a project that not only investigates the baroque concepts of afterlife, mortification and redemption but also illustrates these notions in its method of exploration.
Subject: Post-Humanism and Post-Industrial Society in Occidental North East England from the mid twentieth century to the early twenty-first. Source: Part One – The Post-Human Condition by R. Pepperell Part Two – Liberating Technology by J. Graves Secondary support material Out of Control by R. Kelly The Inhuman by J. F. Lyotard Man and technology by B. Adkins Objectives: Part One – To show the theoretical and through example, empirical, paradigm shift from a ‘human-centred’ universe to a ‘Post-Human’ one. Part Two – To show the theoretical and through example, empirical, paradigm shift from an industrial society to a ‘Post-Industrial’ one. Method: Assumptions; 1. The Post-Human condition is the impact of high-technology on art, creativity, philosophy and what it is to be human. The argument is made that the changes going on in science, culture and technology are so profound as to wipe away hundreds of years of beliefs and to show that we are moving away from a ‘human-centred’ universe to a ‘Post-Human’ one, hence the universe’s shifting focus away from man (i.e. the fleeting focus.) 2. The rise of technology indicates the potential to expand and automate production. In a society where work is the central activity it is important to look at the implications of the shifting away from the paradigm that the Industrial Revolution and Age was and is. Our maintenance of power of manufacturing and of even intellectual superiority is becoming increasingly illusionary in our scientific society, as technology is responsible for the ‘inhuman’ wielding and controlling more and more, hence the apparition is that of human dominance (i.e. the phantom of power).
The title of my Stage 3 project asks the question ‘Is It Ethically Acceptable That The Journals of Kurt Cobain Have Been Made Accessible To The Public?’ Objectives: 1. To determine whether one can justify the posthumous publication of the Nirvana singers’ extremely personal journals when it will become abundantly clear that the publication would have been against his will. 2. To compare and contrast Cobain to Franz Kafka in terms of both having had their diaries published posthumously against their will. To compare the similarities in their personalities and writings. 3. To argue against Max Brod, friend of Kafka and publisher of his diaries, who, owing much to the Kantian tradition, would say that one does not own one’s own thoughts, therefore endorsing such publications. Change: In terms of viewing specific changes, I will investigate into how the views of reading somebody’s personal thoughts may have changed in the seventy years between their deaths (Kafka- 1924, Cobain- 1994), or indeed the publications of their diaries by those close to them (Max Brod- 1958, Courtney Love, Cobain’s widow- 2002). I will ask if the changing nature of the diary and the celebrity could justify the publications. Sources: Primary sources will of course be the published diaries of Cobain and Kafka themselves, with additional material in the form of commentaries on the diaries, and biographies on the subject (one written by Brod himself). Expectations: I expect to discover that by the end of the project I will have found no explanation or excuse that will justify the publication of Cobain’s diaries, or even Kafka’s by arguing for the authenticity of the individual as we may find within the work of Heidegger and Nietzsche.
The Dream. . . .‘Do I have to change my name? Will it get me far? Should I lose some weight? Am I gonna be a star? I’m just living out the American dream and I realized that nothing is what it seems. . .’ These lyrics are taken from Madonna’s recent song ‘American Life’ highlight our society’ pre-occupation with achieving the ‘American dream.’ The car, the house, the family, the job and the respect of friends all constitute our life’s aspirations, what we value and most of all what we fear that we not achieve. In my project I have explored the following objectives and idea of the American dream, highlighting it through Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman, and Louis Begley’s novel About Schmidt and using the lyrics from Madonna’s song American Life. OBJECTIVES: ~ What constitutes the American Dream and how, or if, it has altered over time. ~The relation of its concept to the philosophies of Sartre, such as fear, freedom, emotions and existence ~How these concepts are related to the main character’s in Death of a Salesman and About Schmidt ~Whether we have a choice in our quest to achieve it or whether we have become ‘trapped’ by its rules. ~To what extent do we have any freedom and how this aspiration affects our existence ~Is the American Dream really the most satisfactory state to be in? The humiliation that Willy experiences as a result of not quite achieving this dream drives him to take his own life. With arguments over the importance of attaining the American dream aside, this single incident demonstrates the power and influence of it over today’s society. The question is, are we trapped, is there really ‘nowhere to run’ or is it up to us to change our values?
Beauty: There has been a pre-occupation with our society as far back as we can remember, yet we still cannot define it, due to its changing character. The fairy tale promises that we are raised on promise security, a prince Charming and that we will live ‘happily ever after’ if we attain beauty. In this project I will be investigating and forming my own concepts on the following: ~ The role of beauty in our Western selected traditional fairy tales and how they reflect our societies attitude towards it and their role in creating these conceptions. ~What constitutes a ‘beautiful’ woman in our society and how this has altered over time, is it just a fashion? ~The phenomenon of the beauty pageant and what it means to be ‘beautiful in our society. ~The desperation associated with achieving this ‘beauty’ and what happens when it goes ‘wrong.’ I will highlight these objectives using the concepts of Plotinus and the Enneads, where he looks at beauty, the soul and what constitutes beauty. I will also use some of the concepts of Kant aesthetics on ‘natural’ beauty, the purpose of beauty and the judgements of taste.
‘The Wasp Factory’ – Written in 1984 by Ian Banks – Tells the story of Frank aged 16 – The murders: · Aged 6 kills his cousin Blyth by poisoning him · Aged 8 kills his brother Paul with a bomb · Aged 11 kills his cousin Esmerelda with a kite – Eric his older brother is on the run from a mental hospital The ruin – Represented by the rusting old bomb on the beach, causes the death of Paul – Is a baroque symbol due to the melancholy contemplation of ruin and death The Labyrinth – Represented by the wasp factory that gives the book its title – Popular baroque image as it represents uncertainty, riddle and melancholy The inevitable arrival of catastrophe – The arrival of Eric, a destructive force represents the arrival of catastrophe – His progress is fragmented and there is an increasing awareness of catastrophe, which causes insecurity The androgynous other – Frank represents the androgynous other. Totally unaware of his gender or sexuality he is a baroque image – Women are regarded as the weaker sex and Frank agrees with the baroque notion that humans are weak due to their sexuality
Background · I have a biological background and a deep interest in nature. · Throughout my degree I have looked at Darwinian evolution, in the past I have compared Darwin with Nietzsche Ethology · Ethology is looking at the behaviour of an organism within its environment. · Writers such as Deleuze have applied ethology to philosophy. Sources · Incorporations: Guattari’s essay ‘Regimes, Pathways, Subjects’ Deleuze’s work ‘Ethology: Spinoza and Us’ Key Points · Both writers provide alternatives to the positivistic study of nature, evolution and science · They teach us that we should look at the world around us from where we are. · Most importantly it must be realised the animal being studied is never separable from its relations with the world · Ethology is fragmented, · The rise of powerful technologies leads us to a point in history where progress is irreversible Examples 1. Little Hans · As a child little Hans maintains his innocence and can look at the world like an ethologist. · In his eyes the Plough horse is more similar to an ox than to a race horse. 2. The tick. · We should look at the tick by the capacities it is capable of. The tick responds to three things in three ways: 1.Light, 2. Olfactive, 3.Thermal · The tick, like every living creature has an Umwelt. Conclusions · We are loosing track of sustainable development. History is becoming irreversible. Maybe ethology can help? · Deleuze succeeds in presenting us with an alternative way of looking at the world. Instead of the positivistic categorising we must look at the world from where we are. · Guattari suggests we must think about sustainability; we can’t stay where we are now, otherwise we will destroy our planet.
What? Discovering if our scientific and technological advances have caused our society to blur the distinctions between Image and Reality. Have our images, and signs become our reality or has our reality turned into an image? How? 1. By looking at the way our world is represented in art and using art and like concepts to get a view of the world. 2. By looking at advertising and mass media and discovering what part they play in this blurring it there is one. Who? Jean Baudrillard The Ecstasy of Communication. Simulacra and Simulation. Danto Philosophizing Art. De Thierry Kant after Duchamp. Walter Benjamin The Work of Art in the age of mechanical Reproduction. When? The 20th Century specifically after 1960 Where? University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne Fine Art Department, students. Why? Am interested to find out where we are today in our ways of interpreting the world around us and I feel that the image and reality issues are particularly influential in our lives.
‘Among all the mutations that have affected the knowledge of things and their order, the knowledge of identities, differences, characters, equivalences, words . . . only one, that which began a century and a half ago and is now perhaps drawing to a close, has made it possible to for the figure of man to appear . . . It was the effect of a change in the fundamental arrangements of knowledge. As the archaeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end,’ (Foucault, 1966, p422). ‘Power and knowledge directly imply one another . . . there is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations,’ (Foucault, 1977, p27). Titles: 1) Is it possible for knowledge to exist independently from changes occurring throughout the history of humans? 2) Is it possible to have a shared system of knowledge, such as education, without the autonomy of the individual being destroyed? Concepts: By studying the ways of thought before and after the rise of science it is clear to see how much the ‘knowledge’ of the world has actually changed throughout time; ideas previously held to be true, and upon which many based their beliefs about reality, were disproved with new perspectives of gaining truth. If knowledge is continuously changing then how is it ever possible to say that anyone knows anything? If this is not possible then what is the aim of education, to bring autonomy or control? Objectives: · To show how theories about knowledge have changed throughout time, with particular reference to Foucault’s idea that knowledge is dependent upon the system of thought in a period of time. · To question whether knowledge exists merely as persisting human self-delusion; humans need to feel that they are able to understand the world otherwise there is no possibility of controlling it. · To apply these ideas to the educational system, questioning whether its aim is to encourage autonomous thinking within individuals, or whether it is merely a means of encouraging a stable society through control of what the individual is able to ‘know’ about the world. · To apply Foucault’s idea of ‘power/knowledge’ to ‘Life After George,’ a play illustrating the idea that humans, although enjoying the idea of being free, actually feel more autonomous in a society where their ideas and actions are placed under the control of others. Main Sources: Foucault, M, 1966, ‘The Order of Things – An Archaeology of the Human Sciences,’ Tavistock/Routledge, Guildford Foucault, M, 1977, ‘Discipline and Punish,’ Allen Lane, London Rayson, H, 2001, ‘Life After George,’ Nick Hern Books Limited, London