Final essay first draft
In what ways does Dis-Armor project challenge and alter traditional perception of human relations and communication? I am going to examine the notion of traditional perception of communication, the idea and motives behind the creation of Dis-Armor project and then examine the effects Dis-Armor has on human communication. I believe Dis-Armor both re-enforces and changes the communication itself, human self-perception and perception of others and communication’s social meaning.
Dis-Armor in interdisciplinary project created by Krystof Wodiczko. Basically, Dis-Armor is electronic device that consists of helmet covering the face and two LCD screens on the back. The helmet includes instilled cameras, rearview mirror, monitor, headphone and microphone. LCD screens on the back show the projection of user’s eyes. There is also a speaker below the LCD screens on the back to project user’s voice. As a result, the device allows the user to see, hear and talk with interlocutor standing behind. Thus, Dis-Armor gives an opportunity for indirect communication between the users who can speak through their backs.
“Dis-Armor” is a project that challenges traditional understanding of human body and communication. Explaining his purpose of creating the project Wodiczko states, “Specifically, Dis-Armor is designed for high-school-age students and school-refusers who have survived overwhelming life experiences and wish to try to overcome a false sense of shame… In short, Dis-Armor is a device to help young trauma survivors lift their shields of shame, to break inner and outer walls of silence, and to share difficult memories, critical thoughts, and hopes with others in the midst of public space.”(Wodiczko 44).
Using Dis-Arnmor the person gets a chance to see and communicate through his or her back, which changes the nature of communication overall. The fundamental difference between traditional communication and the one with the use of Dis-Armor is that the Dis-Armor user turns into cyborg. This completely changes self-perception and perception of the user by others.
Cyborg is short from cybernetic organism. The term was first used to describe self-regulating human-like machines for exploring outer space. As Donna Haraway explains, “A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction.” This implies that cyborg is a creature that consists of both organic and artificial components and expresses the richness of human imagination, yet organically fits into acceptable social world.
Donna Haraway also states, “The cyborg is a condensed image of both imagination and material reality, the two joined centers structuring any possibility of historical transformation.” This implies that cyborg is something, which is constructed of the existing well-known parts as representation of material reality and newly invented, artificial parts that represent imagination.However, these elements are rapidly gaining status of naturalized as they emerge into one organism, and with time it becomes practically impossible to distinguish cyborgs. As technology advances the distance between people and cyborgs shortens and people not only create cyborgs, but also actively engage in activities with them and, furthermore, in a way, become cyborgs themselves.
Discussing cyborgs Haraway contends, “Our machines are disturbingly lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert.”(Haraway “Cyborg manifesto” 2) Although the notion of cyborg sometimes seems to denote distant half-human-half-machine creatures, at this point by the virtue of doing simple everyday things we all become cyborgs ourselves. In fact, at this very moment as you are interacting with the computer to read this essay you are already a cyborg. The computer becomes the extension of your natural ability to read and perceive information. So, I would like to invite you on the journey of exploring the purposes and effects of Dis-Armor cyborg through your own first-hand cyborg experience.
Traditional ocularcentric society
Although seeing is often described as unquestionable and the most reliable way for human beings to objectively perceive information about the world around them, it is actually even more complicated and meaningful. In reality, as Amira Mittermaier argues, “We are socialized to pay attention to certain things and not others, to see in certain ways and not in others.”(Mittermaier 86). Thus, vision is not simply independent body function of every human being. Besides that, vision consists of a whole complex of ideas and certain rules set by social and political environment of the human being. Mittermaier also discusses the history of seeing. She contends that the modern view on vision derived from numerous historical transformations. Starting with ancient Greek vision theories, the number of ways of understanding seeing has been developed by various philosophers. As a result, Mittermaier concludes that, “The eye, now conceptualized as the most reliable sense organ, came to play a central role in modernity, which accordingly is sometimes labeled ocularcentric.”(Mittermaier 87). Thus, modern culture is ocularcentric with the biggest emphasis put on vision. In this context Wodiczko’s Dis-Armor conforms to the accepted ocularcentric modernity, at the same time pointing out this modernity. It makes the viewer of Dis-Armor consciously aware of seemingly subtle influence society has on shaping one’s vision. By placing the eyes on user’s back he challenges this traditional set vision. Wodiczko encourages the viewer to be open to different kind of vision, to see beyond what is one used to seeing.
Dis-Armor project challenges and changes understanding of observer. Jonathan Crary argues that, “Though obviously one who sees, an observer is more importantly the one who sees, an observer is more importantly one who sees within prescribed set of possibilities, one who is embedded in a system of conventions and limitations.”(Crary 6) This reaffirms the idea of ocularcentric society. The observer perceives everything through his vision. Crary goes even further to explore all the circumstances that influence and shape this particular vision of the observer in a particular way. He contends that numerous machines invented throughout the centuries aimed to structure human vision with the framework of particular set rules, “These apparatuses are the outcome of a complex remaking of the individual as observer into something calculable and regularizable and of human vision into something into something measureable and thus exchangeable.”(Crary 17) In his Dis-Armor Wodiczko goes even further: acknowledging the existence of this construction of the observer, he challenges the traditional way in which vision in perceived. Despite the gradual discoveries in history of human vision and developments of machine and technologies that determine this vision, seeing has always been perceived as essentially connected with human body function of seeing through the eyes. Wodicko changes this by placing the users eyes on the back. He constructs new kind of observer who is able to perceive the world in a different way.
Specific issue in Japanese society
Dis-Armor project is intrinsic to Japanese society specifically firstly because the high-school age students are constantly
under pressure to do better and thus they often get traumatized. Speaking of the problems Japanese young people have to
face in their daily life, Wodiczko states, “They are pushed to pass more and more exams, and to prove themselves in a theatre
of desperate progress,governed by early-modern values.”(Wodiczko 44). Secondly, technology plays a very important
role in the lives of Japanese youth. Thus, highly-technological project as Dis-Armor could serve as an attractive solution
even for high-school refusers, who in this way protest against the social norms imposed on them.
Wodiczko states that, “Dis-Armor’s purpose is to attract the attention of passer-by on the street and others in the city, to entice them to come closer and to focus on the life difficulties of a young person.”(Wodiczko 44). Since technology plays such an important role in human lives all over the world and in Japan specifically, Dis-Armor is definitely going to fulfill the purpose stated by its author. Thus, Dis-Armor addresses the issue of highly pressured high school students intrinsic to Japanese society through the medium that specifically goes along with the popular trend of modern technology in Japan and therefore can potentially interest the high school refusers and help them resolve their psychological difficulties.
Mimetic communication
Dis-Armor changes traditional way of communication and thus creates mimetic communication. Discussing mimesis Michael Taussig argues that throughout history mimesis has been a part of adaptive behavior of humans to the society through copying and thus assimilating with the surroundings. Thus, Taussig contends mimetic faculty should be taken into consideration as “sixth sense”.( Taussig 213) Dis-Armor presents complex idea of mimetic communication. Through using the idea of ancient armor and connecting with the idea of indirect communication the creator of Dis-Armor attracts attention to the issues that Japanese youth are having to the extent of needing protection of Dis-Armor. He deconstructs the traditional understanding of armor, and then reconstructs it with a specific purpose and deeper meaning. He intends to help to solve Japanese youth’s problems through mimicking what used to serve as symbol of protection and nobility.
Furthermore, as communication perceived through traditional understanding of it is some ways both copied and changed in Dis-armor, the project also serves as mimesis for communication. According to Taussig, mimesis is a way to understand something through means of its likeness. Thus, Dis-Armor project brings in conscious understanding of direct and indirect communication and its meaning. Taussig argues that through mimesis “…contact and copy merge to become virtually identical, different moments of one process of sensing...”(Taussig 21) The same way communication with the use of Dis-Armor erases traditional perception of communication and the line of distinction between direct and indirect communication. Usually conversation of people face to face would be considered to be clearly direct communication while talking through the use of computer or telephone would be indirect. Dis-Armor challenges this notion. It lies in the realm of mimetic communication and blurs the line between the two, “plunging us into the plane where the object world and the visual copy merge.” (Taussig 35)The object in this case would be communication. It remains the same communication as interlocutor talks to the person, yet it also employs the machine as intermediary mean, thus making communication indirect. Thus, through its mimetic faculty it further raises the questions of simultaneous presence and absence of the Dis-Armor user at the time of communication with the interlocutor.
Dis-Armor brings in both the notion of presence and absence. In his project Ghostcatching Bill T. Jones was changing the traditional notion of presence and absence through separating what seems inseparable: he separated movement from the body in the moving body. As a result, the dancer was still present in some ways, but only through the lines representing his movement on the screen. Similarly, Dis-Armor separates communication between two people from the necessity to reveal the face, and thus the identity of its user. Danielle Goldman argued that Jones was separating body from movement to eliminate audience’s sympathy to a particular dancer, and instead focus on the movement itself. Dis-Armor in a way also challenges the idea of presence. At the time of communication the user is in the same environment as the interlocutor, yet his body is separated and protected with Dis-Armor. Thus, the interlocutor can only see the projection of the user’s eyes on the back. As a result, the user has an opportunity to communicate his emotions freely and fearlessly. The simultaneous presence of the Dis-Armor user and his absence constructed through the protection of Dis-Armor puts aside the user’s possible concerns about appearing in public. With Dis-Armor’s protection the user feels free to concentrate purely on communication, which in turn serves to cure the user’s trauma.
Conclusion:
So, Dis-Armor alters human communication through turning the user into cyborg, creating mimetic communication experience and changing traditional understanding of presence and absence in regard to communication. Focusing on the specific issue of Japanese youth and applying an appropriate method for it, Dis-Armor serves as the platform for traumatized youth to deal with their problems. This way it also acquires highly political meaning as it lets the users stand out of the crowd and be different in the society with the tradition of conformity to set rules and standards.
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