Radical information visualisations in the context of political communication
Simulacra and the politics of visibility
Contemporary society has often been termed as the society of the image. The term “image” in this context is commonly assigned a set of negative features, such as superficiality and ephemerality. Baudrillard is obsessed by such pervasive impact of media images on society. He terms such objects as “simulacra”, signifiers that have lost any contact with their signifieds and with “reality” as a whole (1994). In his vision we found ourselves stucked in a Platon’s nightmare, prisoners in a cave where we can only see shadows. Is not difficult to find convincing evidences of Baudrillard’s apocalyptic remarks on the scene of political communication in contemporary so-called “western democracies”. The image, as both construction and portray of what is visible, transmittable and infinitely replicable through communication networks, seems to be more and more the model according to which the political debate is shaped. At this level the fluidity of electronic media images appears to undermine the bases for long-term memory, comprehension of complex issues and orientation in the field of politics.
A striking example of such nature of media images in political communication
can be retrieved - in the Italian context - in the successfull political career
of media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi. His ability in the manipulation of media
images, supported by his unrivalled control of the television industry has
helped him to survive an impressive series of scandals. By spreading in the
media the “visible” profile of a joyful, entrepeneurial, passionate
and successfull man, Berlusconi has managed to marginalise from the political
imaginary a series of “invisible”, nonetheless very relevant aspects
of his person. Moreover, the prosecutions for bribery, corruption and connections
with Mafia that have threatened his political career since the very begin have
been used for a successful detournement. Not only such allegations have been
vehemently denied, they have also been actively used in the construction of
the image of an innocent victim of “communist judges”. Such operation
has been possible since the allegations pertained at least in part to the regime
of the “invisible” (the invisible of so-called white collars crimes)
and could be easily marginalised by the impact of the mere “faciality” of
the Italian prime minister on TV screens.
Maps for the “invisible”
The hegemonic position held by the “visible” in contemporary political
communication is actively used to hide a series of “invisible” structures
that are nonetheless strategic for the control of politics and society. A series
of radical mapping projects arising in contemporary media (especially digital
media) art and activism seems to demonstrate how such concern has gone so far
to activate a series of original practices of political communication. These
projects match an emerging need for tools of visualisations that aim at unravelling
the “dark realm” of the “invisible”: that behind-the-curtains
where power structures are situated. The work of Mark Lombardi during the 80s
and the 90s provided the first seminal attempt for the “figuration” of
this level of society. The New York based artists drew nodes and links to represent
webs of relations among different actors underlying political scandals such
as the Iran-Contras. In the work “George W. Bush, Harken Energy and Jackson
Stephens c. 1979-90, 5th Version” (1999), for example, Mark Lombardi
represents the connections between the Bush and Bin Laden family for the commerce
of oil, in so doing unraveling embarrassing connections on which the press
focused only after 7/11.
Net.artist Josh On has followed this path of expression engaging in corporate
mapping projects that aim at breaking the shell of invisibility of which economic
structures profit. in the project “They Rule” [theyrule.net] he
focuses on the representation of the connections among the boards of administration
of major american corporations showing their interconnection. The message of
the work is quite explicit: behind the surface of corporate branding images
stands an obscure power structure that is not democratic and whose only term
of reference is money. In this context the medium of the dynamic diagram employed
by the artist proves extremely effective in conveying a series of complex spatial
relations that devise corporate organisations. This effort is displayed by
engaging in a project of counter-propaganda: by showing how corporations are
mutually integrated Josh On arouses concerns about their influence on politics
and about their authoritarian impact on our daily lives.
A visual pedagogy
The political artistic enterprise inaugurated by Mark Lombardi, and developed recently in the work of Josh On resonates a variety of concerns that have been emerging in contemporary Marxist debate about space. According to Lefebvre, that with the Production of space (1991) has indeed defined the “science of space” as a new field of analysis, the space of capitalism is, first of all, a space of abstraction. Space is on the one hand fragmented, dispersed at the local level and on the other hand centralized and coordinated by power logics at the global level such as the one “figured” by Josh On and Mark Lombardi. In face of such condition, Fredric Jameson has complained that we live in a discontinuous space that is difficult to grasp (1988: 87). Contemporary space lacks of “legibility”, while the complexity of social and economic relation undermines the possibility of alternative political action. According to Jameson to overcome such condition we need an aesthetic of “cognitive mapping”, a practice that would represent an “integral part of a socialist politics” (1988: 356). As he puts it in Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1997):
[…] the new political art (if it is possible at all) will have to hold to the truth of postmodernism, that is to say, to its fundamental object – the world space of multinational capital – at the same at which it achieves a breakthrough to some as yet unimaginable mode of representing this last in which we may again begin to grasp our positioning as individuals and collective individuals and regain a capacity to act and struggle which is at present neutralised by our spatial as well as social confusion. (Jameson: 1997: 54)
Cognitive mapping would allow a “situational representation on the part of the individual subject of that vaster and properly unrepresentable totality which is the ensemble of society’s structure as a whole”. (51) What Jameson intends with cognitive mapping has not to be directly connected with concrete maps. The author indeed observes that is not possible to pursue cognitive mapping through real maps or at least not in our times. His understanding of cognitive mapping has more to do with the overall definition of a cultural project whose main purpose is to construct new forms of orientation in the space of global capital. The project that Jameson has in mind is indeed fundamentally “a pedagogical political culture” (62). The arising of radical maps of abstract spaces such as the ones produced by Mark Lombardi and Josh On, appear to perfectly match Jameson’s call for a new political art that entails pedagogical purposes. Their projects indeed embody a new visual pedagogy that sees in different forms of information visualisations, that are commonly referred to as maps (cognitive maps or concept maps), effective tools to represent complex spaces of interrelations among power units. In this context information maps entail a promise of clarity, of “transparent” representation of spaces that are otherwise characterised by opacity. They demonstrate the possibility of new forms of images able to challenge the heteronomic and obscure character of the so-called “society of the image”. In doing so they concretise a political project able to see in radical forms of information visualisation a tool to overcome the impasse in political action determined by the discontinous/illegible character of the space of global capital.
Bibliography
Baudrillard Jean, Simulacra and simulation, University of Michigan Press, 1994
Downing J. H., Radical Media, Sage, Thoudand Oaks California; London, 2002
Downs M. Rogers, Stea David, Maps in Minds: Reflections on Cognitive Mapping, Harper & Row, New York, 1977
Harley Brian, The New Nature of Maps: Essays in the History of Cartography,
Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 2001
Harvey, David, The condition of postmodernity, Blackwell, Cambridge MA, 1990
Harvey, David, The space of capital, Blackwell, Cambridge MA, 1990
http://twenteenthcentury.com/uo/index.php/BrianHolmes...
Jameson Fredric, Cognitive Mapping, in Marxism and the interpretation of culture Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (eds.), University of Illinois Press, 1988
Jameson Fredric, Postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism, Duke University Press , Durham, U.S. , 1997
Lefebvre Henri, The Production of Space, Blackwell, Oxford, 1991
Lynch Kevin, The Image of the City, MIT Press, Cambride MA, London, 1960
Manovich Lev, The Anti-Sublime Ideal in Data Art, 2002, HYPERLINK "http://www.manovich.net/DOCS/data_art.doc" http://www.manovich.net/DOCS/data_art.doc
