On certitude and doubt

"Persist and verify…The power that we abdicate to others out of our insecurity — to others who insult us with their faux-intuition or their authoritarian smugness — that comes back to hurt us so deeply… But the power we wrest from our own certitude — that saves us."

Rosanne Cash / excerpted from Brainpickings

The Disciple by Chaitanya Tamhane

The Aesthetics of Mediocrity

image: https://neweuropefilmsales.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/TheDisciple_Still-021-e1636469194286.jpg

Chaitanya Tamhane's latest film, 'The Disciple', that was released on Netflix last week has been the centre of discussion across several platforms. The film charts the life of Sharad Nerulkar, an aspiring classical vocalist in the Hindustani music tradition. Sharad is a devoted learner under his guru who trains young minds in music as well as gives vocal performances that earn him his modest survival. While other students learning under the Guru, along with Sharad are able to find themselves platforms for performance as they graduate, Sharad seems to be struggling, caught up in mere technique and finding it difficult to creatively break through into the art itself. Sharad however, is fully aware of his shortcomings. He is self-critical, hard working, and yet an unsuccessful individual. In such a narration, the film, as largely understood by most, is about "coming to terms with one's one mediocrity". 

What lies behind the appeal of the film is Tamhane's ability to produce empathy towards a deeply undesired human value: mediocrity. Artist Bharati Kapadia, with whom I was discussing the film said, "It hits us because we are able to see the mediocre in each one of us through the character of the Sharad." Whether you want or not, the film is able to bring doubt in their own abilities. This production of ambiguity is the hallmark of Tamhanhe's film-making in techniques well as story-telling. The sustained long distance shots in the film don't try to direct the eye too much, rather suspend the viewer in the ambiguity of space itself. The voice of the inner mind -  in maai's recordings plugged into the Sharad's ears as he passes through the empty streets of the city at night; or his own confusions trying to come to terms with his perceived shortcomings or the seeming politics of his relationship with his guru - create the haunt of ambiguous space. The constructed silences amplify frustrations of a mind that is unable to articulate the means to reach the genius. To be sure, the story telling in 'The Disciple' has the exact opposite effect of what 'Taare Zameen Par' had on us. In contrast to how we all relate to the young dyslexic boy in TZP and imagine that we are special too, Sharad's character in 'The Disciple' is quite anti-climactic.

Tamhane pushes us to consider through the film whether the figure of the genius is reality or myth. I have been thinking very deeply if the failure of the disciple in the film was because of his shortcomings or because of the lack of opportunities that somehow didn't come his way. Opportunities like such are controlled by networks, connections, access to people...and so on...In my opinion, the disciple Sharad didnot seem so bad...he had technique, he had the skill, he was intelligent enough to understand his limitations, then why should he have suffered? To know what you don't know is a good thing...but I wonder if the idealism of his maai just pulled him back from believing in himself to even find an alternative space for his craft. Sharad ends up giving so much importance to the aura of the world that maai creates for him, that he stops acknowledging his own reality, the context in which he lives...I feel that the slippage that he suffers in his life is the burden of self expectation.

What could have been the role of the guru in shaping a student such as Sharad who is honest, hardworking, self-critical yet unable to design music through his craft? We do not see the guru's efforts in devising methods for his student to be able to produce new experiences, or overcome his mental block.  These are aspects that I have been unable to come to terms with. While the incapability of the student has been highlighted throughout the film, the responsibility of the teacher could have been detailed too. The pedagogical zone of music is left mythically illusive, excused in complete devotion, abstinence or sacrifice. Sharad refrains from worldly pleasures until a late age despite having strong carnal urges. 

The film has further brought me to consider how 'mediocrity' is a social construct. How must one prepare a frame for critical appraisal of averageness? The 'everyday' is a category that may be one window to the acknowledgement of being average - that which is neither good, nor bad. Isn't that what average is? Average is functional, workable, acceptable, satisfactory. Sharad was satisfactory. For most of our lives, we consume what is satisfactory. The desire to be exclusive and special is a socially constructed desire. I don't mean to suggest that one should not have the desire to feel special, or be exclusive. The argument however is, that why does averageness discomfort us if more than half the population around us is just plain average? How have we come to ascribe a negative value to being average? Is there no beauty in the average? It is the rejection of the average that Sharad's mind is conflicted with. Sharad's conflict may also be seen as valid in light of the fact that he has been putting in tremendous personal resources in order to go beyond the average. Yet, I wish if the guru was able to help Sharad reconcile with his averageness. 

Over time, the film expresses the aesthetic of mediocrity rather beautifully. Sharad - once a young charming boy reluctantly hopeful of a bright future in his eyes slowly emerges into a stiff middle-aged man drowned in the seriousness of life and failure of his ambition. He is certainly not progressive and holds the values he has come to believe in (without critical consideration) rather strongly. That mindset becomes his frame to judge the world, a world that in fact he feels judged by. Sharad is confused in the idea of success - he is unable to resolve whether it is the worldly acknowledgement or the internal contentment through his singing that will satisfy his restiveness. In his case, perhaps these categories are intertwined and interrelated. His belief in a purism that he could not bring in his music never deters him from it. Still, Sharad does not alter his route from the Hindustani classical form despite having tremendous technique. He prefers to remain in limbo without the methods or means to achieve success or salvation in his art. This, in my mind, was my biggest dejection in Sharad.

A stronger Marxist analysis of the film would clearly bring out how values of mediocrity or averageness, which often become the frames of self-identification are a result of the political economy of how the enterprise of classical music organizes itself in the present day context. Matters of exposure, access, patronage, support are all reworked through distinct mechanisms of the economy. Value is largely created through quantified logistics. How do we trust instruments of TRPs, or the uninformed ears/eyes that hold the power to bring value to artistic pursuits that take a lifetime to be honed? The mysticism associated to the values of the 'genius' or 'excellence' may operate well in a medieval economic model, however when brought into the space of capitalism may require new grounding. Yet, the question of where do we locate art, its purpose - for the self and the world, are questions that the film helps open up. I would have liked to see other dimensions of Sharad's life beyond music, which in its portrayal not only makes us view him as a loser, but could also help us enjoy the buoyancy that helps us survive while still being the everyday average.

Tidbits from Ranciere

Aesthetics is a shared experience.

Politics has aesthetics. People who can't politicize can't produce aesthetics / beauty

Art doesn't occur before aesthetic experience.

The objectification of the experience of aesthetics is art.

Social revolution is the daughter of aesthetic revolution

Education or production of knowledge is about emancipation

thinking about the capacity of performing politics. The capacity to politicize

aesthetics as contemplation (opposite of action)

---

Architecture is a way of defining life

Architecture is supposed to define new ways of inhabitation, of defining life.

Art produces a set of relations.

Institutions and Certainties

I have been thinking for some time now, if the idea of the "institution" is a heteronormative concept. I have spent a great deal of time thinking about the idea of institution and institutionalization. In simple words, institutionalization would mean to consolidate any task into a systemic process. In other words it is "the action of establishing something as a convention or norm in an organization or culture." Institutions are formed through improvising upon trials and errors within a group of people to aid fool proof decision making. These are formed over long time, studied as patterns and codified into rules in order for the smooth and efficient functioning within any organization. Identifying patterns and codifying them also means the freezing of cultural actions. Institutions are often critiqued for the solidification processes. They become stronger because they are able to deal with situations through their pre-ascertained decision making. In other words, institutions are about charting certainties. They operate within firm speculations, and expect people to behave within their identified parameters. Any one who falls outside of their pattern, may become un-institutional. 

These people who lie on the margins of the institutions are often called deviants, and always at the risk of societal othering, for all of society is neatly divided into multiple overlapping institutional mechanisms. Ideas like family, school, nation, and so on - all expect a subject to behave in a particular way. These are concepts that are formulated and consolidated primarily through a heteronormalized morality - that which privileges and is rested on a the idea of a future that will validate its own productive forms and logics. The family is predicated upon the idea of security of progeny and property, and is held together in economic and social rules that will disallow any deviations to the idea. The entire financial industry is structured to support this dominant notion of a relationship unit - that consists of a man, a woman and their children. Other forms of relationships are not necessarily supported as readily by financial institutions. Non-productive relationships like homosexual partners, or sorority kinships and many such other relationships do not promise the future of the institution of the family, and hence do not avail several security benefits within the present scheme of things.

Schools as institutions are expected to prepare candidates for serving different jobs within the productive world. Thus, they largely have to frame a certain picture of future for their clients, i.e. students. That you "will" become an engineer, or an architect, or a doctor - all are promises that are made at the beginning of the course. A certificate of degree is handed over to you as a document of proof. There is no real value to these certificate or degrees, for there is a fair chance for everyone to make mistakes even in their professional delivery of learned knowledge during application in real instances. Yes, institutions create this guarantee-mechanism through their own validation mechanisms that gain societal approvals. The success of these mechanisms is approved through a process of majoritarian survey. At a certain point, industry and institution tie up to co-produce these figures. Thus the cycle of institutionalization becomes impenetrable and solidified. In other words, the formula for certainty is manufactured, in a way that any genuine question regarding ethical or moral anomalies could easily be dismissed on the ground that they do not fall within the system. The language of institutions can not be penetrated easily by deviants, because deviants do not find (or may not enjoy) place within the accepted rules of the institutions themselves.  

I began to write out this thought, in fact, to find a place for uncertainty within the world we exist in. What is the place of uncertainty and doubt in the environment that we come to inhabit today? If the entire world is predominantly categorized into dominant institutional frameworks for every aspect of life (that eventually becomes an industry) - how and where do we locate and plant the seeds of uncertainty? The question of ambiguity is important for several groups who have not figured out their world, or are not able to fit into the given world. These include communities of different kinds of people who feel marginalized all the time - queer, racialized, handicapped, and other such bodies for whom an institutionalized idea of the world seems alien. There is a expectation that institutions impose on subjects - to behave in set ways, to perform in identified modes, to reciprocate in assumed manners. These are tropes of certainties that lay in the idea of institutions. Institutions expect you to project a world far ahead based on the patterns and assumptions they have codified in their books. Their dispositional engagement with future is predicated on learnt certainties, which leaves very little room for unexpected events to occur. The burden of the future is thus exacerbated by institutional thinking. I hope there are more interesting ways to exist without these institutional bindings. 

Architectural Diagrams - 3

 

The Screen Classrooms

Under its 'Pan Scroll Zoom' series curated by Fabrizio Gallanti, the archive 'Drawing Matter' decided to publish some pedagogical reflections on online teaching during the COVID year.

The Screen Classrooms

Read full note here

OR

https://drawingmatter.org/pan-scroll-zoom-9-the-screen-classrooms/

Contemporary House Extension: Pune

We were strolling across the older neighbourhoods of Pune in around 2017 when we came across this wonderful contemporary extension of an old house. The owner was kind enough to allow us to visit the space and take photographs. 

Water colour

Maps

from Marc Schoonderbeek's lecture at SEA
on 26th Feb. 2021

Notes on Phenomenology

Seeds of phenomenology were laid in the 18^th century

Typically knowledge production is based on a Cartesian model, i.e. understanding world is made up of signs and symbols – the world in a semiological space – that which constructs meaning. (that the world is only constructed through the meanings we associate along with any definite order it might have/not have)

However, our understanding of the world is much more nuanced in the way we make associations even before the semiological apparatus comes into play. These associations are rendered through a very innate sense, through our cultural fragments.

The true meaning of the outside world (whole) are only descriptions by our emotional senses. This would be suggested by the Cartesian construct/apparatus. It assumes that the world outside our mind as a definite meaning, which we interpret imperfectly!

Phenomenology on the other hand says that meaning comes only with existence when the mind encounters the world. Thus, there is no meaning out there – it gets produced only through the intersection and interaction between the mind and the world.

Immanuel Kant made a distinction between the noumenal world of things in themselves and the phenomenal world of reality as experienced through our senses. (in philosophy, noumenon is a posited object or event that exists independently of human sense and/or perception.)

This was picked up by Hegel

Then developed by German philosopher Edmund Husserl – he was trying to develop an objective study of the subjective study and use systematic reflection to determine the essence of consciousness.

Understood as the careful description of experiences in which they are experienced by the subject to study, in Husserl’s words the whole of our ‘life of consciousness;

Although, Phenomenology was really shaped by Martin Heidegger in his Being and Time

And eventually that became the foundation of Sartre’s existential philosophy and that of Merleau Ponty

 

School of Phenomenology is dedicated to understanding consciousness in its raw form. It is an experientialist philosophy rather than a rationalist philosophy (rationalist meaning related to scientific  understanding of things).

Analysis of structure of self-experience

Husserl talks about ‘natural attitude’ – that the word is out there, relative to our experience, that it is just a belief

 

He asks what is the structure of consciousness? Proposes a theory called INTENTIONALITY – ‘aboutness’

Articulates that consciousness cannot be an isolated thing. It is always ‘about’ something. Intentionality is the interaction between the CONTENT of consciousness and the STRUCTURES of consciousness. (Structures of consciousness include perception, memory, protention, retention, signification, amongst many others.)

 

How is phenomenology mobilized> What is the methodology?

·        Bracketing: Remove all judgements, reduce all phenomena to its rawest experience

·        Eidetic reduction: Goal being to find the essence of the phenomenon. Separation of the necessary part of the phenomenon from its contingent part in order to truly understand the essence. For Husserl, the essence is the universal scientific truth.
This is what shaped the idea of Transcendental Phenomenology.

 

Heidegger was more interested in ontology, rather than universal essential structure.

He talks about Dassein – or the Being – a situated consciousness. This affects our absorption or interpretation of the world around us.

He believed that experiences cannot be separated from the context in which they arise. He proposed that phenomenology is not a science, but it is about understanding the being itself.

This is what is the foundation of Existential Phenomenology.