Sources of Power and Strategies
by
Caitlin Ensor
Prof. Julia Kursell
Master’s thesis
Table of contents
Introduction...2
Chapter 1: Inside the Elevator...5
Chapter 2: The authority of the disembodied voice...10
Chapter 3: Strategy...15
Chapter 4: The musical voice...19
Conclusion...22
Introduction
In 2014, the urban population accounted for 54% of the total global population (WHO). The majority of the world’s population is thus subjected to urban living conditions. In the present study I will look at a specific object which forms a characteristic feature of the city, namely the elevator, from a cultural perspective. The elevator has contributed significantly to the modern landscape of the city. It has paved the way for modern architecture and the emergence of skyscrapers. As a futuristic and modern object which provides its passengers with an array of possible destinations and simultaneously confines and regulates them, it can be seen both as a place of transportation and adventure as well as a cage, in which the passenger is watched, heard and controlled.
In contrast to many other forms of transport, the elevator moves only vertically and not horizontally. In relation to the study of horizontal transport, relatively little attention has been given to the study of vertical transport. This has led to a recent ‘vertical turn’ in urban studies (see Graham and Hewitt). This ‘vertical turn’ has been able to reveal the politics of accessibility in vertical transportation, which is claimed to require urgent attention (Graham, Super-tall 242).
The elevator is a technologically advanced device which represents progress in the sciences. This type of progress can be associated with the notion of Enlightenment. Enlightenment is a process of looking back into history and looking forward into the future. It is “the reflection on “today” as difference in history” (Foucault, Enlightenment 309). This difference can indeed be found in technological progress. However, technological progress also has the tendency to make us more dependent on technology. Thus progress often brings an inherent regression along with it (Horkheimer & Adorno). Inside the elevator we are addressed by the elevator voice. This voice has a somewhat ambiguous presence. No person is physically attached to it, yet it does sound familiar, as if a person were speaking. We do not really communicate with the voice, yet we mostly believe the things it says. How can this relation be defined? The voice has long been associated with the notion of authenticity. Being produced by the body, it allows us to hear the materiality of the body in its physical presence (Barthes). This can be seen to connect the voice to our physical reality. However, many voices we listen to and rely upon nowadays are reproduced. Walter Benjamin discusses the reproduction of visual and auditory material and how their authenticity declines. Thus it seems the elevator voice cannot represent the notion of authenticity any more.
Nevertheless, the information that is distributed by these types of voice is heavily relied upon and is attributed authority and credibility. Though the influence this might have is not very evident in the elevator, it becomes clearer when one considers the influence of the reproduced voice in satellite navigation. Satellite navigation is heavily relied upon by car drivers to provide directions (Simpson). This leads many car drivers to follow the commands of the electronic voice without questioning its
reliability. How does the authority of these voices come into being despite their inauthenticity and a lack of a traceable source that can be held accountable?
Despite the anonymous, almost mechanic, nature of the elevator voice, which could possibly reduce its credibility, these qualities simultaneously appear to enhance its credibility through the withdrawal of the individual as author and the objectification of the information that it distributes. The danger of a voice becoming an objective authority lies in the “relationship between rationalization and excesses of political power” (Foucault, Subject 328). The negative effects of this rationalisation can be seen again more evidently in satellite navigation, which has caused many accidents when drivers give more credence to the anonymous voice than to their own good sense (Simpson).
The electronic voice is therefore able to exert power over those who listen to it. This form of power, which can be exerted by sound, also shows itself in the power that can be exerted by music. As a blunt force of state power, heavy metal music has even been used to torture prisoners (Suisman). This power of music has been recognised for a long time and can also be found in Greek mythology. The tale of Odysseus, as he passes the Sirens, is a clear example of a narrative in which music presents itself as an alluring, but destructive force.
Both the electronic voice and music are thus able to exert power over whoever hears them. It is Odysseus who initially shows how strategies are formed to challenge that power. By ensuring that his boatmen had wax in their ears and would not hear the Sirens’ song, he did not risk being lured towards the Sirens and perishing on the rocks. At the same time, by being tied to the mast of the ship, he enabled himself to hear the Sirens’ song, while not being able to determine the course of the ship. Thus he had made the song of the Sirens into a private experience, in which he was both immobile, but simultaneously succeeded to outsmart the trap of the Sirens (Bull, Auditory).
In cities the private experience of music has become a common way of blocking out other sounds through the use of portable audio technology. This may be seen as a strategy to challenge the distraction of noise, the power exerted by voices and other forms of imposed sound. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno discuss the tale of Odysseus through the notion of Enlightenment (25-34). As mentioned above, they discuss the notion of Enlightenment as simultaneous progress and regression. Although a private auditory experience would appear to free the subject, in the application in the city we can also see how it isolates people from the world around them, making them vulnerable to attacks and accidents (“Seattle”) (“Ipod oblivion”). Thus in a power relation it does not provide the confrontation necessary to cause a shift of power.
The question arises whether music might be able to create a shift in power when it is not limited to the private sphere, but is performed in public. Immanuel Kant, for instance, stressed the importance of
making independence of mind public in order to constitute a form of Enlightenment. In work No. 409 by Martin Creed an elevator journey is accompanied by singing voices. Instead of a single monotonous voice which provides statements or commands, there is a variety of male and female voices which ascend and descend in parallel with the elevator. The ascending and descending implements a musical aspect in the presence of the voices. By becoming musical voices, they are thus also musically developed and trained voices. This leads us to question how music might constitute a political technology of the body.
Foucault describes the influence of the birth of the prison and how it has disciplined the subject. Halfway through the nineteenth century a reaction may be seen towards such disciplining, which presents itself in over-disciplining in the realms of sport and musical virtuosity (Palmer 1998). It is in this over-disciplining that the reigning power exerted over the body is challenged within the body itself. As a more confrontational approach to the power relation, this can be seen to be more effective in terms of providing space or freedom of physical expression for the subject.
Considering the singing voice and music as a technology which is also able to challenge the power that is exerted over the body, the question remains what this would entail for the discursive quest for enlightenment. Horkheimer and Adorno emphasise that it is the split between subject and object which becomes problematic within the concept of Enlightenment (31). In the realm of music this divide between subject and object becomes less distinct. For instance, one is able to produce and listen to music simultaneously, to be present as the producer and as the recipient of the product. Additionally, Foucault stated that it is the estrangement with respect to the past, which “has led only to the return of the most dangerous traditions” (Foucault, Enlightenment 316). In music the movement towards the future or a progression always relies on the remembrance of what has just passed. Thus there is a constant estrangement. However, every progression is also the result of a preceding incidence and is thus intricately bound to it. Thus it would appear that a form of Enlightenment might lie in the performance of music where subject and object, and past and future are intermeshed and balanced in relation to each other. This may be able to constitute a form of Enlightenment in which regression does not exceed progress.
Chapter 1: Inside the Elevator
The elevator is a significant feature of the city. As Francisco Mujica notes: “The entire history of skyscrapers contains an homage to the inventors of the elevator” (21). Since more than half of the total global population currently lives in cities, it is an object many people regularly encounter. Inside the elevator an electronic voice speaks to the passengers. This elevator voice and the relationship that is constituted between this voice and the passengers of the elevator forms the main object of this study. This relationship is firstly shaped by the voice being situated inside the elevator. The disposition of the passenger inside the elevator is shaped by simultaneous confinement and privileged access to the upper space of the urban environment. As a place of transit the elevator harbours multiple possibilities in terms of destinations and new experiences. At the same time it is a confined space in which the passenger is relatively immobile and powerless.
In relation to these diverse functions of the elevator, I would like to discuss a creative experiment involving an elevator. In 2012 TV Norge released a video on YouTube that went ‘viral’. The video shows selected documentation from an elevator prank executed by the comic Norwegian duo Ylvis, consisting of the brothers Vegard and Bård Ylvisåker. The elevator prank, named ‘The Intelevator’, took place at the Clarion Hotel Royal Christiania in the centre of Oslo and played jokes on the visitors of the hotel.
As they entered the glass elevator visitors were asked to state their desired language and destination. The duo accustomed their use of language to the needs of the passengers, which they were able to do in many different languages, including Japanese and Chinese. In most cases, the languages used matched the passengers, although sometimes the voice “accidentally” selected a language the passengers did not understand. Some passengers were offered extra entertainment when the elevator was put in the “quiz elevator” or in “Donald Duck” mode. Other complementary entertainment was offered in the form of musical accompaniment of the journey. Apart from the vocal entertainment, passengers were rarely sent to their destined floor immediately. At several floors other surprises awaited the passengers when the doors opened, including an exhibition of stuffed animals, a photoshoot and a drying service for wet clothes.
The Elevator as Heterotopia
The variety of elements of the performance showcase the elevator as a device which leads the passenger to a large variety of destinations in terms of locations and experience. This can be seen in line with Michel Foucault’s notion of ‘heterotopia’. Making the comparison with utopias as "sites with no real place" (3), the heterotopia is "a space that is other" (8). Foucault places a wide variety of possible places within the category of the heterotopia, such as the mirror, the cemetery and the library. The variety of these examples may not show enough consistency in terms of their similarities.
However, in the case of the elevator a narrower understanding of the notion of heterotopia might suffice, which can be found in Foucault’s view of the ultimate heterotopia:
“…if we think, after all, that the boat is a floating piece of space, a place without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed in on itself and at the same time is given over to the infinity of the sea and that, from port to port, from tack to tack, from brothel to brothel, it goes as far as the colonies in search of the most precious treasures they conceal in their gardens, you will understand why the boat has not only been for our civilization, from the sixteenth century until the present, the great instrument of economic development (I have not been speaking of that today), but has been simultaneously the greatest reserve of the imagination. The ship is the heterotopia par excellence.” (Other 9).
The notion of heterotopia is represented here as an enclosed space which is simultaneously able to travel towards a multitude of possible destinations. The ship's journey towards the unknown, given over to the infinity of the sea, creates an imaginative space of endless possibilities. The elevator, as an enclosed space which opens up to many other places, appears to compare very well to the ship with regard to its imaginary function. On the one hand, it is a place which’ main function is to travel towards another place and therefore it does not have a fixed place. On the other hand, it is also a place in itself which has sparked the imagination of many writers and film makers (Dahl, Maas). Though not entirely given over to the infinity of the sky, it does provide the conditions to explore unknown territory. Where the ship explores the imaginary of the horizontal sphere, the elevator explores the imaginary of the vertical sphere.
In the elevator prank conducted by Ylvis, the heterotopic qualities of the elevator become evident as well. The exhibition of stuffed animals, the photoshoot and the drying service for wet clothes represent both actual and imaginary places where the elevator is able to take passengers. Though actual in their presence just outside the elevator, they can also be seen to transport the passengers to the imaginary places of nature, a photoshoot where the passenger suddenly becomes a model, or a barbershop. Similarly the different languages and modes of the elevator are able to transport the passenger imaginatively across the world or to the world of fiction. Thus the elevator becomes a place of transition towards other places, but the other places are also inherent to the experience of the place of the elevator itself.
Apart from being a place of transportation, the elevator also "increasingly becomes a commodified destination and spectacle in and of itself" (Graham, Super-tall 247). The glass elevator, as used in the elevator prank, has become an increasingly common feature on the inside and the outside of buildings (Graham, Super-tall 246). By making the walls of the elevator transparent the journey becomes a multimodal experience. In addition to the prospect of reaching the desired destination, the ability to
witness the ascending and descending heightens the bodily experience of being shot upwards or downwards and the ability to see the view from the elevator allows the passenger to fantasise about or create a desire for objects or future destinations. These ‘panorama elevators’ and especially notably high or fast vertical journeys “are increasingly fetishized as part of wider fantasy landscapes of urban tourism and consumption” (Graham, Super-tall 246-247).
The elevator thus becomes a commodity and an enabler of consumption, which creates possibilities for economic development. In his conclusion, Foucault stresses that he has not paid attention to the heterotopia as an instrument of economic development (9). He implicitly suggests that this may be an important aspect of the heterotopia or at least certainly in the example of the ship. Like the ship, the elevator has enabled a journey into uninhibited territory and created new means of economic development. Its invention has paved the way towards the building of large centres of trade and consumption that take the shape of flats and skyscrapers, the presence of which nowadays often stands for the financial centre of a city.
Susan Garfinkel mentions how elevators have been used to symbolise the ‘corporate ladder’. This implicates the elevator as an instrument of personal economic development as well. A classic example, in which this symbolising role is applied, is the story of Charlie and the Great Glass
Elevator, written by Roald Dahl. Similar to the elevator prank, it is a glass elevator that allows Charlie
to witness his whole journey around the world. Both confined and liberating, this fictional elevator is even more a heterotopia par excellence in line with the ship.
Charlie, coming from a poor family, is liberated from the limitations of his background by being picked as the heir of the chocolate factory. His inheritance of the factory is inaugurated with a flight around the world in the great glass elevator. However, as they depart Willy Wonka is distracted and pulled away from the controls, causing the elevator to ascend into space. There, in space, they barely escape from a herd of space monsters. Though the elevator is able to bring them anywhere, it also becomes an unreliable piece of equipment which can spin out of control. Thus Charlie's inheritance and sudden wealth are characterised by a multitude of possibilities within a confined space, which he is not able to control more than he was able to control the poor conditions he was subjected to earlier. It would appear that through the story a critique is implied on the ways in which technological advancement increases the power of technology over all people regardless of their fortune.
Regression and dependency
With regard to technological progress, Adorno and Horkheimer state: "Adaptation to the power of progress furthers the progress of power" (28). When the elevator was first introduced, the object was greatly feared. This "classic elevator phobia" (Bernard 210) was one of several spatial fears which
emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century as a result of the changing urban landscape, which was also partly caused by the elevator itself (Bernard 15-18). Over time people have grown more accustomed to the use of technological devices such as the elevator as well as to the living conditions of the city. However, the adaptation to technology has also made us more dependent on it. As Stephen Graham describes in his article Super-tall and Ultra-deep: The Cultural Politics of the
Elevator, power outages are able to isolate people who live in multi-storey buildings. In some cases
improvised pulley systems had to be implemented in order to protect less mobile tenants from real hunger (257). "The curse of irresistible progress is irresistible regression" (Adorno & Horkheimer 28). This simultaneous process of progress and regression is what Adorno and Horkheimer have named "the dialectic of enlightenment" (27).
As a futuristic and modern object, the elevator can be perceived as the product of scientific and technological progress, which would constitute a form of enlightenment achieved through the use of reason. However, it is also a space in which the passenger is watched by a surveillance camera and controlled by being in a confined space. In Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975) Michel Foucault uses the example of a model for a prison, named the panopticon, designed by Jeremy Bentham. The circular model has a prison guard in a tower at the centre of the building, meaning that the prisoners have to take into account that they could be watched at any moment. This results in a certain level of control over the actions of the prisoners. The prisoners are disciplined and exercise control over their own actions in the knowledge that they might be being watched. In The Auditory
Culture Reader, Michael Bull and Les Back additionally note that “Bentham’s prison was also a
listening prison in which, through a series of tubes, the inmates could be heard at all times…The history of surveillance is [thus] as much a sound history as a history of vision” (5).
In the example of the Intelevator, not unlike the situation in regular elevators, the passengers are watched and overheard. The fact that everything can also be overheard, limits the possibilities of the passengers to say anything they like. Thus the disciplining power of surveillance in the elevator starts to become evident. This disciplining power can also be witnessed in the general behaviour of elevator passengers, who are often silent and try to avoid contact with each other:
“Two strangers will gravitate to the back corners, a third will stand by the door, at an isosceles remove, until a fourth comes in, at which point passengers three and four will spread toward the front corners, making room, in the center, for a fifth, and so on, like the dots on a die” (Paumgarten).
The confined intimate circumstances inside the elevator and simultaneous surveillance thus create an uncomfortable situation which cause the passengers to discipline their own behaviour. Moreover, the disciplining of behaviour inside the elevator is also reinforced by the lack of control over the
technological device and the threat of technological failure. In this respect the elevator still carries its fearful connotation, which also becomes clear through the number of horror films in which the elevator plays a significant role. A Dutch film called De Lift (‘The Elevator’), for instance, stars an elevator which kills its passengers.
This fearful association is not entirely unfounded. When the elevator is used for the purposes of mining, the apparatus is relabelled a 'cage' (Graham 258). Regularly, accidents occur involving elevators in the mining industry, causing many deaths. Even though elevators are by far the safest form of powered transport (Wilk 2006), an accident poses a serious threat to one’s life. The inescapability of the space of the elevator creates a situation in which it is imperative that the passengers cooperate and behave in a predetermined manner. It is in this light that the relationship of the passengers to the elevator voice is shaped. The high level of dependency on the technological accountability of the elevator, causes a dependency on the elevator voice to communicate that all is in order. In these confined circumstances the elevator voice thus cannot be ignored and becomes the authority which passengers rely upon.
Chapter 2: The authority of the disembodied voice
The elevator voice serves the function of guiding passengers to their destination and sometimes informing them about that destination. In regular use of the elevator, the monotonous, calm voice has become a mundane distraction. However, in the elevator prank discussed before, it is the voice of the elevator in particular that starts to show an interesting dynamic in relation to the passengers.
During the elevator prank of the comic duo Ylvis three people step into the glass elevator. A voice starts speaking: “Welcome to this voice-activated elevator, the Intelevator. Please select language”. “English”, they say. “English is registered. Please select floor”. “Seven”. “Seven is registered. Please hold on”. “It works!”, upon which the elevator voice says: “Of course it works, it is an intelevator”. The passengers react surprised at this last remark. Later when one of the passengers wishes to make a picture of the elevator, the voice requests that he would not take a picture and notes that it is prohibited to take pictures inside the elevator. The elevator takes the passengers to their destined floor, but when they arrive the doors do not open. The three people now find themselves trapped inside the elevator and ask the voice to open the doors, to which the voice responds that the doors are open. Subsequently the elevator tells them that it will take them to the third floor and finally they land on the sixth floor where the doors do open. The elevator tells them it is the seventh floor, but the passengers are aware of the fact that it is in fact the sixth floor. Therefore the passengers try to convince the voice to bring them one floor higher to the seventh floor, where they initially intended to go, but the voice says “but it was close enough, wasn’t it” (Ylvis 2014). Thereafter the passengers give up and step out of the elevator.
(Intelevator-Intelligent-Voice-Activated-Elevator) (intelevator_the_future_of_elevators_is_here_hilarious)
Credibility and Accountability
At first the passengers appear amazed with this seemingly technologically advanced elevator voice which is able to interact with them in an unusually intelligent manner. This amazement derives from a conjunction of the familiarity of a human voice which is able to communicate intelligently and the alienation caused by the voice coming from a machine. In The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction Walter Benjamin states that the self-alienation of mankind “has reached such a degree
that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order” (242). The strange interaction between a human and a reproduced voice, as described in the example above, is thus firstly experienced as a form of entertainment and is enjoyed for its novelty.
The moment the passengers are surprised by an indignant remark of the elevator marks a turning point in the passenger’s reception of the elevator voice. At first the performers of the elevator voice succeed in mimicking its mechanical style of speaking. Therefore the three passengers do not appear to suspect anything strange about the situation. After all, computerised voice and voice recognition have already become familiar forms of technology in other situations. However, the moment that the passengers start to become suspicious is when the voice starts to behave in a way that is too human. Realizing that behind the voice is an actual person, who is operating the elevator, the passengers lose their trust in the voice. This leads them to contest the information which is distributed by the elevator voice. Thus the presence of an authentic, embodied source paradoxically nullifies its own credibility. The voice has long been associated with the concept of authenticity. Roland Barthes discusses the 'grain' of the voice as that element of the body and its physical presence which finds its expression in the voice. The grain of the voice would thus be "the materiality of the body speaking its mother tongue" (182). “The ‘grain’ is the body in the voice as it sings, the hand as it writes, the limb as it performs” (188). The presence of the body would allow us to “hear with certainty-the certainty of the body, of thrill” (189). It appears that it would be the intricate connection to the body which gives the voice its authentic allure. Originating from the body, the voice might be able to direct the mind towards the physical reality of the body. Being able to hear the materiality of the body, we would thus be directed towards an aspect of authentic human nature.
Regarding the reproduction of the voice, Adorno states that “the authenticity of vocal sound declines as if the singer were being distanced more and more from the apparatus” (Curves 48). The reproduction of the voice removes it from the body it originates from. The absence of the body does not allow us to experience the voice with the same “certainty”. Thus in the case of a reproduced voice the association of authenticity is removed from it.
However, in the Intelevator the passengers lose their trust in the elevator voice when they start to realize that a body is in fact present from which the voice is produced. The fact that the reliability of the elevator voice declines when an actual person or body is producing that voice thus presents a paradox. The counterpart of this paradox is found in the fact that an inauthentic voice without a body present would thus be presumed to be the most reliable.
This brings into question how we relate to an anonymous source. In his essay What is an author? Foucault describes how stories used to be told without having to refer to an individual author and how the individual author became increasingly important in order to be able to hold someone accountable for a written text. However, about contemporary writing he states: “the writing of our day has freed itself from the necessity of ‘expression’: it only refers to itself…This reversal transforms writing into an interplay of signs, regulated less by the content it signifies than by the very nature of the signifier” (300). The discourse of writing would thus be regulated more by the nature of the written word than by what it signifies. Additionally, writing has freed itself from the necessity of expression and thus of the intention of the author. This, he perceives, has led the author to become a “transcendental anonymity” (302).
Similarly, we could say that the elevator voice is anonymous and that its anonymity is the result of the sounds being regulated by an electronic device rather than by the physical source of a body in which the voice resides. This transforms the interaction between the voice and the passenger and directs the attention to the words rather than to the person who originally produced them. As Foucault explains the individual author became important in order to hold someone accountable for the written text. This provided the opportunity for the author to be subjected to criticism regarding his or her credibility (Author). In the case of an anonymous source there is no such opportunity. However, this also means that the question of credibility remains unquestioned. By not being able to question the information distributed by an anonymous source, the information would appear to be objective. A Relation of Power
The above can be seen as a process of objectification. Within a Foucaultian analysis of power these modes of objectification are forms of rationalization which can lead to excesses of political power (Subject 326-328). The apparent objectivity of the voice thereby starts to reveal itself as a force of domination. This becomes clear for instance when one of the passengers wants to make a photograph and the elevator states that it is prohibited to take photographs, which causes the passenger to put away his camera. The elevator voice is able to make him obey the rules set by the voice itself.
Thus the objectification of information by an anonymous voice is able to exert power over its listeners and influence their behaviour. An anonymous reproduced voice often distributes reliable information. However, errors do occur. Though not as influential in the elevator itself, in other situations the
inability to argue with a reproduced voice can pose possible threats. Statistics have shown that many road accidents are caused by driver distraction, which is often caused by navigation systems (Peissner
& Doebler). The images below (Wabash) show situations where car navigation has led drivers into dangerous situations, leading them into a body of water or a road that is too narrow for the vehicle. The Telegraph reported on 21July 2008 that within the UK satellite navigation systems have caused up to 300,000 accidents. According to the article, a survey had found that of the 14 million drivers (half of Britain's driving population), who used satellite navigation,
“1.5 million drivers admitted performing sudden manoeuvres or changing direction because they were following the devices' directions, while five million said they had driven the wrong way down a one-way street…One in five of the 2,000 motorists polled blamed the gadget for making them hesitate on a busy road and lose track of the traffic, while more than one in 50 said it had caused or nearly caused an accident” (Simpson).
Though car navigation can be partly communicated through visual aids, the most important feature is the voice command system. This function is what enables drivers to keep their eyes on the road while being told where to go. The abovementioned statistics show how auditory input can put the listener in a dangerous position when the listener follows the instructions of the navigation voice. The voice is revealed as a source of power and a possible form of domination. Thus the relationship between the disembodied voice and its listeners becomes a relation of power.
As discussed above, the power of this voice is enhanced by its anonymity and apparent objectivity. In analysing relationships of power Foucault states that: “Relationships of communication imply goal-directed activities” and that power relations “are exercised to an exceedingly important extent, through the production and exchange of signs; and they are scarcely separable from goal-directed activities that permit the exercise of a power” (Subject 338). In this case a sign would entail a word and the way it is conveyed, which forms the relationship of communication in which the subject is told what to do. The objectification of the information distributed by the voice points towards goal-directed activities in the form of commands, which permit the exercise of power over obedient car drivers.
It would seem that the invention of the car or elevator initially created a new-found freedom in terms of mobility. The obedience of car drivers or elevator passengers thus paradoxically results from a new-found freedom in terms of mobility. In Foucaultian terms freedom is the prerequisite of a power relation. “Power is exercised only over free subjects, and only insofar as they are free” (Subject 342). Here we must, however, make a distinction between domination and a power relation. A relation of power as discussed by Foucault is a power relation with a “subject who acts” (340). It is only through various possibilities of conduct that the subject can be directed. A power relation would thus not necessarily have a negative connotation. It is in a relation of power that the subject is able to revolt. However there are still aural forms of domination and violence against which the subject is not able to revolt. In this respect music might be a more adequate object of investigation. The power of music can reach a state of domination, to which the detained is not able to offer resistance any more. In extreme situations music is also able to endanger the mental state of the listener. David Suisman discusses how sound is used in torture methods at Guantanamo Bay:
"In the hands of the U.S. military, loud music is a weapon and a tactic. The combined effect of the cultural, psychological, and acoustic properties of music is wielded as a blunt
instrument of state power. These examples, representing the ends of the spectrum of modern aural experience, demonstrate that the meaning of music and sound is more than aesthetic and affective. Indeed, they suggest we need a framework for understanding the complex ways that music and sound can inform, structure, and reflect a wide range of other, non-aural concerns as well" (2).
The previous examples have all shown how sound and consequently music have the ability to exert power over our thoughts and actions. They can guide us, but they also have the capacity to endanger and torture us. In the elevator, which I have discussed previously, these capacities are not used to the fullest. However, the potential power which can be exerted by voices similar to the elevator voice is clear. The existence of this potential must therefore mean, that a power relation is already in place. Foucault’s analysis of power relations is subsequently constituted by the investigation of forms of
resistance. The power that music is able to exert over bodies thus leads us to the investigation of the strategies which are employed in order to challenge that power. These strategies will later appear to also be applied in the more common circumstances of urban living.
Chapter 3: Strategy
The ability of sound and music to exert power date back to the tale of Odysseus as he passes the Sirens on his journey. The Sirens’ call would lure men to the shore where their boats would perish on the rocks. Odysseus still wanted to be able to hear the beauty that was claimed to be inherent to the Sirens’ song without being lured towards the shores. Therefore he gave his boatmen wax to put in their ears so they would not hear the Sirens’ call. Subsequently he let the men tie him to the mast of the ship, so he alone would be able to hear the Sirens without being able to steer the ship. Thus Odysseus succeeded in enjoying the beauty of the Sirens’ song and simultaneously escaping death, in contrast to all the others who had ever heard the Sirens’ song (Horkheimer & Adorno 25-34).
Odysseus and the concept of enlightenment
The Sirens’ song is portrayed as powerful music which causes men to plummet to their deaths. The song would produce an overwhelming desire. Thus, just as sight can be understood in terms of scopophilia, sound has its own narrative of desire (Back & Bull 7). In the story of Odysseus, listening would instantly mean being sucked into the imaginary world created by the Sirens. The Sirens call was inescapable: “But the lure of the Sirens remains overpowering. No one who hears their song can escape” (Horkheimer & Adorno 26).
However, the story also portrays mankind as sensitive to music, which might be constituted through the preconception of the ear as defenceless. It has been argued that the ear is the most vulnerable organ, not having an equivalent for the protection that the eyelids, the lips, the nose hairs and general mobility provide for the other senses. As Murray Schafer notes: “We have no ear lids. We are condemned to listen” (25). This inevitability of hearing would lead us to believe that sounds have greater influence on our consciousness. As Bishop Berkely stated: "sounds are as close to us as our thoughts". Thus the relation between the subject and the sounds that surround it, is an intimate relation.
According to Adorno, through reproduced sound we are alone together creating an experience of ‘we-ness’ that we may experience by ourselves. Therefore voices coming from the radio and other voice-activated technologies can also be seen to produce desire (Schema). By substituting a human interaction it could comfort the listener in his loneliness and simultaneously increase the desire for human interaction which is lacking. Just as previously mentioned, progress and regression appear inherent to the same process of adaptation to technology.
As we have seen in the examples of satellite navigation and the story of Odysseus, both reproduced voices and the voices of the Sirens are able to pose threats to those who listen to them. In the story of Odysseus strategies of defying these threatening influences are revealed. Odysseus ties himself up and in doing so succeeds in outwitting the Sirens by allowing himself to experience their song without the
risk of being pulled in too far. He is alone with the sound of the Sirens when this happens since the other boatmen are not able to hear anything.
Horkheimer & Adorno have characterised the escape of Odysseus from the forces of the Sirens as an “allegory of the dialectic of enlightenment” (27). As Odysseus regresses through his confined position, he simultaneously succeeds in constituting a form of enlightenment by outsmarting the Sirens. One of the first philosophers to write about the concept of enlightenment was Immanuel Kant. His conception of enlightenment was, however, an entirely progressive one, or as Foucault puts it: “Kant defines Aufklärung in an almost entirely negative way, as an Ausgang, an “exit”, a “way out” (Enlightenment 305). Enlightenment would release us from a state of “immaturity” which makes us accept someone else’s authority (305). Foucault himself, however, believed that “there is not much likelihood of learning anything new” (303). However, he does acknowledge: “the critical task still entails faith in Enlightenment; I continue to think that this task requires work on our limits, that is, a patient labor giving form to our impatience for liberty” (319).
Portable audio technology
In relation to the story of Odysseus, Michael Bull and Les Back characterise his clever solution as the “first description of the privatization of experience through sound” (Bull & Back 9). It is through this private experience of sound that he is capable of escaping its dire consequences. The private experience of sound and music is omnipresent now since portable music was first introduced in the Walkman. Studies on media consumption have demonstrated how this form of music consumption can create feelings of omnipotence within realms of dependency (Bull Thinking, Livingstone). Such a realm of dependency can be seen in travel, where the passenger has to sit or stand still for a certain length of time in a confined space together with other passengers. Thus the strategy of Odysseus as applied in these circumstances has a reversed objective. Instead of escaping the song through physical confinement, passengers escape the strain of physical confinement through the creation of a private auditory experience.
This strategy is experienced as something that protects one’s sense of personal space. As one participant in a survey said: “Personal space. I think personal space is gone, in town anyway. Everyone’s packed in. I think it’s inverted. Because I think your personal space is inside, in the music. You can be in a crowd in town and everybody’s crunching up. If you listen to your Walkman, it doesn’t really matter that someone’s pushing up behind you” (Paul) (Bull 2004; 184-185). Even though someone’s actual personal space is limited, they are still able to experience a different form of personal space through their consumption of music. This sense of personal space would be inverted. Michael Bull argues that through not interacting with the environment, the Walkman user is able to colonise and appropriate that environment. "If consumers are seeking ontological security through
consumption, then the consumption of sound is highly successful in operationalizing this desire. States of "we-ness" are indeed states of ontological security" (188). This illustrates how the crisis of a lack of personal space and the crisis of intimacy and anonymity in the city is challenged through the fabrication of a private sound bubble.
Arguably, the strategies of consumers to create a private auditory experience confirms the existence of a struggle within a power relation. In the attempt to understand the inner workings of a power relation, Foucault applies a method of “taking forms of resistance as a starting point” (Subject 329). Thus “it consists of analyzing power relations through the antagonism of strategies” (329). The types of resistance he investigates are not so much directed towards a power of a specific institution, but rather to a technique of power. In the circumstances of the urban environment, these strategies could be directed towards techniques of power which are exercised through confinement and being told what to do by an anonymous voice. As discussed before these techniques of power are practised through modes of objectification and rationalisation. The question arises as to what the consumer is able to change in the power relation through these strategies. Foucault describes an aspect of the forms of resistance against techniques of power:
“They are struggles that question the status of the individual. On the one hand, they assert the right to be different and underline everything that makes individuals truly individual. On the other hand, they attack everything that separates the individual, breaks his links with others, splits up community life, forces the individual back on himself, and ties him to his own identity in a constraining way” (Subject 330).
Seemingly, the fabrication of a private sonic environment would appear a productive way of appropriating an environment and providing resistance against the techniques of power in urban living conditions. On the other hand this form of resistance also isolates the individual and prevents him from interacting with other people or his environment.
This results in the fact that people wearing headphones are often not fully aware of their surroundings. Up to 17 accidents every day in Britain involve people listening to digital music players, the Daily Mail reported in 2010. These ‘podestrians’ thus pose a possible threat to themselves and others through their sonic isolation. Moreover, the sonic isolation of pedestrians has led to a vulnerability to unexpected violence and assaults by perpetrators (KomoNews).
Thus it becomes questionable if this specific strategy is beneficial to the listener and to achieving some form of enlightenment in the form of working on our limits. It seems this strategy is rather a way of coping and complying with the given circumstances through the illusion of a free imaginative space, than finding a way of reducing the state of dependency or materialising a change in those circumstances. Instead of challenging sources of power through confrontation, portable audio
technology provides the subject with the means to internally discipline itself and to adapt to the power of progress and thus the progress of power. However, music may still be able to materialise a change in circumstances when it is practised in public.
Chapter 4: The musical voice
Kant stressed the importance of reasoning to be used freely and publicly. When one makes a private use of reason, one is simply a cog in a machine and accepts someone else’s authority. The use of reason therefore needs to be made public. There would only be Enlightenment when the universal, free and public uses of reason are superimposed on one another. Thus a public use of reason would be able to constitute a form of work on our limits. As another form of physical expression, a public performance of music might have similar potential.
Martin Creed’s Elevator
At the Southbank Centre in London in 2010, as a centrepiece of the Chorus festival, artist Martin Creed was invited to create a version of his Work No. 409 especially for the JCB glass elevator in the Royal Festival Hall. During visitors’ journeys they were accompanied by the recorded voices of Voicelab singers, rising in pitch as the elevator ascended and falling in pitch as the elevator descended. The project held auditions for participants who were to provide the singing voices and daily concerts were organised inside the elevator.
Like the Intelevator, it is a glass elevator. The ascending and descending scales in the voices intensify the experience of going up and down. The voices therefore confront the passengers with these often feared movements in the vertical sphere. Simultaneously the situation confronts the passenger again with its physical confinement and dependency on this technological device.
How might this musical work be seen to challenge these circumstances? In line with Kant’s views on enlightenment, the ability to criticise or physically express oneself is made public. In this light the most evident example is the organising of concerts inside the elevator. By performing music publicly, the space of the elevator is appropriated and the situation inside the elevator is effectively changed. This element of moving into the public sphere can also be found in the recorded voices.
The recorded voices occupy the place where one voice would previously have had the authority to distribute information. This authoritarian voice is thus removed and replaced by a variety of voices which are produced by the singers who were chosen from the auditions. The fact that the voices are still recorded can be seen as an attempt to recreate the usual circumstances in the elevator and to challenge the power of the elevator voice within its own domain. The only problem appears to be that this source of power is in fact not confronted, but removed. Thus the voices do not interact with the elevator voice. The result appears to be a successful appropriation of the space, but an unsuccessful challenge to the elevator voice.
Nevertheless, the fact that anyone could audition to be one of the voices does establish that the voices were formed by the public and therefore they appear more democratic. Additionally, the fact these
voices were recorded shortly before their reproduction in the vicinity of the work also reduces the distance between the singers and the listeners. The split between subject and object is reduced as well by this. As this split was seen as one of the core problems of enlightenment (Horkheimer & Adorno), this public work can be seen to have challenged this problem.
This attempt to bring subject and object together is also reflected in the fact that the voices are musical. Instead of speaking, the multiple voices are singing. It is in music that one is able to be both the producer and listener at the same time. In contrast to verbal communication, where communication occurs in sequence and the verbal expression of one person would conflict with that of another when speaking at the same time, the singing of one person does not necessarily conflict with the singing of another person. In fact, numerous people singing simultaneously can create a harmony.
Inherent to the singing voice is an acquired musical and physical skill. In relation to aural forms of power, these skills can therefore be seen to constitute a form of resistance or work on our limits. The ways in which music is able to change a situation may direct us to the possibility of perceiving music as a political technology of the body.
Music as a political technology of the body
Musicianship is often perceived to have similarities with athletics. They both require physical exercise, many hours of practice and they are both performed. Both in athletics and music, technical advancement and virtuosity play an important role in creating a convincing and effective performance. Virtuosity seeks new forms of movement and new sounds. Especially in the 19th
century, virtuosic development and the abilities of the body appeared to attract interest.
In 1896 the first modern Olympic Games took place. This appears to indicate an increased interest in the body and its ultimate physical potential (Pope). The virtuoso soloist was also a characteristic feature of the music scene in the 19th century. The violinist was an instrumental soloist frequently seen
at the time. Many of the most virtuosic repertoire for violin was written during the 19th and first half
of the 20th century. A performer who is considered to have brought a pivotal moment to the history of
virtuosity is the violinist Nicolò Paganini (Palmer). In his research on a performance of Paganini, David Palmer argues that “virtuosity—as the “art” of brilliant skill—is valued by its audience because it transfigures their ideals concerning the potentialities of human expressive power” (342). Thus virtuosity would be able to create new modes of physical expression.
These developments can be seen in connection to the history of punishment and the emergence of the prison (Foucault, Discipline). What Foucault has succeeded in portraying is how discipline and punishment have become increasingly internalised to mould subjects into 'docile bodies' that can
function within the structure of society. This development has been shaped by the emergence of the prison in the 18th and 19th century. Foucault concludes:
“…there may be a ‘knowledge’ of the body that is not exactly the science of its functioning, and a mastery of its forces that is more than the ability to conquer them: this knowledge and this mastery constitute what might be called the political technology of the body” (26). This political technology of the body is constituted by dividing practices, for instance between criminals and the “good boys” (Subject 326). Thus the birth of the prison and the sentence of imprisonment have shaped the ways people move in society, because they implicitly suggest what can be considered good behaviour. It is the mastery of the forces of the body that may thus be seen as a possibility of competing or keeping up with political technologies of the body.
This results in virtuosity becoming a political technology of the body as well. As is evidently inherent to the term, virtuosity points to a quality or ‘virtue’. The counterpart of imprisonment and condemnation is the virtuous. “The laws that define the crime and lay down the penalties must be perfectly clear, ‘so that each member of society may distinguish criminal actions from virtuous actions” (Brissot, 24 in Foucault, Discipline 95). Artistic practice and virtuosity within the field of music are widely appreciated and considered a virtue. Whereas the previously mentioned example dealt with European classical music, these artistic practices do not limit themselves to this domain. Similar practices of virtuosity can be found in a wide range of musical practices, ranging from jazz to African drumming.
These technically advanced artistic practices have created an independent set of rules in relation to how the body should move. By acting through this set of rules and by exceeding them with technical skill, new modes of movement and physical expression are uncovered. Thus the power which is exerted over the body, receives an answer through the body itself.
Regarding the power relation, Foucault stresses the importance of strategies of confrontation:
“most important is the relationship between power relations and confrontation strategies. For, it is true that at the heart of power relations and as a permanent condition of their existence there is an insubordination and a certain essential obstinacy on the part of the principles of freedom” (346)
In the case of music and athletics, the over-disciplining of the body forms a strategy which is more confrontational. Rather than hiding away for the forces of power in a private bubble, the power which is exerted over the body is challenged within the body itself. It is only through these types of confrontations that “effects of power” could be constituted (Foucault, Subject). This can thus be seen as a strategy which is more productive in realising effects of power.
Conclusion
What has been questioned in this study is how the relation between a human and a reproduced voice may be characterised. New forms of technology, such as elevators, voice reproduction and voice recognition, have the ability to amaze us with their modern features and novelty. However, they also have the ability to endanger and exert power over us. Both physical and psychological confinement appear to be the result of these modern novelties where one is transported and directed by machines. The subject or passenger attempts to escape this sense of confinement by creating a private imaginary space in which one is again transported. The result, however, is a further confinement and a split between a subjective and physical reality. As a strategy for challenging the sense of confinement or as a form of enlightenment it can still be seen to have an inherent regression, the dangers of which are able to exceed the benefits.
What has been questioned subsequently is what the role of music might be when placed in a public setting. It appears that a public form of enlightenment, or rather a public form of ‘work on our limits’, is more productive in constituting a change of circumstances and effects of power. In a public setting, music is able to bring the abovementioned subjective and physical reality together again. In contrast to speech, music can allow multiple voices to be heard. This opens up the possibility for a single body to contribute and establish small changes in the bundle of sound.
Simultaneously, music is able to constitute a form of working on our limits, which challenges political technologies of the body within the body itself. Besides constituting a public confrontation, it also presents us with an inherent confrontation between the limitations and liberties of the body. Thus music is also capable of producing effects of power through working on the limits of physical expression of the human body.
Finally, the question remains what the notion of enlightenment or what working on our limits may be able to achieve in terms of producing shifts in power relations. As stated by Horkheimer and Adorno the power of progress and the progress of power are intricately linked to each other. Thus it seems that working on our limits always affirms existing or constitutes new power relations and that power relations force us to work on our limits. Working on our limits may therefore be able to realise changes in circumstances, but they may not be able to change the fact that forms of power and power relations will always remain in place. In a performance of music we might see this continuous development in the fleeting present which determines the expectation for the future, but from which we are also constantly estranged. Thus it presents a continuity of progress and regression in which regression does not exceed progress and it provides us with the hope for a form of enlightenment which is balanced between the two.
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