Architecture, Media and Communication
Q1
Jacques Ranciere’s “Distribution of the Sensible” and Tony Bennett’s “Exhibitionary Complex” suggest that the spatial and optical ordering behavior and experience plays a decisive role in the distribution of social and political power in any given culture at any time. The distribution of the sensible generally reveals who is allowed to have a share of the common things in the community based on what they do and depending on the space and time for which the activity is performed. For Ranciere, the “distribution of the sensible” is not only tied to the declension of aesthetic regimes but also to the concept of democracy and therefore also to the political redistribution (Walker 42). A study by Foucault analyses the dissensual of equals that states that an age does not pre-exist the statements, which express it nor the visibilities, which fill it. This implies that from generation to generation there is exhibited the changes in distribution due to changes in the visibility of the styles. Thus, due to movement from one stratum to another, there is variation in that is experienced based on composition and combination (Teather 259).
Ranciere insists on the community of equal guided by the facts of intelligence equality and this has helped people to undertake and understand the potential that lies in the field of artistic research. Guided by this knowledge, Ranciere did not view himself as been superior to the audience to which he used to speak to and went even to an extra mile to work for the individuals who had earlier prophesied that he was deemed to fade like a season (Walker 45).
This implies that full attention should be given to artistic research by ensuring that we take care of the other people’s feelings regardless of the arbitrariness of language or the resistance that might be fronted to whatever work one is undertaking. Ranciere concluded that there is no possible society but there is only the society that exists. In an interview, Ranciere argued that his work was not only concerned about going besides the disciplines but of breaking them as his interest was about distribution of boundaries that is used in the society to decide who is worth to speak about what (John 201).
Bennett in his discussion of Exhibitionary complex has clearly drawn a distinction between the institutions of confinement like prisons and institutions of exhibition like the museums. Bennett makes it clear on how museums can contribute to the power negotiation in a society to ensure that the ruling class hegemony is maintained. Basically, by availing the institutions and exhibitions to the public, the society gets an illusion of power over such institutions (Teather 280).
Generally, the world of politics revolves around what the society is able to visualize as well as what can be said about it, the ability to see and the talent to express one’s views in the public is a key determinant in politics. Political struggle is as result of the marginalized in the community realizing the atrocities committed to them and taking the bold step forward to make their identity recognized through airing their views and concerns, so that their concerns can be recognized as legitimate and addressed (John 202).
Therefore, it can be said that politics is usually a struggle between the established social order and its excluded part, which has no part. The social order is perceived as an anti-democratic as it aims at maintaining the already existing patterns of inclusions and exclusion. Politics can be viewed as fronting opposition to the police order, through which the people or the region that has been excluded tries to advocate for change by airing their views and concerns in order to be able to convince the authority to act and reconfigure the distribution of the sensible. The ability for the excluded to front their views to the relevant authority will solely depend on whether the affected group has the ability to see the injustices committed against them and whether they have a talented leader who can speak on their behalf.
Q2
Justin Clemins argues that the very concept of media by definition presumes that there are media and since digital converges all media into single state, then by definition the concept of media simply disappears which indicates that the data is the Great Leveler. Monism in its classical form states that there is only one substance and therefore differentiation must be accounted for in terms other than those provided by the substance itself (John 2013). The digital ontology can thus be disputed because it is not possible to speak of undifferentiated data if we go by this rule.
The digital data is not numerical, magnetic material is basically necessary to store data and thus the digital is a model of logic rather than a specific technology. Generally, a computer is an enactment of the electronic and magnetic logic and this makes it difficult to ever identify any specific being of the digital data. This is so because the data moves between the various computer components back and forth during various processes and these movements present a constant process of modulation between states of magnetic polarity. Therefore, it is impossible to deduce that any given digital data is even equivalent to itself due to various transitional states involved, or even be able to accurately point to its location or appearance in the world as a criterion or determinant of its identity, because it constantly moves from the disks, RAM, caches and registers on the CPU.
Data must be modulated; there exists no meaningful difference between sound, an image or a video until once more, that data is modulated into a display register. Basically there exists no ontological reason why any set of given digital data should be modulated into any display state and thus, this contingency is what founds the necessity for the software studies. When modulating data into display state, therefore experiencing it as an image, it is not possible to deduce that it is the same. Within any digital system, the environment itself can be viewed as the digital data and the modulation makes it possible to have multiple display states through various protocols. Unless an element is modulated into a particular display state, it usually exists as un-modulated digital data that has no clear ontological state.
The digital universe is founded upon local pure binaries without identity and data can be viewed as comprising sets of digital differences that do not have a differentiated identity. Display is actually because of the modulation of data and what viewed as media is basically the diverse modulations performed on the data according to technical display or storage protocols. Therefore, it can be seen that the logic makes it possible to propose the absolutely minimal difference as pure being itself, mathematics makes it possible to establish how such outlined differences are given a minimum coherence in actuality, while the technics helps in the production and evaluation of their instantiation as operatory machines. Thus, from the above elaborated points, the statement is not true since, speaking of undifferentiated data is to strictly talk false.