As is my wont, I have been thinking about the difference between the cultures of the Barony and the White City. As will no doubt be clear by now to readers of the blog, these two places are cyphers for a difficult-to-elaborate (for me, others may find it more straightforward) series of ideas that I have about image cultures.
This via two foundational texts that I return to again and again in all sorts of contexts: Ornament and Crime by Adolf Loos (CW, Loos was a racist), and On the Marionette Theatre, by Heinrich von Kleist.
In the Barony, there is a material culture focused on ornamentation, fine craft, and bespoke objects made by artisans. They favour worked and detailed surfaces - in particular they make use of brightly coloured lacquering, plateresque and bas-relief detailing of surfaces, worked metal. They are fond of masks, and of elaborate makeup, which most people use to affect a severe, androgynous appearance. Their formal wear is designed around enormously structured and worked-into jackets, which are usually worn with fitted waistcoats and trousers. The most typical cuts are similar to Chanel A/W 2015. People are expected to act with pragmatism - emotional displays are not taboo, but acting out (especially violently) for reasons of honour or personal offence is considered childish and pathetic. There is a healthy countercultural scene with young adults (who are often clinically sociopathic), which delights in reversing and subverting these tenets.
In the White City, there is an image culture - objects are understood to be the material substrate or frame that facilitates the propagation of images. Images are painted, drawn, stamped, stencilled; they are also extensive and recursive, inter-relating and inter-signifying. In the Barony, people have no issue talking about whether or not a painting is beautiful, and most people would consider an ugly or boring painting a failure on its own terms. In the White City, the beauty of a painting is one possible axis of movement, among many. The possibilities of a painting (and of a given image) depend on its placement between other images. The creation of an image is the same as its deployment - deploying images in different contexts would be understood as the creation of new images. An 'image' deployed this way might be a novel, a face, a public discourse, a joke. These operations are not easily comprehensible to people in the Barony. The material culture in the White City, then, is about producing objects that function as frames. An expensive suit of armour from the Barony is a masterpiece of worked metal and colourful lacquered surfaces. An expensive suit of armour in the White City is actually not that expensive (because a high cost would mean less possibility for its broad dissemination into the world - less utility as a frame), will be unadorned and utilitarian, and will feature large flat surfaces onto which images can be inscribed.
Citizens and soldiers of the White City are fond of unbleached linen and unpainted steel, which they can make use of as the substrate that facilitates their personal projects as players of the image game. Status markers are not expensively worked goods, but clever or worldly playing of the game. The conditions of game-playing are (in theory, there are a thousand reasons why this is more complicated in practice) broadly accessible/democratic.
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| Hans Bellmer, 1971 |
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| Unica Zürn, 1968 |
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| Chanel F/W 2015, haute couture collection |
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| Chanel F/W 2015, haute couture collection |
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| Chanel F/W 2015, haute couture collection |
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