Video Vortex Reader II: moving images beyond YouTube

40 Video Vortex Reader II Moving Images Beyond Youtubetheory & aesthetics41act upon it. This is exactly why the institutional power of Wikileaks (and all the attention it getsfrom other news media) is so important, and also why it is so heavily under attack. It is simplytoo hard to deal with it on one’s own. Instead, we indulge in the spurring movement of theweb: we keep on clicking, investigating, searching for new information, until we forget what itwas that we discovered. 9 We tend to ignore the uncomfortable truth. Or we resign ourselvesto it, as one of the many dissonances of life.Still from Because We Are Visual (2010). Courtesy of artists Olivia Rochette and Gerard-Jan Claes.attacks, or the incriminating documents on WikiLeaks. Whereas documentary film seemsto have lost its truthfulness in the era of docusoaps, mockumentaries and reality television,amateur video often retains a nostalgic air of a truthful visual document. Footage such as theassault of Rodney King, which provoked the Los Angeles riots, has the air of an uncut andshocking reality, especially when we find such footage ourselves among the sea of videos onthe web. What is special about web video documents is that their credibility depends on theviewer’s willingness to accept their authenticity, as there is no guarantee that they are notstaged or manipulated. Authenticity, then, become a matter of personal belief. In spite of theirauthority, we often distrust professionals paid by news services. Conversely, we are willing tobelieve amateurs because they are people just like us. In this respect, there is a crucial shiftin the way the screen functions as a truth-procedure. The critical viewer developed a healthysuspicion of television networks – because we were dependent on their authority, mistrustbecame an important strategy. We learned to ask: What do they want us to believe? Are theyholding back something? Is there an important lobby involved that tries to conceal informationfor the viewer? In the case of the web, however, the truth is often not just ‘out theresomewhere’; it is often simply there, repeatedly, right in front of our eyes.For the most part, our browsing attitude seems to prevent us from putting two and twotogether: we gather bits and pieces of information, but forget to come to a conclusion. In away, the surfer’s experience often mimics CCTV. We are constantly observing everything, everywhere,but the incentive to reflect properly and respond accurately to what we are seeingremains absent. Despite the attempts of activists to organize grassroots movements, such asweb communities fighting for web neutrality, and committed Facebook groups, the collectivelevel remains virtual, a big but blind mob. Thousands of page views, yes, but nothing else –just an anonymous collection of individuals that silently share some information. As a result,world leaders such as President Bush and his ‘weapons of mass destruction’ or his denial ofthe U.S. Army committing torture can fool the public by claiming that ‘further investigation isneeded’, even while the damaging information is out in the open on the web. World leadersand business oligarchs get away with their deceptions because there is no genuine collectiveresponse, only dissent between believers and non-believers. For many years, activistsdenounced the funding given by the Total Oil corporation to the military junta in Burma. Hereis a clear-cut case for activism which would normally be quite effective; almost everybodyis against this brutal dictatorship, and we all can easily take action by means of a boycottof Total Oil. Nonetheless, because of the abundance of news information, commercials andentertainment programs, the activist potential perished within a kind of collective amnesia. 10The ‘good cause’ is shouted down by the clamour of the mass media. In sum, as a democratizedmedium, web video takes part in a process of the virtualization of truth. Ultimately, thisleads to a situation of schizophrenia: a lot of hard facts circulate freely, but on an individualbasis it is hard to accept them as such. The mediation of truth seems to have shifted frommanipulation, to fragmentation, and finally to castration.The Screen as GeneratorFrom Document to SimulacraHow can the screen generate its own reality? First of all, screen images are in themselves newfeatures: they are newly created elements that invade our world and provide virtual exten-The problem is that such encounters became a subjective matter. For instance, when webump into a confronting web video report, this ‘truth’ is not revealed to us on a public level, asin the case of television. Despite the fact that a lot of companions online might have discoveredthe same information, its disclosure is not genuinely ‘public’ as, due to the solitariness ofthis experience, a collective response largely remains absent. Despite the frequently successfuland important ‘power to the people’ ideology of the web, there is usually no actual outcryin which we can take part: no demonstrations in the streets, no journalists continuouslyinvestigating and reporting the issues at stake. Because of the lack of collective response, weare usually unable to really accept the disclosure of the confronting information, let alone to9. Thomas Elseasser has developed a clarifying analysis of the web user’s paradoxical state ofconsciousness: ‘Right next to the euphoria and epiphany, then, there is the heat-death ofmeaning, the ennui of repetition and of endless distraction: in short, the relentless progress ofentropy that begins to suck out and drain away all life’ See Thomas Elsaesser, ‘“ConstructiveInstability”, or: The Life of Things as the Cinema’s Afterlife?’ in Geert Lovink and Sabine Niederer(eds) Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube, Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures,2008, p. 30.10. For more information: see the documentary Total Denial (www.totaldenialfilm.com) or go tovideo.google.com/videoplay.