Video Vortex Reader II: moving images beyond YouTube

68 Video Vortex Reader II Moving Images Beyond Youtubetheory & aesthetics69no solution in the techniques of ‘distance’ and ‘suppression of distance’ they used. As analternative, Rancière proposes a model in which democratic emancipation is not based onthe group gathering but on the individual trajectory or narrative of everyday experience. Hebelieves that freedom is located in the very capacity of the viewer to associate and dissociate:L’emancipation comme réappropriation d’un rapport à soi perdu dans un processusde séparation. (...) C’est dans le pouvoir d’associer et de dissocier que résidel’émancipation du spectateur, c’est -à -dire, l’émancipation de chacun de nous commespectateur. 14In addition, Rancière writes that,ReferencesBarthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, trans. Richard Howard, London:Vintage, 1993.Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation, trans. Sheila Faria Glaser, Ann Arbor: University ofMichigan Press, 1995.Lovink, Geert. Zero Comments: Blogging and Critical Internet Culture, London: Routledge, 2007.Rancière, Jacques. Le spectateur émancipé, Paris: La Fabrique éditions, 2008.Schneider, Florian. ‘Theses on the Concept of the Digital Simulacrum’, in Anselm Franke (ed.) Animism(Volume 1), Berlin; New York: Sternberg Press, 2010, pp. 54-56.Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others, London: Penguin Books, 2004._____. On Photography. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1977.L’emancipation commence quand on comprend que regarder est aussi une actionqui confirme ou transforme cette distribution des positions. Le spectateur aussi agit,comme l’élève ou le savant. Il observe, il sélectionne, il compare, il interprète. C’est ceque signifie le mot d’émancipation: le brouillage de la frontière entre ceux qui agissentet ceux qui regardent, entre individus et membres d’un corps collectif. 15In the abilities of the spectator to look and show, and in the intermingling of spectators andproducers, Rancière sees emancipative power. This point of view deserves further analysis.How much of the ‘spectator’ remains in the paradigm of the ‘user’? What kind of new relationsbetween viewing, acting and thinking are out there?14. Rancière, Le spectateur émancipé, p.23. Author’s translation: Emancipation, as a reappropriationof the relation with oneself, is lost in a process of separation. (...) The emancipation of thespectator resides in its ability to associate and dissociate, in other words, the emancipation ofeach of us as a spectator.15. Rancière, Le spectateur émancipé, p.19. Author’s translation: Emancipation begins when oneunderstands that looking is also an act confirming or transforming the distribution of positions.The spectator also acts as a pupil or as a scholar. He observes, selects, compares and makesinterpretations. That’s what the word emancipation means: the interference of the bordersbetween those who act and those who look, and between individuals and members of acollective.