by Jon Lackman | 8 November 2007 | Uncategorized
The August 2007 issue of the Journal of Visual Culture is devoted to “Detritus and the Moving Image.” Caetlin Benson-Allott writes on VCRs, specifically
… a Panasonic 4-Head, Hi-Fi Stereo VHS VCRplus+. Its name appears in gold letters across the VCR’s faceplate, which is otherwise visually dominated by an oblong flap in the middle of its horizontal axis. This lip, which submits easily to the most casual digital penetration, is flanked on either side by two rows of buttons (‘Power,’ ‘VCR/TV,’ ‘STOP,’ ‘REW,’ and the like) that angle up, out, and away from the central orifice in graceful arches materially underscored by a pair of shallow valleys. The faceplate thus resembles Gustave Courbet’s infamous nude, L’origine du monde, which also represents itself to its viewer as a reverential reproduction of the female genitalia and their reproductive capacity …
With its feminized faceplate and technological interdependency, the VCR dismantles the fantasy of the autonomous, masculine apparatus and leaves in its place a new sexual indeterminacy.
(Just as writing on trash need not itself be garbage, writing on boredom need not be boring. In the latest Journal of Ritual Studies (21:1), Charles W. Nuckolls writes on “Boring Rituals.” “Boredom functions as a defense against the eruption of destructive impulses caused by ambivalence over the simultaneous desire for and rejection of new ways.” Contemplate that at your next boring faculty meeting.)
