[Xmca-l] Re: Unreading Althusser

[mike cole]

​I am interested, Michael.
lchcmike@gmail.com
mike​

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 9:21 AM, Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu>
wrote:

> The student couldn't do videos even though that was her original intent
> because of IRB problems (it is based on a PAR study using videos in a small
> Canadian town).  So she just developed a performance troupe.  I don't feel
> comfortable putting up her work without her permission but if anybody is
> interested I can give you some information off-line.
>
> Michael
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces+mglassman=ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu
> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces+mglassman=ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu] On
> Behalf Of mike cole
> Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2015 12:10 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unreading Althusser
>
> ​Hi Michael ---  Glad my earlier query concerning "video gallery"
> facilities finally made sense.
> Would it be possible to see your student's video? Is it on Youtube?
> mike​
>
> On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 7:11 AM, Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi Annalise,
> >
> > I am not sure I understand your correlation between the video programs
> > and kitsch.  It seems to me Morten Nissen is critiquing the
> > establishment view of the videos on a number of levels, while still
> > trying to suggest that they are a better method than the more
> > individualistic, traditional therapies of motivational interviewing
> > and cognitive behavioral therapy.  I can really sympathize, having
> > spent a number of years on a research project comparing motivational
> > interviewing, CBT and treatment as usual (spoiler alert, neither of
> > the interventions have any real impact).  And yet that is all we do.
> >
> > U-turn suggests a new method, except at least it seems to me Nissen
> > fears it falling into similar traps.  One of the traps is treating the
> > video as an object that forces reconsideration of the user's - in this
> > case Birren - life structure leading to drug addiction - at least I
> > think that is what Nissen is saying.  That the video becomes something
> > controlled by the therapy community rather than integrated into the
> > larger life scheme of the user.  But I see this as a really complex
> > argument.  Yes, the way that Nissen describes this - as an advanced
> > form of video story telling with trained videographers it does easily
> > become an object rather than part of the processes of life.  Whose
> > video is it, the user's, the videographer's, the therapist's, the
> > social work community establishment.  But I think much of this has to
> > do with understanding the role of this type of video storytelling,
> > which is more about the community, what Nissen I think refers to as
> > the collective than the individual (I think this point is kind of made
> at the end of the article).
> >
> > But what if it could be a different type of video, made from start to
> > finish by Birren and other users.  Mike's earlier request for programs
> > where individuals can easily make videos makes much more sense.  A
> > student working on our research project did her dissertation within a
> > participatory action research format in which she organized the
> > homeless youth/users (the study was about addiction among homeless
> youth) into a performance truth.
> > She also was looking to create the performance as an object that would
> > lead to reflection on the structure of their lives, but I think in a
> > much more grass roots, genuine way.
> >
> >
> > Michael
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:
> > xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Annalisa Aguilar
> > Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2015 2:42 AM
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unreading Althusser
> >
> > Hello esteemed xmcars,
> >
> > I have done a quick reading of Morten Nissen's chapter and I would
> > like to proffer that what he describes with the video production as a
> > form of therapy for the drug addict (as sponsored by state programs),
> > does resemble to me the very kind of interactions that happened to
> > create the Kitsch in Art and how it came to be that Kitsch is the
> > favorite art of dictators (see my previous post in this thread, in
> > particularly I suggest in this context the essay by Greenberg as well as
> the WSJ article).
> >
> > It is as if what is considered hopeful (helpful), what is considered
> > therapeutic(empowering), which is done to transcend the past and the
> > future by being in the present, all that is erased by collapsing what
> > is meaningful into a formula of the unique or of sentiment (in this
> > case, hope), a kind of Möbius strip of experience as possibility,
> > which ends up becoming meaningless. Is the glass half full or half empty?
> >
> > I'm being a more than a little intuitive here, knowing that I may not
> > be walking on terra firma, which may not be very smart as I risk the
> > concrete blocks of "dogma" crashing around my head: It is easy to
> > label the original as dogma if one has adopted the stance of kitsch, I
> am realizing.
> >
> > Despite that risk, I sense similar patterns to Nissen's paper and
> > notions of kitsch (and how kitsch is created), and while I'm unsure at
> > this point of time if this observation has merit, I offer it for
> > discussion with the best of intentions.
> >
> > Kind regards,
> >
> > Annalisa
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an
> object that creates history. Ernst Boesch.
>
>


-- 
It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an object
that creates history. Ernst Boesch.