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Repetition as Radical Referral: Echo and Narcissus in the Digital Index
“For the tasks which face the human apparatus of perception at the turning points of history
cannot be solved by optical means, that is, by contemplation, alone.”
– Walter Benjamin, 1936.1
Theorists such as Rosalind Krauss and Lev Manovich have described media arts as
defined by the psychological condition of narcissism.2 While such comparisons serve to justify
the inclusion of media art into visual art canon as a continuation of artistic tradition, they fail to
address sonic, haptic, and virtual content of media arts within their particular zones of affect. In
accordance with the myth of Narcissus and Echo, this paper expands visual reflection and
narcissism as methodology for critically articulating media arts through reflexive modes
inspired by aural reflection.
When I speak of narcissism in this paper, I am not strictly speaking to a psychological
condition of self-indulgence. Rather, I define narcissism as a state of self-reflexivity that arises
from the specific set of temporal-spatial relations that characterize mirror reflection. The
reflection that facilitates the narcissist gaze is perceived through conditions of immediacy,
proximity, and continuous renewal—these parameters for reflexivity are located within a stable
system of self in relation to a singular reflective object. In his book Listening, Jean-Luc Nancy
gives a philosophical context for these ideas:
“A self is nothing other than a form or function of referral: a self is made of a
relationship to self…A subject feels: that is his characteristic and his definition. This means
1
Walter Benjamin, “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” (1936) transcribed by Andy Blunden 1998;
proofed and corrected Feb. 2005, accessed September 30th, 2011,
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm.
2
Rosalind Krauss, “Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism” October, Vol. 1 (Spring, 1976), pp. 50-64; Lev
Manovich, The Language of New Media (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002) pp. 254-256; Damiano Pietropaolo, “The
Love Song of Ovid: Part 2”, Ideas (originally broadcast on CBC Radio January 20 & 21, 2010) accessed October
15th 2011, http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/episodes/2010/01/20/the-love-song-of-ovid/, 43:10-49:30.
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that he hears (himself), sees (himself), touches (himself), tastes (himself)…”3
Within this
framework, Narcissus is not so much a naïve victim of self-love, but instead is a subject
compulsively engaged in ocular sensory feedback between self and reflective object. In
analyzing the temporal-spatial aspects of self-reflexivity located in visual perception, one can
engage with narcissism not only as engagement with self-image, but as a mode of reflexivity
that arises through visual relationships with and projections upon stable objects, signs, and
technological media. This reflexive mode is not necessarily counter-productive: in fact, it bears
striking resemblances to early 20th century philosopher Henri Bergson’ description of the
modern consciousness as constructed through a perceiving self interacting with a world of
objects as images, lodged in subjective memory.4
Media arts are often described through a Narcissus-only narrative, which by default
establishes the foundational crisis of media as the conflict between self and image inherited
from the modernist archive of visual arts.5 These narratives are ironic given media art’s lineage
from artistic disciplines such as performance and installation, which contradict and challenge
the self/image dichotomy with sonic, haptic and embodied situations. Descriptions of
reflexivity in relation to narcissistic media thus function within an inadequate but nonetheless
inevitable context of binary relations, essentialist absolutes, Cartesian dualities, and semiotic
language while failing to recognize the reflexive response that arises from sonic and haptic
aspects of media works that escape and contradict these systems.6 While differences in
3
Jean-Luc Nancy, Listening, trans. by Charlotte Mandell (New York: Fordham University Press 2007), 9.
Henri Bergson, "Summary and Conclusion," in Matter and Memory, trans. Nancy Margaret Paul and W. Scott
Palmer (London: George Allen and Unwin (1911)): 299-332.
5
Hal Foster details the history of the modern visual archive as a project of visual spatial organization of
knowledge, based on evolving perceptions of sight. “Archives of Modern Art,” October vol. 99 (Winter 2002), pp.
81-95.
6
Problems with Cartesian dualities in technological culture are described by Anna Munster Materializing New
Media: Embodiment in information aesthetics, ed. Mark J. Williams and Adrian W.B. Randolph (Lebanon:
University Press of New England, 2006) pp. 1-3; Ian Hacking discusses the importance of the Cartesian system to
4
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reflexivity as experienced through media arts are often acknowledged, such as when Lev
Manovich makes the assertion that the interactive and indexical nature of technologies
announce a “different kind” of narcissism, marked by “action rather than contemplation”, they
are not named in relation to Narcissus’ animate, aural counterpart, but instead are lodged
within a vague ocular speculation of otherness.7 This absence of Echo in contemporary
discourse bears uncanny resemblance to Echo’s fate in the original narrative.
The original myth of Narcissus and Echo features two characters. The first character is
the human youth named Narcissus who is in love with his visual reflection as seen in a pool of
water. The second character is a nymph named Echo who loves Narcissus, but due to a preexisting curse, is unable to communicate unless through repetition of his words. One would
think that Echo would provide a perfect romantic partner for a self-obsessed man, however,
Narcissus is psychologically disturbed by the utterances of Echo, and not only rejects her love
but orders her to leave. In grief, Echo flees to the forest never to be seen again. It is said that
her voice remains on earth as a ghostly presence, otherwise known as an echo.8
In contrast to the wealth of discourse surrounding Narcissus and his reflexivity as
rooted in visual perception, a corresponding terminology for narcissism in the aural mode does
not exist. In this essay I will refer to self-reflexive modes that align with aural reflections as
echoist, sometimes referring to a corresponding echoism.
Just as the narcissist-mode need not literally engage with the mirror, the echoist mode
of self-reflexivity that I speak of in this essay does not exclusively refer to aural phenomena,
but rather, the temporal-spatial relationship embodied through the experience of an auralcontemporary discourse on technology and the body in “Our Neo-Cartesian Body in Parts” Critical Inquiry 34
(Autumn 2007), pp. 78-105; also see the technological dissolution of semiotic binaries in N. Katherine Hayles
“Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifiers”, October 66 (Fall 1993), pp. 69-91.
7
Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002) pp. 254-256.
8
Horace Gregory, trans., Ovid: The Metamorphoses (New York: Penguin Books, 2001), 73-77.
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reflection. In contrast to the continuous and linear reflexivity of the mirror, the echo is
perceived as a discrete sonic event that begins and ends, interrupting the flow of continuous
action with an aural repetition that implies time doubling back upon itself. The backwards bend
of time is a physical phenomenon: the temporal space between utterance and its return awakens
the self to its location in an environmental context. When the aural reflection becomes too
proximate, physical and temporal realms collapse: the echo is perceived as a reverberation.
This perception of an aural reflection in intimate relation to the self is not that of a doubled,
intimate self, but rather, that of the self’s enlarged voice—the aural reflection is absorbed,
rendering a narcissist relation impossible. The echo’s chief difference from the visual reflection
is the articulation of temporal spatial distance, resulting in an alienating reflection that disturbs
the self into a critical awareness. This mode is not a state of continuous seduction and desiring
proximity, but one that shocks temporal logic through an unexpected repetition in time.
While much attention has been paid to the changing face of Narcissistic contemplation
in technology, the absence of Echo in these narratives points to a larger absence of extra-ocular
reflexivity in visual arts canon. In the space between mythological narrative and scientific fact,
I pose the question: what effect has recording technologies had upon the temporal-spatial
distance of aural reflexivity, and how have media artists demonstrated these changes since the
emergence of media arts in the last half of the 20th century? In order to critically apprehend
echoism in relation to the well-established concept of narcissism, I analyze media works by
Richard Serra, Michael Snow, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Olia Lialina, and Frank and Eva
Mattes by focusing on their temporal and spatial qualities in relation to self-reflexivity.
Revisiting Krauss: The voice of Echo within ocular-logical video
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In her 1976 essay “Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism”, Rosalind Krauss provides a
sophisticated analysis of video art through the lens of a Narcissist condition.9 One of the works
she analyzes in this essay is Richard Serra’s video Boomerang (1974).10 Within this video,
Nancy Holt listens to headphones as they return the sound of her voice with equal forcefulness
to her own, but with the addition of a small lag. Boomerang illustrates the technological
transformation of an echo into an assertive vocal force that challenges narcissist reflexivity.
Through this method the echo of Krauss’ voice is made as proximate and intimate as possible
to the speaking subject in real-time. While Krauss’ essay focuses on narcissistic, mirror-based
interpretation of this work, Holt’s alienation from her voice is an equally important topic.
Krauss’ engagement with the mirror points to traditions of artistic analysis rooted in
objecthood—while not incorrect, this methodology assimilates the audio recording into the
muted realm of the ocular-centric.11 This absorption of audio into the visual mode is ironic
given that video recording technologies proceeded from the magnetic tape first used in audio
recording.12 This technological lineage of recording is a crucial one in relation to the aural’s
position in media arts.
It was through the audio recording at the turn of the 19th century that one first
encountered technological distance between self and mediated self. Through audio recording,
the voice was not connected to a reverberant, physical body, but instead emanated from a
technological body into the physical landscape. While Douglas Kahn describes the audio
9
Krauss, “Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism”, pp. 52.
Richard Serra, Boomerang (1974) accessed September 1, 2011,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5S3_dmj8BU.
10
11
Douglas Kahn, “Audio Art in the Deaf Century”, Sound by Artists, ed. Dan Lander and Michah Lexier
(Toronto: Art Metropole, 1990), 302-303.
12
Bill Viola, Reasons for Knocking at an Empty House—Writings 1973-1994, ed. Robert Violette (London: MIT
Press and Anthony d’Offay Gallery, 1995), 62.
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recording as that which lodges sound “like an echo without a landscape, in a mechanical
memory,”13 Barry Truax asserts that playback technologies render the human voice
environmental, as the voice replicated by technology is no longer produced by human energy.14
The recording thus reproduces the distance from self that the echo requires for its
apprehension, returning the voice to the landscape through the filter of the technological
device.
Holt speaks into a microphone and describes her experience: (PLAY 0:00-0:40)
Yes I can hear my echo and the words are coming back on, on top of me. The words are
spilling out of my head and then returning into my ear. It puts a distance between the words
and their apprehension, or their comprehension (…) I have a double take on myself. I am
once removed from myself (…) I think that the words forming in my mind are somewhat
detached from my normal thinking process. I have the feeling that I am not where I am. I
feel that this place is removed from reality…
Through the recording, Holt’s echo is unglued from her original body and enforces a
technologically-enabled proximity that is alienating in its closeness. Of primary importance in
this work is Holt’s perception of dilated time, enforced through the recording’s artificial
temporal-spatial distance. Much like Narcissus at the pond, Holt is transfixed with her doubled
aural self, though the psychological effect is that of confusion, alienation and disorientation
rather than seductive contemplation. She babbles endlessly in her continued attempt to
apprehend her echo: (PLAY 1:40-3:38)
The words keep tumbling out because I want to hear them. I want to hear my own words
pouring back in on top of me…The words become like things. I’m throwing things out into
the world and they are boomeranging back.
What this exchange between Holt and her mediated self most importantly illustrates is
the voice not as a transmitter of information, but a force and presence that actively works upon
the ears of the listener. (WATCH: 3:30) Through this work one witnesses first-hand Holt’s
13
14
Kahn, “Audio Art in the Deaf Century”, 302.
Barry Truax, Acoustic Communication: Second Edition (Westport: Ablex Publishing, 2001), 54.
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shift from a sovereign, critical state to one of engaged disorientation, sensing the self, the voice
that she listens to as similar or indistinguishable from other-objects. Holt’s listening disrupts
sensory perception: she believes that she is in another reality. Holt’s speech, and the logic of
language itself, is diminished through the voice’s multiplied presence. Several times Holt
pauses to explore the sonic qualities of her voice as it brushes up against semiotic meaning.
This work demonstrates echoist fascination in vocalization as active, non-stable, reflection of
self, a force that complicates binary divisions enforced through visuality, text-language, and
the construction of self in relation to an image15. It is through the active re-performance of a
recording that the mimetic takes on the “register of the other”16—transforming the agency of
mythological Echo from a winsome nymph to a sentinel-automaton.
Device as Mockingbird: Michael Snow’s and the Narcissist Phonographic
While Serra’s work demonstrates the voice as an aural force that disrupts visuality,
Michael Snow’s project Last LP CD (1987/1994) demonstrates how easily the voice can be
subverted through technology as a tool for authenticating ocular-logical truth. In this project,
Snow challenges the indexical nature of the World Music Album through the visual and
material culture that surrounds these sound recordings.
While a reading of Snow’s liner notes provide caricature of scientific representation
and knowledge, one experiences a feeling of distrust or alienation while listening to the album:
the songs sound strange and contrived, almost too familiar. Snow includes text in the liner
notes intended to be read through a mirror, such as that provided by the body of the compact
disc itself—it is this text that reveals all vocals and sounds on the album as created through
manipulations of his own voice, recorded and re-recorded with himself to create choirs of
15
Note Nancy Holt’s status in the artwork as a performer who gives “voice” to Richard Serra’s ideas. Holt
functions as a type of Echo character herself in the narcissistic field of Serra’s video.
16
Douglas Kahn, Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Voice, Sound, and Aurality in the Arts (Cambrige: MIT Press,
1999), 26-30.
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peoples. Through these interventions into the indexical phonographic, Snow becomes a
conspicuous presence within and beyond the technological media, pointing to a process of
mediated production that interrupts a simplistic binary between self and narcissistic image.
This situation recalls Narcissus at the pond, engaged with his image but annoyed and distracted
by the insistent calls of Echo, unseen but heard from somewhere in the environment. This third
body is otherwise referenced in the album through the motif of the mockingbird in the first
song on the album—the liner notes explain that the mockingbird is “more pertinent to this
project than it is possible to express”.17 The mockingbird and Echo both function as reflective
voices that exist through other-bodily filters: the technological body too is a mockingbirddevice.
Referring to statements that Rosalind Krauss made in the late 1970s when she referred
to the mediated image of video as inherently narcissist, Lev Manovich furthered this claim in
the early 2000’s by stating that this narcissistic condition can be extended to all electronic
media that carries an indexical quality to it.18 The filmic photograph exemplifies the concept of
indexical technology. The photograph does not merely describe the world, but exists due to a
physical relationship between light, the camera’s film, and an object centered upon by the
camera’s lens, pointing to the physical existence of the photographed subject in the physical
world. This indexical status of the photograph was adapted to an aural context by
ethnomusicologists of the early 20th century through the creation of the terminology
“phonography”. In this way, anthropological sound recordings of cultural others were directly
correlated to visual logic, proof, and objecthood. The material cultures of sound recording both
creates for sound and ephemeral actions an object for narcissistic projection, and also makes
17
18
Ibid.
Manovich, The Language of New Media, 254-256.
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this mirror from an unstable, vulnerable and sometimes obsolete technological body.19 This
problematic third body stands invisibly at the site where the Western self first encountered the
cultural other through the commercial availability of these aural recordings in the early 20th
century. In particular, Snow juxtaposes the desire to preserve disappearing cultural peoples
with the fetishization of obsolete recording formats, the preservation of “the last” long-playing
record and the last compact disc as rare and obsolete archival bodies.20 The recordings are thus
described in the same way as the imaginary peoples described in the liner notes.21 Snow
alignment of the exotic cultural other with the commodity object of mass production
exemplifies the problematic of representation of otherness through the objects that activate
narcissistic reflexivity,22 calling attention to the inadequacy of 16-song samplers that compress
otherness always-incomplete signs suitable for cultural projection, binary comparison, and selfcontemplation. Snow’s work points beyond the sounds represented, and into a process
whereupon the representation cultural otherness is often constructed in relation to the self’s
cultural fears, fantasies and imagination.23
Lagging echoes in Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Microphones (2008)
This status of Echo as humanoid is significant: though her body and voice provide a
site for reflection, this reflection is problematized by her muted, othered presence.
Technological devices sometimes hint at the presence of another, whether this is the
19
Adorno describes record collections as narcissist self-portraits “The curves of the needle”, in Essays on Music:
Theodor W. Adorno Richard Leppert, ed., Susan H. Gillespie, trans., (London: University of California Press,
2002), 274.
20
For an in depth analysis of how recorded media challenges the archive, see Jonathan Sterne. “Lost Recordings.”
In Traces, ed. Nicole Gingras, (Montreal: Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery, 2006) 73-81.
21
Michael Snow, The Michael Snow Project: Collected Writings of Michael Snow (Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier
University Press, 1994), 257-259.
22
See Alison Griffiths analysis of scientific and anthropological display as inherently cinematic in Wondrous
Difference: Cinema, Anthropologiy, and turn-of-the-century visual culture (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2002), 3-45.
23
Snow concedes in the liner notes of the Last LP CD that works were selected on the basis of “musical
excellence, admittedly from an educated but ethnocentric point of view” ibid, 259.
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programmer’s algorithmic process, another user, or the ghostly suspicion that the device itself
may have achieved consciousness. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s interactive installations playfully
acknowledge the space between expectations of interactivity and indexical capture of human
data. In Microphones (2008), when a subject speaks into the microphone, instead of returning
an amplified version of the subject’s voice, the speaker system returns one of 60,000 recorded
interactions captured from previous subjects. As a part of the interactions, the subject’s voice is
also recorded into the microphone’s database. While the microphone and loudspeaker are
typically paired in public spaces as a medium or conduit system, Lozano-Hemmer transforms
their functions into one of memory.
Lozano-Hemmer’s installation displays an uncanny lack of reverence for the user’s
temporal context. Once the spectator’s voice is captured into the database of these
microphones, the voice is lost to the logic of the technological apparatus. Even if the voice of
the spectator returns, the lag between the original utterance and its electronic return may result
in psychological content not intended in the original utterance—echo-like in its articulation of
temporal distance.
Echo and Ping –connectivity in networked landscapes
In aural reflection, live-ness is tempered through lag and an eventual decay or
disappearance, articulating space between the self and the physical environment. For example,
shouting into a canyon and waiting to see how long it takes before the echo is returned gives
information about the distance between self and the multiple surfaces of the canyon
environment. One locates the self in this environment through the return of a reflection that is
intrinsically tied to both psychological and physical space.
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This locating function of the echo is relevant to networked context. Despite the popular
misconception of online interaction as defined by immediacy and speed, it is often
characterized by temporal difference, delay, and asynchronous interaction.24 Though some
users of the internet may define their online experience through the physical encounter of their
bodies with the immediate interface that connects them to the screen, this is a narcissist
perspective. An echoist perspective would consider the content of the internet as existing
through a global system of hyperlinks and networked pings that articulate the digital landscape.
The echoist ultimately locates the user on the network through the interplay of a variety of
interrelated surfaces and locations. These locations are virtual rather than physical.
Olia Lialina’s ongoing project Location="Yes" (1999-) addresses the online location,
the URL25, as an important component of internet-based works.26 Through this project, Lialina
creates a platform for online artworks that are not complete if they exist only "inwindow",
which means that the location field and URL of the works are hidden with a frameset
(location="No"). Through this project, Lialina protests the curatorial practice of hiding the
location of internet art when it is displayed in a physical space.
The act of obscuring or hiding the URL is ultimately narcissist. This action returns the
site of the work to the screen, creating the illusion of an offline experience. This obscuring of
the location contains the online artwork within a unidirectional relation to a single viewer,
satisfying a narcissistic impulse for exclusivity and objecthood. Lialina’s intended audience is
echoist—inherently multiple and distributed. The distributed viewership of the internet defies
24
Munster, Materializing New Media, 64.
Uniform resource locator.
26
Oliana Lialina, Location Yes (1999- ), accessed September 1, 2011, http://art.teleportacia.org/Location_Yes/.
25
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traditional notions of institutionalized control implied through narcissist rhetoric. This issue of
control and viewership is further exacerbated by the internet phenomena known as the meme.
Echo as meme: Eva and Franco Mattes’ No Fun (2010)
A meme may take the form of a hyperlinked video, picture, website, or even a word or
phrase. In addition to reproduction of the original content in multiple online locations, the viral
spread of a meme from person to person via social media sometimes elicits commentary,
imitations, and parody on the behalf of other users. The meme therefore expands the
reverberence of the original while often adding content to the meme’s online presence as its
popularity grows. While a single author may own the original document, an individual entity
cannot own the meme. The meme propagates outwardly and maintains online presence so long
as it continues to be reflected upon by its audience. The meme therefore illuminates the virtual
space of internet cultures through user utterances that bounce from online location to online
location. Like the meme, the echo colours the words of the original utterance with an uncanny
content that was not originally intended.
Eva and Franco Mattes, the artistic duo also known as 0100101110101101.ORG, have
been engaging in meme-like interactions on the internet since the late 90s, celebrating online
cultures of reproducibility, copying, recontextualization, and repetition.27 In May 2010, Eva
and Franco Mattes created a performance for the platform Chatroulette.com. Chatroulette is a
platform that connects random users anonymously for webcam chats—either party can
terminate the chat at any time and move on to another random user.28 Mattes engaged with this
27
Henry Hyland, “Hybrids: Digital collages from the 90's”, accessed September 30th 2011,
http://0100101110101101.org/home/hybrids/essay.html.
28
Sam Anderson, “Is ChatRoulette the future of the Internet or its distant past?” New York Feb 15, 2010, accessed
September 30, 2011, http://nymag.com/news/media/63663/.
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platform by staging a falsified hanging in May 2010 for discovery by other Chatroulette users,
and entitled the online performance No Fun.29 No Fun is echoist in two ways: first as
demonstrative of the waning power of the image in online identity and representation, and
secondly, as a possible participant in an already existing meme.
The “Hanging Chatroulette Man” meme manifested on the Chatroulette website in
March of 2010—Mattes’ artwork was performed two months later in May.30 Mattes’
participation in the “Hanging Chatroulette Man” meme indexically points to the meme as
method of production and reproduction, but also may indicate the force of the meme as artistic
suicide. No Fun becomes one of many images of suicide fabricated for an anonymous and
diffuse audience, an echoist string of performances that return increasingly banal and uncanny
content with each repetition. Materials for the meme’s re-performance are currently available
online.31
The real-time encounter with Mattes’ video feed implicated viewers through the digital
representation of a remote but physical trauma. Judging from the diverse documented reactions
of online users that encountered the live performance of No Fun, there was no clear moral
response to the violence depicted. The context begs the question: to what degree is this
mediated participant of online interaction only an image, and to what degree to I assume
responsibility for the image in my immediate reality? These viewers are observed calling
others to join them at the screen in order to collectively question the authenticity of the image.
The Mattes’ feed contained a laptop computer tucked innocuously into the corner of the screen,
29
Eva and Franco Mattes, No Fun (2010), accessed September 1, 2011,http://vimeo.com/11467722.
Blogger reports the work as being performed on May 3, 2010 Haystack, “Artist Hangs Himself on Chatroulette,
Records Reactions”, The Carnival Noir Blog (May 4, 2010), accessed September 30, 2011,
http://www.thecarnivalnoir.com/?p=254; see Appendix A for the author’s collection of sample instances of the
“ChatRoulette Hanging Man” meme found on YouTube.com.
31
“Chat Roulette Hacks,” accessed September 1, 2011, http://www.chatroulettehacks.com/chatroulette-animatedgifs/.
30
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flickering the real-time images of both parties back at the webcam, providing a doubled mirror
for the viewer’s observation of the online interaction, and proof that the video was not a looped
or pre-recorded image. This situation captures collective doubt in response to the exhausted
media image online, as users look beyond the image and towards methods of its production for
the source of its authenticity. This space of doubt characterizes contemporary online
interactions as simultaneously dependent upon and distrustful of visual feedback:
simultaneously narcissist and echoist.
In Closing: Echo’s repetition as Radical Referral
Increased diagnosis of clinical narcissism has caused psychologists to question whether
narcissism is a post-millennial “sign of the times.”32 Contemporary recurrences of the narcissus
mythology both within and without electronic media points to a significant cultural concern
with feedback loops typical to the reflexive mode of narcissism as unsustainable and
overstimulated models for production and contemplation.33 In the face of what appears to be an
inevitably dominant narcissist force, the character of Echo provides a narrative counterpoint for
artists of a seemingly narcissist generation to react critically to this condition without denying
the inevitable dominance of visual-reflexivity in Western artistic tradition.34 This parallels the
mythology of the two lovers in that the voice and body of Echo disturbs Narcissus’ reflexivity,
Shawn M. Bergman et al., “Millennials, narcissism, and social networking: What narcissists do on social
networking sites and why”, Personality and Individual Differences, Vol 50(5), Apr, 2011. pp. 706-711; also see
David P. Fourie’s paper on narcissism as a condition rooted in the individual but nonetheless nurtured and
conditioned through social environment. “Look, but don't touch: Narcissist behavior and the conservation of
ambivalence”, Journal of Constructivist Psychology, Vol 23(2), Apr, 2010. pp. 143-157.
32
33
See Diedrich Diederichsen’s analysis of narcissism as neo-liberal mode of self-reflexivity and repressive force
in artistic production “Radicalism as Ego Ideal: Oedipus and Narcissus” e-flux #25 (May 2011), accessed
September 1st 2011, http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/228; Benedict Seymour “Short Circuits: Finance,
Feedback and Culture” Art and Education, accessed September 30th, 2011,
http://www.artandeducation.net/paper/short-circuits-finance-feedback-and-culture/.
34
Foster, “Archives of Modern Art,” pp. 81-95.
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but does so through a voice which is dependent upon Narcissus’ utterance in order to come into
presence.35 Echoist reflexivity in media practice challenges the dominance of visual reflexivity
rooted in objects through the insertion of a problematic third body into the dichotomy of self
and image. This third body emits intangible and ephemeral aspects of performance: algorithmic
production, embodied location as site-specificity, and utterance as that which subverts and
threatens the language framework that it speaks through. This performance takes place in a
technological body that facilitates both narcissist seduction as well as echoist alienation. This
essay does not propose a radical dismantling of narcissist systems, but instead proposes an
insistent strategy of irritant vocalization, repetition, and performance within these systems
through attention to the affect of the temporal-spatial qualities of echoist reflexivity in media
arts.
35
Frances Dyson has thoroughly described media as characterized by the same linguistic struggles of sound—that
is, the linguistic struggle of critically describing extra-visual experiences of immersion and embodiment—in her
book Sounding New Media: Immersion and Embodiment in the Arts and Culture, (Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 2009).
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Gee –
Appendix A –
Sample incidents of Chat Roulette meme “Hanging Man” documented and
archived on YouTube.com. Accessed by Erin Gee in September 2011.
brandonhondaCR125 “Suicide Reaction Chatroulette funny”, uploaded March 30th, 2010, accessed
September 1st, 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpOe9DxYr9I&feature=related.
19
Gee –
20
fireflower811 “Chatroulette Hanging Woman Prank (Part II)”, uploaded March 17th, 2010, accessed
September 1st, 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA7uVeiHPeU&feature=related.
gameonet “chatroulette (kid hanging himself)”, uploaded March 17th 2010, accessed September 1st, 2011,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m697udb3sUY&feature=related.
Gee –
Invension “Chatroulette hanged guy”, uploaded March 19, 2010, accessed September 1, 2011,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whMt0BrcOVI.
Prymasek “chat roulette another Hanging man”, uploaded May 16, 2010, accessed September 1, 2001,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J6Wvmy7YiQ.
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Gee –
22
RaestaM “Chatroulette prank suicide”, uploaded March 21, 2010, accessed September 1, 2011,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNKDGxe-poE&feature=related.
WhiteBuddha “Hanging Man visits Chat Roulette”, uploaded March 4, 2010, accessed September 1,
2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J-In6zcp-E.
Gee –
xladysabax “suicide on chat roulette”, uploaded March 27, 2010, accessed September 1, 2011,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBAha7Zy96o&feature=related.
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