Postpandemic scenarios from the perspective of the epistemologies of the south.

JEEPNEYS TO THE FUTURE: TRANSMISSIONS FROM THE PAST

While recognizing itself as the heir to Third World liberation struggles, the term “global South” aspires to surpass the legacy of its predecessor. Regarded as profoundly entrenched in eurocentric notions and representations, the “Third World” has been deemed untenable as a geopolitical concept and emancipatory project. As a response, the global South represents the collective struggle to overcome this epistemic violence/dependence and reclaim the dignity and self-determination of marginalized social groups by ensuring a pluriverse of alternative knowledge and forms of being.

However, in examining Filipino narratives of the future, I am seeing not new forms but past projects that have been rendered obsolete or contentious due to elements that might have been all too quickly dismissed as reactionary by a careless glance of the “global South” eye. In re-evaluating these narratives in their own terms, I hope to recover traces of futures that might have been marginalized unwittingly by the very discourses that seek to uphold liberal and progressive thought.

In my presentation, I return to the work of the Filipino filmmaker Kidlat Tahimik (Quiet Lightning), who is associated with the Third Cinema movement and known as the founder of the Philippine New Wave. Despite his ubiquitous reference to underdevelopment in the shadow of Western economic and technological progress, Kidlat has helped formulate the Third World not merely as a condition but a way of life that envisions an alternative modernity. Juxtaposed to this is a similar yet different vision found in the work of University of the Philippines professor Zeus Salazar, who pioneered the “indigenization” movement in Philippine social sciences that began in the 1970s and have gained prominence in academic circles today. Endearingly known to his students as Bathala (God), Salazar has been condemned by critics as nativist and ethnonationalist, not only in his uncompromising use of the Filipino language in intellectual discourse but also in his complicity in the historical project, Tadhana of former president-dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Seen in its own terms however, Salazar’s vision of “Bagong Kasaysayan” (New History) seems to offer not only an alternative historiography and historical narrative but a path towards establishing autonomy in discourse and knowledge production in the age of Neo-liberalism.

THE WORLD IS A STAGE

Back to Rasa Theory: Can the oldest atmosphere theory in the world help us to understand today’s (and our future) aesthetic manipulation?

Bharata’s (300BC-300AD), later most famously Abhinavagupta’s (11thC), idea of emotive atmospheres in theater – sometimes also used to discuss painting and music – have during the centuries been fermented into all forms of Indian cultural production, including late arts like film, where it has been used and discussed widely.

The original idea is that theater, at its best, has always only one dominant emotive atmosphere (erotic, comic, etc), and that this “rasa”, as it is called, appropriates and elevates everyday emotions to a reflective plane, where a heightened consciousness is reached. This ancient work of theory is an impressive attempt to understand aesthetic experience.

It is not just in art where we are surrounded by atmospheres created by others, though. Today we are face atmospheric manipulation nearly everywhere we go. We are stimulated by physical and digital visual design and soundscapes – from the opening sounds of our computers to the beeps our cell phones make (when we press the buttons), without forgetting the background music that we hear in elevators and malls. They build an aesthetic everyday texture for us.

We have of course gained atmospheric support and stimulation from buildings, bridges and decorations throughout human history, but the amount we today receive stimulation from professional designers (who design our lifeworld), has reached a totally new stage, of which we probably do not yet really understand/know much.

How can we cope with this development?

We do not often know who builds our digital environments nor the soundscapes of our shops – nor do we know who are the atmosphere masters that create our aesthetics of airports or malls. One thing is clear, though. All of this is less produced in the US and the West than most of us believe. India, the home of the oldest theory of atmospheres – where rasa theory is taught in the design school – is actually the birthplace of a major amount of aesthetic everyday stimulation.

Atmospheres invite us, through visuals and sound, to consume, relax and feel at home on pages, with software and in social media – as much as they do that in malls, shops and in offices.

Today we have a broad array of theories of atmosphere in use, but is there any reason why we would not take a look at the most classical one, the rasa theory of Bharata and Abhinavagupta, as one contender for helping us to make sense of our everyday life?

The ancient theater theorists talked about a bliss taking over during a performance, pulling us up to a reflective plane. Today’s everyday atmospheres are of course of a much lighter, more shallow nature, and they are not about simple classifications like “the comic” nor “the erotic”. Both the creators of atmospheric stimulation and the users of it (we, us), live in much less defined atmospheres, that often, actually, just give the sense of being in the right place (for consumption), a feeling of safety, an experience of being “cool” – and getting in the mood for leisure.

Nobody knows how much more intense the future will be in this sense, but we have at least no reason to think, that this development would stop to accelerate. In my talk I will think of rasa theory as one possible mirror that we can use to shed light on our experience of today’s world of work and consumerism – with deep roots to the cultural background that so many of the designers of our aesthetic everyday share. I will also propose new rasa for future students of the art of atmosphere and atmospheric manipulation.