Created
identities: hybrid cultures and the internet is the title of an academic paper
that was published in the journal Convergence. The paper talked about how
the internet is an appropriate place to create hybrid cultures, which is what
the District of Leistavia is. The fourth state of this artwork involved photocopying
the article on to A3 sheets, and then pinning the A3 sheets to the wall, not in
linear sequence. Here
is the abstract: Homi
K. Bhabha has written that authorized power in a hybrid culture 'does not depend
on the persistence of tradition; it is resourced by the power of tradition to
be reinscribed through conditions of contingency and contradictoriness…'
(1, p. 2). This view of culture is one aligned with concepts of flux and transition.
Hybrid cultural identity is created as time progresses, in part based on contingency.
The boundaries
of hybrid cultures are negotiated and able to absorb diverse cultural influences:
borders are active sites of intersection and overlap, which support the creation
of in-between identities. Hybrid cultures are antagonistic to standing authority
and cultural hegemony - hybridisation engenders diversity and heterogeneity, once
framed as bastardisation. Heterogeneity and multiplicity are here underlined as
important aspects of hybrid cultures. Heterogeneity,
multiplicity and rupture are three aspects of Deleuze and Guattari's rhizome that
have been identified by Stephen Wray as similarly characteristic of the internet.
This makes the internet an entirely suitable place to manufacture a hybrid cultural
identity, with a cultural profile akin to that reported in mainstream news media.
This paper maps out the above points with reference to the online/internet project
the District of Leistavia welcomes you created by the author.
There
is a line of thinking that runs via hybrid cultures, onto the internet via Deleuze
and Guattari's notion of rhizome. An aspect of the rhizome is deterritorialisation,
and it is interesting to map that back to Pitcairn/Norfolk history. The following
excerpt can be read as a response to the orchestrated litany of lies. It
is interesting to relate the whole episode of the Bounty saga from leaving England
to settling on Pitcairn Island, in terms of territorialisation and deterritorialisation.
Firstly, the sailors are territorialised in their local territory - at home. They
become deterritorialised by boarding the ship. As Naval company, they are then
reterritorialised in a new hierarchy. On arrival in Tahiti, they became deterritorialised
with extra-ordinary effect (ship's biscuit is replaced by feasting for example).
Staying longer than intended, they entered into the condition of being territorialised
on Tahiti. Called
back on board, their Tahiti life is deterritorialised and once again they become
territorialised in a Naval hierarchy. Soon after, the sailors mutiny, and put
Bligh to sea - literally a deterritorialisation. The Bounty is deterritorialised
as a ship in His Majesty's Navy. When Tahitian lovers and friends are taken on
board, a dramatic reterritorialisation occurs (both genders living on a previously
Naval vessel). It is discovered that Pitcairn Island has become deterritorialised
- i.e. mis-charted on maps. On locating the island, the ship becomes totally deterritorialised
(i.e. burnt) and Pitcairn Island is territorialised . The
description given above relies heavily on the states of becoming territorialised
and deterritorialised. But perhaps a more adequate picture of the intensity and
dynamism of energy at sea and on land, leading up to the mutiny is provided. The
sense in which tradition is broken and re-linked, giving rise to a reinvigorated
new condition that leads to further development is conveyed better than many current
observances of what occurred. The above description certainly stands in contrast
to the standard description of Bounty events i.e. in 1789, there was a mutiny
aboard HMS Bounty led by Fletcher Christian against Captain William Bligh who
was set to sea in a long boat and sailed across the Pacific to Indonesia, and
the mutineers settled on Pitcairn Island. Next stage.
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