Jorg Meurkes (5908884) Course: Objects of Cultural Analysis Written analysis, 25 October 2012

Another Case of Interpassivity: The Boiler Room

Two years ago, a few guys started hosting exclusive parties on secret locations, inviting highly respected DJs and Musicians to play for a small, invite-only crowd. To accommodate those left uninvited, an audiovisual stream was set up, broadcasting the party live via a public website to anyone interested. Within a couple of months, the web audience grew from a couple of hundreds to tens of thousands. According to one of its founders, a popular DJ, today, can attract 250.000 viewers or more (Dorien 2012). In this way, Boiler Room parties are accessible for a large crowd, but at the same time remain intimate and private. The stark rise in popularity made me wonder what made this concept so attractive. After logging on to the website, what struck me most was the way the scene was staged. The webcam is placed in such a way that the DJ faces the viewer, while the (hipster) crowd is dancing conspicuously behind him. Every Boiler Room party (held at different locations) is set up in such a way that the dancing crowd is clearly visible, sometimes even facing the viewer directly. Why? It seems that the dancing crowd has an important role to play. Why must the crowd be so prominently present in the picture? Could this particular form of broadcasting account for the popularity? The focus in this analysis would then be on this form of presentation: the addition of the crowd in plain view. A first intuition might lead us to the idea that a certain kind of voyeurism is in play. In line with the wide range of todays reality shows (from Big Brother onwards), the possibility to watch others from a safe, distant location is somehow enjoyable and accounts for the attractiveness of seeing a crowd prominently in the scene. We may identify with the coolness of the hipsters, even anti-identify (as may be the case with some vulgar reality shows), or maybe no identification is at play at all and we simply enjoy to secretly watch others doing their business. Voyeurism might thus be a useful concept to read this particular object. However, I think that the addition of the crowd is more than just another possible voyeuristic element added, for two reasons. First, most TV reality shows do not add crowds. The voyeuristic experience of shows like Big Brother would not be the same if we also saw an additional crowd observing the contesters. Second, there are numerous examples of TV shows were a crowd is added, but where voyeurism plays no, or at the most a very little role. Shows

like Oprah and Dr. Phil have audiences added who seem to have no other role than to be mere observers. Strikingly, more and more shows have their audiences not only present, but have them sit right behind the host, in a very similar way to the dancing crowd behind the DJ in the boiler room. The popular Dutch daily TV show De Wereld Draait Door is an example of this. Crowds are added everywhere, overtly present, impossible for the viewer to miss. But why? To get a grip on this phenomenon, I turn to a recent development in the arts, noticed by philosopher Robert Pfaller (2002). After the rise of interactive art, works to which activity of the viewer is to be added in order to make it complete, Pfaller points out that for some works of art nothing has to be added, no activity but no passivity either. Observers would be relieved from creating [in contrast to interactive art] as well as from observing.(Pfaller 2002 27) Artworks increasingly observe themselves. A key example is the increasing influence of the curator on the exhibition: the placement and lighting of the artworks is carefully chosen, such that the exhibition becomes a creative work of art in itself. Even if there were no visitors, the artworks are, as it were, being observed through the way the exhibition is organized. The curator and even the exhibition itself, observe themselves for me, instead of me. As opposed to interactive art, Pfaller coined the term interpassive art: works of art that, in a way, deprive the viewer even of his or her passivity, the observation (Pfaller 2003 7). Pfaller then noticed that we find these interpassive mediums not only in the arts. In our everyday lives, we come across numerous objects that can in some way take over our passivity. We might wonder why we buy so many books, download so many movies and music, when we never have the time to read, watch and listen to it all. Here, an interpassive medium (the bookshelf and the hard drive), deprives me of the passive act of reading, watching or listening. The bookshelf and the hard drive as it were reads for me. Slavoj iek, who developed the concept further, gives the example of canned laughter of American sitcoms, were the TV set laughs for me. After some supposedly funny or witty remark, you can hear the laughter and applause included in the soundtrack of the show itself [...] So even if, tired from a hard day's stupid work, all evening we did nothing but gaze drowsily into the television screen, we can say afterwards that objectively, through the medium of the other, we had a really good time (iek 1989 34). While we know that we can delegate our activity to others (others can be active for me: I can hire a contractor who builds my house for me), these interpassive mediums hint at the possibility that even my passivity can be outsourced: others can be passive for me. Pfaller thinks that people are not only deprived of their passivity, but, for some reason, even strive to delegate it: they want the shelf to read for them, and the TV set

laugh for them. Just like the exhibition observing itself or the TV set laughing at itself, the boiler room can be interpreted as a party enjoying itself. In this way, the added crowd becomes another interpassive medium, to which I can delegate my passivity. When I come home, after a tiresome day at the university, my friends tell me to go out and relax. But for some reason, even this seems too much for me. My friends try to convince life is not only about work, that I should leave some room in my busy schedule to be able to enjoy from time to time. But, even though they claim going out is to relax and enjoy, to me it sounds like a demand. I tell them no, but now I might feel guilty. Why not surf to the boiler room website, watch the people party as if I were there? I open the live stream on my browser, the people can enjoy for me, instead of me (as if I were there). My duty to enjoy is taken care of, and I can spend my time to do some useful stuff (doing the dishes, or even finish my paper before midnight). At this point, some objections may arise. Is there really a delegation of passivity involved? Surely, we would say, going out to dance and enjoy is an activity. If there was such a thing as a delegation, the boiler room is not an interpassive medium, because no passivity is delegated. We moderns today are so busy we are expected to be active all the time so we delegate some activity to others. Gijs van Oenen has pointed out this friction, and proposed to transform the concept interpassivity in order to save it (Oenen 2011 57-63). Interpassivity then becomes a delegation of activity, in order to maintain some distance, some room for passivity, against all the demands of an interactive, maybe even hyperactive, society. However, I think this robs the concept of its initial intuition: the possibility of the delegation of passivity. So must we conclude that the analysis failed? Is interpassivity, in the way Pfallers conceptualized it, not at work in the boiler room, since no passivity, but rather activity (dancing) is delegated? But then we might argue that even laughter is in the end an activity, just like reading, consuming and enjoying. Thus we must abandon the concept altogether. The example of the boiler room therefore forces us to rethink the concept of interpassivity in a different way than van Oenen, or to abandon it. In rethinking the concept, we must pay close attention to the ambiguity of the concept. Pfallers initial definition leaves to much room for interpretation and can therefore be misleading: Interpassivity is delegated "passivity" - in the sense of delegated pleasure, or delegated consumption (2003 9). This leaves room for the passivity to be a delegated act of consumption. The task is to make clear how this passivity should be interpreted, without it becoming an act after all. Contrary to Oenen, who want to I think we should explore the concept further with Lacan, instead of doing away with him.

iek gives us a hint to grasp the ambiguity. Weepers, people who cry for you, instead of you at funerals, are an interpassive medium (like the crowds). But crying is off course an act. iek writes: The difference between activity and passivity, of course, is often blurred: weeping as an act of public mourning is not simply passive; it is passivity transformed into an active, ritualized, symbolic practice. In the ritual, or symbolic practice, my innermost feelings are objectified (in the sense that it has an existence outside me). The activity of the dancing crowd in the boiler room would therefore be an activity, but as such, they are an objectification of my passive feelings. The point thus is not that my activity (dancing) is done by someone else (This would be the case when I was a professional dancer, but because of a broken foot, an understudy takes my place). In the case of interpassivity, the enigma is that it is precisely my authentic, purely subjective experience, that can be delegated or transferred to the Other, in the form of a symbolic practice outside me. At a funeral, I do not cry: my feelings are objectified in the figure of the weeper. Similarly, when I watch a Boiler Room party somewhere in the background while doing the dishes at the same time, I do not enjoy subjectively, but my enjoyment is objectified in the symbolic practice of the dancing crowd. Even when I focus on my task, I can feel reassured, because objectively I enjoy. This would then be the surprising Lacanian insight: not only my activity can be delegated to others; even my most intimate feelings can be externalized. Lacan formulated this concept with the example of the chorus in Greek tragedy: Your emotions are taken charge of by the healthy order displayed on the stage. The Chorus takes care of them. The emotional commentary is done for you (Lacan 247). Psychoanalysis in the Lacanian sense is thus not a theory reducible to purely subjective emotions, it is inherently social. According to iek: This is what the Lacanian notion of 'decentrement', of the decentered subject, aims at: my most intimate feelings can be radically externalized, I can literally 'laugh and cry through another' (iek 1998 5). If we accept this phenomenon, it gives us an interesting answer to our initial question of why the crowd is placed so prominently in the scene of the boiler room. Its not only a possible voyeuristic experience. The addition of the crowd makes the Boiler Room into an interpassive medium, giving the viewers the possibility to delegate there passivity (their enjoyment). When I experience a pressing demand to enjoy, but have no time to do it, I can let the Other (the crowd) to enjoy for me, instead of me. Because the interpassive medium in our analysis (the dancing crowd) was so obviously active, we found that the concept of interpassivity was too ambiguous. For Pfaller, a delegation of a passivity could still be the delegation of an act (consumption, for instance) The confusion arose, because the delegated passivity is always objectified into a symbolic

practice and thereby manifest itself always as an act. The dancing of the crowd is obviously an act, but what they effectively take over is not my act of dancing, but my passivity in the form of a symbolic practice (the act of the dance). Therefore, we made a small but crucial adjustment to the concept: interpassivity is always delegation of a passivity, but as symbolic practice, manifest itself as an activity. Until now, we have left the one crucial question unanswered. Why would I want to delegate a pleasure? This small essay only has room for a quick hypothesis. Todd McGowan has noticed that our western societies have changed from a society of prohibition, to a society of enjoyment (McGowan 11). The injunction to obey (obey the state, the church, your father) has been replace by an injunction to enjoy (recall Coca Colas slogan Enjoy!). Today, we dont feel guilty when we disobey (Project X), but when we fail to enjoy. Might it be possible that the increasing prominence of crowds at TV shows is just another cultural mechanism to cope with this oppressive commandment to enjoy?

Works Cited Dorien. "Hipsters gluren mee met Boiler Room tv " NOS op 3. 19 Oct. 2012. NOS. 25 Oct. 2012 <http://nos.nl/op3/artikel/431128-hipsters-gluren-mee-met-boiler-roomtv.html>. McGowan, Todd. The End of Dissatisfaction. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. Print. Lacan, Jacques . The Ethics of Psychoanalysis. London: Routledge, 1992. Print. Pfaller, Robert. "Backup of Little Gestures of Disappearance: Interpassivity and the Theory of Ritual" Journal of European Psychoanalysis: Humanities, Philosophy, Psychotherapies 16 (2003): 6-15. Print. Pfaller, Robert. Die Illusionen der anderen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2002. Print. Oenen, Gijs van. Nu even niet: Over de interpassieve samenleving. Amsterdam: Van Gennep, 2011. Print.iek, Slavoj. How To Read Lacan. London: Granta Books, 2006. Print. iek, Slavoj . "The Inherent Transgression" Cultural Values 2 (1998): 1-17. iek, Slavoj. "The Interpassive Subject" Centre Georges Pompidou (1998) 25 Oct. 2012 <http://www.lacan.com/iek-pompidou.htm>. iek, Slavoj. The Sublime Object of Ideology. London: Verso, 1989. Print.