The Power of Lightness:
Humor as a method of critique in the visual arts

Introduction

In this paper, I will present an important shift within twentieth-century architectural production. I will discuss issues of modernity and postmodernity within the sphere of architectural theory and design, and offer the idea that lightness as an instrument in the visual arts and architecture allows a level of critical thinking to penetrate the shell of modernist dogma. Contemporary children's television has shown how lightness can allow critique to become embedded in 'mass culture', thus reaching a broader audience. I will indicate the foundations for this development in the more dogmatic modes of thought in high modern architectural discourse, and trace it through the 1960s and the work of the Situationist International as emblematic of the difficult relationship between high and low, or mass, culture, to the strategies apparent in the cartoons The Simpsons and South Park produced in the 90s. This line of thought will indicate the shift of critical thinking from purely within the hallowed halls of serious art theory to an embedding within products of mass culture, and to question where contemporary architectural practice stands in relation to this shift.

Modernity

Although architectural modernity is by no means to be interpreted as a single uniform movement, for the sake of this argument I will focus on the mainstream, which was characterized by a belief in rationalization, functionality and technological progress. Within this discourse, architectural production was defined by a social agenda, partially stemming from the belief that technological progress and functionality would necessarily engender social progress. All sorts of mass industrial developments coupled with an ever more scientific approach to labor and production offered utopia within reach: the 1920's saw the promise of technology for all. The house, in the rhetoric of the day, would become a "machine for living in". Of course, a New and Improved human being was eventually to go with this; a person who would feel liberated by insurgent technologies rather than alienated.

These discourses of functionalism, rationalism and technology shared a belief in the power of reason and mechanical efficiency, and eventually - perhaps because of the clarity of their premises - became the main component of modernity in the sphere of architectural production. Yet the problems inherent in this interpretation also became quite clear: there was a denial of alternative discourses, a negation of the personal, cultural and symbolic aspects of architecture. In the thirties, the Surrealists were already criticizing the reductiveness of functionalist modern architecture. Finally, another notion inherent in the architectural thought of modernity is the "Architect" who knows best. Eventually, resistance to this idea grew as well. The Corbusian architect was still very much a deity, waving his hands to indicate where and especially how the New Man should live.

Beyond modernity - the sixties

All the above premises of modern architecture were contested in the sixties. Technological idealism was tempered by increasing alienation; functionalism was seen to exclude the very human need for leisure; rationalism was criticized for its repression of dreams and the subconscious. The premises of artistic and architectural production were undergoing a significant shift: where once architecture had been built by and for the elite, modernity had introduced a concern with mass housing and industrial building, making the 'architectural environment' accessible to everyone. In the sixties, this dissemination of architecture among the masses was taken yet a step further: the empowerment of the masses was crucial, their natural creativity was to be released, until art and architecture had become part of the everyday.

One particular aspect of the culture of the sixties can raise some interesting questions: there was more attention for lightness and playfulness. In part, the attention paid to the human desires for leisure and play can be explained as a reaction to the dogmatic thought increasingly apparent in modernism. Yet one could also suspect that lightness and playfulness as a method, be it in the form of appropriating mass culture or using humor, might be more than merely reactionary. To look at this question more closely with respect to modernity and postmodernity in the architecture and the visual arts, I will make a distinction between instruments and goals. This distinction will help to illuminate both the parallels and contrasts between modernity and postmodernity.

Architectural modernity was serious in both the instruments and goals. Although its prehistory extends beyond the scope of this paper, it is fair to say that it began with a number of admirably progressive premises, attacking numerous bourgeois-conservative ideas and attempting to create better living environments for all social classes. Yet these progressive ideals were very serious issues, and the social engineering implicit was far from a laughing matter. Beginning with such heavy-handed titles as "Ornament and Crime" by Adolf Loos, modern man was to be taught and shaped to conform to the progressive environment of Modern Architecture. Even as late as 1950, Mies van der Rohe proclaimed: "[Architecture] is not a playground for children, young or old. Architecture is the real battleground of the spirit." (Speech to IIT, reprinted in Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-century Architecture, Ulrich Conrads ed., 1970 transl., 1964 orig.). Comments like these no doubt contributed to a desire for lightness, and raised the question whether the spiritual goals of modernity could not also be pursued on the playground rather than the battleground.

In the sixties, with the introduction of playfulness into the high art of architecture, and the simultaneous valuation of mass culture, a new agenda and visual expression arose on the architectural front. In the UK, the Independent Group, a group of architects and artists, began to look toward popular culture as well as "proper" art history for their inspiration. Well-versed in modernist rhetoric, they found its weak spot in its seriousness and elitism. It had presumed what was best for the people yet no longer had any connection to the masses they were designing for.

The IG, in an exhibition called "This is tomorrow" showed collages and images strongly influenced by (American) pop culture and science fiction (especially famous is the presence of "Robbie the Robot"). The poster used to advertize the exhibit was a collage of a living room incorporating ads for domestic technology titled "What is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?"

The sometimes propagandist tenor of modernist discourse had left an opening for a younger generation to introduce their own criticism: simply by showing images less alienated from the everyday, by offering an aesthetic that was (at least on the surface) less bogged down by the weight of responsibility for immense social change. The IG broke through the puritanical discourse, and though their inspirations were still heavily technology-based (robots, refrigerators), they traded in the austerity of functionalism for a light-footed saunter through science-fiction utopias. These references were an indication of a general optimism, expressing the fun and excitement of all the new gadgets. Even so, the works were not purely superficial enjoyment; they also displayed an awareness of the potential alienation present in the commodity-oriented capitalist society.

One crucial distinction between the modernist movement and the images as shown by the IG, is this development of a critique of consumer society. Architectural modernity matured in the industrial society, which largely revolved around the progress of technology itself, or the production side. Although the issue of alienation was already present in this increasingly technological society, it became a more serious issue once the scales tipped toward the consumer side in the postwar decades. Where earlier, technological progress had offered products with a distinct goal, commodification implied the potential need to consume for consumption's sake, making the product a goal in itself.

Shortly after the IG exhibition, the Situationist International (founded in 1957) similarly exploited the weakness of modernist rhetoric, but the tension between the optimism and alienation already present in the IG images was heightened. Key points of the SI were "psychogeography", reacting to the sterile functionality of modernist urban plans; the transformation of High Art into 'art for and by the people'; and the appropriation of mass-culture artifacts to illuminate their key issues. Some of their images are quite light at first sight, yet the SI, far more than the IG, did have an underlying utopian agenda. And in this case, though some of the instruments are light and playful, the goals are very serious: to free people from modernist dogma - only to replace it with a new totalitarian ideology.

One of the key figures in the early period of the Situationist International, a Dutch artist named Constant, was an avid proponent of the 'homo ludens' as posited by Huizinga, who proposed that play, or fun, was the highest goal of man. Much of Constant's work revolved around this notion of the inherent creativity and playfulness of people. In his view, the ideal environment of the future would offer a structure catering to the 'homo ludens', surroundings that could be transformed by its inhabitants, all in the name of fun and play, and of course involving the key element of communication between people. Here, the discrepancy becomes clear between the lightness of his instruments, the changeability and cheerful ad hoc design of the human environment, and the gravity of his ideals, the enlightenment of people through this inescapable process of play.

Guy Debord, a French intellectual who determined the direction of the SI to a great extent, posited the principle of détournement, which shares a specific quality with humoristic representation: the aspect of estrangement. By taking an everyday object or situation, or in the case of Situationist détournement a prefabricated aesthetic object, and inserting it into a different context, a process of estrangement takes place. This process can allow the viewer to become more conscious of the object itself, and for example its arbitrary design, or of the environment it is placed in. Either way, the confrontation between two different worlds in détournement results in a novel 'situation' and in a heightened sensibility with respect to the elements comprising it. The principle of estrangement is a strategy often seen in contemporary cultural production, though it no longer incorporates the political struggle underlying the Situationist détournement.

Some of the most interesting images shown in the magazine Internationale Situationniste consist of simple comics of a few frames. These comics, at first glance a familiar item of mass culture, are reconfigured through highly politicized texts. An ostensibly romantic discussion, at least in image, may upon reading be transformed into a short statement on the proletariat. Some of the images may have been either shocking or completely absurd in the eyes of the public at the time, yet the principle of estrangement and the use of comic-book images, implying a certain levity, at least offered a degree of cheery insouciance.

Postmodernity - the nineties

Where in the sixties the principle of lightness was useful in the battle against serious and institutionalized criticism, in the nineties it can be seen in a different light. Extrapolating from the instruments-goals division as indicated, we could say the following. In a modernist discourse, the instrument was a serious one: a condition was noted (e.g., the overwhelming eclectism of the late 19th century); a question was asked (do we not dislike this?); an answer was given, generally from a moral "high" ground (YES! What this eclecticism represents is bad for modern man!). In the sixties a level of relativity began to appear - the question might become: do certain people not dislike this? In other words, questions became more imbued with an awareness of alternative discourses. Here again, though, the answer was pre-ordained and on some level, moralizing. People were to be made aware of their subconscious, people were to appropriate artistic practice to become free of spectacle, and proper, strong, self-reliant, ethical human beings - not the functionalist, reductive Modern Man, but a self-aware, enlightened Common Man.

If we consider a heterogeneous discourse without hierarchical relationships the precondition for postmodernity, then the SI posed postmodern questions and offered modernist answers. There was not necessarily a single, preferenced view implicit in the question. In the nineties there is a certain artistic production that could be considered "properly" postmodern in both its questions and answers: children's television geared towards adults. This kind of critical expression in the media (such as The Simpsons and South Park) is perhaps allowed a greater freedom in its critiques because of its apparent lightness, its embedding everything within the sphere of laughter.

If laughter is a moment of immanence, it might offer a moment of subconscious positioning, freed to some degree of external (moralizing) values. Although lightness and humor are often used merely to produce the more frivolous forms of entertainment, with an unquestioning acceptance of existing morals, they do not necessarily entail a purely commercial agenda. The use of humor, cloaking critique in a lighthearted shell, may be a way to embed critical questions in a mass-market commodity such as children's television. Rather than take a critical stance toward societal ills at a great distance (more typical in the eighties), artists are currently rediscovering a wider audience with (presumably) minds of their own.

These artists are the ones media critic Douglas Rushkoff would call 'children of chaos'. They are aware of marketing techniques and have grown up within a mediated culture. There is an understanding that mediation - the spectacle - can be 'dangerous' in the sense Debord would indicate: the spectacle can envelop, become a new religion. Yet, unlike Debord, these artists are not trying to position themselves in a God's-eye view, but use instruments such as parody and satire to uncover questions. By merely asking the question from within the system they have perhaps discovered a more powerful tool than the political stance of the sixties allowed.

One of the prime early examples of sophisticated and critical children's television is the cartoon series the Simpsons, about an average American family with three children. Much can be said about this series, but there are a few identifiable points in which it is truly different from classic children's cartoons. First, Bart, the 10-year old son, occasionally takes a step back from the action, indicating an awareness of his status as a character on a TV show. Second, the show itself references all levels and types of cultural production without implying a hierarchical value. Even a quick glance through episode titles such as Moaning Lisa, The Crepes of Wrath, Simpson and Delilah, Dead Putting Society and Das Bus offers references to Renaissance art, twentieth century literature, biblical stories and contemporary cinema. Another crucial technique in The Simpsons is the embedding a cartoon within the cartoon. In many episodes, we observe the Simpson children watching their favorite cartoon, the Itchy and Scratchy show. These two characters, a cat and mouse, refer directly to Tom and Jerry, a classic cartoon. This process of watching the children watch their favorite cartoon causes a level of estrangement in its reflection of the viewer's activity.

South Park is yet another step in the world of adult cartoons for children. This cartoon is drawn in far simpler animation than the Simpsons, and all its action takes place in a small town in Colorado called South Park. The protagonists are four 8-year old children and the cafeteria chef at their school. This cartoon series offers the same kinds of layering and referentiality as the Simpsons, and the makers have even produced a full-length feature film called South Park: The Movie. Two situations in the movie are pointed examples of light-hearted estrangement with an underlying critical note. Early in the movie, the South Park children see a movie filled with obscenities, resulting in their repeating these obscenities at every occasion. Their mothers, horrified by this behavior, decide that something must be done. Obviously, since the film was made by Canadians, the blame should rest entirely on Canada. The disproportion of their reaction and the musical interlude "Blame Canada" serve only to amuse, yet the underlying issue of parents refusing to take responsibility for their children's upbringing is obvious. Another incident occurs at the beginning of the resulting war with Canada; of the 25 platoons going to the war, 24 are all-white and one is all-black. The black platoon is essentially to be used as cannon fodder, and leadership takes that principle even further by strapping a number of black soldiers to airplanes and tanks - to protect the army's material.

Here, humor is a way of breaking through a media-savvy, cynical audience. Laughter disarms, allowing a subversive message to reach its goal. Also, lightness offers a level of relativity in both question and answer, leaving the audience to determine whether or not to reach beyond the first laugh, and if they do, how to position themselves with respect to the questions asked.

Postmodernity and the architectural beyond

The relativity thus achieved is not so much meant to propagate the widespread 'anything goes' ethic of postmodern rhetoric in architectural production. These scenes of estrangement, embedded within the lightness of a cartoon, offer serious questions yet do not determine how each individual should answer. This strategy appears to offer a way of being both critical and light at the same time, thus potentially reaching a wider audience and having more impact. Throughout its version of postmodernity, architectural production has had a tendency to be too light, to deny any form of critical function other than mere parody. It will be interesting to examine whether the inclusion of critical thinking in mass-culture as found in children's television, which essentially transforms the traditional relationship between high and low culture, is also to be discovered as a strategy, either existing or as potential, within contemporary architectural production.

Literature

Internationale Situationniste. Reprint of the 12 issues of IS, 1958-1969. Paris: Editions Fayard, 1997.

Blazwick, Iwona, ed. An endless adventure...an endless passion...an endless banquet: A situationist scrapbook. London, 1989.

Debord, Guy. The Society of Spectacle. Donald Nicholson-Smith, transl. New York: Zone Books, 1995. orig. La Société du Spectacle, 1967.

Rushkoff, Douglas. Children of Chaos. London: Flamingo, 1997. --, Coercion. London: Little, Brown and Company, 1999.

Sadler, Simon. The Situationist City. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998.