The Intersection of Lived and Imagined Memories

Lebanon’s history of violence has made the search to uncover, reassess or move beyond the past a highly politicised endeavour. The lack of a coherent memory at a national level has resulted in the exploitation of collective memory through dominant memory cultures and competing sectarian regimes of memory, each vying for interpretative power. The absence of state-led memorial projects has led to privately funded museums and archival projects actively shaping post-war discourses on the Civil War and responding to the country’s ongoing political realities. Lebanon is haunted by the fragments, architectures and stories of past conflicts, while also experiencing the realities of persistent post-war failings: hyper-politicisation of sectarian tensions, political corruption, economic devastation and regional turmoil.

This exhibition, The Intersection of Lived and Imagined Memories, deepens the current socio-political discourse by engaging with the fluid, fragmented and evolving nature of memory. It engages with Marianne Hirsch’s concept of postmemory, exploring how a generation of Lebanese artists, growing up in the aftermath of the Civil War, navigate both the weight of inherited trauma and the subsequent realities of the 2019 economic and financial collapse, the catastrophic port explosion of 2020 and, most recently, the war in Southern Lebanon. Postmemory is defined as a residual type of memory, or imagined memory. It is a recollection of an event not personally experienced but socially felt. For Hirsch, postmemory is powerful because the connection to its object or source is mediated through an imaginative creation. Through works that explore past and present trauma, imagined futures and the transitional space of where to?, this exhibition navigates the country’s unresolved histories and uncertain prospects. The exhibited artists revisit moments from the Civil War onwards, reinterpreting and reimagining histories as acts of remembrance and reconstruction. Their works engage with forgotten stories, abandoned photographs and archival footage, recontextualising them within contemporary realities to connect subsequent generations to their collective past. In doing so, they situate themselves in a liminal space, between past and present, memory and its re-creation. The notion of postmemory emphasises that traumatic historical events cannot simply be buried, erased or forgotten. Instead, they are continually reworked and renegotiated through artistic practice, public discourse and everyday encounters.

The location of the exhibition, The Egg, is an architectural symbol of Lebanon’s violent past and present. Built during Beirut's Golden Age of the 1960s, Lebanese architect Joseph Philippe Karam designed The Egg as a cinema, part of the ambitious Beirut City Centre complex. However, the outbreak of the Civil War in 1975 halted construction, leaving The Egg as a stark reminder of unfulfilled dreams. During the conflict, it found itself on the demarcation line, between East and West Beirut, serving as a battle barricade for militants from various religious confessions. Despite post-war reconstruction efforts to redesign Beirut's cultural centre, including the ambitious Solidere project to rebuild Downtown Beirut, The Egg remains untouched, protected by the Ministry of Culture. Over the years, The Egg has been repeatedly reclaimed by the public, including during the 2019 protests, where it became a hub for talks, events and performances.

Now, in 2025, amidst ongoing economic devastation and regional conflicts, The Egg, a spatial remnant of conflict, stands as a testament to Lebanon's enduring spirit of resistance and strength.

BAC would be the ideal sponsor for this cultural event as it is committed to pioneering cutting-edge exhibitions rooted in the Lebanese experience. While deeply tied to Lebanon, this exhibition also resonates with those from other regions marked by displacement, war and political instability, as well as people of all ages and backgrounds seeking to reconstruct their memories and histories. This exhibition, as with many that BAC sponsors, is a tribute to the cultural resistance led by artists, cultural workers, and citizens in the challenging environment Lebanon continues to face.

Es Devlin and the Participatory Gaze: Reinterpreting Audience Agency in a Hyperreal World

This dissertation views Es Devlin’s work as representative of a crucial transformation in contemporary art: the shift from spectatorship to active co-creation. Devlin’s immersive installations reposition the audience as active co-creators, broadening Barthes’ notion of open interpretation and the death of authorial control. Moreover, her use of AI, digital simulation and theatrical spectacle reflects Baudrillard’s vision of a hyperreal world, where reality is indistinguishable from media-generated simulation. The evolution of audience participation in her work mirrors the broader shift in contemporary art-music installations, where technology, interactivity and sensory immersion shape meaning-making engaging directly with Karen Barad’s notion of the posthuman. The dissertation argues that Devlin’s practice raises pressing questions about the lifespan and remediation of digital experiences, the hyperreal conditions of contemporary art and the future of technologically mediated human interaction. The dissertation adds to the ongoing discourse on digital art and performance and contributes to wider discussions of immersive art, digital identity and the evolving role of audiences in meaning-making.  

Machines of Nature: Eno, Deleuze and the Evolution of Sonic Creativity

This essay explores Brian Eno's influential role in the evolution of electronic and experimental music through the lens of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's philosophical concepts. Focusing on Eno's pioneering work in generative music, which evolves unpredictably over time, the essay applies Deleuze's ideas of rhizomatic structures, assemblage and the virtual/actual to analyse how Eno bridges technological innovation with human emotion and environmental context. By situating Eno within the broader discourse of Deleuzian philosophy, the essay illuminates the transformative impact of generative processes on contemporary sonic studies. It argues that Eno's approach has not only reshaped musical practices but also inspired a new generation of artists like Oneohtrix Point Never and Holly Herndon, who continue to explore the intersection of technology and abstract musical forms. Through this exploration, the essay underscores the relevance of Deleuze's theories in understanding the dynamic relationship between creativity and technology in music. 

Recontextualising the Everyday: The Art of Sampling Found Objects and Sounds

This research paper explores the intertwined evolution of Musical Cubism and Musique Concrète, examining their shared methodologies, textual approaches and conceptual underpinnings. Rooted in early 20th-century avant-garde movements, both challenged traditional artistic norms through innovative uses of collage, found materials and interdisciplinary approaches. Drawing on Walter Benjamin’s theories of reproduction and originality, the study examines how both movements challenged traditional artistic boundaries by recontextualising everyday materials, whether through Cubist collage techniques or Schaeffer’s use of found sounds on magnetic tape. Through an ekphrastic lens, it investigates the transformative impact of these practices on sensory engagement, inviting audiences to actively reinterpret visual and auditory stimuli. By highlighting the shared ethos of fragmentation, layering and the blending of high and low cultural elements, this research underscores the enduring influence of avant-garde experimentation on modern artistic practices and audience interaction.

The Lonely Ride

And so it happened that I came across Joan Didion and Abbas Kiarostami in the space of a couple of weeks while living in Beirut. When watching Kiarostami's movie A Taste of Cherry only a couple of days after finishing Didion's novel Play It As It Lays, I saw many parallels between Maria and Mr Badii as they drove across winding roads, acting as their source of refuge. I felt so compelled to write about these two works of art together because I feel a strong conviction that they need each other. Perhaps by placing these two characters on the same page I can provide a sense of solace to one another or if only a short respite from their lonely rides ahead. For both Maria and Mr Badii the road acts as a relief from the tortures of daily life. While Mr Badii is more literally finding his escape on the road through his search for an accomplice to his suicide, Maria also uses her rides on the ominous Californian highways as a search for the end, as if by continuing to drive into the distance, the horizon at the other end might engulf her at some point and allow her to be hidden and swallowed into the darkness forever. I think most people engaging with these two characters can relate to their painful apathy, numbness and clear sense of reality to the monotony of living. For Mr Badii, the chilling rationality and emotionless approach to his suicide renders it both hard to reckon with his decision and to question whether it is in fact the only rational choice. Our obliviousness to the force pulling him to end his life and the equally unconvincing reasons not to, whether it be the religious sin or to experience next seasons blossoming taste of cherry force us sympathize with his difficulties of simply finding someone to help. It seems almost an injustice when those he encounters deny him his simple request. 

My college literature professor once instilled upon me some useful advice. Amidst our teachings on the literature of Samuel Beckett, he preached of the importance of boredom, and how the acceptance of a state of boredom at certain moments of time is uniquely valuable and necessary. All too often boredom is seen negatively, but from that day I have gained a respectful understanding of this emotional state and have often found much comfort within it. Living among an era of wellness and self-love leaves little space for the necessary humane acceptance of the tortures of daily life, one of which is boredom. The clarity with which Maria and Mr Badii see the world seems disconcerting to those they encounter. Their apathetic acceptance of the banality and boredom of life is met by denials by those around. They desire the peace to not be met with these prophetic spells of meaning and existence, just as I believe many people often feel the desire to silence the dogmatic voice to be happy and live a meaningful life. Accepting this reality can often feel rather liberating, rather than hopeless and suffocating.

Maria and Mr Badii have each made a choice. Maria accepts and sees the world and her life as it is and decides to keep living. Mr Badii sees himself and life as it is and decides to stop living. Neither choice right nor wrong, noble nor weak, permitted nor denied. 

Changes in the Face of Covid

A new way of life? 

In the face of the recent outbreak of Corona Virus, many of our daily habits and routines have changed dramatically in the space of a couple of weeks. From working remotely, to online classes, to closed entertainment venues, to limited flying, our ways of living have been turned upside down. Remote and online living is becoming a thing of the now. Are businesses prepared to shift to remote working, can we cut air travel, should we be stocking up on food and toiletries and can we stay calm and carry on?

The economy has taken a huge hit due to the outbreak of the virus and now questions specifically of employment instability have surfaced. One threat to job stability exists in regards to those dependent on employment within the gig economy. The gig economy has thrived over the past five years, extending into all aspects of daily life from deliveries to home repairs to transportation. While the new era of employment through the gig economy has always been an unstable model of work, in today’s environment, where we need to reduce human to human contact as much as possible and work remotely, is it possible for these types of job to endure? Without unemployment insurance, sick pay, a social net and medical benefits how can people reliant on the gig economy survive in the face of this health crisis. Already drones are replacing deliveries of food and medical supplies, and people are starting to work increasingly from home and avoid public spaces so reliance on car services, such as Uber and Lyft have reduced. Many of these jobs cannot be performed at home and many workers who depend on gig work for survival say they simply cannot afford to take time off, even if it means putting themselves or others at risk. How do we protect those involved in gig jobs, which make up around 36% of US workers (Gallup)? 

What does this new state of living look like and are we ready for it?

Drones to the rescue

Drones seem to be penetrating all aspects of virus response today. From delivering medical supplies and quarantine materials, to sanitizing public spaces, to recording street views, to detecting whether people are wearing masks and scolding those who are not. 

How does our privacy and personal right to freedom fair in the face of public health crises? It is important to constantly question the ways we view personal privacy and to analyse how in the face of crises these ideas adapt and transgress from the norm. Is China’s draconian approach to surveillance and tracking a viable response in the face of public health crises and something other countries might benefit from? Or must we maintain respect for certain unalienable rights to freedom and privacy regardless of external circumstances? Furthermore, how will rights regarding freedom of movement be impacted? Will laws restricting movement in and out of countries deviate into restricting specific nationalities and become a form of racializing freedom of movement and further exacerbate discrimination and xenophobia? How can we grapple with the issue of restricting entry into countries to fight the spread of the virus, while limiting the spread of discrimination and racism? 

Finding a Sense of Refuge within Midnight Diner

It seems there is a sort of renaissance in Japanese television and movies due to their increased streaming on Netflix with the recent release of Studio Ghibli, among other Japanese shows, including The Naked Director and Giri/Haji. 

A show that I have recently become intrigued by is Midnight Diner. Unlike most shows I watch, this is a show on which I do not binge. I try to savour its flavour and to experience it in limited doses to fully appreciate its slow, meditative rhythms. Midnight Diner offers the viewer an intimate, strange and privileged insight into the nightly occurrences of a diner in Japan, which opens from midnight until the early hours of the morning. Who are these shady characters that enter through crooked, hidden steps to enter a magical room of curious, animated faces and the ambiguous, omnipresent Master?

The associations that each character holds with a specific dish, usually tied to some childhood memory often provides the thread to unravel their story. This exploration allows for a strange dichotomy of innocence and delinquency, for most characters hold a shifty background filled with stories of stealing, adultery and lies. Somehow entering the diner allows the characters to use the reconnection with their favourite foods to reconcile with many of their tragic stories and to gain a sense of comfort. Night-time is when feelings of despair and loneliness feel particularly acute. Yet this show demonstrates the simple pleasure to eating with strangers and sharing stories in a small room, when the rest of the city is asleep. 

During feelings of loneliness and dislocation, and perhaps even more so today with external threats of quarantine and social separation, this show might provide an unexpected sense of intimacy and simple pleasure. The Master himself acts as more of an anthropomorphic conscience than a man. His presence feels as though it might endure forever within his tiny diner and this sense of constancy seems quite necessary today.

Le Flâneur comme Prisonnier du Passé

L’INTRODUCTION

Le concept du flâneur est un symbole important dans la littérature française. La représentation du flâneur est celle d’une personne qui oriente son regard vers le passé pour faire face au présent. A travers l’analyse des textes “Le Cygne”[1] de Charles Baudelaire et “Dora Bruder"[2]de Patrick Modiano, on peut retracer les deux représentations du flâneur dans des contextes historiques distincts. Baudelaire évoque l’esprit du flâneur moderne dans ses poèmes. Ces poèmes écrits au milieu du XIXe siècle naissent dans un contexte historique défini par les grands changements architecturaux de l’espace urbain de Paris. La ville fut reconstruitesous les ordres du Baron Haussmann et de Napoléon III, qui ont voulu refaçonner Paris en ville moderne. Haussmann voulait créer, non seulement de nouveaux espaces, avenues et bâtiments mais aussi de nouvelles significations (Terdiman 123). En raisonde ces changements urbains importants, les parisiens commencent à regretter le vieux Paris et à rejeter ce nouvel espace artificiel, perçu comme inauthentique. En effet, les parisiens se sentent perdus et aliénés dans leur propre ville. Baudelaire dépeint ces sentiments de nostalgie et d’aliénation dans son livre de poèmes, "Les Fleurs du Mal" (1857).  En représentant le personnage du flâneur dans ces poèmes, il utilise le souvenir comme une force qui relie l’espace moderne à celui du mythe. Pour Baudelaire, les mouvements du flâneur à travers la ville de Paris représentent leprocessus traumatique et nostalgique qui permet de se souvenir de la ville. Particulièrement son poème "Le Cygne" témoigne de la mélancolie causée par les changements d’espace à Paris. 

 De même que Baudelaire, par qui il a été influencé, Modiano utilise la flânerie et la nostalgie dans son livre "Dora Bruder" (1997), pour créer sa propre interprétation du flâneur postmoderne. Le roman de Modiano a lieu durant la période d’après-guerre à Paris. Ses écrits sont hantés par la memoire de l’Occupation de la France pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale et l’Holocauste.Modiano, comme Baudelaire, utilise la ville de Paris comme un catalyseur pour la memoire (VanderWolk 5). On peut interpréter l‘œuvre de Modiano comme un hommage au regard de Baudelaire. Cependant, Modiano élargit ce regard en le prenant dans le "realm of the postmodern through the use of the parodic and the self-referential" (VanderWolk 24). On peut dire que, "Modiano’s Paris is Baudelaire’s with a twist"(VanderWolk 33).  

En s'immergeant dans les deux textes “Le Cygne” et “Dora Bruder”, on découvre trois liens importants : l’esprit nostalgique, les mouvements de flâneur et la représentation des ruines. En comparant le flâneur moderne de Baudelaire au flâneur postmoderne de Modiano, on peut développer l’idée que le flâneur moderne de Baudelaire essaie de réveiller le lecteur pour le forcer à participer dans ce Paris moderne d’une nouvelle manière, tandis que l’intention du flâneur postmoderne de Modiano est de sensibiliser le lecteur. 

LA DÉFINITION DU FLÂNEUR

Pour mieux comprendre l’évolution du flâneur moderne vers le flâneur postmoderne de Modiano, on doit avant tout définir la notion du flâneur. Walter Benjamin décrit le concept de flâneur dans son œuvre "The Arcades Project". Il explore le flâneur de Baudelaire pour mieux comprendre la psyché de l’homme moderne. Pour Benjamin, le flâneur possède le regard de l’homme aliéné (84). "The flâneurstill stood at the margins, of the great city as of the bourgeois class" (Benjamin 84). Benjamin montre comment l'ambiance de la ville, particulièrement les arcades de Paris, peut générer des mémoires perdues qui reflètent des changements dans la vie moderne. Dans son livre, "The Arcades Project", Benjamin explore l’idée que ce n’est pas la psyché humaine qui possède la collectivité de l’espace, mais c’est l’espace matériel de la ville qui fournit l’espace collectif et partagé. Cet espace matériel reflète le présent et le passé. Benjamin décrit la capacité du flâneur moderne de transcender l’espace et le temps pour surpasser les limites spirituelles et psychologiques. L’idée de transcendance d’espace et du temps est montrée dans "Dora Bruder" avec l’auteur qui traverse les trois périodes du temps : la vie de Dora Bruder, son enquête sur Dora Bruder et le présent. En outre, Benjamin et Baudelaire reconnaissent l’intention du flâneur d’exprimer la vie moderne, mais pas de la défier. Le processus de flânerie souligne l’importance de sauver le passé pour qu’on puisse comprendre le présent ; pas seulement les trésors du passé, mais aussi les vestiges et les délaissés. 

L’ESPRIT NOSTALGIQUE

"Le Cygne" peut être lu comme un poème de la mémoire et de la mélancolie du passé. Baudelaire utilise le mythe d’Andromaque pour montrer comment le nouveau Paris, reconstruit et refaçonné sous les ordres du Baron Haussmann et Napoléon III, est devenu une ville méconnaissable à ses habitants. Dans "Le Cygne", l’orateur ne peut pas reconnaître sa ville après les changements. En rejetant la tradition de la poésie lyrique, Baudelaire voulait utiliser les mouvements du flâneur et de la nostalgie pour exprimer le sentiment d’exil et dévoiler la vraie image de la nouvelle ville. Le flâneur Baudelairien essaie de pénétrer le centre de la ville pour subvertir les auras de la ville et montrer le délabrement physique de Paris (Kawakami 259). Baudelaire utilise "Le Cygne" comme une représentation du processus traumatique et nostalgique de se souvenir de la ville. En effet, le cygne devient l’objet d’une révélation qui éclaire la condition de l’homme moderne. Enjuto-Rangel explore l’idée de la perte de la vieille ville et comment la mémoire signifie la perte. Les mots du poème "Le vieux Paris n’est plus" (130) soulignent le sentiment d’une aspiration pour une ville perdue : une ville en ruine qui a été remplacé par des boulevards, des grands magasins et une atmosphère stérile. Le thème du deuil et de la perte est aussi exploré dans le récit des autres exilés du poème. Par exemple, Andromaque pleure pour la perte de son mari, Hector, et pour la perte de sa ville, Troy. En outre, les rénovations de la ville de Paris ont détruit la vieille ville, comme Troy s’est effondrée à cause des Grecs. Baudelaire écrit, "Andromaque, je pense à vous ! Ce petit fleuve, Pauvre et triste miroir où jadis resplendit" (130). La juxtaposition du passé et du présent dans "Le Cygne" montre la transition de la poésie vers un symbole d’une réalité fragmentée. Paris assume le valeur d’un lieu de mythe (VanderWolk 33). En outre, tout au long du poème, Baudelaire utilise des mots puissants remplis de tristesse et de mélancolie, comme "vos douleurs de veuve" (130), "rongé d’un désir sans trêve" (132) et "à ceux qui s’abreuvent de pleurs" (132). "Le Cygne" est le symbole d’une allégorie de la perte qui represente les nombreux exilés sur la terre. Avec ce symbole, Baudelaire traverse dans le poème trois époques : le passé antique, le vieux Paris d’autrefois et la cité reconstruite d’aujourd’hui. 

Comme Baudelaire, Modiano est influencé par la représentation du passé comme liée au sens de la perte dû aux changements à Paris (VanderWolk 5). Lui aussi utilise les lieux de mémoire comme des témoignages du passage des gens au cours de l’histoire.La perception de lieux est essentielle pour développer le problème d’identité qui est au cœur de l’image du flâneur, quelqu’un à la périphérie de la société. Des contextes historiques différents ont guidé les deux interprétations du flâneur à Paris. Essentiellement, Modiano présente l’image d’un flâneur postmoderne quiest obscurcie par la memoire de l’Occupation qui hante chaque rue et arrondissement de Paris (Kawakami 260). Dans "Dora Bruder" on a l’impression que le narrateur ou, le flâneur postmoderne, se sent plus confortable dans la présence des lieux de mémoires qu’avec des gens. Modiano retrace la ville de Paris à travers les yeux de Dora pour représenter la ville comme un lieu rempli de mémoires inquiétantes. Modiano s’engage dans un double mouvement de lien entre le passé et le présent pour reconstruire les mouvements de Dora Bruder.  L’histoire commence avec le narrateur qui découvre dans les années quatre-vingt l’annonce d’une personne perdue, "On recherche une jeune fille, Dora Bruder, 15ans, 1m55, visage ovale, yeux gris-marron, manteau sport gris, pull-over bordeaux, jupe et chapeau bleu marine, chaussures sport. Adresser toutes indications à M. et Mme. Bruder, 41 boulevard Ornano. Paris" (7). Le narrateur introduit son investigation de la vie de Dora Bruder, en disant, "un moyen comme un autre pour continuer de concentrer mon attention sur Dora Bruder, et peut-être . . . pour élucider ou deviner quelque chose d'elle, un lieu où elle était passée, un détail de sa vie" (53). Plus que tout, "Dora Bruder" est l’histoire de la recherche du narrateur qui agit comme un détective. Les recherches sur la vie et la fuite de Dora Bruder sont en effet similaires à celles du ‘chiffonnier’ (Kawakami 264). Il reconstruit les évènements de son passé et, en le faisant, il agit comme un flâneur. Le narrateur doit retracer et réengager avec Paris avec le regard d’un étranger. Avec ses recherches, il ressuscite les rues, les hôtels, et les bâtiments de la vielle ville de Paris pendant l’adolescence Dora Bruder. A vrai dire, Modiano résume la mémoire d’une ville en soi, en reliant chaque mémoire à une rue ou un bâtiment de Paris. (VanderWolk 34). Le narrateur écrit, "Dans mon souvenir, ce quartier de la Chapelle m’apparait aujourd’hui tout en lignes de fuite à cause des voies ferries de la proximité de la gare du Nord" (29). Pour souligner les sentiments de mélancolie et de perte, le narrateur décrit comment l’espace du présent donne l’impression de vide : "J’ai ressenti une impression d’absence et de vide, chaque fois que je me suis trouvé dans un endroit où ils avaient vécu" (29) et "vous éprouvez un sentiment de vacance et d’éternité" (59). Le vide continue d’habiter les rues dans la ville postmoderne. Par ailleurs, on peut voir les parallèles entre le poids du passé sur l’esprit du flâneur, moderne et postmoderne. Tandis que Baudelaire observe que "ses souvenirs sont plus lourds que des rocs" (131), Modiano nous dit que "l’impression de vide était encore plus forte à cause de l’échappée de cette rue vers la Seine" (133). 

L’aspect visuel de flâneur est priorisé avec Modiano. Dans "Dora Bruder" on ressent les descriptions détaillées de la ville avec "l’ombre de ces murs noirs, eux-mêmes noyés dans le couvre-feu" (50) et "des fenêtres étaient couverts d’une légère couche de glace" (89). La ville de Paris est dépeinte en silence avec le manque de description du son, ce qui rend plus fort l’idée de "silence" au cœur de l’écriture de Modiano. VanderWolk souligne ce manque de son dans "Dora Bruder" en disant, "Like the flâneur a century before, Modiano’s narrators are seemingly invisible in the great city as they walk, observe and search for clues"(27).Essentiellement, Modiano célèbre le fait que le mystère et l’absence de Dora Bruder continuent à être caché dans les ombres de la ville. Warehime écrit, " His failed search for this lost time allows her to keep the secret of what she did and where she went. For those four months she escaped History and time"(Warehime, 112). En ignorant les détails spécifiques de sa vie, Modiano protège son secret. Il écrit à la fin du livre, "tout ce qui vous souille et vous détruit - n’auront pas pu lui voler" (145). 

LES MOUVEMENTS DU FLÂNEUR

Les mouvements du flâneur sont encadrés dans l’esprit du passé. En effet, ces mouvements incarnent dans "Le Cygne" la nostalgie et l’aspiration pour une patrie connue. Le poème se construit au fil d’associations libres pour capturer le mouvement fluide du flâneur, par exemple, avec la répétition de la phrase "je pense à…". Baudelaire présente une série de figures en exil qui traversent les lignes du poème, par exemple, l’orateur, les légendes du mythe, le cygne et la femme noire. L’orateur utilise son propre sentiment de mélancolie, caractérisé par les changements d’espace à Paris, pour faire des liens avec la nostalgie d’autres figures dans le poème, comme le cygne sans son lac, Andromaque sans Troy, la femme noire sans l’Afrique et l’orphelin sans sa maison (Enjuto-Rangel 145). Tous ces exilés désirent retourner à leurs lieux d’origine (Enjuto-Rangel 145). Baudelaire utilise aussi la vitesse de changement pour montrer le manque de permanence et le bouleversement de la ville. L’orateur dit, "la forme d’une ville Change plus vite, hélas ! que le cœur d’un mortel" (130). En outre, dans ce poème on suit les mouvements du cygne qui veut revenir à son état naturel, hors de sa cage. Le symbole du cygne montre le désir du flâneur moderne de trouver un espace hors de ce monde. "Je pense à mon grand cygne, avec ses gestes fous, Comme les exilés, ridicule et sublime, sans trêve !" (132). Baudelaire présente l’image triste d’un animal désorienté qui ne peut pas quitter la ménagerie pour trouver son lac natal. Le cygne est piégé dans un état aliéné avec "le pavé sec", "le sol raboteux" et "un ruisseau sans eau" (131). Clairement, le cygne désire ardemment son état naturel, en pleurant pour "le cœur plein de son beau lac natal" (131).  Sa triste mésaventure prend la forme d’une quête pathétique, reflétant l’univers dérangé, où le cygne devient la métaphore de tous les exilés dans le monde. 

Dans "Dora Bruder", les mouvements physiques du narrateur à travers les espaces et les rues de la ville jouent un rôle important dans la conceptualisation du flâneur postmoderne de Modiano. Le narrateur passe facilement d’un espace en deux dimensions à un en trois dimensions. Ses mouvements lui permettent de traverser l’espace textuel de la ville de Paris, ainsi que de passer de sa narration personnelle et celle de Dora (Kawakami 262). Le narrateur nous dit, "les paniers à salade n’ont pas beaucoup changé jusqu’au début des années soixante. La seule fois de ma vie où je me suis trouvé dans l’un d’eux c’etait en compagnie de mon père" (68). Le mouvement à travers le temps et l’espace permet au lecteur de participer à la flânerie postmoderne. "The passage through space becomes a passage through narrative, the flâneriealong the streets of Paris turns into the familiar walk along a sentence" (Kawakami 262). La fluidité de mouvement entre l’espace en trois dimensions et celui en deux qu’on retrouve chez Modiano empêche le lecteur de retomber dans le réel et de rester dans l’illusion fictive des espaces spatiaux et temporels. Modiano écrit, "A vingt ans, dans un autre quartier de Paris, je me souviens d’avoir éprouvé cette même sensation de vide que devant le mur des Tourelles, sans savoir quelle en était la vraie raison" (132). La façon de construire la narration de Dora Bruder reflète l’expérience du flâneur. C’est évident que Modiano essaie de montrer l’élément du hasard avec ses recherches et ses découvertes sur sa vie. Il écrit, "Voilà le seul moment du livre où, sans le savoir, je me suis rapproché d’elle, dans l’espace et le temps" (54). L’élément de la spontanéité est essentiel pour la flânerie et le narrateur souligne le hasard dans ses recherches en disant, "j’ai découvert, par hasard, qu’elles avaient habité" (28) et "je lui avais volé, bien involontairement, son titre" (100). Modiano ne nous présente pas seulement les mouvements physiques d’écrivain mais aussi métaphoriques. VanderWolk propose que Modiano crée un processus d’écriture qui laisse le lecteur dans un état d’incertitude, ce qui nous permet de lire nous-mêmes. En laissant le lecteur dans cet état d’incertitude comme l’acte de flâner, VanderWolk juge que Modiano incite le lecteur à développer un mouvement flâneur en soi. "The result of this mélange is a world of autobiographical fiction that is remarkable in its postmodern fixation on the role of memory, not as a unifying force, but rather as an obsessional temptation to reconstruct, to relive, to re-create"(VanderWolk 3). Ce qui veut dire que le lecteur devient un détective de la même manière que le narrateur.

LA REPRÉSENTATION DES RUINES 

Dans "Le Cygne", Baudelaire décrit Paris comme une ville en ruine.Il semble que le passé est enterré dans un "tombeau vide" (Baudelaire 132). Enjuto-Rangel analyse ce poème pour questionner la politique du deuil et l’importance de la représentation des ruines comme une construction de la mémoire historique. Essentiellement, en montrant la ruine de la ville, Baudelaire espère garder la ville en vie. En effet, les mémoires de la ville sont plus fortes que l’expérience du nouveau Paris. L’orateur nous dit, "mes chers souvenirs sont plus lourds que des rocs" (131). Les ruines sont des allégories d’exil : "Vieux faubourgs, tout pour moi devient allégorie" (131). Enjuto-Rangel explore cette idée, "The new palaces of Haussmann's Paris do not erase the "vieux faubourgs" because the metaphor of memories as stones provides the speaker with the materials to "rebuild" the past of his city... The ruins are the building blocks for the construction of a historical past, the allegorical ground from which the modern city emerges” (144). Les ruines deviennent les symboles du processus historique de la ville (Enjuto-Rangel 140). Enjuto-Rangel explique que les ruines dans "Le Cygne" “foresees modernity's own destructive nature by integrating the modern and the antique in a world where Andromaque, the swan, and the speaker coexist as symbols of pain and displacement within blocks of the new Carrousel and the Louvre" (Enjuto-Rangel 143). En outre, le fait que ce poème est dédié à Victor Hugo montre que c’est un texte déguisé comme une solidarité avec une personne exilée au sein d'un régime oppressif (Enjuto-Rangel 161). Fondamentalement, la représentation poétique des ruines, comme un lien avec le passé et la mélancolie, encourage le processus de reconstruction d’une mémoire historique. En utilisant un langage fort et perçant, reflétant des sentiments d’aliénation, d’exil et d’aspiration, Baudelaire secoue le lecteur pour le forcer à résister à une amnésie collective (Enjuto-Rangel 145).

 La représentation des ruines dans "Dora Bruder" est illustrée de manière différente à celle de Baudelaire. VanderWolk dit, "In comparing past and present, Modiano, like Baudelaire, emphasizes the recuperative power of memory in cooperation with the inspirational capacity of the city, as each writer seeks to create his own aesthetic" (23). Pour Baudelaire les ruines sont réelles et reflètent la réalité moderne de la ville. Baudelaire essaie de montrer la dure réalité de Paris et il veut que ses lecteurs voient Paris dans une lumière claire, en exposant des prostitués, des clochards et des vieux pour montrer que la beauté peut venir d’aspects négatifs. Les ‘fleurs maladives’ symbolisent l’idée qu’on doit accepter la beauté de la ville de Paris moderne (Kawakami 266). Par contre, Modiano nous force de faire face à notre histoire, en transformant la ville en ruine, pour qu’on soit responsable du passé et pour assumer sa connaissance et sa culpabilité (Kawakami 269). Il semble que Modiano est toujours hanté par la question comment peut-il préserver les mémoires de L’Occupation et de Dora Bruder avec son écriture. Kawakami suggère que Modiano crée ses narratives du passé pour représenter la ville comme une ruine. Modiano pousse la mémoire de l’Occupation dans l’inconscience du lecteur, pour que Paris devienne une ruine en soi. "In the eyes of the postmodern flâneur and the informed reader, the beautiful city of Paris is thus transformed into a city of ghosts" (Kawakami 267). La ruine pour Modiano ne doit pas être quelque chose de physique mais plutôt quelque chose qui hante l’air de Paris. "L'extrême précision de quelques détails me hantait" (53).Pour Modiano ce ne sont pas les bâtiments en ruine de l’Occupation qui sont la ruine. A vrai dire, le lieu en soi n’apporte aucune signifiance, c’est seulement l’aura de ruine qui apporte l’aura du passé (Kawakami 268). C’est l’entré de quelqu’un qui peut projeter ses mémoires (personnelles ou apprises dans des livres d’histoire) sur un lieu. Modiano écrit que, "les lieux gardent une légère empreinte des personnes qui les ont habités" (28). Mais c’est son interprétation des lieux qui les transforment en ruine. 

CONCLUSION 

En analysant ces deux textes, “Le Cygne” et “Dora Bruder", on peut discerner comment la ville de Paris est en même temps construite et déconstruite par le regard nostalgique du flâneur.  L’étude sur la flânerie à travers l’espace temporel et l’espace spatial avec les trois points de liens (l’esprit nostalgique, les mouvements du flâneur et les ruines) dévoile certaines similitudes et différences entre le flâneur moderne de Baudelaire et le flâneur postmoderne de Modiano. Les deux utilisent la force de la mémoire de la ville pour la décrire. Bien que Baudelaire reflète la nostalgie d’une ville qui a été transformé et Modiano reflète la perte et l’absence dans la ville d’après-guerre, les deux sont guidés par les mêmes idées qui sont figées dans la mélancolie. Cette mélancolie les pousse à s'attacher à la mémoire du passé.

 C’est evident que les contextes historiques encadrent les deux représentations du flâneur. Baudelaire remue le lecteur pour l'inciter à participer dans la ville moderne d’une nouvelle manière, tandis que le flâneur postmoderne souligne l’importance de réinterpréter la ville après des évènements tragiques pour qu’on puisse comprendre le présent. Il semble que pour le flâneur moderne la memoire soit collective, tandis que le désir du flâneur postmoderne de ressentir et de protéger la mémoire est, en même temps, collectif et individuel. Dans le cadre de la période d’après-guerre à Paris, Modiano exprime notre responsabilité collective et individuelle de ne pas oublier ou nier l’importance du souvenir. Modiano utilise ses œuvres pour chercher dans les mémoires des vérités historiques ou des personnes perdues.Le flâneur postmoderne donc apporte un regard multidimensionnel du passé, de la ville et du processus de l’écriture. Le flâneur postmoderne évolue du flâneur moderne en exigeant de nous d’être responsable de la recherche des vérités du passé à travers les mémoires de la ville.  

BIBLIOGRAPHIE

 Baudelaire, Charles, Les Fleurs du Mal: Tableaux Parisiens. M. Sautier, 1952. 

(Le Cygne) 

Benjamin, Walter. “Paris: Capital of the Nineteenth Century.” Perspecta, vol. 12, 1969, pp. 165–172. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1566965.

Enjuto-Rangel, Cecilia. “Broken Presents: The Modern City in Ruins in Baudelaire, Cernuda, and Paz.” Comparative Literature, vol. 59, no. 2, 2007, pp. 140–157. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40279365.

 Kawakami, Akane. “Flowers of Evil, Flowers of Ruin: Walking in Paris with Baudelaire and Modiano.” Patrick Modiano. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007. 257-269. Print. 

 Modiano, Patrick. Dora Bruder. Gallimard, 1999. 

Terdiman, Richard. Presents Past: Modernity and the Memory Crisis. Ithaca : Cornell Unviersity Press, 1993.

 VanderWolk, William. Rewriting the Past: Memory, History and Narration in the Novels ofPatrick Modiano.Amsterdam,Rodopi, 1997. Print.

Verdicchio, Massimo. "Rereading Baudelaire’s “Le Cygne”. MLN,vol. 130 no.4, 2015, pp. 879-897, Project MUSE,doi:10.1353/mln.2015.0064. 

 Warehime, Marja. “Paris and the Autobiography of a Flâneur: Patrick Modiano and Annie Ernaux.” French Forum, vol. 25, no. 1, 2000, pp. 97–113. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40552071.

Quelques Réflexions sur Quelques Jours à Philadelphie dans le parc Rittenhouse

Il y a beaucoup de choses place Rittenhouse, par exemple : un parc, un café, trois bistros, une fontaine, un hôtel, une libraire, un arrêt d’autobus, un grand magasin qui s’appelle « Barney », des arbres, des fleurs roses, des fleurs violettes, une banque, un parking, une salle de concert, un vendeur d’Hot Dog et bien d’autres choses encore. 

Mon propos dans les pages qui suivent a plutôt été de noter et décrire les choses en plein air. Les choses qu’on témoigne et qu’on voit à chaque instant, ce qui n’ont aucune importance. Les images qui nous passent et n’attirent pas d’attention. Décrire, observer et remarquer juste pour le faire. D’être attentive à ce qui se passe, ce qui existe et ce qui change sinon du temps, des arbres, des nuages, des taxis, des voitures, des déchets et des gens. 

1 

La date : 17 Avril 2019

L’heure : 12h 35

Le lieu : Parc Rittenhouse

Le temps : Soleil. Chaud. Ciel bleu.

Esquisse d’un inventaire de quelques-unes des choses strictement visibles :

-       De la terre : du gravier

-       Des arbres (feuillus, fleurs, buissons, herbe) 

-       Des êtres humains (adultes, adolescents, enfants) 

-       Des animaux (chiens, écureuils, pigeons, oiseaux) 

-       De la pierre : la bordure des trottoirs, une fontaine, un hôtel, une église 

-       Des symboles conventionnels : le « P » des parkings

-       Des chiffres : plaque du n°19 de la rue du Walnut Street

Je m’assis sur un banc de parc. Un couple est assis à côté de moi. Ils ont un chien. Des enfants courent à travers le parc avec la nounou qui les suive. Un homme avec des écouteurs parle sur son portable. 

Une affiche à l’extérieur du parc présente le marché du samedi qui aura lieu. 

Un homme en surpoids me passe en portant un jersey de Philadelphia. Il respire lourdement. 

Une jeune mère essaie de faire poser ses enfants avec difficulté pour une photo. Aucune eau ne jaillit de la fontaine. Il y a beaucoup de bancs qui m’entourent. J’essaie de compter combien de bancs existent dans le parc. Je pense qu’il y a plus de vingt, mais la moitié sont vides. 

C’est l’heure du déjeuner. On quitte le boulot pendant cette heure pour reposer et manger. Beaucoup de gens ont une main occupée : ils tiennent un sandwich, un café, une bouteille d’eau. On parle avec des collègues. On parle de rien. 

Une femme est assise seule sur un banc. Est ce qu’elle attend quelqu’un ? 

Couleurs : vert (arbres, t-shirt, feuille)

            cheveux blond

            sac noir

            casquette rouge 

            ciel bleu 

Au milieu de rue un fou commence à chanter. 

Pause.

2 

La date : 17 avril 2019

L’heure : 14h 10 

Le lieu : Café de Joe (à côté du parc) 

            Des grands bâtiments encerclent l’action, les évènements, les actes, les mots partagés. Tout se passe autour d’un petit parc. 

Plein de mouvement. Mouvement des lèvres, des véhicules, des pieds, des services publics, des vélos, des mains. 

Modes de parler : en silence, avec des gestes, sans gestes, avec un rire, sans émotions, avec trop d’émotions, à deux, à trois, au téléphone, à plusieurs, tout seul. 

Modes de vêtements : un costume, un mat de yoga, des sweats, des tatous, des gros bijoux, des coiffures rasées, des coiffeurs gélifiés, et des coiffeurs teintes. 

Modes d’architecture : moderne, vieux, sale, laid, avec des sculptures, avec de petites fenêtres et avec de grandes fenêtres.

Modes de locomotion : marcher, errer, en voiture, en taxi de Philadelphia, en taxi de Germantown, à vélo. Taxi numéro P-1775. Taxi numéro P-1874.

Le numéro sur la porte du taxi est 215- 666-6666. 

Un 12 passe (le Septa qui va à 50 Woodland).

Un camion blanc passe, des vélos reste sur un support à vélo. 

L’autobus « Circa Centre » passe.

Un arbre avec des feuilles violettes se balance dans le vent. 

Des voitures s’engouffrent vers le panneau d’arrêt. Il y a trop de bruit. 

Un jeune homme tient un sac en plastique rempli de raisins. 

Une femme enceinte s’arrête pour regarder la vitrine de Barney. Les vêtements d’été sont affichés. 

Un camion de construction passe. 

Un vieil homme s’arrête une second pour dire bonjour au petit chien qui couche près de moi. 

Un clochard attire les pigeons avec des miettes. 

Au milieu de la rue, un homme hèle un taxi. Le taxi arrête et il entre. 

Une vielle femme arrête une jeune femme pour demander des directions. 

Près de la poubelle quelqu’un jette son café fini.  

Les pigeons font un tour. Leurs actions sont synchroniques. Ce qui déclenche ce mouvement ? Où est le stimulus ? Où est la motivation de changer la place ?

J’ai envie de quitter le café. J’ai envie de changer l’atmosphère. 

Il est trois heures. 

Pause. 

3

La date : 19 Avril 2019

L’heure : 15h 55

Le lieu : Parc (café à côté du Parc de Rittenhouse)

Le temps : Gris, humide, déprimant. 

Par rapport à l’autre jour, qu’y a-t-il de changé ? Au premier abord, c’est gris et mouillé. Le ciel est plus nuageux. On ne voit pas d’écureuils, mais il y a de petits oiseaux. Il y a un chien brun avec le couple qui assoient dans le table à ma gauche. Je touche le chien (il est doux). 

Je me demande si je souviendrais quelques gens qui m’avaient passé l’autre jour. Si les voitures sont les mêmes ? S’ils sont les mêmes pigeons ?

Je me suis assis à une position différente, mais plein de choses n’ont pas changés. Est-ce que quelqu’un me souvient de l’autre jour ?

La pluie commence lentement. Le soleil s’est caché. 

J’ai commandé un jus d’orange et des frites. Du pain est aussi arrivé avec du beurre. Deux hommes espagnols étaient à ma droite. Ils ont commandé des huitres et des crevettes. Ça sent comme la mer, mais pas dans le bon sens. 

La salle de concert, Curtis, est en face de moi. La signe de naissance de Vincent Perischetti, un pianiste de Philadelphia, est là. 

La sirène de voiture de police résonne. Je peux aussi distinguer le son d’un chanteur dans le parc. Je pense qu’il chante quelque chose de Coldplay, mais je n’en suis pas sûr. 

Un peintre essaie de solder ses peintures près de parc (sans succès). Personne n’est intéressé. Ses peintures dépeignent le parc en différentes couleurs ; en rose, en vert et en bleu. 

Je mange quelques frites. Le sel colle à mes doigts. 

La pluie s’arrête après dix minutes. 

Des parapluies ferment. 

Passe un homme qui porte un t-shirt en tiedye. Pas un bon choix. 

Une poussette. 

Une paquette des cigarettes. 

Deux femmes veulent entrer et demandent s’il y a une table libre à l’extérieur du café. 

Passe un homme avec des tatous, un t-shirt de Harley Davidson et une cigarette dans sa bouche. 

Passe un taxi vide. 

Passe un taxi avec un homme. 

Je peux voir l’intérieur de salle de concert. Les grands chandeliers sont visibles par les grandes fenêtres. La façade de salle de concert est couverte avec des sculptures, des gravures des chérubins, des femmes nuées, des plantes.

Un Toyota en noir est garé dans la rue. 

Passe un camion avec le titre « Samuels and Son Seafood Co. » 

Passe un 12. Les publicités de PECO décorent les côtés du bus. 

Passe un taxi numéro P-10973. 

Qu’est ce qui déclenche tous ses mouvements ? Les micro-évènements qui se passent tous au même moment ? Pourquoi mon attention est-elle attirée sur cet objet et non sur celui et cette personne et non sur celui-là ? 

Je pense que je reconnais quelqu’un de mon cours de yoga la semaine dernière. 

Leger changement de luminosité.

(Fatigue)

La serveuse me demande si je voudrais prendre quelques choses d’autre. 

La rue est sale. Le soleil s’est caché. Il y a de vent. 

Il y a beaucoup d’enfants qui passent. 

Une voiture blanc, gris, noir et bleue. 

Le café devient plus vide. 

La rue en face de moi s’appelle Mozart. 

Il y a toujours un mouvement ; un passant, une voiture, une photo prise.  

Est- ce que le mouvement aléatoire vraiment existe? 

Un vélo. 

Un chien. 

La pluie recommence. 

Des amies parlent. Une amie tient son bébé dans ses bras. Elles discutent leurs emplois et leurs maries. 

Passe un homme avec un valise. 

Une cigarette tombe sur le trottoir. 

Je n’écris pas pour quinze minutes. 

            Instants de vide.

Il est cinq heures d’après-midi. 

Une dame entre dans la salle de concert. Un oiseau vient de se poser sur le rebord de la salle. 

Le chien me regarde avec des yeux fixes. Qu’est-ce qu’il pense ?

Un petit rayon de soleil. Un petit oiseau. Des voix. Deux enfants. Un taxi passe. Il est six heures. 

How AI Can Enhance Humanitarian Aid

Introduction

In a world of accelerating technological changes, the ways that we help and protect people are currently being redefined and adapted to new circumstances. Amidst the potential for technological advancements in genetic engineering, robotics, and healthcare to widen the socioeconomic divide even further, now more than ever, it is essential to define how technological innovation can be used as a force for good. In today’s contentious environment we have a responsibility to reckon with the questions of how civil society and public policy can harness the power of machine learning to initiate a shift from the public good to the common good. Within this discussion, there has been an increase in collaboration between the public and private sector, thereby leveraging the nexus of interactions between public affairs, civil society and technology. The United Nations is a leading player in driving increased collaboration between the public and private sector, in the hopes of spurring innovations in the realm of humanitarian aid. Their Sustainable Development Goals are galvanizing worldwide participation from large tech companies, social entrepreneurs, startups, international organizations (IOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Through these partnerships formed, we are currently witnessing a revolution in humanitarian aid, with increasingly technologically and digitally driven forms of prediction, deliverance and recovery in humanitarian contexts. The term Digital Humanitarians has been coined to define a movement of individuals guided by a desire to protect vulnerable individuals through innovative solutions to Big Data. Digital Humanitarians mobilize data and online resources in collaborations with NGOs to support relief efforts around the world. 

The humanitarian community is currently faced with record numbers of people afflicted by population displacement, political wars, environmental crises and food and water insecurity. These challenges are only going to increase with the impacts of climate change and population growth. Perhaps the most promising advances in humanitarian aid relate to the possibility for AI to engage with the vast amounts of data and information flow. By relying on increasingly data-driven and technology driven solutions, aid and disaster response will be dramatically improved. Developments in prediction, delivery and recovery missions will foster faster and more focused responses and allow for sustainable innovations to help beneficiaries. In general, the ability to analyze and aggregate data in unprecedented ways, allow people to predict, monitor and respond in more coordinated and efficient ways (Bellevue, 2016).

This paper will analyze how insights from Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be harnessed as a positive force, in terms of addressing many of the world’s greatest challenges, including responding to natural disasters, famine, conflict and governance issues. Humanitarian aid is defined in this paper as providing material or logistical help to people, with the aim of alleviating suffering and saving lives. The three main areas in which AI will drive the future of humanitarian aid will be in prediction of human conflict or environmental disaster, deliverance of aid, and recovery from devastation. AI has the potential to transform humanitarian response and help the lives of millions of people, currently afflicted by trauma and devastation. However, when developing algorithms to help those in the most vulnerable situations around the world, it is essential to prioritize the security and safety of their data. Furthermore, in the context of Big Data and AI we must reckon with concerns relating to data bias, dissemination of false news and data security. 

Background 

AI, at its core, is a machine used to recognize patterns in data to simulate traditional responses consistent with humans (West & Allen, 2018). The algorithms use real-time data collected from a variety of sources to analyze and react to data instantly (West & Allen, 2018). Today, AI is predominantly associated with driverless cars, personal assistants and military drones. However, within the humanitarian community, there is a growing movement to incorporate the use of AI to help in humanitarian efforts in the realm of image analytics, drones and crowdsourcing. AI can be used in this area as a way of processing large quantities of information to help in analysis and in conversion of unstructured data into actionable knowledge. 

 There are currently many challenges and failings in the world of humanitarian aid, within which AI could provide some form of a solution. Currently, the key issues in the humanitarian community lie in the lack of organization, the lack of coordination and the lack of resources. A serious issue discussed by relief workers is that emergency aid does not adequately address the needs of the population, it often arrives late and is largely determined by the media profile or the political criteria, rather than humanitarian need (Fleshman, 2006). Furthermore, often media and press coverage are the primary means for pushing governments into action. Nonetheless, there is no way to guarantee that the media will focus on all given crisis situations or that these efforts will be sufficient to stimulate aid from governments and relief organizations. Often, by the time the cameras arrive and relief action is in place, it is only in time to record the dying, not to prevent the looming disaster (Fleshman, 2006). Another significant failing is in the structure of the humanitarian enterprise (Kent, Bennett, Donini & Maxwell, 2016). Essentially, the powers that govern humanitarian aid form an oligopoly of western donors, UN agencies and large NGOs. Within this system, however, there are large inefficiencies and much of the services provided are dictated by political drive, rather than by adequate needs assessment (Kent, Bennett, Donini & Maxwell, 2016). Finally, a fundamental problem lies in the physical deliverance of aid, due to the lack of information and the difficulty of providing aid in perilous zones. 

 Clearly, AI cannot solve all the current failings in the humanitarian system. However, it holds the power to provide faster and more extensive analyses of information, using large quantities of data and satellite imagery and to enhance the deliverance of aid to people in danger zones through the use of drones or self-driving trucks. Furthermore, with the waning influence of international organizations and the declining amounts of government funding to development programs, now more than ever, it is essential to invest and foster partnerships between private companies, international organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), experts in AI and data scientists to help solve some of the world’s greatest challenges. 

Prediction 

In order to deliver effective humanitarian aid, it is imperative to truly understand what the people in need want. In humanitarian contexts, the information available is often distributed across multiple groups, making it difficult to synthesize and to guide effective response. Furthermore, international organization, NGOs and government agencies often lack access to information on conflict resolution, cultural insight and other key knowledge to guide interventions. This makes it exceptionally hard to intervene in time sensitive missions. One key area where AI and machine learning can be of benefit in terms of humanitarian aid are in prediction. AI can be used to create predictive models for disaster relief, allowing responders to analyze large-scale population behavior and movement by using data gathered from a variety of sources, including social media posts, news sources and live imagery. Using this data, responders can create targeted programs to distribute supplies in a more orderly and efficient way.  

Recently, the United Nations, World Bank, International Committee of the Red Cross, Microsoft Corp., Google and Amazon Web Services announced a partnership dedicated to using AI to predict famine to help millions of people affected by food insecurity (World Bank, 2018). This initiative is called Famine Action Mechanism (FAM) and uses a combination of satellite data of rainfall, crop health, social media and news reports on uprisings, violence or surges in food prices (World Bank, 2018). Currently, most humanitarian action to relive famine occurs after the conflict or disaster, meaning that people receive material assistance too late. By using data to predict famine crises in advance, interventions can happen earlier and more efficiently to save more lives and reduce humanitarian costs by 30% (World Bank, 2018). Essentially, FAM’s aim is to shift global action from crisis response to crisis prevention by building capacities from large amounts of data to predict future crises. The technology used in this scenario includes a set of analytical models called Artemis, which uses AI and Machine Learning to estimate and forecast worsening food security crises in real-time (World Bank, 2018). By predicting famine earlier, organizations will hopefully be able to promote interventions, which address the early signs of emerging food crises, including safety nets and coping mechanisms (World Bank, 2018).

 Currently, with the rise of environmental disasters there are increasing risks of water wars or ‘hydro-political’ issues. Competition over limited water resources will be a key concern in future decades, whereby the effects of climate change alongside population growth will exacerbate competition for water, increasing regional instability and social unrest (Whigham, 2018). By using large amounts of data of daily temperature, rainfall estimates, emissions forecasts, crop failures, droughts, among other factors it is possible to create algorithms used to predict the likelihood of conflict in various areas (One Concern, 2018). A company called One Concern has created an AI program called Seismic Concern that accurately predicts seismic events and is also working on solutions for floods, wildfires and hurricanes (One Concern, 2018). Using AI, One Concern is able to predict and react to impacts of natural disasters, “conduct multi-hazard analysis of its critical infrastructure”, “run realistic training scenarios and build collaborative plans to better prepare for emergencies” and analyze the “complex interdependencies of our environments, like healthcare, power, food, shelter and more” (One Concern, 2018), in order to allow organizations to help ease recovery. In terms of seismic predictions, their platform analyzes hyperlocal, near-real time insights on live earthquake to provide quickly developed situational awareness allowing people to prioritize resources to save more lives (One Concern, 2018). The system, therefore, relies on a combination of human intelligence alongside AI to help accomplish missions in critical situations. Their technology essentially “assigns a unique, verifiable “digital fingerprint” to every natural or manmade element from the smallest rock to complete structures to mega cities” (One Concern, 2018). Overall, by providing insights from hyperlocal data, One Concern is helping to build resilient communities to allow for faster relief action amidst the rise of deadly natural disasters (One Concern, 2018).   

 Another area where AI can be of benefit in terms of prediction is in the agricultural sector. In regions afflicted by chronic hunger, AI can help to transform the agricultural industry. Smallholder famers occupy 60% of the world’s poor and hungry (Opp, 2018). Using AI to help farmers increase their yields could, subsequently, help to eradicate hunger around the world. The data collected from low-cost sensors, UAV’s, satellite imagery, weather data, soil conditions and crop status, can be analyzed with AI to help farmers understand how to maximize yield, when to fertilize their produce and how to improve market-value (Opp, 2018). This idea of “smart agriculture” is already being practiced in the developed countries, so it could be easily expanded to developing countries, where the need for the maximization of crop yield is significantly greater (Opp, 2018).

Deliverance 

AI driven drones are frequently discussed in the context of military intervention. People fear advances in drone technology could lead to an apocalyptic world of autonomous military weapons. However, drones hold the potential to help humanitarian efforts in terms of delivering medical and food supplies to remote areas, mapping terrain and predicting population movements. 

Currently, the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) is looking at how AI can be used to support disaster relief efforts. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) can use AI to deliver necessary medical and food supplies to remote or conflict afflicted regions unreachable by manned vehicles during times of environmental disaster or sociopolitical conflict(WFP, 2018). Aid agencies are facing more difficulty than ever before to deliver food assistance to people in need due to air strikes, attacks on humanitarian convoys and blocked access to besieged areas (WFP, 2018). Autonomous self-driving trucks provide a promising solution in these cases in terms of providing assistance in inaccessible or perilous environments. While the use of self-driving trucks in this context is yet to be done, WFP is collaborating with the German Aerospace Center (DLR) to build a blueprint for remotely piloted and self-driving technology in contexts of emergency response in dangerous areas (WFP, 2018). WFP and DLR have developed the first technical and operational concepts to equip and operate resilient, remote-controlled trucks delivering goods (WFP, 2018). Currently, they are looking at “how to set up operation centers, from where specialists can control the trucks, and global connectivity to prepare for an envisaged pilot” (WFP, 2018). 

Some companies in Africa are using AI to improve deliverance and access to medical care. In Rwanda, for instance, a company called Zipline is using drones to deliver medical supplies and blood to hospitals, which are difficult to access by manned vehicles (Giles, 2018). This effort has significantly helped those living in remote parts of the country where immediate access to medical help is rare (Giles, 2018). Furthermore, the drone system has reduced waste of blood by 95% (Giles, 2018). 

The number of refugees and displaced people in the world are at a record high (Smith, 2018). AI and machine learning have the “potential to improve the lives of approximately 68 million displaced people in the world, 28 million of whom are refugees” by better understanding their needs (Smith, 2018). The World Food Program (WFP), Norweign Refugee Council and Microsoft are working on using AI to improve communication with people in situations of protracted crises, such as in Syria and Yemen. The chatbots use language understanding, machine translation and speech recognition to intelligently assist individuals and connect them with resources, allowing aid workers to better understand the immediate needs and circumstancesof refugees (Smith, 2018). The chatbot communicates in 20 different languages at very low costs, enabling targeted assistance (Opp, 2018). Alongside that, Microsoft’s AI for Goodprogram is looking at how to protect the human rights of individuals in protracted living situations. Their work on deep learning focuses on how to better predict, analyze and respond to serious human rights abuses (Smith, 2018). By utilizing “AI-powered speech translation, people can connect with pro bono lawyers who are protecting people’s human rights” (Smith, 2018). 

WeRobotics is another company involved with using AI driven drones for disaster relief. Their drones are commonly used for humanitarian response through delivering supplies, medicines and through search and rescue efforts. 

Recovery  

Humanitarian organizations are dependent upon credible and timely information to respond quickly and efficiently to natural disasters and emergencies. Today, organizations are using alternative sources of information to gain increased insight into the situations of those in need, specifically data from social media. However, it is challenging to process social media data in real-time. To account for these difficulties, AI is being increasingly employed in these contexts to help with the retrieval and classification of data and with predictive analytics. Essentially, using AI with these vast amounts of data can provide more targeted disaster response, since it allows government and relief organizations to parse through large quantities of fragmented data in a more effective way.  

 AIDR (Artificial Intelligence for Disaster Response) is an open source platform that uses AI to filter and classify social media posts related to environmental emergencies, humanitarian crises and state conflict. The platform sifts through messages and twitter posts by specifying keywords or hashtags, based on supervised machine learning, thereby relying on both human and machine computing, allowing human users to train algorithms to automatically classify tweets and determine whether or not they are relevant to a particular disaster (Imran, 2014).AIDR is specifically “designed to scale up the abilities of human workers by intelligently removing noise from the data e.g., in the form of duplicate and irrelevant messages” (Imran, 2014). Alongside that, automated surveillance is becoming increasingly common as researchers are looking at how to use machine learning to analyze live video footage and verify its authenticity (Imran, 2014). 

A key part of recovery initiatives is through donations and funding of money to the country or local organizations. Corruption is a significant issue in delivering funds, particularly in Africa. The World Bank reported $245 million lost through fraud or corruption between 2007 and 2012 (Kenny, 2017). However, people are largely unaware of who is taking the money and how much is being stolen. The question of whether AI can stop corruption in its tracks is discussed amongst humanitarian actors. As systems and procedures become increasingly digitized the possibility to leverage available data to track corruption and other fraudulent risks is more apparent. AI could be utilized to sift through the large quantities of data in the hopes of picking up a red flag, which might point to where the corruption is happening (Sharma, 2018). The World Bank is currently looking at this use case, specifically how AI can promote transparency in all areas of government administration by sifting through “diverse datasets to detect patterns that hint at the possibility of corrupt behavior… to see links in bidding patterns of the winning and losing bidders to numeric patterns under “Benford’s Law,” along with beneficial ownership information from around the globe” (Sharma, 2018). The possibility to use machine learning to analyze available data on World Bank- financed procurement, alongside datasets gathered from other international organizations and government data, would allow us to gain increased insight into how to make safer and better decisions on public spending and how to mitigate certain risks of financial corruption (Sharma, 2018).

Concerns 

AI led missions in the context of humanitarian intervention are only likely to increase as collaborations between the public and private sector continue to grow. We are seeing more and more innovation and collaboration between governments, tech companies, international organizations and NGOs. Alongside that larger tech companies are increasingly engraving social impact ethos’s into their missions. With this in mind, it is essential to have a number of safeguards in place to protect individual’s data and right to privacy. 

 When discussing AI more broadly the key concerns fall under three main categories; technological unemployment, lethal autonomous weapons and data manipulation/ biased systems. The biggest concerns in the context of humanitarian intervention are in the areas of security, privacy and data mismanagement. The threat to privacy is a key issue, particularly when discussing such a vulnerable population. Therefore, when large tech companies are analyzing and controlling the data of populations at risk their need to be safeguards in place to protect their information being used for unintended purposes. Furthermore, if smart systems, such as a drone delivering system or a self-driving truck, become compromised or hacked the consequences could become a matter of life or death. 

 It is critical to have ethical principles in place to govern how artificial intelligence programs are developed. Moreover, privacy protection mechanisms need to be inscribed into the data frameworks to ensure that algorithms are processed fairly and accurately. AI essentially automates critical human decisions in real-time. Although in the examples discussed above of cases of humanitarian intervention there are rarely examples when ethical or moral issues arise in decision making, these problems can always occur. Whether it might be an issue of a drone or self-driving truck crashing and hurting civilians or an algorithm incorrectly analyzing civilians needs assessment, the logic behind the systems choices must be well defined and understood. 

 Another significant risk is in creating fake media and misinformation, which AI could potentially make worse. When reporting on humanitarian crises it is critical that the information provided is accurate. However, with the rise of fake images, news and videos, it is becoming increasingly hard to distinguish fact from reality. We have already witnessed instances of fake images circulating around war situations, such as in Syria, so there lies a serious danger in relying on AI to report on humanitarian aid when the program is unable to distinguish between a real or fake image, tweet or Facebook post. Currently, social media accounts on Twitter and Facebook are spreading misinformation throughout the internet to manipulate readers and sabotage politicians and organizations. If humanitarian interventions, therefore, become increasingly reliant on AI for predicting war or environmental disasters, we risk facing the same problems that arose in the United States Presidential Election of 2016. 

 In terms of specific limitations in the humanitarian use cases discussed above, there are certain drawbacks with the tools reliant on AI. NetHope’s ICT4D Webinar Series discussed the use of UAV’s and machine learning in the context of aerial imagery to detect buildings during the Vanuatu Cyclone Pam with the aim of creating a multi-risk index of the area. In the webinar, speakers discussed how humanitarian drone missions take a lot of time and how there are challenges with aerial data, regarding how disaster and damage assessment is defined. Essentially, AI does not diminish all problems related to quality control, since the system still requires human assessment and analysis of imagery. Humanitarians, therefore, need to inscribe their own frameworks for damage and disaster assessment, regardless of the use of AI and machine learning systems. 

Conclusion

 We are living through a unique time where collaboration between private companies and public organizations is chipping away at the traditional structure of power held by the government. AI and algorithms are reshaping many aspects of society, including the economy, healthcare, employment and education, and we need to realize how these changes can positively impact society. Emerging technologies have the ability to reduce inequalities in society, improve education and foster development around the world. While the humanitarian community is often a late adopter of new technologies due to fears of infringement on individual security and privacy, now more than ever it is important for the humanitarian community to participate and contribute to these changes. The current humanitarian community is comprised of an exciting assortment of individuals in NGOs, startups, private companies and international organizations. The new tech driven solutions of satellite monitoring, biometric scanning, digital identity and mobile money allow humanitarian actors to act faster, to respond to people’s direct needs and to inspire progress through a bottom up approach. We are living through a revolution in humanitarian aid, which is focused on equipping individuals with the tools necessary to improve their circumstances, rather than providing the traditional forms of material aid, which render the beneficiary dependent on a continuous source of assistance. 

The effectiveness of humanitarian action is dependent on coordination between humanitarian practitioners and those in need. Clearly, technology alone cannot solve the problems currently affecting millions of people and we must be wary of the risk that an increasing reliance on data and technology might widen the gap between those helping and those being helped. It is critical to not desensitize those from their humanitarian missions, but rather allow them to embed core humanitarian principles into the systems (Bellevue, 2016). Furthermore, we need to imagine a future of humanitarian aid that is augmented by leveraging technology, but is not solely reliant on it. With the use of AI, it is important to envisage an algorithm that keeps society in the loop, thereby embedding a socially good ethos into an algorithm where both the aid responders and the affected civilians understand and oversee algorithmic decision. It is clear today that progress is extremely dependent on the actions of those in power, who are increasingly tech companies, to ensure that the rights and freedoms of the vulnerable populations are protected. 

 Overall, the use of AI in humanitarian aid contexts holds promise for mitigating some of the current flaws in the humanitarian system, many of which are outlined in this paper. Innovation within the humanitarian community is currently flourishing through the partnerships of public and private sectors, allowing for the sharing of skills and knowledge from entrepreneurs, data scientists, aid workers and public policy experts. Clearly, the use of AI or other technology driven tools in humanitarian contexts cannot solve all the problems of humanitarian aid. However, more than anything the advancements we are witnessing today generate increased access and communication. Right now the success of these innovative technologies in humanitarian contexts hinges upon practitioners ensuring that the technological tools are deployed in a way that aligns with the core humanitarian principles and enhances the connection between those providing aid and those receiving it. 

References 

Belliveau, J. (2016, June 9). Humanitarian access and technology: opportunities and applications. Retrieved from. https://ac.els-cdn.com/S187770581632330X/1-s2.0-S187770581632330X-main.pdf?_tid=696a8d95-ba68-4bae-9257-9f741ae2d79d&acdnat=1545241980_853922c33ae01aa305542ef527dfae2

Collins, K. (2017, October 04). How AI, Twitter and digital volunteers are transforming humanitarian disaster response. Retrieved from https://www.wired.co.uk/article/digital-humanitarianism

 Digital Humanitarians. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.digital-humanitarians.com/

Fixing the humanitarian aid system | Africa Renewal Online. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/january-2006/fixing-humanitarian-aid-system

Giles, M. (2018, April 05). Zipline launches the world's fastest commercial delivery drone. Retrieved from https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610735/zipline-launches-the-worlds-fastest-commercial-delivery-drone/

How Much Aid is Really Lost to Corruption? (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.cgdev.org/blog/how-much-aid-really-lost-corruption

 Humanitarian health computing using artificial intelligence and social media: A narrative literature review. (2018, January 31). Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1386505618300212

 Imran, M. (April, 2014) AIDR: Artificial Intelligence for Disaster Response. Retrieved from https://mimran.me/papers/enabling_rapid_disaster_response_using_artificial_intelligence_and_social_media.pdf

(n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.oneconcern.com/product

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 (Opp, R) (2018, November 15). The Future Of Humanitarian Aid?. Retrieved from https://aibusiness.com/xprize-ai-future-humanitarian/

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 WFP. (2018, April 27). Self-Driving Trucks. Retrieved from https://innovation.wfp.org/project/self-driving-trucks

 Sharma, V. (2018, November 16). Can artificial intelligence stop corruption in its tracks? Retrieved from http://blogs.worldbank.org/governance/can-artificial-intelligence-stop-corruption-its-tracks

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 United Nations, World Bank, and Humanitarian Organizations Launch Innovative Partnership to End Famine. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/09/23/united-nations-world-bank-humanitarian-organizations-launch-innovative-partnership-to-end-famine

 West, D. M., & Allen, J. R. (2018, May 09). How artificial intelligence is transforming the world. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-artificial-intelligence-is-transforming-the-world/

 Whigham, N. (2018, October 18). Researchers use AI to predict outbreak of water wars in the future. Retrieved from. https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/researchers-use-ai-to-predict-outbreak-of-water-wars-in-the-future/news-story/f1d91a6ba462aba9b94886b9a1112dfb

How MCPS Could Help the Opioid Crisis

In 2016, approximately 11.5 million Americans misused prescription opioids, including 1.8 million people of whom had a prescription opioid use disorder.[1]We are currently living through a devastating opioid crisis in the US with the number of overdose related deaths failing to subside. While not all opioid related addictions result from post medical prescription addiction, a large number of people become addicted to opioids after being prescribed to them by a doctor. It is, clearly, very important to appropriately and adequately address acute pain in patients. Therefore, we must reassess how these pain medications are provided to patients and consider how Medical Cyber- Physical Systems (MCPS) could be used to manage users’ access to these opioids. These networked systems could provide closed-loop systems of controlling patient’s dosage of opioids to prevent long term addiction and/or illegally selling of excess pills.

The current issue with medicated opioids is that in an acute setting, doctors have the duty to treat pain appropriately. For a patient undergoing surgery, (sports injury, dental surgery, cancer) or suffering from trauma, opioids often present the most suitable option. However, opioids are highly addictive, because they activate powerful reward centers in your brain. Taking opioids for over three days consecutively can develop into an addiction. Around 6% of people who had never used opioids prior to surgery take them for longer than necessary and of those that receive curative-intent cancer surgery, 10% use opioids for three to six months, according to a University of Michigan study.[2]Hysterectomy recipients get twice as many opioids as necessary[3]. Given that 600,000 hysterectomies are performed in the United States every year[4], it is necessary to identify specific patient factors to manage how much pain medication is prescribed and controlled. The leftover extra pills might be either consumed by the patient if they develop addictive behavior or illegally sold to others. Leaving the management of these drugs in the hands of the patient is, therefore, not a possibility.

MCPS might be able to provide a solution to the problem of extended usage and over-prescription of opioid medications. MCPS are capable of treating a patient within a specific clinical scenario, ensuring their treatment options are personalized and adjustable. The devices used in MCPS are categorized either as monitoring devices, (oxygen-level monitors, heart-rate sensors) or as delivery devices, such as infusion pumps. In the case of opioid medication, MCPS’ used as an infusion pump could help control patients’ access to opioids, to prevent the development of addictions or the reselling of excess pills. Patient Controlled Analgesic (PCA) infusion pump are currently used in some cases to deliver pain relievers upon the patient’s demand. This type of infusion pump is widely used for pain control of post-operative patients. Existing safety mechanism built into PCA pumps are limits on bolus amounts which are programmed by a doctor before the start of the infusion and minimum time intervals between doses. Nonetheless, this system still leaves primary control in the hands of the patient and as the article by Lee Medical Cyber-Physical Systemsdiscusses, the safety mechanism is not sufficient in protecting all patients, and there is the risk of overdoses if the pump is mis-programed or if the pump overestimates the maximum dose a patient can receive, leading to respiratory failure.

There is, therefore, an opportunity for delivery systems to be not controlled by the patient, but based on a smart controller that analyzes the data received from the monitoring devices in real time to estimate the quantity of pain medication needed to treat the patient, and to automatically initiate treatment (drug infusion). An interconnected delivery system could control treatment by monitoring patients chemical and physical signals in the body and by tracking patient’s somatostatin receptors (SSTRs) and their body’s sensory nervous system’s nociceptor to detect the threat signals of painful stimuli. This tracking of the body’s pain receptors is not currently being practiced in regards to delivering pain medication, but a French startup called Remedee Labs is researching and developing ways to facilitate this type of system in the US. This system based on physiological closed-loop control in distributed medical device systems is a relatively new idea and clearly needs more practice in application and more safety assurance, yet it could provide an effective way for treating patients, based on their individual needs and circumstances. The use of physiological closed loop systems for tracking a patient’s pain receptors, could enable individualized patient modeling to account for the internal state of the patient, represented by drug concentration in the blood. It presents an opportunity to see the level of pain medication that the individual body needs and can support, to prevent an overextended usage or an overdose of opioid medication.

Using an infusion pump to supply opioids to post surgery or post trauma patients certainly does not minimize all risks for drug dependence post usage, nor does it solve the opioid epidemic at large in the US. However, it does reduce the risk of patients getting oversupplied with pills and having too much autonomy over their dosage. This could, therefore, render it harder for patients to stay on opioid medication beyond a certain period, and to have an excess of pills to use or sell, since the medication would be independently regulated and controlled with a PCA system.

Bibliography

Fadulu, L. (2018, October 25). Trump's 'Big Dent' in the Opioid Crisis. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/10/trumps-signs-landmark-law-fight-opioid-addiction/573850/

Lee, I. (2016, June) Challenges and Research Directions in Medical Cyber-Physical Systems. Retreived from. https://www.dropbox.com/s/eoq4gl79ldh3fog/2012jan-MCPS-ProcIEEE.pdf?dl=0

Mostafavi, B. (n.d.). Study: Patients Use Only About Half of Opioids Prescribed After Hysterectomy. Retrieved from https://labblog.uofmhealth.org/rounds/study-patients-use-only-about-half-of-opioids-prescribed-after-hysterectomy

New Persistent Opioid Use Among Patients With Cancer After Curative-Intent Surgery.Jay Soong-Jin Lee, Hsou Mei Hu, Anthony L. Edelman, Chad M. Brummett, Michael J. Englesbe, Jennifer F. Waljee, Jeffrey B. Smerage, Jennifer J. Griggs, Hari Nathan, Jacqueline S. Jeruss, and Lesly A. DossettJournal of Clinical Oncology 2017 35:36, 4042-4049.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2017). Key Substance Use and Mental Health Indicators in the United States: Results from the 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Rockville, MD: Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality.

[1]Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2017). Key Substance Use and Mental Health Indicators in the United States: Results from the 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. (HHS Publication No. SMA 17- 5044, NSDUH Series -52). Rockville, MD: Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality.

[2]New Persistent Opioid Use Among Patients With Cancer After Curative-Intent Surgery.Jay Soong-Jin Lee, Hsou Mei Hu, Anthony L. Edelman, Chad M. Brummett, Michael J. Englesbe, Jennifer F. Waljee, Jeffrey B. Smerage, Jennifer J. Griggs, Hari Nathan, Jacqueline S. Jeruss, and Lesly A. DossettJournal of Clinical Oncology 2017 35:36, 4042-4049.

[3]Mostafavi, B. (n.d.). Study: Patients Use Only About Half of Opioids Prescribed After Hysterectomy. Retrieved from https://labblog.uofmhealth.org/rounds/study-patients-use-only-about-half-of-opioids-prescribed-after-hysterectomy

[4]ibid.

Self-Infantalization in Beckett's “First Love”

“First Love” presents a striking combination of a highly intelligent protagonist, who essentially acts like a child. Samuel Beckett explores Sigmund Freud’s idea of regression, whereby the narrator reverts to an earlier stage of development, adopting childish actions and thoughts. The story follows the cynical, repressive journey of a man going through a psychoanalytic search for love. This questioning of love can be explored through a Freudian lens looking at the familial relationships or with a Proustian idea of love, whereby love is blinded by intellectualism and rationalization. What we see in both cases is an infantalization of the feelings and emotions of the protagonist; a deeply affected, jaded man attempting to discern whether he is experiencing love.

Infantalization is essentially used in this context to mirror the Freudian relationship of children to their parents and to express the exaggerated, blunt language of the protagonist’s childish desires and thoughts. Throughout the story, Beckett exhibits a violent, misogynistic portrayal of eroticism and romance with a pathological rejection of intimacy. The infantalization of the narrator is explored through three main elements; familial relationships, scatological humor and childish behavior.

The story is framed around two relationships of love common in psychoanalytic practices; the father-son and the mother-son relationships. The mother in this story is not represented by the protagonist’s actual mother, but as Lulu-Anna, his ‘first love’. Within this familial dynamic, we see Freud’s idea of the Oedipus complex played out, whereby the narrator explicitly says "I associate, rightly or wrongly, my marriage with the death of my father" (229). This is the only moment in the short story when the father and the mother are discussed in the same context. In an effort to detach the parents from each other so that the child can achieve full attention from both, the protagonist never again mentions their names in the same context. Beckett clearly mirrors an Oedipal setting within the story, whereby the text seems to shift between the fantasies of the father figure to that of the mother figure.

The regressive form of the text follows both the fantasies of the father and mother. The story begins with the fantasy of the father, put quickly jumps to the story centered around the mother figure with “but to pass on to less melancholic matters” (231). The fantasy of the father is a happy memory. They seem to share a strong bond where he and his father are the only ones “to understand tomatoes” (232). The narrator’s father is quite a motherly figure in that he assumes the role common to most mothers, for instance, feeding his son and protecting him. The contrast of being with father versus the mother can be seen with the positioning of the narrator. While in the father’s presence, the narrator is always in an upright position, in a more adult like state, in the mother’s company, he lies down and remains passive. Interestingly, while the mother and father are treated in separate ways, their stories are structured by similar trajectories. Both stories begin in an outdoor space (cemetery or bench in the park) and end in a room indoors. While father figures normally contribute to the molding of a son’s character in terms of values, morality and responsibility, these seem absent in the narrator’s mind. Rather he presents a pre-developed socialized mind, where he longs for “slow descents, again the long submersions” (243). This is evidenced by his preference for the aesthetic of “my father’s face, on his death-bolster, had seemed to hint at some form of aesthetics relevant for man. But the faces of the living, all grimace and flush, can they be described as objects?” (240). He seems, therefore, to be longing for backward moving life, back to his early infantile stage.

The narrator’s marriage to Lulu-Anna is described a relationship of servitude. The wife, or mother, attends to every need of the narrator. He rests in the room while waiting for her to bring his meals at the appointed time, to empty his stew pan and to only occasionally speak to him (243). These acts reference the servitude of a mother to their children, before the child is able to act for itself. This links to Freud’s idea of how in our daily lives we are all continuously engaged in a movement back to the mother to get food, care, and love. The narrator first meets with Lulu-Anna on a bench, described as a rather decrepit shelter, “a well situated bench, backed by a mound of solid earth and garbage, so that my rear was covered. My flanks too, partially, thanks to a pair of venerable trees” (233). In his craving for a regressive, infant state, the bench might represent the idea of an empty cradle or a womb. Perhaps, this is why when the bench is later replaced by a sofa in a crammed in parlor, the narrator has to immediately remove all the furniture inside to create empty space for him to encroach upon. Lulu-Anna even sings lullabies to the narrator. The voice of the mother plays an important role for Beckett since the mother’s voice is the first sound a baby hears. The narrator likes hearing her sing, stating that it seduces him, "The voice, though out of tune, was not unpleasant [...] I asked her to sing me a song [...] I did not know the song [...] It had something to do with lemon trees or orange trees" (239). Only when, at the end of "First Love", the same voice starts crying, because Anna is giving birth, the narrator exits the house, ending the love the affair. The narrator must leave when the baby is born since he sees the birth of a new baby as replacing his place as the child with his wife/ mother. He cries “abort, abort and they’ll blush like new” (245). He eventually leaves her when the baby is born stating, “what finished me was the birth” (246). Later, at the very end of the story, it is Anna, crying while giving birth, who allows the narrator to repeat the same "game". He says, "I began playing with the cries, a little in the same way as I had played with the song, on, back, on, back, if that may be called playing" (246). This is another symbolic way of presenting the same issue: how to go away from the mother while staying attached to her.

Beckett uses the persistent interjection of scatological humor in “First Love.” The discussion of feces is something that amuses and enthralls children, but with age people learn to censor certain topics from their mind and from social interactions. The narrator has a childish fascination with the repulsive aspects of the human body, its feces, farts, smell of corpses and sticky foreskins. In this story, the act of expulsion, or the relief of constipation, is seen at the beginning and at the end of the story. Freud’s original interest with feces was linked to the fact that he saw them as the first “gift” the child can give or withhold, in an act of resistance from the parents. In the end of the story, the birth of the child or its expulsion from the mother’s womb is almost identical to the narrator’s own expulsion from the room.

The narrator references his bowel movements throughout the story, writing, “One day, on my return from stool, I found my room locked and my belongings in a heap before the door. This will give you some idea how constipated I was, at this juncture. It was, I am now convinced, anxiety constipation. But was I genuinely constipated? Somehow I think not” (232). In a comedic tone, he writes, “it’s all muddled in my head, graves and nuptials, and the different varieties of motion” (232)In his father’s house, the narrator’s anal difficulties are reduced to constipation, where he dreams of his mother’s love to relieve him of this constipation to be able to play with feces.The narrator is clearly troubled by his love for Lulu-Anna and thus tries to enact his banishment from the bench and to seek refuge in a deserted cowshed, the way a child runs away to find hiding during times of conflict or fear. Once in the cowshed, he finds himself "tracing the letters of Lulu in an old heifer pat" (237). He questions whether he "would I have been tracing her name in old cowshit if my love had been pure and disinterested? And with my devil's finger into the bargain, which I then sucked?" (237). He plays with the shit in an infantile way, using it as his medium to articulate his desire, which he tries to expel and displace continually. The written shit that stands in for Lulu-Anna stands in relation to the way he is childishly playing and manipulating his desires and feelings for her.

Marcel Proust’s work “The Captive & the Fugitive”, his fifth volume of “In Search of Lost Time” bears some resemblance to “First Love”, not through its similarities but through its unambiguous divergences. Proust’s oeuvre explores the paradox of how intellect, with its rational search for facts and answers, blinds us from the larger truth of emotional reality. While Proust’s protagonist suffers from an over intellectualization of feelings for a search for truth, which inevitably blinds him, Beckett’s protagonist rather misogynies and abuses his lover to strip emotions down to an infantile, violent state, blinding him from finding truths. “The Captive” describes a possessive love affair, consumed by jealousy, whereby the narrator entices his mistress, Albertine, to live with him so he can essentially keep her captive as his prisoner. In this case, Proust’s narrator infantilizes his mistress by spying on her and cross-examining, stating that he is only content when she is alone with him. This lies in stark contrast to Beckett’s protagonist who dislikes his lover while with her, and only decides he might love her when she is absent. Yet as with Proust’s “The Captive”, Beckett’s narrator rests in his lovers house in an infantilized state, where his lover/ mother tends for his needs and protects him. Contrasting Proust’s highly deliberate, rational way of writing on love, Beckett’s narrator writes about eroticism in a violent, visceral and irrational manner. He says “you disturb me, I said, I can’t stretch out with you there.” (234) He continues, “she began stroking my ankles. I considered kicking her in the cunt” (234). The narrator’s language is the antithesis of deliberate, almost as though he cannot control what is coming out of his mouth, an exaggerated expression of children’s’ inability to lie or soften their opinions in social settings. Beckett has an extremely blunt, sharp manner of writing similar to that of a child, lacking the social cues and cultural attunement one adopts with age. What remains is a stark, misogynistic, vulgar expression of the narrator’s feelings. Beckett uses the technique of epanorthosis, an immediate and emphatic self-negation. His deployment of this technique is an exaggerated from of a self-correction, making his work seem playful or parodic. There is something rather child-like with Beckett’s use of epanorthosis in that it is such an obvious and revealing form of deflection. In some ways, it mirrors the way children speak when they express something too revealing or embarrassing and then quickly try to conceal it by negating it. The protagonist says, “it is with the hearts that one loves, is it not, or am I confusing it with something else?”

Both Beckett and Proust inevitably leave the reader in direct contact with a blind search for emotional truth. Proust’s novel “The Captive & The Fugitive” ultimately delineates how the protagonist gets trapped in the intellectualization of love since the wisdom of the heart in its vulnerable state is so different to the way one interprets it through intellectual insight. In Proust’s book, after the protagonist finished a rigorous intellectual analysis of his feelings for Albertine, and concluded that he no longer loves her, he then receives news of her death and is suddenly overcome by such uncontainable sorrow that the truth, a truth his intellect had rejected, was revealed to him: He does, after all, love Albertine.Beckett’s protagonist contrasts with that of Proust’s in that his idea of love is not rejected through intellect, but is rejected through a lack of intellect and a lack of sentimentality or capacity to feel affection, characterized by his regressive, disturbed mental state. He holds an infantile stubbornness to embracing the feeling until the end. In “First Love” the protagonist’s infantalization of love ends with him escaping the room when the baby is born, saying “But there it is either you love or you don’t” (246).

The infantalization of the protagonist in “First Love” is an interesting method employed by Beckett to take us into the mind of a tormented, idiosyncratic character. The crude, aggressive language depicts the narrator in a disturbed, regressive state behaving as a child. Throughout the short story, we see the combination of strongly structured, and often pedantic language, presenting the thinking of an intellectual person, alongside the descriptions of vulgar, infantile sensations and feelings. While Beckett clearly references Freud’s idea of regression and the Oedipus complex, he presents these psychoanalytic theories in an almost meta-psychological way. Alongside that, Beckett somewhat parodies the intellectualized feelings of Proust’s protagonist in “The Captive & the Fugitive”, by presenting a stark contrast to the narrator’s relationship to his lover in “First Love”. Essentially, we see how Beckett playfully contrasts childish behavior with themes of sexuality and love in a violent, yet darkly comedic way.

Bibliography

Beckett, S. (2010). The selected works of Samuel Beckett Volume IV. New York: Grove Press.

Hillenaar, H. (1998). A PSYCHOANALYTICAL APPROACH TO BECKETT'S "FIRST LOVE". Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd'hui,7, 419-438. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25781272

Proust, M., Scott-Moncrieff, C. K., Kilmartin, T., Enright, D. J., & Proust, M. (1993). The captive; The fugitive. New York, NY: Modern Library.

Terror Translated into Beckett's “Texts for Nothing”

After the devastation and suffering inflicted on the human psyche post WWII, there was a shared acknowledgement of the inability for humans to produce or experience art in the same way. Samuel Beckett was somehow able to express the feelings of numbness and existential despair through his literature, allowing his readers to mourn through his post-war writings. To read Texts for Nothing solely through a historical paradigm of postwar or through a poststructuralist interpretation would be a hindrance. Rather, Beckett seems to use both historical and philosophical experiences of terror to express the terror of war in Texts for Nothing. Like Chris Langlois’ reading of Texts for Nothing,I argue that Beckett is not portraying the experience of terror through the narrator inTexts for Nothing, but rather he uses a reductionist, restrained style to demonstrate how it is ‘terror itself translated into the language of literature’ (Langlois, p93). This essay on terror in Texts for Nothing looks at how Beckett’s language engraves terror and trauma into literature, rather than reflecting it. By doing this, he attempts to use the terror of his writings to embrace the terror of thinking in order to try to resist the catastrophic threat of making terror imprinted into our history and into future discourse. The logos of terror can be seen through the language of inertia, the continuous uncertainty over the narrator’s existence and the question of solipsism.

The linguistic style of inertia is used throughout the thirteen chapters to express the protagonist’s dread of continuing to speak. The narrator experiences a cyclical torment of desiring silence, despite being unable to cease speaking since his voice is subjected to a world where the option to attain a state of finitude or to exist outside of his narrative is no longer possible. Essentially, the narrator expresses the paradox of continuing to cease, whereby he fails to continue to cease speaking, while holding the impossible desire for silence. The narrator states, “And were the voice to cease quite at last, the old ceasing voice, it would not be true, as it is not true that it speaks, it can’t speak, it can’t cease” (Beckett, 339). This dread of continuing to tell a story reflects Maurice Blanchot’s contradiction of literary terrorism. The engraved terror and mourning amounts to the narrator’s mourning of a loss of silence, a loss of something that amounts to nothingness. Essentially, the point of speech is to continue making noise, rather than to say something of significance. He says, “If I were silent I’d hear nothing. But if I were silent the other sounds would start again, those to which the words have made me deaf or which have really ceased.” (Beckett, 320)

The term nothing can be defined in several ways; something that does not exist, the absence of all magnitude, nonexistence, nothingness, someone or something of no importance or significance. When reading Texts for Nothing, it seems as though the narrator is progressing to the point of nonexistence, but ultimately he remains in a state of no importance. It seems to be a process of endless worsening or asymptotic worsening, where something remains at the end and we are never actually left with nothing. Beckett uses language to demonstrate the collapse of its own significance, manifested through a confrontation with its own nothingness. He says, “So long as the words keep coming nothing will have changed, there are the old words out again. Utter, there’s nothing else, utter, void yourself of them, here as always, nothing else… or it is the dread of coming to the last, of having said all, your all, before the end, no for that will be the end, the end of all, not certain.” (Beckett, 300) It is essentially a work which begins, it does not end, with the narrator constantly questioning why he even started writing. The texts end with the narrator erasing all light and speech and space, saying “still all would be silent and empty and dark, as now, as soon now, when all will be ended, all said, it says, it murmurs.” (Beckett, 339) By ending with the noise of a murmur, the reader is left in an abyss, lacking any finality or silence.

Beckett uses the erasure of narrative to nullify the narrator’s experience to go beyond terror to try to attain a state of nothingness or sublimity. This extreme existence of terror reflects a constant anxiety and uncertainty of death. The question of existence is seen both through the erasure of narrative and through the potential prefiguration of a character beyond life. In terms of the narrator’s erasure of narrative there is ultimately a contradiction between trying to hold onto his fleeting childhood in seemingly pathetic insertions of childhood anecdotes, alongside the dissolution of the body and voice. Initially, the narrator attempts to piecetogether memories of his childhood. He jumps from childhood to present to future through references to Nanny Bibby and Admiral Jericoe. Essentially, the narrator wants to recreate an image of his own past to convince both the reader and himself of his own existence. This pitiful attempt is ultimately destroyed by his erasure of story and body. The narrator questions why it is necessary to have a voice, a story or even a body, expressing “There has to be one, it seems, once there is speech, no need of a story, a story is not compulsory, just a life, that's the mistake I made, one of the mistakes, to have wanted a story for myself, whereas life alone is enough.” (Beckett, 307) After ridding the narrator of his story and his mental state, he subsequently reduces his physical state to nothingness by stating, “I know what I mean or one armed better still, no arms, no hands, better by far, as old as the world and no less hideous, amputated on all sides, erect on my trusty stumps, bursting with old piss, old prayers, old lessons, soul, mind and carcass finishing neck and neck, not to mention the gobchucks...” (Beckett, 332) Alongside that,“I shouldn’t have began,” is repeated throughout the book, after which Beckett sporadically asserts that in fact “nothing can be told,” and then proceeds to tell it, while the “it” remains indeterminable.(Beckett, 332) By creating a contradiction between the creation of a story, alongside the subsequent erasure of narrative and language, Beckett turns language into an entity and replaces it with his own body or story.

Beckett creates a sense of internal confusion through the intermingling of textual and temporal space. The narrator mingles time, tenses and inner voices to create a confused inescapable scenario. This constructs a terror driven state whereby the narrator is trapped, “trapped in a world that can permit death, ostensibly as an event outside language, only if death passes into language as an event of temporality and negation.” (Langlois, 105) The loss of the idea of a death as a presupposition to his end of existence, means that the narrator must continue to negate and think of death as the indecipherable remainder. The voice holds onto the dream of living a life in finitude, until ultimately negating this fantasy due to his awareness of its unattainability. Beckett essentially rids language of its temporal support, thereby bringing the narrator’s voice outside of its habitable space, stating “all mingles, times and tenses” (Beckett, 297). Where no assumptions can be made of existence, since neither death nor temporality provide a sense of finitude or an accessibility to the voice, we are subjected to a repetition of narrative continuity and stagnation.

Texts for Nothing can be read as a labyrinth of never-ending openings and closures where the narrator is unable to progress. The tormented voice exists through the performative ceremonies that prescribe it to discuss and question its binding limits of entrapment. This internal suffocation becomes a sort of safe haven for the voice where it can live in a consistent world of contingency and denial. “It’s the dread of coming to the last, of having said all, your all, before the end, no, for that will be the end, the end of all, not certain.” (Beckett, 300) These feelings illustrate the voice’s desire to escape his uncertain and torturous life of terror. The ultimate tragedy of Texts for Nothing can be interpreted as the question of how far the narrative voice can fall into the vicissitudes of its failure to exist. The narrator earnestly begs the question, “Did I try everything, ferret in every hold, secretly, silently, patiently, listening?” (Beckett, 317)

The question of the protagonist’s existence is at the center of the story. As Langlois writes, “In Texts for Nothing, life at the extreme limit of what is unlivable is imposed as the permanent reality of its protagonist” (Langlois, 99). We are faced with the question of whether the narrator could be in a sort of afterlife or after-death state. He writes, “In my arms, I’m holding myself in my arms” (Beckett, 298) thereby figuring his life as it takes place in its grave. Furthermore, the narrator seems to be questioning whether he is in judgement state, stating “ill appear before the council, before the justice of him who is all love, unforgiving and justly so, but subject to strange indulgences, the accused will be my soul, I prefer that, perhaps someone will ask pity for my soul, I mustn’t miss that, I won’t be there, neither will God, it doesn’t matter, we’ll be represented.” (311) This reiterates the question of the narrator’s own existence as in a state of life, death or post-death. Alongside that the narrator expresses thoughts of suicide, stating “I tried throwing me off a cliff, collapsing in the street in the midst of mortals, that led nowhere, I gave up”(Beckett, 303). In a sense, one can also interpret the narrator’s state of idleness as a metaphorical death. The narrator introduces the ‘He’ character, in Chapter 4 to discuss the question of suicide and death.This internal, destructive voice in his head claims to want to kill him, to have him dead like him (Beckett, 306). The reader witnesses a switching in and out of consciousness stating “That’s how he speaks, this evening, how he has me speak, how he speaks to himself, how I speak, there is only me…” (Beckett, 307) He experiences shock, the effects of which linger and return in dreams, “it’s all the same dream, the same silence, it and me, it and him, him and me.” (Beckett, 338). This suggests the narrator’s lethal nostalgia for his trauma; lethal since it is both unwanted and unwilled.

Alain Badiou categorized the narration in Texts for Nothing as a reflection of solipsistic terror, writing, “The “I think” presupposes terror, which alone constrains the voice to over-extend towards itself in order to withdraw as much as possible, towards its point of enunciation.” (Badiou, 261) Badiou argues that the terror of this text partly arises from the terror of reason and thinking, whereby Beckett is frightened by the realization that after writing the Unnameable he could not go any further. Texts for Nothing seems to be judged by Badiou to be a failed paradigm and a result of Beckett’s “unsustainable narrative investigations of solipsistic terror” (Langlois, 98). This idea focuses on Beckett’s personal terror of thinking and reason to elucidate the terror faced by the narrator in Texts for Nothing. This interpretation fails to adequately interpret these texts by placing too much judgment on Badiou’s perceived failure of Beckett’s text. Contrary to Badiou’s interpretation, Beckett does not fail by rendering the narrator’s experience a reflection of his own personal solipsistic terror, but rather uses the terror at the soul of literature to express post-war European sentiment. It is the terror as a writer of expressing the terror of reason and thinking that places such a grave intellectual hardship on the writer, rather than the personal terror Beckett faced when not knowing how to continue writing after the Unnameable.

Through the close reading of Texts for Nothing it is terrifying to see how Beckett has let the terror of literature be infused into the narrator’s voice through terror linked to the deprivation of light, darkness, solitude, people, noise, silence, space, emptiness, life and death. We engage in the constant suffering of the narrator where the fear of the ‘It happens’ is continued throughout the texts. What emerges from this is a universal consciousness and a language of permanent suffering, reflecting the historical and psychological traumas of twentieth-century modernity. For Beckett’s protagonist, words, ideas, and images are instruments of torture, and in its reliance solely on these elements to escape its suffering, the voice becomes the agent of its own victimization; this becomes the ultimate situation of terror.Through the sustained dual internal movement of self-revelation and self-destruction, we see the voice become further isolated and depraved, falling into a dissolved subjectivity of the threat of “nothing can be told” (Beckett, 331). These contradictions, at the heart of Texts for Nothing, create a space for terror to fester. It seems as though self-torture of the mind in Beckett’s world is divided by language, resulting in contradictory drives that essentially secrete language uncontrollably.Ultimately, the style Beckett employs forces the reader to be placed into the anguish of the voice through the subjection to the torturous feelings of terror faced by the narrator.

Bibliography

Badiou, Alain. 2008. Conditions.Translated by Steven Corcoran. London: Continuum.

Blanchot, Maurice. 1986. The Writing of the Disaster. Translated by Ann Smock. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Beckett, S. 2010. The selected works of Samuel Beckett Volume IV. New York: Grove Press.

Langlois, Chris. 2015.The Terror of Literature in Beckett’s Texts for Nothing. Twentieth-Century Literature, Volume 61, Number 1: Duke University Press.