Facebook's 'Adorno Changed My Life'

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Theodor Adorno was an influential member of the Frankfurt School of social theory a German-born intellectual who fled Nazi Germany for America, and whose work anticipates and informs much post-modern theory. In this revolutionary 'participatory documentary,' digital filmmaker Georg Boch, one of more than 200 people that belong to a Facebook group called 'Adorno Changed My Life,' sets out to learn how Adorno's work has touched the group's lives.

For the film, Boch solicits videos and Skype conversations. Unlike the traditional documentary, this approach allows each of the participants to frame how they want to be perceived and to direct their own conversations.

For art historian Travis English, who shamelessly multitasks on camera, reading Adorno for the first time was like 'swallowing a stick of dynamite.' Australian intellectual Ivan Krisjansen (who uses a portrait of Adorno as his Facebook profile photo) compares it to 'climbing Mount Everest, standing on the peak and being able to see forever.'

Digital culture critic Dennis Redmond who at times speaks in front of a shelf full of teddy bears sees parallels between Adorno's work and the digital commons. Redmond encourages viewers to read random pages from Adorno to see how they seamlessly fit into a whole in the same way that fragments of digital culture mesh.

It's also a metaphor for the film itself: far-flung, isolated members of an online group whose individual contributions are transformed into a cultural product. The film also makes no attempt to hide its digital roots. Rather than cleaning up time lags or sharpening focus, it celebrates the imperfections of digital communication.

FACEBOOK'S 'ADORNO CHANGED MY LIFE' resists the temptation to offer a potted guide to the philosopher's thought. Instead, it allows its participants to set the terms of the conversation, and to reveal their relationships to Adorno's work. Even if they feel, as does Moldavian emigrant Vitalie Bezdiga, that 'Theodore Adorno is of no great help when it comes to jobs or employment.'

'an experimental exercise in marshalling user-generated content...raising our awareness of how rapidly-changing digital social environments stimulate perplexing questions of personal identity...' -Educational Media Reviews Online

'a kind of pictorial mosaic in which varied parts offer a glimpse of how powerful-but distinctive-an impact Adorno has had on very different people, including an art historian, a digital culture critic, and an Australian intellectual. And by using Facebook as a springboard, the filmmaker also demonstrates how individuals of disparate background can be brought together online to share a common enthusiasm-or obsession.' -Video Librarian

'embeds the philosophical discourse in the productive modes of the subject being analyzed, namely it uses the methods of digital space to critique the ideology of digital space...an excellent example of succinct documentary storytelling.' - Troy Belford, Anthropology Review Databse

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Main credits

Boch, Georg (film director)
Gronauer, Heidi (film producer)
Paccagnella, Lorenzo (film producer)

Other credits

Editor, Luigi Pepe.

MARC Record See Worldcat record

Keywords

online social networks; DVD; video; film; Theodor Adorno; Facebook; digital commons; philosophy; German; Documentary; Social thought; Digital culture; social theory; "Facebook's 'Adorno Changed My Life'"; Icarus Films;

WEBVTT

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[TYPING]

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Adorno changed my life.

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His theory made me free from
domination and manipulation.

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Don\'t tell me how to
gather achievement.

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I don\'t need.

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Never implant their ideology.

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I\'m not the commodity
of product of

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their market mechanism.

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It\'s not a game, but a precious
art works creation.

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Do you see me?

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Oh, let me hang up my--

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enable my video.

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OK.

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The joy of streaming.

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Oh, dear.

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My big, ugly head.

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I\'m at Austin, Texas.

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Don\'t pick any place
in the text.

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Just open it up at random.

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Pick a page at random,
find something, read

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a paragraph, stop.

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Flip it to another page,
entirely at random, open it,

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and read that.

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As strange as it sounds, you
will find connections.

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Adorno wrote it that way,
convinced that-- he was

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thinking about forms and how,
OK, there are these fragments

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and they can give us a little
chink of truth.

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But then what is that network
of fragments?

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So he\'s thinking about
a counter-systemic

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totality as it were.

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In a strange kind of way,
there\'s something very

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suggestive about the
digital commons.

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The digital commons itself,
all these little messages.

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And somehow it adds up to
this larger community.

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And there\'s something at work,
some logic similar to that in

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what Adorno was doing.

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And I think was doing
his whole life.

00:04:02.800 --> 00:04:23.710 align:middle line:90%

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The American dream framed.

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I had it framed of the one and
a half story, nicely painted

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house, the white picket fence
and the manicured lawn.

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But I certainly can\'t walk out
on the street in my town or go

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to the Starbucks or whatnot
and start chatting with

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somebody about Adorno
and the critique

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of culture and society.

00:04:51.830 --> 00:04:55.480 align:middle line:90%

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I may only be able to do this
with this forum here.

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So then I saw that group.

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And it\'s something important
for me, for I think Adorno

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also changed my life.

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I just like the idea that Adorno
can have great impacts

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on people\'s life.

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I just wanted to see people
similar to me in that sense.

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It was like winning a lottery,
a pot of gold at the end of

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the rainbow.

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It gives you a vision.

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I can\'t tell you how
lucky it was!

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I was amazed.

00:05:52.550 --> 00:05:55.010 align:middle line:90%

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I love Adorno\'s ideas.

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I don\'t love Adorno, but
I love his ideas.

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Adorno kind of hit
me very hard.

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How do you describe this?

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It\'s like climbing Mount Everest
or something and

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standing on the peak.

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And you just can see forever.

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When I read Adorno, I always
have this sense of-- you know,

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I thought this.

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I felt this.

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I really did feel as if I\'d
found a treasure trove.

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It\'s like, kind of like

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swallowing a stick of dynamite.

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[SPEAKING GERMAN]

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Well, I was 19 years old and my
folks lived in California.

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One day I decided to go and
visit San Francisco.

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So I took the train up to San
Francisco and walked around

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the place and saw a bookstore.

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[SPEAKING GERMAN]

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I looked around the philosophy
section and found one of the

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really good translations
of Theodor

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Adorno by Edmund Jephcott.

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And there\'s this translation
of Mimima Moralia.

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[SPEAKING GERMAN]

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When I was wandering in a
library, I aw the Turkish

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Mimima Moralia.

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I walked out, not really
realizing what a

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treasure I\'d found.

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Then later, I started
to read it.

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And when I actually started to
read Adorno seriously, it just

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knocked my socks off.

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Here was someone from a
different cultural moment,

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1930s, Weimar Germany.

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He fled to America
in the 1940s.

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And he wrote this book about the
culture shock of finding

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himself in a strange new
land called Hollywood.

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And his reactions kind of chimed
with my reactions, with

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my initial reactions as to
what\'s going on with American

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culture in the \'80s and \'90s?

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What\'s wrong with society?

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What\'s not working about
this culture?

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[SPEAKING GERMAN]

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At least in the sense of
practical, everyday life,

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Minima Moralia has the feeling
of a sacred text or the Bible.

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Messianic?

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I would say Utopian.

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Adorno would say we need
a counter spell.

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There is the baleful
spell, and it\'s

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right there, that exists.

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And it\'s the shape of how
things actually are.

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Adorno means it both as
something real and unreal.

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And this gets to the heart of
this problem of even grasping

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the total system.

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Like how do we think about
that critically?

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How do we locate ourselves
in that?

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The baleful spell, on a certain
level the baleful

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spell is everything.

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It\'s the totality.

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It\'s what exists.

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We look outside and
we\'ll see a mall.

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And you think, oh,
it\'s just a mall.

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And Adorno would be wait,
what are seeing?

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I\'m seeing buildings.

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Yeah.

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Who\'s working in
the buildings?

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Who built that?

00:11:11.575 --> 00:11:12.780 align:middle line:90%
Who benefits?

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What are the commodities
inside there?

00:11:15.350 --> 00:11:18.930 align:middle line:84%
You have to think oh, actually
I kind of assumed that it was

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\"normal.\" So it\'s that
sense of normality.

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We accept market relations
as normal.

00:11:24.280 --> 00:11:40.360 align:middle line:90%

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What if it\'s the case that
things are just the way they

00:11:45.490 --> 00:11:49.780 align:middle line:84%
are because that\'s the way
that they have to be?

00:11:49.780 --> 00:11:53.240 align:middle line:90%
Which is a bit scary.

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It\'s scary to think that.

00:11:57.000 --> 00:12:01.820 align:middle line:90%
But how do--

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this isn\'t, this facial profiler
thing is not--

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well, maybe it will
happen now.

00:12:07.976 --> 00:12:57.670 align:middle line:90%

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But it\'s the same thing for
them if they\'re getting a

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picture of me.

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They\'re the real thing and
I\'m the pretender.

00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:27.770 align:middle line:90%

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I am always reminded
of a line.

00:13:32.775 --> 00:13:35.560 align:middle line:90%

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It says the more total society
becomes, the greater

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reification of the mind and
the more paradoxical its

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effort to escape reification
on its own.

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But even the most extreme
consciousness of doom

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threatens to degenerate
into idle chatter.

00:13:58.185 --> 00:14:02.400 align:middle line:90%

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There\'s reading Adorno, which
can be a really beguiling

00:14:08.540 --> 00:14:09.560 align:middle line:90%
experience.

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But then there\'s me trying to
understand Adorno, making

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sense of it in relation
to myself.

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I have to say it would take me
years and years to even begin

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to understand what Adorno
was talking about.

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The complexity of his
thought is genuine.

00:14:31.850 --> 00:14:34.270 align:middle line:84%
But somehow in his text,
there is this sort of

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message to the future.

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And he wrote things so that
they would survive and be

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transmitted to a later time.

00:14:42.050 --> 00:14:45.000 align:middle line:90%

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Adorno kind of shows you that
there\'s something wrong if you

00:14:50.400 --> 00:15:02.510 align:middle line:84%
aren\'t cynical or disappointed
or discontent with the world.

00:15:02.510 --> 00:15:09.450 align:middle line:90%

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That said, Adorno also mentions
something and talks a

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lot about the resistance to
the state of affairs.

00:15:14.720 --> 00:15:17.110 align:middle line:84%
And this is also one of the
great misunderstandings that

00:15:17.110 --> 00:15:19.940 align:middle line:84%
Adorno is gloomy and sees no
future for the human race.

00:15:19.940 --> 00:15:22.020 align:middle line:84%
And this is absolutely
not true.

00:15:22.020 --> 00:15:25.590 align:middle line:84%
He\'s gloomy in the classic sense
of things are bad now,

00:15:25.590 --> 00:15:27.070 align:middle line:90%
things were bad in the past.

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But we don\'t know about
the future.

00:15:28.420 --> 00:15:31.455 align:middle line:84%
And that\'s the most radical
thing that we could say.

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And I think he also teaches
me that I don\'t have to be

00:15:40.560 --> 00:15:47.050 align:middle line:84%
totally frustrated by my
incapacity for real political

00:15:47.050 --> 00:15:51.030 align:middle line:84%
or revolutionary action
in my life.

00:15:51.030 --> 00:16:02.040 align:middle line:84%
That I can perhaps create some
sort of change through having

00:16:02.040 --> 00:16:09.120 align:middle line:84%
heartfelt, deep relationships
with even a few close friends,

00:16:09.120 --> 00:16:14.670 align:middle line:84%
that are in a sense outside of
that social realm of necessity

00:16:14.670 --> 00:16:15.920 align:middle line:90%
and exchange.

00:16:15.920 --> 00:16:18.370 align:middle line:90%

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And these are the things
that I long for.

00:16:21.690 --> 00:16:25.010 align:middle line:84%
And these are the things that
I really have grown to

00:16:25.010 --> 00:16:27.366 align:middle line:90%
appreciate.

00:16:27.366 --> 00:16:29.700 align:middle line:84%
And I think this is something
that in a lot of ways,

00:16:29.700 --> 00:16:32.120 align:middle line:84%
Facebook will take
away from us.

00:16:32.120 --> 00:16:49.050 align:middle line:90%
[SPEAKING GERMAN]

00:16:49.050 --> 00:16:52.660 align:middle line:84%
I feel like my everyday life
is lived very much in the

00:16:52.660 --> 00:16:56.250 align:middle line:84%
midst of the \"technologische
Schleier.\" And we\'re

00:16:56.250 --> 00:16:58.230 align:middle line:90%
constantly using interfaces.

00:16:58.230 --> 00:17:00.550 align:middle line:84%
And none of the interfaces
are innocent.

00:17:00.550 --> 00:17:02.935 align:middle line:90%
They\'re all contested spaces.

00:17:02.935 --> 00:17:06.390 align:middle line:84%
And something as simple as the
Facebook button, it\'s like who

00:17:06.390 --> 00:17:07.329 align:middle line:90%
produced it?

00:17:07.329 --> 00:17:07.720 align:middle line:90%
What am I doing?

00:17:07.720 --> 00:17:10.530 align:middle line:90%
What am I signing off on?

00:17:10.530 --> 00:17:40.280 align:middle line:90%
[SPEAKING GERMAN]

00:17:40.280 --> 00:17:48.210 align:middle line:84%
So you say people on Facebook
seem to think like they are

00:17:48.210 --> 00:17:53.510 align:middle line:84%
the marketing agents of
their own identity.

00:17:53.510 --> 00:17:56.290 align:middle line:84%
I can sympathize with
you very easily.

00:17:56.290 --> 00:17:57.680 align:middle line:90%
I just felt like a brand.

00:17:57.680 --> 00:18:01.360 align:middle line:90%

00:18:01.360 --> 00:18:04.680 align:middle line:84%
I just felt that I was
a band of myself.

00:18:04.680 --> 00:18:12.210 align:middle line:84%
I just kind of sensed that it
was an album artwork that I

00:18:12.210 --> 00:18:15.990 align:middle line:84%
can publish if I were
to sell myself.

00:18:15.990 --> 00:18:20.040 align:middle line:84%
I was just trying to reach
people via that

00:18:20.040 --> 00:18:23.620 align:middle line:90%
look on that picture.

00:18:23.620 --> 00:18:26.320 align:middle line:90%
But there\'s a hope.

00:18:26.320 --> 00:18:30.570 align:middle line:84%
It\'s a good thing that I
can talk to you now.

00:18:30.570 --> 00:18:31.834 align:middle line:90%
That\'s a good thing.

00:18:31.834 --> 00:18:34.820 align:middle line:90%

00:18:34.820 --> 00:18:39.486 align:middle line:84%
And without this Facebook group,
Adorno changed my life.

00:18:39.486 --> 00:18:42.390 align:middle line:90%
It was not possible.

00:18:42.390 --> 00:18:45.610 align:middle line:84%
Facebook is a wonderful example
of, despite the most

00:18:45.610 --> 00:18:49.040 align:middle line:84%
evil and malevolent intentions
of corporations, there is

00:18:49.040 --> 00:18:51.270 align:middle line:84%
something about our own digital
era and the digital

00:18:51.270 --> 00:18:56.880 align:middle line:84%
commons that is counteracting
the tendency of capital to

00:18:56.880 --> 00:18:59.260 align:middle line:84%
commodify and control
everything.

00:18:59.260 --> 00:19:01.120 align:middle line:84%
And it\'s a fascinating
contradiction.

00:19:01.120 --> 00:19:03.260 align:middle line:84%
I run into the same
contradiction in the video

00:19:03.260 --> 00:19:04.440 align:middle line:90%
game culture.

00:19:04.440 --> 00:19:06.520 align:middle line:84%
When I started to study video
game culture, I had a lot of

00:19:06.520 --> 00:19:07.090 align:middle line:90%
assumptions.

00:19:07.090 --> 00:19:09.255 align:middle line:84%
One of them was well, it\'s
just run by Nintendo.

00:19:09.255 --> 00:19:10.540 align:middle line:90%
It\'s for little kids.

00:19:10.540 --> 00:19:12.750 align:middle line:90%
It\'s corporate swill, right?

00:19:12.750 --> 00:19:14.095 align:middle line:90%
No!

00:19:14.095 --> 00:19:17.460 align:middle line:84%
Video games are much more
complicated than that.

00:19:17.460 --> 00:19:18.900 align:middle line:84%
Yeah, they start out as
a corporate product.

00:19:18.900 --> 00:19:20.400 align:middle line:90%
And then something happens.

00:19:20.400 --> 00:19:22.900 align:middle line:84%
The digital commons gets set up
and then the logic goes in

00:19:22.900 --> 00:19:23.780 align:middle line:90%
a different direction.

00:19:23.780 --> 00:19:27.020 align:middle line:84%
All these resistances start
to show up because the

00:19:27.020 --> 00:19:31.050 align:middle line:84%
corporations don\'t control the
means of making the games,

00:19:31.050 --> 00:19:33.840 align:middle line:84%
playing the games, interacting
with the games.

00:19:33.840 --> 00:19:35.650 align:middle line:90%
Facebook is the same example.

00:19:35.650 --> 00:19:38.060 align:middle line:84%
To this day, I don\'t think
Facebook has actually made its

00:19:38.060 --> 00:19:41.260 align:middle line:90%
owners a dime of money.

00:19:41.260 --> 00:19:43.240 align:middle line:84%
And they regard it as a
strategic investment, that

00:19:43.240 --> 00:19:44.870 align:middle line:84%
well, we\'ll get all those
eyeballs and we\'ll somehow

00:19:44.870 --> 00:19:46.550 align:middle line:90%
feed them ads and whatnot.

00:19:46.550 --> 00:19:48.900 align:middle line:84%
They keep trying and
what happens?

00:19:48.900 --> 00:19:51.800 align:middle line:84%
People on Facebook
resist that.

00:19:51.800 --> 00:19:54.150 align:middle line:84%
One of the fascinating things
about interactive media is to

00:19:54.150 --> 00:19:59.720 align:middle line:84%
this day, really Google is the
only company that has figured

00:19:59.720 --> 00:20:05.830 align:middle line:84%
out how to make money
off of the internet.

00:20:05.830 --> 00:20:07.920 align:middle line:84%
And even then, they\'re just
kind of [INAUDIBLE].

00:20:07.920 --> 00:20:10.770 align:middle line:90%

00:20:10.770 --> 00:20:13.822 align:middle line:84%
Yeah, is the connection
breaking there?

00:20:13.822 --> 00:20:15.750 align:middle line:90%
Did you get that?

00:20:15.750 --> 00:20:17.371 align:middle line:90%
Or is it fuzzy?

00:20:17.371 --> 00:20:20.808 align:middle line:90%

00:20:20.808 --> 00:20:22.058 align:middle line:90%
Oh, oh.

00:20:22.058 --> 00:20:33.110 align:middle line:90%

00:20:33.110 --> 00:21:04.720 align:middle line:90%
[SPEAKING GERMAN]

00:21:04.720 --> 00:21:07.520 align:middle line:84%
There\'s 6.7 billion people
on this planet.

00:21:07.520 --> 00:21:08.360 align:middle line:90%
What unites them?

00:21:08.360 --> 00:21:09.920 align:middle line:90%
What ties them together?

00:21:09.920 --> 00:21:13.300 align:middle line:84%
And there\'s only one form
capable of doing that.

00:21:13.300 --> 00:21:14.662 align:middle line:90%
And that\'s digital space.

00:21:14.662 --> 00:21:15.955 align:middle line:90%
We\'re divided by nationality.

00:21:15.955 --> 00:21:17.710 align:middle line:90%
We\'re divided by language.

00:21:17.710 --> 00:21:19.860 align:middle line:90%
We\'re divided by income level.

00:21:19.860 --> 00:21:24.420 align:middle line:84%
But potentially, in theory, the
digital commons, with its

00:21:24.420 --> 00:21:27.710 align:middle line:84%
low-cost technologies and its
global networks, can be that

00:21:27.710 --> 00:21:32.380 align:middle line:84%
public space where we can all
start to think of ourselves as

00:21:32.380 --> 00:21:35.330 align:middle line:90%
a species, as humanity.

00:21:35.330 --> 00:21:43.670 align:middle line:84%
We are divided by continents,
countries, ethnicities,

00:21:43.670 --> 00:21:49.260 align:middle line:90%
political parties, languages.

00:21:49.260 --> 00:21:52.280 align:middle line:84%
What if we could erase
those divisions?

00:21:52.280 --> 00:21:55.060 align:middle line:84%
What if we all came a little
closer together, instead of

00:21:55.060 --> 00:21:56.880 align:middle line:90%
moving a little further apart.

00:21:56.880 --> 00:22:00.640 align:middle line:84%
What if for one moment this
holiday season, we united in

00:22:00.640 --> 00:22:03.640 align:middle line:90%
one thing we all share?

00:22:03.640 --> 00:22:08.050 align:middle line:90%
Love, love, love.

00:22:08.050 --> 00:22:12.460 align:middle line:90%

00:22:12.460 --> 00:22:17.850 align:middle line:90%
Love, love, love.

00:22:17.850 --> 00:22:19.320 align:middle line:90%
Love is all we need.

00:22:19.320 --> 00:22:22.260 align:middle line:90%
Love is all we need.

00:22:22.260 --> 00:22:25.065 align:middle line:90%

00:22:25.065 --> 00:22:28.310 align:middle line:90%
Well, there\'s a link.

00:22:28.310 --> 00:22:35.018 align:middle line:84%
Is there anything on this
website about AIDS in Africa?

00:22:35.018 --> 00:22:36.464 align:middle line:90%
There\'s a map.

00:22:36.464 --> 00:22:44.658 align:middle line:90%

00:22:44.658 --> 00:22:45.610 align:middle line:90%
I can listen.

00:22:45.610 --> 00:22:48.390 align:middle line:90%
I can listen to people.

00:22:48.390 --> 00:22:54.490 align:middle line:84%
I\'m going to listen
to \"Feliz.\"

00:22:54.490 --> 00:22:57.330 align:middle line:90%
All you need is love.

00:22:57.330 --> 00:22:59.210 align:middle line:90%
Oh, you still get the Beatles.

00:22:59.210 --> 00:23:00.290 align:middle line:90%
But you sing.

00:23:00.290 --> 00:23:01.430 align:middle line:90%
It\'s not like karaoke.

00:23:01.430 --> 00:23:03.584 align:middle line:84%
You still get them
helping you.

00:23:03.584 --> 00:23:05.530 align:middle line:90%
All you need is love.

00:23:05.530 --> 00:23:06.970 align:middle line:90%
That makes it nice.

00:23:06.970 --> 00:23:08.880 align:middle line:90%
I might do that.

00:23:08.880 --> 00:23:21.550 align:middle line:90%

00:23:21.550 --> 00:23:25.220 align:middle line:84%
I could say no, I\'m
not doing this.

00:23:25.220 --> 00:23:29.330 align:middle line:84%
But still, me contributing means
more money that can go

00:23:29.330 --> 00:23:31.230 align:middle line:84%
towards fighting
AIDS in Africa.

00:23:31.230 --> 00:23:35.400 align:middle line:84%
So am I being barbaric by
refusing to participate?

00:23:35.400 --> 00:23:38.410 align:middle line:84%
No matter how squeamish
it makes me feel--

00:23:38.410 --> 00:23:40.030 align:middle line:90%
it seems easy enough.

00:23:40.030 --> 00:23:44.950 align:middle line:84%
But in the total picture, I\'m
also contributing to kind of

00:23:44.950 --> 00:23:48.440 align:middle line:84%
liquidation of subjectivity,
of my own subjectivity.

00:23:48.440 --> 00:24:03.000 align:middle line:90%

00:24:03.000 --> 00:28:37.046 align:middle line:90%
[SPEAKING GERMAN]