A Crowd of Strangers (II): The Waiver (Imaging the Imaging of History)

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UC Berkeley Occupy protest, Sproul Plaza: photo by konigswagger, 9 November 2011

Our friend the very cool blogger/writer Brad Johnson of Departure Delayed (see margin link here) has been conscientiously posting his responses to some of the East Bay Occupy events. This passage comes from his epistolary-format narrative of the events of 9 November, when Occupy came to UC Berkeley.

...I knew where I was going but was, nevertheless, surprised when I ended up in Berkeley, walking quite hurriedly to Sproul Plaza, where I was greeted, though the cry was obviously not intended for me, “MEDIC! WE NEED A MEDIC!” Someone had been hurt in the police melee that had occurred minutes before my arrival. I do not know how badly she was injured, but she was ushered away quickly. There seemed more anger prevalent than fear on the part of the crowd, though their numbers were not as large as I’d expected. I’m not a particularly brave person, as you well know. Nor, am I an adrenaline junky. I was not interested in being arrested or taking on more tear gas or once again being shot at by non-lethal projectiles. So, yes, I was rather afraid.

Fortunately, the numbers soon increased, dramatically so. Until eventually I could become a part of the crowd. And it was within this crowd, though I cannot place the moment itself, that I realized, despite what I recall recently telling you, I’m not seeking a cause with which to align myself so much as I am seeking an occasion to become strictly a body. I live so much in words. I feel awkward, even with people I know & love, when standing in the flesh, face to face, being seen. I have a confidence with verbal and written expression that I do not in my physical individuality & the space I cut in this world alone. What I want of a crowd, whose motivations, though myriad, are directed against or toward — in a kind of strange harmony, a music to which you would not listen for leisure — that which we may not know or be willing to say by name, is a momentary disintegration — a burning away of myself until all that is left is the presence of a body, not even a voice, in protest. That alone.

I should think not everybody has, or should have, this admittedly retrograde Romantic desire. But I confess it here, to you, though I feel no guilt.

Those words stayed with me. I had been there too -- a little later, in the night, as it happens, at that witchy hour when the ghosts come out.

Brad's blog is often presented in a useful dialogic mode, as a kind of open conversation -- with himself, or with anybody who wishes to extend the developing structure of exchange by having a say. Offered such an opportunity, the least one can do, in conscience, is honestly and openly reply. Thus:

Brad,

Every body would be a body, know a body, feel a body, if a body only could.

But I must say this, as of that long night at Sproul, I did feel a categorical difference. Despite the general, palpable, almost desperate desire for connection that is always in the air, tangible as a kind of invisible atmospheric drizzle, every Occupy is probably (necessarily) disconnected from every other Occupy in ways that are determined by contextual factors like location, socioeconomic background, race (let’s not kid ourselves), even weather, time of day/night, & c. And at Sproul I did notice that, in contrast with the Oakland and downtown Berkeley sites, the crowd was generally better attired, perhaps better “educated”, and definitely more self-conscious in that particular image-consciousness way that manifests itself in the having, and continual using, of cameras and especially video cameras. To document history, as it occurs, is surely important -- right up to the point where the documenting, and the documenting of the documenting, becomes itself the event.

I was standing in Sproul, late that night -- it must have been about 1:30 in the morning -- talking with three young black men who stood out in the by-then-not-so-large crowd as being visibly non-student types. Soon we became conscious of a well-dressed young woman, perhaps a graduate student as it then seemed (?), filming us with a handheld video camera.

After politely fielding a few Wuzzups, she explained, somewhat uncomfortably, that she was making a record of the participation, in this largely white crowd, of… I’m not sure she said “black people”, but the point was plain.

Her subjects shrugged, “whatever”.

Thus given confidence, she added, “but of course I’ll need you to sign a waiver…”

One of the young men she was filming and with whom I had been -- privately, as I had, in that terrible retro way, assumed -- quietly conversing, turned to me, laughed, and said, "Don't worry, OG, she don't mean you."

And then he confided, even more quietly, "Yo, I'm an Army reservist, being in this movie is the last thing I am going to be needing."

As I drifted away into the lonely monadic night, that image of a well-meaning utilitarian technological disembodiment stayed with me, like a brand on the forehead of this latest would-be embodiment of a Brave New World.

And much as I may have wished for “a burning away of myself”, I fear I was left, on the long hike homeward, recalling the encounter I have just described, feeling more my own sad, sorry, solitary self than ever.

So, Brad, it appears from this admittedly peculiar and maybe totally skewed vantage that there remains yet a long way to travel; possibly entailing, even -- perish the thought -- a fantastic voyage into that unfathomable feeling-space where waivers do not apply and even the tiniest, most "advanced" cameras cannot ever, ever go.

UC Berkeley Occupy protest, Sproul Plaza: photo by konigswagger, 9 November 2011

UC Berkeley Occupy protest, Sproul Plaza: photo by konigswagger, 9 November 2011