Half an hour’s drive off the main buzz around Angkor Thom on the way to Phnom Kulen national park, a secluded temple comes into view. Erected by two Brahman brothers – both wealthy landowners in Ishanapura – Tribhuvanamahesvara (or Banteay Srei - 'citadel of women' by its modern name) it is the only example of a non-state stone building that survived 1000 years of tropic heat. Tourists do well to pay their tuk-tuk driver for an extra bottle of gas. Otherwise they would miss the finest red sandstone bas-reliefs from the 10th century Khmer kingdom. At what Krippendorf named ‘monumental communication’, you may have a look in the gallery beneath this post. It speaks to all those who see it and share at least the same ‘cultural background’. Yet to all the others it remains cryptic.
Let me illustrate: the pic you see as a blog background shows Narasima the protector, clawing Hiranyakasipu at a shrine; about 30 meters outside the threshold towards the inner temple. All this we only know from the start thanks to our travel guide. Diving deeper into sources we find that Narasima actually is an incarnation (avatar) of Vishnu. Without violating the blessing given by Brahma he wants to kill his opponent. This is tricky – and cunning – because Hiranyakasipu cannot be killed by human or animal, not during day nor night, not indoors and not outside, not by crawling or flying beast. But Narasima being none of these is able to do so: he is a deva, he comes upon his foe at twilight, and he meets him on the threshold of a courtyard, finally he puts the demon on his thighs, not exactly touching the ground. But still, the whole story remains a cutout and the figures are silhouette-like in style. Even a devoted modern day believer could give tourists only the scripture version of all this. Why? Because no information is given on what it meant for a Khmer in those days to come from his wooden village to worship in front of these halls of stone. Was it surrounded by peasant huts or a marketplace? Were there hermits camping around it on their pilgrimage? Which items would one bring to visit? No one knows about the worshippers of those days. No wood hut remains, just the unchangeable pseudo-arch stone architecture of the Khmer. Now, the argument goes like this: companies’ corporate communication is just like the social soliloquy, the babble and interaction in the devotees’ home villages, whereas stone prasats and statues are parallel to the VW Autostadt or the Daimler star. Three reasons for the latter: First, there has been no extra information encoded in Khmer art. Second, there has been no effort on the side of its creators to do so. Third, all modern side knowledge is just associated with what we can see, describe and compare. Even though – or better: because – stone is substantial it stays symbolic. In order to work it has to be included in communicative acts, talk, journeys, rituals, demonstrations. Otherwise the risk of misinterpretation lowers the efficiency of communication efforts. As for the first part of the argument, I would state that Khmer culture just like organizational culture has to play an active role in communication. ‘Cultural background’ as it has been used above is just a rough set of vocabulary, some facts you may study. Real culture is what you live. That is why temples in terms of ‘being alive and kicking’ are all but the opposite of corporate communication. cc is not for the rare durable cases set in stone. It is only thriving as a long-term interactive investment between communicative actors. |
brain candy
A blog about insprired communication ArchivesCategories
|