Capitalization

So you cannot stray from a medium in which you were a great part of?

John McKinnon mentioned in his lecture that Andy Warhol was told that he cannot do abstract because he is Andy Warhol.

This video clip of Andy Warhol in a Japanese ad was an attempt to connect Andy to new media, and multiculturalism. It seems as though if you want to change your medium you need to flee the country in order for whatever comes next to be accepted. Klaus Nomi, at the end of his career/life, seemed to be more accepted in Europe.
Andy Warhol in Japan?

These commercialized art forms seem to be exhausted here and then shipped abroad unlike commercialized material things which are invented here tested there and then if they pass the marketing test they come here. Sometimes those inventions after passing the test abroad come here and inspire new art forms, such as digital media art. So incorpoting capitalism in the global world, hence da title.

Lost Nomi

Do Michael Jackson and Lady Gaga fall under the same spotlight as Klaus Nomi. New wave music is a hard thing to uphold alone, so does one create another personality in order to manage, and is this necessarily the best way to manage the fame?

Do you even sell yourself then or is it just your character? Is this what celebrities tell themselves?

In the heat of the era, Klaus Nomi found himself in search for the spotlight, attention, that is positive attention. Sometimes such fragile characters cannot be celebrities, or else they end up putting up a wall, or in Klaus's case, a mask and a costume. Drama to the 'poppest' degree. Upholding this new wave music along with others can be detrimental to your health, because it becomes more than just exploring a new medium, but commericalizing that medium and in a way 'selling yourself' to that medium.

Musicians who try and change their sound sometimes, in fact most times, end up with negative and very critical reviews. A musician become strapped in that medium, and the public interest or opinion controls their creative growth and restricts these musicians from diverting from what the public likes. In the Nomi documentary his performances seems painfully repetitive, not just for the audience, but for him.

The public's restricitons on artistic creativity are painful but necessary to have the ability to do any art at all. Money becomes the root of noticable art.

Klaus Nomi's story dug deep into the profession of being a celebrity and the effect it has on human beings minds. His origins were more interesting and made his story even sadder when one discovers that his profession was founded on such a pure and classic medium; opera.

"You can completely reinvent yourself" (quote at the end of Nomi documentary)

Before one is a celebrity, one creates an identity for this celebrity, that they plan to become, that is recognizable, consistant, and hides all human aspects of the one who plays that celebrity.

Klaus began to 'detach himself'. I think Klaus became lost in his costume identity and all human aspects had almost been forgotten, except when he visited his aunt (or his past), and when he was acknowledging his disease.

Snippets and Clippets

This is an example of what our video will offer, snippets and clippets of interviews, mixed together answering the same questions with different answers that gather the perspective of an American in Africa, and an African in America.

Main questions or themes will be highlighted before each snippet and clippet, so it might make more sense, if that ends up being what we want, OR we could leave it to random words and phrases randomly describing what the viewer thinks the interviewees are describing?

Also, some of the movies need a little spoofing up, or do they? Color and sound are something we'd like to play with, however we also do not want it to distract from the word or phrase, maybe it would add to it?

Intermission

"Through the production and consumption of images, we are created, exhausted and remade."
— Sut Jhally

Some people fear that technology will lead to a less understood world, because of the media's power to manipulate people's interpretations and the illiterate, uneducated people who are vulnerable to these images, videos, television dialogues, and news bites that traverse through the internet void.

One fear brought up in one of our interviews, specifically Harjinder Bedi, was the power of media to have the negative effect of such as "technology being another vehicle for social domination and cultural domination, and for new wave colonialism of developing countries".


A question that I was asked recently was: How does human nature impact social organizations? Not necessarily how do social organizations reflect human nature but How does the nature of man impact how men live together in society?

How did human nature impact colonialism, or initiate it? How does human nature deal with developing countries? Does human nature differ from continent to continent?

What made Russia and China communist, and the United State a democracy or England a parliamentary system? Do all humans have their own nature? IS there such thing as a collective natural?

In Post Colonial Literature I am reading The Colonizer and the Colonized by Albert Memmi, who discusses how it is human nature to assimilate to colonialism, and then to shift to revolution. But in shifting towards a revolt, the colonized abandons their own nature and uses the colonizer's values and nature to combat the colonizer.

This can be translated through technology, literature, language, and now new media. Having come from the western world and imposed onto the post-colonial countries, media has the potential to put the 20 yrs old generation on th same playing field (depending on class), but it also has the potential to influence the 20 yrs old generation even further with western music, video, images, movies, news, and language (not depending on class). Misconceptions of both worlds, first and third, are being flung at each other from every which way. Dominance is now found in popularity, viewership, public interest and appeal.

Money is not as physically present with the new media as it was with resources, and market advertising. The amount of material needed to function in a new media world is by far less than it used to be, and therefore one's physical perception of money is also being sucked into the void, or the "semes" of new media. The stock market initiated this 'untouchable concept' of money, but now it is even more untouchable, and unreal. What is real is what is noticed, and what is not noticeable anymore is the amount of money one has, because the internet and new technology is more accessible, lighter, and becoming cheaper by the second (because the new thing is seconds away), more people can be noticed due to the things they say.

"The loudest one in the room is the weakest one in the room" - American Gangster
Just because you have the money to shout does not mean you are saying anything important.