March 9, 2010

A Social-lite


"The person is intelligent, people are stupid" - K, MIB

As technology has increased the awareness of other cultures in far far away places, people have been either less and less or more and more informed about that culture. Controlling or ...informing, excuse me...a large amount of people tends to create social culture in a media-lead world. Although information may be available to everyone on the net, people still need to be told where to look.

Usually people associated with some type of social group, through church, museums, sports, opera houses what have you, hear about whats new, good, or better through word of mouth. I heard about Drudge Report from a friend for example, not from Google-ing "best political blogs", although if I had it still would not have been on the front page, yet it is still a popular social source for political news among conservatives. Now depending on where you stand, you either choose to like the link because of its stance (that's being partisan) or because of the variety of links provided (this is being qualitative), or because of the number of links provided, and therefore by some logic declaring it diverse? (that is being quantitative)

The one thing about the internet is its power to destruct the idea of nationalism and within that a pure claim to cultural identity. If there are no segregated nations or cultures on the web, then does this mean differences can be solved, nations can find common ground through this technological void, and there would/should be no more war? It is a possibility, but we are not there yet. The reason I bring up Matt Drudge's political blog page is because he almost started a war by taking what he thought was true and posting it as truth. It is because of the social network online which has taken his blog for granted and the unreliability of certain media that these mistakes occur. However, people also have the responsibility of not taking his blog for granted, but this just supports the idea that people are stupid. But by people taking a blog's legitimacy and truth for granted because it is referred to them through an online (or not) social network, everything played at the opera is good, or everything in a museum is art.

It tends to be a "location material" that people are attracted too and when transferred to the net it takes the same form and function of a social structure, but in this case social has become a form on indirect social. These people do not know each other but they know what each and every other one of them likes, therefore creating a detached social network where you can remove yourself without...harm, because that person doesn't actually know you.

Public Interest or Public Opinion are what now drives the good and bad levels of art, books, and perhaps academics. But what is it that has been declared a 'good video' on youtube, or an 'amazing' song on the radio? Something that someone else has told you about, and because of that person's attraction to it, it is, by popular choice, good. But what is quality? Does public opinion know quality over quantity? Can we really classify people in qualitative groups? Is this global capitalism*, even though what we are consuming is virtually free? How long will this freedom last? Youtube videos' embedded ability is becoming restricted, and without a social network telling one where to find videos or music, it is hard to utilize the web efficiently. Can the collective whole become intelligent enough to out maneuver web restrictions? Some have, however those are anti-social individuals. Is the internet educating the people as a whole?

3rd Rock from the Sun provides a good look at how what someone from the outer space would think of our social customs, and preferences. Deciding whether humor is quality or what is primitive, through looking at your lifestyle as if you've never lived it, or as if you never were trained to live like others, can be a good way to evaluate how we do things here on Planet Earth. The movie Brazil where the audience is introduced to a new world, rather than viewing those being introduced to your world, also can carry the question what is quality? or the message that although you are human that does not mean you cannot be alien or vice versa. Although you are a piece of readymade that does not mean you cannot be art - Marcel Duchamp.*

*Reference Nicolas Bourriaud and his book The Radicant


March 7, 2010

Where da Party?

Paper or Plastic? Consuming or producing? Post-modern or Altermodern?

Today with global capitalism each sector of the world has been introduced into a digital world at the same time, rather than going through an agricultural, industrial, and then technological process that has lead to this digital new media era. Now the 20 yr old generation has grown up with a sense of the same technology and ability of that new media.

In the next few generations students around the world will hopefully be experiencing the same amount of access to the new technologies. Due to this spread of materialism and products and the consumption of these products, our world has interconnected itself through the trading of those products - creating (of course) a circle.

However, capitalism has seemed to have taken a hit from "dematerialization" the new technology seems to enforce. Without a product to sell there is no consumption of that product unless of course one has changed the essence of that product to what was materialistic to a new conceptual and 'altermodern' product, but the question is can these still be sold? or is everything up for grabs? Ideas, beliefs, time, ..or knowledge.

The amount of information on the net void is infinite, the amount of credible information of the net is questionable. But Nicolas Bourriaud explains in the ending pages of his book The Radicant, that locations seem to take a huge toll in validity or legitimacy of art and knowledge. As a 'semionaut' in order to lead your audience down a path of progressiveness concepts and ideas you need art to embody the signs and visual, or audio, representations that will direct the world to understand what will be. The signs do not necessarily have an end, and obviously the journey is the art or the answer, rather than the destination, but Bourriaud is trying to express that these projects are merely "dots upon a moving line" where our contribution is shared with everyone in the world simultaneously and access is infinite, therefore making it never-ending.

"The quality of an artist's work depends on the richness of his or her relations with the world and these are determined by the economic structure that more or less powerfully shapes them -- even if, fortunately every artist theoretically has the means to evade or escape that structure."

A good artist is a "net citizen" for the media void which serves us and is there for us to spit anything into it. Although, the responsibility a net citizen has is to guide those within to sincere intellectual place of knowledge or interest. But there will always be citizens who are irresponsible.


This is NOT the Altermodern stage yet because everyone does NOT have equal access to technological void of knowledge in which everyone must be apart of to have an altermodern society, but are we close?

Sometimes people choose not to be apart of that society does this make impossible to be the altermodern society?No as long as the option is there, people NOT choosing it cannot prevent from societal changes to occur. One can chose to be ignorant and sometimes some people cannot handle the truth, so it is a practical precaution to choose not to participate as a 'net citizen' in this void where knowledge can be infinite (at least for the human's finite brain).



Co-Mix

The recreations of ancient works of art in the medium of comics as defined by James Danky as Comix, seemed to be a product of the drug induced late Sixties era. Where sex, drugs, and alcohol seemed to be the inspirations for these old artists it seems to show in the horror and sexual representations that the Comix portray.
Danky focused a lot of his presentation on female sexuality which also seemed to be key in art history. Sometimes things never change but what does seems to be the amount of criticism and tolerance directed at what never changes therefore allowing it to become either offensive, degraded, more expressive, or more interesting.

Forbidden things always seem to be more addictive to look at than what is allowed by the mainstream media. Porn, monsters, political criticism, hallucinations, drugs, etc.

The co-mixture that Comix in Danky's world provides is a the mixture between then art and "now/then" art and then the tolerable and intolerable media images that have been criticized before but now that they can be represented in this art form are more tolerated..?

What other mediums can we "indirectly" represent what is forbidden in mainstream media? And then once its represented that way is it still forbidden?

Evolution of this medium has seemed to be exclusive to certain subcultures who tend to keep up with the storyline and imagery depicted. It is which subcultures impact the Comix that is interesting and seems to be a way to predict where the Comix are going and what they will continue to raise up from the underground.