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.

Final Clutter

First final cut experiment was on Nidal Kram. This was fun, and successful however we wish in the Canvas section of Final Cut it actually played the video along with the sound. Also cutting of Mariah's video went smoothly.

Plan;
Take each bit cut from each interview - have them repeat each other using the different voices whether matched with their speaker or images that display misperceptions of the world. Along with an overall 'plot' surrounding these tidbits of information, that we have gathered from the interviews. We are not documentarians, although I have gathered we are artists trying to obviously address that missing link through a medium that ironically portrays the so called 'missing' link - even though it is right under your nose. I want to show the 'missing link' quickly and obviously.

Few changes;
maybe not going to interview Skran and Vetinde (although if the opportunity arises - most definitely will do so)


Also we plan to be a little more artistic in our presentation.

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I am Woman, Hear Me Roar

What Abigail Disney chose to portray through her documentary was something ignored by absolutely everyone, making this film a connector for women all over the world.

She mentioned at the luncheon that her decision to not use a narrator was vital to the project because ' Liberian women have already been spoken for, too many times have they been spoken for'. This aspect of the documentary was not obvious to me when I watched it the first time, however it did make a big impact whether the viewer knew it or not. I imagine the film with a narrator and it could not have been as powerful as to hear Leymah and her friends telling the story themselves. Common Language has played its part in allowing them to communicate their story to the rest of the world.

Abigail Disney is an activist whose mind is set on demolishing weapons and joining all countries in the process of peace. This is good, and she inspired me. She also demonstrated that with new media this is possible, by bringing the story to us and connecting it with all women, in all countries. She mentioned some examples of when she presented it in other countries and how different women from Europe to America had all responded differently. In Europe some women felt it was insulting and some said it was the best thing they'd seen, and they were 80 (or something). She mentioned the different reactions in America and how Americans tended to separate themselves more from this documentary and did not connect or find similarities as did the European women. This reflects onto how most Americans forget we are involved in two wars at the moment and how we separate ourselves from deatha and destruction is unbelievable sometimes.

One cannot, should not, be negative or critical of Disney, she is aware she is a white woman trying to make a film about Africa. And in order to not be cliche she did things differently in the details of this documentary. I am sure none of her story is false, and to not believe the women who work for peace in Liberia again is pessimism at its worst.


In these viewings of a press conference, you see these women elaborate on the documentary.

Artineer or Engintist?

Nicolas Bourriaud on Facebook

A secondary root in addition to the primary one seems almost too much to handle, however everyone these days, due to globalization (caused by the communications revolution and therefore technology), has a secondary root, or can now finally acknowledge it.

Nicolas Bourriaud, when he wrote The Radicant, was explaining the direction artists are taking NOW. He discusses the exploration of these invisible pathways and this invisible yet powerful connection we have with each other made possible by a signal, a channeled void, or rather "semes". "Pathways within the cultural landscape", and Semionauts are those "inventors of these pathways, nomadic sign gatherers", aka artists. (39)

Putting altermodern into a visual interpretation is what Les Paul, Buckminster Fuller, and Laurie Anderson started. The first contributions to advancing the human mindset to think what they are, and where they are by "decentering, of setting in motion, of unsticking, of de-crustation", through some kind of art; music, performance, visual, 'finest', or architecture, and new engineered inventions. Engineering in my opinion is the new art, the engineers will be making the money, selling the new ideas, and they will be shaping the new mindsets of youth all around the globe.

Can an Artist be an Engineer? or an Engineer and Artist?
Artineer....Engintist
Yes, of course. Sure, why not?

Golden Gate Bridge Example

New words will begin to define these new concepts that try and explain these new ideas, which before all that, will be triggered by the mindset change all humans will undergo. Of course there will be controversies, traditionalists, nationalists, etc. but there will be those who talk and think like Laurie Anderson, and Buckminster Fuller, and those who grow to the kind of popularity like Les Paul who will in some way tackle those who doubt, and these "semionauts" will lead us to the next Age/Era.

The secondary root is the connector between one and all, publicizing whatever, and registering to be a facebook name, Blogger, myspace user, twitterer, or Void Citizen aka 'Net Citizen', is claiming your identity among World Population, U.S. and World. Subjecting yourself to everyone and subjecting everyone to yourself. It is a choice and by opening this door you take a risk but without this risk there can be no understanding of this connection. Understanding is knowledge and knowledge is power. Power to the people.

Peace.