def. Combining media memes together to form a new memetic piece of media
This is an experimental work where I combine three versions of the song Heartbeats by Jose Gonzales with the advertising meme of the bouncing Sony balls intercut with characters from Halo 3 repeating the same movements.
Will we ever get to a point where we’ll be used to reading media this way?
I have the utmost respect for what Banksy has been able to do with legitimizing graffiti as a valid form of contemporary art, however he may have met his match or perhaps his greatest collaborator in Grey Ghost.
In Murketing today Rob Walker published a post about the anti-graf zealot Fred Radtke aka Grey Ghost. Radtke is well known in the graffiti scene in New Orleans for covering up graffiti. These square blocks of neutral color have become tags unto themselves. This is further evidenced when Grey Ghost only partially covered up a Banksy N.O. work. If he truly hated graffiti then he would have covered everything. Instead he has put his story touch on this tale and entered into dialogue with Banksy.
The Aesthetic Poetic and myself have been talking a lot about how the larger Internet community perceive us and the content we produce.
Wordle is a great visualization tool that helps in this quest as in scraps URLs for keywords then visualizes them. This word cloud can be seen as a visualization of how I am being perceived over at JamesChutter.com
In an earlier post I lamented the fact that within the computer and net space that things are meant to work properly. We don’t like it when our computer doesn’t work as expected or that a link is broken, however it is these flaws that make art so interesting. The same goes for storytelling. It is the imperfections in life that are so interesting to share through story. Can you imagine a world where everything worked? What a boring life we’d live.
Ben Okri puts it so much better than me:
“The fact of storytelling hints at a fundamental human unease, hints at human imperfection. Where there is perfection there is no story to tell.”
I’m worried that as a society we are focusing way too much energy on perfection without sharing our imperfections.
Further to my last post, where I raised the issues surrounding the confluence of art, academia and social media storytelling, I’m also faced with the difficulty that most net.art artist face as well.
Art is in the flaws of the art. It is these in between spaces that invite more investigation. Evidence of this is the Grande Odelisque where the female form seems to be elongated with an unnatural leg position. Was this simply a mistake or a comment on the male gaze on woman? Are these flaws or open doors for further investigation. This can been seen throughout the ages in art, but now that we are all getting more used to using software and computer based applications that are based on closed circuits of true and false answers, we have no patience for flaws in art that are hosted on the internet as is the case with net.art.
The leap to make flawed art housed on the Internet is naturally a stretch considering that the whole purpose of the Internet and computer is all about programs working and helping our lives. I see this as an interesting challenge that invites more exploration. I’ve always like the idea of creating art with a perceived value in which in fact has no use, purpose or value. It is the exploration of the potential use that seems to stimulate the audiences mind. This stimulation of the mind is getting lost in the Internet and social media space.
I’ll apologize in advance if this comes across as a gripe, but the blog world is full so let’s get on board.
Working on the edge of art, academia and social media is proving to be difficult mix. Link ideas across this disciplines is seeming to be a counter intuitive self defeating task. Allow me to elaborate.
A huge value of art is the fact that it begets questions. That’s why I’ve chosen this field to address many issues that concern me. Art is often ambiguous, and invites more questions. On the flip side working at the master’s level art must be accompanied by academic research. This form of research has been understood in the form of scientific research that seeks to find defensible truths. Now let’s add the social media space into the mix. Social media is conversational and no one wants answers while they’re in a conversation, they want to talk it out. Conversations is for discussing ideas not for actually finding the answer. Art begets questions, research seeks truth and social media just wants to keep talking. Theses factors make it very difficult to judge the value of the art/research/social media project because all three things are usually trying to accomplish very different goals.
I’ve not settle on the answer to this quandary except to pose a question in an art piece, research a possible answer through academic reading and then talk about it through this blog.
I will also be developing social network that will help facilitate conversation as it relates to academia and art. More to follow
As a content producer and advertiser I’m keenly aware of how all ideas are judged on their ability to be cross platformed. The questions I hear are: can it be reduced down to emailable file, can it be represented by a url link, can I watch it on my phone, iPod, and HD monitor?
In order for an idea to grow beyond it’s initial conception it has to grow virally. In order for it to grow virally it must be easily spreadable across all media platforms.
So where does this leave the art or the aesthetics of the idea. I’m thinking of artists like Chuck Close and Edward Burtynsky whose work relies and comments on scale. Do the ideas for these works die once they are cross platformed. If I’m picture messaged a Burtnsky photo does it cease to be a Burtynsky? With Manufactured Landscapes director Jennifer Baichwal shows us that Burtynsky’s work can be repurposed to a feature film, so why not an online game, a cell phone screensaver, a ringtone?
Is this type of cross platforming going to be the norm in art? I’ll use one of the most celebrated contemporary artist working today, Mathew Barney as an example. Barney’s films are sliced, and diced, repackaged and sold in bits. His elaborate sets, costumes, and soundtracks are repurposed for an art gallery setting. The film can be viewed in the theatre, on DVD or streamed online. Dealers and patrons, well being art lovers, are also business people and they understand the value of an art piece adding value to this emerging digital economy. It’s no wonder that one of the biggest art buyers, also own one of the biggest advertising agencies.
I’m positing that Facebook status updates that ask us to define what we are and Twitter that asks us what were are doing, allow us to quickly engage in small talk with our online community of friends and followers. When we meet up with these friends in an offline world small talk is no longer necessary, because these friends have been getting these updates throughout the days in between the offline meetings. A higher level of discourse can now happen without having to “catch-up” or talk about the weather.
On a world scale if we can aggregate “small-talk” with tools like Twitter, Jaiku or even some blogs then globally we can have more time for more intelligent conversation. The meeting of the minds historically has solved a myriad of problems, so I predict an extended ability to globally solve problems. The art movement of Dialogical Aesthetics is also betting on this higher level of discourse adding to social value.
Many philosophers have championed self-awareness, or to “know thyself” as a sign of more intelligent and authentic living. If these social tools are constantly asking us to define ourselves and our behaviors, then this can only lead to a more self-aware society. Combine self-awareness with a higher level of inter-personal discourse then what you get is a humanity that is more living more authentically.
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