Who can I talk to about Breaking Bad?
It's arguably the best TV show ever, yet hardly anyone's watched it, or, more annoyingly, those who have are all at different points in the series, making it impossible to discuss without spoilers.
To me, this is just a fact of how entertainment is consumed in the age of multiple channels, on-demand access and Internet downloads. Seeing things at the same moment in time as friends, almost never happens. It's a pity as part of the fun of a series, beyond watching it, is experiencing it - anticipating it and taking time to discuss it with others, particularly for such a nuanced show as Breaking Bad.
Anyway, it has been suggested that this kind of dialogue over shows has not disappeared, it's just been relocated, moved from interpersonal space into cyberspace. Social interactions have evolved, removing the boundary of space and time, you can drop in and out whenever you want, contribute as much as like, from wherever you are - in much the same way as you can view shows, you can comment on them: on your own schedule. Failure to see this, it appears, is like old media's failure to coexist alongside new media.
Personally, I don't see it that way. Surely, just as time slipped viewings make the water-cooler debate awkward for fear of spoilers, so must open threads on the Internet make cyber discussion impossible without them, or even more limited, as at the time of writing you can't gauge how clued in your audience may be. Posting a comment with a plot point would reveal itself in everyone's timeline, whether they were ready to see that detail or not. It would be like somebody walking through the office freely shouting the endings to everyone's favourite shows.
So, in person or online, we are limited to oblique references, and vague statements of general encouragement to others, to: keep watching, it's very good. Or, am I wrong, is there some place we can get together and share our excitement or insights into our weekly viewings?
If you know let me know, I'm keen to get more out of my favourite shows by seeing in them, what everyone else has seen in them.
Sunday, 7 October 2012
Sunday, 18 March 2012
Flawed messengers reveal real hope
This Daisey story and KONY2012 make me sad. Sad because of the terrible issues they highlight, but also sad because, in contradiction to their intentions, they've given comfort to the neigh-sayers by being misguided/misleading.
We are often told (by cynical people) that we live in a cynical world, one where nobody could tear themselves away from their touch-screens long enough to care about anybody else - not even people they know, must less ones that they don't know. In fact, we're great at finding rationals to not care, to not help others: they brought it on themselves, I suspect the funds don't get fairly distributed, why help other nations out when we've got our own problems, why help our own people out they're just feckless.
Every once in a while, something comes into view, often via those same touch-screens we can't tear ourselves away from, that makes people aware of an issue. When this happens, it often disproves the cynical view, people respond openly with hope and a genuine desire to help: they do care. As with KONY2012, which went instantly viral and showed that thousands of people took it at face value, in an uncynical way, because when presented with a horrible situation, even one miles away and affecting people who practice a different culture, they cared. Maybe just enough to pass the word on, but they did.
The same was true of Mike Daisey. To Apple's legion of unquestioning fanboys, who see high-end electronics, beautifully made and marketed at the well-heeled, as virtuous, the company can do no wrong. Those of us who own their devices don't want to be made to feel bad about something that makes us feel ridiculously good. So, not much attention had been paid to the many, many news stories detailing the horrible conditions under which these shiny toys are made. Daisey's rhetorical one-man show caught the attention and contributed to a growing call for Apple to clean-up its act, so that it's as shiny as the buffed aluminium that makes their electronics so appealing.
Get the message out in an evocative way and people do respond, they do care. At the same moment the neigh-sayers, squirming awkwardly, look for reasons not to care. They pour scorn on the way the message was spread: over social media, or they question the credulity of the re-bloggers and re-tweeters. They may even sight a patronising cultural imperialism as a turn off. This all takes place before any real evidence appears to cause the original stories to be questioned.
Then the worst thing happens. The stories are shown to be questionable. The motives may still be real but the methods and practices are misguided at best, fraudulent at worst.
Daisey, it turns out, didn't visit as many places as he mentions in his entertaining rant, and, although nearly everything he mentions is real, he didn't witness much of it first hand and certainly not in the manner he describes. As for KONY2012, they're a real non-profit but they have a poor charitable rating (a mere 2 stars), owing to the fact that they keep closed accounts. Who knows for sure where all the money they receive goes, although it seems some of it ends up funding another ugandan rebel faction. One that it appears is as unsavoury as Kony's Lord's Resistance Army.
OK, this is all a salient reminder that we should be more informed before we take a stance. Some of the neigh-sayers were, in truth, only offering this caution. That in itself is no bad thing, a call to be properly informed. Yet sadly, the clay feet of the messengers has offered, for those who ridicule and rubbish every hopeful act, proof that they were right, that it's never worth caring: everything's a scam. Many who chose to care will feel duped, and foolish - the kind of foolish that the cynical seek to avoid at all costs. It may lead to some harding their attitudes in the future, for fear of being conned again. The whole thing ends up looking like it was fake, the stories and the caring; as the critics claim that its all just shallow click-revolution, and slacktivism.
It wasn't all fake. While the intentions of the authors may still be true, they may not be and, in any case, its hard to argue that now. But the intentions of those who were encouraged to hope and to care were real. The overwhelming evidence suggests that to be true. Given better information, via a less self-serving media, those people could make a real difference. I hope we don't lose sight of that and instead find that Invisible Children and Mike Daisey have just given us another couple of excuses not to care. We really don't need anymore of those.
We are often told (by cynical people) that we live in a cynical world, one where nobody could tear themselves away from their touch-screens long enough to care about anybody else - not even people they know, must less ones that they don't know. In fact, we're great at finding rationals to not care, to not help others: they brought it on themselves, I suspect the funds don't get fairly distributed, why help other nations out when we've got our own problems, why help our own people out they're just feckless.
Every once in a while, something comes into view, often via those same touch-screens we can't tear ourselves away from, that makes people aware of an issue. When this happens, it often disproves the cynical view, people respond openly with hope and a genuine desire to help: they do care. As with KONY2012, which went instantly viral and showed that thousands of people took it at face value, in an uncynical way, because when presented with a horrible situation, even one miles away and affecting people who practice a different culture, they cared. Maybe just enough to pass the word on, but they did.
The same was true of Mike Daisey. To Apple's legion of unquestioning fanboys, who see high-end electronics, beautifully made and marketed at the well-heeled, as virtuous, the company can do no wrong. Those of us who own their devices don't want to be made to feel bad about something that makes us feel ridiculously good. So, not much attention had been paid to the many, many news stories detailing the horrible conditions under which these shiny toys are made. Daisey's rhetorical one-man show caught the attention and contributed to a growing call for Apple to clean-up its act, so that it's as shiny as the buffed aluminium that makes their electronics so appealing.
Get the message out in an evocative way and people do respond, they do care. At the same moment the neigh-sayers, squirming awkwardly, look for reasons not to care. They pour scorn on the way the message was spread: over social media, or they question the credulity of the re-bloggers and re-tweeters. They may even sight a patronising cultural imperialism as a turn off. This all takes place before any real evidence appears to cause the original stories to be questioned.
Then the worst thing happens. The stories are shown to be questionable. The motives may still be real but the methods and practices are misguided at best, fraudulent at worst.
Daisey, it turns out, didn't visit as many places as he mentions in his entertaining rant, and, although nearly everything he mentions is real, he didn't witness much of it first hand and certainly not in the manner he describes. As for KONY2012, they're a real non-profit but they have a poor charitable rating (a mere 2 stars), owing to the fact that they keep closed accounts. Who knows for sure where all the money they receive goes, although it seems some of it ends up funding another ugandan rebel faction. One that it appears is as unsavoury as Kony's Lord's Resistance Army.
OK, this is all a salient reminder that we should be more informed before we take a stance. Some of the neigh-sayers were, in truth, only offering this caution. That in itself is no bad thing, a call to be properly informed. Yet sadly, the clay feet of the messengers has offered, for those who ridicule and rubbish every hopeful act, proof that they were right, that it's never worth caring: everything's a scam. Many who chose to care will feel duped, and foolish - the kind of foolish that the cynical seek to avoid at all costs. It may lead to some harding their attitudes in the future, for fear of being conned again. The whole thing ends up looking like it was fake, the stories and the caring; as the critics claim that its all just shallow click-revolution, and slacktivism.
It wasn't all fake. While the intentions of the authors may still be true, they may not be and, in any case, its hard to argue that now. But the intentions of those who were encouraged to hope and to care were real. The overwhelming evidence suggests that to be true. Given better information, via a less self-serving media, those people could make a real difference. I hope we don't lose sight of that and instead find that Invisible Children and Mike Daisey have just given us another couple of excuses not to care. We really don't need anymore of those.
Sunday, 24 July 2011
Hacking up a Headline
Ever watched a cat free itself of a troublesome furball? It's a painful, ugly sight as it convulses itself, losing all its prior dignity, in the contortions and hacking needed to produce something that is equally as disgusting as the act of making it had been. Gross, perhaps but a blessed release for the wretched moggie.
I imagine it's like that for a News International employee. All that debasing ones self by lowering the standards of the profession you nearly pursue but certainly don't embody. Playing fast and loose with the truth and then, when imagination falls short of producing the dirt, breaking the law would seem a natural next step. After all, you've sold lies designed to ruin reputations and destroy careers and in the name of news. So, why not hack up a story. You might lose all grace and dignity in the process but in the end you'll have given some relief to that giant chip on your shoulder. Sick it up, just like the hacking cat.
Maybe making the news is like laws and hot dogs: we're better off not knowing how its done. Yeah, making the news. I know, their supposed to report the news but that means actual journalism. These guys make the news. They'd say that we don't want to know what that takes but we owe our freedom to them; for daring to ridicule the great and the, not so, good. Apparently, we'd be overrun by Nazis if we didn't have a press that was free.
Free to dish the dirt on important figures that might otherwise abuse their power. Like, the power to sell cheap frozen foods from Iceland. Somebody who wields that kind of influence must be brought to account, nothing short of a telephoto lens trained on their every bowl movement would better serve freedom. It's not dignified, and you don't want to admit it goes on, but your democracy relies upon these benighted souls.
Apparently, so they'd have us believe, you can't uphold freedoms without disregarding them and you can't honour the dead without exploiting them. At least not when you're chasing the scoops that safe guard democracy. Hold on, you might say, didn't the Telegraph bring MPs to account for their expenses abuses and wasn't it the Guardian that took on the press, police and politics to safe guard the truth in journalism and not the red top tabloid rags?
Ah, yes but, as the Independent courageously pointed out, in defence of balance, we need the red tops to satirise high profile people to "show they're only human." If you don't debase, judge and ridicule people going through personal problems then you'd end up thinking they walked on water. Then you'd fill your freezer with a load of cheap sausage rolls and arctic logs and party snacks that frankly you'd never eat. All the while feeling so inferior and imagining that celebrities' freezers are so much better organised.
Or maybe not, maybe you'd see people in difficult situations being laughed at and criticised and feel less human, less able to cope. Perhaps, the ridicule creates a false idea of what it is to be "only human." After all, wouldn't it be better to empathise with those who struggle and, in that way, suggest that sympathy can be offered, even to those who fall, because, after all, they're only human.
Who knows, if the Wapping crew had cultivated some empathy then maybe they too would be forgiven for their failings. Instead, they preached an unyielding moral standard, where someone's weaknesses or failings lost them all rights and comforts. More than this, they instilled moral outrage as a carapace for envy. Up to a point they got away with it - the lies and law breaking and the pretence of public interest all in the name of press freedom.
Their fatal mistake has been that, while teaching us to accept that public people are loathsome, cravers of attention who deserve only scorn, they also told us that victims and soldiers are off limits. They railed against laws that support fair trials, saying they ignore the victims rights and they castigated politicians who don't support the wars we prosecute by saying they dishonour the heroes who fight them.
A fatal mistake, when at the same time they were spying on the dead and door stopping the grieving. Hacking phones and Facebook accounts of "ordinary" people and heroes was something we couldn't justify even by the code the press had taught us. The moral outrage they normally stirred up to sell their rags or support their causes is now trained on them. And the hacks might find the public very unforgiving. They've slipped up, the curtain has been pulled back and behind it is a convulsing cat coughing up an indigestible furball.
For me, even if they'd never hacked a phone or bribed a policeman or cajoled an easily corrupted politician into subverting democracy, the gutter press would still deserve the ire they're now facing. They've lowered public discourse to the level of gossip, they've been prurient and partisan and destroyed tolerance. They've broken laws to name and shame pedophiles, even when the police and courts strongly advised against it. They've encouraged hatred of minorities and offer no welcome to those who seek refuge within our nation.
Personally, I hope they can't just shrug it off when the next horror story hits the headlines. Even now they've tried to associated the tragic killings in Norway with Islamic terrorism, only to quickly discover the nutcase behind it was white, Christian and right-wing. That maybe his motives were more in tune with the same uncaring press that feeds the EDL in this country.
The press like to claim video nasties and gory games directly affect the actions of sadists, sociopaths and serial killers. These, make believe, entertainments are often attacked for the disturbing influence, it is believed, they have on society. Maybe it's time the press looked within their own pages to find a disturbing influence on society - one harder to separate from reality because it pretends to be in service of the truth.
Now the cats out of the bag maybe the press can rediscover its purpose and reconnect with the truth.
I imagine it's like that for a News International employee. All that debasing ones self by lowering the standards of the profession you nearly pursue but certainly don't embody. Playing fast and loose with the truth and then, when imagination falls short of producing the dirt, breaking the law would seem a natural next step. After all, you've sold lies designed to ruin reputations and destroy careers and in the name of news. So, why not hack up a story. You might lose all grace and dignity in the process but in the end you'll have given some relief to that giant chip on your shoulder. Sick it up, just like the hacking cat.
Maybe making the news is like laws and hot dogs: we're better off not knowing how its done. Yeah, making the news. I know, their supposed to report the news but that means actual journalism. These guys make the news. They'd say that we don't want to know what that takes but we owe our freedom to them; for daring to ridicule the great and the, not so, good. Apparently, we'd be overrun by Nazis if we didn't have a press that was free.
Free to dish the dirt on important figures that might otherwise abuse their power. Like, the power to sell cheap frozen foods from Iceland. Somebody who wields that kind of influence must be brought to account, nothing short of a telephoto lens trained on their every bowl movement would better serve freedom. It's not dignified, and you don't want to admit it goes on, but your democracy relies upon these benighted souls.
Apparently, so they'd have us believe, you can't uphold freedoms without disregarding them and you can't honour the dead without exploiting them. At least not when you're chasing the scoops that safe guard democracy. Hold on, you might say, didn't the Telegraph bring MPs to account for their expenses abuses and wasn't it the Guardian that took on the press, police and politics to safe guard the truth in journalism and not the red top tabloid rags?
Ah, yes but, as the Independent courageously pointed out, in defence of balance, we need the red tops to satirise high profile people to "show they're only human." If you don't debase, judge and ridicule people going through personal problems then you'd end up thinking they walked on water. Then you'd fill your freezer with a load of cheap sausage rolls and arctic logs and party snacks that frankly you'd never eat. All the while feeling so inferior and imagining that celebrities' freezers are so much better organised.
Or maybe not, maybe you'd see people in difficult situations being laughed at and criticised and feel less human, less able to cope. Perhaps, the ridicule creates a false idea of what it is to be "only human." After all, wouldn't it be better to empathise with those who struggle and, in that way, suggest that sympathy can be offered, even to those who fall, because, after all, they're only human.
Who knows, if the Wapping crew had cultivated some empathy then maybe they too would be forgiven for their failings. Instead, they preached an unyielding moral standard, where someone's weaknesses or failings lost them all rights and comforts. More than this, they instilled moral outrage as a carapace for envy. Up to a point they got away with it - the lies and law breaking and the pretence of public interest all in the name of press freedom.
Their fatal mistake has been that, while teaching us to accept that public people are loathsome, cravers of attention who deserve only scorn, they also told us that victims and soldiers are off limits. They railed against laws that support fair trials, saying they ignore the victims rights and they castigated politicians who don't support the wars we prosecute by saying they dishonour the heroes who fight them.
A fatal mistake, when at the same time they were spying on the dead and door stopping the grieving. Hacking phones and Facebook accounts of "ordinary" people and heroes was something we couldn't justify even by the code the press had taught us. The moral outrage they normally stirred up to sell their rags or support their causes is now trained on them. And the hacks might find the public very unforgiving. They've slipped up, the curtain has been pulled back and behind it is a convulsing cat coughing up an indigestible furball.
For me, even if they'd never hacked a phone or bribed a policeman or cajoled an easily corrupted politician into subverting democracy, the gutter press would still deserve the ire they're now facing. They've lowered public discourse to the level of gossip, they've been prurient and partisan and destroyed tolerance. They've broken laws to name and shame pedophiles, even when the police and courts strongly advised against it. They've encouraged hatred of minorities and offer no welcome to those who seek refuge within our nation.
Personally, I hope they can't just shrug it off when the next horror story hits the headlines. Even now they've tried to associated the tragic killings in Norway with Islamic terrorism, only to quickly discover the nutcase behind it was white, Christian and right-wing. That maybe his motives were more in tune with the same uncaring press that feeds the EDL in this country.
The press like to claim video nasties and gory games directly affect the actions of sadists, sociopaths and serial killers. These, make believe, entertainments are often attacked for the disturbing influence, it is believed, they have on society. Maybe it's time the press looked within their own pages to find a disturbing influence on society - one harder to separate from reality because it pretends to be in service of the truth.
Now the cats out of the bag maybe the press can rediscover its purpose and reconnect with the truth.
Saturday, 11 June 2011
New Expression
I must wear a default look of disgust. The other day when dropping off some dry cleaning I managed to anger the lady who ran the place - without saying a word. She was explaining that the item to be cleaned didn't have any care instructions sewn into it. None of the usual hieroglyphs that indicate what level of cleaning torture can be withstood before it all falls apart. Without these, she explained, the garment would have to be cleaned at my own risk. Then she took to rage as she angrily chided me for not believing her and saying that any dry cleaners would act the same. I still hadn't said a thing. I asked why she was so upset and she said that I looked at her with disgust. So I need a new face, or at the very least a new default expression. What I thought was: patiently listening, while showing interest; turned out to be an ugly visage of contempt. That's not good.
You see it's all about perception. We go about the world with knowledge of our true intentions, sometimes the outcomes are not those we expected nor intended, but we are often judged by others who see the effect of our actions as intention. We should never judge another on our perception but try to understand their intention.
That said you have to accept how you've affected others - even if unintentionally. So, like I say, I need a new expression.
You see it's all about perception. We go about the world with knowledge of our true intentions, sometimes the outcomes are not those we expected nor intended, but we are often judged by others who see the effect of our actions as intention. We should never judge another on our perception but try to understand their intention.
That said you have to accept how you've affected others - even if unintentionally. So, like I say, I need a new expression.
Twitter it's ok, nobody can hear you
Twitter. It's like Eastenders. It looks tatty. The content is deplorable. It's reason for existing questionable. Yet in a gossipy kind of way its oddly addictive.
What's wrong: lists of micro-blogs which people try to use as conversations, largely to try to be in-touch with some celebrity. Yet you can't make sense of what statement triggered which reply.
What's it for: (a) self promotion; (b) confirmation that you've connected with an audience. It's also just a great way to see who likes you. Most famous users will find themselves followed by thousands. For others its kind of like buying a 60GB iPod and finding out you've only got 10GB of music. All those years building a music library, thinking it was impressive and only to find out its insignificant.
Who it works best for: media types with things to promote and egos to bolster. Or to put in another way creative people who need to get their output noticed.
Why it's so successful: it's used by people in the public eye which gets it noticed. Plus the followers feel in-touch with their heroes.
It's so odd watching successful people with interesting day jobs tweeting endlessly throughout the day. I mean I'm a boring bastard with nothing happening in my life but you'd think Graham Linehan would have something better to do, wouldn't you?
Odd too that these 'famous' people don't seem to hold with private messaging systems, like MSN, as they're much happier holding open conversations with each other over the interwebs. Such as this following conversation between two funny female comedians and frequent Radio 4 botherers:
@SusanCalman would you like to go out Friday?
@SarahMillican75 sure. fun will be our middle names.
It's this eavesdropping on conversations that makes it the digital equivalent of holding a glass up to the wall to hear the neighbours, only now your neighbours are much more interesting people.
You can even attempt to shout back at your online neighbours. Tweet a little reply. Well, they call it a reply but it's just another entry in your own personal timeline. It might appear in the person's timeline whose tweet you're replying to. But that all depends on their filters. Anyway they won't be able to make sense of it and since they'll get 60 tweets a second the chances are they won't notice it.
You see your glass is pressed up against the walls of so many neighbours that you can't tell whose talking to who and if you try to get a word in they can't hear you above their own noise.
But it is a great place for mutual agreement and that sort of positive reinforcement can be quite refreshing, I imagine, particularly for people who get a regular mauling in the public media. Consider the excitement of discovering that your every utterance is meeting with the instant approval of people happy to call themselves your followers.
"I love coco."
"You're so right, I love it too. I'm glad you exist. Please, please keep on existing."
Me too. I'm glad they all exist. I'm glad twitter exists. I'm loving it.
What's wrong: lists of micro-blogs which people try to use as conversations, largely to try to be in-touch with some celebrity. Yet you can't make sense of what statement triggered which reply.
What's it for: (a) self promotion; (b) confirmation that you've connected with an audience. It's also just a great way to see who likes you. Most famous users will find themselves followed by thousands. For others its kind of like buying a 60GB iPod and finding out you've only got 10GB of music. All those years building a music library, thinking it was impressive and only to find out its insignificant.
Who it works best for: media types with things to promote and egos to bolster. Or to put in another way creative people who need to get their output noticed.
Why it's so successful: it's used by people in the public eye which gets it noticed. Plus the followers feel in-touch with their heroes.
It's so odd watching successful people with interesting day jobs tweeting endlessly throughout the day. I mean I'm a boring bastard with nothing happening in my life but you'd think Graham Linehan would have something better to do, wouldn't you?
Odd too that these 'famous' people don't seem to hold with private messaging systems, like MSN, as they're much happier holding open conversations with each other over the interwebs. Such as this following conversation between two funny female comedians and frequent Radio 4 botherers:
@SusanCalman would you like to go out Friday?
@SarahMillican75 sure. fun will be our middle names.
It's this eavesdropping on conversations that makes it the digital equivalent of holding a glass up to the wall to hear the neighbours, only now your neighbours are much more interesting people.
You can even attempt to shout back at your online neighbours. Tweet a little reply. Well, they call it a reply but it's just another entry in your own personal timeline. It might appear in the person's timeline whose tweet you're replying to. But that all depends on their filters. Anyway they won't be able to make sense of it and since they'll get 60 tweets a second the chances are they won't notice it.
You see your glass is pressed up against the walls of so many neighbours that you can't tell whose talking to who and if you try to get a word in they can't hear you above their own noise.
But it is a great place for mutual agreement and that sort of positive reinforcement can be quite refreshing, I imagine, particularly for people who get a regular mauling in the public media. Consider the excitement of discovering that your every utterance is meeting with the instant approval of people happy to call themselves your followers.
"I love coco."
"You're so right, I love it too. I'm glad you exist. Please, please keep on existing."
Me too. I'm glad they all exist. I'm glad twitter exists. I'm loving it.
Wednesday, 18 May 2011
Parts I didn't know I had
I'm aware of the tendons behind my knees. For most of my life I was blissfully unaware of the apparatus that houses me. It just worked. Leaving me free to play. Running around and jumping and kicking balls was all possible without warm ups or cool downs. Nothing needed stretching. It just worked. Faithfully and without complaint or obvious need of maintenance or practical attention. But now I'm aware of the tendons behind my knees. The joints in my spine. The nerve signals that carry alarms from angry parts of my body to my brain. All of these functionaries are shouting out that they've had enough. No longer will they subordinate their needs to serve me. They now demand that I take an active role in keeping everything in good order. Keeping fit. That's running around with a purpose. Activity for function not for pleasure. Where's the pleasure in running against a conveyer belt heading nowhere? Riding a stationary bike to get your condition somewhere while you remain in the same place. Serving the machine. If I don't, they warn me, things will only get worse. Work to rule has already kicked in. If I sit for too long my knees cave under me when I attempt to stand. As I rise up to my full height my nerves attack my brain sending it dizzy, just standing up. The rebellion has begun. I am aware of the tendons behind my knees.
Sunday, 15 May 2011
What is Art, you decide
Art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Some art is obviously lovely and widely admired, yet can be dismissed as being low art. High art is something out of reach of us ordinary types. Hence its name. It's been produced by the art gods way up high.
To many a pile of bricks or a glass of water on a shelf are not art. To others these are installations from the art elite. They lack formal beauty or obvious craft. They confuse the observer and, we are told, raise questions. Which has become the highest or maybe sole purpose of art.
Once while visiting the Tate Modern, ostensibly to view the Picasso and Matisse exhibition but largely just to visit the building itself, there was a long queue for everything. Queues to see: A stairway leading up to a small wooden chair - baby bears presumably, unbroken and waiting for goldilocks to crush it under her selfish weight; A TV screen the size of a letter box looping a film of a largely unmoving group, presumably arranged for a wedding photo. Queues everywhere and for everything. Standing in the longest queue, for the gift shop, I joked with the lady in front of me that "I hope this exhibit is worth the wait". She replied without irony that "as long as it puts a question mark in your mind."
It's a fine line when discussing what is or isn't art between being too conservative and too pretentious. Fashions in art are always changing and dismissing a new style might one day be revealed as mere shortsightedness.
At some point even the most widely accepted artist, if their work was in any sense pioneering, have met with derision. Turner whose name is now more well known for the prize his estate awards to new artists was the subject of this joke: when is a cow not a cow? When it's painted by Turner. Of course the modern version of this joke would be: when is cow brain matter not cow brain matter? When it's a brick in a Turner prize exhibit.
Turner who is nowadays highly regarded was a contemporary of Constable who is not. During their working lives Turner was successful and Constable was not. Yet while Constable's picturesque figurative paintings have become widely popular his image suffers. In a modern context it is assumed that painting what you see is pandering to low brow imagination. Whereas Turner's more abstract work is assumed to be more adventurous. Yet in his own time Constable was considered a rebel for painting on location. Now that his work is used on tea towels and jigsaw puzzles he's regarded as somewhat commonplace.
Poor Constable. It seems he can never win. He proves that one test for art - that it challenges the viewer is flawed. What is daring now is mundane tomorrow. Take note Mr Hirst the shock value of putting a sliced-up cow in a tank doesn't last.
Art we are told must be for art sake. So we favour art that appears to be inspired to serve art rather than the artist's bank account. The all too obvious figurative paintings seem designed for a ready audience. Whereas a drizzle map of criss-cross lines of different colour paint seem intended to please only the artist. Of course to prevent this from being masterbation the artist must suffer. For the art, of course. It's not bollocks if it's Pollock's.
Art for art sake and the notion of the struggling artist is bogus. Poor constable found few benefactors. But throughout history art has mainly benefited from patrons who commissioned works and sponsored artists. And many of today's most avante garde artists are fairly well off. They have the ability to appeal only to the elite and therefore appear edgy, because the untutored masses don't get it.
The man in the street doesn't have room in his house for Tracy Emin's unmade bed. And Rachel Whiteread's Ghost needs to haunt a big space. These pieces need big money just to be displayed. There's nothing small scale about these works. Whiteread has won commissions from Austrian authorities, so there is a market and she isn't struggling.
Once art was as much about craft and technique as it was about meaning. The impressionist employed dazzling new painterly techniques to capture the fleeting moment or the feeling of light. Now artists like Whiteread, Hirst and Koons create projects rather than construct works. They are art architects. Although much of the impact of their work is derived from the spectacle of the finished product, they themselves are more the designers of the concept. The designers of the question. It's all about the spin. This most high concept and modern of arts while achieving acclaim for it's unconventionality is the most commercial of all.
Why is Koons large replica of a mickey mouse toy art? Why is Hirst's copy of a children's educational muscle man toy art? Because they tell us it is. The guy who sued Hirst for stealing his toy design wasn't an artist, so his toy wasn't art. He didn't have any spin. These artists they make you think don't they?
Some apply a very narrow definition of art that it must be figurative, painterly and pleasing. Others reject formal prettiness in favour of more difficult works. The definition is so broad that almost everything is art. But then what is it?
In the end as is often said, no truer words were ever spoken in jest: I don't know much about art but I know what I like.
What is art? You decide.
To many a pile of bricks or a glass of water on a shelf are not art. To others these are installations from the art elite. They lack formal beauty or obvious craft. They confuse the observer and, we are told, raise questions. Which has become the highest or maybe sole purpose of art.
Once while visiting the Tate Modern, ostensibly to view the Picasso and Matisse exhibition but largely just to visit the building itself, there was a long queue for everything. Queues to see: A stairway leading up to a small wooden chair - baby bears presumably, unbroken and waiting for goldilocks to crush it under her selfish weight; A TV screen the size of a letter box looping a film of a largely unmoving group, presumably arranged for a wedding photo. Queues everywhere and for everything. Standing in the longest queue, for the gift shop, I joked with the lady in front of me that "I hope this exhibit is worth the wait". She replied without irony that "as long as it puts a question mark in your mind."
It's a fine line when discussing what is or isn't art between being too conservative and too pretentious. Fashions in art are always changing and dismissing a new style might one day be revealed as mere shortsightedness.
At some point even the most widely accepted artist, if their work was in any sense pioneering, have met with derision. Turner whose name is now more well known for the prize his estate awards to new artists was the subject of this joke: when is a cow not a cow? When it's painted by Turner. Of course the modern version of this joke would be: when is cow brain matter not cow brain matter? When it's a brick in a Turner prize exhibit.
Turner who is nowadays highly regarded was a contemporary of Constable who is not. During their working lives Turner was successful and Constable was not. Yet while Constable's picturesque figurative paintings have become widely popular his image suffers. In a modern context it is assumed that painting what you see is pandering to low brow imagination. Whereas Turner's more abstract work is assumed to be more adventurous. Yet in his own time Constable was considered a rebel for painting on location. Now that his work is used on tea towels and jigsaw puzzles he's regarded as somewhat commonplace.
Poor Constable. It seems he can never win. He proves that one test for art - that it challenges the viewer is flawed. What is daring now is mundane tomorrow. Take note Mr Hirst the shock value of putting a sliced-up cow in a tank doesn't last.
Art we are told must be for art sake. So we favour art that appears to be inspired to serve art rather than the artist's bank account. The all too obvious figurative paintings seem designed for a ready audience. Whereas a drizzle map of criss-cross lines of different colour paint seem intended to please only the artist. Of course to prevent this from being masterbation the artist must suffer. For the art, of course. It's not bollocks if it's Pollock's.
Art for art sake and the notion of the struggling artist is bogus. Poor constable found few benefactors. But throughout history art has mainly benefited from patrons who commissioned works and sponsored artists. And many of today's most avante garde artists are fairly well off. They have the ability to appeal only to the elite and therefore appear edgy, because the untutored masses don't get it.
The man in the street doesn't have room in his house for Tracy Emin's unmade bed. And Rachel Whiteread's Ghost needs to haunt a big space. These pieces need big money just to be displayed. There's nothing small scale about these works. Whiteread has won commissions from Austrian authorities, so there is a market and she isn't struggling.
Once art was as much about craft and technique as it was about meaning. The impressionist employed dazzling new painterly techniques to capture the fleeting moment or the feeling of light. Now artists like Whiteread, Hirst and Koons create projects rather than construct works. They are art architects. Although much of the impact of their work is derived from the spectacle of the finished product, they themselves are more the designers of the concept. The designers of the question. It's all about the spin. This most high concept and modern of arts while achieving acclaim for it's unconventionality is the most commercial of all.
Why is Koons large replica of a mickey mouse toy art? Why is Hirst's copy of a children's educational muscle man toy art? Because they tell us it is. The guy who sued Hirst for stealing his toy design wasn't an artist, so his toy wasn't art. He didn't have any spin. These artists they make you think don't they?
Some apply a very narrow definition of art that it must be figurative, painterly and pleasing. Others reject formal prettiness in favour of more difficult works. The definition is so broad that almost everything is art. But then what is it?
In the end as is often said, no truer words were ever spoken in jest: I don't know much about art but I know what I like.
What is art? You decide.
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