Re: [-empyre-] Do You Still Your Own Reality?

[Simon Taylor <swht@clear.net.nz>]

Yes, Brett. The most successful culture-jammers are the corporates. They
ought to know how to do it. Culture-jamming means their business. That's
serious. That's fast. Business is results. Culture? Pah! But then there's
P-Diddy with his Vote or Die campaign, a campaign that uses the existing
corporate music structure and its influence via iconic pop well-meming
individual stars to promulgate a message; indeed, making no pretence the
message is anything but political - with a shelf-life of weeks and days: of
moment in its own way. Culture is achieved in micrometres: no wonder artists
without influence charge themselves with that particular Sisyphean task.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brett Stalbaum" <stalbaum@ucsd.edu>
To: "soft_skinned_space" <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 11:39 AM
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Do You Still Your Own Reality?


> So, you hold that most successful (socially critical) art practice
> depends upon existing culturally iconic visual memes? As if parasites to
> a host? This would seem to fit the culture jamming model - artists
> playing with the semiotics of any particular cultural moment to insert
> alternative messages - or better to make cultural meaning systems work
> in ways they were never intended to work. But it does certainly depend
> on a "market" system, and the market sustainability/ubiquity of memes to
> attach to, write over, break, or simulate - (for example, a simulated
> government agency for art and technology.)
>
> I guess the question I am trying to imply, (in my original questions to
> Randall), is whether such strategies are spent now? (Or temporarily
> disabled, perhaps, by a runaway and/or cowardly news media + US
> Administration creating their own realities for us to think about. The
> Bush administration might get me to believe in Baudrillard again.)
>
> Possibly it is more important (Speaking only for my country, the USA) to
> generate tools for experiencing something other than a message,
> argument, or a conceptual provocation. Not that anyone today (especially
> myself) knows for sure what that might be... if indeed it is even one
> thing and not many.
>
> Jeff Gates wrote:
> > What I am saying, Brett, is that when a visual is iconic within a
culture
> > (and by that I mean easily identifiable by people) it because easier for
> > artists to use that image for their own social critiques.
> >
> > I don't see this as handing the market a free ride.
> >
> > Jeff
> >
> > On Tue, 19 Oct 2004, Brett Stalbaum wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Do these ipod examples fit the idea of jamming "any such (nearly
> >>psychotic) right-wing reality distortions (using them as art supplies
> >>and comic fodder - seemingly easy to do)", or are they in some sense an
> >>analytic tools; the skinning of an ipod helping people situate their
> >>readings of the real in a manner more congruent with the real?
> >>
> >>Or are you proposing another model, where "successful art practice in
> >>this regards happens when the work becomes 'iconic' in the culture"? You
> >>may indeed be proposing this, and if so, I would like to point out that
> >>this is the market-finding-its-own-best-solution model; further that one
> >>of the major fantasies of the neo-conservative today is that the
> >>"invisible hand of the market place" is worthy of the same faith,
> >>reverence and deference as their God. Jesus rules, and Fox News rules.
> >>Reskin that.
> >>
> >>Jeff Gates wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Brett, the most successful art practice in this regards happens when
the
> >>>work becomes "iconic" in the culture. And then, when it is reskinned by
> >>>others after that. While this is not non-commercial art, the reskinning
of
> >>>Apple's iPod ads using an Abu Gareb silhouette is one example. Then
moving
> >>>on to this: http://www.happygolarry.com/2004/10/13/bulge
> >>>
> >>>Jeff
> >>
> >
> > ..................................................
> > Jeff Gates
> > Outtacontext.com
> >
> > Life Outtacontext: Farm Fresh Writing at a Fraction of the Cost!
> > http://life.outtacontext.com
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > empyre forum
> > empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> >
>
> --
> Brett Stalbaum
> Lecturer, psoe
> Coordinator, ICAM
> Department of Visual Arts, mail code 0084
> University of California, San Diego
> 9500 Gillman
> La Jolla CA 92093
>
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