Passivity and resistance

Historically, critiques of late capitalism have focused on consumerism, particularly the passivity of the consumer. The big media that developed in the twentieth century allowed for large groups of people to watch the same television, liste to the same music on the radio, and by the same products. The Situations (from the previous blog post) ad the critics at the Frankfurt school based their critiques o this.. The masses could not influence the spectacle (or culture industry) therein lied its power of domination. With the iteret, however, things are different.
We are no longer expected to passive. The corporate ideal is now the active consumer ("prosumer" as Tapscott would say). We are now expected to contribute our opinions, our thoughts and our effort. In part this is a result of frustration with the older model of consumerism, but it also helps the corporate world. The crowd creates its own content, and the entertainment industry sells it back to them.
Social networking sites like myspace and facebook allow access to people's likes and dislikes in a more specific way then would have been imaginable in the past. Social relationships can be mapped out and sorted. Entertainment companies now are contacting potential consumers by searching through people's taste in music, movies, etc. The creation of virtual communities for people with shared interests allows for these communities to be mapped, followed, ad targeted by marketers. As much as participatory media can be a tool for change, it can also be used for surveillance. The question is whether, in this new evironment, passivity (NOT letting your voice be heard) can become a meas of resistance.

Mash-Ups and the Situationist International

Through the twentieth century art movements have criticized the passive way in which art is consumed, and the exclusiity of the art world. Groups like the Dadaists and the Surrealists subverted the traditional European notions of what art was to bring about a revolutionary dialogue, between artists and viewers. The project was inherently political. Many Dadaiss and surrealists were either affiliated with anarchist or communist groups. The structure of art was seen as a part of the capitalist system. Building on these movements was an artistic group known as the Situationist International. The SI were instrumental in bringing about the Paris riots of 1968. Interestingly enough, many of their ideas have shown up (without their political context) in the world of new media. The most prominent of these ideas is what the SI called "détournement" (literally hijacking). This meant that by putting disparate objects together, their meaning was transformed. The SI commonly used American comic books, changing the dialogue into revolutionary theory. Guy Debord, the founder of the SI was known for making films composed mainly of preexisting footage (transformed radically by context.) What is fascinating is that this has become a standard thing on the internet. The mash-up has become common place, leading to a consequent rethinking of intellectual property. The question is whether the revolutionary potential the SI saw in détournement is real, or if it is simply another new form of art, that like the Dadaist and Surrealist techniques will be absorbed by the establishment. The other possibility is that the revolutionary potential of a medium is dependent on the intent behind it, not necessarily inherent in the medium itself, and any hopes for a "revolutionary" art are misguided.

Convergence Culture

This is the first post on my blog for the Honors Seminar on new Media Frontiers. Today we discussed Convergence Culture, and participatory media, in particular how they related to the music industry. One of the most interesting aspects of this class was how the record companies are being cut out by the new avenues for releasing music (specifically mp3). I think though, that the use of interactive media is not just a consequence of a more user-friendly internet, but also reflects a pervasive discontent with the entertainment industry. Record companies are artistically conservative. The main priority is a return on an investment, not the creation of quality music (or movies, or television etc.) Because artistic risk equals financial risk, art moves into the lowest common denominator. The decline in record sales has at least as much to do with declining interest in mass-marketed music as it does with the rise of the MP3. I hope that the internet will render such absurd structures as the record industry obsolete. It is not so much that the internet has lead to any great outpourings of art, but these new structures can lead to unimaginable artistic consequences. Possibly a revival of folk culture.