Nicolas Carr, The Shallows

Citation: Carr, Nicholas. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. New York: W. W. Norton & Company Inc., 2011. Print.

Summary: 

This text reiterates much of what the previous texts have in our module on media, such as: the undeniable fact that great technological innovations (like the clock, the television, the internet, etc.) have the ability to greatly alter and eventually define our perceptions of reality; the idea that whatever form this technological innovation takes, it is more significant than the content relayed through this form, and that “a medium’s content matters less than the medium itself in influencing how we think and act” (3); and among other things, the debatable neutrality of technology…is the tool itself innately neutral when it was invented by someone for a specific purpose? Carr states, “In the end, we come to pretend that the technology itself doesn’t matter. It’s how we use it that matters” (3). This is something I myself am still debating. The text also discusses the fact that all tools are extensions of ourselves that help us fulfill some task more easily or efficiently, but that while this may be beneficial, “Every tool imposes limitations, even as it opens possibilities. The more we use it, the more we mold ourselves to its form and function” (209). This last element is what I found most compelling and unnerving about this text, which I will discuss in my response.

Along with Turkle’s  Alone Together, this text is more relevant to me than the other readings on media we have so far discussed, in the sense that it focuses more on the incredible, but subtle, influences of computers and the internet rather than the powers of  television. A previous text, I believe it was Turkle’s, mentioned the idea of technology as an ideology, and it made me wonder who or what the deity would be if this were the case. Although at one time it may have been the television, today it would undoubtedly be the computer, for now computers are all-encompassing of all the great technological innovations out there…radio, tv, news sources, etc.  This is why I appreciated that the text focused on the influences of the internet, specifically how the conveniences of the internet are numbing and dimming our abilities to think cognitively and the negative effects as a result of this. For instance, how filtered search engines and search databases “[serving] as amplifiers of popularity, quickly establishing and then reinforcing a consensus about what information is important and what isn’t,” (217), this being prime example of us changing our awareness and scholarship within the boundaries of these tools as mentioned above in the summary.

Response: 

So I began thinking, ok, so we have all this in front of us…form >content, technology defines our understanding of reality, it’s questionable if technology is inherently neutral, tools are extensions of ourselves that we create, but in result “we become extensions of our technologies” (209), etc. etc….

SO WHAT?! What does this all mean?? Are we, as humans, in control of the influences of technology at this point? Or is there no turning back now? Nearly all the texts on media we have read thus far seem to elusively suggest that we are not in control of technology, or more importantly, we are not in control of ourselves in the grips of technology. And although technology, especially the internet, is undeniably altering who we are as humans in extreme but subtle ways, I believe that one of the answers to “SO WHAT?!” is that we need to, above all else, retain our humanness.

So…how do we do this exactly?? Nicholas Carr appropriately addresses this important topic, and although it cannot be answered with hard and fast rules, and it is something we should be continually asking ourselves; it’s something I have been asking myself a lot in this past weeks. Carr states that after we consider the influences of technology listed above, more than anything else we need to possess a “sensitivity to what’s lost as well as what’s gained. We shouldn’t allow the glories of technology to blind our inner watchdog to the possibility that we’ve numbed an essential part of our self” (212).

This sensitivity, for me, is where an artist can assume responsibility. An awareness of what makes humans, human…bringing to life the things that are increasingly diminishing in exchange for the detachment and displacement we assume when we allocate human qualities, capabilities, and duties to machines. The responsibility, for me so far, can take shape when one celebrates the invisible powers and mystery found in human traits like empathy, nostalgia, wisdom, memory, fears, desires, dreams, love, imperfection…I am influenced by technology, and I am influenced by those around me who are influenced by technology. But I am not going to let technology take away from me these human characteristics that to me are more essential than the abilities of whatever technology there is to come.

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

Citation: Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. USA: Penguin, 1985. Print.

Summary:

In his foreword, Postman compellingly applies two opposing viewpoints of two authors—George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, who have both written about future dystopias—to our current relationship and future interactions with technology, especially the technology we use as a means of mass communication. He states, “Orwell [in 1984] feared that the truth will be concealed from us. Huxley [in A Brave New World] feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance…In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us,” (vi-viii). Although I have never read A Brave New World (I’ve read 1984), I find this idea of being ruined by what we adore to be much more frightening, for it is a destruction that could seemingly happen to us in ways that are subtle, submissive, and unintentional. Postman suggests the prophecies of Huxely as correct, and applies these prophesies to our submissive and complacent interactions with technologies like television, and how these interactions have altered our behavior in negative—but reparable—ways. 

He also references Marshall McLuhan’s claim, that the medium is the massage, but instead suggests that the medium is the metaphor:  “Each medium, like language itself, makes possible a unique mode of discourse by providing a new orientation for thought, for expression, for sensibility…Whether we are experiencing our world through the lens of speech or the printed word or the television camera, our media metaphors classify the world for us, sequence it, frame it, enlarge it, reduce it, color it…” (10)…in other words, everything we now seem to experience has gone through some sort of alteration, some sort of filtration: an idea, filtered through the medium, re-presented to you (the viewer).

Response: 

So far as our module on media goes, I think I agree with this text the most out of the 3 texts we have read this week ( including The Medium is the Massage and Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television). There are certain elements that all 3 texts  agree upon, mainly that  the technology we employ as means for mass communication has the capability to greatly affect all aspects of our lives, including how we understand and interpret reality. This influence can be viewed as something with the potential to be opportunistic (McLuhan) or as something inherently catastrophic (Mander). The reason I appreciated Postman’s text is that he presented a problem—the complacency, numbness, and passivity that result from the overabundance of entertainment and pleasures we partake in—but more importantly a solution, particularly in how to deal with and overcome such an influential medium such as television. Eliminating the television—Mander’s solution—is not the answer, and I agree with this. Instead, Postman pitches a need for an education in media consciousness, to understand the technologies that “undo [our] capacities to think” (vii). He states, “The problem…does not reside in what people watch. The problem is in that we watch. The solution must be found in how we watch…For no medium is excessively dangerous if its users understand what its dangers are,” (160-1). I see his offering of a solution as practical, and obviously more optimistic and realistic than Mander’s viewpoints. Hopefully this education in media consciousness is something that comes into fruition soon, especially considering the increasingly digital age we are living in; it’s something I’m glad to be considering in a class such as ours, but no doubt this education has to happen earlier and to a greater extent for the generations to come, who will be interacting with technology more than any generation has before.

I’m not sure if I completely understand what Postman means by the medium being a metaphor exactly, but I believe he is saying that when something is altered and re-presented through some artificial medium, it is not truly representative of reality but rather presents us with a likeness of reality, a likeness that needs to be re-observed, questioned, and never taken only at face value.  

Jerry Mander, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television

Citation: Mander, Jerry. The Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. New York : Morrow, 1978. Print.

Summary:

Four Arguments…is an book written by Jerry Mander, someone who worked in advertising and was able to see the powers of television first hand as well as from a different standpoint: that of the contributor  rather than just the spectator. He first realized his skepticism of television after talking to a friend, Howard Glossage, who argued that advertising was “an invasion of the mind…a power relationship…a deep, profound and disturbing act by the few against the many for a trivial purpose” (17). He continues to prophesize a handful of other frightening potentials of the powers of television. He speaks of it’s ability (which it had already done at the time) to alter our understanding of experience, and how people were becoming less and less capable of distinguishing direct, first-hand experience from secondary, altered and filtered experience seen through a machine. He argues that although the television is able to transmit a plethora of information and images, something seen as an opportunistic characteristic to Marshall McLuhan, this amount of information merely results in passivity due to an overload of information, not activism and involvement like McLuhan believes. And finally, he argues that TV, nor any technology for that matter, can remain neutral, when those with money are the ones who control what is transmitted through a television, when so many people own a television and are passive to its subtle, yet undeniable, ability to invade our minds and alter our perceptions of reality and experience.

Response:

Although we only read the first part of this book, I was pretty moved by what Mander had to say, however unnerved, paranoid, and skeptical it left me feeling. I agree more with the skepticism and pessimism presented by Mander than the optimistic and opportunistic views of McLuhan, although I found both of their arguments pertinent to our current situation. Having just disconnected my cable, I agreed with a lot of what Mander had to say, especially his arguments of the present information overload…that although the amount of information we are exposed to could potentially result in involvement and awareness (for McLuhan, a characteristic that has the potential to be positive), in reality it only results in passivity and detachment. This is something I have experienced firsthand with my own mother, a TV junkie of sorts. She is so complacent to just sit in front of the TV every night, allowing flashing images to just be thrown at her, making no effort of her own…which of course was something I would do as well when I had cable TV,  and which was one of the reasons I chose to unsubscribe from my cable plan. However, now that I don’t have cable, there are times that all I want to do sit in front of the TV and be complacent, to make no effort and have my experiences predetermined for me. I also agreed with Mander’s argument that everything we are shown on TV, everything we read on the internet, even everything that is presented to us as news, is filtered by someone and something. Nothing is truly objective anymore; it can’t be when it goes through this filtration process. It’s not represented, it’s re-presented according to the agenda of someone or some institution, it’s all an edited fragment of reality presented as truth…being skeptical is the least we can do at this point.

Rob brought up an interesting point in class, having to do with our body positions when we interact with different forms of technology that I had never thought of before. He said that when we “interact” with television, we lean back in passivity, the television is acting upon us, information is spewing over us; as opposed to when we “interact” with the internet, we lean forward in an active pose…we are more in charge at this point, searching and re-searching for more information. Having never before thought of this, I much prefer the active pose.

Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage

Citation: McLuhan, Marshall and Fiore, Quentin. The Medium is the Massage. New York: Bantom Books, 1967. Print.

Summary:

Although we only read a fragment of this text, we were still able to grasp the main point of the text, which is “Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication,” (8).…In other words, the means by which information is relayed (be it text, television, internet) affects people more than the information itself….form supersedes content. It is incredible how relevant this text still is today in our digital age of information when we consider that it was written in 1967. The text, which is peppered with curious and seemingly random (but very deliberate) images has a cautionary, almost advisory feel to it, warning that society and people can be completely altered by technology and the ever-changing modes of communication….it speaks of the hesitancies and fears surrounding “womb-to-tomb surveillance” (12) and the increasing obsolescence of the traditional education, “where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns, subjects, and schedules” (18). However, it manages to retain a thread of optimism for the benefits that technology can bring society, like inevitable awareness and the necessity of being involved with one another… “Too many people know too much about each other. Our new environment compels commitment and participation, we have become irrevocably involved with, and responsible for, each other” (24).

Response:

I was pretty fascinated by this text, feeling a little unnerved and shaken from the cautionary insinuations, but put it down feeling equally optimistic at the same time. I really enjoyed the format of the reading as well…the short snippets of provocative and profound text interspersed with thoughtful images…it was effective. I appreciated that McLuhan emphasizes the fact that technology affects every aspect of our lives… it’s a massage that leaves “no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered” (26),  a realization that undoubtedly reference’s Schivelbusch’s  thoughts toward technology altering our perception of time and space in The Railway Journey.   Also, I was amazed at how relevant this text seemed for today’s Facebook culture…ideas were presented in the text that could almost be considered prophesies when we consider when the text was written. Ideas like, “The family circle has widened. The worldpool of information fathered by electric media….Character no longer is shaped by only two earnest, fumbling experts. Now all the world’s a sage,” (14), which definitely suggests the Facebook frenzy we live in, and the expanding idea of the significance of “self-education” done through electronic media methods, like The Khan Academy or YouTube videos. I found the idea of voluntary surveillance and voyeurism extremely interesting and again prophetic in a sense…it’s something the majority of people are now participating in. Now we “follow” people on a variety of websites, and we don’t mind being “followed,” despite how creepy it is in actuality!! It is strange how we are involved with each other on websites like Facebook, yet this involvement is also detached:  we are “connected,” but doing it alone and in the privacy of our own home. I do not participate on Facebook nearly as much as other people in my life do, and I don’t really know why. I am connected through email which now exists on the smartphone I carry with me almost at all times, but I rarely go on Facebook and feel really overwhelmed when I do.  But I also feel really left out in a sense to do these decisions…news takes place on Facebook, “Events” that I should know about are conceived,” and now there isn’t any other way for me to remember someone’s birthday. I guess what I fear is obsolescence. I don’t want to have these devices be my only portal to interaction with others, but that is the path it seems to be taking for others. “If it didn’t happen on Facebook it didn’t happen at all” is now a common saying, and to me that’s pretty pathetic. I’d rather form real-life relationships with people rather than cyber ones…I’d rather call and wish someone happy birthday rather than “liking” the fact that it’s their birthday on the internet. Call me old-school…I know I should participate more on the interweb because it is undeniably a great tool for communication, and because that is where “everything” is “happening” now…but it’s also all happening right in front of our faces.

Sarah Thornton, Seven Days in the Art World

Citation:

Thornton, Sarah. Seven Days in the Art World. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Ltd, 2009. Print.

Summary:

Seven Days in the Art World is an introspective, ethnographically written account about seven different facets of the high art world written by sociologist Sarah Thornton. The book is broken down into seven chapters, each exploring one of these facets:  The Auction, The Crit, The Fair, The Prize, The Magazine, The Studio Visit, and The Biennale. It is in depth account of something that is an entire world of its own, the high art world, something that remains foreign to those residing outside of its complicated and often sickening intricacies. In the introduction Thornton claims that, “ it is important to bear in mind the art world is much broader than the art market” (xii), yet I believe that this book focuses much more on the workings of the art market than anything else, and could have benefitted in bearing that as its title. She also claims that “If the art world shared on principle, it would probably be that nothing is more important than the art itself” (xiii), a claim that is heavily debatable after reading the text, which in totality suggests that there is much more that is of higher importance than the work of art, like the social status of the collector or the dealer. It is important for emerging artists to know about this text and the high art world so they can evaluate their own aspirations and where they want to belong in the bigger picture; for me I am glad we read this text because it definitely caused me to re-evaluate my own preconceptions, and revealed to me that I, although I want to be a practicing artist, want to avoid this superficial, shallow, and complicated high art world, and probably for the better.

Response:

This entire text was nauseating to say the least, although I am very glad to have read it. To me it illustrates a world (the high art market) that I really don’t picture myself belonging to…it revolves around shallow, superficial business and the reputations of those in “power” with enough money to wipe their ass with. This world is not the reason I am making art, and is a world that removes all that I see as romantic, magical, mysterious, and distinctive from the reality of art making. It has proven to me that I would much rather make a smaller difference in the lives of those who aren’t interested in this world…sure, I would love popularity as an artist and the ability to show my work to a variety of audiences in a variety of places, and I’m hoping to be a “professional” artist and art professor, but I’d rather reach fewer people with my art and have it retain integrity than become some big-name artist whose work only sells to benefit the reputation of who’s collecting it. The art that I find most compelling resides outside this high-art world…its often DIY, shown in small galleries, occasionally crafty, but it retains integrity, love, passion, and the time that has been invested into it…which to me is priceless. Is this kind of art practical to make a living off of? Maybe, maybe not.  But this is the kind of art I appreciate and it resides in a world I much prefer in comparison the foreign world illustrated in this text. 

 “Even if the people here tonight were initially lured into the auction room by a love of art, they find themselves participating in a spectacle where the dollar value of the work has virtually slaughtered its other meanings” (39)…This quote sums up the entire first chapter, and for me it sums up the entire book. Although it was entertaining, if that’s what you can call it, to read about the typical high-end art auctions, the first chapter was the most nauseating chapter of the entire text for me. For the art collectors that participate in auctions such as this one which took place at Christie’s, the art is dwindled to a mere reflection of the collector’s reputation and so-called self-worth…the romance that could potentially make up the art is obliterated, and often the artist is reduced to a name, a machine that makes a commodity the exists only for the status of the collector once sold and purchased. The content of the art is glazed over, the original motive of the artist is completely ignored…the artwork is now a luxury and a status symbol. This was revealed throughout the entire text. So I wonder, how does this new and secondary meaning (its dollar value) affect the work of art? Does the art suffer because of this? And do people have false illusions of the art because of the status attached to it? Most likely, yes.

And what drives the prices of the artwork to such a high value? Is the price determined by the quest of ownership of the original (Walter Benjamin??)? Or by the quest of a competitive, “desirable,” money-fueled reputation?

As aspiring artists should we be repelled or motivated by this status-filled art market that can often obliterate the original drive to make art in the first place? What prize exactly should we have our eye on?

How should the art market affect what is produced, if it should affect what’s produced at all? Does this market reflect the quality of a work of art or just the status of the various collectors just playing the game?

                 

However, I did find chapter 2—The Crit—to be much more interesting and closer to home for me as an art student. I really appreciated the way Leslie Dick—a writer and professor at CalArts who Thornton interviewed—verbalized the way I’m currently feeling: “Why come to grad school? It’s about paying a lot of money so you can change. Whatever you thought was certain about how to make art is dismantled. You wobble. You don’t make any sense at all. That’s why you are here,” (50). And, I would love to participate in a full-day critique like the ones Michael Asher is famous for.

Feminist Art Theory: Pollock, Lippard, and !Women, Art, Revolution

Griselda Pollock: What’s wrong with images of women? 

Citation: Pollock, Griselda. “What’s wrong with images of women?”  from Looking On.  ed R Betterton London Pandora Press, 1987.

Summary, Important Quotations, and My Reactions/Responses:

         This is a short text that explores the question pitched in the title. Pollock emphasizes many points throughout the text surrounding this question, beginning with her point that there needs to be more criticism about  “women’s position in, and in relation to, the history of art and representations.” She continues to write about the problems surrounding the term “Images of Women,” specifically that there exists a “lack of theoretical definitions of what terms like sexist, patriarchal, or bourgeois mean when applied to images.” In doing so she verbalizes the need for a language and vocabulary in order to discuss what she sees as problematic in representations of women, historical or contemporary, and that this lack of language hinders the ability to solve these problems, something I found pretty interesting….the idea that a problem can’t be remedied if it can’t be discussed, and that it can’t be discussed if a language doesn’t exist to discuss it with.

She continues her argument with examples of images of women in advertising versus images of men in advertising, and continually points out how women are negatively objectified in advertising as opposed to men who aren’t. She alludes to the idea of the owner-spectator relationship that John Berger references in Ways of Seeing, specifically how images of women allow for the spectator (a male) to be the owner of the woman (who is reduced to commodity) in the advertisement. This she believes isn’t apparent in advertising images of men (who are the signified as well as the owner of who is signified)...the problem she sees as, “What is lacking is any conceivable position of ownership or possession [of the male] offered to the spectator [is this spectator presumably female?]” (my italics).

This concept I partially didn’t understand, yet I felt in disagreement with. In my opinion when anyone, male or female, is photographically represented nude for spectators, there exists a certain (yet questionable) vulnerability about them, which in turn can allow whoever is the spectator to assume some sort of possession/ownership over whoever is being signified. Although for me, the term ownership is problematic. When I see someone naked do I personally assume ownership over them? NO.  But am I in control because I have a photo of them naked at my disposal to do whatever I want with? …I guess so…? What makes them, the signified, more vulnerable than me, the spectator? The fact that they are naked and I am presumably clothed? Does Pollock want the ability to assume ownership over the naked males seen in the photographs she uses as examples, just how males presumably assume ownership over naked females in photographs?

These questions were partially problematic  for me to ask myself, and that made me uncomfortable because I am a woman, and I am feminist,  yet I began to think that I was contributing to this so-called “problem” merely because I was not in total agreement. Do I think that women are too often negatively objectified in images? Yes. But do I think that there exists a capability for men to be negatively objectified as well? Yes. When anyone is represented in a photograph, they are objectified in one way or another…and the idea of the spectator turning into an owner of whatever is represented in the photograph is very interesting, because it makes sense the more I think about it.

                I did have one more major issue with her writing in general. Her language was difficult to understand and I don’t appreciate how she speaks in absolutes. She brought up another point that I didn’t agree with at all, and this had to do with Paula Modersohn-Becker’s Self Portrait with Amber Necklace. Pollock considers this painting a “failure not simply because an alternative iconographic tradition did not yet exist (for that presumes the possibility of simply creating one) but rather, I would maintain, because of the inseparability of the signifier and the signified.” Again, her language here is confusing, and from what I gather Pollock is trying to state that this self-portrait is a failure for a feminist agenda, because Modersohn-Becker is intentionally representing herself in the same way that men have been representing women throughout art history…she isn’t breaking from this tradition of the objectified female and when we look at this work we could easily assume the artist to be male because of this tradition, which to me is a strength of the painting, for it challenges this convention.  But to me the real strength of this painting lies in the very thing that Pollock disagrees with: the inseparability of the signifier and the signified. Modersohn-Becker is taking control of her body and is in control of how she intends for it to be represented. What could be more feminist than that?

Lucy Lippard, Sexual Politics: Art Style

Citation: Lippard, Lucy. Sexual Politics: Art Style.  Art in America vol. 59, issue 5. 1971.

Summary:

This short text describes in Lippard’s words the sexism that existed in the patriarchal and male-dominated art world in 1971, as women artists were just beginning to wage war in attempts to gain equal representation and reputation in relation to male artists. Lippard uses statistics and first hand experiences to delineate examples of sexism favoring male artists, and lists 9 prominent examples of where she believes this discrimination against women in the art world exists. She also explains the efforts that are fighting against this sexism and discrimination, with WAR (Women Artists in Revolution) and with the AWC, the Ad Hoc Women Artists’ committee. Something I found pathetic yet humorous at the same time was the “‘Did a Little Girl Like You Make That Great Big Sculpture?’ syndrome,” for I feel it is something I can relate to in my own artistic practice, but not as anything discriminatory, but often because my sculptures are sometimes much too large for my own strength and I often need help loading them into the kilns.

Responses:

                I thought this text was really revealing in the sense that it shared valuable, eye-opening statistics having to do with the unfair representations of women in big-name museums, and I really appreciated reading the personal beliefs about where women felt that discrimination against them existed in the art world, adapted from real-life examples. However I put this text aside feeling a little uncomfortable in the sense that I want to relate more to these feminist efforts, yet I do not feel like a victim to this sexist discrimination as the women described in the text do. In our art department for example, I feel that the presence of men and women as teachers and professors is pretty much equal, and that the women in these authoritative positions have just as much influence as the males do. Women in our department are tenured professors just as some men are. I look around our class and there are more females than males, and I am thankful that the reason we got into the BFA program was contingent upon skill and dedication, and nothing more than that. I have never felt that being female has gotten in the way of me accomplishing anything art related, and I feel I have received equal treatment from male professors as my male classmates. So I asked myself, do these struggles/sentiments/concerns exist today for women artists? Are these concerns as relevant or problematic today as they were back then? Then I realized that I probably don’t feel like a victim because of these incredible activist women and their efforts, and that in my position as a young female art student I have a lot to be thankful for. I feel uneasy that I do not have much more to say about an issue as important as feminism beside this…

Lynn Hershman-Leeson, !Women, Art, Revolution (!WAR)

Citation: !Women, Art, Revolution. Dir. Lynn Hershman-Leeson. 2010. DVD.

Summary: !Women, Art, Revolution is an incredible documentary that celebrates the efforts of women artists and activists in their revolutionary feminist struggle against the sexism and discrimination in the male-dominated high art world. In the film we are introduced to a variety of these women, including Judy Chicago, Nancy Spero, Howardena Pindell, Hannah Wilke, Adrian Piper, among others, and of course the Guerilla Girls. It’s an extensive and informative overview of the numerous struggles encountered by women in the art world and a look into the legacy these women left behind, of course noting that the fight has subsided, but is not over. 

Responses: I found this film extremely eye-opening, uplifting, and inspiring, and again, I am thankful that these women fought so hard for the freedoms that I enjoy as a young aspiring female artist who has never felt like a victim to sexism or discrimination due to her sex, and I realize that this fight for equality for all should not subside because of these acquired freedoms.  Some of the things I found most interesting was the idea of a feminist art as a new kind of art in response to the masculine and patriarchal, domineering aesthetic of modernism and minimalism…modes of art that believe that because the art is content-less, it is a higher art form because of its freedom from narrative and politics. In opposition, this is where feminist art finds its strength: in narrative, in politics, in elevating the arts that were previously perceived as craft, in being activist, provocative, and confrontational, and making art that flourished outside of the museum context in response to sexism and a male-dominated high-art agenda. Also, I hadn’t realized before watching this film that performance art is inherently feminist, being a main source of artillery for feminist artists at this time, for as a new art form, it presented more opportunities for activist and experimental art. I also found it interesting that many of these female artists were divorcing their husbands at the time to pursue their activist and feminist agenda. This made me think back to some of the earliest feminists that I have studied in other classes, in particular Mary Wollstonecraft. Being one of the first feminists in Europe in the late 1700s, she advocated that women were not inherently inferior to men, but that they lacked education and just appeared as inferior because of this lack of education. She advocated for women’s self-empowerment to educate themselves and be the best they can be given the circumstances they are living within…which actually meant being a better wife to their husband so that their husbands in response would not leave them. That may seem anti-feminist, but I believe that being the best woman you can be within your circumstances is no doubt an early form of feminism. As for !Women, Art and Revolution, look how far we’ve come!!

   
Although I do not make art that is heavily feminist, or feminist at all, in content, I do find myself indebted to these feminist efforts. Since I don’t feel victimized, I don’t think that it is a bad thing that my art is not overtly feminist, although within my art I do find some feminist characteristics…like an indebtedness to “craft,” an interest in collage, and subject matter that occasionally explores nurturing, motherly notions...

Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Citation: Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." Marxists Internet Archive. UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, 2005. Web. 10 Dec. 2012.

                                                                                                                                                     Summary and Important quotations:

 

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is a short text that has the feel of a manifesto, and describes the numerous changes that affect artworks in the modern age of mechanical reproduction. The most important concept explored by Benjamin in this text is the notion of the presence and the aura of the original work of art, and how this aura is affected and threatened when this work of art is mechanically reproduced. He also speaks of how viewer’s perceptions and treatment of art can change from this ability to be reproduced, and talks specifically about the decline of the ritualistic practice of traveling to see and/or experience an original work of art in the designated area in which theoretically exists the aura of the work of art (“The cathedral leaves its locale to be received in the studio of a lover of art; the choral production, performed in an auditorium or in the open air, resounds in the drawing room…”).

 Motion picture film and photography are also talked about extensively in this text. He talks specifically about the obvious hesitations that surfaced when photography became prominently used: whether or not this technology would replace painting as an art form because of its ability to capture more accurately that which is perceived by the eye, as well as its ability to capture that which is momentary and fleeting. However, and more importantly, he points out:  “Earlier much futile thought had been devoted to the question of whether photography is an art. The primary question—whether the very invention of photography had not transformed the entire nature of art—was not raised.” In other words, photography as an art form is fine, but we need to realize how photography changes the context of other art works—like paintings and sculptures and their auras—because of photography’s inherent ability to yield multiples, which can be bought and sold and which can cause the work of art to exist in many places at once…in short, the destruction of aura. As for film, Benjamin discusses extensively the changed role of the actor in regards to film, and how his or her role is reduced to a “type” or a “commodity”, and how the actor’s aura is depreciated, “for aura is tied to his presence; there can be no replica of it…” Now the actor acts for a mechanical device rather than an audience...the audience is now the camera.

Benjamin’s main points are resounded in the somewhat ominous and cautionary opening quote by Paul Valery, that, “In all arts there is a physical component which can no longer be considered or treated as it used to be, which cannot remain unaffected by our modern knowledge and power… We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art.” In the text Benjamin predicts that not only will art be heavily affected by mechanical reproduction, but that a shift will occur in which art will be made in order to be reproduced…a prophesy that no doubt has been fulfilled in this day and age.

Response:

                I was very much intrigued by Benjamin’s text, especially the ominous and cautionary overtones that I feel are as relevant today as they were when he wrote The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, but in a different context. What I was intrigued by most is his idea of the aura of the original work of art, and how the reproducibility of a photographic image inevitably changes, if not destroys, this aura. This is the case now more than ever in the digital age that we live in, with our increasing amount of access to the internet, which is the central hub for information and photo sharing. In my opinion there are two sides to this aura-destroying coin, and at the end of the day we must ask ourselves where the benefit resides. On one side of the coin, I agree with Benjamin’s hesitations, for I place a lot of value in the unique, one-of-a kind, handmade, unreproducible work of art, as well as in the aura that surrounds the unique work of art as something that is individual, something that exists in a physical time and space that I can share with it when it is in front of my person. I also place a lot of value in the ritualistic pilgrimage of going to see a work of art. On the other side of the coin, I can see where the benefit of the internet and its capabilities exist…there is a ton of artwork out there I will never get to see in person, but I can see this artwork on the internet or in a textbook (of course I would prefer to see the artwork in person). The photographs are not sufficient reproductions of the aura of the original work of art, but they are something. This leads me to think of artists and of myself as an artist. The internet is a great way to gain publicity and notoriety; it’s a way to allow galleries and collectors to see your work, which in turn could lead to you exhibiting your work so that it may be seen in person with its entire aura. As an emerging artists this publicity is more than helpful, although I do prefer to have people see my work in person, especially since it is sculptural, than on a flattened plane, be that a screen or a photograph.  So reproducible technology has multiple downsides as well as benefits… and for me, photographs are simulations of reality, and the original work of art will obviously retain more power, beauty, essence, magic, whatever you call it…AURA than a reproduction, and to me, a great deal in the importance of art resides in this ability to radiate aura.