I think that the recent blog by Adrian, Leroy, Justin, Janet and Micheal was quite interesting. Particularly the ad campaign "Real Beauty" by Dove wherein they show the process involved in creating a hyperreal "beauty" , yet it is , as the group mentions, a spectacle within a spectacle to advertise DOVE products. Hey, thats smart, and that is advertising. smart. compact and tight. Yep.
I think that they also summerized the spectacle or simulacra as not reality but rather an interpretation of reality. Pretty vauge statement!!!and not very challenging either. Every thing is an interpretation of reality, assuming we can establish a concrete definition of reality, which clearly this gruop did'nt really do. Which is fine, because how can any one really do so.
There are some things i know about hyperreality and the spectacal. It is all pervasive. TV is the prime example...it is all hyperreality, the same goes with the cinema too. Literature, through out the ages is an example of the spec and the hyperR,.... just look at fiction. As i realized today in Chris Frey's class, fiction is a copy of a copy with a sense, but mabey not a true sense of reality.
A world of signifieds with out signifiers is now so common place. Images without meaning freely rangle about? Is this part of a mono cultural prevelanceof free market capatalism? Eclecticism is the zero degree of contemporary culture. One listens to reggae, watches a scifi, eats Mcdonalds food for lunch and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and "retro" clothes in Hong kong; knowledge is matter for TV games.
And it is the same in art! kitsch, confusion and anything goes. In the absense of any real aeshetic criteria, money is the only yardstick.
All taste, like all needs are attended by the market.
I have news for all of you. THERE IS NO REAL , AND REPRESENTATION IS UP FOR SUSPECT , in other words, even though reality can't be linchpinned, and can never really be, ...representations role should and probably always has been questioned, subverted and used. But it should be questioned and even assulted ( subverted or even completly obliverated and reconstructed) and of course it is up to us artists to do the job, not visual communications majors, because they are just slaves, hopelessly abducted to the ever so sofisticated system, but real fine thinking artists, ......yep. ( Dont get me started about VC students, hopeless slaves, articulating their masters demands........?....$$$$$$$$$$$$$)
Okay so lets spend the next couple of days plotting and hatching and studying and free thinking and reading and thinking and obsorbing and looking and listening and thinking and hatching and talking about...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
YES! I am so stoked off your jab at VC. I think it's hilarious when people make comments about things like that. So congrats on being open minded.
I'm reading 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Marquez. In the book the villagers of the town get struck by a plague of Insomnia, one of the side effects being forgetfullness. The main character plans to deal with this by placing a name tag on each item in the house (a cup would have a tag on it that says "cup"). But after a while, he concludes that "things would be recognized by their inscriptions but that no one would remember their use". I thought that was really interesting as it related somewhat to simulacrum and spectacle. In a way, we might have forgotten reality and replaced with an idea of reality that we can't remember the origin of.
Also...I would recommend reading 100 Years of Solitude. But tha'ts just my plot to get people to buy the book, thus moving the wheels of capitalism so i can make a ton of cash money off a visually based culture and live a hip hop lifestyle.
Just a side note, you should probably reply as a comment within the post, instead of a new post each time.
-Justin T
Just a side note, and put as politely as I can, I think this kind of department-bashing is really out of place in a discussion like this. I mean, this could open up a whole can of worms about how an attitiude like that shows how little you actually know about what goes on in the VC department, why we are doing what we do, etc, so let's just keep that out of this, because this is a whole other topic for a whole other place.
-Ashley V
I agree with Ashley. The last time I checked ACAD was a college, not a high school. I'm surprised by the immaturity and lack of professionalism exhibited by some of the members of this institution's community, and somewhat befuddled by their close-mindedness. If you don't like the design department, that’s fine, if you want to rant about, be my guest, but now is neither the time nor the place.
Justin I’m really interested by this book of yours, for me it brings up questions of what is reality? Using the example of the cup, a cup is only a cup by name, but what is it really? And who decided that it would be a cup? Okay so maybe a cup really is just a cup... but with other simulacrum and spectacle, do we even recognize them for the reality they represent? Or have we lost that, have the simulacrum or spectacle becoming a new reality in and of themselves? Following that I suppose the question then becomes... is this a good thing or a bad thing? Something to be avoided or is this just the natural evolution of a visual culture?
That book sounds interesting though, maybe I’ll have to do my bit to spin the wheels of capitalism and purchase it so in the future Justin can make a ton of cash money off this visually based culture.
- T Williams
I think that Jeremy really needs to think about what ki nd of things he says, being too open minded and unafraid to speak ones mind to initiate dialouge is dangerous.
I just wanted to say that I am very sorry for going overboard on my comments about VC students and about VC in general. If I have offended anyone, I truly solenmly apologize, using this blogger to air those opinoins was highly inapropriate, unprofesional and misguided. I guess I just get too caught up in the emotional oppinion of my rants on the paradox of reality. And so I type quickly, and sometimes don't edit my words. To put things into perspective, Plato was'nt a big fan of artists, I mean they would'nt be part of his republic. And further perspective, Technically, arn't we are all just hopeless slaves in the Platonian sense, to the confines of the all pervasive spectacle . Jeremy Jeresky
I find this "sensitive area" that exists between Design and Fine Art to be a really interesting topic. If you think about it, both artists and designers, to a certain extent, function within the society of the spectacle, but design just seems to be more up front about it.
Artists sell their work and what do we do with that money? Throw it back into the system to purchase consumer goods just like everyone else. Those that don't sell their art are most likely working a job that feeds the survival of the spectacle. I myself worked 2 years at a crappy retail job (Staples to be exact) in order to pay for this art education. So while I am sitting in class, becoming enlightened, I can think of how I have supported the spectacle's cause and live with guilt every day as I continue with my life, picking up groceries from Safeway and snagging a coffee from Second Cup.
I think any way you look at this, we are all guilty of feeding the spectacle. Even living like a hermit in a forest to get away from all this wouldn't make much of a difference - you'd still be supporting it by not taking action against it.
Both Fine Art and Design students are learning that basic visual language by which the spectacle mainly operates, so (i don't want to sound cheesy, but...) instead of pointing out who is guilty, we should be working together to use our skills in a productive manner.
I think that we are conditioned from early on to misunderstand each other's departments because of their separation within the school and the lack of crossovers between the two. I wish i knew more about what goes on in VC but i don't.
Fuck You, Jeremy.
-VC
Jeremy,
I don't think you fully understand what happens in the Visual Communications Department -- we also don't understand what happens in Fine Arts. I am sure many things could be said about the FA Department as well. You should really keep your self-righteous comments for a more appropriate place. While some praise you on these comments, you have lost the respect of many others. We all know you think you're really awesome now... as I'm sure you are.
-Justin T wrote:
"Also...I would recommend reading 100 Years of Solitude. But tha'ts just my plot to get people to buy the book, thus moving the wheels of capitalism so i can make a ton of cash money off a visually based culture and live a hip hop lifestyle."
Now I'm not a spokesperson for hip hop, but that's quite a negative view of diverse culture. It goes way beyond what MTV offers up.
A.Vermette
In my opinion, this whole dispute about which department is better fails to ask what is truly important and that is...
Is the difference between these two departments more important than the QUALITY of the work that comes from both?
Post a Comment