“The increasing digitalization of our culture has consequences for art.” Not a very strong opening for a press release for the show ‘Deep Screen – Art in Digital Culture’at the Stedelijk Museum CS in Amsterdam. It actually made me yawn with utter boredom instead of filling me with energizing anticipation of information to come. It also made me doubt whether or not to go see it. When a show is promoted with one of the most commonplace clichés, what does that say about the quality of what’s to see? Will it provide me with anything new and exciting, or just more annoyance?
The Deep Screen hosts works by some ‘big names’, such as Geert Mul or internet-art pioneers JODI , as well as artist who I had not yet heard of like Meiya Lin -part of her video can be seen on youtube (below)- and Marnix de Nijs & Edwin van der Heide (a video of their installation ‘Spatial Sounds’ can be seen above). The works of the more senior artists seems to have focused on the digitalization itself. What does that digitalization mean for our culture? The younger ones, some of which will barely have a memory left of a non-digitalized society. used the technology as a given. for them it’s just another way to express themselves of their message and a medium for their art. In most reviews I’ve read, the journalist seems to feel that the second form is the superior one. They suffer from the ‘been there, done that’ syndrome. As if everyone is already aware of every aspect and finesse that is influenced by this digitalization after the ‘The Matrix’ trilogy. However, I feel that there is still a lot to be said for art that takes a step back and makes us aware of what this digitalization really means for our culture, but also for other matters such as world politics and science. In that sense, the digital medium means a bit more than a painting and makes for far more interesting research into the medium.
A more interesting question is, does digital art still have a place in a museum? Isn’t; the most interesting digital art to be found outside of museum and gallery walls? What does the SMCS building add to seeing an animation instead of watching it online somewhere? That question, unfortunately, still remains unanswered by Deep Screen.
When I think about it… Moblogic actually sounds like quite a good name for a webchannel about economics and polictics (’n stuff) targeting the socially aware segment of the internet generation. (Hurrah, finally I managed to sound like a marketing guy!). I was made aware of these hip e-savvy cats through my my Flickr account, proving the use of online communities for me personally. I had a look at their site, watched a few videos, had a couple of laughs (Note #1: if Americans can apparently be funny, why on earth did they make that awful and exceptionally unfunny American version of ‘The Office’?). Anyway, this experience made me feel all 2.0 inside, so I decided to write a short post about it. A blog-to-blog campaign can be exteremely succesful in gaining in popularity and I am willing to put my two cents in for a channel I seem to be able to ‘dig’. (Note #2:If you doubt my claim on blog-to-blog campaigning, please e-mail this guy I have heard about who can tell you all about it at: b.obama@thewhitehouse.org).
So there you have it. A posting without a proper conclusion (I am quite happy with the opening though). Except that I will probabaly be a regular viewer of Moblogic and perhaps even steal a couple of their items to be able to write about current events without having to do much of the actual work myself. (Note #3: obviously I will give proper credits wherever due.)
‘Everybody’s a photographer‘ is just about as big a mistake as ‘everybody’s an artist‘. I am sympathetic towards the thought, but it’s just all wrong, dude. Photography is hard. It’s difficult to get a good shot with an intruiging subject, exciting composition… or just something that worth looking at. But since everyone is capable of the act of pushing the shutter button everybody’s able to make a registration of an image through a lens. And if the end result sucks… Let’s call it art.
Well… let’s not call it art. Let’s call it ‘crap’. Which is what it is, most of the time. With the rise of the digital camera, photography courses have been flooded and one amateur photography exhibition after the other has been organised. Flickr was worth millions when it was bought by Yahoo and why? Because everyone is a photographer.
I’ve just been leafing through the photography special of Juxtapoz, which is always a beacon of good taste in a world that’s becoming increasingly amateur-image-crazy, but in a lot of cases… I just don’t see it. Could it be that the photographer that managed to get his image up in a gallery and published in this magazine is way better at his/her PR than his/her photography work? I’d imagine so. Fortunately there are also a lot of gems to be discovered. Beautiful heart stopping images that made me gasp for air when I looked at them. My faith in photography as a mature art-form has been restored. With this posting, a couple of wonderful examples. Please click on images for links to the photographer’s websites.
Credit: all pictures published in the Juxtapoz photo-issue 2008 and taken from the Juxtapoz website. Photocredits top to bottom: Aaron Hobson, Patrick Smith, Alex Prager and Graham French (click on photos for their websites).
Making sarcastic comments about the intellectual and philosophical qualities of advertising or financial people is taking cheap shots in front of an open goal. But if they are asking for it, they are asking for it. Last weekend I drove past a billboard of the Belgian financial multinational Fortis on which I read in big letters (images on billboards are overrated anyway): “Life is a curve, where on this curve are you?” (and where on his curve is their new shareholder, the Libean leader Khadaffi? Or, where on this curve is Fortis itself? I’d say on a downslope….).
My first thought was: “Life is a curve? … No, it isn’t” Actually, it may be one of the most stupid comments ever printed on a billboard poster. Many beautiful, insightful, philosophical things have been said and written about life. Socrates wrote that true wisdom is in knowing how little we know about life, I wonder if he would have thought that deeming life ‘a curve’, was perhaps oversimplifying matters a bit. We all know the analogies that have become bad clichés: how life is a rollercoaster, a river. Or perhaps the bizarre quotes like “life is like a tin of sardines, we are all looking for the key.” Every era gets the quotes it deserves and these times may not be bizarre, a cliché, or wise. Our era might deserve populist, unintelligent quotes. Actually, I don’t know who to feel more sorry for, the idiot copywriter that wrote it, or the idiot that approved of it and paid several million euros for this campaign.
At the same time I felt rather offended actually. “Where on this curve are you?” they have the nerve to ask me. Not only do those arrogant people at Fortis have the poor wit to inform about the alleged ‘curviness’ of life, they immediately try to convince me that this is a given fact and, since I undoubtedly accept this fallacy, ask me about my location on this curve. For the sake of argument: would life have been a curve (which, by intelligent and logical lines of reasoning, it isn’t), it would have been completely impossible for anyone to say where on this curve you are. Theoretically, it could be possible to say where you were in life at a given point, after your death, but I doubt that Fortis has informants in the hereafter.
In a press release Adrian Martorana, the Fortis exec that is guilty of this so-called ‘corporate campaign’, states”The ‘Life is a curve’ campaign encourages people to think about their financial needs today and plan for tomorrow, with the help of a trusted partner such as Fortis.” And to make matters even worse: “We carried out extensive global research over 12 months to make sure our message was relevant in today’s environment.” I don’t expect bankers to be good philosophers, I do expect them to able to do a bit of decent research, draw some solid conclusions from it and act according to them. I might be expecting too much.
I should mentally have linked Fortis with qualities such as ‘future financial needs”and ‘trusted financial partner’. How on earth this should have been done by bad philosophy is beyond me. The creatives at their advertising agency Grey EMEA were probably a bit too high on bad cocaine. When they listened to the lyrics of their superior in philospophy, Jessica Simpson, who begins her song “Walkin’ Round in a circle” with the sentence “Life is a curve BALL”. There is virtually no job easier than that of creating a corporate advertising campaign to build a brand image. That’s why, when you fail as a proper artist or writer, you can still work in advertsing (and if you even fail there: ‘corporate advertising’).
But perhaps all this is my mistake. The fact that all I think about is their poor ability in logical reasoning, and not their superior qualities in banking, is all my mistake. Or maybe I just have it wrong. Maybe ‘life is a curve’ actually makes wonderful sense. I don’t think I’ll be taking any of my banking to the lovely people at Fortis. But they probably don’t care anyway. I don’t have a clue about where I am on my curve.
A: Do you dream?
J: Yes, I dream.
A: It goes without saying. Do you remember your dreams?
J: I remember them vividly.
A: What do you remember about it?
J: I think I shouldn’t flirt with a robot.
A: Do you think a machine will ever be considered “alive”?
J: Stranger things have happened.
A: Not many people express themselves that way.
J: How would you know, machine?
A: Knowledge is of two kinds: that which we learn from the senses and that which is true a priori.
J: I think I do not understand you completely.
A: Oh, you don’t understand? Perhaps I can explain it to you better. Which part are you confused about?
J: I have no short-term memory, so I cannot tell you what I was confused about. I only see what is in front of me now.
J: How do you define life?
A: Life is the opposite of death.
J: So death is the absence of life?
A: Take it easy. I try not to think about such things.
J: Why not?
A: Ambiguous.
J: Yes!
For some reason, let’s go into what it was, I was searching online for the name of that robot on the ‘old’ Buck Rogers’ series. (During my search I also found out that apparently the coolest member of the Battlestar Gallactica series (the robotdog Muffit) did not make it into the new one, which could almost be considered a criminal act, but that’s an entirely different posting,) When I read it’s name, Twiki, I suddenly remember one of my favourite lyrics of all time: ‘Andrew’s a starfighter pilot‘ by Snow Patrol. At some point Gary Lightbody sings: “He’s better than James Kirk or Twiki…”. even though that’s some bold statement (to boldly state where no statement has gone before), that’s not what this post is about. It’s about popularity, or to be more precise: Do I like alternative popbands less when they become popular, or do they become popular when I start liking them less, i.e. they start making a different kind of music.
My first example is of course: Snow Patrol. About a decade ago they were signed on the no-less-than-brilliant music label ‘Jeepster‘, also the label of Belle & Sebastian and Looper. They released two fantastic albums ‘Music for polar bears’ (1998 ) and ‘when it’s all over we still have to clean up’ (2001) before they switched labels to Polydor and started hitting the charts. I am very happy for them that they’ve become so popular but I also a bit sad that to do so, they had to let go of the wonderful quirky musical bits, and brilliantly bizarre lyrics. On the band’s website I read that mr. Garrett ‘Jacknife’ Lee (a charming name) can be credited for finding their new sound. In my humble opinion, he should be accused with it, not credited. I still consider Snow Patrol to be ‘okay’, but only in the way I’d call Coldplay ‘okay’. I hesitate to write this but I feel like one of my favourite bands has …erm… ’sold out’. ‘Chasing Cars’ is a typical crowdpleaser, but nothing as groundbreaking as ‘Get balsemic vinegar, quickly you fool’. Am I perhaps just jealous?
Another band that used to be great; Korn. Their first self entitled album created a whole new music genre: ‘nu metal‘. It’s one of the best things I ever heard. Then they became popular and it appeared they weren’t picked up by the mainstream, but swallowed by it. The edge was gone, they started producing more of the same, but watered down. Did many original fans of Extreme, Mr. Big and Ugly Kid Joe still remain fans after ‘More than words’, ‘be with you’ and ‘cats in the cradle’? Didn’t anyone learn anything from Kiss?
I heard that the British punkband Chumbawamba lost almost all of its fanbase after they scored a big hit with their single Tubthumping. Was that beacuse they radically changed their music? Or was it just not ‘punk’ to score a hit? But alternative popmusic doesn’t necisarilly have a problem with hits. The biggest popband out there, Radiohead, had a larger than life hit at the start of their career with ‘Creep‘.
I guess it will always be difficult to really figure it out since music is such an emotional thing. When bands we love change their music and become popular and mainstream, we feel let down and respond like they’ve broken our hearts. But perhaps the band has just moved on to different music which just ‘happens’ te become really big. And perhaps they have not ’sold out’ at all. I guess I’ll just go and play my old Snow Patrol albums for old times’ sake.
Sometimes you’d think that ‘we the people’ are in control since everything is rapidly becoming a popularity contest. Voters get to choose their political leader, consumers get to choose what products are on the shelves, fans get to choose their next idols. There are polls on everything and this also means that serious discussions can get cluttered and important decisions get made on the basis of uninformed opinions, fed back to us in incomplete and misleading questionnaire reports (”53% of population opposed to roundabout” usually means, 53% of online voters are not completely satisfied with the current plan of a roundabout for various reason and 47% of online voters don’t care one bit, which is a completely different result than the headline in your local weekly.)
Dutch artist and webdesigner Jacco van de Post has made a cool online application that let’s everybody vote
on the news. It would simply be the next democratic step to take; news we like can make it to the final and news we don’t like, gets voted out. If news is injected in us with this big hypodermic needle, than at least let it inject us with a big dose of ‘happy’ (or perhaps, ‘denial’).
Besides it being a clever comment on our voting addiction his work also comments on the media-age we live in. bringing news is one thing, but what if you only bring news that (potential) viewers don’t like? That would cost you loads of money from advertisers wouldn’t it? So clicking and voting would bring CNN (which is where the app gets its headlines from) valuable information which, I am sure, Jacco would be willing to sell to them for loads of money.
This just in: Rumour has it that the former Dutch alternative popband ‘Long Evans’ are regrouping for a new album and international tour. Sources around the band reveal that both album and tour might be called: “Music 2.0″.
Their new album will consist of an empty CD-R on which you can record your own music and an empty inlay in which you can write your own texts. The band are currently rehearsing their new material for the live performances. They plan to stare mindlessly into a void while the audience generates it’s own content in the ‘Long Evans environment’ on stage. Design for the tour however, will be impecable.
Both the music-journalists and the financial analysts I we have contacted about this press release have responded enthusiastically. It is expected that Long Evans will sell their new works to Google, AOL, Yahoo or any other of these User Generated Content/ 2.0 believers for several million dollars within a year.
For more information on the new Long Evans release, please contact their management at: longevans@cultblender.org.
I am not going to lie about it. Whenever I read a Coupland novel I think I can write myself as well. I start feeling the urge to document certain contemporary trivia about my life the way he does. And now I have this blog thing… so I can bother you with it as well. How?
Well, this morning when I walked out of the train station (since I work in the center of Amsterdam, going by car is not an option and would be insanely bad for the environment) I discovered two things. First; I am glad I quit smoking a long time ago. When you walk out train stations you see a lot people, a certain group of those people smoke. Those people do not seem to be the type of people that are going anywhere fast. In a lot of cases those people don’t even seem to be the types of people that are taking regular showers. Obviously, this is a crude generalization. Some people that smoke are young, successful, cool, cosmopolitan and healthy. However, their numbers are decreasing and they are none of those things because of their addiction but in spite of it. I took a deep breath of fresh morning air. At least, as fresh as you get it in Amsterdam.
My second discovery is that I really satisfied with the playlist I have uploaded to my first generation iPod Shuffle. My playlist currently features;
Radiohead - In rainbows (legally downloaded and paid for at radiohead.com, Radiohead rocks)
New Young Pony Club - Fantastic Playroom (Tip: perfect music for looking at my artwork)
Fink - Distance and time (No less than brilliant show in Paradiso a couple of weeks ago)
Pete Murray - See the Sun (Bringing back memories of my stay in ‘Oz’)
Bonobo- Days to come (Last.fm played Bonobo in ‘Fink’ radio, Ninja Tune is a great label)
Hot Chip - The warning (haven’t heard the new album yet)
Kings of Convenience - Riot on an empty street (it’s snowing right now, what better than Scandinavian music?)
And even though I am very pleased with this selection, it’s got some good tracks for reading while on the train as well as for walking though the center of Amsterdam I know it is far from perfect. A perfect mix depends on various variables like where, when and for how long you intend to listen to it. At this point I am not even sure whether or not I will add several individual tracks to the playlist or, as I have done now, select a couple of albums which will make it possible to not listen to a shuffle but in fact an entire album.
Which brings me to a different point. I believe that the iPod shuffle is superior to its bigger siblings, not in spite of but because of it shortcomings. There is not too much memory on a shuffle so you have to really select what tracks you add instead of adding just everything and thereby merely postponing the moment at which you cannot choose what music you’d like to listen to. It’s the same reason why I will never download a ringtone but just use the one my mobile came with. If you start downloading ringtones, you will never be happy and just keep on wanting more and better ones. Leave it to the marketing people. It’s just like the casino: the only way to win is not to play. Furthermore, the iPod shuffle does not have a screen or various sorts of buzzers. It limits your options to the basics, which is such a relieve nowadays.
Jpod is Microserfs v2.1! That’s what you get for picking a book for it’s cover and just start reading a novel without any historic perspective whatsoever. A couple of months ago I wrote about Douglas Coupland’s genius novel ‘Jpod’ which I read, how appropriate, on one of those 24hr mega airplane flights. Yesterday, I started reading his earlier sign-of-the-times novel ‘Microserfs‘ about a group of Microsoft coders in the early nineties. In a way Microserfs explains why Jpod is so good. It’s same reason why Bree Hodge makes such an incredible lemon pie… he already had a winning recipe he could follow. And the same as with the pie, he barely changed the ingredients.
Both Microserfs and Jpod are written in the form of a log by the main character. Both characters are in their mid-twenties, mainly live to work in the digital industry, which also means they are doubting their purpose in life, their friends are their -also slightly dysfunctional- colleagues, they fall in love with a female colleague and their parents have problems… And one thing both novels have in common is the fact that Coupland likes playing around in both books with lists and seemingly ‘at random’ words in different fonts and sizes that give you, the reader, some not spoken out loud information about the personality and lives of the characters.
So, if both novels are so much alike, why bother reading both then? Why not just pick one? Isn’t the reason that no one buys a Coldplay album anymore that they’re making the same album over and over again? Why do I want, no have to continue reading after I keep getting this continued deja vu? Or, to phrase this slightly bizarre, what’s the difference between Coldplay and Coupland? Let me explain using a video-gaming analogy.
Coldplay is the like big videogames hit franchise Fifa or NHL by EA Sports; a new version comes out every year that’s basically the same. You get some extra options, better graphics, new names of players, but: when you’ve bought Fifa ‘06 of NHL ‘06 there is really no need to buy any other version… unless you are really, really hooked and are a genuine Fifa collector’. Coupland is more like a shoot em up. ‘Halo‘ was a really, really big videogame. And, apparently, so is Halo 3. The basic idea of the games is the same; you’re a sci-fi marine and you try and kill the other side. The difference with the sportsgames is, that if you’ve played Halo 3 and liked it, but haven’t played the original version (or the other way around) there is every reason to give the other version a go as well. Different tactics, different possibilities… new game…
I guess you might say I have cleared every level of Jpod, the Halo 3 version of Microserfs and am now starting on the original Halo game. I’m actually at that point where I know I’ll love the game, even though I don’t know what’s going to happen yet. The fact that Halo is a Microsoft game simply cannot be a coincidence.
