lovehate: mashups and the artistic process

toiletblendercup

I have always been an advocate of the idea that art did not matter as much as the artistic process. I believed that while it was almost impossible to determine the difference between art and craft, the realization of the difference could become clear by understanding the process that went into creation. After all, how is that some people could claim that the ready-made movement of the early twentieth century was art when the process was perceived to be simply dumping a toilet bowl in an art gallery... pardon the vulgar double entendre. That the interpretation of a toilet bowl in a gallery could be scoffed at by some as meaningless and some as brilliant, by some as a waste of time and others as a masterpiece, shows the true subjectivity of the qualification of "art".

I maintain that the "art" in any piece is the direct result of the process which results in a work's existence in a specific time and place. I cannot agree that a Crane 31138 Economiser Bigfoot is a piece of art when it comes off the line although the design contains artistic elements. I have to deny the "art" qualifier on this piece not because of the way it looks, but because, in the same way I'm ready to accept a building or bridge as "artistic" but not "art", the form is encumbered by function. If the bridge or toilet designer was allowed to create without concern for function, I would be fully willing to accept a fire hydrant or a blender as a masterpiece. This said, the artistic process that places a coffee cup inside a blender that's mounted on top of a recliner, has the potential to be, in some people's minds, a masterpiece, but, in my mind (at the very least) art.

And I raise this aesthetic qualifier to do one thing: ponder how technology and the net is facilitating and encumbering the artistic process, art, and the artist.

The artistic process has been consumed by the mashup. Similar to a DJ taking samples and remixing them into a new piece, web wanderers have  become quite adept at meshing multimedia into bold statements or time wasters. The artistic process is still intact however. Whether it's a toilet in the 30s or a slideshow of pics from various Flickr accounts, the process to create something new from the sum of its component parts remains a valid exercise. Again though, the question of functionality creeps in.

The result of a creative process may not be art at all, because, indeed, that creativity may lie more in craft than in art. If someone creates a pimped out new banner for a website, I can't buy it as art because the primary function precedes the form for its own sake. And let's not pretend I'm holding up art as a paragon of achievement and dismissing craft somehow. A four year-old's fingerpainting may be truer to this definition of art than a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, but I'll take the crafty car over the arty attempt. The final product of the mashup may have indeed gone through the process, but unlike the toilet, blender and coffee cup that I can buy, own, and reuse at will, almost everything that a creator has access to on the net is non-transferable. My concept of art, as a product, is that there must be an intrinsic sense of ownership on the part of the creator - not of just the process, but the result itself. While the net, with its worlds of content, inspires imagination and possibilities, the resulting mashup product can rarely, if ever, be called art.

And while generations of young and old minds are inspired to craft new works and enter into processes that verge on the artistic, there will have to be a concerted effort to move the truly gifted from a satisfaction with mashups that are never completely original to new and vital artistic works. Let's allow the net to inspire and motivate, but push beyond thematic assembly to free creation for the work's own sake.

lovehate: blame games - user error

This lovehate comes on the heels of the recent death of a 15 year old boy near Barrie, Ontario who ran away from home because his father took away his copy of Call of Duty 4 for the last time. The teen had been spending every waking hour with online friends playing the game and, after hearing his father's threat, left his family only to be found two weeks later. The event is tragic. The family's loss is indescribable. And when people look for the scapegoat, we all know what it's going to be - video games.

I don't know enough to say the behavior of either side in this specific case was flawed or not, but let's look at the facts. A boy spends countless hours engaged in an activity that has become completely normal for millions of teens around the world. The only X factor in the equation is the time spent. And if the only line crossed is that of time, why blame the game?

The push to censorship or restricting personal freedoms is never so at risk as when a child dies. While the tragedy is real, there should never be any occasion to blame a song, songwriter, singer, band, book, author, video game or website. Society has to stop blaming the painting done in dog feces at the modern art gallery for the gallery goer's discontent, blaming the Judas Priest song for the teen suicide, blaming the internet for the death of social intercourse. Society needs to take a strong look at itself and realize that redefinitions of cultural standards have been ever-evolving.

While parents and grandparents hearken back to a day when children would play stickball in the local sandlot or save up their money for a couple of grape kneehighs at the weekly box social, they have to remember that the social free time children have had over the past 150 years in Western culture were not the norm before that. We are not that far, historically-speaking from children working the land 16 hours a day in the summer and 8 hours a day while going to school. We are not that far from free time being a luxury only enjoyed by a small upper class. We are not that far from a child's worst indiscretion being a late night, blanket tent read of D.H. Lawrence. I daresay that if I had a child that wanted to spend their free time reading D.H. Lawrence today, I'd be a proud parent.

Indiscretions and social taboos are not static or sacrosanct. What does scare me, on a regular basis, is lobby groups that seek to ban, restrict or change things because users are too oblivious, obsessed or stupid to treat a hobby as enjoyment instead of entertainment.

Maybe, with the example of network gaming as our guide, instead of bemoaning the death childrens' relationships, we simply need to redefine them. Is there really something more pure to a 15 year old egging a house or sneaking a joint behind a local strip mall than using strategy in an online battle simulation? Is there an advantage to having teens bored out on stoops and corners looking for shit to disturb? Are there any real reasons teens are retreating to online relationships instead of braving the great outdoors? And lastly, are we getting close to that line where we can stop talking about "online" relationships and simply consider them relationships?

While I can't say that I love everything about moving all relationships to the constraints of broadband, I'm certainly not going to fight the future. Mail, games, music, movies, banking, shopping, and even work is done online from home, yet we are loathe to allow for this advancement with our children?

Sure, there are lines that should not be crossed with any technology or tool. Addiction, of any sort, is a real problem and something parents and all of us should be aware of, but the times are a-changin' folks. I foresee the teens of today maintaining over 90% of the relationships in their life though online networks. Teach them how to embrace technology, not fear it. Teach them restraint but not revulsion. Allow for your past to be YOUR past and their futures to be THEIR futures. And, above all, don't blame the technology based on its users.

staring

lovehate: avatars - the identity benders

avatar machine

For years of online gaming the avatar has become a player's online manifestation that outstretched the simple handle. And although I'm not downplaying the rationale for such a creation within a gaming community, there now has become a growing affection for stylized avatars within social networking communities. Whether it was through people disguising their true image on MySpace or not wanting to get "tagged" in Facebook or simply thinking their Twitter icon looks cool as a zombie or anime character, avatars have taken on meme of the month status.

Within a Massively Multiplayer game experience, I can appreciate a need to be distinguished from the hundreds or thousands of other players who are all trying to decide which player to frag or cast a spell on. In fact, being someone who's absolutely useless with names, I can appreciate a unique avatar. When playing online poker, I rarely remember someone by their screen name, but I have a far easier time remembering someone who sucked out a river inside straight draw by their crop circle pic of Futrama's Bender... I hate you ironically-named MadSkillz69.

There is also a certain need for privacy with some people who want to use social networking sites and want to avoid a photorealistic representation for one reason or another. I find it hard to justify a constant shuffling of personal avatars on a weekly or daily basis. After all, isn't the purpose of an avatar for someone to be able to identify you when a real picture is unavailable?

While I'm not a player/user of Second Life, I would imagine that radically changing one's appearance on a regular basis would not only be counter productive to maintaining intergame relationships, but frustrating to any other players who would not want to persist in figuring out each person every time they logged on.

I'm not one of those Twitter users with thousands of people on my list, but even within the short list of people that I do follow, it seems there is constant change. Whether it's a manga, hobbit, alien, superhero or South Park character that you choose to represent you, I crave consistency for at least a short period of time.

And, just for the edification of those of you who participate in every avatar meme, allow me to let you in on the "down low" about a couple things. First, your dog, baby, or garden gnome is not you. As much as I appreciate you actually using a real photo as a representation, I'm not buying the miny sorcerer's hat and the rake. Also, yes your baby looks cute in the same way that all babies look cute when you have someone making face and bubbling out gibberish while popping two dozen pics on your Kodak C340, but I'm not social networking with your baby... unless of course they can type, "LOL, I can't believe how drunk we were!" after every picture that you post. At that point, they'll at least be on par with 75% of the rest of Facebook.

Next, appreciate the size of your avatar on most social network pages. To place family portrait in the space instead of a simple headshot pretty much just screams "Hey, I'm going to justify the time I spend online with friends as extended family networking time because it's not MY profile, it's a FAMILY profile. If you're going to have a picture that includes you as your avatar, how about JUST you. Also, for all you college guys who use a picture of a bikini model or your favorite emo singer as a pic that represents you, congratulations, you have now become a less than one-dimensional facade of a human being on a platform that only allows a single dimension.

I'm all for individualized expression on a medium that has moved from text to images to audio to video. I know that many of you like to express your inner values by changing your pic from laughing you to serious you to Macauley-Culkin-Shockface-in-Home-Alone you, but I beg you, please, stop.

I will cop to the fact that my avatars are always photoshopped to remove photorealistic aspects, but, anyone who knows me will always recognize my face and not that of a stuffed animal or a car. Also, I rarely, I repeat RARELY change any of my social network representations. I'm quite ready to admit that, from day to day, my macrolife doesn't change that much and, even though I could create some crazy avatar to pretend that my life is somehow more interesting or exciting than it is, I'm prepared to allow the static, consistent avatar choices I've made to be an indication of someone comfortable with who they are and not seeking trying to keep up with the meme of the month club.

lovehate: The Blogger Manifesto

While I've certainly had my obligatory lovehate on the Canadian and US elections, the self-perpetuating of election news cycles have allowed bloggers to be up front and on point with political snippets on a minute to minute basis. Whether it's bloggers that work for CNN, CNBC, Fox News, or some of the larger independent blog sites like Huffington and Drudge, people (including network news producers) are turning to blogs on a more frequent basis for information. Such a relationship has also reinforced the persistent echoing of Uncle Ben in Peter Parker's head: "With great power comes great responsibility." 


Any news agency that gets duped by a blog post cries foul over the blogger's resposibility. Any reader who gets deceived when they buy into a false fact or "opinion as fact" mopes and pouts about how blogs have done them wrong. But the simple truth of the matter is that bloggers don't owe anyone anything. If a news organization gets duped by a blog post, I say "Hell Yeah!" If CNN or Fox News can't do some fact checking before they run with something, their discredit serves them right. And, while I would admit that a casual reader is far more likely to buy into something they read on a blog, I offer up the bastardized consumer warning: "Reader Beware".

Producers of personal web content owe their readers nothing. If readers start to get what they don't expect, they will stop reading.  There are few to no examples of paid blogs these days, so no fiscal responsibility is at risk. I support the idea of writers inventing complete bullshit if that suits their fancy. If nothing else, it will start to hone readers' skills of detecting such crap, because, I guarantee you, 90% of what gets presented on respected news outlets on a daily basis is laced with bias, spin, and gatekeeping filters amuck.

I know it's a bit of a cliched cop out to shout "FREEDOM OF SPEECH" on the web, as pretty much anything that can be said, has, is, or will be said. And, that said, I'm a proponent of wild anarchy reigning webwide since all other major media outlets are constrained by advertising and the moral outrage of motivated minority groups.

The web needs to be the great frontier. The web needs to be the autobahn where we will allow participants to go as fast as they need to go because we believe that to restrict everybody for the sake of the idiotic few is anathema. The web needs to be the Wild West where all that is required to stake a claim is an idea, storage and bandwidth.

I have only one responsibility as a blogger - free expression. The blogger is the guerilla pamphleteer of days gone by: someone who threw a thousand pieces of paper up into the circling breezes of the town square to be consumed by anyone who had the inclination to pick one up. As soon as bloggers start to cede responsibility over their content to any other than their own sensibilities, freedom is lost. I'm not advocating bloggers enacting anything that will incite physical harm, but, that said, only someone with an entrenched credibility can move others to action anyway - and even the best orators cannot get people out to do something as simple as voting.

The community will self-regulate by ignoring anyone whose credibility is lost. For those who missed that: The community will self-regulate by ignoring anyone whose credibility is lost!

Deride anyone who seeks to encapsulate your ideas. Deny anyone's right to silence your voice.

Love your freedom of expression. Hate any rules that try to scare you from it.

We will stake our claims.
We will police ourselves.
We will express ourselves in every language, including objectionable.
We will post with abandon.
We will breach taboos.
We will cross every line.
We will not apologize.
We will not relent.