Blog 12 Extra Credit

Burgess' article in the Video Vortex Reader covers the idea of viral videos and the creative re-use and imitation of user-generated media through social networking websites. Youtube videos are not messages in and of them selves, but rather "mediating mechanisms" through which culture originates and redefines itself through emulation and redistribution. Cultural practices are born through a video's ability to be accessible to the masses for recycling. Bernard Drax, a character created for a virtual reality setting, represents this idea of creation and imitation. Participants in this virtual reality, Second Life, have their own ideas of a world at the tip of their fingers. Anything, from buildings, weather, people, can be created to emulate a sense of shared reality. Drax, for example, "covers" the atrocities of Guantanamo Bay, taking the viewer through a simulated version of the prison camp. Likewise, we see another reality in which we see Barack Obama campaigning for president. What both of these videos represent is the idea of user-generated awareness that is available to the masses to spread and create new cultural practices from.

Blog #12- Extra Credit

In the Burgess article the concept of viral videos is strongly enforced. They stress that one persons opinion can very easily be spread quickly due to the availability and popularity of access to the media. You tube in particular is a huge part of this. The videos that were assigned liked straight from smartsite to youtube. The youtube video was part of a collection of a user that had 554 subscribers, 314,752 views, and had posted 92 videos. The videos on youtube are just one mean of his communications though, he mainly operates through the game Second Life. If he is able to accumulate this many viewers in the real world and mostly likely has tons of followers in Second Life making his work and opinions very widespread. Drax’s videos have definitely become viral in the sense that he has supporters in both worlds. People actually take the time to watch his videos even though he takes a very strong standpoint on some issues. He has become a leader in Second Life. Drax’s ideas are spread though three specific mediums that I am aware of, youtube, Second Life and his website. The fact that he reaches so many people is the definition of the concept of viral videos expressed in the Burgess article.

Xtra Credit: Blog 12_Wk_9_Viral Videos

The main point that differentiates Burgess’ argument from other Youtube theorists, is that the Youtube culture is based off of “cultural participation in the creation of cultural, social and economic value in participatory culture.” This simply means that the strength of these media sharing sites is in the fact that they encourage imitation and reproduction through sharing of media, and it is not simply a video being watched by millions of people. When you look at Drax’s work, he is emulating Burgess’ principle in action. For instance, instead of going out and performing his activist demonstrations or events in real time, he imitates these practices and imports them to Second Life, a virtual world. This makes them more accessible and lifts a lot of boundaries that crop up in real life regarding these issues. On a secondary level, Drax’s use of SL allows for more people to access the material, and thus reproduce in whichever manner they see fit. So not only is it a viral hit, but also sparks creativity and a canon of media in relation to the topic being depicted.

Blog #12- Extra Credit

· Draxtor, an avatar from the online world of Second Life, exemplifies the viral quality and the social adjustments which accompany Burgess' argument that media allows for the creation of new social norms. With the implementation of viral communication, Burgess states that new "cultural practices are originated, adopted and sometimes retained" within society. Such are the implications of second life; in an alternate world, citizens are able to interact with one another and sometimes view situations otherwise invisible to them. This is best exemplified in Draxtor's video regarding Guantanamo bay. Characters are able to enter the jail, experience, and comment on the event. The spread of Second Life's popularity as well as its individual social structure directly parallel Burgess' theory on new social practices. In Draxtor's second video he displays a female avatar advocating for Obama's candidacy. Characters in both videos are able to not only involve themselves fully in society, but are able to take on a larger roles than they would in real life. They may represent causes, teach others, and assume positions of importance and power. This increased involvement is exactly what Burgess attributes to the ever-expanding wave of media which defines the past decade. People are able to create personalities and status quos which others follow and mimic. Now everyone feels encouraged to participate in society whereas before they went unnoticed. In conclusion, viral creations such as Second Life enable the masses to participate and feel as though they too are worthy and relevant. No longer is social change limited to face-to-face interaction; instead, impersonal contribution via videos and "memes" enables total participation.

Blog #12: Viral Videos

In the article in Video Vortex Reader, Burgess expresses the perspective that viral videos are “the mediating mechanisms via which cultural practices are originated, adopted and(sometimes) retained within social networks.”(Video Vortex) This definition can be supported by the examples presented in the work of Bernhard Drax. Drax shows how real life cultural experiences are being recreated and discussed within the popular social network, Second Life. One prime instance of such a cultural experience that Drax highlights is the recreation of Guantanamo Bay. In order to raise awareness of the culture-shocking experience, Second Life avatars can actually go through the detainment camp and experience the camp similar to how the original prisoners did. Simulations such as this are part of the viral video community which help us to retain our culture and remember past actions and attitudes. One example of these cultural practices originating via viral videos is the Obama campaigns on Second Life. Drax shows how users utilized the site as a means to spread political awareness and discuss debatable issues concerning presidential candidates. Social networks are powerful ways of communication to begin with, and with the addition of video to these sites they are able to relay these cultural messages in even more powerful ways. Furthermore, these videos are called viral because they spread extremely quickly and can therefore communicate their messages to mass amounts of viewers via “spreadability.”(Video Vortex)

Xtra Second LIfe

ead the Burgess article in the Video Vortex Reader and also view the links provided to the work of Bernhard Drax (aka Draxtor Despres). How does the article's perspective on the nature of viral videos apply to the work of Drax?

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"Through reuse, reworking and redistribution, spreadable media content ‘gains greater resonance in the culture, taking on new meanings, finding new audiences, attracting new markets, and generating new values" (Video Vortex). Viral videos spread and constantly change in their meaning and adaption. They create and manifest story lines for people to enact and be apart of. The video gains life and evolves through circulation on the internet.

Second life evolves in the same manor. In second life the users have the ability to expand and change their virtual world. Drax created a fictional detainment camp to promote awareness. He used second life to educate people and make them aware of how torture effects prisoners.

The world in second life constantly changes because of user participation. The users are key to its metaphoric capabilities. It evolves along with the people whom create it. Youtube and second life are constantly being rediscovered and changed. They both take on their own life.

Indeed, scholars at the forefront of YouTube

research argue that for those participants who actively contribute content and engage in

cultural conversation around online video, YouTube is in itself a social network site; 3 one in

which videos (rather than ‘friending’) are the primary medium of social connection between

participants

Xtra Credit: Blog 12_Wk_9_Viral Videos

Burgess talks about viral videos in terms of what makes a video viral and what these viral videos contain. These videos have textual “hooks” or key signifiers and they become popular through the participation of other users, which includes the replication of the video in various forms by a wide range of individuals. One of the draws of these videos is their everydayness, their settings in bedrooms, from one camera angle, etc. They cannot be attributed back to an original producer because there usually isn’t one.

Drax’s work in Second Life fits this pretty well in terms of the textual hooks and the participation=popularity. The participation in this online world is what makes it operate, from the Obama campaigns and parties in this online realm or the speeches from judges in The Hague, and that popularity is what drives these events as well. And those hooks, like “Obama in Second Life,” kind of generate a mystique all their own. In essence, Second Life is like a gigantic viral video that a lot of people participate in. The only difference is that the people that copy and those that are copied are in the world at the same time. The contributions allow it to grow to the point of almost a new civilization.

Blog 10 Wk 8 Video Vortex

I chose to compare the articles written by Geert Lovink and Sean Cubbit, which discuss the impact that Youtube has had on society's understanding and use of Media. Both writers key in on the idea that Youtube is a database of wide-ranging media rather than the traditional model of meticulously constructed and chosen media. Lovink focuses on how these databases mean that we are "no longer at the mercy of mono-cultural multiplexes," and consequently are given a sense of more freedom over what we choose to watch. But Levink is skeptical of the benefits of this freedom. For one, the sense of freedom may be somewhat unmerited, because what we watch is still guided and determined by the keywords others have selected. But what Levink seems most concerned about is the loss of a "Grand Narrative." Fewer people seem interested in reading books and watching television. The focus is now on "lame entertainment" and "random junk." Although Levink is quick to add that this banal media touches at "the essence of cultural technology," like cinema verité, it realizes a desire to turn the camera into a pen, a tool for the masses. 

Sean Cubitt seems to have a more stark, negative view of Youtube. In Cubitt's opinion, what makes a good youtube video is not aesthetics, humor, politics, or even ethics, but rather the speed of connection/download, and the presence of interference/grain. Cubbit calls Youtube "Art without hope" because the low-res nature latent in youtube's coding denies the media from reaching the potential of high quality film. A similar idea to Levink's article, Cubitt discusses how Youtube gives the user the impression of being constantly connected to others. As he puts it "You are never alone on the network."

Blog 11 Wk 8 The Yes Men

As far as I can tell, the Yes Men seem to be primarily concerned with bringing accountability to big corporations. The Yes Men, represented in the film by Mike and Andy try to highlight the greed and injustice of globalized corporations who seem to place more value on money than on human life. The two corporations focused on in the documentary were Dow chemicals, whose plant in India caused devastation on local citizens, and Exxon whose practices are parodied by Andy and Mike by creating candles that seemed as though they were created from the body of a human janitor. The yes men operate through the use of websites, which seem as though they are a part of these global corporations, which occasionally allow the Yes Men to speak as representation of these companies at large events, or as shown in the documentary directly to BBC world news. Once they are given access to these podiums, the Yes Men use parody to subtly (and comically) convey their point. Their goal is to overturn the myth propagated by the Media that if left to own means, unobserved, and unaccountable corporations will basically behave well. As one commentator puts it "unjust problems will solve themselves if ignored." The Yes men are anti-globalization activists who try to prevent the absurd ideas prorogated by some corporations from being accepted as real by the public.

Blog 11 The Yes Men

The Yes Men have used media to further their agenda to reveal corporations that they believe to be frauds. The Yes Men would not be able to reach a large audience with their improvised public scenes without the major newsbroadcasting reporters present to document and relay the information to the public. The two performers therefore must embrace the media as a necessary tool to magnify the significance of their actions.

The Yes Men basically pretend to be high level executive officers/VIPs for specific corporations and present in public venues, mock-scenes of remorse and condolences. Often times, The Yes Men are accepting responsibility on behalf of the company for actions that have severely affected people negatively. The Yes Men have used two TCS concepts; Critical Thinking and Critiquing or "Critical Critiquing"

The Yes Men: Be the change you want to see (Literally)

The Yes Men’s approach to the media is simple: Tell the truth in a slightly dishonest way. What I mean by this is the Yes men seek to get the truth out about the evils of capitalism and corporations by going out and doing role playing. “Being the change they want to see” so to speak. Instead of waiting for corporations to go out and fix their wrongs, the Yes Men uncover the wrongs by pretending to work for the companies. As a result the media is forced to pay attention to the wrong doings of the corporations and call them out on those wrongs as a direct result of the pranks the Yes Men concoct. While many (particularly those in the media) call their style sick or cruel, it seems people like you and me or victims of corporations wrongdoings have real appreciation for what these two men are doing. We struggle to be heard, but the Yes Men really seem to be going out and “Fixing the World”. They may not be able to change the way government/corporations work but they can change the way they are seen in the media. We no longer live in an age where we have sit back and agree that the Yes Men’s pranks are cruel, this group in its quest to fix the world have given us the opportunity to see the media from a new perspective and actively seek change.

Blog 10 - Video Vortex

Thomas Elasaesser explains in "Constructive Instability" that technological advances have drastically changed modern day life and moreover, transformed avante-garde artwork into an amalgamation of a real life feedback loop.

Dominick Chen argues in "Prochronist Manifestation" that information transfusion, particularly in regards to media, has subjected our own perceptions about artwork in what he calls "Post-modern rationale."

Both writers develop their arguments around the idea that technological advances serve more than to progress the human race or increase leisure time. They create a different lifestyle for humans which ultimately creates a new genre of artwork designed to reflect that changing lifestyle. Elsaesser explains that this mixture of advanced technological lifestyles and contemporary artwork is cause for concern. Whereas the greatest motivator in a capitalistic economy is the potential to make profit, artist utilize paint and brush to harness human emotion. These two ideas must not be intertwined.

Video Vortex

The writer Lovnik made an interesting observation/conclusion about the use of Youtube as an application of Web 2.0, he stated that although most see Web 2.0 a source of individual authorization in the media, many of us do not actually take part in authoring, and in effect there is still a large sense of control coming from the media determining hat of what people will or will not see.

ELSAESSER-The Avant-garde seeks to link art and life, we see this very much today with the advent of the internet and as life and technology become so closely linked we will soon find that there is a disconnect between the screen and the experience, creating a need for further technology to continue the interaction between our lives and the art of the internet.

The opinion shared between Lovnik and Elsaesser is that Youtube has become a good source to find lots of information. They both recognize the space that is unlimited to you and me to become a part of this Avant-garde experience, however not without losing meaning. Both authors seem to argue that the limitless space of the internet and more specifically on Youtube means that the meaning behind the work is lost. Lovnik would say that by creating the space, the creativity is lost for many because they do become producers and merely consume whatever is fed to them. They easily spend hours upon hours absorbing while not contributing. For Elsaesser, he argue the lack of sensory participation takes away from the real substance of the art of film. Although we are given the opportunity to create avant-garde art, we do not necessarily participate in or create in a way that amounts to quality work.

Blog 11 - Yes Men

The Yes Man are a pair of performing artists who seek to make social commentary about corporations. The Yes Men infiltrate corporations disguised as one of the big CEO's in order to publicly humiliate and show that what the corporations are really doing. The Yes Men feel that a false sense of reality has been created by many corporations in order to cover up their less than desirable profit making ideas. By exploiting the corporations for what they really are, the Yes Men are able to shine a light on these corporations and provide a real version of what is going on. This leads to the idea of the Marxist idea of false consciousness. We as a public are falsely conscious of what is really going on because of the illusions that are created by corporations. The idea that capitalism creates a false consciousness between appearances and reality is thoroughly seen in these corporations business tactics. With many shady dealings, the Yes Men strive to exploit and show that capitalism and corporations have created such illusions without us knowing.

Blog 10 - Video Vortex

The Practice of Everyday (Media) Life by Lev Manovich"
Manovich believes that the personal qualities that are now being exemplified in art creates better forms of communication through the internet as opposed to the previous style of video making which incorporated companies and professional artists.

"Prochronist Manifestation" by Dominick Chen
Due to the mass expansion of the internet, society is now capable of accessing on demand information which leads to the changing opinions of what we consider art, and artistic culture itself.

Manovich focuses on the ability that YouTube has to make the communication between artists and the public easier. One problem that Manovich sees is that now professionals are no longer the only ones capable of producing media and now art has become more of a form of communication amongst similar groups versus just self expression that used to the the main basis for art. Chen focuses more on the fact that technology is whats responsible for this new change in what we consider art. With the constant accessibility of art, art has lost its meaning and Chen references the avant garde as a means to continually reinforce what we consider to be true art.

The Yes Men

In the film "The Yes Men Fix the World", film makers Andy Bichelbaum and Mike Bonanno seek to criticize large companies and the government for their manipulation of the consumer and public psyche. These companies facilitate their product-selling agenda through emotional appeals that guilt people into buying their products, or last give them a false sense of control over their emotional and monetary investments. Like Karl Marx predicted, there is a disconnect with what people are told to believe and what is actually occurring in reality. The film makers seeks to highlight this hypocrisy and how easily it works on the public by creating satire of the work of these institutions, for example creating a mock homepage for former president George W. Bush and specifically emphasizing African Americans on the site in order to highlight the alleged lies that community is led to believe by this person. By "punking" these people and institutions in a creative and entertaining manner, the film makers seek to help people realize the ridiculousness of the hypocrisy they are fed and to start thinking for themselves.

Video Vortex

"Prochronist Manifestation" - Dominick Chen

Our culture's idea of art and creativity has been changed by the new, instant-access state of the internet.

"Constructive Instability" - Thomas Elsaesser

As new media outlets and technologies are becoming more popular, the quality of entertainment, art, and culture is decreasing.

In both Elsaeeser and Chen's articles, the idea that avante-garde works of art are being stagnated by advances in technology is prevalent. Both believe YouTube to have created a culture in which art is losing meaning simply because there is so much of it available online now. The amount of information available makes it more difficult to discover interesting, innovative work. Both authors also cite Peter Burger's theory about avante-garde culture keeping the practice of art in society fresh.

Blog 11_Wk_8_The_Yes_Men

The "Yes Men"'s critique of media is regarding large coporations' creations of "false realities" to sell their product and maximize their profit while not having to disclose the shady inner-workings of their operations. They create these realities by using social/political issues tied with strong emotional responses to convince the consumer the corporation cares/is affiliated with that cause and increase the likeliness of the consumer buying their product.

The "Yes Men"'s pranks break-down and analyze the workings of the media by providing an exaggerated, satirical rendition of a media issue that ultimately brings more public attention to it.

I would say that the TCS 2 concept most aligned with their work is Hegemony. Although the corporations are creating a disconnect between the appearance of their products to the actual reality, the consumer's willingness to blindly accept the reality created by these corporation makes them "party to their own oppression." It is not that the corporations are so good at weaving these false realities that we are unable to detect them, but that we choose to overlook them.

Blog 10_Wk_8_Video_Vortex: PP 9-44

"Constructive Instability" by Thomas Elesaesser:
Elesaesser believes that technological advances in today's society has influenced the people in our society to favor quick, low-budget entertainment over avant-garde works of art.

The Practice of Everyday (Media) Life” by Lev Manovich:
Manovich believes that the transition from professional artists, producing company founded videos, to the public artist, producing more personal, less structured videos, has led to stronger communication within a growing web-based society.



While both these artist discuss the change of the quality of entertainment associated with Youtube, the two have very opposite opinions on the matter. While Elesaesser feels this Youtube movement and the reintegration of avant-garde art into the practice of life has gone too far, causing an artistic slump and change of ideals/goals among the modern artist, Manovich believes that Youtube makes self-expression and communication easier and does not stress the repercussions this could have on art.

Blog 11 - The Yes Men

The Yes Men’s primary focus of their criticism is targeted at large corporations and other entities who tend to cover the negative details of their operations in order to maximize their profit. The primary method that the Yes Men utilize to criticize the media is satire through hoaxes that involve posing as representatives from the organizations that they are focusing on, effectively spoofing the organizations to draw attention to a problem.

The concept from the class that they are addressing the most is the idea of false consciousness. This idea states that “in capitalism, there is a disconnect between appearances and reality.” This is true of many of the organizations that the Yes Men target. Many of them hide the realities of the unpleasant and damaging facts about the way they make money. They do this throught the manipulation of the media and controlling what information goes out to the public about them. In this way, they can better control their public image. The Yes Men seek to expose the negative aspects of these organizations, so that they may be held accountable for their action and be pressured to improve. However, one interesting problem that they encounter is the fact that these organizations often see no wrong in what they are doing. This demonstrates the fact that the media is often self-serving, and believes that profiting off of its methods causes no harm, and if they are aware that it is negative, they are apathetic to it. The Yes Men seek to change this thinking, and force the conscience to play a bigger role in the actions of these large organizations.

Blog 11_Wk_8_The_Yes_Men

The “Yes Men’s” critique of media focuses on how corporations use the media to subconsciously play with the human psyche, through the use of natural disasters, or emotional events that really touch people’s hearts. This leads consumers to believe the companies in question actually care, but they are just there to sell a product, albeit subtle so people think that they are in control of what they are investing in, but are really not.

To accomplish this, the Yes Men utilize pranks, which are to a high extreme to highlight how easily and absurdly, that these companies manipulate their consumers or investors. This is evident in their prank against DOW, admitting to their responsibility in the Bhopal event, causing their stock to plummet, yet juxtaposed with the fact that most of the investors who lost out were working class people, it sets up an interesting paradox. All of this directly relates to the “subconscious”, as mentioned earlier, and how society is unassumingly being manipulated without realizing it, and the Yes Men show us this simply by performing hyper-exaggerated stunts.

Blog #11- The Yes Men

In the film "The Yes Men Fix The World" the Yes Men use satire to point out the hypocrisy in several government organizations. The first example that they present has to do with George W. Bush’s website. This is during the time that he was still the governor of Texas. He had stated that he had helped to create a more “green” environment yet in reality he had made the state more polluted. The Yes Men had attained a url that was very similar to GWB’s website’s url. They the proceeded to mimic the look and layout of the website. They posted their critique of GWB on the website. Along with their written critique they also mocked the image on the original site by posting an image on the mock site of GWB pointed at an African American person. They used this satire to point out the hypocrisies in the information that is being fed to the American public. This points out the false consciousness that is ever present in our society. Karl Marx’s idea of false consciousness is very applicable. In our capitalistic society the Yes Men point out disconnect between appearances and reality. People are lead to believe something that works against them, people have been mislead and lied to. The Yes Men take these fallacies and point them out in a way that is entertaining so people will take the time to listen and pay attention to what they have to say. The general population is much more likely to pay attention to a prank than read a lengthy article that is confusing. In this way the Yes Men use media to break down the media that is already presented. People blindly believe what the media tells them, the Yes Men challenge that and make people realize that there is always another outlook.

Yes Men: Blog #11

In their documentary "The Yes Men", Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno aim to highlight the control and manipulation which large organizations and representatives have upon the general public. The men claim that no matter how preposterous a product or how foul an idea, the business conglomerates may produce and market it by making the item appear useful and relevant to business. Through pranks and elaborate stunts, the yes men reveal how we, as a society, buy into a system which oppresses and controls us. They claim that media as a whole controls and commands our actions, though we may not be consciously aware of it.

The yes men's hilarious pranks work towards explaining the workings of media and how it influences us on a daily basis. By performing ridiculous stunts, they parallel the crazy and sometimes absurd products which the media strives to market . Often we are sold a product by hearing a tragic story or an over-the-top success story which, although somewhat unbelievable, nevertheless gets the product sold. This concept was best exemplified by the yes men's "Survivaball", with which a person could protect his or herself from anything. Such a ridiculous concept, which would presumably be shot down immediately, was in fact picked up by several insurance companies. This goes to show that with the proper marketing and advertising, one can sell almost anything.

The term false consciousness most closely relates to the experiments of the Yes Men. The public blindly and subconsciously accepts the advertising and statements of these large companies as they see no reason to distrust them. They blindly trust the information they are fed.

In conclusion, the Yes Men's goal of uncovering the shortcomings, hypocrisies and falsehoods of the media and large corporations reveals not only our willingness as a culture to blindly accept that which we are presented with, but also the immense planning which goes into selling the most ridiculous of products.

Video Vortex: Blog #10

The Practice of everyday life by Lev Manovich: In his article, Lev addresses the idea of web 2.0. He comments on how there has been a definite shift from professional and company-produced videos to more public and personal videos. Anyone may now post a film on just about anything. This has not only allowed for a more constant and stronger form of communication within the public, but has created a web-based society.

Codecs and Capability by Sean Cubitt: Media sites create formats and codecs which monitor and limit the creative aspect of art media production as well as the reproduction of older media.

Both authors strongly agree on the fact that with the increased participation and customization of sites such as youtube and facebook, the world of web 2.0 has taken off and is expected to greatly increase in the years to come. Manovich highlights the reasons for such an increase in participation; with many sites gaining funding based on their number of visitors, the ability for any individual to post whatever they chose about their life has increased. By allowing the general public to post videos relevant to their own lives, websites have guaranteed participation. Cubitt heartily agrees with this point, stating the ability for every hobby, fetish and preference to be recognized and demonstrated all via the web. Each individual is capable of posting personally relevant material and is thus more likely to do so again in the future.

The largest difference between the two men's arguments is their general attitude toward the new age of web 2.0. Manovich highlights a more positive result in which any individual is validated and seen via the web. Cubitt instead illuminates the "old lie", claiming that the viewer is never alone. While he or she feels highly connected and pertinent to the success of the webpage, he or she is in fact irrelevant in the greater scheme of things.

In conclusion, while each author has a slightly different attitude and approach towards the increase of web 2.0 and in particular youtube, both agree on the positive feelings and positive actions it induces.No matter the reality of how disconnected an individual is from the world, through expressing whatever is relevant to them, they gain a sense of belonging.

The Yes Men

The Yes Men use spoof skits to show how the government degrades the public. The Yes Men use the media to disseminate their messages. They create press conferences that portray them as a company executive, making an ironic or satyrical statement, and broadcast it. When the spoof is discovered as fake, it in turn draws more attention on the topic. The Yes Men use the media not only to make their direct statements, but also to influence more coverage on their topic once they have done the spoof.
This shows how the media influences the lives of the public. It is able to captivate viewers and help them form opinions. Public opinion is a direct result of the mass media. This public sphere of media is where the norms of society, and the opinions of the masses are formed.
The Yes Men use their spoofs to play an active role in the Public Sphere. They present the material in a satyrical way that forces the public to critically think about the topic or issue. Their side is given a chance to become a common opinion. The Public Sphere is influenced by all of their spoofs, and in turn becomes a dynamic collaboration of mass opinion.

Blog #10-Video Vortex

Sean Cubitt makes the critique that what makes a YouTube video good is the quality of the images and the clearness of the sound. He states that when the video has a high keyframe rate, a abundance of vibrant of colors, and is original is what makes YouTube videos intriguing. I agree with this because I personally am more attracted to the videos that have these attributes. Keep in mind that humor also has a large part to do with video choice.

Geert Lovink on the other hand states that even though the technology was present in 1997, it wasn’t until 2006 and the launch of YouTube that videos and video chatting became tremendously popular. The internet has so much information available and you have the ability to post pretty much anything you please as long as it does not infringe on copyrights. This is big issue with YouTube videos. But on the computer people rarely have just one window open but rather multi tasking. A word processing program as well as several internet windows, maybe even a video chat with a friend hundreds or thousands of miles away. This is very true and a large part of a lot of peoples everyday life. Social networking cites are also commonly frequented. YouTube is just so distracting. You watch one video and then you see another one in the recommended videos that seems interesting and it just continues on.

Blog 10_Wk_8_Video_Vortex: PP 9-44

“The Art of Watching Databases Introduction to the Video Vortex Reader” ,Geert Lovink

This article focused on how today’s media culture had developed such a short attention span, because we are inundated with short clips that are thus linked more clips of the same manner, wasting most of our time.

“The Practice of Everyday (Media) Life”, Lev Manovich

This article focused on the fact that the new Web 2.0 has made the professional artist obsolete in that everyone is able to produce something and post it online, and that it is less about the art, then it is about communicating with other people over similar interests.

Lovink and Manovich agree on the part that sites like Youtube and Facebook have made it increasingly easy to express ones’ self on the internet, and has extremely expanded the amount of content created by non-professional people for other non-professionals viewing it. Yet their biggest disagreement focuses on whether or not this multitude of short or fast media is good or bad for society, and whether or not someone is profiting off of it. Lovink believes that it has shortened peoples’ attention span, and has undermined the appreciation for true art with an actual meaning or story to tell. Lovink also supports the idea that this media is tracked by advertising companies and such to turn a profit, thus making the media posted on these sites less valuable. On the other side of the issue, Manovinch simply accepts the fact that the Web 2.0 movement is the face of media, and that it is good that anyone can be a “producer” now. And more importantly, Manovich is unsure of the ability of companies to “data track” people, which seems highly ignorant to me, but it also depends on when the piece was written. But in the end, both agree on the new, fast and short term focused form of media.

Yes Men

Yes Men can save my world! Deconstructing one ad at a time! The Yes Men expose how big companies market products to consumers. Also; Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno plan a hilarious stunt where they pose as a representative from Dow chemicals, and tell the BBC that they will pay billions in reparations to victims of a chemical spill. This stunt reveals the callus nature of corporations and the government. In reality companies would never pay out more than they have to. The Yes Men make the impossible possible. These elaborate pranks make people think. The pranks reveal that we all buy into a system that oppresses us. This reminds me of false conciousness by Karl Marx. We perpetuate the system because we believe it is the only way life and government can exist. Big corporations and government agencies brain wash us. The Yes Men reveal that we allow these huge corporations get away with murder! If we stand up and realize what is happening to us, we have a chance to change the system.

Blog #11: The Yes Men

By exaggerating reality, The Yes Men, Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, emphasize how easily companies are manipulating their products and policies and consequently their consumers. Their critique of media is that companies can sell even the most absurd items simply by making them appear extremely useful to the company-constructed consumer perspective. This most closely relates to false consciousness, because society is subconsciously accepting the messages of these companies as facts because they have no reason to think otherwise. The Yes Men pulled ridiculous pranks (like the haliburton survivor ball) in order to make people aware of key points the media fails to mention, as well as the points that are mentioned but are twisted in the company’s favor. In other words, they are lying to gain the truth about the convoluted representations of companies in society. Humor is an effective way to reach public audiences; the Yes Men use many satirical representations of these companies in order to break down the workings of the media and convey their deceitful ways and absurd hyprocrisies. One joke they make is “How many Americans does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” with the answer of “12. 1 to climb the ladder and 11 to file the lawsuit.” This example demonstrates how Americans have been brainwashed into making simple aspects of life extremely complex merely because companies know that more complexity generates more money. They claim that the world is run by “wealth, money, privacy, and freedom”, but they only think this because companies have taught the world that money is so essential to success. The only problem with this system is that while it helps the companies gain wealth and maintain their privacy, it has the exact opposite effect for the consumer society. This negative effect is what The Yes Men are attempting to remedy by making the consumers aware of the companies’ schemes, and ultimately “fix the world.”

The Yes Men Fix the World

The Yes Men’s critique of the media is that the large corporations that run the media are surely destroying the world, whether in a slow or quick fashion. These guys pose as representatives of these various corporations and twist their goals to fit what they should be doing, which is the right thing. Instead these corporation will do seemingly anything to turn a profit. This is especially well used in their prank where they used Gilda the Golden Skeleton, talking about deals that a big company can make and those deals being one of two types of skeletons in the closet: a normal skeleton in the closet where the things that happened were bad and they are just a monkey on the company’s back or a golden skeleton where bad things happened but at least some money was made.

Their pranks break down the ridiculous methods of how the media will promote equally ridiculous products and subversive concepts or ideas. For example, the “vivoleum” candles were marketed as being made from 80% of the remains of a terminally-ill Exxon employee, who was in reality a comedian, went with what they called the “gross” approach to marketing how the media works. The media will often get you to buy or endorse something, no matter how ridiculous it may be, by attaching a sob story to it that will make people leap out of their chairs and go buy something. Another great example, which was actually the most famous one from the movie, was the Halliburton Survivaball where a person could put themselves in this stupid-looking inflatable costume and protect themselves from anything. The best part about it was that they presented it at a conference with many people in the insurance business and, after the ridiculous marketing strategy that the Yes Men showed these people, they actually took it seriously and talked to the Yes Men afterwards about ways to apply it to certain situations, including terrorist attacks. This just goes to show that the media can make you believe just about anything.

The term that aligns with the Yes Men best is Antonio Gramsci’s “hegemony,” the means by which a people are party to their own oppression where control is achieved by consensus, not force. Their work shows that we the people are so immersed and pummeled day after day by the media that we just believe whatever they say out of self-preservation. The Yes Men’s mission, however, is to try and break us out of our hegemony and take back the government and, in turn, the world by trying to get us to rise up by showing what the companies really do and also what the world could be, as was done in their The New York Times: Special Edition.

Blog 10_Wk_8_Video_Vortex: PP 9-44

1) “The Art of Watching Databases: Introduction to the Video Vortex Reader”

Americans are becoming more on-the-go than ever, with less tolerance for tasks that require more time. Their short attention spans are satisfied by YouTube, because they can watch a bunch of small clips instead of one continuous movie.

2) "CodeCs and CaPabiLity"

Our society relies on technology, and we find ourselves being anxious or angry when it fails us.

Both articles emphasize the importance that our society places on technology. Technology makes things quicker and easier, emphasizing article 1's main point. Article 2 is overt in saying that our society is obsessed with technology. YouTube is a way for people to use the new technologies for their own enjoyment and self-advertising. It is a quicker and easier way to gain followers and fans. It is also a quick way to get pass the time. Article 1 suggests that Americans are so obsessed with convenience that watching a 90 minute movie is too tedious. We want entertainment- and we want it NOW. And we don't want it to drag on. Article 2 suggests that if the technology of a film is poor (pixilated, loads too slow, etc.), Americans also get annoyed. It is not convenient if it takes 5 minutes to load.

The two articles both touch on the fact that YouTube is degrading professional made films. People don't want to watch these anymore, thus contributing to our obsession with the more tech-savvy trend.

YouTube

Constructive Instability’ Thomas Elesaesser

Avant garde art diminishes and becomes obsolete in the wake of technological innovation. Humans live in a virtual reality where they interact with machines.

The Practices of Everyday Media by Lev Manovich

We produce our own media but the tools used to make media comes from commercial sources.

Both these articles articulate the ways in which we interact with computers and social networking. If you put both articles together it becomes apparent that this cultural shift to social networking has vast negative consequences. Avant garde art slips away into oblivion as we become more and more plugged into computers. The public sphere disapear as we disapear into the computer. Originality is vanishing because the templates in which people create art on the computer are produced commercially.

Blog #10: Youtube Articles

The Practice of Everyday (Media) Life by Lev Manovich: The Web 2.0 version has expanded the web from mainly professional produced videos, to more unprofessional users generated media content, possibly influenced by electronic companies and/or media-sites themsevles, as well as become a constant means of communication for the ever-growing web-based society.

Codecs and Capability by Sean Cubitt: The creative aspect of the production of art media, as well as the reproduction of older media being streamed on the web, is limited by codecs and formats that are regulated by media sites.

Both Manovich and Cubitt have determined that webwork is flourishing via customization. Popular media sites such as Facebook, myspace, and youtube uploading statistics are soaring with the expansion of the Web 2.0 and are projected to increase in the coming years. One of the reasons behind this successful expansion is that the media is now granting endless options for user customization. This customization trend is also spreading to products outside the web including well-known car and shoe brands, and consequently turning cultures into products. Cubitt further emphasizes how with this growing customization everyone can go online and find art pertaining to their own personal interest. The only problems with this customization process are the ones created by lack of tools. Manovich points out that defining strategies and tactics is becoming difficult to determine as media-based websites continuously develop new methods in order to encourage web users to upload as much media content of their own development and their own lives as possible, while still monitoring the formats in which they are allowed to upload this information . By limiting an artist’ tools, it is questionable how artistic media art created within web constraints really is. However, both authors acknowledge art has flourished with the development of Web 2.0, but is it ultimately benefitting artists or hindering them? The web allows design students to present their work to an accessible global audience and get feedback on their pieces, as well as easily observe other newly emerging art forms. However, the web restricts art in its natural form because despite the diversity of the content, when uploaded to sites such as Youtube, they are all converted to the same format. While this uniformity makes art more universally accessible, could this be viewed as standardizing the creative aspect of art? Despite artistic differences, all video art is produced using the same codes and similar programs. Because these programs and formats have restrictions such as color limitations and preset pixilations, is the media created off of them still classified as original and creative artwork? These formats are republishing art in lower resolutions and not only degrading their artistic value, but daring to dishonor the quality of their artists; sites such as Youtube portray artwork in incomplete forms. While new forms and codecs are constantly being created to lift these limitations, constant progression also makes it inevitably unpredictable.

Blog 10_Wk_8_Video_Vortex

Geert Lovnik, “The Art of Watching Databases: Introduction to the Video Vortex Reader.”

YouTube has created a form of entertainment that adds to or relies on the shortened attention span of our current generation through “searchability” and the vast abundance of short video clips that can be watched for hours rather than a 90 minute movie.

Jean Burgess, “All Your Chocolate Rain Are Belong To Us?: Viral Video, YouTube and the Dynamics of Participatory Culture.”

Viral videos, videos seen by a lot of people, are a big part of a participatory culture in that in order for the videos to be viewed, someone has to create and submit a video to YouTube, and then people have to view the film and let others know about the video so it becomes popular but these videos also breed their own brand of popularity by imitation, with the videos “Chocolate Rain” and “Guitar.”

Lovnik and Burgess agree on the fact that people have “enough time” to participate in the YouTube culture and do it to the extent that they parody, copy, or imitate a certain video or piece of music that has come before their video. Lovnik breaks down the general issues presented by YouTube into categories such as WWW-ADHD, “Total Attention,” and “Teenage Blues.” Burgess, on the other hand, critiques YouTube directly in terms of its facilitation of a participatory culture using the videos “Chocolate Rain” and “Guitar,” commenting on the replication of each of the two videos by many others in order to test themselves, parody, or just plain copy the video in terms of setting and overall mise-en-scene.

Critical Concepts Dictionary

I first heard of Noam Chomsky in a linguistics class, in which we discussed his idea of universal grammar. I was very intrigued by the idea, as I interpreted his search for the unifying characteristics of all languages as being a quest for universal truth. I was pleasantly surprised to run into Chomsky again while watching manufactured consent. In the documentary Chomsky discusses his concept of the propaganda model, in which public opinion is manipulated by control of media. Chomsky points out that while propaganda is often associated with fascism and despotism, in fact it is a far more useful tool for democratic governments, in which the ruling power relies more on subversive manipulation than direct military threat in order to control the will of the people. Another interesting point that Chomsky brings up in the movie is that propaganda functions in part by the exclusion, or filtering out, of other ideas within the media. In this way, the illusion of freedom to choose content remains, while the exclusion of contrasting/competing ideas goes unnoticed.

Shepard Fairey

Shepard Fairey is a contributor to media critique through the concept of “Culture jamming.” Culture Jamming is a social movement where one takes an image/texts etc. from the mainstream media and tries to disrupt the originated social meaning of the set image/text etc. through it’s own mode of presentation. This form of critique is often aimed toward consumerism and conformity within culture. Shepard Fairey does this through his obey brand company originally linked to the skating world but known today by many for his “Hope” ads of Obama’s election in 2008.

Blog 9B_Week6_ Critical Concepts Dictionary

Hasan Elahi:
Contributed to the theory of Self-surveillance, or chronicling your own activities where there is no other witness to attribute said activity to your person. Pursued this initially as an art style after being racially profiled at an airport due to his middle-eastern descent and being interrogated about his whereabouts in the previous days.

Blog 9B_Week6_ Critical Concepts Dictionary

Jesse Drew lectured on the topic of the power of media to manipulate through images and words. He used the example of American knowledge about communism as a prime example of how information is construed and twisted so as to leave people blind to the other options left open to them. With his video, he highlighted how easy it is to control images to convey a certain message and "filter" that down to the lower levels of society and spoon feed it to them. Drew's main concern was "censorship", or the power to control information. With editing, he displayed this though his communist laden video, "Manifestoon".

Critical Concepts Dictionary- Blog 9B

Theorist J.L. Austin, a British philosopher, studied and explored the effects of language, especially within media. He focused on the ability to use words toward influencing others and producing a desired effect. He believed that words do more than state verifiable things (or Constative functions), and that in some cases words make things happen, serving as Performative functions. Austin defines Performative words as "I do", "I promise", etcetera; all words which induce an action( in this case a wedding or the formation of trust). These actions, Austin said, must be within the context of a felicitous situation, or a circumstance which enables the occurrence of said proceedings. Another way in which words cause something to happen is in the form of speech acts; when something is said and something very tangible occurs as a result. All of Austin's observations allowed for an increased understanding of how strong and influential the power of words is. His theories may be readily applied to the media, our culture and advertising.

Blog #9b: Critical Concepts Dictionary

Artist and guest speaker Darren Martin, advocates that “consumers are the controlled products of television.” Unlike other theorists, Martin blames television as the main culprit of advertising corruption as opposed to big corporations. Consumers use television as a means of entertainment without realizing that “popular entertainment is propaganda for the masses.”( Martin) Viewers absorb the products and trends within the entertainment world and attempt to imitate them. This act of imitation is orchestrated in order to keep up with the entertainment world’s version of the status quo. Whether this imitation is done consciously or unconsciously, it is apparent that multiple aspects of consumer life are being determined by television. In other words, media events are only something that happen because consumers make them happen. The media softens events and trends that may have previously appeared as unreasonable, and encourage consumers to experience them firsthand. By continuing to thrive off the media’s messages consumers fund the continuation of their own brainwashing.

Blog 9B_Week6_ Critical Concepts Dictionary

One theorist mentioned in lecture was Jurgen Habermas, he coined the tern the “the public sphere”. He was a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory. Habermas defined the public sphere as a theater in modern societies on which political participation is enacted through the medium of talk and realm of social life in which public opinion can be formed. (1962) The public sphere mediates between the private sphere and sphere of public authority. It is a site for production and circulation of discourses that can be critical of the state. The public sphere is distinct from the economy as in its discourse relations and not market relations. It is thought of as an essential of participatory democracy.

Blog 9B_Week6_ Critical Concepts Dictionary

Jesse Drew, head of the technocultural studies program at Davis, was a guest lecturer.

He explained media filtering.

This is the concept that us as a society do not have access to everything in the world. The world we live in and the products we consumed are "filtered" by the media.

The media takes the real world and breaks it down. What we are exposed to is what the media lets us be exposed to. Free will and choice do not exist according to this concept. Everything we have access to has been carefully selected and processed by the media. Our 'free will' is a result of conditioning from the media.

Critical Concepts dictionary-Media Burn SF

Visting artist Darren Martin showed a short movie about an avant garde performance art group called "Media Burn". The movie centered around a spoof event orchestrated on July 4th 1975. Two "dummy artists" (as they were called) drove a cadillac into a stack of TVs. Before the actual event took place an actor dressed up like JKF did a formal speech about the importance of this event. The mock president said "The world may never understand what happened here today, but the image will never be forgotten". The speech critiqued the medias hierarchy and its ability to control the masses. The event decontextualized the 'spectacle' of mass media. For example; Darren stated that "the media takes individual events like 9/11 and completely takes them out of context by ignoring the historical events that lead up to it". Thus making an event like 9/11 seem like a spectacle and unrelated to anything.

Critical Thinking Assignment 3

Critical Concepts: Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin wrote his seminal work "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" in 1935 and his thesis was that with the advent of the camera and other forms of mechanical reproduction art has lost what he calls its "aura." For example, an actor's performance on stage has a certain aura of authenticity but when it is captured on video that aura is lost.