Recycled Media
Arturo's comments about the tendency of media to return to the familiar came as I was planning to post about something I noticed recently on an episode of the television series "Mad Men". I was struck by the look of one of the female characters because she was so like someone out of a Modigliani (1884-1920) painting. I guess Art has always been mined for its visual riches, with an artist's view of the world of his or her making affecting how others see, but commercial media turns so much, if not all, into a commodity. I can understand why the new technologies and Digital Culture offer opportunities for public expression before they have come under the regulation, control, and manipulation of the power structure. Of course, it is ironic that Modigliani died tragically at 35 of the ravages of poverty and addiction, never having achieved success with his art in his lifetime since his visual ideas have been made profitable by museums and the media.
Comments
When you stand before a "real" painting for example, you can experience what Benjamin calls its aura. I think the reason this is so, is because in that piece of canvas or rock or forged metal, a significant part of an artist life is literally trapped, think if you wish on the transfer of energy if you feel uncomfortable with the concept of the aura in a work of art, which is absent in the mechanical reproduction. (read The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin if you have not done so)
The artist has stood and labored, sometimes for years, wrestling and shaping and transferring her vision into matter. This matter, which in its very form contains that vision, releases its energy in the presence of the willing spectator/participant.
In today's internet dominated media landscape, even with the early promises of free individual expression, we can see that it has become very rapidly yet another channel of distribution of the dominant culture's ideas.
As the technology becomes ubiquitous and transparent, we might think that content is all that matters, that we as artists have the freedom of expressing and communicating our ideas. But I think that art without aura or some would say soul is a poor facsimile that gets drowned by the medium itself.
Now, don't take me wrong, I am not saying that the digital matrix or milieu where we now conduct our daily business, communication and where we spend more and more of our life, is incapable of transmitting the powerful ideas that come from the creative mind. But, as Esme said, we would be hard pressed to fight against our art becoming a commodity and a commercial opportunity where expression is all but hidden from the point and click.
So, it is up to us to help shape, from the ground up, using the power of this medium, the way in which this technology is used, by critically reflecting how culture is being modeled by it and to whose benefit.