"One of the simplest ways to conceptualize the becomingness of liminal space in media is to think of the virtual. In his essay 'The Reality of the Virtual,' Slavoj Žižek addresses Gilles Deleuze's notion of the virtual as 'pure becoming without being,' which is ''always forthcoming an already past,'' but is never present or corporeal.[7] The virtual is a liminal space that consists only of its becomingness–state, and not an actual being or object to become. It exists as pure becoming that suspends both 'sequentiality and directionality'; it is a passage, but there is no line of passage.[8]"
(Allison Wright, The Chicago School of Media Theory)
"Every week Tony Abbott makes another comment that reveals very concerning social views. Commentators blow them off as 'gaffes', but this isn't about gaffes. It's about values. It's about our national character if our Prime Minister labels refugees who seek our help as 'illegal', even as they exercise their legal, human right to flee danger. It's about the message we send to young gay and lesbian Australians, if our Prime Minister talks about their equality as a 'passing fashion,' and what that does to their self–esteem. It's about our values if a Prime Minister talks to 'the housewives of Australia as they're doing their ironing,' says his colleagues are 'not just a pretty face' and have 'sex appeal' and calls on his opponent to 'make an honest woman of herself'. Prime Ministers reflect our national values, and have the power to change them radically. Does what Tony Abbott says matter? Well, in 17 days he wants to be speaking for all of us. That's why GetUp members are launching this ad. Will you be part of it?"
(GetUp!)
"this blog is nina wenhart's collection of resources on the various histories of new media art. it consists mainly of non or very little edited material i found flaneuring on the net, sometimes with my own annotations and comments, sometimes it's also textparts i retyped from books that are out of print.
it is also meant to be an additional resource of information and recommended reading for my students of the prehystories of new media class that i teach at the school of the art institute of chicago in fall 2008.
the focus is on the time period from the beginning of the 20th century up to today."
(Nina Wenhart, 26/06/2008)
"Oil billionaires Charles and David Koch's tremendous spending power and reach––what the media has dubbed the 'Kochtopus'––is unrivaled. The conservative nonprofit David founded, Americans for Prosperity, has said it plans to spend $45 million this election cycle, more than three times the $13 million the Democratic Governors Association has on hand as of mid–October. There's no way of knowing how much the Kochs have given to the AFP or any other group; new Senate legislation allows tax exempt nonprofits to raise unlimited funds without disclosure. Publicly, only about $3.9 million can be traced to the brothers, including a $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association from David, a former vice presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party."
(Clare O'Connor, Forbes.com, 21 October 2010)
Fig.1 Scott Mitchell (6 April 2011 at 01:32pm). "The Beast File: Koch Brothers", ABC News, [available at: http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/stories/beast–file–koch–brothers] via: mrpolity1 (uploaded 2 June 2011). "Koch Brothers – The Kochtopus", YouTube
"How often do we hear that people just don't care? How many times have you been told that real, substantial change isn't possible because most people are too selfish, too stupid or too lazy to try to make a difference in their community? I propose to you today that apathy as we think we know it doesn't actually exist, but rather, that people do care, but that we live in a world that actively discourages engagement by constantly putting obstacles and barriers in our way.
And I'll give you some examples of what I mean. Let's start with city hall. You ever see one of these before? This is a newspaper ad. It's a notice of a zoning application change for a new office building so the neighborhood knows what's happening. As you can see, it's impossible to read. You need to get halfway down to even find out which address they're talking about, and then farther down, in tiny 10–point font to find out how to actually get involved. Imagine if the private sector advertised in the same way –– if Nike wanted to sell a pair of shoes and put an ad in the paper like that. (Applause) Now that would never happen. You'll never see an ad like that, because Nike actually wants you to buy their shoes. Whereas the city of Toronto clearly doesn't want you involved with the planning process, otherwise their ads would look something like this –– with all the information basically laid out clearly. As long as the city's putting out notices like this to try to get people engaged, then, of course, people aren't going to be engaged. But that's not apathy; that's intentional exclusion.
Public space. (Applause) The manner in which we mistreat our public spaces is a huge obstacle towards any type of progressive political change. Because we've essentially put a price tag on freedom of expression. Whoever has the most money gets the loudest voice, dominating the visual and mental environment. The problem with this model is that there are some amazing messages that need to be said that aren't profitable to say. So you're never going to see them on a billboard.
The media plays an important role in developing our relationship with political change, mainly by ignoring politics and focusing on celebrities and scandals. But even when they do talk about important political issues, they do it in a way that I feel discourages engagement. And I'll give you an example: the Now magazine from last week –– progressive, downtown weekly in Toronto. This is the cover story. It's an article about a theater performance, and it starts with basic information about where it is, in case you actually want to go and see it after you've read the article –– where, the time, the website. Same with this –– it's a movie review, an art review, a book review –– where the reading is in case you want to go. A restaurant –– you might not want to just read about it, maybe you want to go to the restaurant. So they tell you where it is, what the prices are, the address, the phone number, etc.
Then you get to their political articles. Here's a great article about an important election race that's happening. It talks about the candidates –– written very well –– but no information, no follow–up, no websites for the campaigns, no information about when the debates are, where the campaign offices are. Here's another good article about a new campaign opposing privatization of transit without any contact information for the campaign. The message seems to be that the readers are most likely to want to eat, maybe read a book, maybe see a movie, but not be engaged in their community. And you might think this is a small thing, but I think it's important because it sets a tone and it reinforces the dangerous idea that politics is a spectator sport.
Heroes: How do we view leadership? Look at these 10 movies. What do they have in common? Anyone? They all have heroes who were chosen. Someone came up to them and said, "You're the chosen one. There's a prophesy. You have to save the world." And then someone goes off and saves the world because they've been told to, with a few people tagging along. This helps me understand why a lot of people have trouble seeing themselves as leaders. Because it sends all the wrong messages about what leadership is about. A heroic effort is a collective effort, number one. Number two, it's imperfect; it's not very glamorous; and it doesn't suddenly start and suddenly end. It's an ongoing process your whole life. But most importantly, it's voluntary. It's voluntary. As long as we're teaching our kids that heroism starts when someone scratches a mark on your forehead, or someone tells you that you're part of a prophecy, they're missing the most important characteristic of leadership, which is that it comes from within. It's about following your own dreams –– uninvited, uninvited –– and then working with others to make those dreams come true.
Political parties: oh boy. Political parties could and should be one of the basic entry points for people to get engaged in politics. Instead, they've become, sadly, uninspiring and uncreative organizations that rely so heavily on market research and polling and focus groups that they end up all saying the same thing, pretty much regurgitating back to us what we already want to hear at the expense of putting forward bold and creative ideas. And people can smell that, and it feeds cynicism. (Applause)
Charitable status: Groups who have charitable status in Canada aren't allowed to do advocacy. This is a huge problem and a huge obstacle to change, because it means that some of the most passionate and informed voices are completely silenced, especially during election time. Which leads us to the last one, which is our elections.
As you may have noticed, our elections in Canada are a complete joke. We use out–of–date systems that are unfair and create random results. Canada's currently led by a party that most Canadians didn't actually want. How can we honestly and genuinely encourage more people to vote when votes don't count in Canada? You add all this up together and of course people are apathetic. It's like trying to run into a brick wall.
Now I'm not trying to be negative by throwing all these obstacles out and explaining what's in our way. Quite the opposite: I actually think people are amazing and smart and that they do care. But that, as I said, we live in this environment where all these obstacles are being put in our way. As long as we believe that people, our own neighbors, are selfish, stupid or lazy, then there's no hope. But we can change all those things I mentioned. We can open up city hall. We can reform our electoral systems. We can democratize our public spaces.
My main message is, if we can redefine apathy, not as some kind of internal syndrome, but as a complex web of cultural barriers that reinforces disengagement, and if we can clearly define, we can clearly identify, what those obstacles are, and then if we can work together collectively to dismantle those obstacles, then anything is possible.
Thank you. (Applause)"
(Dave Meslin)
Fig.1 TEDxToronto 2010, filmed October 2011; posted April 2011
"The most striking result is the difference between the manipulability of the Hare [IRV] system and the other systems. Because the [IRV] system considers only 'current' first preferences, it appears to be extremely difficult to manipulate. To be successful, a coalition must usually throw enough support to losing candidates to eliminate the sincere winner (the winner when no preferences are misrepresented) at an early stage, but still leave an agreed upon candidate with sufficient first–place strength to win. This turns out to be quite difficult to do."
(Chamberlin, Cohen and Coombs, 1984)
John R. Chamberlin, Jerry. L. Cohen and Clyde H. Coombs (1984). 'Social Choice Observed: Five Presidential Elections of the American Psychological Association.' The Journal of Politics 46(2): pp. 479–502.
Fig.1 Chair Judge Geraldine Sell, green sweater, sorted ballots with dozens of others during the first day of hand–counting in Minneapolis, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009. The hand–counting is required in Minneapolis because of the instant runoff voting process. (MPR Photo/Jeffrey Thompson)
"The key the to the development of instant runoff voting (IRV) was the invention of the single transferable vote (STV) in the 1850's by Thomas Hare in England and Carl Andrae in Denmark. The essence of STV is the concept that a citizen would have one vote in a particular contest, but that that vote might be transferred from one candidate to another according to each voter's ranking of candidates, depending on the aggregate result of other voters' ballots. Hare devised this balloting and counting procedure in creating a system of proportional representation.
IRV, however, is not a system of proportional representation. Instead, IRV uses the STV innovation in a winner–take–all context. Instant runoff voting, using a preference ballot, was invented by an American, W. R. Ware, a Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, around 1870. The first known use of IRV in a governmental election was in 1893 in Queensland, Australia. However, this was a modified version of IRV in which all candidates except the top two were eliminated in a batch rather than sequentially, as in the pure form of IRV. The 'staggered runoff' concept that we understand today as IRV was first used in Western Australia in 1908.
IRV, called 'alternative vote' in Australia, came to be used in most Australian legislative elections, although it was superseded by Hare's STV system of proportional representation for the federal Senate. IRV is still used for electing members of the lower house. IRV is also used in other nations, such as Ireland. In the United Kingdom, the Jenkins Commission, appointed by the new government, released their report October 29 that recommends the use of IRV for electing the House of Commons (with proportional representation achieved through the election of additional members based on the popular vote for parties nationally). ...
The single transferable vote is a more common voting procedure in the U.S. than most of us realize. Even the Academy Awards uses STV in determining their finalists. The American Political Science Association (APSA), the organization of political science professors, uses IRV to elect their national president, since political scientists understand that IRV is the fairest and simplest way to elect a single winner from a field of candidates."
(Center for Voting and Democracy, Washington, D.C.)
"The Conformist is a difficult film, not because its themes are heavy or its form too radical, but because the statement it proposes is a tad indigestible. Once you get over its slight simplification of ideas and reasons, it is a sweeping masterwork that you are looking at. I probably haven't seen any film that as clearly reveal how we have all confused sexuality with morality, morality with religion, religion with politics and politics with security. The tension is palpable in almost every shot of the film. Consider the central scene of sheer cinematic awesomeness where Quadri and Clerici recollect what actually went wrong. Using staggering interplay of light and shadow, gestures and movements and room space and sound, Bertolucci develops the central motif of the film in pure film language, without ever betraying the diegesis of the film. Bertolucci's script takes up Plato's Allegory of the Cave, which suggests that humans are all prisoners inside a dark cave unable to differentiate between real objects and the shadows that they cast on the walls, and adapts it so as to examine the dark history of the country. It is after this point that every element of the film cries out for attention and the ambivalence of the central character brought to light. Especially remarkable is the final shot of the film where, after Italo is swept away by a Rossellinian crowd, Clerici sits on a low platform near the fire, looking towards a homosexual street dweller through prison–like iron bars, still unsure of his political, sexual and moral footing."
(Just Another Film Buff @ The Seventh Art)
"On Friday 11th February 2011, the Coalition Government published the Protection of Freedoms Bill. ... Some of the measures came from the 14,000 ideas left on the Your Freedom website.
The Government is committed to continuing this public engagement with the content of the Protection of Freedoms Bill. This website gives you the opportunity to comment on each clause contained in the Bill. Your comments will get collated at the end of this public consultation and fed through directly to the Parliamentarians who will carry the Bill through the House of Commons (go to the Parliament website to learn about the passage of a bill). These comments will assist and challenge MPs, aiding their scrutiny and debate on the details of the Bill. This is a pilot for the 'public reading stage' that the Government wants to introduce to give the public an increased say in all bills"
(UK Cabinet Office, 2011)
"Efforts to improve political engagement don't come much bigger than the work done by AmericaSpeaks.org, which has set itself a mission to 'reinvigorate American democracy by engaging citizens in the public decision–making that most impacts their lives'.
One of its recent efforts was a 'national town meeting' to discuss ways of dealing with America's federal budget deficit. It saw 3,500 Americans gathered at 57 sites across the country on June 26, 2010.
Participants from a range of social and political backgrounds debated 42 options for closing the deficit (a report to Congress is available), and at the end of the day 91 per cent said they were 'very satisfied' or 'satisfied' with the tone and quality of the discussion.
And in an interesting result that shows the value of deliberation and discussion, only 15 per cent said their views were not at all influenced by others and just three per cent said they did not learn anything during the meeting."
(eDemocracyBlog.com, 7 December 2010)
"The UK Film Council became one of the highest profile quangos to be axed by the coalition government after culture secretary Jeremy Hunt unexpectedly announced its abolition.
In a raft of mergings, streamlinings and closures, Hunt also axed the Museums, Libraries and Archives council (MLA). ...
Film producer Tim Bevan, who chairs the council, said: 'Abolishing the most successful film support organisation the UK has ever had is a bad decision, imposed without any consultation or evaluation. People will rightly look back on today's announcement and say it was a big mistake, driven by short–term thinking and political expediency. British film, which is one of the UK's more successful growth industries, deserves better.'
Since it was created by Labour in 2000 the UKFC, with 75 staff, has been responsible for handing out more than £160m of lottery money to over 900 films. Successes range from Bend it Like Beckham to Gosford Park to Fish Tank with the occasional dud – notably Sex Lives of the Potato Men – along the way. Last August the Labour government began consultation on merging the film council with the BFI."
(Mark Brown and Maev Kennedy, 26 July 2010, Guardian News and Media Limited)
Fig.1 'Centurion' is a Pathé Productions presentation in association with the UK Film Council of a Celador Films Production of A Film by Neil Marshall.
"'Critical pedagogy considers how education can provide individuals with the tools to better themselves and strengthen democracy, to create a more egalitarian and just society, and thus to deploy education in a process of progressive social change. Media literacy involves teaching the skills that will empower citizens and students to become sensitive to the politics of representations of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, and other cultural differences in order to foster critical thinking and enhance democratization. Critical media literacy aims to make viewers and readers more critical and discriminating readers and producers of texts.
'Critical media pedagogy provides students and citizens with the tools to analyze critically how texts are constructed and in turn construct and position viewers and readers. It provides tools so that individuals can dissect the instruments of cultural domination, transform themselves from objects to subjects, from passive to active. Thus critical media literacy is empowering, enabling students to become critical producers of meanings and texts, able to resist manipulation and domination.'"
(Douglas Kellner)
Douglas Kellner, "Multiple Literacies and Critical Pedagogies" in Revolutionary Pedagogies – Cultural Politics, Instituting Education, and the Discourse of Theory, Peter Pericles Trifonas, Editor, Routledge, 2000
"David Cameron's airbrushed poster campaign has backfired – setting off an internet craze of hilarious spoof versions.
On the mydavidcameron.com site jokers can adapt the 'we can't go on like this' adverts to poke fun at the 15ft–high picture of the Tory leader. ...
Meanwhile, a focus group report on the campaign poster said: 'The general message was that it had backfired as it fed into the concerns people have about David Cameron and the Tories – that something doesn't quite add up.'"
(Bob Roberts, 16 January 2010)
"Politics is now 'defined within the media space – a new public space'. The reality is, as he put it, 'it's a binary model; you must be in the media to be in politics you must influence it'. This creates problems, for whilst 'neither Berlusconi nor Murdoch dictates everything' they can influence minds and votes. People read the media headlines about a party programme, rather than the manifestos themselves (although Labour was not helped 2001 with the Prescott punch on the same day as their manifesto launch). Politicians now must ask themselves, 'What is a credible message to translate through the media?' Hence the media acts as a powerful filter to the public."
(Tom Ogg, 2004)
Manuel Castells: Politics and Power in the Network Society, LSE Miliband Public Lecture, London, 18 March 2004
"The Inteligentaindigena Novajoservo newswire seeks to provide accurate, alternative and under–reported news media to the international Indigenous/Autochonous community and others with a concern for human justice and Aboriginal political issues."
(Inteligentaindigena Novajoservo newswire, 09 August 2009)
"We're living with the economic fallout of the financial crisis and we're struggling to make sense of it. One way of understanding what's happened is to see that we're at the end of an era, an era of market triumphalism. The last three decades were a heady, reckless time of market mania and deregulation. We had the free market fundamentalism of the Reagan–Thatcher years and then we had the market friendly Neo–Liberalism of the Clinton and Blair years, which moderated but also consolidated the faith that markets are the primary mechanism for achieving the public good. Today that faith is in doubt. Market triumphalism has given way to a new market scepticism. Almost everybody agrees that we need to improve regulation, but this moment is about more than devising new regulations. It's also a time, or so it seems to me, to rethink the role of markets in achieving the public good."
(Professor Michael Sandel, 2009 Reith Lecture Series)
"We live in a time of crisis. In such times humans retreat to safety, and build bulwarks against the future. The financial emergency is having this effect on Britain's governing class. Labour has withdrawn to the safety of the sheltering state, and the comforts of its first income tax rise since the mid–1970s. Meanwhile, the Conservatives appear to be proposing a repeat of Thatcherite austerity in the face of economic catastrophe. But this crisis is more than an ordinary recession. It represents a disintegration of the idea of the 'market state' and makes obsolete the political consensus of the last 30 years. A fresh analysis of the ruling ideological orthodoxy is required.
...
On a deeper level, the present moment is a challenge to conservatism itself. The Conservatives are still viewed as the party of the free market, an idea that has collapsed into monopoly finance, big business and deregulated global capitalism. Tory social thinking has genuinely evolved, but the party's economic thinking is still poised between repetition and renewal. As late as August 2008 David Cameron said: 'I'm going to be as radical a social reformer as Margaret Thatcher was an economic reformer,' and that 'radical social reform is what this country needs right now.' He is right about society, but against the backdrop of collapsing markets and without a macro–economic alternative, Thatcherite economics has been wrongfooted by events."
(Phillip Blond, Prospect Magazine February 2009 issue 155)
"In his article, Dr [Rowan] Williams agreed that action was needed to restore confidence in the political system and that the 'no rules were broken' mentality that featured in many MPs' responses represented a 'basic problem' in contemporary moral thinking.
But he argued the point had now been made and that further revelations could have a damaging effect.
'The continuing systematic humiliation of politicians itself threatens to carry a heavy price in terms of our ability to salvage some confidence in our democracy,' he said."
(BBC News, 23 May 2009)
[The recent controversy surrounding UK MP expenses claims acts to undermine the traditional authority of the UK political class and in so doing represents a consequence of post–traditional situation.]
"A defiant Gordon Brown today faced down critics of his YouTube video on MPs' expenses, insisting he would continue to use 'one of the most important mediums of communication'.
The prime minister's unapologetic reply came after Conservative MP Bill Cash congratulated him on his 'comedy turn' on YouTube and asked when we could 'expect another performance'.
Brown retorted: 'YouTube is one of the most important mediums and maybe the opposition won't use it but I will continue to do so.'"
(Deborah Summers, Guardian News and Media Limited 2009)
"A Twitter uprising has taken place in Moldova, with anti–communists using the internet site to mobilise supporters and organise a demonstration in the country's capital. [...]
This is not the first time that a Twitter tag has been used to mobilize young people around a particular event; the most famous previous case has been that of 'griots' – the tag used to report on the youth riots in Greece, which later spread to Europe, arguably also with the help of Twitter. Likewise there were reports that last week's G20 demonstrations were being organised by Twitter and certainly Twitter played a role in reporting on them."
(Richmond, 2009)
[The people in the streets seem pretty real to me, so it is by no means just a 'virtual' revolution; nevertheless the extent to which it was orchestrated through the internet brings a whole new meaning to the idea of democratic participation.]
"For far too long, we've been living in what I've called a broadcast democracy. Voters only count during election time. They have little or no influence in between elections, when the lawmakers and influencers are in charge and citizenry is inert. The 'you vote, I rule' model was all that was possible, until recently.
What the system has lacked until now are mechanisms enabling government to benefit from the wisdom and insight that a nation can collectively offer –– on an ongoing basis. I'm not proposing some kind of direct democracy, where citizens can vote every night on the evening news or Web sites. That would be tantamount to a digital mob.
What I am proposing is a way to allow citizens to contribute ideas to the decision–making process –– to get them engaged in public life. When citizens become active, good things can happen. We all learn from each other. Initiatives get catalyzed. People become active in improving their communities, country and the world. This is long overdue. These days, the policy specialists and advisers on the public–sector payroll can barely keep pace with defining the problems, let alone craft the solutions. Government can't begin to amass the in–house expertise to deal with the myriad challenges that arise. Governments need to create opportunities for sustained dialogue between voters and the elected.
Courtesy of the Internet, public officials can now solicit citizen input at almost no cost, by providing Web–based background information, online discussion, and feedback mechanisms. Government can now involve citizens in setting the policy agenda, which can then be refined on an ongoing basis. Such activity engages and mobilizes citizens, catalyzing real–life initiatives in communities and society as a whole."
(Don Tapscott, March 16, 2009)
"The media of social communications have two options, and only two. Either they help human persons to grow in their understanding and practice of what is true and good, or they are destructive forces in conflict with human well–being. That is entirely true of advertising.
Against this background, then, we point to this fundamental principle for people engaged in advertising: advertisers – that is, those who commission, prepare or disseminate advertising – are morally responsible for what they seek to move people to do; and this is a responsibility also shared by publishers, broadcasting executives, and others in the communications world, as well as by those who give commercial or political endorsements, to the extent that they are involved in the advertising process.
If an instance of advertising seeks to move people to choose and act rationally in morally good ways that are of true benefit to themselves and others, persons involved in it do what is morally good; if it seeks to move people to do evil deeds that are self–destructive and destructive of authentic community, they do evil.
This applies also to the means and the techniques of advertising: it is morally wrong to use manipulative, exploitative, corrupt and corrupting methods of persuasion and motivation.
Within this very general framework, we can identify several moral principles that are particularly relevant to advertising. We shall speak briefly of three: truthfulness, the dignity of the human person, and social responsibility."
(Patrick Burgoyne, 16 January 2007, Creative Review)
"60x60 Secs is the first project of the 360 ° programme, and comprises of 60 one–minute films from 60 artists, 20 each from Britain, India and Pakistan.
Commissioned via open call both established and emerging artists, working in a variety of mediums and spanning a wide age range, present their unique views on 'home'. Looking beyond media, political and religious definitions, 60x60 Secs unravels complex identities and stories, and redefines cultures that are evolving in an age of globalisation."
(Motiroti arts organisation, UK)
"The first comprehensive, historical exhibition to examine the international foundations and legacy of feminist art, WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution focuses on the crucial period 1965–80, during which the majority of feminist activism and artmaking occurred internationally. The exhibition includes the work of 120 artists from the United States, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Comprising work in a broad range of media–including painting, sculpture, photography, film, video, and performance art–the exhibition is organized around themes based on media, geography, formal concerns, collective aesthetic, and political impulses. Curated for The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, by Connie Butler, The Robert Lehman Foundation Chief Curator of Drawings at The Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA), the exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue."
(July 25, 2007 at 9:00am by MOCA)
"Peter Kennard has spent most of his life in London, and has been considerably more involved than most in the capital's political gatherings during the last 25 years.
...
His two major subjects quickly emerged: armaments and poverty. This was the early eighties with 3 million unemployed, Thatcher in her first term girding her loins for the Falklands War, and the CND at the height of its popularity. Kennard had an audience.
...
'The point of my work is to use easily accessible iconic images, but to render them unacceptable. To break down the image of the all–powerful missile....after breaking them, to show new possibilities emerging in the cracks and splintered fragments of the old reality.'
His belief at this time was that photomontage had the power to show the causes rather than the results. In recent times however, he seems to have had his doubts: 'There is a problem with montage in that you see it everywhere now because of digital technology. There is so much transformed imagery around that people accept constructed images without questioning their meaning. I think my work was losing impact because of that.'"
(David Palmer)
[Short extract from America's Ovation TV on pioneering photomontage activist John Heartfield.]
"The old one–dimensional categories of 'right' and 'left', established for the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly of 1789, are overly simplistic for today's complex political landscape. For example, who are the 'conservatives' in today's Russia? Are they the unreconstructed Stalinists, or the reformers who have adopted the right–wing views of conservatives like Margaret Thatcher?
On the standard left–right scale, how do you distinguish leftists like Stalin and Gandhi? It's not sufficient to say that Stalin was simply more left than Gandhi. There are fundamental political differences between them that the old categories on their own can't explain. Similarly, we generally describe social reactionaries as 'right–wingers', yet that leaves left–wing reactionaries like Robert Mugabe and Pol Pot off the hook."
[Despite the usefulness of the ''Political Compass'' questionnaire the results clearly illustrate the problem with attempting to make such direct correlations.]
Higher art
Universities should become society's great patrons of the arts
By Marjorie Garber
October 5, 2008
WHEN THE SCULPTOR and pop artist Jeff Koons came to Harvard University's Carpenter Center last semester for an advertised lecture, the hall where he spoke was jammed to overflowing, and people had to be turned away at the door. When Spanish cinema director Pedro Almodóvar spoke at Harvard a few years ago, a crowding crisis was averted by the decision to hold the event twice. Similar turnouts have greeted the artist Ed Ruscha and architect Maya Lin.
A decade or two ago, it might have been the celebrity philosopher Jacques Derrida who was the big draw on campus, and before that, say, a poet like T. S. Eliot. Today it is more likely to be someone like Almodóvar, or choreographer and filmmaker Yvonne Rainer, or Christo and Jeanne–Claude, or Art Spiegelman.
"[Gary] Hill's early works investigated synthesized imagery, ecological subjects, and post–minimal political statements (Hole in the Wall, 1974). Hill's works exploring the intertextuality of image, sound, speech, and language emerged in the late 70s and early 80s, such as Soundings (1979) and Around and About (1980). Hill has gained an international reputation for his video art tapes and installations."
Democrat news feeds and podcast.
Creepy Sleepy
Independent music and independent politics, Creepy Sleepy is a podcast produced independently by Dan Patterson for Creepy Sleepy Media in concert with PodShow.
Dan Patterson is the Chief United Nations Correspondent and Social Media Evangelist for the Talk Radio News Service. He, along with a colorful cast of cohorts, has been producing Creepy Sleepy since 2004.
Creepy Sleepy spends time with musicians, artists, and cultural figures; covered the 2004 and 2006 elections; sells deck merch; and has appeared on Sirius Satellite Radio.
Here are a few people who have appeared on Creepy Sleepy:
Alex White Plume
Chuck D
Jello Biafra
Kid Dakota
Lonn Friend
SD Gov. Mike Rounds
SD Senator Tim Johnson
SD Senator John Thune
SD Senator Tom Daschle
Incubus
Willie Nelson
…amongst others.
"Circles are sized by the number of medals that countries won in summer Olympic Games. Use the slider to view past Olympics, or click on a country to display a list of its medal winners."
(The New York Times)
[Interestingly although the map appears to have been created as a simple representation of the global medal tally the map also quite eloquently reveals aspects of the changing economic fortunes and political leanings of particular countries. Note for example Germany''s Olympic success prior to the Second World War and Eastern European success during the Cold War.]
"Traditionally Indian documentary has emphasised the collective rather than the individual and thus has eschewed personal perspectives. As Tom Waugh has characterised it, the Indian documentary tradition overwhelmingly favoured the didactic social documentary in the Griersonian mode; such a documentary approach was prevalent during the first four decades after independence in 1947.[1] In the 80s, Indian documentarists moved towards the direct cinema style prevalent in the West in the 60s, adopting its realist aesthetic and reliance on interviews while continuing to retain Greirsonian voice–over narration. However, as Waugh points out, in contrast to Western documentaries – emphasis on individual protagonists, Indian films relied on the collective in representing its subject, including the collective interview. In place of the private home was the street. Waugh contextualises this formal aspect of documentary in the cultural, political, and economic imperatives of a post colonial society. Within this social formation and political orientation, the group rather than the individual and public spaces rather than private ones become the primary sites of political discourse and cultural expression."
(Jyotsna Kapur)
Kapur, J. (2003). 'Why the personal is still political – some lessons from contemporary Indian documentary.'Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media 23.
"As graphic designers we often use the power of image to persuade, convince, reveal or to construct a contextual stage for messages. A great deal of research and consideration goes into this process of deciding what type of imagery will best convey our ideas. As visual thinkers we are accustomed to deciphering the distinctions created by color, form, scale, etc. By cropping away information or altering an images color we can more effectively represent our ideas. All of this, of course, assumes our decisions are correct, that they will elicit from the audience the desired response. But how often do we evaluate these visual decisions after the creative process has concluded? What happens to our work after it is released for public consumption?
In regard to politics the use of image is used to associate personalities with issues, display concern or patriotism and of course create negative associations as well. Notice the recent trend of political speeches in front of a backdrop of issue words or phrases such a 'economic growth' or 'healthcare.' How well do these efforts succeed? More importantly, how visually literate is the general public in terms of detecting and interpreting what they see?
Visual Ideology is an effort to raise awareness to the use of images in messaging. Given the choice, what images would the general public associate with specific ideas or words? How can one image be more meaningful than another similar image? This project asks viewers to to make decisions as to images that best represent their visual definition of political terms or ideas. During this process it is hoped that viewers will begin to develop a better understanding of how visual imagery can influence meaning. By placing the responsibility of making these visual decisions with the viewer they get to experience a part of graphic design. As graphic designers, we get to see how self defined political personalities might be visually represented. Though not necessarily a ideological map, this project will hopefully offer some insight as to how differing political personalities interpret visual information."
(http://visualideology.asoe.net/primary/summary.php)