I woke up this morning and decided it is probably my destiny to be rich.
How will this happen, with all the pessimism I have for a youth culture (and I’m actually not talking about myself anymore, fogey) that has never experienced rock ‘n roll or read Moby Dick?
What’s interested me lately is the acceleration of bit culture on internet and its relationship to the expeditious rate at which content consumed. It leaves little space for the ones generating the culture that aspires to “a version of something complete.” The concept album, the great novel, the 3-act tragedy. All these structures that once promised artists the fulfillment of their bloated aspirations for expression are now systematically getting the piss taken out of them. Real fast. And yet most of us told that this is something we should ultimately embrace. But how??
Peter Greenaway doesn’t think they will even exist in 10 years. Skip around. He’s bananas. My favorite nugget, which I hope you’ll stick around for is that “Second Life is the future of cinema.”
I have lots of friends who work within social media platforms, which I think has spawned a conversation as to the authenticity of viral art and how it differs from the quest of being a self-sustaining artist – something that I really don’t think really exists. (Either that or I’m not buying the differentiation, since so many of my friends who make their living as professional photographers can’t seem to tear away from their Instagrams… or linked bank accounts.) What I am suggesting that these new paths of bitmedia consumption just establish another impenetrable wall of separation between subject and observer. On one hand, the fact that we all have the capability to so furiously create, then take to the internet to create our supply and demand is fascinating process. But we’re working with a more complicated paradigm here; one where bonds are created, perpetuated within these anti-elitist, ephemeral games of show and tell. Which, when you think of it, was the original purpose of social media, wasn’t it? On the other hand, bitmedia content almost requires that you feed the internet something almost vulgar and disposable, which cheapens any challenge to conceive of a form within these restraints that can be used to express something complete.
I spoke to a comedian that claims that she only takes to twitter to discard jokes she refuses to use her standup. Why does she do this? Doesn’t she realize that she’s working backwards?
I’m not looking to write a manifesto here. I just want to know where the hell I fit into all of this.
THE PLEASE CATALOGUE 