What was Alex Thinking???
Since we are close to midterms, now seems like a good time for me to discuss my thoughts and motivations for the weekly media assignments. I will discuss these themes in general terms; in my next post I will also discuss in more detail the specific themes of each of the first 6 weeks.
A. The Importance of Being Cultured: As artists, our goal is to produce works of culture. Whether you are a sculptor or an illustrator, you most certainly hope that your work will be noticed and enjoyed by a large number of people. If your work is widely enjoyed (if your illustrations are published in a regional magazine) then your work is part of the dialogue of culture and it becomes a part of culture. Consequently, every artist needs to be immersed in culture and be 'cultured'. Now, I do not want to be misunderstood; for me, "being cultured" does not necessarily mean reading all of the "great works of literature" and knowing by heart all the operas of Mozart (though that might be a good thing for many). I acknowledge that our "culture" is immense and thus each person's selection of culture that is meaningful to them is going to be individual, personal, and idiosyncratic. First I will offer my definition of "culture". Second, I will offer my definition of "cultured"; you are quite free to disagree.
In my book culture is everything people make that entertains, tells stories, amuses, communicates, moves,or inspires. Today it includes video games, YouTube videos, memes, movies, tv shows (even tv shows that never appear on tv), music, commercials, advertising, packaging, and a whole host of other things. Although it does and should include many productions that are seen as high culture such as: ballet, sculpture, poetry, dance in general, jazz, theater, painting, architecture, opera, etc. it is not limited to these things. It includes dress, tattoos, jewelry, product design, lawn care, pedicures, blog posts, overpass design, and desktop wallpapers. it is almost anything that humans do, that isn't immediately necessary for survival. Which is a lot. With that out of the way, let's lay out the "Stelioes-Wills" definition of "cultured":
1. To be cultured, you need to be open and tolerant to a wide amount of culture. You should be willing to look at art, watch movies, read literature, listen to music even if those works are not "your usual thing" or even if it is from categories of culture that you usually don't like. If you are apt to dismiss whole bodies of culture-"all country music is crap" or "I do not listen to rap" or "comic books are infantile" then you are limiting yourself and curtailing your culture.
2. To be cultured, you should be willing to listen to the cultural opinions of others, especially opinions of "authority". To be clear, I am not saying that the opinions of critics, academics, and artists are always correct. However, the contemporary and American tendency to dismiss the opinion of experts is just a "know-nothing" rationalization to remain a "know-nothing". If friends, professors, and critics all say that you should give the movies of Werner Herzog a chance, then you probably should (I recommend starting with Fitzcarraldo). This does not mean you have to like it.
3. You should be willing to be part of shared common culture. Life is full of references and there is much of culture that is easier to understand when you get the references to Caesar's War in Gaul or Shakespeare's sonnets or Don Qixote or "Trouble with Tribbles" or "Once More with Feeling". This doesn't mean that you have to read, watch, and listen to everything but it does mean limiting yourself to YouTube videos of "Epic Fails" will limit you as an artist.
3. You should enjoy being "expanded". Most of the best cultural products are expansive and difficult- meaning that they are hard to enjoy the first time you approach them, but when you start to enjoy those works they literally "expand" your mind. This is the most important reason why the "I only like what I like" attitude is so self-defeating for artists (and deadening for human beings). Here is a story: one Christmas, my brother and his family were staying at my folks, along with Anne, me, and the Leander (this is before Linden and Lucy). When I am at my parents' house, I like to browse my Dad's album collection (almost entirely classical) and play DJ. I was playing some beautiful music written by Paginini for violin and guitar. My 4 year old niece said "I don't like that music because I don't know it." That sums up a lot about how people often approach art.
4. You should get passionate and invested in some specific art and culture. It doesn't matter so much what you get into- what matters is that you get really excited about something. That could be: Ethiopian Jazz from the 60's, the movies of Adam Sandler, the video installations of Bill Viola, the movies of Wim Wenders, every episode of Adventure Time, the narco-corridos of the early aughts, every recording that Glenn Gould produced, or the poems of Neruda.
5. It is important to think critically about culture. Of course it is OK to enjoy some movies or music completely uncritically, to enjoy the peace of turning all the neurons off... but, artists should mostly be analyzing and deconstructing all of the culture around them- including: commercials, movies, tv, web videos, music, comics, literature, print ads, packaging, or any other media products. This does not mean you have to be adversarial to every writer, director, painter, etc... looking for every flaw. What it does mean is you should be asking yourself questions like "why did she make that decision?" or "how do these themes relate to her work as whole?" or "in what way does this work relate to a larger trend?". I sympathize with the complaint that thinking about culture this much takes all of the fun out of it, but I have two responses to that complaint: a.) whether thinking critically about culture is fun or not is irrelevant- it is what we have to do to be good at our chosen careers, b.) though asking yourself questions like "what do 'Zombies' mean as a social construct of the late 20th century?" may seem like it takes all the joy out of stupid media, really it adds a whole new level of pleasure. (Take it from me, I just watched Sharknado with my kids and we had a blast, and the most fun was the pulling the whole thing apart.)
6. If you are an artist, then you should love culture and care about it.
B. The Syncretic Nature of Culture: You probably have figured out that one of my overarching themes for this class is that culture is primarily a process of recombinations and mash-ups. Because of this process, it can be both true that "there is nothing new under the sun", and that there is no end to original culture. Although I use the metaphor of the peanut butter cup with tongue firmly in my cheek, it is also a very useful and accurate analogy. New cultural ideas are created every day, but every new idea has a lineage of predecessors. Once you are clued into this process, you can see it everywhere. (Like how you can go 20 years living in the South and never notice mistletoe until someone points it out to you. By February the next year you realize the parasitic plant is everywhere.) I notice the syncretic and synthetic nature of culture especially when I am watching cartoons for kids. (Take Johnny Test, please.)
C. The Persistence of Culture: Once you realize that culture is a constant churning and re-churning, combining and recombining of previous elements, then you also start to become more aware of how many truly ancient cultural memes are still alive and kicking. After all, over half of the days of our week are named after Norse gods, three of our months are named after Roman Gods, two months are named after Roman emperors, and of course there is Halloween and Easter. But this persistence is not just dormant, it can be active and affect the narratives we tell right now. Superman is Jewish and based on Moses (though Moses's Jewishness is still debated). Bugs Bunny is a mash-up of numerous elements including Groucho Marx and Brer Rabbit, but he is also a descendant of a much older lineage; Bugs is a trickster hero and is brethren to Coyote, Anansi, and Loki. Look at the persistence of "Descent into Hell" narratives, whether of the literal kind, like many of Joss Whedon's productions, or of the literary kind, like Huckleberry Finn, or even the humorous "It All Happened in One Night (or one weekend)" kind, like A Christmas Carol, or After Hours, or The Hangover. One of my favorite examples has to do with the persistence of Shakespeare. If you watch Independence Day (you know, the alien invasion movie), you will see an amazing retelling of the St. Crispin's Day speech from Henry V. Here is the link to the alien invasion version and here is the more original, fields of Agincourt version.
D. Culture is Constantly New and Renewed: It is easy to get discouraged and feel either: 1. that there is no new culture, only re-hashing and re-heating old tropes, or 2. everything that is new today is not good. But if you take the view that culture has always been syncretic, that it has always been a mass of the mediocre punctuated with moments of brilliance, and that it has always seemed on the verge of degeneracy and decline, then you can see that it is as alive today as it was when Shakespeare was writing, and that you have just as much opportunity to add something brilliant to the dialogue as Bernini, or Lissitzky, or Chuck Jones, or George Braque, or Giotto, or Giacometti. So we oughta get to work.
Addendum: But Why Did Alex Choose Those Examples of Culture?
The media assignments, whether they were videos, music, or readings, were picked with just a few guiding criteria: 1) they needed to be short. I looked for media that would not take up a lot of time to consume because I did not want to turn any student off from the idea of engaging with culture and because I wanted to expose you guys to as many different aesthetic points of view. This is one of the reasons why there is so much poetry and this is the primary reason why so many of the short stories are super short. The music playlists have a major benefit: you can listen to them anywhere and while doing other things like washing dishes. 2) They needed to be from diverse sources. I looked for media that represented both "high" and "low" culture, that represented the visual arts but also the literary and the performing arts, that represented voices of women and men, and that represented different cultures. This diversity was not just due to politeness or political correctness but related to an important content of the class- that interesting culture is everywhere and that we should be open to the culture of others. 3) They needed to be as accessible as possible. I want the media component of the class to be as fun as possible and as un-like a chore as possible. This leads to another of my "secret hidden agendas" for this class- I want all of the students in this class to get excited about how much fun, interesting, art-related culture is out there. And I want the students in this class to begin the habits that will lead to them being thoughtful and avid consumers of contemporary art culture.
