Media culture used to be more about “us” than “me.” In the old times (actually not that long ago), we often have to watch a film in a cinema, have to share a big computer with others, and make phone calls through public phones. But nowadays, it’s more about “me.” Personalized media items like PC, “home cinema,” “my space” and I-pod are getting more and more popular. Individualization becomes a trend in media culture. When I read criticism on commercial media, I often got this sense of individuals being passive audiences or consumers in the overpowering commercial media. Then I get a bit cynical, depressed and tend to think: “So what? What can do about it then?” In this entry, I am not reflecting on specific articles we read but try to gather my thoughts on the layers of individualization. What does “me”(individuality) really mean in Media of every life?
It is true that the development of media culture market provide more choices to meet individual needs and individuals preferences. Individual possession, personal stylization and personal mobility are shining spirits of the “Me Media” culture. Desire to possess one’s own media item is expending in our everyday life. We are buying our own PC, our own I-pod and our own web spaces. The market also provided varies choices for one to stylize one’s possession and makes it more like “one’s own things.” The mobility of the media items even help enhances the individual freedom to “wherever one goes.”
However, when people buy into the commercializing individuality, I feel they always help create “collective” individualities that respond to the marketing that targets individual customers. We start having the same “individualizing looks” and using the same “individualizing products.” We become popular individuals. When people start having the same unique hair-style, using a unique-looking cell phone and walking on the street with a new I-pod that plays one’s favorite music, individualization becomes a choice of representation or a product of representation by media especially in urban life.
Then the packing of individuality often runs over the content of individuality. In this case, individuals become projectors of the individualizing products rather than subjects of diverse ideas.
But I am aware that there are active, creative and critical individuals in media culture, such independent filmmakers, independent artists or independent blowers that create their sites into power alternative media resources. However, Hollywood start building their own independent film studios, and independent artists struggle with their funding resources. And independent media makers also desire audiences as the mainstream media sectors. There is always a tendency of commercializing individualities that thread active, creative and critical individuals in this capital world.
Announcement:
"The Economics of a Life in the Arts"
Tuesday, November 28, 2006, 7:00 pm CFA 232
Described as:
An evening with guests and a discussion of the question: How do we
balance commercial work in the creative industries (after graduation)
with an inspired development of our own cultural practice? Guest
speakers: John Bell (filmmaker and electronic toy producer at
Fisher-Price), Dorothea Braemer (filmmaker and director of Squeaky Wheel).
A thought:
We talk a lot about experimental approaches to our work, but part of our
work is managing to do _our_ work rather than someone else's work. So
this is an attempt to open a space to explore issues related to getting
that machine in place for ourselves. While we pursue experimental
aesthetic approaches can we also pursue an experimental economics?
Something to consider:
Artists talk a lot about freedom. So, recalling the expression "free as
a bird" Morton Feldman went to a park one day and spent some time
watching our feathered friends. When he came back, he said, "You know?
They're not free: they're fighting over bits of food." - John Cage, from
Indeterminacies
Please note:
Julian Monague, Buffalo-based artist and graphic designer whose name and
bio appears on the posters, has had to cancel his involvement in the
evening, due to being called to Miami to install his work... this is a
bit disappointing but also, a bit poetic, the artist who can't talk
about the nuts and bolts of being an artist because he's busy travelling
around hanging a show. OK. The good news is that there will be a little
more room in the evening for the dialog to emerge.
Posters:
Notice the fantastic posters around CFA designed by Gautam Malik.
Info about our guests:
Dorothea Braemer
Dorothea Braemer is the Director of Squeaky Wheel Media Center and is a
media artist whose work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, the
Anthology Film Archive, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, on PBS and
festivals in the US and abroad.
John Bell John Bell is a Content Producer for Fisher-Price. His job
combines elements of scriptwriting, storyboarding, game design and
project management for interactive electronic toys and video games. At
Fisher-Price he has worked on the PowerTouch books series, the Fun 2
Learn Preschool Center, and ESPN Fast Action Football. Bell's background
is in narrative film - he is a graduate of the USC Film School,
previously worked at Universal Studios and has independently produced
his own short narrative films.
