the great gatsby / kentucky route zero / koe no katachi / disco elysium / omori / night in the woods / homestuck / koe no katachi / l'étranger / disco elysium / firewatch / john dies at the end / everything everywhere all at once / the subtle art of not giving a f*ck

[watch?v=5xdYPpQH_gI]

...

‘constant retcons’

You and those fucking idiots who called themselves ‘critics’ have not proven a fucking thing about retcons (ignoring how even the ONE example that is argueable is actually a GOOD retcon considering the ‘previous’ version completely disregards sneak attacks *cough* Aura *cough*).

And sorry but you can’t use ‘retcon’ and ‘Monty Oum’ in the same video: Monty CAUSED the retcons in the show. You had your chance to call it out, it’s over.

‘failure to deliever on big character moments’

Volume 6: *BANG!*

Ow, damn. That shotgun to the face had to hurt. Well then again, not paying attention to Volume 6 was gonna hurt.

‘it’s no longer monty’s RWBY-’

It was NEVER his show. Miles and Kerry were writing the show with him since the beginning.

‘disappointment and frustration’

Yeah and I was disappointed with Red Vs. Blue Season 16. Wanna know what I did?

Drop the show and didn’t try to brow beat the creators with a rotting corpse.

‘I liked the fanart and fan stuff more than the show itself-’

Same with Evangelion and even WHEN I blamed the show for it, I was an immature fuckhead.

You are not getting pity from me about this topic: I’ve been through it before and yet I still don’t hold your stance in the slightest.

‘My critique doesn’t come from malice-’

A. It comes from immaturity. You didn’t get you wanted and instead of moving on with your life, you just stand there acting like what you didn’t get is somehow better.

‘The problem is that the soul of RWBY is gone-’

Okay then-

What IS the soul of RWBY?

No seriously, What IS the so called ‘soul’ of RWBY?  Can you even tell me that? Because it sounds like a nothing phrase on par with ‘Change’ or ‘Make America Great Again’ that’s more of a rallying cry than anything worthwhile.

I can do it. You can tell from the main character Ruby to the main evil force the Grimm to the main villain in Salem as well as underlings like Emerald, Mercury, Hazel, Roman and Neo to even the songs: it’s about moving forward. Ruby is the main character and thus who we look to for what the show considers right and what she does is endure and move onward even as no one else wants to. The Grimm are a force that try to cause destruction and stagnation by trapping people in an endless cycle. Salem can’t move on from her pass, Emerald can’t move on from Cinder, Mercury can’t move on from his dad, Hazel can’t move on from his sister, Roman refused to move on from his fear and Neo can’t move on from him. Even the songs put a heavy emphasis on moving forward and keep living.

Hell, you can even see this in the shows cited as inspirations. Soul Eater has numeorus moments of progress and endurance, Blazblue’s main protag is a guy who never stopped moving forward and Gurren Lagann? Gurren Lagann literally HAS a variation of ‘keep moving forward’ stated in the finale, let alone how that theme is the ENTIRE POINT of the show.

The ‘soul’ aka main theme is still there. You just projected that wasn’t there and called it the soul.

And honestly? Fuck this ‘reboot.’ I don’t think he’s malicious at all but it most certainly isn’t good. If you want to make a show: make your own show. Don’t piggyback off someone else’s work. Do it yourself.

There’s a very good reason why, even removing all the logical aspects, I hate RWBY critics and this mindset:

I do not want to be on either end of this.

As a consumer: I don’t want the media I watch to be subject to the whims of the entitled.

As a potential creator: I don’t want to be controlled by my audience.

As someone with friends: I don’t want to be accused of ‘not carrying my friend’s soul’ or whatever by a bunch of strangers on the internet.

I do not want this to become the standard in any way, shape or form. So I’ll keep fighting it no matter what.

‘Choose a path and do it all yourself.’ -Simon The Digger

Queen Otohime: The Nuanced Idealist

Every story has a message. Good stories usually have a central theme that lies at the core of the narrative with any number of secondary themes to support it. Even if a creator claims that there is no specific idea that they’re trying to communicate (the “it’s just entertainment” defense) they are still sending a message to their audience, and the lack of point becomes the point.. 

As the entertainment industry grows to unprecedented heights, so does their influence on their audience. There are a couple of different theories on the exact relationship between media and culture, but it is plainly evident that there’s an endless cycle of culture influencing media which in turn influences culture. 

Which is why I want to talk about One Piece’s Queen Otohime

Before I get started, I want to make it clear that I don’t think Oda is obligated to write his story in any particular way for the sake of his audience. He has the freedom to put whatever he wants in his manga, whether I or anyone else agree with him or not. It’s the reader’s responsibility (or perhaps their parents, in the case of younger children) to discern for themselves what media they consume.

I do, however, think that a writer has a responsibility to be aware of what ideas they’re presenting. Oda’s audience happens to be huger than most, and to paraphrase Dumbledore that means his influence is greater than, say, a random upstart on tumblr.

*Cough*

For most, the Fishman Island arc is an inauspicious beginning to the second half of the series and a major let-down after the peak that was the Marineford War. I think that Oda would have had a difficult time satisfying fans no matter what, if only because Fishman Island had been such a long time coming. But while the meat of the arc falls flat, the backstory is excellent.

Now I write this as a white American, so keep in mind stones and glass houses, but Japan has a problem with xenophobia and racism. Oda has also tends to write his female characters - especially if they’re royalty - in a way that can be seen as problematic. Shirahoshi from this same arc irritated the crap out of me, and she shares a lot of traits with her mother. 

So what’s the difference?

A Multiplicity of Ideologies 

Considering the subject matter and Oda’s past history with female characters, it would it have been really easy to screw up the backstory for Fishman Island. I commend Oda for presenting the issues of slavery and racism in the first place. It’s not something he had to do, and I’m sure he wrote the Fishman Island arc fully aware of what he was getting himself into.

What I think helps us buy what Oda’s trying to sell is that Otohime’s view isn’t the only ideology presented. Her greatest foil Fisher Tiger has similar goals, but approaches the problem in an opposite manner. Jimbe ends up representing the middle ground, and says he doesn’t know which one of them was right

We’re also given a whole spectrum of characters that fall between these two opposites. There’s Aladdin, a former slave and soldier who never showed any hatred towards humans. There’s Arlong - who starts off rebuking Jimbe for his brutality and ends up enslaving entire islands in the East Blue - and Macro, who seems to turn over a new leaf before returning to the slave trade in the present day. 

On Otohime’s side of things, her own husband doesn’t agree with what she preaches, but lets her continue as she wants because he loves her 

And that’s not even looking at the human characters. I think the only viewpoint we don’t get within the flashback is one of a “good” Celestial Dragon, and Oda covers that during the Dressrosa arc. To this day Koala is the only flashback character I wish was the protagonist in her own manga. (If you didn’t feel something here, you’re either lying or have no soul)

It also helps that Oda does his research and is well-informed on the issues at hand. While it’s not been confirmed (to my knowledge, anyway) I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if Oda based Otohime and Fisher in part on Martin Luther King, Jr and Malcolm X.  

On the other hand Oda does have just about every “good” character say that Otohime is right, so it’s obvious that he’s presenting one ideology as superior to another. I remember reading some criticism when these chapters first came out saying Oda was getting too preachy, and there is some merit to that. I think as an reader outside of the intended demographic it’s important to remember that One Piece is written for young boys whose worldviews are still being shaped and whose critical thinking skills aren’t completely developed. Some anvils do need to be dropped.

At the same time, by including the story of Fisher Tiger Oda is showing that these other ideas exist, which is more than can be said about a lot of media written for this age group. Otohime’s way of doing things has its flaws, namely that it’s gonna take a loooong time to work while there are untold number of fishmen (and humans) suffering under the unjust rule of the Celestial Dragons.

Which brings me to point number two

Suffering and Selfishness

In some ways Otohime is a parody of the all-loving hero archetype. In her introductory scene she slaps a thief into repentance (breaking her hand doing so) and is commended by her subjects for her compassion. Her unique brand of Observation Haki gives her super human (merman?) empathy that she uses to better understand and serve her people. Everyone except the villains agree that she was the ideal mother, wife, and queen.

And boy oh boy does she suffer for it.

The timeline for the Fishman Island flashback is confusing, but it does cover at least four years in which Otohime starts her petition, sees little success, and then actually goes backwards as the people withdraw their names before finally getting the support that she needs to make her motion to attend the Reverie. 

The implication is that she was working on her goals long before the flashback begins, but we’ll just look at what we’re explicitly told. In the grand scheme of things, four years isn’t that long of a time, but the daily grind clearly has an effect on Otohime’s emotional well-being.

Queen Otohime, presented thus far as a paragon of motherhood and virtue, gets so drunk that she calls out her entire nation over speakerphone. What resilience and polite discourse can’t do, she achieves through inebriation XD

It’s here we see Otohime’s true character. Yes, teaching the children, organizing sea rescues, preaching peace with humanity are all things Otohime believes in and wants to see happen. She wouldn’t have continued so long with so little support otherwise. But really, when you get down to it, her reasoning is just a little bit selfish

Otohime’s drunken rant is was solidifies her as a character instead of a caricature. She’s a mother who wants her children to have a better future than what she’s experienced, but she wants to do it the right way, the hard way, because she wants her kid’s future to be a peaceful one. Otohime is always looking forward, which brings me to my last, but perhaps most important, point

Nuance 

One of the things I found most annoying about Dressrosa was King Riku - and by extension Rebecca’s - pacifism. I don’t have a problem with pacifism in and of itself, but when a murderous sociopath comes a knockin’ on your doorstep then you might need to rethink your priorities. It was the same difficulty I had with Shirahoshi not telling anyone who really murdered her mother. There is literally no justification for her to stay silent in that instance, I don’t care what anyone says. Oda chose Ideology over common sense. 

That’s the problem when writing idealists. No one ideology is going to have an answer for every situation, and it gives rise to situations like Shirahoshi and Rebecca.

There are people who will never get over their irrational hatred.This is true to both the world of One Piece and Real Life. What Otohime wants for the future can’t exist in the same space as hatred. They are mutually exclusive. 

Nor can she sidestep the fact that the hurt and the pain her people have suffered. The injustice is real, and Otohime knows it. Heck, because of her Haki she probably knows it better than the people themselves because what they feel, she feels, and she has taken all of their burdens upon herself.

Chapter 625 gave me chills when I read it for the first time. Volume 63, which contains the vast majority of the Fishman Island flashback, is the only volume of One Piece that I own a physical copy of largely because of this moment. 

The title of the chapter 625 is “Uninherited Will”. Passing on one’s will is one of the major themes of the series. It’s no accident that chapter 145, best known for Hiliruk’s  speech, is literally called “Inherited Will”. Characters don’t die in One Piece unless they’ve achieved their dreams or passed them onto someone else, so for there to be something that needs to be uninherited - or to put it another way, abandoned and left behind - is a pretty big deal.

Otohime isn’t saying that the former slave’s pain is to be forgotten or left unpunished. She’s not even asking them to forgive the Celestial Dragons for what they’ve done. What she asks is for is the chance for their children - who know nothing of humans whatsoever - the opportunity to grow up and form their own opinions free of the hateful bias of their parents. What Otohime is looking for is a chance to end the cycle of revenge that will only lead to more death and misery and pain, and start over again. What happens after that...well, that’s up to the next generation. 

Note that despite saving his life, Saint Mysogard’s views don’t change, nor does Otohime expect them to. Also note that Hody, despite never suffering at the hands of humans and hearing Otohime’s words, still grows up to be one of the most racist (specist?) characters in the series. She dies before seeing her dreams come to fruition, and ten years later Fishman Island is on the brink of a hostile takeover by fishman supremacists. 

She did, however, pass on what was most important to those who matter most. What Otohime couldn’t do, Fukaboshi, Manboshi, Ryuboshi, and Shirahoshi will. And I think if she were real, Otohime would have been happy with that.

(I promise I’m not crying. I’ve just got dust in my eyes)

Audience Studies (3P18) Blog Post #1 - Ethan Limsana

During the introduction of our text, we learn many different ways to describe the concept of an audience and how a particular audience has and can function over time. A critical piece in learning about where we are now, is to examine how they began and evolved overtime based on popularity of politics and social needs. In order to relate to these teachings, I will apply them to my modern life with a form of entertainment that I access daily in many different ways and social settings depending on context: music. Whether it be walking through the supermarket with a pair of headphones on, or at a live concert surrounded by crowds of rowdy young adults, music demonstrates a multitude of ways an audience can be affected. I listen to music daily on my phone with the goal of finding melodies that are addicting, and artists that write lyrics that heighten my emotions either by making me feel excited when I’m energized, or depressed when I’m sad. Once I’ve found the right song, I can listen to it many times before I get bored, and look at other works the author has to offer through streaming platforms like Spotify and YouTube to choose what else I do and don’t like. This work that I’m doing to curate my music tastes are demonstrating an information based audience by simply listening to the artist and what they have to say about a given topic. It also demonstrates a meaning based view because by choosing I like and don’t like, the artist will see those tracks and adapt future works based on the reviews. Although, these messages would be much different face-to-face by exact knowledge given to one another, I am a part of the mass audience and communicate through my views, likes, and shares. This is my role in obtaining music for low cost, often free, for the large profit organizations that provide me music. Like any other job, I perform these roles when I am the audience member, and when I stop listening, I am no longer an audience member. Although I enjoy listening to 1980s music, my music taste has changed due to shifts in society and me as a demographic. As streaming services kept offering me to listen to rap music for being a young adult male, I eventually tried it, giving into Drake, Young Thug, Tupac, and more. Here, my shift in music taste was a result of the audience-as-outcome model because the media altered my taste. As mentioned before, I filter into the grand scheme of advertising and ratings as an individual on my phone, without a public space to listen or review the music, where most others are listening too. Since this experience is primarily alone, and I have no connection with other listeners, I am part of the audience-as-mass model. Not to say I have no power in this situation, I demonstrate audience-as-agent too by telling social media, and the entertainment providers what I think and ultimately making the final decisions of my interests on my own; in this case I happened to not enjoy older rap music, but enjoy modern rap music because it heightened my excitement. I chose to keep what I enjoyed because it fits me and my lifestyle, as an act of my free will. 

A small percentage of the time I spend with music is live because it costs more money, often requires travel, and isn’t nice for time management, but it's the most engaging and memorable musical experiences I’ve ever had because of the nature of crowds. As a practice dating back to ancient Greek and Roman audiences, concerts are the same in essence; hundreds or thousands of people leave their homes to gather in one specific location to listen to a select few. Here, it is entirely dependent on the people on stage to determine the energy of the crowd. At rap concerts, loud music is played, and messages of substance abuse, and violence are in the lyrics. The crowd responds to this content by showing up to the concert dressed in fashionable clothes, drinking, getting high, and most of all, being rowdy by pushing, shoving, crying, and sometimes even fighting. As feared by the end of the 19th century, live concerts often display the potentially destructive qualities of crowds. As an individual listening to music alone, the reality is relatively unchanged from regular society, but when a crowd gets together, it is a temporary change in that particular society as a collective because individual actions have less consequences associated with them and immediate emotions can freely be demonstrated by all. The positives of the crowd are also unchanged; they create a physical setting for me to go, and create a memorable experience for me to worship someone who was already in power, to reinstate my value in enjoying their music, and keep them in power. 

This power opens up new opportunities for record labels and artists to scheme new ways to alter our decision making process to make choices that continue their revenue flow and keep them in power for as long as possible. For example, Drake and his label OVO, use advertising and multimedia to keep us thinking about his music and persona even when we’re not listening. The money made from live events and music sales, goes into buying and selling merchandise, buying restaurants, maintaining an entertaining Instagram page, and utilizing television and film for documentary and selling the idea of his rich lifestyle. Although it is our own agency and free will to choose what we enjoy, these power moves are made to trigger appeal and to trick us into a cycle of worship.

It is the complete truth that modern rap music is a gold mine for those in power: it is repetitive, subject matter is relatively the same throughout different artists, and it is insanely popular among young viewers who make up most of the internet’s usage in North America. It can be tough for myself to take a moment to realize all that I see online is not real, but I’m one of millions, with many that don’t have the education to consider that. The effects perspective is a lens I can use to think about how I am affected by these powers in media that influence me now, and over time. In order to be informed, and understand why I’ll be advertised certain types of content in the future, is to study why my demographic reacts so positively to rap music. 

As part of mass society, I and others are listening to this music alone, with little to no exposure of the themes suggested aside from movies and tv shows. Mixed with being a young adult, male and naive, this ignorance to the rapper lifestyle is exactly what advertisers capitalize on to gain and keep my attention. We live in a progressive time where racial equality, specifically black, is at the forefront of all media concerns and therefore, our concerns. The issue is that I have no first hand idea what is different in their culture as opposed to mine. There are few popular media that demonstrates African American’s as regular people who do regular daily things; instead the popular discourse uses selective exposure to say they grew up on the street and have become rich and surpassed whites. When music videos and lyrics suggest their lifestyles include endless amounts of money, having sex with multiple women, and killing people they don’t like, there’s actually very little I can actually do to disprove that even though its highly unlikely. Early concerns with mass persuasion worry that even though I have the critical ability to deem what is true and what isn’t, my brain wants to imagine something before it experiences it. I’m only shown stereotypes, so that's all I have the capacity to imagine for the time being. The artists acts as a barrier between me and their affairs; they only let me imagine how rich their lifestyle is for their specific interest of me believing that listening to what they have to say will elevate my life in some way, or keep me racially diverse. 

I keep listening to these fake notions of black culture because, well, it's addicting for me. The Payne studies showed some important facts: intense violence and action scenes were more memorable for boys, the more exposure of similar themes created pronounced beliefs within children, and the interest in sexual themes became more engaging in children as they grew older. The themes I’m exposed to represent delinquencies that parents and teachers have taught me to stay away from, so they are exciting for me to see and fantasize about. It is an over-saturated market also, so I have more pronounced internal feelings about the content. Also, it is at a point in my life that I am more gullible to what is shown to me online. If these reasons weren’t enough to argue why I don’t stop listening, the presence of opinion leaders and emotional contagion make it increasingly difficult to leave the genre. Opinion leaders rise within my friend group, and reviewers I find online. Being so close to Toronto, most of my friends fall into the same demographic trap and see Toronto rappers as something to take pride in and constantly keep up with celebrities’ internal drama. Online reviewers, although they have more credibility, often promote the popular opinion in order to keep fans happy, sharing, and make their program more popular, and they might even be incentivised by outside sources to create and artificial opinion. Seemingly everywhere wants me to keep listening to this music, and when it consistently keeps my friends and I in an energized mood through emotional contagion, it at least feels like it's doing more good than bad in the moment.

As an audience member, mass media has treated me like an object whose attention can be persuaded, changed, and sold, but it's too early for me to see long term detrimental effects. I spend about 6-8 hours looking at screens everyday with heights of around 12-14 hours. Some of this is because of work, but more than half is for consuming entertainment and social media. It often gives me a fictionalized perspective of different topics which is why I’ve worked hard in the last two years to improve my lifestyle and create more unique experiences. Most of this leisure time is worse spent than when the media originally pulled me into addiction at the beginning of high-school. I was recommended to watch things I’ve already seen, or are so similar, it offers no unique ideas, so constantly being offered what I already like has put me in a rut. Also, I am weary of gaining emotions because of my viewing habits. Since most of my interests in entertainment are associated with delinquent themes, I recognize that when I’m out, I am not outgoing with strangers because I don’t trust them. Commonly in mob related movies, they give the feeling that you can’t trust anyone, and those feelings lie somewhere within me.

Public opinion is the most powerful information a company use to always have the upper-hand over the consumer when it comes to buying and selling. The information can be private or public depending on if it is beneficial to the company. It can be used to gain honest opinions about what the population thinks about a product, or a survey can be made specifically to trick the public into conforming to a certain ideal by use of question-wording-effects. The information can be used to alienate consumers into bandwagoning onto a perceived public opinion. The potential to mix and match these uses seems like a modern day superpower to me. To examine the ways public opinion is measured and used by large corporations for profit, I’ll relate to myself working in sales at Best Buy and Virgin Mobile to compare and contrast by looking at what I do to earn an individuals’ opinion on a much smaller scale. 

When working with a customer, I want to ensure my commission is made whether or not it is in the buyers’ best interests when they walk in. First, I want to find out why they’re in the store. I ask about what issues they have with a current device, and move further to find out important things about their lifestyle: if they have kids, are they in school, where they live, and what hobbies they have. At this stage, I am giving my customer a person-to-person interview where I establish rapport, and my most advantageous position as a salesperson to both learn about the client, and earn a degree of trust so I can be given true answers to my questions. Here, I avoid leading questions because the answers wouldn’t accurately depict the information I want to offer a product that is relevant. The tactics of my survey change depending on what part of the sale we’re at for my benefit. Once we find the right phone for the user, we talk about the price which is where response effects are wildly useful. If the first thing I say is the actual price per month, the customer would be unsatisfied with the number and feel entitled to bargain, or wait for another sale, or go to a different company entirely. Instead, I show the original price for the phone, and their mobile plan separately which is always high, then show them what I can save them by signing up with a new contract; the response is almost always positive. This is because the original price has nothing to contrast except for some kind of number they’ve had before, or seen in a flyer which isn’t obtainable for me. In the second example, I’ve given a realistic, yet unfavourable example for them to contrast instead to get rid of any pre-existing notions of price. Once the customer has decided to buy the service or product, they will be less likely to buy anything else because they either don’t have enough money, or are weary of me taking advantage of them. When defenses are high, question-wording-effects can be used to make the customer think they want more. The last thing I have to sell is extra insurance for your phone, which everyone is accustomed to say no to because of negative connotations of other insurances like car, or life. Once they tell me they don’t want insurance, I proceed with the process and move on to the next topic, but realistically, I’m using this time to include specific words and body language to make them feel unsafe about their new product. I will begin using words in our conversation that have to do with the length of their contract, the price of the phone, specific words like fragile, stuck, lost, regret. My body language also changes to be more loose and clumsy, and often I place my drink uncomfortably close to the new device. When I ask again later in the process, the customer feels they have made the decision for themselves, drop their defense and buy. 

Sometimes, other means of gathering opinion are beneficial as well. Although a personal interview offers me the most advantages, a telephone interview is a cheaper and time efficient way of gathering information. There is a possibility I could employ the same tactics into this interview, but that poses a couple problems. I cannot establish rapport as well, so if I ask too many personal questions, the customer will feel uncomfortable and hang up. I generally need to avoid leading questions, and keep the call strictly about the sale. This is a good way to earn information to use in the future, not the present. I can filter their answers to find out what may be a successful offer for the future. For use of large companies, this type of information could be used to find out where and when to sell things, but not as precise to find out what type of product to make. The final type of survey I look for is an email survey. These help me to gain a higher personal rating to gain recognition within my company, but as the text suggests, these are borderline useless way of gathering and asking for information. Just about all ways of surveying have some kind of flaw which skews the data gathered with varied impact, but email has to be the most negative impact. It requires the customer to actively do it during their leisure time, and it holds no benefit to themselves. Out of every ten customers I offer the online survey to, one may actually do it. This means they would have an outstanding reason to do it; either they really liked, or really hated the service. The numbers of completions are low, and the sources are not credible.

After information is acquired, the Government and large corporations use qualitative and quantitative data to use audiences in ways that far exceed the possibilities of an individual. They use this information to operationalize their audience; keep their viewing habits the same, and constantly sell their time to advertisers without suspicion. In order to find examples of political economy today, I will examine myself as an audience member of advertisements specifically through my phone on social media platforms and entertainment streaming services. Now that I can identify how advertisers obtain my personal habits and information, I can assume who is buying it based on what advertisements, or entertainment I’m offered. 

As a consumer, I actually pay for many of the streaming services I use which I know isn’t the norm for post-millenials. I pay monthly to access Netflix, Spotify, and YouTube, which means I don’t receive advertisements through these entertainment services, which is great for some of my leisure time, but I do not escape advertisements altogether. In fact, each of these streaming services, including the phone I bought, have a mandatory a lengthy multi-page terms of service agreement which states that they are services which I use while I pay for them, and during this time, they can gather as much information about my viewing habits as they want to improve their services. In exchange for signing this contract, I am given thousands of choices of the most popular movies, TV shows, and music of today with a service that knows what I want to watch even before I know what its about. In the meantime, however, all information of my demographic including how much I am paying for streaming is being sold to google, to then sell to advertisers in similar markets. I’m still not rid of the blindspot that advertisers use to steal my leisure time. Often while watching a show, I browse on my phone, and during that time I get ads for tv shows and movies on subscription services I have yet to pay for. The luxury of using Netflix services is paid for by me enduring ads for other similar subscription-based websites, which I am then working for free to review by looking at them and seeing whether or not they are worthwhile, just for it to be advertised again when there's a new incentive for me to consider again. This same operation happens to everyone who uses streaming services, as the audience is a commodity to be bought and sold by advertisers. 

I’m treated very well as a subscriber of these services; the servers send the program are reliable with few buffers, the websites don’t have malware or bugs that slow down the speed of my computer, and I even get special features such as the option for subtitles on any show, and even an automatic option to skip opening credits. The same can’t be said for those who can’t afford to pay monthly, or who are using ad blockers. For example, my girlfriend is the daughter of Asain immigrants and she watches Korean TV, but she doesn’t pay for streaming services, and there are no channels for her to watch them for free. She streams these shows from free servers she finds online. These are often filled with malware, regular ads, and pop-up ads that ruin the viewing experience as well as poor servers from outside of the country which buffer and crash often. I am labelled as a priority customer because my viewing consists of popular American TV and I pay for the service, meaning I will most likely respond well to the advertisements that are sent to me and have a higher chance of purchasing, so my leisure time is improved to keep me as a customer. My girlfriend is exactly what advertisers will ignore, she enjoys foreign shows and doesn’t pay for her streaming service, so her leisure time is not cared for or valued, so is less important. This is a slightly different take on what the text has to explains, but it is a similar issue. Racial formation is causing someone close to me to not enjoy their leisure time as much as me because of their background and taste. 

Adding market value to certain demographics does show signs of massive potential in new technologies though. Our viewership is measured on any platform we visit through server logs, and cookies. Even now with Google assistant and Google Home and smart home devices and surveillance systems, our voices are being monitored too. I had a conversation with my mother about what Halloween costume I am going to wear this year, and Google offered me advertisements for Halloween costumes the next day. This is the evolution of peoplemeters that tracked TV viewing habits, but on a much smarter and efficient scale that people meters couldn't achieve. Because of psychographics, we are not purely treated as a mass audience in this situation. I am not being offered to listen to Drake because Drake is popular with men my age, I am being offered curated advertisements that are relevant to me based on my demographics, psychology, and my actual web searches and needs described through conversation. This conclusion is very controversial because devices that listen to your voice at all times is creepy, but it is the peak of what target marketing strives to be in its most efficient form. When this form of information gathering and target marketing is perfected, it is hard to say whether our thoughts are truly our own because of the power of suggestion.

Artist: Sara Cwynar

Venue: The Approach, London

Exhibition Title: Marilyn

Date: February 27 – April 5, 2020

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release and link available after the jump.

Images:

Images courtesy of The Approach, London

Press Release:

The Approach is delighted to present the first solo show in the gallery by New York-based artist Sara Cwynar. In her practice, which includes photography, installation, and film, Cwynar surveys the transitory object-life of visual matter in our time of image infatuation. Her composite photographs of found objects and images court feelings of time passing and glamour fading. Using studio sets, collage, and re-photography the artist produces intricate tableaux that draw from magazine advertisements, the internet, postcards, or catalogues.

Marilyn features Red Film, the third film in a trilogy exploring how desire manifests through objects. Taking the tone and structure of an educational film, Red Film critiques capitalism’s persuasive, constant pressure to conform and consume; questioning the effects of this torrent on the self; and pointing to the use of ‘high art’ to sell aspirational merchandise. The film avoids drawing any conclusions but rather tries to recreate how it feels to be a human in relationship to intensified 21st century media culture. Centred around several objects and ideas— Cezanne brand jewellery boxes and Cezanne brand makeup, red commodities such as lipstick, contemporary red Comme des Garçons clothing, and a 1985 mustang convertible, Red Film combines footage of a makeup factory, dancers, a famous Rubens painting and the red convertible in a photo studio. The film touches on notions of truth and appearance, about our cultural insistence on connecting beauty with truth, and what one can know about someone’s inside character by looking at the outside. In Red Film, Cwynar speaks through a proxy’s voice while hanging upside down, with the inside of her body pressing on the outside. The narration for these scenes is written in the style of ‘influencer’ Instagram captions—declarative, at times insightful, and often narcissistic. Throughout, ideas and theories, and even ways of talking, are shown to be as easily reproducible as commodities—how theory and even language can become kitsch.

Six smaller video loops complete the installation with Red Film. Marilyn conveys an endless circling of objects, images, and value signifiers. The same images (and bodies) are used over and over—be it Marilyn Monroe’s body, a reclining nude in a classical painting, or a model on an E-commerce site. In the Annexe space, a continuous line of photographic works echoes the themes from Red Film, but with still elements, in contrast to the constant scrolling of the film installation. The photos and looping videos include a different red car once valued for being fast that now functions as a museum relic, models posing with life-size reproductions of cut outs of Marilyn Monroe’s most iconic outfits, works of classical Greek and Roman art, images that signify the golden age of Hollywood, expensive handbags, cheap consumer objects, things that were once the height of value but have now faded, tobacco packaging, pantyhose, a Prada skirt, online shopping and its increasingly defunct counterpart the department store, and a pop star among other things. Many of the photos are shot from above so that different objects and images flatten into one.

The work in this show approaches cycles of buying, selling, and image-making from many different entry points. For some photographs, Cwynar worked with models from the popular online E-commerce site SSENSE.com. She became interested in these E-commerce models because of their endless and at times rote repetitions of the same three gestures. There is barely even a slip in their facial expression or movement. In her words, “I wanted to bring these women to my studio, to think through the multiplication of a person in images; how people are reproduced (and increasingly reproduce themselves) and how this process suggests an overwhelming amount of choice that isn’t actually a choice at all.” In other images Cwynar reworks pictures of the 2017 Jeff Koons Louis Vuitton bag collaboration—which appropriates five of the most famous paintings in Western art history. This appropriation continues themes explored in Red Film about how high art gets used to sell things, and what this tells us about what we find valuable. Marilyn explores the countless ways in which bodies, ideas, and works of art are all swept up in the same cycles, turned into images or objects in order to sell. A set of x-rays of Marilyn Monroe’s chest once sold for $45 000—as Cwynar says, “even the inside of her body was up for grabs.”

Sara Cwynar (b. 1985, Vancouver, BC, Canada) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA. Recent solo exhibitions include: Gilded Age, organised by Amy Smith-Stewart, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT, USA (cat.) (2019); Gilded Age II, curated by Jenn Jackson, The Polygon Gallery, North Vancouver, BC, Canada (2019); Good Life, curated by Sara Dolfi Agostini, Blitz, Valleta, Malta (cat.) (2019); Image Model Muse, Milwaukee Art Museum, WI, USA (2019) and Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN, USA (2018); Rose Gold, The Approach, London, UK (2018); Tracy, Oakville Galleries, Oakville, ON, Canada (2018); Soft Film, MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany (2017). Forthcoming and recent group exhibitions include: Objects of Desire: Photography and the Language of Advertising, LACMA, Los Angeles, CA, USA (forthcoming); American Women, curated by Marie Maertens, La Patinoire Royale, Brussels, Belgium (cat.) (2020); Le Dandy des Gadoues, curated by Marc Bembekoff, Centre d’art Contemporain de Noisy- le-Sec, France (cat.) (2019); Don’t! Photography and the Art of Mistakes, SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA, USA (2019); Glenn O’Brien: Center Stage, Off Paradise, New York, NY, USA (2019); Age of You, curated by Shumon Basar, Douglas Coupland, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto, ON, Canada (2019); Last Night I Wore A Costume, LX, New York, NY, USA (2019); She Stares Back, curated by Michele Bosak. Kendall College of Art and Design, Grand Rapids, MI, USA (2018-19); You Are Looking at Something That Never Occurred: From The Zabludowicz Collection, curated by Paul Luckraft, MAMM: Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, Russia (2018); To Our Parents, curated by Alejandro Cesarco, 33rd Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil (2018).

Cwynar’s works are in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Guggenheim Museum, New York; SFMOMA, San Francisco; MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Dallas Museum of Art; Milwaukee Art Museum; Baloise Art Collection, Basel; Fondazione Prada, Milan; Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City; FOAM Photography Museum, Amsterdam; Zabludowicz Collection, London; Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Sandvika; TD Bank Canada Collection, Toronto.

Link: Sara Cwynar at The Approach

Contemporary Art Daily is produced by Contemporary Art Group, a not-for-profit organization. We rely on our audience to help fund the publication of exhibitions that show up in this RSS feed. Please consider supporting us by making a donation today.

from Contemporary Art Daily http://bit.ly/2IMJ7WB