intellectual properties

shadowdance

#occupyfashion (post #15)

i ♥ that this happened: http://www.cynicaltimes.org/articles/occupy-brings-working-class-outrage-to-fashion-week/

“The whole Occupation thing is important because it’s about people going out and talking about the things that are messed up in our own society and the fashion industry is one of them,” said Mediavilla. “New York City used to be popping with jobs for people making clothes and then the industry outsourced many of those (apparel) jobs so they could pay people pennies on the hour in other countries instead of a decent wage.

“Meanwhile, they’re spending $500,000 on a single magazine cover photo that gets photo-shopped all to hell and is often very unrealistic. Young people see these fake images and think they have to look like that.”

Employment in the U.S. apparel industry has fallen by 82% since the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect Jan. 1, 1994, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The U.S. had 149,700 apparel workers last month, compared with 834,900 in January 1994.

The median pay for the 64,100 sewing machine operators left in the U.S. was $19,180 in 2010.

…”Most of my friends that work in the fashion industry are only part timers and they’re given less than 30 hours of work each week so they don’t qualify for benefits, but they still make too much to qualify for food stamps,” Stone-Diaz said, pausing briefly as a passing fashionista called the protesters “assholes.”

He smiled, shook his head and continued.

“We have all these fashion shows on television right now – like Project Runway – that romanticize the industry and hold it up as part of the American Dream,” Stone-Diaz said, “but it’s built on 1% structures just like the American Dream.”

One of those structures is grossly underpaying workers in order to lavishly overpay investors and top executives, models and designers.

i think some people think my work in fashion shows is counter to all of the other socio-political stuff i do/write about and wonder how i could be dong this “really superficial’ thing one day and then writing about poverty and justice the next. first of all, it irks me that some people think that fashion is only trivial and superficial and belittle its importance in human culture, especially as compared to the other arts, but that is another topic in itself and so i digress. my point here is that in fact, i ONLY, and i mean ONLY, work with designers who are dedicated to responsible clothing, who source their goods as responsibly as they can, and to keeping their lines ethical from beginning to end.

i do these fashion shows because i love fashion as a form of self-expression, but also because i think supporting my friends who do local fashion IS IMPORTANT – as noted above, the U.S. fashion industry is not only cruel in its treatment of women as objects, but the treatment of workers here and abroad is horrid.

youwillhavetolearntolookattheskyagain (post #14)

http://www.themorningnews.org/article/the-city-is-wilder-and-kinder-than-you-think (2/9/12):

The poems on Old Street are set in capital white letters on a brushed black background, in a sort of mangled Futura; it’s a type treatment that should send his words running and screaming through the streets but somehow does not. Instead, the words lean calmly against the wall and arouse a kind of subtle and unnoticed reflection. People pass by on their way to or from here or there. They do double-takes and slow down. Intrigue wraps their faces. They stop, read, think, and eventually move on, carrying something with them that maybe wasn’t there before. Something that came free, silent and unexpected, set in capital white letters on a brushed black background.

“I’m an acolyte of Situationist ideas,” Montgomery says, referring to Situationist International, a group of 20th-century European revolutionaries who used public art installations to capture people’s attention, ask questions, and express ideas. “Their influence on me is far reaching. But the key introductory idea is perhaps Guy Debord’s idea of the spectacle, by which he means loosely the coalition of capitalism and the media.”

Debord, a French social theorist, writer and filmmaker, helped to form the SI in 1957. In his influential book, The Society of the Spectacle, he suggests that the combination of capitalism and the mass media will lead to a society dominated by false images, and that these images will act as a spectacle isolating people from reality. Debord eventually shot himself through the heart in 1994 in a small village in Auvergne, France.

“What Debord and the SI really get into,” Montgomery says, “and what sets them apart from much other post-Marxist thought, is questions of what capitalism does to us on the inside; in the inner sphere of life, to our hearts and minds, almost to our karmic sphere. I think those questions have never been more pertinent, especially in this historical moment when it is inarguably clear that capitalism in its current extreme form is not only immoral, but technically flawed.”

…

Montgomery’s poems hang near the vacant Old Street Magistrate’s Court, where, until recently, a group of Occupy London protesters had been squatting. “If you look at what Occupy are doing,” he says, “I think we’re finally seeing a positive international forum for positive change to the global financial system. That’s if we listen to them and don’t marginalize their voice.”

Emma is a 42-year-old Occupy camper and writer. She says she thinks it’s important to see artwork like Montgomery’s in the public realm. “Reclaiming public space is vital,” she says. “Art, music, poetry, performance, debate, conversation—these are the things that bring us together, that lead us out of our isolation, that allow us—the 99%—to connect, to share, and eventually, to mobilize. Every attempt to stimulate conversation regarding how we live now and how we could do it better is valuable.”

Beyond Aesthetics: Occupy Art (post #12)

following up on my last #occupy post……

the Muppets have taught us so many things since 1976. and this week, they’ve taught us just how well popular Art can be used to call bullshit:

Watch: The Muppets Diss Fox News:

 Miss Piggy was more combative and political; the puppet added that the charge was “almost as laughable as accusing Fox News of being news.”

(this is a response to this)

have the Muppets always been so intense?

anyway, i love it, and this is a great segue for me to post some of that which i recently wrote for my art school application on the subject of the current state and intersection of art vs. politics in America. this is definitively the longest post i’ve ever published, but if you’re interested, read on….

Continue reading »

everything is its own reward

(click for full size)

–Paul Madonna. this book is unbelievably beautiful. many thx again to Vera for the gift.

Essay Question: When is art propaganda? When is it not?

Part 1.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda

Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one’s group.

And art, IMO, is any form of creation as a means of expression. Who creates without expression? And when is expression ever neutral?

Personal or political, if you share your art, isn’t it propaganda? Aren’t you hoping to change the way people think about something, even if it’s only yourself?

Do you have thoughts? I know this is wide. Answer widely.  and please excuse my lack of academic understanding.

Part 2.

Are you turned off by artists who are/seem really “political” or constantly pushing a message/cause? Sometimes? Always? Why? At what point could you consider it propaganda? (Consider, for example, the length of the spectrum from SuperBowl commercials to campaign ads. Are they really that different?)

Please answer in the comments here. This need not be overly wrought.  define art for yourself, define propaganda for yourself, and then tell me where their relative intersections lie for you, and how you feel about that/how it affects your support/how affected you are/how you are affected by any form of what you define as art.

he who seeks beauty will find it

“Fashion is the armor to survive the reality of everyday life.”

-Bill Cunningham

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Cunningham_New_York is one of the best films i’ve seen in a while. i think it’s relevant and moving whether you are into fashion or not, because it’s about humanity’s relationship to fashion more than it is about fashion.

the scene where the reporter asks him why he goes to church every sunday is somehow heartbreaking. there is more to that answer.

watch Bill Cunningham New York on Hulu for free

“if you don’t take their money, they can’t tell you what to do…
money is the cheapest thing.  freedom is the most expensive.”

movement studies

last night we went to see our (awesome!!!) friend Mary Franck’s conceptual-performance piece, Permutae.

i had so many millions of things to say while sitting in that dark theatre,  and now i barely recall all of the places my mind went.

i don’t know why i resist loving conceptual art so much.  i think it’s because i can’t actually articulate why, and so when, afterward, i say “i absolutely loved it” and someone asks “why?” i feel suddenly unprepared, embarrassed to explain.  why do bodies moving absurdly through abstract scapes to nonmelodic sounds cause my self to dissolve?  the body as vocabulary, skin as an instrument: this speaks to me.

all i know is that not long after the performance started i realized that almost my entire body was moving also, while most of the rest of the audience sat still, the man next to me fully asleep.  not only do i enjoy watching, i uncontrollably want to be doing what they are doing.

i have an artist ticket to burning man this year, from doing butoh with BadUnklSista for BRAF and such.  it makes me feel odd as i still do not describe or consider myself an artist. but i think that i might do a solo butoh piece somewhere on the playa.  i will not tell anyone when or where.

wasted, cut and dried

recent films:

Waste Land (netflix) – a documentary about art and poverty, esp recommended if you enjoyed that amazing TED talk by french artist JR on using art to “turn the world inside out” and help impoverished communities – can art change the world? or at least a small part of it? while the setting of this film is the giant landfill outside Rio in brazil, the movie doesn’t really mention or suggest anything about reducing waste or get into environmentalism. i think the movie didn’t talk much about landfills and excess because the setting speaks for itself. this movie is about using art to change people’s lives who are on the receiving end of the damages of our first world excess, and it’s pretty heartwarming and inspiring. it will likely change the way you think about the people living in these places and might also incidentally change the way you think about waste.  music by Moby.

Wristcutters: a love story (netflix) – another excellent very dark comedy, about the afterlife world of people who commit suicide. was not quite the tone that i was expecting – in a good way, and Tom Waits, as always, is an excellent character.

Get Him to the Greek (netflix): another lowbrow male comedy starring a pudgy wannabe who is going for the girl/fame/cred/whatever. if you liked Forgetting Sarah Marshall and/or Superbad, you’ll probably like this. or if you just like looking at Russell Brand, which i do. these kinds of movies are funny to me, but i don’t really LIKE them. i really, really could have done without the “performances” at the end. i have to admit though that Puff Daddy really made me laugh in this one. he was the best part.

films: on the subject of alternate and/or parallel lives

“the internet is like this new human experience.  at first, everybody’s gonna like it. but there will be a fundamental change in the human condition. one day we’re all gonna wake up and realize we’re just servants.  it’s captured us.”

We Live in Public (IMDB/netflix) – are you reading this on the internet? have you not seen this movie? do you have a facebook account?  do you use a smartphone to “check in” to places and tell the world where you’re at? do you tweet about what you eat? is your life trackable online?  you should watch this movie. especially if the above applies to you and you have also been to burning man.

a biography/documentary of josh harris.  like “The Social Network“, only the crazy slightly sociopathic internet visionary is played by himself and he goes a bit crazier than Zuckerberg with his ideas about how the internet will change humanity, including creation of an underground pod community in NYC just before Y2K where everyone is on TV/broadcast to each other 24/7.  watch trailer.

.::.

Das Wilde Leben aka 8 miles high (IMDB/netflix/wikipedia) – hot german girl Uschi Obermaier joins counterculture community experiment Kommune 1 in west berlin in the late 60s, meets revolutionaries, becomes “it girl”/supermodel, hooks up with the rolling stones, travels the world all gypsylike.  the movie has great scenes and dialog but also sort of cheesy stereotypical 1960s “free love” moments. the actress who plays Uschi is unbelievably hot. fictional biography. in german with subtitles. also super relevant if you have ever been to burning man.

.::.

Leaves of Grass (IMDB/netflix) – in which Edward Norton plays twin brothers who have diverged somewhat stereotypically into a redneck pot farmer and harvard philosophy professor and are reunited under contentious circumstances. i was skeptical (mostly because of a) fake southern accents are hard to take and b) it had a very Doc Hollywood “big shot gets stuck in small town” direction to the script), but i admit the dialogue and acting was above average, and while some moments were easy to see coming, others were totally not.  edward norton fans will LOVE this. as will intellectual potheads.

.::.

i sense a theme here in the movies i’ve watched lately.