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[microsound] Re: MySpace/free-market response
Sorry, missed that.
Too bad too - a damn fine reply.
=]
As to the question of sucking in and of itself:
- All art is context driven, IMO.
Example.. most people would immediately categorize, say, Merzbow as
unlistenable crap, others can find something in it at times, others still
revel in streams of harsh noise. Same can be said of most things. Rinse,
repeat.
As to the question of cream rise/crap sink
- Obviously a powerful entity can use its influence to manufacture consent,
to borrow from Chomsky. This happens daily in pop culture, to name just one
of many scenarios where
this holds true. Example.. Big label owns massive chunks of content,
manufacturing
capabilities, and distro nodes from the studio to the station to the
pressing plant, and leverages that vertical integration to give itself
unfair advantage in the marketplace. Its artists and content and entire
aesthetic are as a result inextricably imprinted onto a significant chunk,
even majority of the populace, however derivative and vapid, becoming
something the masses exalt to the exclusion of far more, uh, deserving and
interesting content/aesthetics. We all know what I'm talking about, nothing
remotely earthshattering here.
I consider this an 'un-natural' situation. Un-natural selection.
The normal mechanisms by which ideas are shared and propagate have been
perverted.
Refer back to my other opinions in the thread.
As opposed to when individuals, even as a mob, have unfettered access to
literally ANY material there exists the possibility of those individuals
making their own decisions about what is worthy of their attention and
acclaim. Word spreads, massive hyperlinking (real world and/or virtual)
happens, and the literally 'natural' process of memetic propagation, pretty
much a direct parallel of evolutionary processes, is allowed to take its
course - A successful meme thrives and propagates.
Hope this helps. =]
~ !J!
http://www.endif.org
http://www.crunchpod.com
http://www.thirdwavecollective.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Fodel" <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Jason Hollis" <contact@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2006 12:56 PM
Subject: MySpace/free-market response
Hey Jason... I had sent this response to one of your initial mentions of
the whole "free-market" thing. Maybe you did not see this, it was under
the "Adorno turns in His Grave" subject.
I think the entire discussion that was generated around MySpace was great.
I am sure some folks from the .microsound list will be exploring MySpace
slightly differently now.
Anyway, the e-mail is below.
I would like to refute this point you made earlier in your thread:
"Those that suck will be mocked or ignored and sink. Those that are good
will rise and become virulent. Let natural market forces decide."
How much culture that many percieve as being in the "suck" category is
taken as a whole to be "pop culture"... percieved as having been good
enough to rise to the "top" of something or other? Like winning American
Idol? Which is of course, supposed to be predicated on some kind of
cultural "free-market"... "the community" or "the public" chooses... and
something "rises to the top".
those that are choosing are always already corrupted by "natural market
forces" having been force-fed the market, naturally.
I don't understand who the subject is in your statement either... who is
it that is determining what sucks or is good? as if there is some baseline
for these qualities that can be standardized. I think the activity that
occurs on MySpace with regards to the relative popularity of an artists
work has more in common with "mobs" than with markets (especially in the
sense of a free one). It becomes cultural mob-rule rather than cultural
democracy. artistic merit determined by the whimsy of a fickle crowd.
would a composer such as Xenakis, or Stockhausen rise to the top on
MySpace? And if not (for whatever reasons) does that mean they suck?
David Fodel
720-280-3179
805 East Chester St.
Lafayette, Colorado
80026
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are
free.
-Goethe
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