Blog 4: Visiting Artist Darrin Martin

Wallace Stevens explains in his article, “Art, Entertainment, Entropy,” that media such as television uses dramatic elements and emotional responses to include a message possible unrelated to the narrative or content. He heavily attacks the concept of genre as the single most limiting system of classification by creating expectations of content that cannot normally be broken. He explains these concepts of his in terms of science, which are very comforting to me as a analytical scientist. His explanation of feedback loops are especially applicable to the internet phenomenon, youtube. Youtube is a case example of work creating more work as when one searches something; one will find many, if not hundreds, of the same video done by different parties. Although youtube’s genre system is not the same as film genre breakdowns, I can summarize the classification system as music videos, video blogs, candid capture, informative, and mashup. Each of these videos if inspirational enough, create an onslaught of works that only parody them. Youtube’s response video feature makes this loop very evident. Twitter and Facebook both are good examples of Steven’s give and take model represented by the laws of thermodynamics. When one posts or messages something, it almost always elicits a response of sorts. This level of causation only emphasizes that everyone has an opinion. Media such as television exploits our desire to speak out and presents imagery or situations that subliminally sell us something in return.

Blog 4- Art, Entertainment, Entropy

Wallace Stevens’ Art, entertainment, Entropy delineated and critiqued the difference between art and entertainment. He concluded that Art explains and “gives us what we don’t know we want,” while entertainment exploits and “gives us what we want.” Also, he describes the effects of entertainment on entropy, which is considered the level of our ignorance on a subject that can be perpetuated with redundant information. Increased entropy will lead to regression in society while negentropy, or negative entropy, promotes and results in society’s progression.
I feel that the new modes of entertainment truly do exploit society. Stevens made a valid point where he said that “the spectator is reduced to a voyeur.” Through YouTube, Facebook, or twitter we are able to live vicariously through other people. We can flip through photos of their vacations, watch them drop, pop, and lock it, or even follow their every move throughout the day. All while we sit at home. It is a good example of increased entropy, or ignorance, in the world because we are not absorbing material that would enhance our lives or progress us in any direction. Rather we simply take in whatever is handed to us without any argument or analysis. Instead of expanding our minds and creating some sort of change in the world with new ideas or beliefs, we are creating negative change by digressing into sponges and remaining in stasis. Although these forms of entertainment have brought us to a different level of communication which can be considered progress, they have changed society’s status quo. What was once somewhat taboo like mass e-mails or mass Facebook friend invites are now every day. Instead of making lunch dates we make skype dates. Our virtual entertainment makes it easy for us to keep in touch but it is also causing us to become more reclusive because we technically anything we ever want or need is just a click away.