Blog 5: Visiting Artist Jesse Drew

Karl Marx’s “Communist Manifesto,” although a compelling document, may not have the endorsement of intellectual, Noam Chomsky. Marx states that it is the ancient corporations that fall daily when in actuality it is the major corporations that keep our American economy in check by being pseudo-monopolies. These companies control their markets by creating a customer base that is satisfied with their product and only wants more and more of it over time. It is through this need that smaller, newer companies can be opportunistic and attempt at the wealth of potential capital that these mega-corporations have spent decades creating. Marx explains that because all natural resources have been claimed, we are now trading services more than raw product. Chomsky says similarly that, in Manufacturing Consent, that it is opinion that is being traded around, that companies buy popularity and the ability to appear established. When a new market opens up, or a new medium for consumers to digest information through, it is quickly taken up and spread all across the globe. Marx speaks on the issue that there is no longer such a thing as “private property,” the advent of the internet only furthers this as this assignment itself, posted on our blog, instantly became the property of blogspot. Moreover, not even blogspot owns it as Google owns blogspot! And who owns Google? –The shareholders. There’s a certain feedback loop to this as the shareholders bought Google shares at a value that only was created by the end user’s usage of its service. Confusing as it may seem, the concept of ownership is one that barely exists in our multi-dimensional economy.

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.