ADVENT OF THE PROTOBRAIN

It's been a while since I've written in my blog... I've been away traveling the depths of the universe all within the confines of a large polo field out in Indio. If you've been living in a cave, I'm talking about Coachella, one of the finer things that occur in life annually. Culture, my friends, is condensed into those 3 days of hot desert sun. If you're a little nosier and want to see photos of me at coachella with all the fine people that I went with, you can check my facebook photos. Anyways, today's blog entry isn't going to be about Coachella and who I thought were the best acts, etc. That information is only relevant for short amount of time. Read on and I'll tell you what I think is relevant.No, I haven't lost my mind, and no, I don't think The Hills, as a show has any significance. Its relevance though has to do with this: those in the target audience of shows like these, yes, you, are becoming stupid... among other things.

I was up late last night writing some papers for SCI-FI & Urban Dystopia regarding the media within Philip K. Dick's novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Basically, Philip Dick sets up for the reader, a futuristic world in which there are "mood organs" in which you connect to in order to be the mood you'd like to be in, and also in which there is one show that everyone watches hosted by some d-bag named Buster Friendly (I really enjoy the crudely rendered Buster here so I included the drawing... NOT done by me).
Buster has many guests come on, usually the same ones over and over, and these guests are usually blond model-sque androids that engage the viewer with her everyday problems about how she had to wake up at so-and-so time for a photoshoot. Blah, yeah sounds like a talk show but fuck, the people in the novel watch this shit 23 hours a day. I'm thinking to myself, yeah, that's ludicrous...

But... it's not. I think it's worse in reality. Why are shows like "The Hills" and "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila" a hit success? Reality sucks enough, yet we suck more of even shittier reality out of the tube. Just watch these clips for a minute:


Ok I'm sure everyone's heard this before but... aren't there better shows to watch on t.v.? Maybe I'm biased but I think shows like Battlestar Galactica are both entertaining and address legitimate issues regarding artificial intelligence, politics, religion, etc. Even shows like LOST are really well done and serve the purpose of 'escaping' reality. Cuz frankly, I like to veg out in front of the T.V. when I've had it with dealing with dumbasses. I don't watch the TV to encounter more fucktards who's biggest dilemma is their rich ken doll looking chauvanistic bf is breaking up with them, OMG. I'm done with the rant...

On a more scholarly note, this sort of media is addressed in Hannah Arendt's theories in The Origins of Totalitarianism. Arendt discusses the role of propaganda within a totalitarian regime and that it is a tool to "win the masses". Call it a stretch, but when a program like the ones that we see on TV are characterized by gossip and non-issues, it seems to contribute to a collective dumbing down and apatheticization (yeah i made that word up so shoot me you get what i mean) of the masses. It serves as a subversive form of time consumption; instead of a group of young 20 somethings coming together to talk about socio-economic issues that affect all of us, they group together to talk about what a bastard Bif the boyfriend has been to Lolo on her birthday at the beach house in Malibu.
When it comes down to it, Stalinism and Nazi Germany happened because they took advantage of an apathetic mass. The "mass man" is indifferent and untouched by other political means... and shit, with brett michaels on the loose, there's no where else to go but down.
I HOPE THERE'S AT LEAST SOME HILARITY TO THE POST.

//

MOVING ON: THE 80'S HAS BEEN OVER FOR A REALLY LONG FUCKING TIME

...or has it?
I can't go a day without seeing some flashback of the 80's. I'll be online chatting with friends and get sent a link, only to realized I have been "rick rolled". This last year alone has just been a barrage of fanny packs, faux mullets (hell even real mullets), 80's themed parties, and raybans, and high top sneakers with air pumps in the padding (I mean, really, the pump alone must outweigh any extra 'oomph' you were hoping the air would give you when you imagined yourself flying high to dunk the ball like Jordan).
To be honest, I think most of these cultural re-phenomenon's, if you will, are best summed up in the YELLE music video...



If you don't know anything about it, you probably wouldn't be surprised if I had told you that was my favorite music video when I was 4. Well, it was made like within the last year.

Yelle might be an extreme case. There are countless other examples of this resurgence and return to the 80's.

Dan Deacon as well as Crystal Castles often use 80's video game noises in their songs:


[[I've just seen both of these artists live within the past 6 months and the crowd was very edgy and hip. 8-bit music seems to be really taking off.]]

New Cut Copy album, In Ghost Colours, is 15 tracks of pure 80's hits, only done in 2008.


Not only are we seeing this in music, but I've been seeing it in the gallery too. Explosions of neon colors and neon lights take you straight back to the 80's on a jet plane.
(above) Multi-media extravaganza exhibition titled "a very anxious feeling" by assume vivid astro focus (avaf) @ in New York City. Eli Sudbrack and is said to contain many members who are all born anytime between the 20th and 21st centuries in various parts of the world.

Anyways, you get the point. So what's going on?

I'm going to start out with a bold claim that nothing, at this point, is original and that we, as a collective population, are the products of re-appropriation, a world built up on the idea of a simulacrum. Given that, it is only natural that our processes, fashions, and other cultural tokens are cyclical in nature; they are 'novel' or 'innovative' at a certain point and then are regurgitated into the masses and then again fashioned and re-contextualized decades later. Prime example, the 80's.

I only use the 80's as the main topic of discourse because, I don't know if anyone else agrees with me, it seems as if the 80's has overstayed it's welcome a little longer than other 'decade' trends have. I remember in the middle of high school, the idea of the 80's becoming the next trend hit. That was about 6 years ago. And it made sense for the 80's to come back around 2000-2002 ish. 20 years for a culture to return seemed normal given that the whole 60's-70's hippie thing had just died off (Austin Powers, etc). But really, it's 2008. In fashion, a 6-8 year old trend is like wearing polka dots with plaid. It just doesn't happen.
But I think in this case, the explanation is simple. All of us who were made in the 80's or grew up amidst all things 8-bit, flashy, glamy, and synthy, are now in our twenty-somethings. And as everyone knows, the twenty-somethings will always be hot. We set the pace in what's 'cool' for the most part and what hip and in. As I'd like to put it, young enough that everyone older wants to be us, but old enough to have a firm say in what's hot.

All in all, I think I may have come to terms with the whole nostalgia of being "made in the 80's". I may as well enjoy my music filled with roland 909 and synths galore while it's still 'fashionable' to do so because once those "made in the 90's" become twenty-somethings, listening to Tears for Fears will just be plain stupid.

//

Bibliography:
Lustro, Drew. Aim conversation. 4/16/2008.

Drew Lustro, I trust you on this.

REINVENTING THE WHEEL & STEEZE

The concept of the “coolhunter” is as old. William Gibson may have been the first to coin the term with his character, Cayce Pollard, of Pattern Recognition, but I’m going to postulate that when cavemen were sittin’ around the fire, or hanging out in the godforsaken landscape dodging lions and shit, the ALPHA, was the one to watch for what to do. He had all the ladies, I’m sure, and probably had the best techniques in various tasks, ie. making fire, bringing home the kill, running away from dangerous predators, inventing the wheel, etc. This alpha was the one bringing home all the caveman steeze possible.

Of course, we can only hope that we’ve progressed since then.

Today, we get our sources of cool/uncool (surprisingly very fine line between the two) via social interaction, magazines, books, television, and the seemingly all encompassing internet. Little pockets of culture have grown and thrived on perhaps a single viral video alone.This blog is really about that. It’s about how these ephemeral cultural phenomenon’s happen, how they exist, how they’re going to affect the future, and my personal encounters with them. I don’t actually give a fuck about what most people think are cool or uncool because, let’s face it, in this neo-post-post modern (add as many neo/geo/post’s as you want) world, something one person thinks is cool is probably pretty damn lame to someone else.

This is just an investigation into the whole culture phenomenon. I’m curious and the only way I figure I could keep a consistent journal of my experiences is to believe that there are people reading this piece of shit that hopefully will become interesting at some point.

cheers,

Michelle