Just Looking ...

I still cannot come up with a thesis about political reality on YouTube... I'm thinking of switching my paper topic to wikipedia, but its late. I guess I'm more interested in YouTube, but I thought I'd share this with the class, cause its pretty great. Its an article from the Times about Sarah Palin's wikipedia entry upon her nomination. The Internet is supposed to be democratizing everything, but can democracy really be anonymous?

So inspired by the last post and similar recent argument I feel like I want to add another perspective to this thing we call art.

Ever year toronto is swarmed by drunken mobs of art appreciators. I think...

...Ah nuit Blanche, a night of open air and "art", having recently passed I feel it is a good time to speak out against it. Being an artist myself and part of loosely affiliated group of artists Nuit Blanche has always appeared to me as something of an egotistical exercise for the self righteous (my apologies if you enjoy this night of nights). It seems to me a place where our notions of art are being calmly stripped away. That is to say that most of the installations appear to me to be for their own sake and sake of 1 million torontonians who maybe didn't realize that artists show year round in a number of galleries all over the city.

It almost seems like a free ticket where we can throw the word art around like a dirty dish towel. And claim some sort of prestige and intellectual ownership over this mythical notion of art. This upsets me as I find the majority of pieces presented are maybe kind of "neat"but lack any real substance. It seems with Nuit Blanche there is some aspiration towards "high culture"and the prestige surrounding making and appreciating art. But what are we really appreciating? It seems to me that it is Art for Arts sake alone. It is simply the abstract notion of art. Not the importance or political contextualization of one particular piece of art.

So brings me to an interesting anecdote from the evening. Remember I mentioned that loosely affiliated group of artists? Well our shared repulsion for the event manifested in a guerrilla art event. Maybe you saw it? We sat down, near OCAD with xerox paper, markers and drawing boards, and a sign that advertised our "hideous caricatures". We then proceeded to "perform"said caricatures for the public, free of charge. The response was enormous and circus like. You see, some of us weren't even drawing the people in front of us. The myth was maintained though that we were, in the end many people simply received a picture of say a banana with their name, or the lamp post behind them with a question mark representing the person, or a scribble entitled: abstract. We felt that we were effectively challenging the lack of "meaning and reason". How maybe you're asking? Well in our opinion by taking caricature illustrations something that itself is lowest on the totem pole 0f image making and placing it into the context of what the powers at be had deemed an event of unfortold artistic expression we were at once elevating the action and detracting from the event. Something as everyday and meaningless apparently as street caricatures was brought into a manufacture high culture context, somewhat like that campbells soup can by the infamous warhol.

Now I can appreciate that some of the artists felt they had created a grand meaning with their works, but I would still argue that do to context and the actual result of Nuit Blanche they simply created meaning for the sake of meaning at the whim of their patron scotia bank.

In short, Nuit Blanche has about the same effect as that magnificent corporate "art" found all over the downtown. And as my colleague pointed out it is the duty of the artist to maintain that sense of reason, context and social engagement that Walter Benjamin was so concerned about.

Venus of Willendorf (25-20 ka BCE), Mona Lisa - Leonardo Da Vinci (1503-05), David - Michelangelo (1501-04): This is NOT art.



Fountain - Marcel Duchamp (1917), L.H.O.O.Q. - Marcel Duchamp (1919), "Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?"- Guerilla Girls (1989): This IS art.

I recently got into an argument about art with a friend. He was trying to convince me that elephants and chimpanzees can make art by showing me videos of animals painting. I was trying to make his head explode with my vision. In the end, I was not convinced, and alas, his head was still intact.

This argument did; however, make me think back to my art lectures and how I learned what art is and what it is not. Believing is Seeing by Mary Anne Staniszewski one the books I had read on this theme. It is great in the sense that it challenges ideas about art and it points to the fact that questioning art is looking at it as something that has a specific place in history and culture. Art, as we all recognize and know it, is a recent concept born in the modern era (roughly the past 200 years).


"It is we who have given the name 'art' to religious things; the word itself doesn't exist among 'primitives'. We have created it in thinking about ourselves, about our satisfaction. We created it for our sole and unique use." - Marcel Duchamp


The first three pictures in my post would most often be described at portraying art. This is taking them out of their historical context and embedding them in our culture and our relatively new concept: art. Before Mo(dernism) - around the late 19th C - what we most often call art were instruments or religious, political, and patronage control. However beautiful they are, these works were specifically designed, under patronage, with either political or religious purpose and the "artist" was nothing more than a skilled man.

Art is connected to intent and reason. It is created by an independent artist with absolute power over it. Art is not something that is commanded by a patron but it is made out of the artist's free will and vision, which is not dictated by an external political or religious agenda. Calling the first three pictures as portrayals of art is taking them out of their context.

Following this logic; there is little Fascist/Communist actual art, since under both regimes artists were both persecuted and forced to work for political agendas.

Also following this logic; neither chimps nor elephants can make art.

I've recently been pretty fascinated by the construction of meaning under the pretense of "realness". The realness lexicon is everywhere, but it is most important in politics. John McCain's campaign bus is imfamously called the "Straight Talk Express". It might seem obvious that this is supposed to make John McCain seem like a genuine person in opposition to the majority of politicians who do not "talk straight", but there is more at work here than meet's the eye.

McCain is tapping in to two older traditions by using this phrase, "Straight Talk" (not to mention the '92 comedy starring Dolly Parton). The younger of these traditions is what is known as the "Plain Speech" tradition, a phrase I picked up in my History of Advertising course (HIS316) and it's textbook "Fables of Abundance" by Jackson Lears (which, by the way, is a great read whether you're in the course or not). This tradition was a reactionary effort to supplant the use of lying, embellishing, and sensationalizing in advertising in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Preachers, most notably Quakers, would make use of the phrase "Plain Speech" in opposition to what they deemed the "Yankee Speech" of the travelling salesmen that would come through small towns with goods from major cities. "Yankee Speech" was typified by its use of flowery and ambiguous language; the idea was that it sounded pretty, but was meant to seduce the listener in to buying something unnecessary. It's important to note that by the 1920's, the "tradition" of plain speech was taken up by advertisers to implement what is called the "hard sell", where the advertisement plainly addresses its audience, extolling the usefullness of the product.

The other tradition in play here is that of orthodoxy, or more specifically christian orthodoxy. I do not mean to evoke the Eastern Orthodox Church (with a capital "O"), but rather the tradition of orthodoxy that goes back to the days of the early Christians in the Roman Empire. Our English word, "orthodox", comes from a Greek phrase that literally meant "straight speech" (or "straight discourse", but the meaning remains the same). The value of straight talk was very high in the early Christian churches, influencing the creation of a religion that would control the mental climate of the western world for centuries to come. The idea for them was the ideal of the revealed truth of Christ against the non-truth of the oppressive Romans, pagans, and Jews. In this sense, "straight" loses its secular meaning in ancient Greek and gains a meaning that allows for the straightness to bend wherever possible for the revealed truth of the Lord. What comes with it is the idea that there is a hidden truth, one that is ambiguous yet still unwavering, still orthodox. The early Christian's equivalent to "Yankee Speech" would possibly be the rhetorical style of the Stoic orators, who were somewhat contemporary with them, and denounced their practice of voluntary martyrdom as irrational and ridiculous.

I would have hesitated to call John McCain's bus the "orthodox express" during his 2000 bid for the American presidency, but since his more recent campaign has been trying to solidify the Christian base of the Republican party, it seems appropriate to make the connection. Straight talk seems to mean an unwavering commitment to truth, no matter how ugly it is. This has been John McCain's style throughout the campaign, most notable in his campaign's "suspension" before the first debate so he could deal with the financial crisis in Washington, D.C. The suspension was unsuccessful and many viewed it as a stunt, but the rational was that of straight talk. He meant to seem like the kind of man who would adhere to the truth of the nation's problems rather than the Yankee lies inherent in a political campaign. With all of our talk about mass culture, it's interesting to consider that both the Christian orthodoxy and the Plain Speech tradition were born out of attempts to alter mass culture (whether these attempts were successful or not remains a question of the true value of straight speech). McCain's use of these traditions simply uses them to alter the mass appeal of himself as a candidate for president. All three have underlying religious meanings.

This is all confusing, and I don't think I have an answer as to what the role of straight speech in today's mass culture is (possibly my paper topic...), so to conclude I leave you with this video for R. Kelly's "Real Talk", off his most recent album.

Earlier today, as I was standing in one of the most epic lines known to man kind at the Sheraton Hotel, I witnessed two older women waltz right into the ballroom by-passing everyone in the line.

AH I thought, how could they?! We have all been waiting anxiously to pick up our race kits, how DARE these women just head right to the front of the line!

As we all started mumbling about how much longer we need to wait in this everlasting line, I glanced over and saw the women head straight into the expo - walking straight past the registration desk and making a mad dash for the merchandise. Interesting I thought, isn't the purpose of this crowded room, infinitely long line, hot muggy ballroom/expo thing to pick up your race bib and shoe chip?

Quickly, these two women disappear from my short term memory as I make it to the front of the line, announce my bib number and pick up all the goods that come with marathon registrations. As I decide to check out what the expo has to offer - see what free stuff I can come up with - I hear a shriek, "WHERE'S THE SALES RACK!?" I look to my left - nothing, look to my right - nothing, look directly in front of me and low and behold, there they are, the two budging women. But, upon my excellent inspection skills, I see they don't posses any "marathon-identifying" items. Obviously, as I am becoming more and more curious (and of course because I am a starving student) I decide to head over to where the sales clerk has directed them to the "sales rack". We start trying stuff on when I notice the dates. 2007 it says. Okay, whatever, I can deal with last years stuff. I mean, it's the exact same thing as this year's only 50% off.

But then the one woman say's something interesting. She says, "Okay, just remember we can't have anything with 2007 on it. It has to either be non-dated or from this year." Of course I had to chirp in, "Well really, if you look at this years and last years, it's essentially exactly the same." The lady kindly replies, "Yeah, but the looks you get from people when you're walkin' down the street with the "Toronto Good Life Marathon (insert year here)" logo is so much better if it's the year of - not the previous year." The other lady inserts, "yeah totally. I mean just the other day I was wearin' my shirt from last year and someone stopped me and said 'Oh! you're running the marathon this weekend?!' then they saw the 2007 and it was a total buzz kill." Naturally, after a long day my mind wasn't totally functioning so I said, "OH, so you've run this course a few times?" The first lady, half laughing replies "oh no honey, haha, we only come here to get a shirt with the logo on it. I couldn't run to save my life! But walkin down the street with that shirt on, people look at you a whole different way. Like, 'WOAH, you've ran a marathon!' I go from being a lousy TTC worker to a marathon runner in one glance!"

EXCUSE ME?! WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY? This is what I was silently screaming in my head when I heard this. Has this really what our society has come down to?! People belive that in order to be raised to a higher social class they just need to buy a t-shirt and ta-da, you are officially an elite runner? And when did running marathons become such an elitist sport anyways? Doesn't the majority of the population HATE running? I was confused. Confused beyond all reason. I had to leave immediatly...

But of course, not until I won a swanky black jacket that, naturally, had the toronto marathon logo in a place for the world to see. Oh irony.

In thinking about identity formation, and social location of identities I note an article by disability studies scholar Tanya Titchkofsky who examines that media coverage of Hurrican Katrina. Titchkofsky describes watching televised images of "human degredation unfold...From...rural Nova Scotia in a small university town...I watched the CNN coverage from, I watched in all my middle class whiteness, I watched poor women and men suffering and dying in New Orleans"(Titchkofsky, 2007). In her analysis of media representation Titchkofsky explores the ways that narrative is constructed and conveyed through specific events, such as Hurrican Katrina, focusing on how meanings emerge via embodied depictions of those events. Although Titchkofsky focuses on how disability and disabled bodies were appropriated and discursively deployed and used as metaphors for the disaster in New Orleans, her examination delves much deeper and teases apart our active participation in the construction of identity and meaning. Notably, Titchokofsky reveals how when actively noting bodily difference we are actually clarifying them since they are always noted from a specific locale. Noting difference is utilized to then construct and position ourselves and in so doing, we construct and position others. According to disability scholars disablity is a prime location where the meaning and implication of difference in contemporary society can be examined because disability has been typically excluded from the politics and theory of gender, race, and class. Disability serves only as one point of entry but is an especially salient one because, as Titchkofsky argues, disability is not merely the Other to normalcy, but it is rather an irreducible, productive force...to any interest we have developed in identity and difference. From here identity politics might move on to address the powerfully political process of recognizing how identities have and have not been recognized, formed and narrated by everyday life" (Titchkofsky, 2007).
Titchkofsky and other Disability Studies scholars evoke provocative analysis of discursive and material power and trouble many traditional locales for anlaysis and trouble hegemonic discourses of normalcy and power. I believe that a great deal of material produced by Disability Studies scholars is relevent to the topics we presently engage with in Social Theory through Contemporary Culture but in a unique context. If anyone is interested, the quotes above are from "Reading and Writing Disability Differently: The Textured Life of Embodiment" by Tanya Titchkofsky.

One of the things that I have noticed that have come up more than once in lecture is that everyday life can be a form of resistance. I wonder if this can be applied to tattoos? Tattoos have been around for a very long time, but not in the way that the Western world views them. Certain tribes have been known to give tattoos to their warriors as a badge of honour. It is something that they must earn. The history of tattoos is quite interesting, and is something that anyone considering a tattoo should read. I have added a link below to a site with information on different cultural meanings of tattoos. 

One of the ways that capitalist democracies succeed is to produce cultural meaning by signifying a vision of the good life, a private fantasy that plays on the human desire to belong. Cultural iconography, a product of corporate branding, drives consumer culture and therefore contributes to both the success and failure of capitalist democracies. However, many are suggesting the financial chaos now threatening capitalist democracies around the world is a reaction to a Darwinian system where so many suffer for the benefit of so few.

Everyone would agree that the connection between k-fed and k-os is not musical talent, but rather in the case of k-fed, media hype to compensate for a lack of it. However, by juxtapositioning this onto the corporate capitalist model of "hype-swindle-bail" and multiplying it exponentially, a valid reason behind the current financial crisis around the world may become clearer. While it is true America merely invited the rest of the world to join in the ultimate party, the current worldwide economic chaos proves there are always some who continue downing shots until they're flat on the floor. A recent speech by George Bush proclaiming "democratic capitalism is the best system ever devised" may be true, but while the party's crashing and bank accounts in Switzerland and the Caymans are mushrooming, the era of laissez-faire capitalism is surely over. Incredibly, with the bar nearly empty, a 700 billion dollar bailout of American financial insitutions is replacing a similar bailout of subprime mortgage lenders six months earlier.

Corporate capitalism is increasingly under fire for everything from wrecking the global environment to bankrupting entire countries. Meanwhile, consumers are reassured with new episodes of Arrested Development and The Simpsons. Paradoxically, the more successful corporations are at convincing consumers that worshipping brands will provide cultural meaning, the less aware individuals are of their duplicity. Clearly, it is impossible to blame k-fed for total financial collapse, but consider for example, k-fed CD's piling up in landfills and how this could have been avoided if only consumer societies had chosen cultural meaning over cultural iconography. More importantly, after decades in a deregulated atmosphere resembling less an Industrialized West and more a Wild West, many consumers were convinced there would never be a last call. Corporate capitalists created a party no one wanted to leave, and by using cultural iconography to acquiese the system, they produced ever more branded products for consumers to worship in a Pavlovian frenzy.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with capitalist democracies portraying idealized versions of reality to create desire in consumer societies, the distortion of wealth now wreaking havoc around the world points directly to monstrous greed and infinite excess. Nevertheless, everyone willingly joined the ultimate party despite the risks because humans have an innate desire to belong.

Labels: ultimate party

What I have found most striking in the coming US election is the repeated attempt to be portrayed, and therefore, identity as a "your fellow citizen" or your "common man". After all, doesn't this support the American dream-- that being of course, no matter what background or social standing, if you have the will to succeed, there is a way? Regardless of this being the actual way society works or not, the perpetual catering to this philosophy of leader as commoner is a current discourse that I would like to investigate much more fully. Leaders are policy makers amongst other things, as well as, commanding generals. When making cataclysmic decisions, especially in terms of such economically and politically powerful countries, leaders should be best of us and not apologize for going to Harvard for example. This is what qualifies them for the position after is it not?

So what is this social capital surrounding the "common man"? Of course, in the wake, Marxist philosophy, we may own this up to class tension. The average citizen-- middle class-- resents the upper class and therefore, does not want to elect someone so far disassociated from their reality. This makes sense. Moreover, at face value, it appears as though the tide may have reversed where the social capital has moved away from upper class towards middle class. Unfortunately, I believe this is again, a very subversive tactic used by the upper class in order to persuade the lower classes. So now, I understand why such a considerable amount of social capital is placed on playing the card of your average Joe-- or should I say "Joe Six Pack". Now, comes in Sarah Palin. Palin is so wildly unprofessional and very much 'your average citizen' whatever that may be. This attempt to reach out to everyday citizens has turned into a laughable matter. Palin is highly incapabale of running such an weighty economic and political engine as the US. This strongly highlights the anti-intellectual strain that runs through the United States. The view that the common man has innate wisdom that it is not clowded by intellectual abstraction. That one should hide their intellectual achievements and if they do not they are considered elitist. Isn't this what lost the election for John Kerry after all.

As I have said previously, shouldn't leaders be the best of the best? Isn't that why we are "following" them in the first place? What is this social capital placed on averageness that has become such a serious matter in American politics today?

An experience that I had the other day made me think of a comment Professor Kalmar made about resistance in the culture of consumption. A Chinese friend of mine has, in recent years, learned to speak English through listening to Hip Hop music. Our conversations were still in Chinese since his competence in English was limited, but I realized that he started throwing English words into the conversation. I found myself uncomfortable with the words he chose, for he threw in mainly swear words and, at one point, even used the “n” word jokingly. I explained to him that he could not use the “n” word as it is an extremely racist term, and it took him awhile to be convinced. Then it occurred to me that in Hip Hop music, artists occasionally throw in the “n” word casually, and Hip Hop listeners have somewhat become habituated to the usage of the term. Many of us have learned about the history of racism within the Black community and have been told repeatedly, since we were young, that the “n” word is a derogatory term to be avoided. However, I realized that perhaps this seemingly obvious fact may not be so obvious to those who did not grow up speaking English. I could listen to Chinese music and easily make a similar mistake of using an “n”-word equivalent I heard in the song, oblivious to the fact that it is so offensive because I am not knowledgeable in Chinese derogatory terms.

This got me to think, what kind of resistance is Hip Hop artists portraying and how are they alleviating social problems such as racism by degrading, in many cases, their own race? Many Black artists promote the usage of offensive terms by applying it casually in their music, but if labels such as the "n" word were used against them on the street they would feel mortified, and in turn, write a song about the experience of racism, while again throwing in the “n” word to their fellow brothers. I usually think of people resisting conformity and the social order because they want to, in one way or another, improve their situation. The resistance in Hip Hop music bewilders me.

A steady incline of alarmist reporting has been the mainstay of North American media since what seems to be the first inklings of recent economic crises with a wave of mortgage defaults in the US. Of course, the focus more recently has been on the $700bn bailout proposal passed last Friday, which appears to carry with it no guarantee of relief whatsoever. Excellent.

Among the election issues in both Canada and the US, it is the economy that is trumping all others. I don’t argue that it is a massive problem that needs careful attention, but it seems a shame that otherwise serious issues often on the table come election times have been swept under it – health care, education, the environment (to a lesser extent), immigration, aboriginal issues, and so on. What is ironic (and sad) about this is that it appears to be the fundamental social welfare issues that take the furthest seat back; in a climate of panic surrounding what amounts to the exposé and possible fall of neoliberalism, those social services that have suffered the most under this pervasive mode of governance (and self-governance) are the ones that continue to be obscured.

It seems that in the past 30-odd years, the notion that “every individual is led by an invisible hand” has been well-demonstrated by the apparent absorption of the neoliberalist mentality into the consciousness of the masses. This is hardly a novel statement, but recent developments evidence this clearly. For example, Americans and Canadians alike live as though it is entirely normal to be in constant debt. This is not always due to our excessive personal spending (as a part of the OSAP-bound community I am quite aware of this), but the availability of credit has resulted in obscene spending by many who have not, and likely will never have, the means to pay it back. I contrast this to the way my grandparents lived, farmers with no credit for much of their lives and used to rationing, a way of life that has affected how they spend to this day. The invisible hand that touched them little – in this case, the market – has penetrated later generations so deeply (especially in the US) that an astounding amount of people considered it reasonable to take out ridiculously high-interest loans without reading the fine print, or getting a lawyer to do it for them.

But, of course, the freedom to make such decisions (mistakes) is guaranteed (encouraged) by neoliberal notions of autonomous individualism. And as such, government has no business interfering on their personal behalf. No, such actions are reserved for Wall Street alone.

Thus, it appears that our notions of ‘welfare’ have changed entirely, as we less and less preface the word with ‘social’. Rather, we are forced to look out for the welfare of number one. As the achilles heel of Reagan-era ideology is now being not-so-gently tapped, I wonder to what extent things will really change.

For the time being, I’ll be converting the ol’ RRSP’s into canned goods.

Labels: Canada, Economy, Neoliberalism, U.S., Wall Street

In addressing the question of what distinguishes 'high' and 'pop' culture from each other, one assumes a difference between the two. It's only in this assumption that any answer to the question can take shape.
What if we assume that the difference isn't binary, but spectral, a gradient? Ballet is higher than Broadway, which is higher than the latest Bruce Willis movie. They're all higher than Fox News.

These distinctions are arbitrary. As was said in lecture: cultural 'height' is more a matter of context and class than of any convention on content.

It will be assumed here, for simplification's sake, that the respective 'altitude' of any cultural material is a product of its associations with class and history. The higher the class, the higher the culture. The more historic, the higher the class, the higher the culture.

Before addressing the issue of what, if any, concrete and objective difference might exist between 'high' and 'pop' culture, culture itself must be defined. From the OED: “Refinement of mind, taste, and manners; artistic and intellectual development. Hence: the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively.”

What does this definition tell us about altitude? Absolutely nothing. It doesn't even introduce a dimension wherein the stature of one culture might be measured against that of any other. Matters of height in culture are arbitrary. The only thing the OED gives which might be related to the problem of height is the mention of 'refinement'. So let's assume the critics, when they speak of high vs. low, or 'pop' culture, actually speak of its relative 'refinement'. Gasoline is higher than crude oil. So what? The gasoline is the crude oil, minus the plastic, the kerosene, and countless other useful byproducts, the majority of which are integral to our modern socio-industrial infrastructure, which is what allows us to own cars to put gasoline into in the first place. All differentiation between high and pop is nothing but a trompe-l'œil.

A trick of perspective:

On the one hand, a middle aged beer swilling high school drop out sits chain smoking cigarettes on his tattered paisley couch watching Fox News because he has nothing better to do. His gut hangs from his stained wife-beater shirt. There's a print of dogs playing poker on the wall behind him. Here Fox News is 'popular culture', which is the economic culture of mass simulation, the default culture.

A famous artist paints a picture of the above scene. Hangs it in a Yorkville gallery. Sells it for $25 000. Where does this value come from? Perspective.

Moreover, what would $25 000 do to transform the 'low' life of the painting's subject? Give him the money. He buys a tailored suit, a leather couch, has the room renovated. He drinks Lagavulin and replaces his cigarettes with Cohibas, replaces poker dogs with an expensive mirror. He has upgraded to 60 Minutes. Who will paint him now? He will buy a painting of someone else.

On the other hand, an esteemed cultural analyst sits in his antique chair by the fire in his study at his ancestral home in the Kentish countryside. His Oxford PhD stares at him from a mahogany mantle. He too is watching Fox News, on satellite; he is reflecting on it as a comment on contemporary American culture. He knows that its content is manufactured to meet the demands of a ravenous economy. He pays more attention to the media than to its content. It could be said that, in this context, Fox News is high culture. It is the economic art of Corporation, 'high' as the satellite broadcasting it.

What's the difference between high and pop? It's the difference between what we call art and what we don't - an arbitrary difference. What's accepted by the mind as circumstantial, mundane or practical is not art. What's consciously beheld as art is art. So we're left with what's art and what's not. Every person organizes every perceived object in the world, including the world itself, into one of these two categories. But these organizations are dynamic, dependent entirely on the time, place and inclination of the subject. Art is a subjective matter.

So there's an artistic mode of perception. Though any object may be placed into this mode and perceived as art, there are many things we, by cultural default, place outside. These are usually the things we're most familiar with, the utensils and paraphernalia of everyday life: toys, buildings, landscapes, dinnerware, furniture, appliances, sidewalks, textbooks, conversations. The mass-media we consume is valued mainly for convenience and practicality. At the button's push or switch's flick we're thrust into the psychologically engineered pleasure of modern entertainment, the irresistible escape of effortless, immediate, streamlined stimulation.

Another more important and subtler difference: art is slow; non-art is fast.

We move into slow time when we look upon a thing as art. We move into the time and space of the object. We swim in slow time, are suspended in a solution of the object's meaning. Our imagination makes an eternity of a brief encounter. We let the object change us. We incorporate it into ourselves and are moved.

We move into fast time when we look upon nothing as art. Fast time is forgotten as soon as it is passed. Time without art is slippery and ephemeral. We can't put our finger on it. It rushes us happily to the grave. It is the bowl of the goldfish, the hamster's hollow plastic ball. We are incorporated by it.

For our purposes here slow and fast time refer to the effect indicated by the statement “time flies when you're having fun,” though for our purposes we might rephrase this as 'time flies when perception is devoid of art'. Also, time that is perceived at a moment as slow because we are bored or 'watching a pot boil' is actually fast in these terms because, like dreamless sleep, as soon as it's passed it is forgotten. Its impact on the life view of the subject is negligible when compared to the breathtaking impressions that are characteristic of experience in slow time.

There is no difference between 'high' and 'pop' culture. In fact, the term 'pop' doesn't name a thing, it renames a thing. It renames that which was not art as art. It recategorizes an object. When we call something 'pop culture' we act upon it, so to move it from fast time into slow time, so to think on it as art and open ourselves to new ways of understanding it.

'Pop' isn't a type of culture, it's a semiotic device for reprogramming our perception of any thing. Let's hope this and other devices such as 'mass', 'folk' and 'indigenous', over time, transform global culture into one in which all things are seen as art, a culture with an undifferentiated perception which will gradually move into near permanent and complete slow time. This would be, in effect, a social equilibration in response to the postmodern phenomena of over-stimulation and overabundance of mass produced objects which don't fit our cultural conventions on art. As culture accelerates to keep pace with technology and the corporate empire's tireless demand for profit we are left hard pressed to find slow time anywhere save the refuge offered by 'high' cultural institutions. We must get slow time wherever we can. We must experience life itself as art in order to experience art at all outside of museums and galleries. We're starved for it as we realize that it's everywhere we look, if only we can slow down to see.