So, moving on…

I Tought I Taw…

Today, I was delighted to Facebook-stalk upon a series of pictures from a guerilla project manned by a friend of mine and cohorts. It involved sprinkling a series of tweeting birds across their NYC Nolita neighborhood. But it really has to be seen to be appreciated:

Nolita Tweetie tweets, "Ate a cat. Tasted like shit. It was revenge."

From what I gather the endeavor was based in pure “why not?” whimsy, and to me it evokes a kind of tongue-in-cheek, absurd and literalist observation of the kind of amusing, disposable ephemera with which we clutter our digital world invading and occupying an actual little corner somewhere. 

Nolita Tweetie tweets, "Just had a fabulous meal with Naomi and Kate in Nolita."

I’m struck by how many fun, cheeky, hard copy leave-behind operations occur in cities worldwide. Sometimes there’s a greater purpose like the DARPA Network Challenge (if by greater purpose you mean a nice cheque for finding 10.1% of Nena’s stash), sometimes it’s the brainchild of a roomful of marketers, but the most intriguing exist for their own sake and some even ride the meme wave all the way and develop a viral life of their own (Bacon, anyone?)

Barking Up the Right Tree

All the while I think there’s the underlying notion that for all we talk of a digital, virtual, soft copy world, ever-evolving with the release of each new i-product, we still love the real deal. On a rainy day (or after viewing The Story of Stuff) I may even argue that our rampant consumerism grows from an increasing, almost fetishistic desire to stamp out a brick & mortar impact in an increasingly abstract world.   

The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Proliferation

Working in digital media, and living in an online world, it’s easy to get caught up in the virtual aspects of what we do and how we live. So easy, in fact, that it becomes refreshing and exhilerating to experience a work articulated in actual space. Particularly a work of social or political commentary, which have become the content mainstays of the blogo-twitter-insertnewfad-o-spheres.

When I think about efforts like the Tweetie birds, I often wonder what Walter Benjamin would think about the work of art in the digital age. In his 1935 essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, he describes how the aura of a piece withers in reproduction, divorcing mass-produced copies from the ritual, meaning and intent of the original, and becoming ideal vehicles for political ideology.

Keepin’ It Real

The world wide web being what it is, with each new Facebook/Twitter recruit or company determined to churn out post after post to play the SEO game, sometimes we have to realize that Content isn’t always King. Sometimes Content is Clutter. In fact, more often than not, it’s clutter. And the more of us generating it and splashing it around the series of tubes, the more meaningful NOT mediating your experience can be (so put your recording device down and actually watch the concert, why don’t you?)

So while I acknowledge I’d only know of the Tweetie birds because of dear mother internet (she pays my bills, gives me ideas and tucks me in at night), I wish I could have stumbled across them the old-fashioned way: a cute little day-brightening discovery in the midst of my standard routine.

Bras of "Many" Colours (runway photo by Shattered Image Photography)

Millions whimsically played along, while a few detractors grumbled in the corner. Then, there was the usual round of aftershockers who (perhaps because they missed out on the first-round fun) posted socially aware messages in lieu of hues (donate here, post this instead, breastfeeding is good, etc.) Some criticized the campaign for deliberately locking men out of the fun (and perpetuating the incorrect assumption that only ladies get breast cancer), and many cultivated semi-mock outrage over the triviality of the campaign. What’s the point? How does this help? Right! Stop that, it’s silly. Very silly indeed.

Well, as we’re all trying to out-goose each other, I’d like to add my own ridiculous complaint to the mix:

What is up with the poor selection of bras on the market?

‘Black, blue, pink, red, beige, white and none,’ read the statuses in my feed…

What, no puce? No battleship grey, Bondi blue, burnt umber, goldenrod, vermillion or wallflower? It’s enough to make a girl want to burn the darn thing.

Do I fault the imaginations of women the world over or should I start sending letters to Victoria’s Secret? They should take a cue from cosmetics companies (now there is an industry clearly in possession of cutting edge synonym technology).

Social Investigation

Clearly, getting women to mention their unmentionables was a much-needed inquiry into the sad state of affairs that is the average lingerie line-up. All this cunningly disguised as an awareness campaign for… I forget.

But at least we can trust whoever got the ball rolling to take action: we’ve done our part, now lobby those retail giants into a greater spectrum of colours in their palettes!

Periwinkle.

I really wish I could have been in an early meeting to hear what market researchers had to say about positioning this “product,” I can only imagine they were struck by the same bolt of lightning that got some upstart to think of putting sleeves on a blanket.

Yes, I am going on record as saying J.D. Salinger alone will make up 4% of their sales. Prove me wrong, "Lovers of plaque"

• Intermedia: An Art History course on performance/video art, experimental music, and the art scene throughout the 20th Century. I read Kurzweil for the first time and wondered what Socrates would think of mobile devices, given that Plato claimed in Phaedrus that he thought literacy alone would wreck our memories.

• The History of Early Film: If you’re thinking silent era, that’s what I thought too. But no, the era we covered looked at pre-silent era film (before 1915). As in “man gets hit over head by mongoose.” It’s a little like grainy YouTube before the evolution of shot-countershot. Reading about an infant medium spreading its wings (and taking down institutions in its wake: goodbye magic lanterns!) brings so many ideas to the fore on art in the age of digital reproduction…

• The History of Communications – Pre-Electronic & Post-Electronic: Why wouldn’t newspapers suffer in an age of web 2.0 community-building when part of their rise was in capitalizing on nationalistic “imagined communities”? The internet renders your audience if not “real” then, at the very least, not quite as imaginary. Also, learning Bell wanted “Ahoy hoy” to be the official telephonic greeting finally made me understand why Mr. Burns uses it to answer his calls (he is awfully old).

• CyberReligion – Technology, The Internet & Religion: Religious studies course for which we were told to “use the internet as [our] primary text” (well, that and our 400-page reader). More Kurzweil, Baudrillard, McLuhan, it was all about researching the experiential phenomenon of a new medium rising in our midst. From religious ideation similar to when people equated hearing a disembodied voice over the phone to a quasi-religious experience (almost like listening to God himself) to inevitable and gradual mundanification.