CFV 426 – Avatar/Pocahontas Mashup FINAL VERSION from Randy Szuch on Vimeo.

The point was made previously on this blog, but this excellent mash-up makes more visible the parallels between Avatar and Pocahontas. It reflects how the cultural myth of romantic savages versus colonial war machine (or loss of innocence/ fall from grace) continually persists in popular culture. Because it is a product of an industrialized culture and the radical transformation of its place on Earth, the continued popularity and re-working of this theme should not be simplistically reduced to false-consciousness. Yes it’s true that it is a distorted picture and Native Americans are right to criticize the stereotypes that ossify their culture and flatten them. Additionally, it is fair to say this is a necessary myth for the colonial culture, so it is not innocent or immune from these idealogical critiques.

Nonetheless, Pat Breton points out in Hollywood Utopia: Ecology in Contemporary American Cinema that critics need to develop an ethical kind of intervention that doesn’t ignore the legitimate (and very real) response of the audience. Likewise, Adrain Par argues in her discussion of Dances With Wolves that the film’s popularity was working on both latent and manifest sensibilities, the latent coming from the primal and repressed, whereas the manifest derives strictly from our response to the storyline. She suggests that in order to transform our culture from militarism to sustainability, it is important to recognize the “affect” that comes from deep responses to media with transformative themes. I remember really being inspired by the film, but than “learned” to hate it after all the criticism. But since militaristic and mechanistic thinking is so prevalent in our society’s cultural output, we need to recognize that when the Primal Matrix asserts itself, it does trigger a genuine revival of Spirit.

In this sense, I believe Avatar represents a good case study. Yes we can dwell upon its simplistic genre recycling and tropes (as the above mash-up alludes to), but clearly there is a deeper emotional response emanating from the cultural feedback loop happening with this film (Adrian Ivakhiv has a good round up at his Immanence blog). I see similar signs of this when the cultural commons reveals itself through the emerging economic practices of the Web. Lawrence Lessig, Clay Shirky and Henry Jenkins all document how the audience is quite alive in its response to media. People engage in all kinds of creative and participatory practices that were not reflected by the older, hierarchical structure of media of yore. So we should stop thinking about the “dominant” media with old models (this is the plea from David’s Gauntlett’s Media Studies 2.0).

Participatory cultural behaviors are not new, nor did they ever go away. In the 20th Century we can go back to Dada and follow a line through various avant-garde cultural movements to punk and hip hop that show active and often resistant behavior working beneath (or occasionally blinking on) the radar of the culture industry (albeit the industry’s machinery has become a lot more ravenous when it comes to commodifying subcultures). But the way in which marketing constantly repurposes grassroots cultural expression is a healthy sign that 1) culture constantly adjusts in ways the resist domination and 2) marketers still depend on authenticity as a reference point. This is all a long-winded way of saying that rather than being a deadened populous walking around like zombies in a shopping mall simulacrum paved over a dead planet (as critics like Chris Hedges would have us believe), the spark of life (however dim it may be) still persists among us, and can be brightened when certain stories speak to our inner moral compass and its sense of justice. No wonder that Palestinians and indigenous peoples are drawing upon the Avatar meme to highlight their causes. The “Fall”‘s mythology can play a subversive role in changing the meaning of dominant symbols, serving as a kind of fulcrum that can shift the culture’s center of gravity into a new direction.

I’m hopeful from reading Jonah Sachs and Susan Finkelpearl (makers of Story of Stuff), who argue that the open secret of marketing’s past successes (such as the Marlborough Man and Volkswagen’s populist appeal) were based on powerful (visual) stories. Propaganda has also achieved such successes through promoting narratives like the Clash of Civilizations. In terms of the environment, scientific facts about the planet’s perilous state are not penetrating the populous to the same extent as the disinformation flak spread out by the oil industry whose simplistic screed have a way of guiding the discourse just enough to scramble the facts (“confuse and conquer!” was the surrealist manifesto we used to use back in college). But what the energy companies lack is a connection to the Primal Matrix (although now that I think about it, crude oil is essence of primal goo and the fact that we burn it is an interesting psychological response to our planetary Id). Movies like Avatar, on the other hand, draw upon the repressed within all of us, the billion dollar response of the buying public a good sign that it is strongly active.

I’m struck by a quote from Bill Moyer’s interviews with Joseph Campbell, who said, “The myth is the public dream and the dream is the private myth.” If ads are the dreamlife of corporations, then perhaps films like Avatar are the dreamlife of the Planet. Which, of course, includes us.

OK, so you know I quibble with Stephen Hawking’s mechanical view of the universe (who is featured in the above video), but I still love Carl Sagan (more prominently featured), and have very fond memories of his old TV program, Cosmos. I’m well aware that I have been a bit of a downer lately, but blogging lets me process what I’m feeling about the world, and hence I’ve been on the downside of the optimism scale of late. Anyhow, to switch gears, this autotune mash-up of Sagan is a wonderfully positive song. It actually makes me feel good about being human living in this universe.

You can download it here.

An entertaining mash-up of Henry Jenkin’s Convergence Culture. If you haven’t read the book, I suggest you do as Capitão Nascimento says, or else!

Thanks Peter!

For more.

Reminds me a bit of Warhol’s screen tests. BTW, great music!

OK, this reveals what a ridiculous geek I am. There is a “viral” Bob Dylan marketing project that allows people to remix the infamous Subterranean Homesick Blues film made by D. A. Pennebaker. The campaign does not allow me to embed the video (I don’t know how to capture the streaming flash- I guess I’m not such a geek after all). Anyhow, this is a mash-up with my favorite series, Battlestar Galactica. Click here to see the video I created.

Technorati Tags: Bob Dylan, puppy

As mashups become the dominant aesthetics of our time (people act like this is such a new thing, but punks and hip hoppers, please pat yourselves on the back, were doing it long before YouTube, not to mention Dada), it is ironic that corporate “take-downs” are beginning to proliferate the Web. Ultimately this will bite them in the arse, just as the RIAA is doing so by suing music customers. The Center for Social Media is now launching a big research project on the subject. The video link above is a good overview of some the reasons why this is such an important topic for concern.

Remix Culture — Videos — Center for Social Media:

There is a ton of new creativity in the user generated space, and much of it builds on unauthorized uses of copyrighted material. In this new era of participatory media, where should we draw the line between infringement and fair use? Take a look at our new video, highlighting some of the ways that existing content is being repurposed. This video is designed to provoke discussion, so please share your thoughts with us on our blog. To download a quicktime version of this video right click here.

Technorati Tags: Center for Social Media, RIAA

DJ Spooky‘s got an interesting project and installation for the Venice Biennial 2007. To explain his approach, he states:

Brian Eno once famously remarked that the problem with computers is that there isn’t enough Africa in them. I kind of think its the opposite: they’re bringing the ideals of Africa. After all, computers are about connectivity, shareware, a sense of global discussion about topics and issues, the relentless density of info overload, and above all the willingness to engage and discuss it all – that’s something you could find on any street corner in Africa.

As for the material comprising the mix, he elucidates:

The “Ghost World” mix is all about the multiple rhythms and languages of Africa, but it makes no attempt to give you everything – it’s from my record collection. That’s why the “story” of the mix is about: polyrhythm, multiplex reality. There’s even more current material, like the Kuduru sounds of Luanda (who says Techno doesn’t exist in Africa!?) and old school hip hop, like Zimbabwe Legit from the early 90′s of classic “conscious” school hip hop. Yes there’s material from Akon, but he gets mixed with Nelson Mandela, or MC Solaar, but I looked for material of his that combined with jazz, so Ron Carter’s brilliant bass playing worked out with that. There’s even material from my favorite South African composer, Abdullah Ibrahim, and vocal outtakes from David Byrne and Brian Eno’s “My Life in The Bush of Ghosts.” Plus various guest appearances by African dictator Idi Amin or the former President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo talking about democracy in Nigeria.

From Reality Sandwich | Ghost World Mix: A Story in Sound.
You can download the mix here.

Goes to show that you can can edit anything to look scary!

This whole Chevy thingy is going crazy viral.

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Democracy can be dangerous… to car commercials. You can remix the Taho ad at Chevy’s Web site. But if you blink, it may be too late. Catch these unwitting culture jams before they get tossed down the memory hole:

Here

Here

Here