"Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah. It makes absolutely no difference what people think of you." -Rumi
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We live in a world where works of art can be infinitely reproduced, a world where we have even surpassed the idea that at the push of a button the presses can fly full force, printing steaming hot dailies into thousands of people’s doorsteps. We are now in an era where at the click of a mouse an amateur photographer can publish her photos to millions of people worldwide.
Walter Benjamin, in his 1935 essay, “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” discusses how the technological advances that allow society to reproduce artwork will affect how we consume, understand, and interact with art. Benjamin claims that this change in the means of production, and therefore the method of consumption of art is one that removes the “aura” from a work. “Aura” meaning an artwork’s authenticity, the essential history and context that comes from interacting with the original.
Benjamin claims that this elimination of the “aura,” the “essence of all that is transmissible from the beginning… its testimony to the history which it has experienced” is the “liquidation of the traditional value of cultural heritage” (13). Benjamin claims that the integration of context in art comes with ritual, and “mechanical reproduction emancipates art from its parasitical dependence on ritual” (4). When art is no longer ritual based, it becomes politically based.
Benjamin brings up positive effects of mechanical reproduction – the ability to democratize art, release it from the exclusivity of the “cult” and allow it to be exhibited to the public, and the movement from ritual tradition to politics.
At the same time, Benjamin also argues that art in the age of mechanical reproduction can lead to fascism because it works within the current value system without changing it – that art allows for political expression, while preserving the value norms of capitalist society. He illustrates the mode of film, that while film was revolutionary and introduced society to the tiny details of life and “unconscious optics,” film also creates art into a commodity.
“Never for a moment does the screen actor cease to be conscious of this fact. While facing the camera he knows that ultimately he will face the public, the consumers who constitute the market. This market, where he offers not only his labor but also his whole self, his heart and soul, is beyond his reach…. The cult of the movie star, fostered by the money of the film industry, preserves not the unique aura of the person but the “spell of the personality,” the phony spell of a commodity. So long as the movie-makers’ capital sets the fashion, as a rule no other revolutionary merit can be accredited to today’s film than the promotion of a revolutionary criticism of traditional concepts of art” (7).
Is Benjamin saying that though the ability to reproduce artwork makes it political, accessible to different audiences, and allows for universal access, if society is not careful, the excesses of technology and the distraction of the masses by the passive consumption of art will lead us into war and self destruction? This rings of E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops,” as well as violent, apocalyptic movies envisioning a self-absorbed, passive humanity.
Also, Benjamin’s essay makes me think about theatre – the magic of live performance, the authenticity and reflexivity that the medium brings, its roots in ritual, as well as politics. Due to the medium being entrenched in what Benjamin deems this “aura” of art, the theatre world is not changing in speed with the times and the technology.
Other than a few groups, such as the Wooster Group, who are playing and stretching the limits of live performance, theatre is still figuring out how this live and essentially ephemeral art form can connect and be complemented by emerging technologies. However, I believe these technologies will not be used for reproduction, as that is the antithesis of theatre – but used for new ways of communication, interaction, and consumption.
Some pictures of my new life, my first week in grad school!
ITP – The Beginnings!
Some pictures of my new life, my first week in grad school!
ITP – The Beginnings!
Damn.
Yeah, so its been a year since I finished my Fulbright in Manila, and two years since I started this blog. What a journey. This blog began as “Striving for Praxis” – because that intersection between theory and practice was what I was looking for when I left to go study theatre in the Philippines in August 2007.
Sidenote: I’m a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador, so if you’re interested in help with your application, or want to know more about my experience go here: a YouTube video interview by IIE about my experience (I can’t *stand* this video), and my essay on Fulbright application tips.
Since then, its been a wild ride – I directed a show (check out photos on my portfolio), traveled through some of Southeast Asia, moved to New York City, been hustlin’ by babysitting, working random laborious gigs, and assistant directing shows in NYC. All the while, I’ve been living and loving life (including the down, dark, periods – and there were some, trust me), meeting amazing people, and working, sharing, and collaborating with them.
Two years ago, I was looking for the link between theory and practice. I had just left the love of my life, Smith College, with a BA in Government and Women’s Studies, and I wanted to be a theatre director. Armed with post-colonial theory, feminist knowledge, American race and cultural studies, and one full-length play under my belt, I was ready to find a way to bridge academia and art. If that wasn’t challenging enough, I was going to do it in the Philippines. On a Fulbright. While “finding myself” as a Fil Am and rediscovering my history, heritage, and culture! Go me! I was going to crack open the world!
Then the world cracked me open.
Like a fucking egg.
Not one of those awesome salty purple eggs that are tough and resilient.
I was a thin-shelled, pesticide-ridden, sad, non-organic cage-fed chicken egg.
Needless to say, the world gave me a well-deserved bitch slap and it hurt like hell.
Then I moved to New York City, (because one smack down wasn’t enough), and found myself surviving. Then, soon after, thriving.
I found myself changed, calmer, humbler, growing.
I realized that so many decisions I had made in the past were driven by what was “right,” and the insanely high expectations of myself were motivated by fear – fear of failure and hurt. I began to realize that failing, and surviving, was my best success. Now, I find myself gaining a truer, more honest and genuine confidence.
Which brings me to where I am now, and why “Striving for Praxis” has been renamed “The Center for Sustainable Foolishness.”
Two years later, I am beginning to learn to bridge the gap between theory and practice, ideas and art. I am starting my first year at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, in the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). ITP is an interdisciplinary program, a playground for artists and technologists to come together, learn from each other, and create things with our (and each others) brains and hands. I’ve only been here two days, and it is a magical fucking place. I have very little background in technology and new media, but I am so privileged, excited, and eager to learn to make things that I cannot even yet imagine, with creative people whose interests and disciplines are diverse and wide.
My first day of school, my morning class involved learning to wire a microcontroller to an LED and make it light up. Then, my second class of the day lectured to us, “poetry drives you, not hardware.”
I am so happy to be in an environment where I have so much learning to do, that I have no conception of what I can make and what I am capable of. It is freeing.
I am inspired by this quote:
“Start a huge, foolish project,
like Noah.
It makes absolutely no difference
what people think of you.”
-Rumi
I’ve renamed this blog because I’m ready to be a damned fool.
I want to make mistakes and look ridiculous. I want to make bad decisions, freak out, cry, move forward, and learn and grow.
This will be where I will be posting my work, projects and ideas from ITP.
Thank you for witnessing my transformation from a true and sad dolt, to a joyful playful fool. Enjoy!
Damn.
Yeah, so its been a year since I finished my Fulbright in Manila, and two years since I started this blog. What a journey. This blog began as “Striving for Praxis” – because that intersection between theory and practice was what I was looking for when I left to go study theatre in the Philippines in August 2007.
Sidenote: I’m a Fulbright Alumni Ambassador, so if you’re interested in help with your application, or want to know more about my experience go here: a YouTube video interview by IIE about my experience (I can’t *stand* this video), and my essay on Fulbright application tips.
Since then, its been a wild ride – I directed a show (check out photos on my portfolio), traveled through some of Southeast Asia, moved to New York City, been hustlin’ by babysitting, working random laborious gigs, and assistant directing shows in NYC. All the while, I’ve been living and loving life (including the down, dark, periods – and there were some, trust me), meeting amazing people, and working, sharing, and collaborating with them.
Two years ago, I was looking for the link between theory and practice. I had just left the love of my life, Smith College, with a BA in Government and Women’s Studies, and I wanted to be a theatre director. Armed with post-colonial theory, feminist knowledge, American race and cultural studies, and one full-length play under my belt, I was ready to find a way to bridge academia and art. If that wasn’t challenging enough, I was going to do it in the Philippines. On a Fulbright. While “finding myself” as a Fil Am and rediscovering my history, heritage, and culture! Go me! I was going to crack open the world!
Then the world cracked me open.
Like a fucking egg.
Not one of those awesome salty purple eggs that are tough and resilient.
I was a thin-shelled, pesticide-ridden, sad, non-organic cage-fed chicken egg.
Needless to say, the world gave me a well-deserved bitch slap and it hurt like hell.
Then I moved to New York City, (because one smack down wasn’t enough), and found myself surviving. Then, soon after, thriving.
I found myself changed, calmer, humbler, growing.
I realized that so many decisions I had made in the past were driven by what was “right,” and the insanely high expectations of myself were motivated by fear – fear of failure and hurt. I began to realize that failing, and surviving, was my best success. Now, I find myself gaining a truer, more honest and genuine confidence.
Which brings me to where I am now, and why “Striving for Praxis” has been renamed “The Center for Sustainable Foolishness.”
Two years later, I am beginning to learn to bridge the gap between theory and practice, ideas and art. I am starting my first year at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, in the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). ITP is an interdisciplinary program, a playground for artists and technologists to come together, learn from each other, and create things with our (and each others) brains and hands. I’ve only been here two days, and it is a magical fucking place. I have very little background in technology and new media, but I am so privileged, excited, and eager to learn to make things that I cannot even yet imagine, with creative people whose interests and disciplines are diverse and wide.
My first day of school, my morning class involved learning to wire a microcontroller to an LED and make it light up. Then, my second class of the day lectured to us, “poetry drives you, not hardware.”
I am so happy to be in an environment where I have so much learning to do, that I have no conception of what I can make and what I am capable of. It is freeing.
I am inspired by this quote:
“Start a huge, foolish project,
like Noah.
It makes absolutely no difference
what people think of you.”
-Rumi
I’ve renamed this blog because I’m ready to be a damned fool.
I want to make mistakes and look ridiculous. I want to make bad decisions, freak out, cry, move forward, and learn and grow.
This will be where I will be posting my work, projects and ideas from ITP.
Thank you for witnessing my transformation from a true and sad dolt, to a joyful playful fool. Enjoy!