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No Unicorns were harmed in the making of this film – the contradictions of participation in a media world (or ‘When Maggie met Banksy’ or ‘Show me the moneyBART’) | Creative Practice in the Interdimensional Space-Time Continuum

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No Unicorns were harmed in the making of this film – the contradictions of participation in a media world (or ‘When Maggie met Banksy’ or ‘Show me the moneyBART’) | Creative Practice in the Interdimensional Space-Time Continuum

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Creative Practice in the Interdimensional Space-Time Continuum

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Banksy's opening sequence for the Simpsons is a "mediality-centred metareference" (Keazor p 474) which accounts for the show's own "nature as a manufactured artefact" and provides a view of the show as a product of the dominant culture; but there are more things that could be read into this 'self-criticism'. I suggest that work such as this from artists like Banksy and the Simpsons are a kind of safety valve that allow us to laugh at the shortcomings of our society in deference to actually becoming socially involved in the problems. We 'rage against the Machine', but there is an unspoken agreement that whilst we are in the act of viewing this piece that we are actually part of it.

There is no question that the Simpsons is lampooning Western capitalist society, but to what effect. Lopez (pp 46-48) views these comedic criticisms as a form of co-option by the existing Hegemony. He bemoans "Inevitably corporate media, whether expressed in the form of comedy or Hollywood cinema, wrangles with social anxieties but offers its own pat solutions through consumerism or conventional plot resolutions" and claiming that the world system "like the Borg in the Star Trek series, it can incorporate and co-opt just about anyone and any point of view"; or as Lin puts it (p 64) "Fox broadcasts a show like The Simpsons, which regularly satirised Fox News, in order to provide a level of release for social discontent".

Certainly even the Simpsons creators seem eager to remain one step removed from their commentary and present Bansky's dark and dire depictions of their own corporate machine as harmless fun. Simpson's producer Al Jean when asked if Banksy's criticism had made them consider changing their production methods for their show and merchandising, replied "I have to say, it's very fanciful, far-fetched. None of the things he depicts are true" (Itzkoff). Whilst of course no-one really believes Fox has imprisoned an exhausted Unicorn to punch holes in its DVDs, there is a sad ring of truth to the sequence, as a great deal of the cell painting for the animation series is outsourced to a South Korean unit and much of their merchandise is cheaply mass-produced in Asian and Eastern European countries.

Just like The Simpsons, Banksy uses the fantastic to reach a mass audience with information about real social issues. His work is a formulation of only one side of the two facets of socially engaged artwork identified in the writing of Pablo Helguera. His work is symbolic, being a way to poetically connect with the audience rather than incorporating the actual, which exposes the true nature of the art. As Helguera, himself puts it (p 6) this type of work acts through "representation of ideas or issues" addressing them "only in an allegorical, metaphorical or symbolic level" and "does not control a social situation in an instrumental strategic way in order to achieve a specific end".

Whilst a stencil of a flower in the end of gun, may evoke a powerful emotive response in our psyche, it is not, in itself, a revolution. When the same piece is printed and hung in a gallery, rather than sprayed on the wall of a conflict area, whilst its intent remains intact, its effect is even further diluted. So when someone visits a Banksy exhibition or purchases one of his pieces (Lamb p 87) to hang it on a wall, they are minimising that which Helguera regards as a vital part of socially engaged art, that of social interaction.

It is not to say his work is without worth. I enjoy both The Simpsons and Banksy greatly myself and I also share the ideology of Foucault, who was always impassioned with the notion that intellectuals must maintain an active role in the challenging and questioning of power in society. My contention is that the social criticism of Bansky and The Simpsons, whilst cleverly cloaked in humour and parody is exactly the type of glossy formulated criticism that can be passively consumed, leaving the majority of its audience with a sense of participating in the questioning of power, without their own voices ever being added to the dissent.

There is also the issue of the commodification of dissent. Duncombe in Sandlin (p 346) asks the valid question "when commercial media is pirated for radical messages do these messages become mere entertainment or product? And conversely: When the image of hip rebellion sells a product, does it also sell the image that rebellion is hip?" Perhaps this is Fox Studio's method of removing resistance, by turning critical art into a commodity in the same way that Banksy designs are mass-produced for sale on T-shirts. Looking at it from a Postmodern perspective, Foucault himself viewed domination and resistance not as a binary but as integral parts of each other (Raby p 161).

Merquior (p 85) paraphrasing Foucault quipped "theory is not like a pair of glasses; it is rather like a pair of guns; it does not enable one to see better, but to fight better. Intellectuals ought to be struggling against the forms of power they are involved with: knowledge, truth, discourse". Leiva (2013) describes Bansky's work in terms of "diversion" which "consists in taking up one or more elements of the culture in order to extract them from their context and to shape them by giving them a new meaning, completely deviated and distinct from the first". It is possible that this animated sequence is Fox Studio's "diversion" used on us in an act of incorporated co-option. Time to exit through the Gift Shop. Next please...
REFERENCES
Helguera, P. (2011). Education for socially engaged art a materials and techniques handbook. New York: Jorge Pinto Books.

Itzkoff, D. (2010, October 11). 'The Simpsons' Explains Its Button-Pushing Banksy Opening. Retrieved October 12, 2017, from https://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/11/the-simpsons-explains-its-button-pushing-banksy-opening/

Lamb, B. (2011). Spray-painting the town gold: Art vs. commerce in "exit through the gift shop". Screen Education, (62), 86-91. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.saeaustralia.edu.au:2048/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/923234188?accountid=145504

Leiva, A. D. (2013, September 24). Banksy vs. Jonnystyle: Jamming With Culture (1). Retrieved October 12, 2017, from http://popenstock.ca/dossier/article/banksy-vs-jonnystyle-jamming-culture-1 via Google translate

Lin, J. (2012). The Media Ecosystem: What Ecology Can Teach Us About Responsible Media Practice [Review of The Media Ecosystem: What Ecology Can Teach Us about Responsible Media Practice]. Journal of Media Literacy Education , 6(1), 63-66. Retrieved October 12, 2017, from http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1159&context=jmle

López, A. (2012). The media ecosystem: what ecology can teach us about responsible media practice (Manifesto Series). Berkeley, CA: Evolver Editions.

Merquior, J. G. (1985). Foucault. California: University of California Press.

Raby, R. (2005) 'What is Resistance?', Journal of Youth Studies, Vol 8, No 2

Sandlin, J. A., & Milam, J. L. (2008). "Mixing Pop (Culture) and Politics": Cultural Resistance, Culture Jamming, and Anti-Consumption Activism as Critical Public Pedagogy. Curriculum Inquiry, 38(3), 323-350. doi:10.1111/j.1467-873x.2008.00411.x

Wolf, W., Bantleon, K., & Thoss, J. (2011). The metareferential turn in contemporary arts and media: forms, functions, attempts at explanation (Vol. 5, Studies In Intermediality). Amsterdam: Rodopi.

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No Unicorns were harmed in the making of this film - the contradictions of participation in a media world (or 'When Maggie met Banksy' or 'Show me the moneyBART')

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX1iplQQJTo Banksy's opening sequence for The Simpsons episode #467 'moneyBART' (Season 22) Banksy's opening sequence for the Simpsons is a "mediality-centred metareference" (Keazor p 474) which accounts for the show's own "nature as a manufactured artefact" and provides a view of the show as a product of the dominant culture; but there are more things...

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Sargent Pepper’s Global Art-club Stand | Creative Practice in the Interdimensional Space-Time Continuum

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Sargent Pepper’s Global Art-club Stand | Creative Practice in the Interdimensional Space-Time Continuum

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Creative Practice in the Interdimensional Space-Time Continuum

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How does the Beatles 1967 Album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band challenge the union of high and low culture, art and commodity? What does this cover mean? And how did this revolutionise the production of pop music? I'm going to examine this question in terms of the cover artwork.
According to Danesi (p 5) the term High culture "implies culture considered to have a superior value socially, aesthetically and historically" whereas low culture is considered to have an "inferior value" and is often used to "describe pop culture generally, along with negative descriptive terms". However, Danesi claims certain pop culture artefacts, including the Sargent Peppers cover, do not warrant this kind of description. He states rather (p 6) that pop culture reflects "a need to balance sacred culture with kitschy profane culture" and it is at this 'meeting' where I think this classic LP cover sits.

The cover could be considered to be either Pastiche, Collage or Bricolage - or all at once.
It exhibits the admixture of Pastiche in both imitation and satire, confusing the realms of both emotion and meaning. It displays both the ironical reference and disproportional randomness of Bricolage. Collage is an artistic term used to refer to the pasting of of paper or other materials onto canvas or another surface, extending the domain of artistry beyond the limitations of paint, however, the concept of collage can also extend beyond this into other mediums.

As Danesi describes animated television series The Simpsons, as cutting and pasting "diverse elements from different levels of culture in the same episode...to create a satirical collage", so the Beatles album cover positions the band themselves (both in their past early 1960s and 'present' versions) with 'low culture' movie stars, sportsmen and comedians with 'high' culture literary icons, philosophers and scientists. The original idea for the concept was described by British pop artist Peter Blake as "a life-sized collage, incorporating real people, waxworks, photographs and artwork" (Julien p 92) asking the Beatles to list characters they would have in a "magical ideal film".

One can deduce from the psychedelic uniforms worn by the group on the cover, that it is Ringo, the most unassuming and over-shadowed member of the group who is elevated and granted the rank of Sgt Pepper. In light of this fact and from the juxtaposition of figures living and dead from all walks of space and time, Julien (p 94) formulates that the message is "in the world of the Beatles, all of us have the ability to be magically transformed into whomever and whatever we may choose whenever and wherever we desire".

This reflected in the words of Jameson in Hebdige in Stępień, who talks of the popular culture in Britain in the late-60s as having an "excess of style, a mixture of various trends...and a strong cultural preference for pastiche and schizophrenia, which illustrated the specific of the postmodernist experience of space and time respectively" (p 25). Whether the cover reflected or pre-empted this trend, it was really the first to extend its reach so widely and can definitely be seen as a defining postmodernist text.

In this way too, the cover reflects the global aspects of postmodernism. The cut and paste, remix of pastiche is explained by Hoesterey (p 119) as using "features typical of the cultural connectivism thematised by the ideologues of a global cultural literacy: contamination of genres and styles, the blurring of boundaries between the arts, and between the arts and popular culture" and seen in this light, the meeting of Indian gurus, Charlie Chaplin and Elvis Presley is less incongruous.

Considering its commercial success, one might think of the cover in terms of Stępień's description of pop icon clothing (p 26), a mass-produced text that "recycled visual art and traditional symbols" and "became commodities that were valued in the same way as other mass-produced products" in that they "had the potential to substitute one another and art thereby became indistinguishable from any other commodity."

But just as with the music contained within it, it was a work that brought new definitions of possibility into the world of pop music. As a cultural artefact it redefined what an album cover could be, enabling the viewer a smorgasbord of culture to pick and choose their own meanings and in this sense it made the album cover an interactive space. It was also one of the first popular albums that printed the lyrics on the cover instead of the, then typical liner notes, for the first time placing emphasis on the literary aspects of Pop music. The importance of the album cover was forever changed by Sgt Peppers. It earned its place in the list of the albums that adorned "T-shirts and the walls of young people's bedrooms" (Perone p 78),"became as well known as the music itself and [was] understood by fans as important signifiers of the music's overall style and/or the artist's image"

REFERENCES

Danesi, M. (2015). Popular culture: introductory perspectives. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

Hoesterey, I. (2001). Pastiche: cultural memory in art, film, literature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Julien, O. (2008). Sgt. Pepper and the Beatles: it was forty years ago today. Aldershot, Hampshire, England: Ashgate.

Perone, J. E. (2012). The Album: A Guide to Pop Music's Most Provocative, Influential, and Important Creations (Vol. 1). Mount Union, Ohio: ABC-CLIO.

Stępień, J. (2015). British pop Art and Postmodernism. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

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How does the Beatles 1967 Album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band challenge the union of high and low culture, art and commodity? What does this cover mean? And how did this revolutionise the production of pop music? I'm going to examine this question in terms of the cover artwork.