Apple iPod and the Change in Culture Industry

This is an assignment I wrote 2 years ago, now that I read it, I realize it is not written well but since its mine I post it:

With the rise of the Apple iPod, a device as big as a pack of cigarettes, which stores all the music one owns, a new shift in the culture of the music listening occurred which was mainly due to the technological advances of the iPod. Analyzing the whole notion of the iPod and other Apple concepts which are related to it, in the perspective of four different media analysts, Walter Benjamin, Horkhiemer and Adorno and Brecht, enables me to explore this concept, considering different aspects of it.

Considering the usage of the iPod, it has totally changed the way one experiences music, and as it is dependant on the reproduced music, the whole notion of the “aura” is misplaced. As soon as an album is released, people around the world have access to it and can easily listen to it through their white headphones. Taking into account the advances in the technical means of reproduction, and the arrival of the digital technology, where the copy is almost indistinguishable from the original, still the reproduced copy lacks the whole concept of the uniqueness of a live performance (original), and its presence in time and space, even though with devices like iPod we can experience any music, anywhere that we can think of.

The other reason why Apple iPod functions against the idea of “aura” is that it has a quality which erases the “distance”, and brings the music to the mass “closer” in a way which is much more effective than any other music player device introduced earlier. It was not long before that audience had to go to a concert hall to hear an orchestrated symphony, where now they can listen to the same music while walking from work to home. And this raises the whole controversy about the way we shall experience music and how the environment effects our perception of a song.

Although a concert is viewed by a large number of people, but considering this in a larger scale it is hidden from the mass, and this is why a live performance has it cult value and is still attended by a large number, although the same music is “exhibited” through distribution.

Apple iPod and the new technical progresses in the consumption of music have also had an impact on the production as well. First, the size of the audience is increased massively and it has become universal due to the new ways of distribution (i.e., iTunes). Secondly, as the aud

ience of a technically reproduced music is separated from the “original” they take the position of a critic. Thirdly, as I mentioned above the whole way of experiencing music is changed. The musician must also consider the fact that his music is going to be played everywhere, and it will be carried with people all the time.

We can also take into deliberation the concept of the “aura” in the perspective of the way iPod is advertised. The fact that each iPod contains the music, which belongs to a certain taste of a particular consumer, makes the product unique and creates an aura. Also the new features like engraving any message one wants on the back of his/her iPod add another kind of exclusivity to the device.

·

The new methods of online distribution of music has made it possible for the musicians to get the feedback they need so fast, that it has made the iPod an apparatus of communication rather than an apparatus of distribution.

Also the new technological advanced features like the Pod cast, which is particularly developed for iPod is exactly the kind of the radio that Brecht was dreaming of, where everyone is a distributor as well as receiver, teachers as well as pupils.

Considering the two ideas mentioned above, this new way of communication has also effected the production of the media as well. The quality of the productions is going to increase, as the producer is always fed with the feedback that is coming from an audience, whom due to the qualities of reproduction are taking the position of critics. In addition to that, because the quantity of the production is increased, as everybody transmits his/her own show as well, a kind of competition will be fashioned, that will have a direct impact on the excellence of different programs whether professional or amateur.

·

In the perspective of Horkhiemer and Adorno’s Culture Industry, the whole concept of the Apple iPod is debatable in the way Apple promotes and advertises its products, and tries to establish a new “style” or in other words culture.

In terms of the iPods advertisement Apple has used all of its power and intelligence in order to create a market for iPod. Their major goal in this area, I believe, is to “manufacture” a need for the product, or at least create an illusion of a need, using different methods. First, they have used any kinds of advertisement possible, from wrappings to TV commercials, employing the same simple attractive theme, and Secondly, by aiming the general public. Quoting Horkhiemer and Adorno: “the freedom is symbolized in various media of the culture industry by arbitrary selection of the average individuals.” This sentence clarifies very well the main theme of the Apple iPods, which is a dark character against a bright background. By leaving the character in the ads anonymous, Apple avoids addressing any specific class or cultural ethnicities, and they leave the decision to the spectator.

Apple also produces different kinds of iPod. According to Horkhiemer and Adorno this is not only to aim different classes and different individuals but also to create an “illusory strike.”

Another method Apple uses to generate such a “need” is by introducing a new “Style” where iPod is a vital part of it. First, not only celebrities present iPod in the TV commercials (which is not something new), but they also use the iPod in their shows and soap operas. They create a whole atmosphere where

the spectator will feel that he/she is the only one who doesn’t own an iPod. They feel like an “outsider” in a style which is practice by the “general”.

Living in a world of entertainment and Hollywood movies, most of the audiences try to simulate the experience of a movie in their daily life, and iPod gives a lot of them this opportunity in a way by providing them a choice of soundtracks that can be played anytime. The music becomes part of the life. Referring Horkhiemer and Adorno: the best orchestra of the world is brought into your living rooms free of charge, and this involves making the average heroic.

Having mentioned all the reasons for the practicality of iPod and it success in the advertisement, it easily justifies why iPod has become popular that any other electrical device in very short period of time. Everybody now have his/her own white headphones and enjoy this technological development, by listening to his/hers favorite music while waiting for bus.

Distorted Perception

I thought it would be a good idea to post this video as it is in the same direction of my next post which I am working on. So enjoy this 1min "Intro".

Marcel Duchamp

A great answer as an artist. This is how an Artist must feel about his work.

Khatami speech on Human Safety

I Have always respected Khatami He may have not succeeded as a president mainly because of his concerns for the Iranian safety, but he has always been great as a person and as a theorist. I really get upset when I see people including him with the rest of the regime when blaming it.

Modernism Vs. PostModernism

According to the World Encyclopedia the term Avant-garde is used to describe “innovators in the arts, particularly those whose artistic audacity surprises their contemporaries.”

Avant-garde always introduces something new and innovative. In art it can refer to something that has not been done before; a novel and innovative artwork which is much ahead of its time and in most cases radical and pioneering. Avant-garde despite modernism and postmodernism movements which chronologically followed each other in 19th and 20th century, could have happened in any period of time. In other words in every movement in art history there could have beenavant-garde, as there were, and because rather than a movement in art, it is a novelcharacteristic of an artwork, it could have even started a movement itself. For example Andy Warhol’s Brillo boxes can easily be regarded as an avant-garde piece as Danto specifically credited this work of art with the end of modernism and the beginning of the postmodernism.

Looking through the “possibility of universal communication” which modernists believe in and postmodernists don’t, it is even more likely to consider avant-garde in postmodernist art rather than that of modernist. Karen Hamblen (1991) argues that “most scholars no longer believe that art objects can communicate without viewers having access to knowledge about the times in which they were made and the places in which they originated.”

Where Immanuel Kant, who set the philosophic groundwork for artistic modernism, believed “when viewing art, people should put themselves in a supra state of sensory awareness, give up their personal interests and associational responses and consider art independently of any purpose or utility other than the aesthetics.”

Therefore viewing this notion from the modernist perspective, it is almost impossible to have an avant-garde, because one of the major requirements of considering an artwork avant-garde is to view it in regards of its time of production or performance. In other words avant-garde is temporal. For example in modernist point of view John Cage can no longer be considered as an avant-garde musician as his chance operation techniques have been practiced by different artists in variety of disciplines.

One of the major concepts that effected both modernism and postmodernism during the 19th and 20th century was the major advances and developments in the technology. In Both movements it attracted a lot of attention from both artists and philosophers. Many different articles were published concerning technology and its consequences. Many of the artists and philosophers deeply engaged themselves in producing material exploring, criticizing or admiring technology.

In modernist art Technology was still observed in the context of capitalist Industrialization, where postmodernism, because of its roots in Marxism, criticized modernity by mentioning the subjugation of workers under that system, and focused more on the implications of technology in the lifestyle of people and its relation with the society in a more general view. Artists not only made art about technology, but they actually employed it to produce art. The significance of the technology in art production in Modernist and postmodernist art is to an extent that Douglas Crimp (1990) mentions the invention of photography as the reason for modernism’s demise and postmodernism’s birth.

Technology, particularly in postmodern world, has benefited artists in various ways and has offered them so many different tools, or what Marshall Mcluhan calls extensions of our senses and nerves, that the possibilities and options in front of them comparing to that of the modernism, is extremely vast. As a matter of fact, if according to Douglas Crimp photography is considered as the end of modernism, many art disciplines including photography and cinema appeared during the postmodernism. Therefore the postmodern artist can express her/himself in a much larger variety of mediums and in this age referring to Mcluhan again medium’s characteristics gains such an importance that it overwhelms the importance of the content. Therefore as technology provides variety of tools and also creates a new subject in the philosophy of art, one can say the more a society is advanced in technology the more possibilities and options are open for the artist in that society, which means postmodernists have a much more diverse range of mediums and concepts to work on comparing to modernists. Thus it is more likely to see avant-garde in a postmodernist rather than modernism, because of the potentials that technology has granted it. At the same time in another sense it is fair to say that it is almost impossible to produce an avant-garde art today, because according to the definition of avant-garde one can refer to him/herself as an avant-garde if s/he believes that s/he is ahead of his/her time, where quoting Marshall Mcluhan: “in the electric age there is no longer any sense in talking about the artist being ahead of his time. Our technology is, also, ahead of its time, if we reckon by, the ability to recognize it for what it is.”

One of the key contributions of technology to art is the development of reproduction which photography as mentioned earlier is an important part of that. Therefore postmodernism has benefited the most from technology as one of its main qualities is reproducing existing information in new means. As Terry Barrett (1997) mentions: “Postmodernists flout the modernists’ reverence for Originality.” In other words postmodernists tend to, what he calls, “barrow” from the past and by placing the old information into new contexts, try to question the whole concept around the information, and of course this goes back to the nature of the postmodernism, as quoting Richard Tarnas: “The subject of knowledge is already embedded in the object of knowledge: the human mind never stands outside the world judging it from an external vantage point. Every object of knowledge is already part of a preinterpreted context and beyond that context are only other preinterpreted contexts.”

The reproduction developments have not only provided tools for artists, and particularly postmodernists, but have also influenced art indirectly by making it available to the public. The reproduction brings a work of art to all those people who would otherwise not see it; regardless of their position in time and space, although reproduced art lacks what Walter Benjamin calls the “aura” of it. In this concept one may reason that because postmodernists have the tendency to appropriate material from the past to remind us that the notion of originality is absent in most traditions of art, there can not exist an avant-garde in postmodernism. But the necessity of being considered avant-garde is more based on innovation rather than originality. In other words a piece of art can be new and innovative while it appropriates material from the past. A perfect example for this can be Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain. By “appropriating” a urinal, an object from the daily life, he pioneered and introduced the idea that art could take any form and he shocked the world. Therefore he was a postmodernist avant-garde.

As It is demonstrated above, avant-garde not only can exist is postmodernism but it is even more likely to appear in postmodernism rather than modernism, mainly due to the nature and structure that forms postmodernism: the nature of questioning knowledge and truth, its roots in Marxism and feminism and the appropriation from the past, Also considering the fact that postmodern era is exposed to a much more advanced technology.

Marshall Macluhan ::::: Electric Revolution