Monday 26 August 2013

Wk 5: Prosume-ing Identity... As a Fan



When I discover a new band, song or album, I tend to consume it more times than really necessary. After discovering something new - either on the radio, through friends, YouTube, Spotify, iTunes or random web searches - I generally download it on (the free version of) Spotify. If I end up listening to it to death and want access to it beyond my laptop, then comes the proper download. For many poor uni students, peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharing and free downloading comes in handy when in need of cheap and fast entertainment. 
Prosumers, first proposed by Alvin Toffler (1980), is described by Ritzter & Jurgenson (2010) as the merging of producers and consumers into one more inclusive category, specifically the exploitation of free workers/creators, and is incredibly relevant to the use of the Web 2.0. Sites that exemplify the Web 2.0 paradigm (e.g. Wikipedia, Flickr and social networking sites like Facebook) “together...are taken to represent how a new class of cultural producers (or “prosumers”) relates to cultural production” (Jakobsson & Stiernstedt, 2010:1).

This diagram shows the ecology of file sharing as an act of prosumerism:


Jenkins, H 2009, '"Geeking Out" For Democracy (Part 1)', Ecology of Education, May 11, >http://ecologyofeducation.net/wsite/?p=638<
Whether through Spotify or bitTorrent, I would argue that file sharing can be seen as a form of prosumerism. While many using these methods don’t necessarily produce anything new, they do produce avenues - or seeds/peers - of access. Before the internet, the same concept applies, potentially even more so, to the making of mixtapes and the like. It is an epitome of the cyber-libertarianism of the open-source movement which is theoretically more concerned with individual freedom and freedom of information than capitalistic ends (Levy, 1984). In exchange for products free of charge at almost inconceivable levels of abundance, we, the poor uni students, are more willing to be more forgiving for poorer quality. 
Programs like Spotify, even more so, allows you to be prosumers in a way bitTorrent sites don’t. The social media aspect of it that allows users to create playlists and follow friends allows the creation of an online identity, specifically through music. It attempts to enter the capitalist area of the internet while also keeping one foot in the traditional user-first social media environment by having, as Ritzer and Jurgenson point out, a “‘freemium’ model (basic and free for most, premium and paid for some)” (ibid, 2010: 30). 
When it comes to creativity, I am significantly musically challenged. Fortunately for me, and sometimes unfortunately for the big music industry, I become a prosumer by contributing to the production of accessibility while also consuming what others provide access too. 

References:
Levy, S 1984, ‘Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution’, Anchor Press/Doubleday, Garden City, NY
Jakobsson, P & Stiernstedt, F 2010, ‘Pirates of Silicon Valley: State of Exception and Dispossession in Web 2.0’, First Monday, Vol. 15, No. 7 >http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2799/2577%20Accessed%20on%206/09/thepiratebay.org/thepiratebay.org/<

Jenkins, H 2009, '"Geeking Out" For Democracy (Part 1)', Ecology of Education, May 11, >http://ecologyofeducation.net/wsite/?p=638<
Ritzer, G & Jurgenson, N 2010, ‘Production, Consumption, Prosumption: The Nature of Capitalism in the Age of the Digital “Prosumer”’, Journal of Consumer Culture, Vol. 10, No. 13, pp 13-36

Thursday 8 August 2013

W4: Remix Culture

Depending on how you define innovation - as something original, or just something new - remixerrs can be considered both innovators and thieves. Fortunately for my consideration, those terms are not necessarily contradictory.

(A remix of Picasso's quote by Banksy
http://www.flickriver.com/photos/hisgett/3762597413/)
It's easy to argue that the re-presentation of a piece of work is piracy when you assume that the original is just that: original. But is anything really original. Pablo Picasso even once said that "good artists copy, great artists steal". Advances in almost any category are inspired by something else. Almost everything these days is a copy of a copy, a reinterpretation of an interpretation. For Lawrence Lessig, "creators here and everywhere are always and at all times building upon creativity that went before and that surrounds them now" (2004: 29). Younger generations especially have replaced the top down consumption model of culture, and instead "increasingly understand culture as something they make, or something they remake and remix...through the tools of technology" (Lessig in Work Foundation, 2007: 75). Art, and more broadly, culture, is often derivative in a way that enables its growth.
Theft is a tricky concept in this debate that, for me, requires specificity. If you consider it in legal terms then it is fairly black and white with only some shades of grey: does 'theft' mean not paying royalties, or just not attributing/acknowledging original ownership? I would argue now, however, that even if the content is stolen, derivative, or has been influenced, the product can still be innovative, new and different. Maybe they're innovators if they add something to or better the original and pirates if they don't: "In music, good remixes make the original tracks more popular" and therefore add value (Mason, The Guardian, 10 May 2008).
U.K street artist Banksy provides an interesting argument for ownership/piracy debates in terms of advertising - a medium which is often derivative and woven with intertextuality:

(http://binaryzeromusic.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/banksy-fuck-that.html)
His quote was then remixed by artist Karina Nurdinova. Banksy himself often employs recognisable symbols in his work but the medium used and elements added alters or parodies the original meaning.
For example:


  

Remixers of any medium of art are not always innovator, but neither are they necessarily thieves. Artists can create something new, based on something old, without leading the way of innovation.


References:
Binary Zero 2012, 'Banksy: Fuck That', Binary Zero, Friday March 16, >http://binaryzeromusic.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/banksy-fuck-that.html

Lessig, L 2004, 'Free Culture', The Penguin Press, New York

Mason, M 2008, 'Live and Let DIY', The Guardian, Saturday 10 May >http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2008/may/10/popandrock.piracy<

Sanyal, D 2011, 'Spiel Province: One Nation Under Banksy', Blogger, Friday 8 July >http://spielprovince.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/one-nation-under-banksy.html<

Work Foundation 2007, 'Staying Ahead: The Economic Performance of the UK's Creative Industries', Department of Culture, Media and Sport, London



Thursday 1 August 2013

W3: You Tatt Too?


(http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobjagendorf/7672926246)
Tattoo is a trend of global postmodernism as it reintroduces traditional elements and practices from subdominant cultures into that of the West – both oppositional subcultures and the mainstream. Its global consumption is a product of the ethnographic changes and cultural flows of globalisation. Its adoption in the ‘global mainstream’ hasn’t so much influenced my view of any particular culture, but rather shined a light on the influence of smaller cultural practices in our globalising world.
 
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/gbaku/4002768276/ )

It is an interesting example of globalisation. Instead of the obvious American Imperialism we typically associate with globalisation, the custom is from subdominant societies and has been bastardised, in a sense, by the West. We have adopted the custom, subverted and interpreted its traditional meanings and made it our own for our own purposes. From this perspective, it can easily be seen how globalisation creates a homogenous world where the dominant West consumes the smaller cultures. It is ironic then that a proportion of those with tattoos in the West "see themselves rejecting occupation-based status hierarchies of the dominant occupational system" as Langman & Cangemi (2003: 150) suggest.


Within Western society, tattoos have been used as a means of identifying with a group or as an individual, starting with, but not limited to, groups oppositional to the dominant ideology. Prisons, gangs, and fringe groups such as hardcore, punk and rock adorned their bodies with tattoos long before it was accepted into mainstream culture. The increasing prevalence of tattoo in mainstream media and its commercialisation to sell products has “elevate[d] tattoo’s cultural status” in the West (Kosut, 2006) while also exhausting its “potential to provoke”. Due to globalisation, tattoo “...is used to sell a product and is simultaneously a product to be consumed” (ibid, 2006: 1037).

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/toonmanimage/341364639/)

The globalisation of tattoo has thus changed my understanding of the practice. While the concept itself is traditionally non-Wester, I see tattoos - like most art - as a form of self-expression; a way to further individualise ourselves in an increasingly modern world of sameness. However, my views dramatically change if, for example, a person not of Maori decent got a traditional Maori tattoo. In my opinion, that's slightly pretentious and more than slightly disrespectful. Chinese and Japanese symbols and designs - also popular among the West - is different but I don't understand why myself. Maybe because the East has been represented more in the media I consume. Logically, it shouldn't be any different. I understand the hypocrisy and contradiction in my acceptance of the concept but placing conditions on the content. 


That's my weird and worldly perspective on tattoo.


References:
Kosut, M 2006, ‘An Ironic Fad: The Commodification and Consumption of Tattoos’, Journal of Popular Culture, Vol 39, No Issue 6, p1035-1048

Langman, L & Cangemi, K 2003, 'Globalisation and the Liminal: Transgression, Identity and the Urban Primitive', pp 141-176