For my blog post, I’m focusing on an episode of a television show which depicts this same sort of commercialization and incorporation of art: “Fifteen million merits”. The television show depicts a dystopian society where people ride bikes all day to earn money, which they spend on various forms of entertainment. The protagonist meets a girl and falls in love with her singing voice. He uses his entire life’s savings to purchase her a ticket to a spot on a futuristic equivalent to “America’s got talent”, hoping that she will get discovered and turned into a celebrity, and is distraught when she is offered, and accepts, a job making pornographic videos instead. Upset at the system, the man goes back to the bikes and earns enough merits for another audition on the same show. On live television, he draws out a sharpened shard of glass, and, threatening to commit suicide, demands that the audience listen to an impassioned rant against the system, urging the audience to reconsider their lives. The judge, apparently impressed, offers him a weekly television show. The last scene of the episode sees the protagonist, finishing a recording of a similarly passionate rant, places the shard of glass into an ornate case and goes back to an apparently luxurious life. Other workers, still working hard on their bikes, watch his video and receive an emotional fix.

The question which has always struck me when watching this episode is how? How did the system manage to so thoroughly support his message?

The more boring explanation is raw capitalism: the protagonist, however strong his convictions may have been, was always willing to ‘sell out’ for a good enough offer. But there is something about this interpretation that rings false: the man’s determination was consistently presented as real, not cynical: he was very willing to go through with suicide to get his message out there.

The other interpretation is more disturbing. The protagonist, even when recording a mass-distributed television show, did feel and express authentic emotions. It was the system itself that was so resilient that it was able to incorporate any emotion, including the emotion of revolution against the system, and, by working it into it’s framework, incorporate it any grow stronger.

(My apologies for the late blog post: I looked for an email, but I didn’t realize that it was posted on here when we didn’t get an email about it)

I think the concept of counter-revolutionary culture is interesting in the context of film, music, and television. Many times that art is viewed as revolutionary it is quickly appropriated and cast into the mainstream, whether it be art, television, or movies. Therefore it seems that all forms of art are always trying to outrun the quick monetization and conversion towards popular culture or ultimately accept the fate of their of being thrust into the popular culture.

Technology has somewhat freed artists from certain constraints in terms of limits placed on them by structures such as record labels. Platforms such as SoundCloud and the relative ease through which individuals can edit music allows music artists to produce music with greater freedom than ever before.

I also find the concept of revolutionary art interesting because of who deems the art revolutionary at different points. Are critics who ultimately establish the consensus of revolutionary art part of the elite or are they considered organic intellectuals that can determine whether art is truly revolutionary. Therefore is art revolutionary only until the point it is deemed as such?

The art world is often dominated by its own tendency to overvalue drawings and paintings by famous (often white, male, and dead) artists. Too often, new, relevant, and striking pieces by lesser-known artists are overlooked in favor of pieces which attract more attention from the name next to the piece rather than the work itself. In art history classes, students are taught which pieces they should treasure, taught to value the past importance of a piece more than critically evaluating its place in modern times. For example, Picasso’s work was rebellious and revolutionary almost 100 years ago, strongly contrasting the accepted styles of that time, though his work viewed in a modern context seems to fall flat, as most view the work to be great simply because it is a “Picasso” and his styling has been copied and reworked in so many ways in the following 100 years that in this period the Picasso work in itself seems cliché, having completely lost its original meaning.

The exhibits at the Clark museum in Williamstown are a prime example of reinforcing the hegemony of art culture. If you’ve seen their latest exhibit “Drawn to Greatness” you’ve seen the featured gallery filled with brief sketches and seemingly mediocre works, though selected because of the “greatness” behind the name of the artists. All of the names, from Picasso to Pollock to Cezanne to Degas framed along the walls, though only brief sketches or studies for other works. As I walked through on the opening night of the gallery, I asked myself whether I would like these pieces at all if the name tags weren’t right beside them or whether if a simple unknown artist based in Williamstown had produced these exact pieces whether they would’ve had any chance to land in the Clark.

The truth is, the Clark doesn’t have shows which feature local artists—I’ve asked the front desk and they laughed, informing me that the majority of the work they show is over a century old. It’s an institution reinforcing the hegemony of the art world, in that only a few artists ever “are discovered” (due to extreme branding and marketing), at which point their pieces are sold to economic elites (though those responsible for marketing and contracting the art get a fair share of the profit), then for centuries after the rise of the artist, economic elites display the pieces as a symbol of wealth and reinforce the brand of the artist in order to sell the pieces again for a larger profit (at this point the profits stay within the class of economic elites). In example, in 2006, Hollywood entertainment mogul David Geffen, currently worth $8.4 billion, sold Jackson Pollock’s “Number 17A” for $200 million to hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin. At this point, Jackson Pollock had been dead and buried for 50 years, and the piece had lost its original meaning as the meticulous release of pain and suffering for Pollock and turned into a status symbol for elites. Meanwhile countless starving artists produce sharp, engaging, and provocative pieces which go largely unseen and receive little recognition in comparison to the works of a few over-glorified artists.

Though art is an expressive and potentially revolutionary medium, we often see those in power (socially and economically) like the Clark museum feed into the act of over-glorifying the pieces of dead, white men while passing over new pieces from lesser known artists. Collectors and museums and even art studio and art history professors have the opportunity to change this dynamic by seeking out new artists to feature rather than regurgitate what they’ve been taught is “valuable art”. With the rise of social media, we also see many artists overriding the known system of the art world by gaining online fan bases, though it is largely seen in small drawings and paintings. It remains difficult to represent the textures and in-person effects of larger paintings online, thus in the world of paintings, the hegemony of the art world reigns supreme.

Although i am no business expert.. I’m sure most of us have at least in one way or another heard about how cryptocurrencies are taking the financial world by storm. In my very limited capacity, I’ve understood this as a form currency that can be exchanged by different people without the interference of a centralized governing power. In doing this, the privacy of those involved is concealed and the government cannot have any direct influences on this market. Considering this, one can understand why banks and government have been slow to fully adopt their societies because of the lack of control that they would be able to maintain on society if they let this go on unregulated. This is why we continue to see banks and even some governments put in place several impediments that slow the growth of this sector. Looking at this made me drew parallels with the difficulties that come with trying to really shake the system and also see if cryptocurrencies will have a future…

Artists in the music industry, while not shackled to signing a deal by just one singular, hegemonic record label, are constrained by the fact that they must be signed somewhere in order to have success. Although these record labels give these artists a platform to universally sell their music, they take a healthy portion of profits while also having an influential hand—if not the most influential—in the actual creative process of making music. In essence, most artists end up feeling trapped. They are torn between wanting to maintain complete creative autonomy over their own music, and wanting to be signed to a label in order to increase their chances at having monetary/billboard success. This is a common dilemma for artists in the music game, and the problem is amplified even more for up-and-coming stars, who labels tend to exploit due to their lack of experience and established fan base.

Nonetheless, one musician is challenging this hegemonic process by electing to remain independent from record labels altogether. Chance the Rapper is one of the biggest names in the music industry today, and the fact that he is so popular grants him an immense amount of influence. He has turned down multiple offers from different labels throughout the years, choosing to maintain in control of his own music and branding. He has made multiple references to this decision in his songs, stating, “labels told me to my face that they own my friends.” This reference, along with others, has stirred up some backlash from certain labels, as some of them have refused to allow Chance work with some of their artists (thus only further validating the above line). While this method of climbing the music ranks is definitely unorthodox, Chance’s proving that it is in fact possible could lead other artists to attempt to remain independent in the future, which may lead to the fall of these hegemonic industries.

In the 1960s, a group of African American students at UCLA created a collective of films, unlike most had seen before, which would be coined as the LA Rebellion. With sporadic plots and symbolism, the L.A. Rebellion featured films such as Killer of Sheep by Charles Burnett that utilized neorealist influences and jazz music. With the cinematic arena being whitewashed, the L.A. Rebellion was as a vessel for change in the movie industry. The films contributed to the depathologization of black music, the deepening of a positive societal image of blackness, and as opposition to a epidermalized cinematic industry. The L.A. Rebellion combatted hegemonic holds that white actors and white movies had on cinematic arena. In some respects, the L.A. Rebellion was more of a reformist movement than a revolution because of the fact that the film collective did not look to desolate the entire industry but rather expose and thus uplift film from dishonest, negative black representation. The students created an awareness to the way film represents black culture which has since helped to create a more racially accepting industry.

However, even through their efforts we can see black films like Boyz n The Hood still being the standard for popular black film in the U.S. It is not until recently that we see films such as Black Panther and A Wrinkle in Time that feature consistently positive and honest black representation. Looking at the movement through Gramsci’s lense it is clear that the L.A. Rebellion was lacking a organic intellectual. Sure they could make all the revolutionary films they wanted, but without a vessel in which to bridge the elitist, white cinematic community to the L.A. Rebellion filmmakers and their “radical” works, they effectively preach to the choir. Once cannot force another to watch a film let alone appreciate its message, especially if that message is politicized and racialized. Gramsci would argue that the L.A. Rebellion could have be far more effective for black cinema if it had an OI.