"Hybrid" Art at its finest.. Joseph Arthur

This piece of "Hybrid" Art comes in the form of a musician known as Joseph Arthur who is currently in a new band known as "Fistful of Mercy" with Tom Morrelo from "Rage Against the Machine"

This link is a video of one of Joseph Arthur's live performances.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx_LH2KlDDk

In the performance and in each of his solo performances he works as a one man band, building a series of loops with various guitars and basses and other improve additions including tapping, beat boxing, and vocalization, which he then sings over and occasionally will play harmonica over as well.  In addition to all of this throughout his set he creates a painting in the background while his music is playing and he is singing.

To me this adds an entirely new level of complexity that is rarely seen in live music performances.  While some acts will have creative teams assigned throughout a venue, it is extremely rare to ever see a musician create an entirely separate piece of art in addition to their music.  Combine this with the fact that Joseph Arthur serves as a one man band and it is something special indeed.  The picture / painting can be comprised of many different mediums and is completely created on the fly, on stage, in front of the audience.  This painting adds another level of story telling and commentary to the song that Joseph is singing and gives the audience a prominent visual aspect.  It allows the artist to communicate on an entirely separate level away from his music, all the while he continues to play and sing his music.  This creates a stronger relationship between the artist and his audience resulting in a completely unique and satisfying show every single time, no matter how many times the audience has seen the artist before.  Further it deconstructs binaries of seemingly obvious mediums, portrait art and live music, as this artist proves they can be thought of as one single entity to create deeper and more profound meaning.

Having seen Joseph Arthur perform live and having seen countless other types of music performed live, a Joseph Arthur show is unique.  While many live performance artists today expel the disconnect between audience and artists, there are many live music productions which strive to keep that barrier up as to create a more immersive experience.  An example could be a large symphony or orchestra, or perhaps a live musical or play involving a symphony where the goal is to try and make the audience unaware that they are watching a play or watching a symphony and the music is simply abundant to the setting.  Joseph Arthur however like many other musicians takes a more post modern approach.  He strives to get his audience involved, taking requests, talking directly to the audience, and feeding off the audience's energy playing or switching up songs, taking a new direction with the painting being created on stage, and ultimately taking the audience to where they want to be.  Creating a painting on stage with his back turned to the audience is rarely ever seen, and in much of the music business it is thought of as impolite to ever turn your back to the audience as it is seen as either a sign of disrespect or that there is a problem on stage-- both are bad.  However Joseph somehow changes this stigma into a sign of respect.  When he turns his back to the audience it is so that he can show them something greater than just himself, so that he can show the audience what it is he is creating, something eternal, a new form of art working symbiotically with his music.  This, to me, seems incredibly post modern, or maybe even post-post modern as it's unprecedented.   

The fact that Joseph Arthur basically plays off of his audience in his song choice and the direction the painting will go seems to fall into a gray area of analysis.  While it is possible to analyze live improvisation, this would seem to defeat the purpose and deflate the skill of improv.  Improvisation in many ways mimics the spontaneity of real life, not the structure and rigidity of life.  Close analysis and applying theory to a creative piece involves dedicated thought.  Live performance improvisation takes little account for any of this, it is not set in stone and has very little structure.  Applying dedicated thought to something that is ever changing and in a state of constant uniqueness is near impossible.  While a recording of one of Joseph Arthur's live shows is set in stone as is, analyzing that live show to garner understanding for Joseph Arthur and his live performances will inevitably fail because no analysis will convey a singular meaning.  This is not to say that for all other pieces of music, literature, or art have one true definite meaning, it is easier to set parameters of understanding and analytical theory because the medium is remaining constant.  In the case of this piece of hybrid art the medium is highly malleable and therefore the parameters can never be set.  It seems foolish then to try and garner a true analysis of this form of live improvisational hybrid art because the show could suddenly turn and become related to what a structuralist would believe to be related to drug addiction while the second half of the show will suddenly turn to what a feminist would believe to be related to gender empowerment and then out of no where a marxist would jump in and decide that the show must be related to consumerism.  It becomes muddled and in turn, in my mind, causes each argument to lose its' critical prowess.  This is not to say that these shows are purely mindless entertainment, because there is a real and true meaning in each and every second of this hybrid art.  However as I stated this seems to break into a realm of post-post modernism, and seeing how this class is in direct relation a violently spiraling realm of digital media-- it seems crucial that new methods of thinking and analysis must be generated in order to better criticize and understand this rapidly changing digital and psuedo-hybridal art forms.

More information on Joseph Arthur and Fistful of Mercy can be found here:

http://www.josepharthur.com/

DXP.. The Wikipedia Article

Found an interesting new drug being called DXP on Wikipedia.. Yeah.. I ummm... "Found" it... more like "Founded" it.

Enjoy

Internet Activities

1: E-bay. Everyone has at least heard of it, most of us have used it, and many times to great success. But how is E-bay so successful, especially when 99% of the time the things we are buying are from complete strangers. Not only that but E-bay's feedback system is one of the most comprehensive and long standing online reputation system that the web has. The reading I suggest is by Paul Resnick and Richard Zeckhauser entitled "Trust among strangers in internet transactions: Empirical analysis of eBay' s reputation system" from a macroeconomics journal. It is an examination of a large data set from 1999 revealing several interesting features including reasons why feedback is often provided, why this feedback is almost always positive, how reputation profiles became predictive of future performance, and finally how "players" not only reciprocate but retaliate in terms of feedback. An interesting study could be to analyze and learn about not only top buyers but top sellers, and further very poor rated sellers and poor rated buyers, perhaps tracing the sales they've made and the path to either riches or ruins they have taken.

2. This is a VERY IN DEPTH experiment, and in all honesty I am truly not even considering even trying this. With that said the idea is still incredibly interesting. The goal is to discover what is known as "End Game Content" in the World of Warcraft. This is undoubtedly where many players feel the game of leveling and learning end and the true game of mastery and critical development begin. End Game boss encounters require precise coordination and communication, not between a small group of say 4 friends, but rather between 20 to 40 people working harmoniously to destroy a boss that can completely destroy each and every character in 1 swing if not handled appropriately. An interesting article to examine to fully understand the complexity of this is by Mark G. Chen in his article "Communication, Coordination,and Camaraderie in World of Warcraft". It examines elements of "game theory" and "game theory literature". The notion of story telling and advancement. Concepts of creation from the player base. And elements of design not considered by game creators in ways that their player base goes about "winning" at their "game".

3. This final idea is truly accessible on virtually any forum, in any game, on any blog, anywhere that large groups of people are attempting to discuss intelligent or important (at least to them) matters. You see where there is intelligence there are "TROLLS". A troll is essentially an internet bully, however its much more than that. They base their identities off of others, through modes of interpretation resulting in the form of "shit talking". A general rule of thumb is to "not feed the trolls" i.e. buy into their egotistical game of "i'm better than you because of A, B, and C based on what you just said". However the article by Paul Baker entitled "Moral Panic and Alternative Identity Construction in Usenet" turns the tables analyzing these kinds of interactions and also techniques to resolve and destroy these trolls. A simple experiment that could provide hours of entertainment... feed a troll and beat him at his own game. If you're lucky you may beat a big and well known troll thus destroying his credibility to everyone else involved in the forum.

1: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/books.htm?chapterid=1782046

2: http://worldsofeducation.pbworks.com/f/chen%2Bwarcraft.pdf

3: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol7/issue1/baker.html

Picking the Brain of Tucker Max

http://www.tuckermax.com/
The link above takes you to the blog / website / think tank that is Tucker Max.  


"I get excessively drunk at inappropriate times, disregard social norms, indulge every whim, ignore the consequences of my actions, mock idiots and posers, sleep with more women than is safe or reasonable, and just generally act like a raging dickhead." -Tucker Max


This is the kind of stuff you raise kids on.  Truthfully what he is saying is be yourself.  Now of course one needs to sift through the drunken stories and the vast ego projected onto the webpage, but through all that you can actually grab some excellent life lessons.  Example: When you are on the verge of getting black out wasted always try to remember where a public rest room is.  This is vital to night life success as while public urination is classic, it can also be dangerous.  One minute you're peeing, the next you've lost your pants, you're caught in a sticker bush, and then you start puking.  The lesson: use the public restroom... also probably don't get involved in a contest to see who can blow the highest BAC with a bunch of random people at a random sushi bar.


Tucker's avatar is a statement of not only individuality, but also of the growing digital media desensitization.  It's wholly Tucker and his ego in the image even though there are two people in the picture.  Furthermore the image also allows anyone to project themselves into the picture and become part of Tuckers life.  I feel this is a central idea to not only blogging but what much of the general digital forums try and provide, an anonymous place of acceptance, creation, and community.


Personally I feel my own avatar relates to this.  The avatar is modeled after my real self, however because of it's home on the web, it becomes a little "jazzed up" if you will.  The face paint, the tinted sunglasses, and the loud clothing is really just my ego being projected.  Much how Tucker's avatar works, instead of face paint, sunglasses, and crazy clothing he uses a mirror to allow his readers to project themselves, while still allowing his ego to dominate the picture.


On the web there is truly complete anonymity unless one chooses to be acknowledged as being a member of the real world.  With this in mind, it allows people to either be themselves or be something completely different, or perhaps a mix of one's self and something they are not.  I feel my avatar represents this and possibly more.  Perhaps I will follow in the same fashion as Tucker Max.  You know, do it for the kids.

The Avatar

What to make of Digital Media

At first glance digital media seems almost second nature to someone growing up in this generation.  But what exactly is digital media?


I hope to identify new phenomena that are associated with our digital culture and understand the direction that modern day society is headed in.  With already having a fairly extensive digital background in the form of online gaming, you tubing, facebooking, twittering, and web surfing through boredom I would like to better understand the mechanics behind all of these instances.  Not technical aspects, but the new and interesting connections and realities that are created not only by developers or producers but by the users as well.